Township: An Àird a Deas,Caolas

Map Reference: Ardeas 40

Name Type: machair

Meaning: The hillock of the harp

Other Forms:

Related Places:

Information:Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005), p74:

Harp Hillock, Cnoc na Clàrsaich (Tiree)
Sounds of exquisite music, as if played by a piper marching at the head of a procession, used to be heard going underground from the Harp Hillock to the top of the Dùn at Caolas in the east end of Tiree. Many tunes of little poetical (whatever be their musical) merit said to have been learned from the Fairies are to be heard. One of these which the writer heard seemed to consist entirely of variations upon the word ‘do-lledl’em.’ (Footnote 237)
Footnote 237
The motif is defined by MacDonald (1994-95, p.55) as ‘fairy song (a) or tune (b) overheard and learned.’ Cnoc na Clàrsaich, ‘Harp Hillock’, is at Port Bàn on the eastern tip of Tiree, strongly resembles one summarised by JGC at p. 51 as: “A man who avoided tethering horse or cow on a Fairy hillock...was rewarded by the Fairies driving his horse and cow to the lee of the hillock in stormy nights.” See Spence 1948, pp. 182-84.


Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Donald Kennedy, Port Ban, 2/1994

Informant 2: Angus MacLean, Scarinish, 5/1996