Gaelic Name for Hay: Mac Garaidh (French La Haye, place-name in Normandy, meaning the stockade)
Chiefs and Chieftains of Clan Hay
The Hays trace their origin to William de la Haye, Butler of Scotland, who married a celtic heiress and became Baron of Erroll.
Legend has it that Erroll was acquired by a falcon's flight, in reward for an ancient victory with ox-yokes over Vikings. Some sources state this was a victory over the Danes at a battle of Lunearty, on which history is silent.
Erroll was sold after 1636, when a prophecy attributed to Thomas the Rhymer was apparently fulfilled by the fall of a mistletoe- grown oak associated with strange Hay ritual each All Hallowe'en.