Legend has it that a long time ago a chieftain of the MacLeods met and fell in love with a beautiful woman, who, unfortunately, turned out to be a fairy princess.

She begged her father to allow her to marry the handsome chief, and he agreed, on condition that she return to her fairy folk at the end of a year and a day.

They were a happy couple, and the year passed all too soon. Before returning to her fairy palace beneath the hills the princess made her husband promise that he would never allow their young son to cry.

 Through his tears the chief agreed.
His sadness grew and nobody could console him on his loss.

A great feast was organized to try to make him forget his fairy-wife. Such was the rumpus and laughter that the baby's nursemaid crept away from his nursery to see the fun.

The small baby awoke, finding himself alone he began to cry.
Nobody was there to hear him, and for ten minutes he wept out loud.
When the nursemaid returned she was amazed and startled to see a woman bending over the cradle comforting the infant, wrapping him up in a shawl.
The mother, for it was she, then vanished into the black night.

When he could talk, the boy remembered the night his mother visited.
He told his father that the shawl could be used by the MacLeods three times when they were in danger and help would come, but on the fourth, it would disappear.