In 1601, Donald Gorm Mor MacDonald rejected his wife, who happened to be the sister of Rory MacLeod of Harris and Dunvegan. The insult demanded a response. MacLeod devastated the Trotternish peninsula on the north of Skye, MacDonald territory. MacDonald retaliated by attacking MacLeod land in Harris. MacLeod then sent a raiding party of forty men under his cousin Donald Glas MacLeod to North Uist, where local people had stored their valuables for safekeeping in the Trinity Temple at Carinish. The temple, a medieval church of considerable importance, seemed like a secure refuge. It was not. The MacLeods seized the goods and settled in to feast in the church, unaware that word had already reached Donald MacIain 'ic Sheumais of Clanranald.

Donald MacIain 'ic Sheumais gathered his twelve gillemores -- personal bodyguards -- and set out for Carinish. By the time he arrived, three more men had joined him. Fifteen against forty. They reached the church early in the forenoon and caught the MacLeods mid-feast. In the close-quarters fighting that followed, using bows and arrows alongside other weapons, the MacDonalds slaughtered all but two of the raiders. Donald Glas MacLeod was among the dead. Donald MacIain 'ic Sheumais himself took a serious arrow wound but recovered. Tradition holds that the song 'Ic Iain 'Ic Sheumais' was composed by his foster-mother to ease his pain. If the tradition is accurate, this was the last time bows and arrows decided a fight on British soil, though a similar claim is made for an English engagement in 1642.

Three weeks later, as Donald sailed back to Skye to report his victory, a violent snowstorm forced him to seek shelter at Rodel in Harris -- MacLeod territory. He revealed his presence only to his godson, who was serving as a page to Rory MacLeod. As Rory looked out at the tempest, he remarked that on such a night he would not refuse shelter even to his greatest enemy, 'even Donald MacIain 'ic Sheumais.' The page took him at his word and informed Rory that Donald was indeed requesting hospitality. The tension at dinner was severe, and violence was avoided only by Rory MacLeod's firmness. But Highland hospitality had its limits. The page warned the MacDonalds overnight that the wind was fair for Skye, and they wisely departed before dawn. They were right to hurry: MacLeod clansmen, without their chief's knowledge, set fire to the quarters the MacDonalds had just vacated. As the MacDonald galley pulled away, their piper played the tune 'The MacLeods Are Disgraced.'

The spiral of violence did not end at Carinish. Another MacLeod defeat at the Battle of Coire Na Creiche finally drew the attention of the Privy Council of Scotland, which intervened to impose peace between the clans. The reconciliation was celebrated with three weeks of feasting and festivities at Dunvegan Castle. Apart from a brief flare-up in 1603, that marked the end of violence between the MacLeods and MacDonalds. The battlefield at Carinish is still visible today, a quiet stretch of North Uist ground beside the ruins of Trinity Temple, where the medieval gravestones lean in the Atlantic wind and the feith na fala -- the 'stream of blood' -- still carries its grim name across the machair.