, where smaller numbers of men raided the adjoining Lowlands and the livestock taken usually being recoverable on payment of (information money) and guarantee of no prosecution. Some clans, such as the Clan MacFarlane and the Clan Farquharson, offered the Lowlanders protection against such raids, on terms not dissimilar to blackmail. Lowland clans An act of the Scottish Parliament of 1597 talks of the "Chiftanis and chieffis of all clannis ... duelland in the hielands or bordouris". It has been argued that this vague phrase describes Borders families as clans. The act goes on to list the various Lowland families, including the Maxwells, Johnstones, Carruthers, Turnbulls, and other famous Border Reivers' names. Further, Sir George MacKenzie of Rosehaugh, the Lord Advocate (Attorney General) writing in 1680, said: "By the term 'chief' we call the representative of the family from the word chef or head and in the Irish [Gaelic] with us the chief of the family is called the head of the clan". In summarizing this material, Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw Bt wrote: "So it can be seen that all along the words chief or head and clan or family are interchangeable. It is therefore quite correct to talk of the MacDonald family or the Stirling clan." The idea that Highlanders should be listed as clans while the Lowlanders should be termed as families was merely a 19th-century convention. Although Gaelic has been supplanted by English in the Scottish Lowlands for nearly six hundred years, it is acceptable to refer to Lowland families, such as the Douglases as "clans". The Lowland Clan MacDuff are described specifically as a "clan" in legislation of the Scottish Parliament in 1384. History Origins Many clans have often claimed mythological founders that reinforced their status and gave a romantic and glorified notion of their origins. Most powerful clans gave themselves origins based on Irish mythology. For example, there have been claims that the Clan Donald were descended from either Conn, a second-century king of Ulster, or Cuchulainn, the legendary hero of Ulster. Whilst their political enemies the Clan Campbell have claimed as their progenitor Diarmaid the Boar, who was rooted in the Fingalian or Fenian Cycle. In contrast, the Clans Grant, Mackinnon and Gregor claimed ancestry from the Siol Alpin family, who descend from Alpin, father of Kenneth MacAlpin, who united the Scottish kingdom in 843. Only one confederation of clans, which included the