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[Boreades]

Do MacLeods have a distinctive physiognomy?

For some reason I'm reminded of Field Marshal MacDonald's distinctive description of Highland women. Stout legs and large feet. Not that I would ask a lady of the Isles to lift her skirt and show me her legs. Field Marshal MacDonald must have had a special technique, or a way with the ladies?

[TisILeclerc]

Ah! There's the rub.

The MacLeods are generally very dark and swarthy creatures with very black hair. One theory is that their ancestor was called Liotr or something which apparently means ugly in old Norse.

The MacDonalds on the other hand are real fancy boys with generally blond hair, dimpled chins and rosy cheeks. The sort of bounders who would sweep the ladies off their feet.

It didn't stop them massacring the MacLeods and anyone else who got in their way but then the MacLeods were just as skilled in that particular highland game.

Of course there is another type of highlander and that is the big red head. Beware the fair haired stranger etc. There are two types. The dainty fine featured type and the big bruisers who seem to have not left their neanderthal ancestry far behind. Perhaps these were the ones with the stout legs and large feet.

Or soncie thighs as Private Frazer would have it no doubt.

[Boreades]

The MacDonalds on the other hand are real fancy boys with generally blond hair, dimpled chins and rosy cheeks. The sort of bounders who would sweep the ladies off their feet.

I take it you mean these kind of MacDonalds?


"Sir James MacDonald 1741-1765 and Sir Alexander MacDonald 1744-1810 attributed to William Mosman, 1749."

Sir Alexander MacDonald the 9th Baronet of Sleat, continued to add further infamy to his family’s increasingly questionable legacy. He acceded to the head of his clan from 1766 and his tastes were described as “if not wholly English, at least entirely anti-Celtic”, he increased rents and evicted many of his poorer tenants.

https://sonofskye.wordpress.com/2013/10 ... s-of-skye/

All the MacDonalds I know are short and dark. Perhaps they were swapped for MacLeods at birth and it's a family secret?

[TisILeclerc]

'All the MacDonalds I know are short and dark. Perhaps they were swapped for MacLeods at birth and it's a family secret?'


Well, ye'll have heard of the changelings have ye not?

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/britchange.html

Imagine giving birth to a good stout hardy MacLeod bairn and next morning in its place there's a peely wally thing like ane o' they twa MacDonald weaklings.

I knew a MacDonald who married a Campbell lassie. He bragged that that was his way of getting rid of the Campbells.

Part of my maternal ancestry includes Stewarts from the Braes area of Skye. They were all evicted by the MacDonald chief who was trying to screw every last penny out of them. Most of them went off to Canada.

Mind you another side to the family were Nicolsons who were done down by the MacLeods and had to get help from the MacDonalds.

Mind you the final insult must really be those MacDonald's greaseburger joints all over the place. What a revenge to inflict on humanity for Glencoe.

[Boreades]

Aye well, the MacDonalds I know the history of were all solid working NCO class, they never got into commissioned ranks. It must be the overlord/absentee landlord/officer class that are the peely wally things. Maybe it's them that are the usurpers?

The sole robust exception I know of being Field Marshall MacDonald. But His father was Neil MacEachen (of Flora MacDonald fame) and the son adopted the MacDonald clan name for some reason lost in space, time and Napoleonic France.

[TisILeclerc]

Ah yes Flora



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_MacDonald

Not quite the blonde dimpled type

[Boreades]

Yes, she looks more like the kind of kick-ass Scottish lass that I'd expect.

Which begs the question, how did the blond peely wally things slip into the family tree?

[TisILeclerc]

'Which begs the question, how did the blond peely wally things slip into the family tree?'

MacNeills of Barra probably

[TisILeclerc]

For comparison here's a Campbell



What is it they say about a picture and a thousand words?

http://sgeulnagaidhlig.ac.uk/17-th-c-cl ... u/?lang=en

[Boreades]

Presumably, in the grand tradition of portrait painters, the painter would have sought to flatter the patron/subject. In which case, if that was as flattering as they could make it, we can only conclude that Gilleasbuig (Archibald) Campbell, 1598-1661, was a right ugly bugger.