Township: Salum

Map Reference: Sàlum 39

Name Type: agricultural

Meaning: The round pen

The pen of the fairy hill. Sìobhaire is the Tiree word for fairy; sìthean that for a fairy knoll.

Other Forms: Am Fang Chruinn - JAMcL

Fang an t-Sìthein - EB

Related Places:

Information:"Next to be noticed is a very similar site, locally known as Fang an t-Sithein [note: the enclosure of the fairies ... This is not locally considered a fort, but such it evidently has been, bearing in general character a strong resemblance to Dun Beag a' Chaolais], three-quarter of a mile south-west from Dun Beag a' Chaolais, and nearly half a mile south-east of Salum.

Its summit is about 12 feet above the level, and the whole mound measures some 43 yards across, inclusive of both slopes. Natural rock shows through its surface in massive form, and this indeed is its chief distinction from Dun Beag a' Chaolais. There is a somewhat better marked terracing upon its sides, and the surrounding moat [note: It is perhaps hardly correct to describe this as a 'moat', much of its character being given by the surrounding wall, erected to protect the crofters' best patch of soil - containing, as it does, much refuse from the Dun. In ploughing this plot, flints and fragments of pottery are turned up] is exceedingly well defined, 8 or 9 yards in width and enclosed by a low modern dyke. No large stones remain in situ, and but a few smaller ones are to be seen, the grassy surface being entirely unbroken. It was only at the extreme edge adjoining the cultivated moat, and in a neighbouring turf dyke, that some small fragments of pottery and a single flint were found; several hammer stones also lay within the enclosure. There may have been an entrance from the east, where the moat is slightly raised, but in any case we were assured that there was formerly a causeway on the west (towards the Salum crofts, although this is now untraceable. Adjacent in the latter direction is a large low-lying area, evidently formerly under water, as was certainly the case at Dun Beag a' Chaolais. Both of these forts are in secluded positions without much general view." Ernest Beveridge 1903 'Coll and Tiree' p 111-2

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: John Archie MacLean, Crois, 4/1995

Informant 2: Ernest Beveridge 1903, 'Coll and Tiree', page 111-2