62 HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



and the Kings of Man appears to support the view that 

 the relations between the Macleods and the Morisons were 

 of an intimate nature. The name Morison is an English 

 rendering of the word Gillemuire servant or devotee of 

 Mourie and the original form survives in the modern 

 name of Gilmour. Perhaps the strongest argument for the 

 Macleod-Morison connexion consists in the fact that 

 during the time the Macleods possessed Lewis, the chiefs 

 of the Morisons whose residence was at Habost, Ness 

 held the office of Supreme Judge of the island. This office 

 was analogous to that of the lagmann or lawman in Norse 

 times, except that it was hereditary, instead of elective, 

 resembling in that respect the office of the godar y the 

 district judges and priests in the Norse colonies. It can 

 hardly be supposed that the chiefs of the Siol Torquil 

 would permit such far-reaching authority to be vested in 

 any clan whose interests were not thoroughly bound up 

 with their own. The rupture which took place between 

 the two families at the end of the sixteenth century of 

 which particulars are given elsewhere in this volume was 

 the first serious difference between them, of which there is 

 any record. The Brieve (breitheamh = a judge), according 

 to Sir Robert Gordon, was " a kind of judge among the 

 islanders who hath an absolute judicatory, unto whose 

 authority and censure they willingly submit themselves, 

 and never do appeal from his sentence when he determines 

 any debatable question in controversy between party and 

 party." According to the seanachies, the Lords of the 

 Isles had a Brieve in every island, the chief Brieve residing 

 in Islay. The hereditary nature of this office was a serious 

 flaw in the system. It placed immense power in the 

 hands of men, whose qualifications as arbitrators must 

 have been of an unequal nature ; and whose judgments 

 can hardly have been invariably free from bias. The 

 chiefs of the Morisons in Lewis the latter are sometimes 

 called the Clan na Breitheamh enjoyed the privileges of 

 the judgeship for many generations, until their final down- 

 all early in the seventeenth century. The arms of the 



