But it is peculiar to the north-western and most remote districts of the Highlands, that the common people still harbour no small degree of dread lest “the Danes” should return, and repeat their cruel devastations. About thirty years ago (according to J. Loch, “An Account of the Improvements on the Estate of the Marquis of Stafford,” London, 1820, 8vo.), English engineers were employed in measuring all the heights in Sutherland. This caused much sensation among the natives, who thought that these engineers were sent by the Danes to make maps and plans of the country, previously to the arrival of the Danish army. They imagined that the king of Denmark had an old feud with the Mackays, and that he was now coming to take a sanguinary revenge on the whole clan. During my stay in Sutherland I had repeated occasion to convince myself not only that the fear of the Danes has not yet died away there, but also that tradition has connected with them things with which they had nothing whatever to do. Close outside the town of Dornoch, on the east coast of Sutherland, there stands a stone pillar in an open field, which is simply the remains of one of those crosses so frequently erected, in Roman Catholic times, in market-places. As a matter of course, the arms of the jarls of Sutherland are carved on one side of the stone, and on the other are the arms of the town—a horse-shoe. Tradition, however, will have it that the pillar was erected in remembrance of a battle fought on this spot, in which the Jarl of Sutherland commanded against “the Danes.” In the heat of the battle, while the Jarl was engaged in personal combat with the Danish chief, his sword broke; but in this desperate situation he was lucky enough to lay hold of a horse-shoe that accidentally lay near him, with which he succeeded in killing his adversary. The horse-shoe is said to have been adopted in the arms of the town in remembrance of this feat. In the cathedral church of Dornoch is a carved stone monument of the middle ages, representing one of the ancient bishops who once resided in Dornoch. He also is said to have fallen in the same battle, but my authority, the person who showed me over the church, added:—“I am proud to tell that the Danes were defeated.”