Post by Steve North on Feb 5, 2021 12:58:52 GMT
That was a good talk last night from Piers Dixon. Thanks.
Mention was made of "eilrig" as a Gaelic place-name for deer trap and, as others have said, there are certainly lots of them around the Highlands. For example, a quick look at the OS maps for the Atholl area between Glen Feshie and Pitlochry came up with at least 5.
It strikes me that there is a common feature to a great many of these locations. They seem to refer to relatively small rounded hills which sit slightly apart from larger hills but which are connected by a col or low ridge. A good example of this is the Carn Eilrig at the southern edge of Rothiemurchus Forest. It is also apparent at Carn na h-Ailig, 9km SW of Tomintoul (which Roland mentioned last night) and at many other sites.
When groups of hill deer are disturbed or flushed they tend to move uphill (rather than downhill) and take advantage of situations with good visibility. It is tempting to see hunters making use of this natural tendency to move deer towards locations, such as isolated hill tops with steep sides, from which there is no easy escape and they could be concentrated and ambushed.
Flushed deer can also tend to move uphill towards cols which give them access to safer ground on the other side. So in some "eilrig" locations the col itself could have been used as a way of concentrating deer for ambush though in many sites the col seems to me to be too broad to have been effective in this way.
Neither of these possible ways of using an "eilrig" site would require any built structure - just knowledge of how deer use the topography.
Another random thought - Meryl mentioned an "eilrig" place-name in Glen Meinich, Strathconon which I assume is Allt na h-Eilig - stream of the deer trap. There is an adjacent hill, Cnap na Feola, which has some similarities to the topography of other eilrigs - and the name means "hillock of meat". A possible connection?
Mention was made of "eilrig" as a Gaelic place-name for deer trap and, as others have said, there are certainly lots of them around the Highlands. For example, a quick look at the OS maps for the Atholl area between Glen Feshie and Pitlochry came up with at least 5.
It strikes me that there is a common feature to a great many of these locations. They seem to refer to relatively small rounded hills which sit slightly apart from larger hills but which are connected by a col or low ridge. A good example of this is the Carn Eilrig at the southern edge of Rothiemurchus Forest. It is also apparent at Carn na h-Ailig, 9km SW of Tomintoul (which Roland mentioned last night) and at many other sites.
When groups of hill deer are disturbed or flushed they tend to move uphill (rather than downhill) and take advantage of situations with good visibility. It is tempting to see hunters making use of this natural tendency to move deer towards locations, such as isolated hill tops with steep sides, from which there is no easy escape and they could be concentrated and ambushed.
Flushed deer can also tend to move uphill towards cols which give them access to safer ground on the other side. So in some "eilrig" locations the col itself could have been used as a way of concentrating deer for ambush though in many sites the col seems to me to be too broad to have been effective in this way.
Neither of these possible ways of using an "eilrig" site would require any built structure - just knowledge of how deer use the topography.
Another random thought - Meryl mentioned an "eilrig" place-name in Glen Meinich, Strathconon which I assume is Allt na h-Eilig - stream of the deer trap. There is an adjacent hill, Cnap na Feola, which has some similarities to the topography of other eilrigs - and the name means "hillock of meat". A possible connection?