In reply to DaveHK:
From Adam Watson and Iain Cameron's book, Cool Britannia (2010). There's a pdf on Snow Patches in Scotland Facebook page if anyone's interested:
"1 -- Tradition about landowners having to produce snow in summer
MacCulloch (1824) wrote about this old tradition. It is said that Cameron of Glen Nevis holds his lands by the tenure of an unfailing snow-ball when demanded. Crocket (1986) also recounted this. An old legend, shared with some other Scottish mountains, has it that should all the snow vanish from Ben Nevis then the land shall be forfeit. To prevent this, Cameron of Locheil, in a summer when it looked as if the last of the snow might melt away, is said to have sent locals up the mountain with straw, to protect the remaining snow patches.
It has long been a Lochaber tradition that should snow vanish at any time from Ben Nevis, the landownership would change hands (Gordon 1925) and revert to the Crown (Gordon 1935). Seton Gordon (1971) wrote of a local saying in Lochaber that Lochiel will hold his lands as long as there is snow on the Ben, meaning Ben Nevis. Champion (1952) recounted such a local legend for owner Cameron of Glen Nevis, who might be called on by the Crown to give a snow sample. Gordon (1951) wrote of this, Certain Highland families traditionally hold their land on the condition that they are able to supply the King with a bucket of snow whenever he should pass that way. The Camerons of Glen Nevis, the Grants of Rothiemurchus, and the Munros of Foulis are all supposed to hold their lands on this condition. The Grants had the north side of Braeriach, where snow in Coire an Lochain has survived in a few years since 1970. The Munros owned the east side of Ben Wyvis, and Gordon (1971) stated that for centuries they held their land on condition that they supplied a bucket of snow at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on Misdsummer Day to cool the King’s wine. Also he wrote that the Macintyres of Glen Noe paid their rent, on Midsummer’s Day, of a white-fatted calf, and a bucket of snow taken from a high corrie of Ben Cruachan.
The evidence about snow in Lochaber goes back much further. MacCulloch (1971) wrote, The first Comyn, or Cumming, of the Lochaber family was given the Lordships of Lochaber and Badenoch about 1229 and his ‘Right’ to the Lochaber lands was as long as there was ‘Snow on Ben Nevis, heather on Druim Fada, and ebb and flow of Loch Eil’ (in Gaelic).
This legend persists to modern times. Perthshire farmer Alex Murray, who was raised at Kilmorack by Beauly and became a crofter there as well as sheep-grazing tenant of Glen Cannich in 1950–61, told AW that he and many others of his acquaintance in the Highlands knew the legends about Ben Nevis and Ben Wyvis. He added that the Ben Nevis one involved a Cameron, who was Glen Nevis farmer in the 1800s. During 1963, landowner Cameron of Lochiel told David Laird (DL later told to AW) of the tradition that the Lochiel family would lose its lands if the longest-lying snow on the north-east corrie of Ben Nevis vanished, and he knew that the snow had disappeared in a number of years since the 1930s. The existence of such a tradition, however, points to snow being permanent in the memory of local folk at the time when the tradition became established.
It should be realised that the Ben Nevis tradition was not enshrined in Scottish Crown registers subsequently abstracted by Thomson (1811–16) and Thomson (1882–1914). The former register denotes charters for lands held by Cameron of Inverlochy, chief of Clan Cameron, as far back as 1563, the latter as far back as 1495 and 1531. Glen Nevis and other lands including Torlundy are mentioned, but not Ben Nevis or snow."
