main unsung. Many fine tales are
associated with the delightful district of Speyside.

TOM EUNAN!

Near the little village of Kincraig is a queer old church built on a
hill called Tom Eunan, just beside the Spey. This church is declared to
be the only one in Scotland in which services have been continuously
held since the seventh century. The outside is antique in the extreme;
inside, there have been renovations: there is a deal of varnished
wainscoating that would have scared the Culdees, and instead of the
uneven cobble stones of old, there is a modern floor of wood. On one of
the windows of the church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists
as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this
bell and carried it off to Perth; but it _would not_ ring away from
Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its
metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom
Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought back to its beloved
hillock.

Rural churches with earthen floors were not uncommon in Scotland even in
the nineteenth century: in such there would be no great trouble in
interring the dead. Two Speyside stories, dealing with kirks and
kirkyards, are told of the Grants of Rothiemurchus.

SHAWS AND GRANTS.

For several generations the possession of Rothiemurchus was a constant
subject of dispute between the Shaws and the Grants. The Shaws were the
original owners, but having waxed fat and kicked against the Government
on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the
Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws
of the lands of Rothiemurchus, _gin he could_. Grant was by no means
"blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough
fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the
Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious
Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival
to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every
Sunday _when he went to pray_ he stamped his feet triumphantly upon the
place under which lay the corpse of his enemy.

Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine, cuts a rather picturesque figure in
clan history. With a body of gaily-dressed retainers he paraded round
the countryside, dispensing justice and letting the minimum of time
elapse between the sentence and the execution. He was twi