According to the family's oral tradition, the bard's great-grandmother, Mór Chaimbeul ("Marion Campbell") of Skye, had given a last drink of water to Sir John Moore moments before he was fatally wounded at the Battle of Corunna in 1809. At the moment when Moore was wounded, Marion Campbell was holding the stirrup of his horse, was thrown up into the air, and landed on her back. According to Dòmhnall Ruadh, his great-grandmother never recovered from the ensuing injury and it caused her to die young.