Sc. Forms: 6 tulchen, 6–9 -in, 9. -ane, 8– tulchan. [a. Gaelic tulchan, app. local variant of tulachan ‘little hillock,’ applied locally to a device used to induce a cow to give her milk: still so called in the Outer Hebrides, and in Moidart in Inverness-shire, and prob. more widely in the 16th c.
The cow is allowed to sniff at the skin of her own calf, which may be stuffed with straw or hay, but is often merely spread over the bottom of a creel or a small heap or hump of earth or turf, whence app. the name ‘little hillock.’ The etymology given in Highland Society’s Dict. 1828, is erroneous.]
1. lit. A calf’s skin set under a cow to make her yield her milk freely: see above.
a. 1578–a. 1651. [see 2].
1785. Jrnl. fr. London to Portsmouth, 2. Flae him belly-flaught, his skin wad mak’ a gallant tulchin for you.
1808–18. Jamieson, Tulchane, -in.… 2. A bag or budget, generally of the skin of an animal.
1866. Livingstone, Last Jrnls. (1873), I. ii. 51. The cattle of Africa … never give their milk without the presence of the calf or its stuffed skin, the ‘tulchan.’
2. Hist. Hence attrib., applied in derision to the titular bishops appointed in Scotland immediately after the Reformation, in whose names the revenues of the sees were drawn by the lay barons.
a. 1578. Lindesay (Pitscottie), Chron. Scot. (S.T.S.), II. 282. The tulchen, to wit ane feinȝeit counterfeitt bischope…. The kingis lordis that obtenit thair beneficeis culd find na way to have proffeit thairof without thay had ane tulchen lyk as the kow had or scho wald gif milk, ane calfis skin stoppit with stra.
1583. Leg. Bp. St. Androis, Pref. 61. Albeit they be now Tulchin bischops stylit.
a. 1651. Calderwood, Hist. Kirk (1678), 55. The Bishops, admitted according to this new order, were called in jest, Tulchane Bishops. A Talchane is a calf’s skin stuffed full with straw, to cause the cow give milk.
1703. D. Williamson, Serm. bef. Gen. Assemb. Edin., 43. Then were imposed the Tulchan, or meer nominal Bishops, who by simoniacal Contracts allowed the great men to enjoy the Revenues of the Church.
1859. J. J. Marshall, Hist. Scott. Eccles. & Civ. Affairs, x. 211. The Episcopacy thus introduced has always gone under the name of the Tulchan or Titular Episcopacy.
transf. 1884. Dunckley, in Contemp. Rev., July, 7. Henceforth the Khedive was to be a mere ‘tulchan’ ruler.
