Qualla: Tarskavaig https://qualla.com/tarskavaig en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tarskavaig https://qualla.com/tarskavaig Tarskavaig: Introduction https://qualla.com/tarskavaig/ Photo credit Phil Sangwell from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. The village is called Cod Bay. Translate the Old Norse name - thorska-vagr - and that is what you get, a working description left behind by the Vikings who arrived on Skye around 875 AD and stayed long enough to leave a vocabulary. The word for cod entered Gaelic as tarsk, a loan word that bound the two languages together in the same way the people bound themselves through marriage. Twelve centuries later the village still sits in the same glen on the west coast of the Sleat peninsula, looking out across the sound at Rum, Eigg and Canna, and across the bay at what is widely held to be the finest view of the Black Cuillin from anywhere on the island.

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Image: Phil Sangwell from United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/gf5s-tarskavaig-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tarskavaig: A Village Planned for Failure https://qualla.com/tarskavaig/ Photo credit John Allan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Tarskavaig as a village proper dates from 1811. Lord MacDonald, the local landowner, laid it out in thirty-one small crofts to exploit the resources of the sea and the marginal coastal land that nobody else was using. The plots were never large enough to feed a family. Tenants ha...

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Image: John Allan | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/gf5s-tarskavaig-a-village-planned-for-failure.mp3 0:06 2 full Tarskavaig: The Last Stronghold of Gaelic https://qualla.com/tarskavaig/ Photo credit Dave Fergusson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Gaelic held on in Tarskavaig long after it had faded elsewhere on Skye. In 1891, 97.6% of the village spoke Gaelic; in 1901, 95.2%, with about 19% of inhabitants speaking only Gaelic and no English. The parish averages of around 89% looked feeble by comparison. Even at the 2001 c...

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Image: Dave Fergusson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/gf5s-tarskavaig-the-last-stronghold-of-gaelic.mp3 0:06 3 full Tarskavaig: The Viking Connection https://qualla.com/tarskavaig/ Photo credit Dave Fergusson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Just thirteen miles north of Tarskavaig, on a peninsula called Rubha an Dunain, archaeologists recovered a clinker-built faering timber from a small loch in 2000. Carbon dating put it around AD 1100. Subsequent excavations revealed stone-built quays, a system of sluices to mainta...

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Image: Dave Fergusson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/gf5s-tarskavaig-the-viking-connection.mp3 0:06 4 full Tarskavaig: The View https://qualla.com/tarskavaig/ Photo credit MissvainOriginal author: User:Mike_Peel, CC BY-SA 4.0. From Tarskavaig Point on a clear evening, the Black Cuillin lift across the water in a saw-toothed line that geologists call the Cuillin Ridge and climbers call something less polite. The ridge is the eroded remains of a Tertiary volcanic complex, the most concentrated mountain w...

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Image: MissvainOriginal author: User:Mike_Peel | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/s/tarskavaig-wp/gf5s-tarskavaig-the-view.mp3 0:06 5 full