Talk:Battle of the North Inch

Total number of survivors
The VisitDunkeld reference states eleven Chattans survived, while Clan-Cameron.org gives the number as four. The latter appears to be an American site (judging by the favor spelling), so I think we should go with the former, since it's a Scottish website, until a definitive version is found. What's more The Fair Maid of Perth states there was twelve survivors. - Dudesleeper · Talk 01:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hal o' the Wynd
Do we have a source for his identity? I know the name precedes Scott, but as far as I remember the earliest sources don't name him. We should find out when the name first appeared and mention it in the body of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.10.228 (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And was he among the survivors, or was he killed? Pimlottc (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's mentioned here that he was a survivor. - Dudesleeper / Talk  19:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hal O' the Wynd
This picturesque person was first named and described centuries later: made up, in other words. There are half a dozen earlier versions that have him as an ignorant country-person, distant kin of one side, a brawny man by the name of Gow (ie a smith) and just about any other stock chracter you could think up — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.144.176.41 (talk) 21:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Clan Kay
I've altered the references that appeared to endorse as fact the assumption that Clan Kay / Quhele were Camerons. This is hypothesis, worth mentioning but NOT certain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.10.228 (talk) 15:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Clan who? Says who?
It is an assumption that Clan Kay were participants. It's worrying that it is simply stated in the article as if certain, when there have been many different views, several plausible but none certain. (One view is that it wasn't two enemy clans as much as two factions within the Chattan confederation competing for pre-eminence.)

There is one known contemporary source that mentions the competitiors -- Andrew Wyntoun, who was, as it happens, prior of an abbey in Perth, within walking distance of the venue. His is the only contemporary account of events, as far as is known. Wyntoun does not say "Clan Kay" or indeed "Clan Chattan". Both of these are opinions about which clans Andrew Wynton meant. What he says is "Qwhele" (ie Quhele) and "Ha"; which could as easily be "Hay" as "Kay". (Below the level of titled aristocracy, the humbler Hays, Rosses, Munros, Forbeses, Frasers, etc, were by now distant from their titular Norman paternal origins, and as likely to try to claim captaincy of a clan confederation as anyone else. The Rosses had succeeded in doing so. As far back as written history goes, the notion of "clan" is a familial gloss on an almost wholly feudal entity. Frequently brutally feudal, as far as the tenants ("clansmen") were concerned. Hay is as good a guess as any.

Titles in Scotland could be inherited in right of one's mother. There was some tension between the older law codes of Scotland and the (Roman) "canon" law being that Scots clerics were being educated in at Paris and Rome, and the Norman & Anglo-saxon assumptions more familiar to Scotland's bi-national and tri-national elite. Squabbles between fraternal-line and mother's-line claimants were common, as were squabbles between local custom and Roman law, as to who was or was not a legitimate heir.

Something that few people seem to have bothered to try is working out what the sound of "Quhele" is. In conventional Scots orthography of the time - where a name was often spelled two or three different ways in one document - quhyt(e) = white or even quit. In Scotland tday, the "wh" sound is a breathy "hw", distinct from "w". In accents that have changed less in modern times, it can sound like more like the soft "ch" of loch. ie "white" sounds like "chwite".

If it were not being read as a surnamename, then phonetically "quhele" suggests "wheel" "wheely" "hewel", "howel" or "chweely". It could as easily be the surname Yule, which used to be spelled "Youill" and "Jouill".

Then again, it's Scots orthography for what are most likely Gaelic names. Another layer of uncertainty altogether.

Another tack to take is to actually go through what contemporary documentation there is - whch is easier than it has ever been - and find out who was jockeying for power with whom, where, and why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.187.146.195 (talk) 14:33, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Page move
The user who moved the article here from Battle of the Clans stated that Battle of the North Inch is its more common name; however, I've only heard of the former. Should the article have been moved? - Dudesleeper / Talk  11:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Conflation of contemporary and much later derivative and fictional sources
There are three contemporary sources, none of which have been looked at by the writer of this article. Most of what this article has to say about this conflict is Walter Scott's version written centuries later as a romance. The names of the two groups involved have come down to us as one guess elaborated upon another upon another, filtered through three or four versions that each speculate upon the speculations of a previous version. The names, even the sounds of the names of the two groups as recounted here are unrecognisable from the contemporary source. If this article were serious instead of folkloric, the writer would have made some attempt to look at Medieval Scottish sources for names.

As with much of Scottish "history" in wikipedia, no attempt has been made to look for or to assess the reliability of evidence: perhaps because of the difficulty of forming a Medieval gaelic pronunciation from Medieval English spelling.

Three contemporary sources exist. Anyone serious about making this article history raher than folklore will find them. 1. A laconic reference in a simple memory-jogger year-chronicle written for Glasgow Cathedral. has 1396 as "Battle of 30 men at St Johnstone" (ie Perth). so we know it happened. 2. Wynton's rhyme. A certain amount of license was expected in those days, to make elegant menmonics but Wynton was (a) a senior cleric, well educated (b) he was based at the priory close by (c) he could be expected to have been present; and if not, he would have known hundreds of people who were. So (d) his version will not have strayed too outrageously far from fact. Every account since has elaborated upon this single source, usually at several removes. as this article does, without being aware of it. 3. A brief entry in the government accounts of the day, for the expenses involved in staging the affair. This was discovered (recognised for what it is) relatively recently. This detail may be what Walet scott based his entire spurious Hal o' the Wynd charcter upon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.144.176.41 (talk) 21:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Seath Mor?
Was the legendary warrior Seath Mor a participant of this clan battle? He was attributed to the battle in a video about his grave online, but there's nothing about him in the article on this page. Moreso, did he become a hero of the battle for killing a majority of the opposing men? 2601:603:197E:4C0:D4C8:1456:E586:6D81 (talk) 22:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Who ? QuintusPetillius (talk) 16:32, 2 March 2023 (UTC)