John MacAndrew also known as Ian Beag Macandra was the most excellent archer that the Highlands or probably Scotland has ever produced. Tho not tall in stature he was brave at heart, he was known as Little John MacAndrew. There are many tales of heroic deeds, most about fighting off cattle thieves. I have managed to collect two of these stories.
The Killing of the chief of Clan MacKintosh.
In the mid 17th century, John MacAndrew joined forces with the Rose of Kilravoch who was pursuing Mackintoshes who had plundered Rose's cattle. In the ensuing battle in Strathdearn, Macandrew killed the Chief of the reivers with an arrow. Macandrew knew that the reivers would want their revenge and follow him home. Later, when John saw strangers in the woods near Dalnahaitnach he guessed they had come to avenge their Chief's death.
The strangers, thinking John was just an ignorant young lad, offered him a bribe to take them to Ian Beag Macandra's house (his own). John took the bribe. When they reached his house, John's wife was in and with great presence of mind, carried on the deception and told the strangers that her husband was out . She gave the strangers food and drink and sent John out to look for the master.
John climbed to the top of a tree near the door of his house. In the tree he kept a bow and a supply of arrows. He cried out that the master IAIN BEAG MACANDRA IAIN BEAG MACANDRA was coming. The strangers hurried out one by one and as they did, John shot each one down with an arrow.
Little John Saved By His Cunning Wife
A party of the Lochaber men laid watch, one winter's night, unobserved and unexpected around John's house, and when they thought they had bird in the cage, abruptly and unceremoniously walked in. One of the Lochaber men locked the door after him and hid the key under a turf bench, in the side of the house.
It was John's wife, who saved her husband at this critical moment by the following stratagem. She went to the pantry at the far end of the house, and took a small number of kebbocks of cheese in her arms, and pretended to slip over as she came in through the entry door. The cheeses rolled all over the floor, and the Lochaber men flew after the spoil. The valiant John, who was all the time a spectator of what was going on, now rose from his seat, swept the light off the hearth, took the key from it's hiding place, went out and locked the outer door after him. On doing this he placed the hide of a newly killed cow at the door, with the flesh side turned up. The Lochaber men guessing their mistake, forced open the door, and as they came out slipped on the newly flayed hide. John was now ready with his bow and arrows, as each man fell on the hide, the arrow from John's bow prevented the possibility of his rising to tell the tale.
John managed to outwit the reivers for the rest of his life; his life was an ongoing tale of many hair-breath escapes, honest and brave little John MacAndrew ultimately died quietly in his bed.
A Monument to Iain Beag Macandra was erected in memory of his great skill and cunning with the bow. It stands on the North side of the river Dulnain at Dalnahaitnach.
MacAndrews remains lie in a churchyard of Duthil, it is believed a stone marks his grave. There is supposedly no doubt about his burial place. He lies amongst his kith and kin where there is no chance if his foes now disturbing him.
John Ross - The Scottish Cherokee Chief
By Donald Cuthill
John Ross was considered one of the greatest chiefs of the Cherokee tribe, having been chief for nearly 40 years from 1828 to 1866, the year of his death. However, John was not how many would have imagined a typical 19th century chief of a Native American tribe to be like. In fact, Ross was politician and a business man, and he was the son of Daniel Ross, a Scottish immigrant trader who settled with the tribe during the American War of Independence, and Mollie McDonald, who was of mixed Cherokee and Scottish blood - her father being an immigrant from Inverness.
Ross fought most of his life for the rights of his Cherokee tribe; most notably fighting against the forced move of the Cherokee nation from their lands in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina to the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), in the western United States. He was elected principle chief of the Cherokee Nation by free ballot ten successive times, holding the position until the day he died.
John Ross grew up in both Cherokee and frontier American environments. However, he came from a relatively affluent family, and so he was able to receive a more than decent education from private white tutors. This allowed him to become the sort of chief he was. Many of the older chiefs from before were not educated to anywhere near the same standard as Ross, and so could not protect and defend the Cherokee interests as well. Ross grew up having experienced both worlds. His time amongst the Cherokee gave him an understanding of their culture and their language, and his education gave him the ability to understand the complexities of negotiating with politicians and a national government, and so was more than capable of taking on his political foes. Principal Chief Pathkiller saw in John Ross a future leader, and so went about training him for the position.
Unfortunately, one of the Cherokee tribe's most notable foe was President Andrew Jackson, a strong advocate of the Indian Removal policy. Ross did have some influential allies in Washington, however, including the Commissioner for Indian Affairs (1824-1830), Thomas L. McKenny, who described Ross as being the Moses of the Cherokee nation, who "led…his people in their exodus from the land of their nativity to a new country, and from the savage state to that of civilization."
In the January of 1827, both Principal Chief Pathkiller and his predecessor, Charles Hicks died, leaving William Hicks, Charles' younger brother, as interim Principal Chief. Though during that time, it is said that John Ross was the real power broker. Many within the tribe were worried that, with the deaths of Pathkiller and Charles Hicks, the time of the Cherokees was short, but Ross and others believed that in order to save the Cherokee and prevent a forced move, legal action would be needed, as would turning the tribe into a recognised nation. It was to have its own constitution, which was modeled on the United States' one, even including a Senate and House of Representatives. In October 1827 the constitution was ratified, though not coming into effect until the October of 1828, at which point John Ross was elected as the first Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, a role he would be continually elected into until the day he died.
