there are not many stories of general interest. The tunes are there, but whence they came, or when they came, must ever remain a mystery. “Mac Donald’s Salute” and “Mac Leod’s Salute” were composed by Donald _Mòr_ Mac Crimmon on the reconciliation of the Mac Leods and the Mac Donalds after the battle of Bencuillein in Skye, and played when the chiefs met at Dunvegan. There had been a feud between the clans, in the course of which much blood was spilt. This feud at last became so notorious that in 1601 the Privy Council interfered and requested the chiefs concerned to disband their forces and leave Skye. It being known that both intended to “mass togider grit nowmeris and forceis of thair kin and freindschip,” and pursue each other “with fyre and sword and other hostilitie by say and land,” they were required to release peacefully all prisoners, and to observe the King’s peace. Ultimately a reconciliation was effected, on which the chief of the Mac Leods invited the chief of the Mac Donalds to a banquet at Dunvegan Castle. When Donald Gorm _Mòr_ Mac Donald appeared in sight of the castle, he was met by Mac Leod’s famous piper, Donald _Mòr_ Mac Crimmon, who welcomed him by playing “Mac Donald’s Salute,” which he had composed for the occasion. In connection with the same banquet he composed and played for the first time “Mac Leod’s Salute.” The stories I have given are, after all, but the merest pickings from the wealth of lore which has now almost disappeared from the Highlands. It irritates one considerably to find here and there fragments of what were once fine tales, with perhaps important bearings on social life or current history, and to realise the impossibility of ever obtaining them complete. For this we have to thank the Sassenach over-running of the Highlands, which resulted in the extinction of clan bard and clan piper— who between them took the place of a literature—and did not even try to introduce in their stead the blessings of that wider education which preserves the life of a nation by better means, until after much of what was worth preserving had vanished into a misty past. We have, for instance, the “Lament for the Harp Tree,” connected either with some tree on which the bards were wont to hang their harps, like captives in Babylon of an even earlier age, or with the disappearance of the harp itself, or, as the tune is called _Bean Sith_ in the North, with the fairies in some way or other; _A mhic Iain mhic Sheumais_, which celebrates some battle between the Mac Donalds and the Mac Leods; another on _Blar léine_, or the “Shirt Battle,” fought at Kinloch Lochy between the Frasers of Lovat and the Mac Donalds of Clan Ranald, and so called from the parties having stripped to their shirts; “The Sister’s Lament for her Brothers”; a lament expressive of the aged warrior’s regret that he is no longer able to wield his sword; “Grim Donald’s Sweetheart,” a salute of very ancient origin; _A Ghlas Mheur_, an