'This poem of "Glenara," written in the year 1797, at the age of nineteen, was suggested by the following tradition:-"Maclean, of Duart, having determined to get rid of his wife, 'Ellen of Lorn,' had her treacherously conveyed to a rock in the sea, where she was left to perish by the rising tide. He then announced to her kinsmen 'his sudden bereavement,' and exhorted them to join in his grief. In the mean time the lady was accidentally rescued from the certain death that awaited her, and restored to her father. Her husband, little suspecting what had happened, was suffered to go through the solemn mockery of a funeral. At last, when the bier rested at the 'gray stone of her cairn,' on examination of the coffin by her kinsmen, it was found to contain stones, rubbish, &c., whereupon Maclean was instantly sacrificed by the Clan Dougal and thrown into the ready-made grave."'—W. A. Hill, The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell (1856)
