The Bridge of Alvah, spanning the gorge of the River Deveron. This crossing was built almost one hundred years after James MacPherson is said to have lept across it.
MacPherson was a fiddler, a fighter, and a thorn in the side of every laird from Elgin to Keith. Born the illegitimate son of the Laird of Invereshie and a gipsy mother, he grew up fast. His father was murdered when he was a boy. He tracked the killer down years later and settled the score in a duel.
After that, peace never lasted long. When jealous rivals burned his mother’s home, MacPherson took to the hills with a band of Highlanders and gipsies, raiding livestock and robbing the rich, though by most accounts he gave plenty to the poor. He became a hero to some and a menace to others. Scotland’s Robin Hood. Lord Braco was not amused.
The gorge at Alvah is where legend places his most famous escape. Cornered by armed men, with his back to the drop, he turned and ran straight at it, clearing the chasm in one leap. No bridge stood there then. Whether the feat was truly possible is another matter. Maybe the gorge was narrower then and has eroded since. A lot of water will have flowed down in three hundred years.
His luck ran out at Keith in 1700. Caught, tried, and sentenced to hang in Banff, he asked for one thing before the gallows: his fiddle. He played “MacPherson’s Rant,” broke the instrument over his knee, and died. A rider carrying his pardon reached the town minutes too late.
Without doubt, MacPherson’s story would make a terrific film script.
Source: Taylor, James. “MacPherson Lives On!” The Scots Magazine. 1 July 1982. Pages: 27-34
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