Township: Kilmoluaig

Map Reference: Kilmoluaig 41

Name Type: watercourse

Meaning: See An Lèig in Longships on the Sand.

Other Forms: An Dìg - IMcK

An Lèig - NMcI

Related Places:

Information:Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005) p32-3:

Calum Clark and His Sore Leg

Some six generations ago there live at Port Vista (Port Bhiosta) in Tiree a dark, fierce man known as Calum Mòr Mac a’ Chlèirich, Big Malcolm Clark. He was a very strong man, and in his brutal violence produced the death of several people. Tradition also says of him that he killed a water-horse and fought a banshi with a horse-rib at the long hollow, covered in winter with water, called the Lèig. In this encounter his own little finger was broken. When sharpening the knives old women in Tiree said, Di-Haoine am baile Mhic a’ Chlèirich (“Friday in Clark’s town’), with the object of making him and his the objects of Fairy wrath.

Extracts from 'The Gaelic Otherworld' by John Gregorson Campbell, Edited with commentary by Ronald Black, (Edinburgh; Birlinn, 2005) p58:

Tiree Banshi:
At the time of the American War of Independence, a native of Tiree, similarly afflicted and wishing to escape from his Fairy love, enlisted and was drafted off to the States. On landing he thanked God he was now where the hag could not reach him. Soon after, however, she met him. “You have given thanks,” she said, “for getting rid of me, but it is easy for me to make my appearance here as in your own country.”
She then told him what fortunes were to befall him, that he would survive the war and return home, and that she would not then trouble him anymore. “You will marry there and settle. You will have two daughters, one of whom will marry and settle in Croy-Gortan, the other will marry and remain in your own house. The one away will ask to stay with herself, as her sister will not be kind to you. Your death will occur when you are crossing the Lèige.” All this is due course happened.

Footnote 196: In a footnote JGC explains Croy-Gorton as Cruaidh –Ghortain ‘Stone-Field’ and the Lèig as a ‘winter stream falling into Loch Vasipol.’ An Cruaidh Ghoirtean, perhaps more literally ‘the Hard Field’ and pronounced an Cruairtean in the west of Tiree (cf. p. 282), is simply the Gaelic name for the township of Heylipol (which is from the Norse helgi ‘holy’ and ‘bol’ ‘township’). The Lèig (‘Marsh’) is a large ditch which flows through the middle of the township of Kilmoluaig into the south-western corner of Loch Vasipol (Loch Bhasapol). JGC’s Lèige will be the genitive case – thar na Lèige ‘across the Lèig’. (See note 152) (This footnote is from page 334).




There used to be a plank over this to allow the children from the Village to walk to Cornaig school - NMcI.

Local Form:

Languages : Gaelic

Informants: Iain MacKinnon (Iain Chaluim), Kilmoluaig, 5/2000

Informant 2: Norman MacIver, Kilmoluaig, 12/1993