In the Fighting Cochranes, Alexander Cochrane writes "Tradition has it that the Cochrane ancestry goes back to a Scandinavian sea-warrior who settled in what was, until recently, the county of Renfrew in the west of Scotland. Forsaking his earlier freebootery and pillage, the invader turned his attention to peaceful pursuits and, in time, his descendants became extensive land-owners in that part of the country. Long afterwards, when they became armigerous, it was in keeping with the character of their traditional ancestor that the heraldic beast of the Cochranes should be a boar, and the three boars' heads in their 'heraldic achievement' are said to mark the exploit of a remote gladiator who is reputed to have slain three wild boars that had been terrorising the countryside. The boar represents a man with 'bold spirit, skillful, and poltic in warlike fates...'