In the Statistical Account of Scotland, however—drawn up by the parish ministers of the county, and edited by Sir John Sinclair—both the river and the glen are spelt Almon, by the Rev. Mr. Erskine, who wrote the account of Monzie Parish in Perthshire. This was in 1795. A recent authority states:
"'Glenamon,' in Ayrshire, and 'Glenalmond,' in Perthshire, are both from the corrupted spelling of the word 'Avon,' which derives from its being very nearly the pronunciation of the Gaelic word for 'a river.' These names are from 'Gleann-abhuinn,' that is,'the valley of the river.'"
(See the Gaelic Topography of Scotland, by James A. Robertson, Edinburgh, 1859.)—Ed.
Note:
The glen is Glenalmond, in Perthshire, between Crieff and Amulree, known locally as "the Sma' Glen." I [am] not aware that it was ever called "Glen Almain," till Wordsworth gave it that singularly un-Scottish name.[B] It must have been a warm August day, after a tract of dry weather, when he went through it, or the Almond would scarcely have been called a "small streamlet." In many seasons of the year the distinctive features of the Glen would be more appropriately indicated by the words, which the poet uses by way of contrast with his own experience of it, viz. a place
'Where sights are rough, and sounds are wild,
And everything unreconciled.'