Clan Macfarlane
| Clan MacFarlane | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clann Phàrlain | |||
| Motto | THIS I'LL DEFEND | ||
| War cry | "Loch Slòigh" ("The Loch of the Host") | ||
| Profile | |||
| Region | Highland | ||
| District | Argyll | ||
| Pipe music | The MacFarlane's Gathering, Thogail nam Bó | ||
| Clan MacFarlane has no chief, and is an armigerous clan | |||
| (Mac a' Bhàirling or MacPhàrlain) | |||
| Historic seat | Arrochar | ||
| Last Chief | William MacFarlane, 20th Clan Chief | ||
| Died | 1866 | ||
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Clan MacFarlane (Scottish Gaelic: Clann Phàrlain [ˈkʰl̪ˠãũn̪ˠ ˈfaːrˠl̪ˠɛn]) is a Highland Scottish clan. Badge: Muileag (Cranberry), Oireag or Foighreag (Cloudberry). Descended from the ancient Earls of Lennox, the MacFarlanes occupied the land forming the western shore of Loch Lomond from Tarbet up-wards. From Loch Sloy, a small sheet of water near the foot of Ben Voirlich, they took their war cry of Loch Slòigh.
The clan was noted for the night time cattle raiding of neighboring clan lands, (particularly those of Clan Colquhoun), and as such a full moon became known locally as "MacFarlane's Lantern". The ancestral lands of the clan were held by the chiefs until they were sold off for debts, in 1767. Since 1866 the chiefship has been dormant, no one having claimed or obtained rematriculation of the Chief Arms making Clan MacFarlane a supposed Armigerous clan.
Clan MacFarlane claims descent from the original Earls of Lennox, though the ultimate origin of these earls is murky and has been debated. The nineteenth-century Scottish antiquary George Chalmers, in his Caledonia, quoting the twelfth century English chronicler Symeon of Durham, wrote that the original Earls of Lennox descended from an Anglo-Saxon – Arkil, son of Egfrith. This Arkil, a Northumbrian chief, was said to have fled to Scotland from the devastation caused by the Harrying of the North by William the Conqueror, and later received control of the Lennox district from Malcolm III of Scotland, though alternative theories state that the original Earls of Lennox may have been of Gaelic descent.
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Wikipedia