History Buffs Unlimited! Open for Business!

I finally started a store on CafePress.com, and I'd love you all to come and take a look at it! I am still adding things, and will be for as long as I can come up with them, but right now I have a good selection of Scottish things and other things pertaining to everything historical! My shop is called History Buffs Unlimited and it's mainly a place to get fun novelty t-shirts and items for history buffs. I also have a section for literature as well for those of you who love the classic authors! Please go and take a look, even if you are just window shopping! Drop me a comment here to tell me what you think. The store itself is lacking but I will get to that later. Let me know if you have any suggestions, questions or anything particular you might be looking for! I'd love to hear your ideas! Here's the link: History Buffs Unlimited (You can also find it in the link bar to the left where you can check out my cousin's store on Zazzle as well!)

Have fun! And again, please let me know what you think! I'd like some feedback!

Slainte, Hazel

Kenneth mac Alpin

Well, I know I said I would be talking about the Macgregors this month, but frankly, I have been busy with so many other things that I have had very little time for post writing or simply writing in general. But since I have been feeling guilty, I plan to post a few more things in the last couple weeks of February.

So today, we are going to talk about Kenneth mac Alpin. As I said in my previous post, he was the first of the MacGregor race. He lived in 800AD in Scotland, during the time the vikings were raiding the country. Scotland was kind of in a continuos state of Civil War, the Scots and Picts never having really liked each other very much. But they began to realize that in order to fight off the enemy vikings, they were going to have to get together.

This was helped along by Kenneth mac Alpin. He was the first joint king between the Scots of Dalriada and the Picts. His father was a Scot and his mother was a Pict so that might have had something to do with it. He was created King of Dalriada in 840 and was known as Kenneth I. When the Pictish royal family was crushed by the viking invasions, he became king of the Picts as well, thus bringing the two nations together. Well, there was this one folk tale that says he actually did away with them himself, but we have no idea if that's true or not!

However, he obviously brought the two together to make Scotland stronger and able to withstand the vikings. Kenneth mac Alpin was also the one the establish the royal seat at Scone which from that day on would be where the Scottish kings were crowned. Scone became his capital and he ruled the people from there. He was buried on the island of Iona where most of Scotland's early kings were entombed.

So he brought together the Scots of Dalriada and the Picts of Pictland and eventually, they became a whole nation, that mac Alpin named Alba, the old Gaelic name for Scotland. So the MacGregors are obviously fiercely proud of being related to this man as he was the one who really created the Scotland we know today.

I will try to be back later as always. Please let me know if there is anything in particular you want to know about the MacGregors, or a famous MacGregor you with me to do a small bio on. Don't be afraid to tell me!

Slainte, Hazel

(Was this post helpful to you? Drop a comment or an email to me and let me know!)

The Royal Race

This month is the first month that I will be giving a clan the center stage. For February, we have the MacGregors!

Last year, I talked a lot about Rob Roy in February in honor of his birthday, but this year, I decided to honor his whole clan. So we are going to be talking a little bit about the history of Clan MacGregor and some of the famous men and woman (besides Rob) and at the end, I will give you a list of research books and novels that you can enjoy for further research.

Today, I am going to introduce their clan. The motto of Clan MacGregor is: S Rioghal Mo Dhream which means "Royal is my Race". From Gaelic though, it actually translates as "My Blood is Royal, but that's pretty much the same thing. You may be wondering about that because the Stuarts are the traditional royal family of Scotland, but the MacGregors can tie their lines way back to Kenneth MacAlpin. (For those of you reading Magnusson, that was chapter three) Their plant badge is the Scots Pine which they would stick in their bonnets to tell what clan they were from before clan tartans came into being. Here's a link to a site that will show you pictures of the arms and plant badge of the MacGregors.

That's all I'm going to talk about today, but I will be back later to talk a little bit about the history of the MacGregor clan!

Slainte, Hazel