Township: Hough,Hough

Map Reference:

Name Type:

Meaning: The small bothy of Norris

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Related Places:

Information:Seamus Norris was a clothes traveller when he was young (in the 1920s) - AMcK.

Norris was a tinker before his time who made horn spoons - Iain Chaluim MacKinnon. Kilmoluaig, 10/1996

The 1891 Census lists James Norris, 70, a traveling ‘tinker’ from Mull, with his wife Ann Norris, aged 68, from Thurso, Caithness living in Scarinish. Both spoke Gaelic and English

The bard was going to Scarinish one day, and who caught him on the road but Jimmy Norris, a tinker that was coming to the island and his wife. And he had cans and tankards. The bard gave them a lift over to Scarinish. He was sitting in the fore part of the cart. When he reached over to the shop, where the Cooperative is today, there was a man there from Caolas. He had the post office and the shop, Eoghann a’ Mhuilleir. He asked the bard where did he pick up the ‘cargo’. And the bard had to take the back end out of the cart so they would get in and he put it underneath them, and he put it in the side of the cart. “Wherever I picked it up, this is where I’m going to put it down”, he says. And he jumped off the forepart of the cart and the cart couped and they [Norris and his wife] were on the road! He tumbled out the pair of them! The bard was too smart for him! Hector Kennedy talking to Dr Margaret MacKay, Tobar an Dualchais, SA1974.141

The minister was outside the house one day and who was going down the brae at the monument there but the Bard Balemartine. And he was always sitting in the front of the cart: he never sat in the box at all and his legs out the bar. And the minister noticed him, and he knew it was the bard. And he said to him, “How was the bard today?” And the bard said, “Middling, Meadhanach”. “There’s no such a thing, John, as that [said the minister, trying to make a clever theological point]. There’s only two things, good and bad.” “Well” says the bard, “Will you answer my question?” “Yes, if I can.” “Are you so good as the Apostle Paul?” “No” the minister says. “Well, are you as bad as the tinker Jimmy Norris?” “No, No!” he says. Well there must be more than the two things, the bard says. And the bard went away. The bard knew fine! Hector Kennedy, as above

The remains of this small building can be seen on the southeast corner of the T-junction of the Moss and Hough roads.

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic, English

Informants: Iain Chaluim MacKinnon. Kilmoluaig, 10/1996