Map Reference: Hynish 38
Name Type: hill
Meaning: Hynish hill
See A’ Bhraonach in Longships on the Sand.
Other Forms: Bin heaness - The map MVLA INSVLA in the Atlas of Scotland, Atlas Novus, by Joan Blaeu, 1654. These maps were largely based on work by Timothy Pont who mapped Scotland between 1583 and 1596. NLS, 123.
Ben Haynish - The Turnbull Map of Tiree 1768 and accompanying survey text.
Benhynish Hill - Island Mull with Islands Tiri and Coll, M MacKenzie, 1775.
Ben Hynish - OS
Related Places:
Information:Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005)
Boat Language
It was deemed unlucky by east coast fishermen coming to Tiree (as several boats used to annually to prosecute the cod and ling fishing) to speak in a boat of a minister or a rat. Everywhere it was deemed unlucky among seafaring men to whistle in case a storm should arise. In Tiree, Heynish Hill (the Highest in the island) was known as a’ Bhraonach, Hogh Hill (the next highest) as a’ Bheinn Bheàrnach no Sgoilte (the Notched or Cloven Hill), and a species of whale as cas na poite (the leg of a pot). It should not be said bhàthadh e ‘he was drowned’ but shiubhail e ‘he journeyed’, not ceangail ròp ‘tie a rope’ but dean e ‘make it’. In the north it was held that an otter, while in its den, should not be valled besit dubh (the ‘black beast’, its common name), but càrnag. It would otherwise be impossible for the terriers to drive it from its refuge.
Footnote 430; A’ Bhraonach is ‘the showery/drizzly/dewy female’ (because of the tendency of Heynish Hill to attract cloud). Beinn Hough, JGC’s ‘Hogh Hill’, is from Norse haugr ‘burial place’ (there are Viking graves there). (This is only part of the footnote)
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Kindness To A Neglected Child
The Elves sometimes took care of neglected children. Te her who tendered the Balephuill cattle on Heynish Hill sat down one day on a green eminence (cnoc) in the hill which had the reputation of being tenanted by the Fairies. His son, a young child, was along with him.
He fell asleep, and he awoke the child was away. He roused himself, and vowed aloud that unless his boy was restored he would not leave a stone or clod of the hillock together.
A voice from underground answered that the child was safe at home with its mother, and they (the ‘people’) had taken it lest it should come to harm with the cold.
Local Form:
Languages : Norse, GaelicInformants: multiple
Informant 2: OS
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