National Myths

Scotland's national animal is the fictitious beast, the unicorn, which is apt for the fiction of the Scottish nation.

The brutality in much of Scotland's history beggars belief. The Clan Campbell versus Clan MacDonald and the Glencoe Massacre may perhaps be the most infamous that people have read about, yet “only” 38 men, women and children were murdered, (while others died in the snow)  but it was nothing special by Highland standards. 

Bones discovered in Massacre Cave, on Eigg have been linked to a massacre of almost the entire island's population during a clan feud in the 16th Century. Analysis by archaeologists at Historic Environment Scotland has dated the remains to the time of the killings.

In or around the year 1577, about 400 islanders, who were members of the Macdonald clan, were murdered by a raiding party of Macleods from Skye. The islanders had been hiding in the cave for three days when they were discovered. The Macleods blocked the narrow entrance to their hideout with heather before setting the material alight. The Macdonalds were suffocated by smoke and their bodies left in the cave.

The killings happened during a long standing dispute between the Macdonalds of Clanranald and the Macleods of Dunvegan on Skye. A party of Macleods arrived on a small island off Eigg during a storm , helped themselves to cattle and most likely raped some of the girls looking after the cattle so some Eigg Macdonalds crossed over to the island and dispatched the Macleods, reserving the worst fate for the first son of the chief of Macleod of Dunvegan by breaking his limbs and putting him adrift in a little boat without oars, condemning him to a slow and painful death.

The MacDonalds took their revenge one year after the brutal massacre when they landed on Skye, barred up the entrance to a local church, set it alight and killed all but one MacLeod inside.