Excerpt from "Scottish Snippets": MacCallum Curse Lifted After 450 Years According to legend, handed down through the generations, some time in the 1550s the members of the MacCallum clan were gathered in the church in Kilbride in Argyll for the Sunday service. But there were so many of them that when members of the rival MacDougall clan arrived, there was no room for them and they had to stand outside. This prompted Lady MacDougall (who had the gift of the "evil eye") to place a curse on the MacCallums to the effect that the sons and heirs would die off if they did not move from their home at Cologin. Sure enough, over the next few years, nine out of the 12 MaCallum sons died and the remainder fled to avoid the same fate. Now, in a ceremony at Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, where a well-attended Highland Games take place each year, a MacDougall will try to lift the curse. The plan is to have a group of MacCallums blocking the entrance and then stand aside and invite them in. Not that there is a church handy - the ceremony will be held at a beer tent, but it's the thought that counts. Unfortunately, the Lyon clerk at the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh, responsible for all heraldry in Scotland, says that for the ceremony to be official, the clan chiefs would need to be present. But there is no head of the MacCallums - the small clan merged with the Malcom clan many years ago.