The stories Old Hector tells Young Art about places in his youth have yet to be supplanted by any lifeless chart. Kenn comes to know his way, and to know more about himself, as he goes. The further he goes, the more he knows. Answers to where he is and where he might go, are to be found in the stories of his past progress. He is finding his way - wayfinding in contemporary parlance. Every place he passes holds memories of past arrivals and leavetakings as well as anticipations of future entrées. Places wrap the passage of time within them (ibid 2000). They are positioned neither in the past, the present nor the future. They are rolled into one, emerging without end, from the coming and going of man and boy, young and old: ‘… the world of experience is a world suspended in movement that is continually coming into being as we … contribute to its formation’. (ibid 242)
The retelling of stories is to retrace one’s steps in a journey or to retrace the steps of our ancestors who made the same journey at some time in the past. Sorley MacLean invokes life on the east coast of Raasay by resurrecting the ghostly journeys of past peoples, who travel hither and thither between one place and another, over most of the island. MacLean’s ghost band repossess the island through place-naming. Does the Gaelic language lend itself to place-naming because the word for a noun is ainmear, literally a namer?
The most complex cognitive map is the survey view (Tvensky et al 2000). It is landscape imagined from the air. Landmarks, even though they may not be intervisible at ground level, are seen relative to one another. In this type of mind map, the frame of reference is absolute. This is how Donald Mackinlay of the Verses sees Lochaber in Song of the Owl, and how Duncan Bàn Macintyre mind-maps his hunting territory in Song to his Gun. It is how an older Kenn discerns his younger self, embarking on his hesitant, personal quest as he explores the Strath, and as the mature man overlays it with the whole territory of Scotland’s north coast from Ben Loyal to the Orkneys. His narrative path of boyhood becomes embedded within a wider region. This same scale of expanse will be delineated from the sea in the heroic voyages of the Silver Darlings. Sorley Maclean dramatically extends the overlay of the individual narrative with the survey view. In his poems, the Cuillin and Hallaig, he maps the mega-movements of a mythical beast and the surreal journeys of ghostly presences over a cluster of mountains, and throughout the island of Raasay.
The survey view requires a working and instrumental knowledge of a path network set within a region. There is a joke about an Englishman in Ireland asking for directions to a specific location. An Irishman tells him that: ‘If I were you I would not be starting from here’. The joke is meant to be made at the expense of the Irish. The last laugh lies with the Irishman, though. For his reply shows that he possesses a comprehensive understanding of his landscape, which is not predicated on a single viewpoint and one linear journey, with one defined beginning and one endpoint. The conditional future and the conditional past in his answer display a wealth of other possibilities coming from an insider’s knowledge of the landscape.
3: Toponymy, Mnemonics and Topo-mnemonics
Names people bestow on places can lend them a symbolic significance, lacking in places that are unnamed (Hough 1990). The naming and distinguishing of a territory brings life to the land and adds meaning and resonance to human experience. A named landscape can behave as a large-scale mnemonic of shared history and tradition (Lynch 1960). Gaston Bachelard coined the term topoanalysis. By which he meant the psychological study of sites where intimate chapters of our lives have occurred (Bachelard 1969). Amongst aboriginal peoples, place-names act as mnemonics for past human actions (Basso 1996 & Weiner 1991). The prefix topo- can be joined with the noun mnemonic to make the neologism - topo-mnemonic.
This word is not yet in any English dictionary. Its etymology lies in ancient Greek, from mnēmōn, meaning mindful, and tópos meaning place. In combination, these parts signify a verbal device, which helps people remember places through the recitation of place-names in a riddle, poem, rhyme or song. Topo-mnemonics can be understood as verbal equivalents of cognitive or mental maps and are complementary to them. Poets and authors may use them to define, support and inform the events in their storylines. Sometimes the topo-mnemonic can be flexible and expandable and thus it can be used to illustrate a child’s development in response to landscape, as it does for Kenn in Highland River. Two historical examples of topo-mnemonics from the southern Highlands, one supernatural and the other actual, serve to illustrate their detail, complexity and use.
A Topomnemonic about Uruisgs in Breadalbane
The Uruisgs or Ùruisgean were semi-human creatures associated with deep ravines, waterfalls and moorland lochans. Their name means ‘on water’ - air uisge. William Gillies, who was Minister at Kenmore between 1912 and 1938, collected a Gaelic verse from James MacDiarmid of Morenish (Mòr-innis – Big Meadow), Killin, which lists twelve ùruisgean. As well as forming a detailed inventory of these supernatural beings, the poem can be used to define the sprawling territory of Breadalbane from Ben Dorain, through Crianlarich to Kenmore, but focusing around upper Loch Tay. The verse may also have been used to warn children away from water hazards or more directly, as a compelling and fearsome device for learning about the local landscape character.
| ‘Peallaidh an Spuit | ‘Peallaidh of the spout |
| Is Brunaidh an Easain, | And Brunaidh of the little waterfall. |
| Babaidh an Lochain | Babaidh of the little loch |
| Is Brunaidh an Eilein; | And Brunaidh of the island; |
| Paderlan a Feàrnan, | Paderlan from Fearnan, |
| Peadragan, Patragan. | Peadragan, Patragan. |
| Triubhas-dubh a Fartairchill, | Black Breeks from Fortingall, |
| Fuath Coire Ghamhnain, | The Spectre of Stirk Corrie, |
| Cas-Luath Leitir, | Swift Foot of the Slope, |
| Amhlagan-dubh | Black Amhlagan |
| Is Catan Ceann-liath, | And Catan Grey Head, |
| Is Ùruisg dubh mòr Eas Amhlagan.’ | And the Big, Black Uruisg.’ |
| of Amhlagan’s waterfall.’ |
(author’s translation adapted from Gillies 1938, 341)
The most famous ùruisg was Peallaidh of the Spout. He was King of the ùruisgean and stayed near the Upper Falls of Moness near Aberfeldy. Like Pan he had a shaggy pelt (peall means hairy skin) and hoof-like footprints. Peallaidh gave his name to Aberfeldy, Obar Pheallaidh - the confluence of Peallaidh. He spent his summers at a shieling called Ruighe Pheallaidh (NN633484) in Glenlyon – Gleann Lìobhann. There he left his footprint on a rock in the glen below, Caslorg Pheallaidh outside a farmhouse at Crageny - Creag Eunaidh or Fhiannaidh (NN6274770).
Brunaidh an Easain lived near the Lower Falls of Moness and Brunaidh an Eilein inhabited the Isle of Loch Tay or Priory Island, Eilean nam Ban – Island of the Women (NN766454), just southwest of Kenmore. On the north side of the Loch near Feàrnan, Paderlan is remembered in the name of a corrie and a burn below Meall Greigh (Rounded Hill of the Herd), Coire Phadairlidh (NN687437) and Allt Coire Phadairlidh (NN693430). He stayed
