CRUSADES & CRUSADING IN SCOTTISH FOLKLORE BY Chevalier Brian Fleming, KGSJ (Archivist Glasgow Commandery) Academic historians are usually little inclined to delve deeply into the murky waters of folklore, which is unfortunate when we consider that folk memory can often go back a long way and also be surprisingly detailed. In the nineteenth century, the dominant voice in European Folklore was the German diction of F. Max Muller but, as time passed and Muller’s ideas became less dominant, this created the, opportunity for a new generation of folklorists to come forward. It turned out that several of these men were Scottish and, before long, the books of Andrew Lang, Lewis Spence and Donald A Mackenzie were filling the shelves where previously Max Muller had held sway. Aside from the literary folklorists, a whole school of amateur enthusiasts was beginning to collect folklore in the field. In Ireland individuals such as W. B Yeats the poet and his friend the painter/poet and mystic land reformer/George Russell, were collecting folklore anywhere they could find it. In Scotland at this time, Alan MacDonald the Gaelic speaking priest of Eriskay Island was collecting oral folktales, Gaelic vocabulary and folk beliefs among the Gaels of Western Scotland and the Western Isles. MacDonald was generous with his orally collected source material and with various writers drawing on the fruits of his collecting much of it coming into circulation via the books of Ada Goodrich Freer and similar writers. And while there may not be a huge amount of material relating to the Crusades and crusading in Scottish folklore, what there is, is not insignificant as this piece will attempt try to demonstrate. In Scotland, almost every Scot has heard of the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan Castle on the Island of Skye even if they know little about it.There are two sets of legends relating to the “Am Bratach Sith. “or the Fairy Flag, one branch of the flag legend relates to the crusades while the other branch does not. The McLeods of Skye believed that when King Harald Haldrada of Norway set out to conquer England in 1066 he brought the “Land Ravager” flag with him and it has been in Dunvegan Castle ever since. Legends of the latter branch tell us that when Sir Walter Scott visited Dunvegan castle in 1814, the flag was already an ancient possession of the chiefs of clan McLeod, a possession which was said to have originated in either Syria or Rhodes. The fl ag was believed to have magical powers in that if waved in battle, it was seemingly capable of snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat. The McLeods of Skye have held it in Dunvegan ever since. In the crusading tradition, legend tells us that a McLeod who had gone on crusade to the Holy Land was starting out on his return journey home, dressed in the garb of a simple pilgrim and found himself one nightfall in a wild and rocky pass on the high borders of Palestine, a pass of some evil repute. It chanced that the Mcleod warrior pilgrim came upon a religious hermit who offered the traveller food and shelter for the night, also explaining that the mountain pass was guarded by a Jinn or evil spirit who never failed to destroy any Christian passing that way. Armed with the hermit’s information, advice and a piece of the True cross, which the hermit had given the crusader for his protection, the McLeod warrior continued on his way until he was ferociously attacked by the she-devil Jinn. After a hard fought contest, the traveller slew the Jinn, then finding that the she-devil had a length of mysteriously inscribed green silk like material wrapped round its waist, the traveller took the material as a souvenir and attaching it to the spear which the Jinn had been carrying, continued on his way using his new found accoutrements as both a pilgrims staff and as a banner. The travelling of this banner then becomes somewhat complex. At Dunvegan, some legends maintain that the banner which came to be known as the Fairy flag had come from Syria while other versions are confident that it came from Norway with the forces of King Harald Haldrada. and although the truth of this matter is unlikely ever to be known but to this day, the artefact is still held at Skye’s Dunvegan Castle as a prized McLeod clan heirloom believed to be efficacious against both enemies and the plague. A second Scottish crusading legend concerns the Macphersons of Cluny, also reputed to hold in their keeping, another artefact said to have been brought back from crusading times. In1883, a James Mitchell when being shown round Cluny Castle by the clan chief, was shown a collection of ancient heirlooms connected to Clan Macpherson history. One of these was a wide belt made of red Morocco leather, ornamented with clasps and devices made of silver and cast in in an arcane and Eastern style. It was said that this belt had been in the possession of the clan since crusading times when one of the clan stalwarts had gone to Palestine full of crusading spirit. The country people round about Castle Cluny believed that the red belt contained a charm stone seemingly efficacious in helping women in childbirth. Various other relics of the Crusades were formerly believed to exist in Scotland, several having been mentioned in an inventory of relics held in Aberdeen cathedral, this list having been compiled in 1498. It is not only in the Scottish Highlands where crusading traditions and artefacts can be found because similar beliefs and objects are also to be discovered in the Scottish lowlands. The so-called Lee penny , is a stone set into the ceiling of Bonshaw Tower in Annan, commonly referred to as the Crusader Stone. The tradition of the Irvings tells of an Irving warrior who had taken part in the First Crusade Bringing this stone back from the walls of the old temple at Jerusalem. Seemingly, this stone had been blessed by the Pope at Rome. Aside from the physical artefacts believed to have had their genesis in and around the crusades, the same milieu has provided a fertile field for historical romantic writers desirous of using the figure of a Scottish veteran crusader type in their fictional writings. Of course, the best known of these is Sir Walter Scott and notably his The Talisman, which touches on the origins of the aforementioned Lee penny, while in Guy Mannering Scott uses the literary device of a Scottish laird describing the crusading stories which he had heard at his father's knee, these tales describing how his forebears had set out from Islay and Kintyre, bound for Jerusalem and Jericho in the crusading times. Scott it should be noted also mentions in passing, the Fairy flag of Dunvegan. Not only Scottish writers liked to base their works on Scottish crusading traditions but one French writer of the early 17th century, described the part played by Scottish crusaders involved in the crusade of 1248 who helped foil an Ismaili assassination attempt on the French king and helped ``protect King Louis. IX. .