Township: Caolas

Map Reference: exact location unknown

Name Type: gateway

Meaning: Gate of the fuel enclosure

Other Forms:

Related Places:

Information:'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005, p253:
A celebrated seer [in Caolas], Dòmhnall Mac an Duibh (Donald Black) [but see p507], was married for the fourth time. In his day lucifer matches were unknown, and when corn was kiln-dried a person had to sit up all night to keep the fire alive. As Donald sat at this work in a solitary hut - such as small kilns are still kept in - the figure of his first wife appeared and told him to beware, for 'the terror' (an t-eagal) was coming: it was at Crudh an Eich, the 'Horse Shoe', a spot on the public road leading to Caolas, about a mile and a half distant, deriving its name from the clear likeness of a horseshoe indented in the rock.
He, however, was dozing into sleep again when his second wife, in more distressed tones warned him the 'terror' was nearer hand - at Cachala na Cùil Connaidh, 'the Gateway of the Fuel Enclosure'. He neglected this warning also, and was dozing again when his third wife warned him that the 'terror' was at Bail' Uachdrach (Upper Village).
He immediately went home and had hardly got into bed when a sound like the rushing of a violent blast of wind passed, and the whole house was shaken so that the walls were like to fall. If this was not the 'terror' of which he had been so strangely warned, Donald could give no other explanation.


Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Rev John Gregorson Campbell