Eriskay - Urisk Isle?

Island names are often intriguing; the name Eriskay in particular. Nearly all references I've come across over the years say it means 'Eric's Island'; named after some Norseman from long-ago. But there's another possibility.

View indicator atop Eriskay

In his book An Island Odyssey, Hamish Haswell-Smith, says it means 'Island of the Water-nymph', but he gives no explanation of where that derivation comes from. But in his The Scottish Islands he says the name means 'Urisk Island'; a combination of the Gaelic 'uruisg', and Norse 'oy'.

According to John Gregorson Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands (1971), urisks are:

A large lubberly supernatural, of solitary habits and harmless character, that haunted lonely and mountainous places. Some identify him with Brownie, but he differs from the fraternity of tutelary beings in having his dwelling, not in the houses or haunts of men, but in solitudes and remote localities....the race was said to be the offspring of unions between mortals and fairies...the leannan sith.

Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands is a fascinating book, and you can find a PDF of it here.

There are several Urisk place names in Scotland. The only island one I've read of is Slochd an Aoirisg on Tiree. It's not marked on the map, but is said to be near Hynish. A mainland site that is marked on the map is Coire nan Uruisgean, which lies above the southeast shore of Loch Katrine. It was said to be the meeting place of the Urisks in Scotland, and walkers in the area encounter a sign warning that Urisks are around. You can see a photo of the sign, along with more about the Urisks of Loch Katrine here.

Patrick Graham writes about Coire nan Uruisgean in Sketches of Perthshire (1806): 

"Ben Venue is rendered venerable in the superstition of the natives, by the celebrated Coire nan Uriskin (the cove or recess of goblins) situated on the northern side of the mountain, and overhanging the lake in gloomy grandeur. The urisks were a sort of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies of England could be gained over by kind attentions, to perform the drudgery of the farm; and it was believed that many families in the Highlands had one of their order attached to it. They were supposed to be dispersed over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess; but the solemn stated meetings of the order were regularly held in this cave of Ben Venue."

Below are a few photos from my walks around Urisk Island. Over the years I've seen most of Eriskay but, unfortunately, I've yet to meet an Urisk. Neither have I come across any written legends of Eriskay urisks. If you know any I would love to hear from you.

Acairsaid Mor from the south

Acairsaid Mor from the north

Acairsaid Mor

Haun

The Prince's Cairn

Eriskay Causeway

2016 Guided Cruise

It has been my privilege to create an itinerary for an 11 day cruise on the ship Halmar Bjorge, operated by Northern Light Charters. They asked me to put together an itinerary that includes some of my favourite islands, and the cruise runs from May 21 through May 31, 2016. The weather, of course, will determine where we can go, but the goal is to visit the following islands:

Sandray and Pabbay in the Sound of Barra
The Monach Isles
Scarp
Flannan Isles
Boreray and Pabbay in the Sound of Harris
South Rona
Eigg and Canna of the Small Isles

The following describes the walks we hope to do on each island. Guests can, of course, come along or explore on their own. For more information, and to book, refer to the cruise description on the Northern Lights website.

Pabbay (Sound of Barra)

We’ll land at Traigh Ban, the white sand beach on the east side of Pabbay to visit the village ruins; Taigh Bochdan (the house of spectres); and the burial mound with its Pictish Symbol Stone. If time permits, we’ll make a climb to the top of the island.

Pabbay seen from the sea (left) & Pabbay village and burial mound

Sandray

Options are to visit the settlement and chapel site at Bagh Ban, and then wander around the east side of Sandray; or to visit Shader on the northwest side of Sandray (where some of the raiders lived), and then make a circular walk to Dun Sandray and the top of the island.

Sheader village ruins on Sandray (left) & Vatersay seen from the top of Sandray

Monachs

We’ll land on Ceann Ear or Ceann Iar, and if the tide is out walk across the sand-bar to Shivinish.

Looking towards Shillay from Ceann Iar (left) & the tidal sandbar between Ceann Iar and Shivinish

Scarp 

We’ll explore the village and burial ground, then make a circular walk over the low pass to Loch Uidemul and then walk south to see Treasure beach via the Norse mills.

Scarp village (left) and Mol Mor (Treasure Beach)

Flannans

If conditions permit, we’ll land on the lighthouse island of Eilean Mor, where the Lightkeeper’s mysteriously disappeared in 1900.

Eilean Mor (left) and the Flannan light

Pabbay (Sound of Harris)

We’ll explore the abandoned village of Baile Lingay, see the Pabbay Cross and St Mary’s Chapel, and if time and tide permits, we’ll climb to the summit of the island to see the view over all the islands in the Sound of Harris.

Pabbay Church ruin (left) and cross

Boreray (Sound of Harris)

We’ll make a circular walk around the island to see the old Maclean village and Cladh nam Mhanaich, the Monk’s Field, the traditional burial ground of the early monks who worked in the Western Isles. Also to be seen are Cnoc a’ Chaisteil, the site of a Norse stronghold, and the ruin of the Free Church of Boreray, last used in the 1920s.

Boreray beach (left) & settlement area

South Rona

If conditions are good, we hope to make one of the best cross-island walks in the Hebrides. Landing at the north end we'd pay a visit to the lighthouse before making the four-mile hike down the island to Big Harbour via the abandoned village at Dry Harbour. On the way we may be able to pay a visit to Uamh an Fhuamhair, the Cave of Giants, also known as Church Cave, on the remote eastern side of the island.

Schoolhouse ruin (left) and the South Rona light

Canna

We plan to hike to the ruins of Sgorr nam Ban-naomha, the Celtic Christian nunnery below the cliffs, a seven-mile round trip that involves descending a narrow sheep-track down the cliff-face.

