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Taken from a high point to the south, looking for Garvard.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
Looking north, over the bogs and wee hills is Dun Gallian and what could only be described as an interesting golf course.
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Not quite down, one or two stones underneath trying hold the stone upright.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
A bit of a nightmare to find due to underfoot conditions, this place more than anywhere else resembles the east coast of Harris.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
The north outer wall leads to the dun’s highest point at the entrance.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
From the entrance looking north, Dun Eibhinn in the far distance.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
The quest for the origins of Stonehenge’s six-tonne Altar Stone continues as new research has found it did not come from mainland Orkney.
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Looking south, Oronsay then Islay, to the left Jura.
Image credit: drew/A/B
West looking east towards the the beautiful Loch Cholla.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
On the west side, to the far north with the flat top Dun Eibhinn.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
Inside the dun looking south east, the hill is the impressive Dun Cholla.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
Dun Gallain painted from near Tobar Fuar.
Image credit: Found in Colomsay Museum
You go to a talk about bee-keeping in the nearby museum and you learn about this as well.
Image credit: drew/A/B
Beneath the west wall, a tad chancy, the houses of Kilchattan north of the headland.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
Standing on remnants of the north wall looking north west.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
These must have been huge walls as it swings round to the west.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
Outer defence on the south. Bits of excellent stonework still remain.
Image credit: drew/AMJ
There are a number of folk tales associated with these particular caves. One story concerns the last of the MacPhee lairds of Colonsay who had been defeated by his enemies, the MacNeills. He took refuge, with his three dogs, from an approaching gang of MacNeills, in the Slochd dubh Mhic a Phi (MacPhee’s Dark Cave, or Pit).
This had an entrance from the sea and another from the land. At the sea end MacPhee placed his three dogs. He stood in the cave at a point where anyone trying to get in from the land entrance would have to get down on all fours to pass through. MacPhee cut the head off each MacNeill in turn as he crawled through. Eventually the MacNeills who waited outside suspected trouble and started to dig an entrance through the roof, whereupon MacPhee went out by the sea entrance and swam across the bay to a rock still known as the Black Skerry of the MacPhee.
Colonsay Cave Folklore
By Marg Greenwood