The ''Bannatyne manuscript'' is a traditional account of
Clan MacLeod
Clan MacLeod (; gd, Clann Mac Leòid ) is a Highland Scottish clan associated with the Isle of Skye. There are two main branches of the clan: the MacLeods of Harris and Dunvegan, whose chief is MacLeod of MacLeod, are known in Gaelic as ' ("se ...
. It consists of 142 sheets of
foolscap paper. The author's name does not appear in it.
[ MacLeod (1927) p. xi.] Although the work is undated, a
watermark
A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...
dates the paper upon which it is written to 1829. The textual material from which the manuscript is based is generally regarded to have been the work of
William Macleod Bannatyne, Lord Bannatyne (died 1833).
Lord Bannatyne was the son of Roderick Macleod (died 1784), and Isabel (
fl. 1736–1744), daughter of Hector Bannatyne of Kames. It was through his mother that William Macleod Bannatyne inherited the estate of Kames and assumed the name "Bannatyne". William Macleod Bannatyne is known to have compiled an earlier account of the clan in 1767.
[ Morrison (1986).]
Another candidate for the authorship of the ''Bannatyne manuscript'' is Bannatyne William Macleod, a cousin of William Macleod Bannatyne (died 1857). The manuscript, therefore, seems to date from 1829 to the year of Bannatyne William Macleod's death in 1857.
[ Sutherland (2009) p. 143 n. 60; Sutherland (2005) pp. 16, 130 n. 60.]
Citations
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19th-century manuscripts
Clan Macleod
Scottish folklore
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