She vowed that 'Little Allan', as Clanranald was called, would never return. She baked two bannocks, a small one and a big one, and asked her son whether he would have the little bannock with his mother's blessing or the big one with her curse. He chose the little one and her blessing. She gave him that and a crooked sixpence, saying it was seven times cursed, and told him to use it in battle against Little Allan and earn her blessing, or refrain and earn her curse.
At Sheriffmuir blows and bullets fell round Clanranald and he heeded none, and gave three for every one he got. At the height of the battle the widow's son remembered what she had said, put the crooked sixpence into his gun, aimed and shot, and Clanranald fell. His people crowded round him weeping like children until Glengarry called out, 'Today for revenge, tomorrow for weeping', and the Macdonalds fell on the English division of Argyll's army and cut it to pieces. Allan Macdonald of Clanranald did die at Sheriffmuir, on 13 November 1715. The tale is told as a curse fulfilled, and Carmichael collected it long after the event.
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