page_title: Clan Hay
section_title: Legend of Luncarty
hierarchical_section_title: Clan Hay / Legend of Luncarty
caption_attribution_description: This is an image of Slains Pursuivant, Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick, taken at the XXVIIth International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in St Andrews Scotland. The photograph was taken by Jo Appleton of Appleton Studios.
context_page_description: Clan Hay is a Scottish clan that has played an important part in the history and politics of Scotland. Members of the clan are to be found in most parts of Scotland and in many other parts of the world. However, the North East of Scotland, i.e. Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, Morayshire and Nairnshire Nairn, is the heart of Hay country with other significant concentrations of Hays being found in Perthshire, especially around Perth, in the Scottish Borders, and in Shetland.
context_section_description: There are two ways to approach the origins of Clan Hay. The first is the Legend of Luncarty, which is an important Hay tradition, while the second is based on historical research, albeit that inconsistencies tend to occur after so many centuries.
  Hector Boece, the Scottish academic, wrote the first known account of the Luncarty legend in his Scotorium Historia, which was initially published in 1525, with a second edition being published posthumously in 1575. There are numerous versions of the legend that are based upon Boece's work but which include various embellishments. In contrast, George Buchanan’s account in his Rerum Scoticarum Historia, published in 1582 and derived from Boece’s work, omits any reference to the hawk’s flight delineating the land grant. In 2010, Sutton published a hypertext edition, in both Latin and English, of Boece’s 1575 edition of the Historia, thus providing ready access to his original account of the legend. The version of the legend quoted below is from John Burke's "Peerage", 1832 edition.
  "The traditional origin of the noble house of Hay is thus related:—In the reign of Kenneth III, anno 980, the Danes, who had invaded Scotland, having prevailed, at the battle of Luncarty, near Perth, were pursuing the flying Scots, from the field, when a countryman and his two sons appeared in a narrow pass, through which the vanquished were hurrying, and impeded for a moment their flight. "What," said the rustic, "had you rather be slaughtered by your merciless foes, than die honorably in the field; come, rally, rally!" and he headed the fugitives, brandishing his ploughshare, and crying out, that help was at hand: the Danes, believing that a fresh army was falling upon them, fled in confusion, and the Scots thus recovered the laurel which they had lost, and freed their country from servitude. The battle being won, the old man, afterwards known by the name of Hay, was brought to the king, who, assembling a parliament at Scone, gave to the said Hay and his sons, as a just reward for their valour, so much land on the river Tay, in the district of Gowrie, as a falcon from a man's hand flew over till it settled; which being six miles in length, was afterwards called Errol; and the king being desirous to elevate Hay and his sons from their humble rank in life, to the order of nobility, his majesty assigned them a coat of arms, which was argent, three escutcheons, gules, to intimate that the father and two sons had been the three fortunate shields of Scotland."
  The reliability of the legend has often been challenged. For instance, the Scottish historian John Hill Burton strongly suspected the battle of Luncarty to be an invention of Hector Boece, Burton was incorrect. Walter Bower, writing in his Scotichronicon around 1440, some 87 years before Boece first published his Scotorum Historia, refers to the battle briefly as follows:
  “that remarkable battle of Luncarty, in which the Norsemen with their king were totally destroyed”.
  Bower does not quote specific sources concerning the battle, but, two sentences later, he refers generally to ancient writings that he has consulted.  The term Norsemen would include Danes.
  The evidence that the battle actually occurred, other than Bower's brief reference to it about 1440 AD, was described by Reverend Moncrieff around 1791 in the First Statistical Accounts of Scotland. He witnessed the opening of the last remaining tumuli (burial mounds) on the reputed battlefield and describes the finding of human remains, including ashes and bones, together with weapons and bridles. These were not examined by professional archaeologists to determine whether they were consistent with the presumed date of the battle, as they would have been had the retrieval occurred in modern times. Moreover, the artifacts would not have been allowed to have been taken by local inhabitants, one of whom made farming implements of some of them. Similarly, the retrieval predated the use of radiocarbon dating techniques which would have dated the remains with considerable accuracy. Moncrieff also emphasiz
caption: Slains Pursuivant, Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick, was the private officer of arms of the Chief of Clan Hay from 1982 to 2014.
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