Page 9
The Tale of Leper John and the Campbell
Acquisition of Lorn
From "Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages" by Edward J. Cowan (Editor), R. Andrew McDonald (Editor). Publisher: Tuckwell Press; (April 2001) ISBN: 1 86232 151 5

STEVE BOARDMAN

In 1865, m Port Appin on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe two old men met to share tales of days bypass one was John Dewar from Rosneath, a man employed by the eighth duke of Argyll and his agent J. F. Campbell as a collector of traditional histories from the inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands.' The other was Gillespie MacCombie, an eighty three year old widower and a native of Appin who had lived much of his long life as a farmer on the land of the lairds of Airds.(2). MacCombie's stories well duly recorded in Dewar's massive collection of traditional lore as "A tale of Gillespie MacCombie in Port Appin, and of those from whom he is descended, according to his own telling of it'."(3). Overall, it was a strange yarn that MacCombie unfolded for his guest. It began with the death of an unnamed lord of Lorn at the hands of the MacDougalls of Dunollie, who thereafter 'brought caterans with them and went to dwell m Castle Stalker and they sought sustenance ... by plundering the country'.(4) Relief was at hand, however, in the shape of Dougall Stewart, an illegitimate son of the slain lord of Lorn, who 'was staying at Balquhidder among his mother's relations' and who determined to recover the lands between Loch Creran and Loch Linnhe up to Glenduror (the Ceathramh Fearna, as MacCombie described it)'. Recruiting men from Dumbarton, Loch Lomondside and most especially, MacLarens from Perthshire with the promise that they and their descendants should have farms so long as Dugald Stewart or his offspring should have lordship', Dougall `took possession of the Ceathramh Fearna, and ... gave farms to the MacLaurins'.5
Within fifteen years of MacCombie and Dewar's meeting a more elaborate and detailed version of the tale of Dougall Stewart found its way…

1 J Dewar, The Dewar Manuscripts, ed J. Mackechine (Glasgow 1964) i, 11, 30-1.
2 Ibid., 258-9
3 Ibid., 255.
4 Ibid
5 Ibid.

• Married: 1463 in Dunstaffnage

1. Dugal (1st Chief of Stewart of Appin) Stewart b: 1448 in Ardveich in Strathearn,Scotland