Over the following years Ross continued to fight with the white Americans, who were trying to displace his people, but used the power of words rather than weapons. There were some favorable court rulings when battling with local authorities, but in the end when seeking for Federal protection it was ultimately denied, and in 1830 President Jackson authorised the Indian Removal Act which saw the Jackson administration starting to put real pressure on the Cherokee, amongst others, to move. When Jackson was re-elected in 1832, some within the tribe saw it as an inevitability that they were going to be displaced, and so sought out the best arrangement they could get for the Cherokee Nation from the US Government. In the end, 500 (out of tens of thousands) of the Cherokee backed a treaty to leave their land in exchange for $5,700,000, and the land in Indian Territory. Despite the fact that this agreement was not signed by a single elected official, and not supported by nine-tenths of the tribe, the US Congress ratified the removal treaty on the 23rd of May, 1836.
Between 1836 and 1839 saw the removal of the Cherokee from their lands in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina. Ross tried in vain to overturn the removal treaty. In 1838, Jackson's successor, Martin van Buren sent US Army and state militia, totalling around 7,000 men, to forcefully remove any men, women and children at gunpoint who hadn't already left, and send them on their way west. This forced removal came to be known as the "Trail of Tears" - a term used to refer to the removal of all Native American tribes at this time. The 2,200 mile journey saw many lose their lives from the cold, illness, and exhaustion, including John Ross' own full-blooded Cherokee wife, Quatie, of whom not much is known.
Ross was given permission to help supervise the move, to make sure that his people were looked after, and make the transition as smooth as possible. Though that was not enough to prevent many of his people dying en route. Estimates of how many of the Cherokee died on their mass removal vary, with numbers ranging between 4,000 and 8,000.
Principal Chief John Ross remained solely focused on the interests and protection of his Cherokee tribe even after the move. The Cherokee people were ardent supporters of him, trusting the Scottish Ross with the future of their culture and their society for 40 years, which was something he fought to protect even to his last days.
The Beaton Doctors of Mull
By Amanda Moffet
The Beatons of Mull, the famous 'Ollamnh Muileach', were a family of doctors, whose origins can be traced back to Béthune in France, and are said to have been very talented with a rather unique medical ability.
They family were hereditary physicians first to the Lords of the Isles, and then to the Macleans of Duart, but they also performed an informal medical service to the people throughout the whole area.
It is claimed that the very first Beaton doctor, a young man who assisted a highly skilled Irish doctor, gained his ability as a medical practitioner by accident. Whilst helping create a magical potion, which included brewing a white snake and a hazel stick brought from Mull, a drop fell onto his hand and immediately this young Beaton transformed into a talented doctor.
It is also said that this Beaton managed to save the life of a chief of Lochbuie in a rather unique way who was suffering from a particularly serious throat abscess. He put together a potion in the presence of the chief which had a very unpleasant potent taste to it, and asked some people who were also present to taste it. The facial expressions of each one who tasted the mixture caused the chief to go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter which strained his throat enough for the abscess to be broken up, and save his life.
It is said that only once was this doctor unable to diagnose a medical problem. Unfortunately for him it was his daughter who was ill, and despite Beaton's ability he could not prevent her death. A post-mortem was carried out, and the girl's death was put down to the live frog found in her stomach. The frog was kept alive and fed a number of different foods which were non-harmful to humans to see what effects they would have on it, in an attempt to find a treatment for any future cases. The frog eventually died when one day it was fed some nettle soup; a simple cure which left the doctor distraught because he did not think to try it when treating his daughter.
However, it is said that he managed to save another young girls life with this treatment after she swallowed a tadpole which went on to grow into an adult frog. Legend has it that he was able to diagnose the condition simply by the tone of her singing voice.
From Campbell's West Highland Tales it tells of three brothers, Gilleadh, Fergus, and John. Gilleadh was an expert herbalist, Fergus specialised on Islay, and John, whose grave is on Iona, was said to be the most talented doctor, and was Mull's chief practitioner. People were aware of John's ability all around Scotland, and news of it even reached the king in Edinburgh who demanded to meet with him. The king had invited all of the country's best doctors to the capital where he would test them and see which one was superior to the rest.
In order to assess them the king did one simple test: he feigned an illness and challenged the doctors present to identify what was wrong with him, and then prescribe an appropriate remedy. All the doctors took the task with extreme seriousness except from John Beaton who could see through the king's act and correctly called his bluff. The king, so impressed with Beaton's intuitiveness immediately proclaimed him the best doctor in the whole of Scotland. Jealous, John's rivals slipped some poison into his food whilst he was heading back to Mull. However, these rivals completely respected John's talent as a doctor, and so to make sure that the poison took its full effect, they removed anything from his possession that they thought could be used to create some sort of antidote. The poisoning was successful and John was unable to do anything about it.
Not far from the Free Church at Pennyghael on the Isle of Mull is a monument in the form of a cairn with a stone cross mounted on top to commemorate the famous Beaton doctors of Mull. Inscribed onto the side is 'GMB 1582 DMB'. Apparently these are the initials of the most prominent Beaton doctors.
Adapted from Peter Macnab's "Traditional Tales of Mull".
Thomas the Rhymer
By Donald Cuthill
Thomas Learmonth from Ercildoune (now Earlston), better known as Thomas the Rhymer was a 13th century Laird, poet and a supposed prophet.
Legend tells us how Thomas the Rhymer went out walking one day and fell asleep beneath a tree on the side of the Eildon Hills. He awoke to find a shining woman sitting on a grey horse at his side. This woman turned out to be the Queen of the Fairies. It was of no coincidence that they met, as it was Thomas that the queen sought to meet. Thomas was struck by the Queen's beauty and immediately fell in love with her and she asked him to kiss her, right under his favorite Eildon tree. The Queen asked Thomas if he would go back with her to the Land of the Fairies to be her lover and he agreed.