[See CROSS 13.]
A signal used anciently in Scotland, and more recently in the Highlands, to summon the men to a rendezvous on the sudden outbreak of war.
It was called in Gaelic cros-táraidh or crann-táraidh = cross or beam of gathering, and consisted of a cross or piece of wood burnt at one end and dipped in blood at the other—symbolical of fire and sword—which was handed from clansman to clansman, each man immediately on receiving it running with it to his nearest neighbor, so as to spread the alarm over a district in a short time. (Poetical references to it are often mere guesses founded on the name.)
1547. in Reg. Privy Seal, XXI. 45 (Jam.). The fire Croce being borne throw the hale Realme.
1548. Patten, Exped. Scotl., in Arb., Garner, III. 63. Then caused the Fire Cross in most places of their country to be carried.
1615. Sir D. Campbell, Let., in Pitcairn, Crim. Trials Scot., III. 23. Sir James the traitour hes latlie directit out ane fyrie croce from the head of Lockerrane to the Tarbart.
1641. Milton, Reform., II. (1851), 51. What is this, but to blow a trumpet, and proclaime a fire-crosse to a hereditary, and perpetuall civill warre.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., III. xviii.
| He vanish’d, and o’er moor and moss | |
| Sped forward with the Fiery Cross. |
1826. Lingard, Hist. Eng. (ed. 4), VII. 16. To meet this invasion Arran had dispatched the fire-cross from clan to clan, and had ordered every Scotsman to join his standard at Musselburgh.
