Healabhal Bheag

About Healabhal Bheag

Dominating the skyline west of Dunvegan, this distinctive flat-topped Marilyn is better known as MacLeod’s Table South. Its steep, stepped slopes lead to a perfectly level plateau, offering an unusual sense of space at height. Together with its northern twin, it provides a panoramic perspective across the Minch towards the Outer Hebrides.

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Did You Know?

• •The name derives from the Old Norse Hella-fjall, meaning ‘flat mountain’ or ‘flagstone hill’, a nod to its striking architectural profile. Curiously, despite being named Bheag (Gaelic for ‘small’), this summit is actually 20 metres taller than its neighbouring twin, Healabhal Mhòr.
• •Locally known as one of MacLeod’s Tables, legend tells of a 16th-century banquet where the Chief of Clan MacLeod entertained a visiting dignitary atop the summit. To impress his guest, MacLeod reportedly used his clansmen as living candlesticks, encircling the plateau with blazing torches against the night sky.
• •The hill’s distinctive shape is a result of Skye’s volcanic past, formed by successive layers of Tertiary basalt flows. Over millennia, erosion has stripped away the softer rock to leave the hard, flat-topped cap that gives the Duirinish peninsula its unique silhouette.
• •From the expansive plateau, the view south-east looks directly over the sea lochs towards the jagged skyline of the Black Cuillin. Looking west across the Minch, the long chain of the Outer Hebrides is clearly visible, from the hills of Harris down to North Uist.
• •Hikers should not be fooled by the Gaelic names; while Healabhal Bheag is the 'small' one, it provides the greater physical exertion of the two sisters. It seems the clan map-makers prioritised the broader summit area of the northern hill over the actual vertical height of this one.