Kerr: Left handed spiral legends

For my Kerr and Carr readers – The Januarist Past and Present has an interesting article about Clan Kerr and The Legend of the Left Handed Spiral Staircase.

Kerrs were known as fierce left handed warriors who defended their castles with dexterous swordmanship on left handed spiral staircases (or so the story goes….)  (see my list of posts about this below)

But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none

(Attributed to James Hogg in The Raid of Kerrs)

The Januarist article shows visuals of how the staircases would appear.

Ferniehirst Castle (the Kerr castle in Scotland) apparently has a left handed staircase but as noted in my previous posts a 1993 study of lefthandedness revealed no significant increase in this trait in the Kerr/Carr families.

Related Posts:

Are you a Left Handed Kerr or Carr? – the most commented post on this blog!

Serendipity DNA – the story of our Kerr DNA match.

Google Scholar:  Left Handed Kerrs and Carrs