[Pamphlets. American history]

31
IV.
(PAGE 16.)
To my friend and kinsman the Hon. Francis B. Hayes, of this city,
I am indebted for this very interesting legend giving the origin of the
Hayes family name.
In the reign of Kenneth 3d, king of Scotland, says Douglas, about
A.D. 980, the Danes having invaded Scotland, were encountered by
that king near Lancaster in Perthshirie. The Scots at first gave way
and fled through a narrow pass, where they were checked by a stalwart Scot of great strength and courage, and his two sons, with no
other weapons than the yokes of their ploughs, upbraiding the fugitives
for their cowardice. He succeeded in rallying them, the battle was
renewed and the Danes wholly discomfited. It is said that after the
victory was won the brave old man was lying upon the ground
wounded and fatigued, cried, Hay! Hay! which word became
the surname for his paternity. The king, as a reward of their signal
service, gave him as much land in Lowrie as a falcon should fly over
before it settled, and a falcon being let loose flew over an expanse of
ground six miles in length, and alighted on a stone since called Falconstone. The king also assigned the shields or scutcheons for the arms
of the family, to intimate that the father and his two sons had been the
fortunate shields of Scotland. Arms: argent with three escutcheons
gules; Crest: a falcon rising; for supporters, two men in countrymen's
habits, each holding an ox yoke over his shoulder, with this motto,
*' Serva jugum."
And now the name of Hayes is familiar all over the country, wherever the plough turns up the soil.