Strathspey also claims the tune, and in competition with Deeside, it has a fierce tradition on the subject. The district of Tulloch lies at the back of the Abernethy forest, and here is said to have occurred the incident that inspired the maddest of Highland reels. A certain John Mac Gregor, commonly known as _Iain Dubh Gearr_, was at Killin at a market held somewhere between 1550 and 1580. In the house of call there, known as “Streethouse,” he was set upon by eight men, but being powerful and a splendid swordsman, he discomfited all his adversaries, killing some and wounding others. Then he fled to Strathspey, where he married a woman named Isabel Anderson (one version of the story has it that Mac Gregor got into trouble with some Robertsons through having married this Isabel, who was sought by a Robertson, and that these and not market acquaintances were his enemies). His foes followed him, and one night thirteen of them arrived at his house, determined to take him dead or alive. John was sleeping in the barn when they came, and when he was wakened and told of his danger he determined to fight it out. Isabel and he had a gun and a pistol and plenty of ammunition, and they defended the barn against all comers. John fired the weapons one after the other alternately through crevices in the walls, and Isabel kept them loaded. The thirteen outside, handicapped as they were by the shelter from which the defenders worked, were very soon all wounded, whereupon John sallied out and cut off their heads. Then Isabel in her glee gave him a big draught of beer, which he drank, and seizing his spouse by the waist they improvised and danced those reel steps which have ever since been so popular. The music must have been old, but the words are of the date of this incident:— “At Streethouse at _Feill Fhaolan_, On him they made an onset dead; And were he not most manly brave, Eight sturdy men had mastered him. From Tullechin to Ballechin, From Ballechin to Tullechin; If beer we don’t in Tullechin, We’ll water get in Ballechin.” The song then, at considerable length, tells the story until:— “Says Black John, turning towards his bride, ‘Since I did what I meant to do, Give me a drink of beer to quaff, And we will dance the Tullechin.’ From Tullechin, etc.” The story has two traditional endings. In the one John became a peaceable and prosperous man, and as his name appears in authoritative documents of date 1568, it is the more likely to be true. The other is tragic. Mac Gregor’s enemies, according to it, still hunted the couple, and Isabel was thrown into prison. Then Mac Gregor himself was shot, and his head brought to Isabel. At the sight she was so struck with sorrow that she suddenly expired.