Muasdale's Beasts And Bellochantuy's Fairies

Muasdale's Beasts and Bellochantuy's Fairies Kintyre’s highest hill, 1,491-foot high Beinn an Turc, takes its name from a notably fierce wild boar which was said to have been slain by Diarmid, the semi-legendary progenitor of the Clan Campbell, hence their boar’s head crest. Though that legend is well enough known one that is largely unknown, rather than forgotten, is the legend of Muasdale’s beast. Muasdale Fort, Dùn Ach’na h-Àtha, lying above Bealoch a’Chaochain, was held by one Fionn MacCumhaill who had occasion to leave with his Fenian warrior band. He gave care of the fort to his henchman Gille Cochull nan Craiceann, The Lad of The Head of Skins. In the middle of the night, the lad was visited by a hideous monster, a kind of supernatural bull. He met the creature at the fort’s entrance and the two fought with such violence that the clash could be heard ‘beyond the 7 glens and the 7 bens and the 7 moor mountains’. The beast seemed invincible but the lad, with a stroke of his sword, swept off its head, only to see the head rise up and re-unite with the beast’s body. The lad took its head off again whereupon a voice came to him and said, “Lay the flat of your sword against the marrow,” which the lad did instantly and only just before the head could again rejoin the beast’s body. The head fell, hitting the ground with a terrific ‘thud’ and sank deep into the earth. The surveyor Timothy Pont, visiting the area between 1585 and 1595, records the location of Muasdale as Mungasdale - the valley of the monks. Of the fairies . . . . . Going back to the old and original ‘Gaelic-to-Gaelic’ dictionaries and too looking at the locations themselves, it is quite easy to see how Bellochantuy came to be translated as ‘The Fairies’ Pass’ and Putechantuy as ‘The Fairies’ Field’ for, to their north, on the hill, lies Corputechan. At the top of the old track, a bowl, ‘The Witches’ Cauldron’ !

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