Eat the Deerhound?

Today in my deerhound life I read a very interesting article. It’s unusual and surprisingly relevant with todays political/environmental climate issues and what’s more, ties the deerhound into the ancient history of the Viking. Archealogical evidence found in Greenland, shows remains of a deerhound with, ‘gulp’ knife marks on its bones. Created by members of a starving community of Vikings who were driven to desperate measures through a possible event caused by a climate change.

Read about it all here - Food for Thought

Anway, where did these Vikings go?

If we look at some of the Western Isle stone carvings, (and anyone with ‘The Deerhound’ book by A.N. Hartley will see the MacDuffie of Colonsay Stone as one of the plates,) we see Deehounds at the hunt and sailing vessels clearly similar to the Norse Long Ships. It’s known that the Vikings (thought to be farmers) expanded into Scotland during medieval times and added to the rich meltingpot that became Scotland. Colonsay being Argyll, there is another interesting tie from the ‘Fienn’ tales and their rivals the ‘Lochlan’ (Vikings) in which can be found the story of ‘Bran’. This we know is a name handed down through the Deerhound breed and can be seen from the now famous 1835 painting.

Another little nugget from the Rogue that you might find interesting is this - According to Micheil MacDonald's book "The Clans of Scotland", "The oldest form of the [MacFie/MacPhee/Duffie/MacDuffie] surname, recorded around 1240, is macdufthi -- close to the sound of the Gaelic MacDubhsithe, which could be translated as 'Son of the Secret Peacemaker' or even 'Son of the Fairy People'. It is one of the oldest surname constructions in the western world."