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The seat
The castle is the seat of the chief of Clan MacLeod
Dunvegan Castle is on the Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland. It is the seat of the MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of the Clan MacLeod. It was first built in the 13th century and grew piecemeal over the centuries.
The towers
A four-storey tower house was added in the late 14th century
The promontory was enclosed by a curtain wall in the 13th century, and a four-storey tower house was built in the late 14th century. Alasdair Crotach, the 8th chief, added the Fairy Tower as a separate building around 1500.
Baronial
Mock battlements and a drawbridge gave the castle its present look
In the 19th century the whole castle was remodelled in a mock-medieval style. The 23rd, 24th and 25th chiefs added mock battlements and a new approach over a drawbridge from the east. The present look dates from around 1840.
The flag
The Fairy Flag is a fragile silk banner kept in the castle
The Fairy Flag is an heirloom of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod. It is made of silk, a square about 18 inches on a side, covered in small red elf dots, and is considered extremely fragile.
18 inchesthe side of the square silk flag, about
The stories
Tradition gives the flag several origins and several powers
The flag is said to have come as a gift from the fairies to an infant chieftain, or as a reward for defeating an evil spirit. Its powers include the ability to bring herring into the loch at Dunvegan.
Day 6, afternoon
It comes after Fairy Pools. Then Neist Point.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Dunvegan Castle and the Wikipedia article Fairy Flag, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.