EARLS OF ROSS AND LORDS OF THE ISLES. 85 



for the welfare of his sister being touched, he left Lewis 

 with a chosen band of followers to investigate the matter. 

 Apparently the reports which had reached him were only 

 too well-founded. Whatever the precise object of his visit 

 may have been, it proved unsuccessful, for on his way home 

 he laid waste Strathnaver and a great part of Breachat 

 in Sutherland, and carried off a quantity of booty. 

 But he was not suffered to cross the Minch unmolested. 

 The Earl of Sutherland being apprised of the raid, sent 

 Alexander Murray of Cubin " with a number of stout 

 and resolute men " in pursuit of the Macleods. Murray 

 joined forces with Houcheon Dubh, and the combined com- 

 panies overtook the Lewismen at Tuiteam Tarbhach on 

 the borders of Ross and Sutherland. The object of the 

 pursuers was to recover the goods and cattle which the 

 Macleods had carried off, but the Lewismen resisting, a 

 sanguinary battle took place. Both sides fought with 

 desperate valour, but in the end, the Sutherland men, 

 who had apparently the advantage in numbers, prevailed. 

 Malcolm Macleod and the whole of his followers were 

 killed, with the exception of one man, who only lived long 

 enough to carry the dire news to Lewis when he died of his 

 wounds.* 



Five years after the conflict of Tuiteam Tarbhach, which 

 derives its name (field of great slaughter) from the event 

 just narrated, the battle of Harlaw was fought. To 

 attempt, as some historians have done, to magnify the im- 

 portance of Harlaw into a struggle for supremacy between 

 Highlander and Lowlander, is a misrepresentation of facts. 

 These may be briefly stated as follows. Euphemia, 



The local tradition differs from this account in some essential points. It 

 relates that Macleod's daughter (not his sister) was married to Ian Caol (not 

 Angus) Mackay ; that the quarrel arose in lan's liietime, who ill-treated his wife 

 owing to the insufficiency of her dowry; that Macleod, the bow-legged chief 

 of Lewis, crossed the Minch to avenge his daughter's injuries ; that he was 

 defeated and wounded at Tuiteam Tarbhach by Ian Caol, who pursued him 

 to Leckmelm where Macleod died of his wounds and the Lewismen were 

 again routed. The tradition also gives one of the Lewismen credit for perform- 

 ing prodigies of valour ; the usual concomitant of these feuds. The account 

 in the text is taken from the Conflicts of the Clans. (Miscellanea Scotica^ 



