Old Cawdor Castle, Scotland

Old Cawdor is half a mile north from the present seat. There the Thanes of Cawdor had a house, on a small moat, with a dry ditch, and a drawbridge, the vestiges whereof were lately to be seen; but by a royal license, dated 6th of August 1454, they built the tower of
Cawdor, which now stands. It is built upon a rock of freestone, washed by a brook to the west, and on the other sides having a dry ditch with a draw-bridge. The tower stands between two courts of building. Tradition says that the Thane was directed, in a dream, to build the tower round a hawthorn tree, on the bank of the
brook.

Be this as it will, there is in the vault of the tower the trunk of a hawthorn tree, firm and sound, growing
out of the rock, and reaching to the top of the vault. Strangers are brought to stand round it, each one to take a chip of it, and drink to the hawthorn tree i.e., “Prosperity to the house of Cawdor.”

Return To Even More Scottish Anecdotes