Collie Cam, the Glen Isla Giant

Collie Cam, are you within?

Will you come oot and try to rin? 

I'm licking my pots an cleaning my pans, 

I'll no be oot for many's a lang!

  On the borders of what is now Angus and Perthshire, in the somewhat wild upland country, there was a prevalent race of giants.  One of them was called Collie Cam (or Colly Cam).  He and his wife constantly disagreed and their fights often involved throwing huge boulders at each other (as well as innocent bystanders).  Solid proof of this ancient, bitter dispute can be found in the form of Collie Cam's Stane, near the Blackwater Inn on the A 93 road.  Actually, this stone is only one half of a story, so to speak.  It happened that one day the giant was particularly enraged with his wife and picked up a missive boulder with the intention of extinguishing her forever. He hurled the mammoth missile, but it broke apart in mid air.  Neither half reached its intended target. One half is Collie Cam's Stane, while the other landed at Clachnockater in Glen Isla and became known as the Warrior's Stone.



   Collie and his wife lived in a cave on Mount Blair.  Local children chanted the rhyme at the head of this piece when they were in the locality, daring the giant and his spouse to show themselves.  It was said a low, rumbling noise often heard in this area was actually the sound of underground disputed between the two giants, which had been rumbling on for centuries.

   There is some evident confusion between the Warrior's Stone and the Gled Stane (or Glade Stone) at West Mill, Glen Isla, also reckoned  to have been chucked by Collie.  It seems too that Collie was profligate with his missile hurling, for there is another local boulder, the Sow Stone, which was thrown by him towards the hapless local inhabitants.  A variant tale states that the giant and his wife actually lived apart - and perhaps this was wise, given their combative natures.  While he lived in a hollow on the south side of Mount Blair, his wife - who sometimes went by the wonderful name of Smoutachanty - inhabited a cave at Auchintaple.  It is said by some that Collie met his end, appropriately, by being stoned to death by locals enraged of his constant harassment and theft.  Years later, two men explored his former cave.  They went out, but never emerged to daylight again, though it is said their voices were faintly discerned near the Alrick Burn, several miles away.

   There was once a man who was once in the employ of the minister of Glen Isla who constantly annoyed his master by asking him what he had to do next, instead of simply using his common sense to go about his daily tasks.  Finally, the minister one day instructed him to go to Mr Ferguson at West Mill and ask him for a loan of the Gled Stane.  When the servant went there and was shown the massive stone by the bemused farmer, he knew he had been played for a fool.  But whether he learnt his lesson from then onward is not known.

The Giant Country.  Blacklunans, now in Perth & Kinross, but historically part of Angus