The Snowball and White Fatted Calf

It has been said that there was a time the MacIntyre chiefs' owned Glen Noe but lost it through trickery or foolishness. The story has had a life of its own and long ago became a central part of the Clan MacIntyre mythology.

From a time before memory, MacIntyres had lived at Glen Noe. In the early 1400s, they were required to pay rent to the Campbells. The rent -- a snowball and a fatted calf -- was delivered on Midsummer's Day at a place known as the Stone of the Fatted Calf, near the pass from Glen Noe to Glenorchy, below the two towering peaks of Ben Cruachan. This is how it was and how it had been for centuries. Then one Midsummer's day in the early 1700s, the Campbell chief remarked to the MacIntyre chief, that there might be a day when snow could not be found on Ben Cruachan and the MacIntyre would not be able to pay the rent. If that happened, then the MacIntyres would need to leave Glen Noe. To avoid this, the Campbell chief offered to convert the snowball and calf to a penny, an offer the Macintyre chief foolishly accepted. Whether this was a veiled threat of eviction by the Campbells or friendly advice is revealed by the fact that the Campbells kept raising the rent until the MacIntyres could not pay it and were forced to leave Glen Noe to seek their fortunes in the New World of the United States.