THE CLANS OF THE LONG ISLAND. 55 



If the origin of the Macleods was a puzzle in the 

 fifteenth century, it has been equally a puzzle up to the 

 present day. Who was the mysterious Leod, the pro- 

 genitor of the clan, and when did he live ? Various in- 

 vestigators have advanced various theories, but they are all 

 guess work.* With one exception, they declare that the 

 clan is of Scandinavian origin ; but the exception is an 

 important one. Dr. Skene, who pinned his faith to the 

 Kilbride manuscript (circa 1540) discovered by him, 

 stoutly maintained that the Macleods are of Celtic origin. 

 But even in the Kilbride MS., as well as in the MS. of 

 McFirbis, the Irish genealogist, the Celtic names are inter- 

 spersed with those of Scandinavian forbears. These 

 genealogies are apparently at complete variance with one 

 another, an alternative explanation of which may possibly 

 be that one is in the male, and the other in the female, 

 line. Taking the first three names : the Kilbride genealogy 

 makes Leod the son of Oloig, son of Oib, son of Oilmoir ; 

 another genealogy quoted by McFirbis (that of the Mac- 

 leans) makes him the son of Gillemuire, son of Raice, son 

 of Olbair Snoice (son of Gillemuire). The traditional 

 account in the Macleod family is that Leod was the son of 

 Olave the Black, King of Man and the Outer Hebrides, by 

 Christina, daughter of Farquhar O'Beolan, Earl of Ross. 

 Which of these versions, if any, is correct ? Can it be, 

 after all, that Olave the Black, Oloig, and Gillemuire, are 

 one and the same person ? 



It is not difficult to believe that Oloig is simply Olave 

 Og, or Young Olave, while Oilmoir in the Kilbride MS. 

 and Olbair in the Irish genealogy may well stand for 

 Olave Mor, or Olave the Great; in other words, Olave 

 (Og) the Black, and his grandfather Olave (Mor) the Red. 

 The names Gillemuire and Raice may conceivably be the 

 Celtic appellations for Olave the Black, his father, and his 



* Johnstone's surmise was Liot Jarl of Orkney ; Pope's (the translator of 

 Tor&eus), Liot the Niding ; while Captain Thomas endeavoured to identify 

 Leod with Ljotolf, a Norwegian chief who lived in Lewis and who was a 

 friend of Sweyn of Gairsay, the famous pirate. All three lived in the twelfth 

 century. 



