The midst of the Seven Ill Years
The year of the Massacre of Glencoe
Campbell of Barcaldine connection -
From Highland Days, Seton Gordon - Clan MacIntyre connection in Dalness and Glen Etive
"When MacIain, chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe,and most of his people were treacherously killed by the government troops who were quartered upon them. The talisman of the MacIntyres (who were closely associated with the MacDonalds) is Clach Nodha, a small, light brown egg shaped stone. This stone, it is said, was given to the MacIntyre chief by a wounded Norseman after a battle with the MacIntyres, who came upon the fallen warrior after the fight. Instead of a quick death which the man had expected, he received kindness and was nursed back to health, and in gratitude he gave this stone of healing properties to the chief of the MacIntyres. I have seen this stone, reverently guarded. There is a vein, or crack, on one side of it. Before the MacIntyres left on a warlike foray it was customary to drop the stone over the left shoulder on to the ground. According to the position of the vein then seen, it was known whether the augury was auspicious or unfavourable. At the Massacre of Glencoe, after MacIain had been murdered, his lady was stripped naked by soldiers, who tore the rings from her fingers with their teeth. The MacIntyres have a tradition that at the time of the massacre a family of MacIntyres lived at Dalness. Thither MacIain's lady laboriously made her way, across the hill passes, through the snow wreaths and eddying drift. She arrived, shattered by her terrible experiences, at Dalness, where she was nursed by the MacIntyres. Her lacerated fingers, from which the rings had been ruthlessly torn, refused to heal, for they had become septic. The Stone of Healing. Clach Nodha, was then brought to her and was rubbed on her fingers, which were healed by this virtue".
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