Wildside: The search for the White Stane of Tam Baird

My two friends and I had set out to find the mythical White Stane of Tam Baird, and our hearts quickened, because on our approach to the object, we quickly realised our quest had been fulfilled.

The White Stane of Tam Baird, which is also known as Tom Baird’s Stone or the White Stone of Tombaird, is about a metre long and stands out from other large rocks on the hillside because it is an unusually smooth and rounded quartzite rock, little more than a metre in length.

In the sunshine, it glints and sparkles like a glowing beacon and has a hypnotic attraction that draws one into its mysterious history.

According to ‘The Northern Antiquarian’, the stone was first described in 1769, although it adds: "... local people would obviously have known of its presence and mythic history centuries before this."

‘The Northern Antiquarian’ also speculates that the stone, which lies in a horizontal position, may have been upright at one time, which would have made it even more impressive.

However, this is conjecture and there is no evidence, as far as I am aware, that this was ever the case.

Angus Watson in his book, ‘The Ochils: Placenames, History, Tradition’, says the 1860 ‘OS Name Book’ (which lists every place name found on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of Scotland), notes that the local tradition was that the stone had been erected to commemorate a battle between Wallace and the English, and that there was "no doubt whatsoever" that it was "druidical".

Watson also states that the name of the rock – Tom Baird or Tam Baird – derives from the Gaelic, meaning the ‘bard’s knoll’.

However, Bruce Baillie in his book, ‘History of Dollar’, (1998) says it "has possibly been derived from the Gaelic Tam a Bhaird, ‘the knoll of the enclosure.’"

Whilst there is much mythology associated with the stone, most likely it was left by a retreating glacier – or in other words, it is a glacial erratic.

Quartz is certainly a feature of the Ochils, and according to the publication ‘The Ochil Hills’ published by the Forth Naturalist & Historian and the Clackmannanshire Field Studies Society in 1994, the most common variety is white quartz, which can be found in most of the veins in the area and in large loose lumps in glacial till.

As my two friends and I sat by the stone in the warm sunshine speculating about its origin and folklore, it quickly became apparent that its inherent attraction lay in the fact that we know so little about this wondrous geological quirk, which in turn leaves the mind spinning with excited speculation about its mythical past.