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The Hays are a family well known in Scottish history as having a rather magical origins story, featuring Danish Vikings and fierce battles. However, there is so much more to this Clan than Vikings and battles .The medieval legend for the founding of this family had it that during a losing battle fought by King Kenneth II against the Danes in 971, a passing ploughman and his two sons saw the Scots, stopped them fleeing with the yokes from their oxen, and then charged into battle with their ploughshare, thus winning the day. A grateful king thereafter elevated these men to the ranks of the nobility.  This is a very peculiar story, almost unique in medieval Scotland, in a family of nobles stressing lowly origins, rather than Princely. It is even more surprising when we consider how this family were in fact descended from powerful Norman nobles who followed William the Conqueror to England in 1066 and then travelled to Scotland. The surname Hay, first rendered de Haya, comes from La Haye in the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy.