Language Notes

Element Meaning

Sources

The Ringing Stone or Clach a’ Choire or Coire Fhionn MhicChumhail: tireeplacenames.org

Clach a’ Choire: MacDougall & Cameron, 1938, 82

a large poised rock locally known as Clach a’ Coile [sic] or ‘the kettle stone’: Beveridge, 115

Clach a’ Choire: Halliday pers. comm.

Additional Information

…a ‘rock gong’ similar to Clach a’ Choire, listed by John MacKenzie (1845, p8) as one of the seven wonders of Scotland – a huge granite erratic covered with 53 cupmarks, the deepest of which are at the most resonant parts of the stone…According to Fagg (1997 p86), Clach a’ Choire was ‘said to contain a crock of gold – but if it ever split Tiree will disappear beneath the waves.’ If true (Mrs Fagg mistakenly attributes the staement to SHIS) the legend thus contains both a motive for destroying such stones and a warning against doing so…Compare Newton 1992 p145 where it is claimed that if Clach a’ Choire ‘ever shatters or falls off the pedestal of small stones on which it rests, Tiree will sink beneath the waves.’ The Gaelic Otherworld, ed Ronald Black, p 396-7

Alternative Forms