190 CAWDOR CASTLE 



ing seat was some five miles inland, at Old Cawdor. 

 But after the fall of the Douglases in 1455, including 

 Archibald Bell-the-Cat pretensus comes Moravie 

 Thane William resolved to build himself a stronghold 

 worthy of his dignity and wide possessions. Being of 

 thrifty habits, he first sat down and counted the cost, 

 and then collected the funds in hard cash. Next 

 so the story goes he was directed in a dream to bind 

 the treasure on the back of an ass, turn the animal 

 loose at Old Cawdor, and found his castle wheresoever 

 it should lie down. The beast wandered about half a 

 mile, to a knoll beside the Rierach Burn, whereon 

 grew three hawthorns: it rubbed its nose against the 

 first, its tail against the second, and finally lay down 

 under the third. Round this tree was built the castle 

 keep; and there, to the everlasting confusion of 

 sceptics in oneiromancy, remains the old stem to this 

 day, dry and dead, of course, but still firmly rooted in 

 the floor, and built into the root of the vault. At its 

 foot lies the coffer which contained the treasure, heavily 

 hooped with iron, and not a whit the worse for the 

 four centuries and a half since it was unbound from 

 the donkey's back. It is said that the other two 

 thorn-trees disappeared only during the present century. 

 The royal licence for building the castle is dated 1454, 

 a date which rather clashes with the legend that makes 

 one of the rooms in the keep the scene of the murder 

 of King Duncan by Macbeth. In the following year, 

 King James n. issued a warrant empowering the Thane 

 to dismantle the Norman fortress of Lochindorb, which 



