Seasons on Harris (41 page)

O
UR FLIRTATION WITH ISLAND FOLKLORE
and other strangenesses was revived at the tail end of another rather limp
ceilidh
at the Clisham Keel. Apparently we'd missed one of the star attractions of the evening, a young man once connected with the famous New Age folk-rock group Runrig. After he left, the solo accordionist in the corner of the room dabbled with a reel or two, but without the crisp clip of a snare drum, a prancing fiddle, and a set of pipes, his rendition was irregularly rhythmed and lacked the normal toe-tapping bounce and briskness.

Then a young girl with a plain, rather sad face, long brown hair unstyled and badly cut, and a distinctly hunched way of moving stood up and mooched over to the microphone. No one seemed to pay much attention. The accordionist started packing up his instrument and we assumed it was all pretty much over. Until she began to sing. A cappella.

Her voice was electric. Galvanizing. Even the beer swillers at the bar quieted and turned to listen. The room was silent in seconds as her song flowed out among the surprised onlookers. Anne nudged me. We both recognized the words and the tune immediately. In an instant I was back to my late teenage years when I'd fancied myself as something of a folk singer–guitarist, until I realized that it was actually my sister, Lynne, that pub audiences in Yorkshire came to see and hear. And one of the songs
they requested, more than any other, was a strange, magically melancholy series of minor-chord verses. Lynne would explain to the audience that it was an ancient Gaelic ballad describing the strange transformation of a seal (
silkie
) into a man who falls in love with a beautiful island girl who bears his child. Eventually the man returns to his seal life, singing his strange lament:

Later he returns briefly to be with his earthbound love and tells her that eventually their son will join him in his aquatic home. And here's the stanza that's guaranteed to silence sensitive audiences—as he predicts:

If it's done right, this odd little fragment of a folk ditty will water the eyes of the most ardent resister of sentimental songs. As this young girl did that night. There were definitely tears in beers around the bar and the scattered tables. And what was as transforming as the song itself was the beguiling way that that hunched, plain-faced, skinny shard of womanhood stood straighter and taller as her song progressed, threw back her head, and let her voice—pure tonal silver—flow out into that silent room and mesmerize everyone in it.

And, as seems to happen so often in our lives, synchronicity slipped in a few days after our evening at the Keel when we met a man who not only knew about silkies and the like, but had spent years researching the strange legends surrounding these shape-shifting sealmen. He'd even written a book on the subject:
Seal-Folk and Ocean Paddlers.

His name was John MacAulay, famous as one of the last island boat builders and the man who had custom-built Adam Nicolson's boat,
The Freyja
, in 1999. Adam's intention was to use the craft primarily for journeys across the treacherous waters of The Minch to the Shiants—his cluster of high, seabird-encrusted islets rising dramatically from the ocean about eighteen miles due east of Tarbert. They were first purchased by Adam's father, Nigel, in the 1940s and had passed down to Adam himself and recently to his own son. The outcome of all these sea crossings in John's sturdy creation emerged finally in Adam's finely crafted masterwork,
Sea Room
, a book much respected by islanders for its scope, accuracy, and enticing “sense of place.”

“I learned an awful lot from that book,” Roddy MacAskill had told me. “M'family's been on Harris for generations…so I should have known much more than I did. Adam's book opened a lot of eyes and hearts here. It made you realize just how rich everything is on our islands.”

That was a lesson I also learned prior to our meeting with John when we were trying to understand more about Harris folklore. I mean, I'd heard brief references to
silkies, kelpies, glaistigs, gigelorums, sidheans
, and mercurial “wee folk,” but the
Hearaich
are a canny Calvinistic lot, reluctant to admit any real knowledge of such “sillinesses.” Even discussions of “wise women” and those with “second sight” tend to be cursory and dismissive, although there are many tales floating about of individuals with strange powers and seers with prophetic insights.

Some of the legends stretch credulity to the snapping point, especially stories of Loch Lann's
Flath Innis
(Rich Pastures of Lost Heroes), the Celtic paradise of
Tir-nan-og
, or Atlantis-like lands sunken beneath the ocean waves. There's even one tale that tells of people “from under the waves” emerging to teach the
Hearaich
how to dye and weave their world-famous tweed and to sing the weaving songs that reflected the pattern thread sequences of the warp and weft:

Another bizarre folktale claims that Noah's Ark came to rest in the hills of North Harris as the Great Flood receded, leaving “a goodly supply of small birds and animals” before being refloated and sailing on to Mount Ararat in Turkey. The fact that an ancient carved stone on Canna contains a depiction of something closely resembling a camel is considered evidence that species far more exotic than small birds may also have been left behind here!

After such hyperbole, it's almost a relief to listen to lesser tales of the pernicious
fridach
—“small, minute, miserable creatures, full of spite, venom, and hostility” that brought disease and distress to the crofters—along with the
gigelorum
, equally evil, and “an animal so small that it makes its nest in a mite's ear.” There were wormy creatures too—
fiollan
—that could cause great pain and swelling. They became useful threats to lazy children who were warned that “idle worms” would plague their fingers if not occupied in useful labor.
Fuath
, or evil spirits that popped up in a number of guises, were also a particular threat to poachers, particularly fishermen. Poltergeists too were a real nuisance around the croft, uprooting fence poles, pushing over
cruach
peat piles, and stealing hens' eggs.

