About the beginning of the seventeenth century there lived in Glengarry a famous character named Allan Mac Ranald, of Lundie. He was a man of great strength, activity, and courage, and, living as he did at a time when the feuds between the Mac Kenzies and the Mac Donalds were at their height, he invariably led any expedition that set out from Glengarry. In these fighting days young Angus Mac Donald, of Glengarry, anxious to distinguish himself, determined—though against the advice of his father— to lead a raid into the country of the Mac Kenzies. He surprised and defeated the Mac Kenzies, but on their way home by sea the Mac Donalds were in their turn attacked by the Mac Kenzies, and defeated with great slaughter. Angus Mac Donald was among the slain, and Allan of Lundie only escaped with his life by leaping into the sea at Loch Hourn, where the battle took place, and swimming ashore at another place. Allan was determined to be avenged, and not long after he led a strong party of Mac Donalds to the lands of Killychrist, near Beauly. He found the Mac Kenzies totally unprepared, burned their lands, destroyed their crops, and finally mercilessly set fire to a church in which a large congregation were worshipping, driving back at the point of the sword all who attempted to escape. Meantime he ordered Alister _Dubh_, his piper, to play so as to drown the cries of the perishing people. Alister thereupon blew up loud and shrill, and, after making his instrument give utterance to a long succession of wild and unconnected notes without any apparent meaning, he began his march round the church, playing extemporaneously the pibroch which, under the name of “Killychrist,” has since been used as the war tune of the Mac Donells of Glengarry. For a short time the terrible sounds from the inside of the church mingled with the music of the pipes, but they gradually became fainter, and at last ceased altogether. Allan and his comrades had little time to enjoy their victory, for the Mac Kenzies soon gathered in overwhelming numbers, and, finding the Mac Donells resting on a flat near Mealfourvonie, known as “the marsh of blood,” they attacked them with great fury, and pursued them to Loch Ness. Allan was again one of the few who escaped.