Township: Salum

Map Reference: Salum 300

Name Type: township

Meaning: See Salum in Longships on the Sand.

Other Forms:

Related Places:

Information:The Gaelic Otherworld, ed Ronald Black, p37:

Niall Sgrob (Neil the Scrub) , a native of Uist, was on certain days lifted by the Fairies and taken to Tiree and other islands of the Hebrides, at least so he said himself. Once he came to Saalum, a village near the north east end of Tiree, and at the fourth house in the village he was made to throw the Fairy arrow. (Footnote 133) there is an old saying:
Dùin an uinneag a-tuath
‘S gu luath an uinneag a-deas
‘S dùin uinneag na h-àird aniar – cha d’ thàinig olc riamh on àird an-ear.
(“Shut the north window / And quickly close the window to the south / And shut the window facing west - / Evil never came from the east.”) And the west window was this night left open. The arrow came through the open widnow, and struck on the shoulder a handsome, strong, healthy woman of the name of MacLean, who sat singing cheerfully at her work. His hand fell powerless by her side, and before morning she was dead.
Neil afterwards told that he was the party whom the Fairies had compelled to do the mischief. In this and similar stories it must be underood that, according to popular belief, the woman was taken away by the Fairies, and may still be among them; only her semblance remained and was buried.

p334: "The people were fishing at Sathalum Tiree and they fished up a man upon their hooks. The man was alive but he had no speech - guth cainnt cha robh aige. They put him to herd the crodh mara. They made trews for him and they prevailed upon him to put them on. The man looked down at himself and said, "Trews upon the black gun / And the black gun tending cattle / And may I not enjoy / If I tend cattle any more. The man went away and was never seen again." From a manuscript of Alexander Carmichael.
There were 16 or 17 houses in Salum in 1816 - Angus MacLean, Scarinish, 4/1995.

Local Form:

Languages : Norse