In a letter in the March issue, William R. Bell recalled seeing Farquhar Shaw's grave in 1922 and wondered if it was still there. I can reassure him that it remains to this day in the old Doune churchyard between Feshiebridge and Inverdruie, on the opposite bank of the River Spey to Aviemore. The slab is covered with moss and the inscription no longer legible, but for the last 20 years at least there has been a new headstone inscribes as follows:

 

The Grave of Seath Mor
Sgorfhiachlach
Victor in the Combat at Perth
1396.

  Mr Bell did not mention the famous five stones which used to rest on this slab. Any person who removed or even lifted these stones would, according to local belief, be drowned in the Spey, or meet some other untimely end. I remember being told of several well-authenticated accidents which had befallen people who had tampered with the stones. At the time I felt perhaps there should have been a notice on display warning strangers about the "curse".

  In 1985, the then Ranger for Rothiemurchus Estate, Laurie Wedderburn, told me that one of the stones had gone missing, but later turned up, apparently thrown into a garden in Grantown-on-Spey, 15 miles away. Luckily the house-owner recognised and returned it.

 

  The stones were not large, about 10" high, but of a distinctive shape, something like that of the wood puffball, Lycoperdon, common in Rothiemurchus Forest. They had smooth spherical tops which narrowed to a thick stalk, then tapered out again at the base. They did not appear to have been worked, but it was hard to see how they had weathered to that form.

In the autumn of 1985, just before I moved from Aviemore, all five stones disappeared, and have never been recovered.

  When I went back to the Doune churchyard recently I was surprised to see five stones sitting on the old slab, but they were just five ordinary ones taken from the river, and of a similar size to the originals. Had someone felt unhappy about Shaw's grave being left bare - and sought to placate its occupant? And what happened to the old stones - and who removed them? Fifty years ago in a small community it would have been easy to identify the culprit, but now with the tourist centre of Aviemore close by across the Spey Bridge, it would be practically impossible.

  Mr Bell quoted the inscription which tells how Farquhar Shaw took part in the "famous combat" at Perth in 1396. I always understood this to have been more of a tournament than a battle, a kind of knock-out competition in which clans could settle old scores without fighting to the death. Thirty "players" a side were chosen, quite a few more than the modern shinty team. This would explain why, in Mr Bell's transcription, the Shaws from Rothiemurchus and the Davidsons from Inverahavon, near the present Newtonmore, all travelled about 80 miles down to Perth before getting to grips with each other.

  According to Lachlan Shaw, a descendant of the Rothiemurchus Shaws, in his History Of The Province Of Moray (1775):

  "Unvaried tradition likewise beareth that Shaw Corshiaclach, i.e. buck-toothed, of Rothiemurchus, was Captain of the 30 Clan Chattan, in the memorable conflict against 30 Clan Cays (sic) on the Inch of Perth, anno 1396." In the next paragraph he changes the spelling to "Cornfiachlach", and states that he had "seven sons, James the eldest, and Farquhar, ancestor of the Farquharsons, etc." Shaw then "dying about 1405, his gravestone is seen in the churchyard".

  It follows therefore that the 1922 transcription, quoted by Mr Bell in his letter, has one or two discrepancies. Firstly, Shaw died in 1405 not 1465 (the 0 could easily have been mistaken for a 6); and secondly, the inscription referred to "Shaw Corfiachlach" and not to Farquhar, who was his son, and later became forester to the Earl of Mar. As it seems unlikely that the original inscription could have survived for over five centuries, maybe the one still visible in 1922 was already a later version, in which Corfiachlach became Mor Farquhar? Fiachlach means toothed or jagged in Gaelic, and I prefer to think of Seath Mor Fiachlach as Big, Buck-toothed Shaw — a formidable opponent in the 30-a-side combat.

  The Shaws who ousted the Cummings (builders of the castle in Loch-an-Eilean), were themselves later subject to a takeover bid by the Grants, present owners of the estate. Doune House nearby was once the residence of Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, who wrote Memoirs of a Highland Lady, the still-popular account of life on a Highland estate in the early 19th century. Doune churchyard has long been the burial place for the Grants of Rothiemurchus, the main Grant mausoleum being at Duthil, some 10 miles distant on the opposite side of the Spey.

  Maybe Shaw had the foresight to command the stones be laid on his grave, with the attendant curse, to deter future desecration or displacement. It certainly seems to have worked — the ancient slab is still intact, a few yards away from a row of memorial stones to his successors, the Grants.

 

  The churchyard, besides still being used for burials for members of the older Rothiemurchus families, was tidied by a conservation group in the 1970s. Toppled gravestones were re-erected, weeds cleared, and the roofless church was repointed and emptied of its internal growth of elder trees and nettles. A poignant feature is the row of infant graves, covered with snowdrops in the spring. As the church is not visible from the road, it's always a quiet and peaceful spot, a haven for birds with its great yew hedge, shelter belt of larches and ancient stand of firs.

  It used to be a favourite outing for my family when they were young, but even on the sunniest day none of us would touch the stones on the old slab. I don't suppose we will ever know what happened to them, or who committed the unforgiveable offence of removing them. Perhaps he, or she, became just another accident statistic?