Hunting with the Halkit Steir

Outlaws and Rogues in Highland Lore

In the shadow of the Cairngorm Mountains, along the misty moors and wooded glens of Strathspey, a curious phrase echoes in the oral history of the Highlands: “Hunting with the Halkit Steir.” It's not the name of a legendary stag, nor is it a Gaelic metaphor. It refers instead to a life lived outside the law, in defiance of the Regality Courts that once ruled this rugged landscape.

To "hunt with the Halkit Steir" was to consort with bandits, fugitives, and the dispossessed — the broken men and women who haunted the hills. This phrase appears in 18th-century Scottish court records, particularly in the Regality of Grant, where it denoted a serious offense punishable by public whipping, mutilation, and banishment. But what exactly was the Halkit Steir? And who were the people drawn to its outlaw allure?