Tullochgorum cairn

Also known as:
Tullochgorm
Nearest town:
Grantown-on-Spey (9km NE)
OS reference:
NH96482130
OS sheet:
36
Latitude:
57° 16' 14.34 N
Longitude:
3° 43' 0.65 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Tullochgorum cairn (Clava Cairn) by markj99

Tullochgorum Cairn cleared of vegetation as at 20.03.12

Image credit: Mark Johnstone
markj99
markj99 Mar 14, 2021
Image of Tullochgorum cairn (Clava Cairn) by markj99

A broad standing stone on the perimeter of Tullochgorum Cairn.

Image credit: Mark Johnstone
markj99
markj99 Mar 14, 2021
Image of Tullochgorum cairn (Clava Cairn) by markj99

A white quartz rock near the centre of the cairn.

Image credit: Mark Johnstone
markj99
markj99 Mar 14, 2021

Articles

Tullochgorum cairn

drewbhoy
drewbhoy Jul 27, 2012

Now the walk from the standing stones to the Clava cairn isn’t that far and provided an excellent opportunity to speak to Tiompan asking for details about this site. Although chancy, I climbed the fence, crossed the railway, climbed another fence and walked over to the cairn. Unlike previous people I’d met thru the day the farmer driving his tractor did not take me on. With all the info gleaned from Tiompan I prepared to take photos only to discover the old camera was gone. Still I went back to railway and luckily found it lying in the tracks. Back over the fence I went and a new Olympic record was set for high jump, the electric fence had been switched on...............to stop hay escaping presumably.

All the details are in SC’s link, the kerbs and possible fallen stones in the correct places. The site is fenced for protection.

With that it was back to the car at the Ouchnoire track nursing a sore leg after the electric fence incident. This farmer obviously doesn’t play fair.

Visited 26/7/2012.

Folklore

Tullochgorum cairn
Clava Cairn
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Oct 25, 2010

In the shire of Inverness and parish of Ennerallen ther is an old ston-monument called the chappell of Tilligorum, alias, Chappell maakmulach, which is full of graves, and was within the memorie of his (my informer’s) father (who is a man of nintie six or ninetie seaven years) an ordinary place of buriall at least for poor people, and continues to be at this day for children who die without baptisme & for strangers.

From a letter to John Aubrey from James Garden, dated March 1693. Quoted in ‘The occult laboratory: magic, science, and second sight in late seventeenth-century Scotland’, by Michael Hunter and Robert Kirk (2007).

I think this is probably the right place, because elsewhere a ‘female brownie’, with a name suspiciously like maakmullach, is mentioned – for example in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803), Sir Walter Scott says

“... that of Tullochgorm, by May Moulach, a female figure, whose left hand and arm were covered with hair .. [was] a familiar attendant upon the clan Grant.”

and Thomas Crofton Croker, in ‘Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland’ (1828) says:

Formerly ever family of consequence had its Brownie, but now they have become more rare. The two last that were known in the Highlands belonged to the ancient family of Tullochgorm in Strathspey: they were a man and his wife. The man, of a droll and merry disposition, often made game of people; he was particularly fond of pelting those who passed by with lumps of earth, whence he received the name of Brownie-clod. However, with all his good humour, he was rather simple, and was tricked by those whom he himself intended to trick. The best instance is an agreement which he was foolish enough to make with the servants of Tullochgorm, and by which he engaged himself to thrash as much corn as two men could do in the whole winter; for this he was to receive an old coat and a Kilmarnock cap, to which he seemed to have taken a great fancy. While the servants lay down in the straw and idled away their time, poor Brownie thrashed without ceasing: in short, before the agreement was completed, the men, out of gratitude and compassion, put the coat and cap into a corn measure in the barn. He instantly left off work, and said contemptuously, that as they had been simple enought to give him the coat and cap before the end of his task, he would take good care, and not thrash a single sheaf more.

His wife, on the contrary, instead of being the sport of the maids with whom she worked, was a sort of mistress among them. She was seldom on good terms with them, on account of the fidelity with which she acquainted her master with every neglect of their duty. She had a profusion of hair on her head, whence she was called hairy Mag (Maug vuluchd). She was an honest and able housekeeper, and particularly clever in waiting at table. The care with which she invisibly set out the table was a most entertaining sight to strangers; the thing asked for came as if by magic, and placed itself on the table with the greatest speed and nicety: she had no equal in the whole country for cleanliness and attention.

Sites within 20km of Tullochgorum cairn

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