Summary.
The lands and Lordship of Badenoch represent a most important district within Scotland and one which forms a significant part of the Province of Moray. It is essential to our study of the Northern Dioceses since it comprises a number of the parishes of the diocese of Moray.
However, Badenoch is an ancient land where Gaelic was spoken and, previous to that, the mysterious language of the Picts. All features of note within the district's boundaries have names which exhibit the use of these two languages, especially the Gaelic, and, even if only from the stance of wishing to spell these names accurately, the work of Dr. Macbain is required reading. He was not only a native speaker, brought up himself within Badenoch (at Glenfeshie), but he had roamed the district far and wide, starting from when he was a youth, and he had an affinity with his homeland that can only come to one who has been brought up in a place.
The paper that we have made available here is one which he himself presented to a meeting of the Gaelic Society of Inverness in 1890 and is a transcript taken from the minutes of that meeting as printed by the Society. Not only is it a comprehensive reference of correctly spelled Gaelic place names, but it also shares short passages of the local poetry which were inspired by these places and the countryside within which they are set.
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