Ghosts, as might be expected, came in various forms and contexts. There were your everyday wraiths floating around cemeteries, abandoned crofts, and the dark corners of black houses. But others were involved in more complex things like “teleportations”—a spiriting away and return (sometimes) of the living on long, mysterious journeys known as
falbh air an t-Sluagh.
There were also tales of phantom sailing ships, and even on occasion kind spirits and creatures that helped sailors in perilous seas find safe harbors. Wizards, or
fiosache
, were also said to use ghosts and other supernatural creatures in their spells. Seers, however, did not. They relied primarily on “second sight” and other prophetic abilities to warn of coming events and catastrophes.

And then, of course, come all the odd superstitions, such as sailors
welcoming the sight of teal ducks or swans flying over their boats as a blessing and guarantee of good fortune on the voyage. However, the presence of a raven or a cormorant nearby was always considered an ill omen:

The snipe was also considered an eerie bird, particularly at night, and even the mention of its name was thought to engender misfortune. The same went for the cuckoo. So numerous synonyms had to be invented to avoid saying their dread names.

Windows on the west side of houses (actually, many houses tend to avoid windows on that side to reduce the impact of furious Atlantic storms and gales) should always be closed at dusk to deter those ghostly
Sluagh
teleportations.

One of the most interesting superstitions is related to salt, once an extremely valuable commodity despite the abundance of seawater everywhere. It was the expensive option and preferred to the ash of kelp, the traditional ingredient for meat preservation. Stealing someone's salt was tantamount to stealing a wife and equally fraught with terrible consequences. However, because salt was considered “blessed,” giving some to a neighbor was “most meritous” so long as its repayment was never expected or accepted (“The eye shall not follow it”).

And thus Anne and I did our homework, piecing together the complex jigsaw of island superstitions and supernaturals, prior to our meeting with John MacAulay. Which finally came one “mizzley” late afternoon as we wriggled our way along the narrow Bays road, always wary of reckless sheep or cocky drivers assuming the road was all theirs, and down into the rocky hollow of Flodabay.

The Bays landscape was at its lunar best—or worst, depending on your climatic preferences. Under sodden gray skies, ponderously thick and spitting irritating drizzle that required a constant, slow sweep of
windshield wipers, the broken rocks reared up like primordial life-forms emerging from the boggy soup of creation. Their ragged profiles and lumpen tumbles were glossed with rain. Black lochans lay still and peat-black between the mires of marsh grass and mounded tussocks.

“Miserable,” muttered Anne.

“But beautiful…in a dramatic kind of way,” I suggested.

Silence. A familiar stalemate of perceptions.

“It's scary…the whole moor seems alive with…,” said Anne, leaving me to fill in the blanks.

“Creatures! Monsters! Things emerging—ancient things—from all this black gloop…”

More silence, broken by the intermittent whine of the wipers.

And then, around a tight bend and down a steep incline, came life in a more recognizable form. A man. White-haired and ramrod-erect in the wet, moving among a huddle of boats in various stages of disrepair. Behind him a corrugated metal hut was set in a hollow overlooking a tight, rock-bound inlet—a fjord in miniature—with more boats floating against rough-hewn piers. Compared to the empty desolation of the Bays coastline, this place reeked of activity, purpose, and passion. We had found our boatman-author surrounded by his creations. He watched as I pulled the car off the narrow road. I recognized him immediately from Adam's description in
Sea Room
: “He stood four-square, legs apart and shoulders back, resting a hand on the gunwale. His long gray hair was brushed back from his temples. He wore a small gray moustache and looked me straight in the eye: a straight, calm, evaluating look…”

But with a welcoming smile too.

“Ah—you must be David…and Anne.”

“Yes, indeed we are. Hope we're not interrupting your day…”

John chuckled. “On this kind of day, interruptions are most welcome!”

The rain, of course, intensified as soon as we stepped out of the car. We all moved to the cozy, dry shelter of his hut. A boat in the process of construction filled much of the cramped space.

“Looks a bit like the boat Adam described. The one you built for him.”

“Ah, yes—the
birlinn
type. A good boat, that one. Not your ordinary kind of tub like this one. I'm working on it for a friend. Not much of a craft, but by the time I'm finished with it…” John laughed and left the sentence dangling. I explained that ever since I'd read Adam's description of John's work on his own sixteen-foot-long boat, I'd wanted to meet its creator.

John smiled. “Well, now you have…” And then added quietly, “That book of his has led to quite a few…occurrences.”

“What—like a host of wannabe sailors demanding replicas?!”

“Aye, well, a bit o' that too.” John grinned. “But no—much stranger…let's go in the house for tea and I'll tell you quite a story.”

I liked this man already and so did Anne. She was smiling that special kind of smile she saves for individuals in whom she senses straightforward honesty, integrity—and humor.

“You keep a very neat workshop here,” Anne said. “Everything organized and close at hand.”

John grinned sheepishly. “I can't work any other way.”

Anne was right. The hut, despite its sparse architectural charms, was meticulously organized with all the various boat-building tools arrayed by type and size along the walls above the workbenches. Mallets, saws, chisels, drills, grinders, hammers, and countless other collections of woodworking and metal-working devices were displayed with exhibition-level meticulousness. A dust-coated radio crackled erratically in the corner by the rain-etched window at the rear of the hut.

John noticed my glance and apologized for the noise. “Yeah, I know. 'S'time I got a new one. Aerial's gone…or something.”

I smiled. At least there was one imperfection in this tiny haven of organized creativity. Something he had not yet mastered. Unlike the rest of his life, which, according to others on the island, reflected his Renaissance-man capacities for historical research into the island's Viking heritage (“I've got Norse blood in me, I guess,” he told us later; “MacAulay is the Gaelic equivalent of that very common Scandinavian surname, Olafson”), fishing and sailing, writing, bagpipe and violin playing, poetry, boat building and restoration, and—as we were soon to learn—a new and unfamiliar role, as a father!