MARCH 51 



be reft of half their charm, but for the associated 

 memories that have gathered so closely over almost 

 every acre of our many-peopled island. 



We have got rid of wolves, but some of several terms 

 coined by Highlanders of old for that scourge of their 

 flocks have become indelibly fixed in our place-names. 

 The commonest of these terms seems to have been 

 madadh (pronounced ' madduh '), whereof the primary 

 meaning was ' a dog '; the fox, now spoken of as sionach 

 (shinnagh), being known as madadh ruadh, the red 

 dog. while the full-dress title of the wolf was madadh 

 faol, the wild dog, or, poetically, mac tir, son of the 

 soil. Howbeit the standard Gaelic for a dog is cu, 

 genitive con, as in Achnacone in Appin ; and it is fairly 

 safe to interpret such names as Drummoddie, Blair- 

 moddie and Culmaddie as the wolf's ridge, field, and 

 wood or corner. 



The name Spittal, which occurs so often on the map 

 of Scotland, bears many different meanings. Sometimes 

 it denotes land once owned by the Knights Hospitallers; 

 at other times the site of an almshouse for the aged 

 or a charitable institution for lepers. More often, 

 especially in the Highlands, it commemorates a refuge 

 erected by one of the Orders of regular clergy for the 

 shelter, and even the gratuitous entertainment, of 

 travellers and wayfarers. All the main passes to the 

 Highlands were furnished with spitals as refuges from 

 wolves, as well as from the weather; for packs of 

 wolves remained a real danger till the days of Queen 

 Mary, and, locally, a pest for a hundred years later. 

 Such was probably the origin of Dalnaspidal on the 