Canna Church (left) and the Nunnery

Eigg

Once ashore on Eigg we’ll crawl into Massacre Cave and/or climb to the summit of the Sgurr.

Loch nam Ban Mora and The Sgurr (left) & Massacre Cave

Happy Halloween from Jura

No, I'm not on Jura now, but I hope Skull is. In the summer of 2010 I left him in a small cave in Glengarrisdale. I heard from someone (who sent me the second photo) that Skull was still there in the summer of 2014. Aside from deer hunters, I doubt if Glengarisdale receives many visitors in late October. But if one of them does wander into a small cave near the bothy, I hope Skull is there to give them a fright.

Skull  - 2010

Skull - 2014

William Black Memorial Light

Here are a few photos of the William Black Memorial Light, which sits near Duart Point, the black point, a mile south of Duart Castle on Mull. The light was built in 1900, two years after William Black died.

Black Memorial Light - 1

Black wrote some 30 novels in the 19th century. And it's appropriate that his memorial is on an Hebridean isle, for one of his most popular books, A Princess of Thule (1873), takes place on Lewis.

Black Memorial Light - 2

Black Memorial Light - 3

A metal plaque is mounted above the door of the tower which reads: To the dear memory of William Black, Novelist, Erected by his friends and admirers, in many lands, on a spot which he knew and loved.

In A Princess of Thule, William Black made use of this legend of Gealachos. During the early days of the Norse raids on the Hebrides, there lived on Little Bernera Gealachos, the daughter of the island priest. Her name meant Fairfoot, and her favorite place on the island was a knoll near St Donnan’s Chapel above Temple Strand. She was kidnapped from there by Sweyn, king of the Norseman, and taken to Norway. Ensconced in Sweyn’s great hall for seven years, she led a sad existence, resisting the king’s persistent wooing. The king finally relented, returning her to Little Berneray to live out the rest of her life, which she devoted to helping the people of the island. To quote from the end of the story of Gealachos, as told in Donald Macdonald’s The Lews:

She made merry with those that made merry, and visited the bereaved and mourned with those that mourned; and where there was illness she was there to lend a hand and help with the nursing, for she was a born nurse. She lived to a great age, and when she died she was taken and buried on the edge of the temple strand, where she sleeps so peacefully within sound of the waves which gave her such great pleasure in the happy days of her youth.

No one reads Black's novels these days, but the story was so popular that in 1882 L Frank Baum based his first play on it: The Maid of Arran. Baum would go on to write The Wizard of Oz.

Little Bernera burial ground and Temple Strand
Where Gealachos sleeps peacefully within sound of the waves

Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh - A Hidden Corner of Vatersay

A hidden corner of Vatersay that I've visited twice over the years is Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh. I'm not sure of the translation, but it may mean something like the headland of the tall calf. It is a spectacular place, a rocky headland just beyond a white-sand beach, where tremendous breakers roll in from the open Atlantic.

Route to Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh

The headland is hidden only in the sense that you can not get there by car, but is easy to reach on foot. Take the bus to Vatersay from Castlebay and get off at the bus shelter a half-mile after the causeway. From there follow the side road west a half-mile to a white-sand beach called Traigh Bharlish. 

Traigh Bharlish

Where the track ends above the beach you turn left to go through a gate to reach the open hillside. Keep going a short way west to reach Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh.

Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh

On my last visit to the headland I had to tip-toe past a herd of cattle. Slow-going was required because a big old bull, with a ring in his nose, was watching my every step. Several calves were grazing nearby and, appropriately, considering the name of the place, they were quite tall.

Under observation on Rubh 'Aird-Laoigh

The headland is a beautiful place. And if you are in the mood for more coastal hiking you can carry on westwards to the fortress islet of Birusalum before climbing 600 feet to the top of Heishibhal Mor, the highest point on Vatersay. From there a scenic traverse can be made to the top of Heishibhal Beag before dropping down to the road near the Vatersay Community Hall where you can catch the bus back to Castlebay. If you make this walk it will be one where, chances are, you'll not see another soul, even on a beautiful summer day.

Rubh 'Aird Laoigh

Massacre Cave - Eigg

If you like crawling into dark caves with even darker histories, then Uamh Fhraing is for you. The name has been translated as St Francis Cave, but it's usually called Massacre Cave. Sometime in the 16th century (some sources say 1577), about 400 residents of Eigg were smoke-smothered in the cave by the Macleods.

The cave can be reached by a one mile walk from the pier. The first time I crawled into the cave was in 1997, when I took MV Shearwater to Eigg from Arisaig. Most of the passengers were hillwalkers intent on bagging the Sguir. I was the only one who'd come to see the cave (which was fine by me). After walking a quarter-mile up the road from the jetty I crossed a stile and headed south across a stretch of boggy ground. After passing a derelict croft house, a turn to the southwest led to the bluffs above the shore. A trail down a ravine led to the shore, and after walking a little way to the east I found the small mouth of the cave.

The entrance was three feet high and two wide. Flashlight in hand I crawled inside. After a dozen feet the cave expanded enough for me to stand. I wished I'd brought a powerful lantern, for my small flashlight barely lit the way as I walked two hundred feet to the end of the cave.

The cave was full of bones for a long time after the massacre. The geologist Hugh Miller entered the cave in 1844 and wrote this about it in The Cruise of the Betsey (1869):

The floor, for about a hundred feet inwards from the narrow vestibule, resembles that of a charnel house…the skulls, with the exception of a few broken fragments, have disappeared…but enough remains to show that the hapless islanders died under the walls in families, each little group separated by a few feet from the others.

At some point the bones were gathered up and buried. But even so, in 1979 a skull was found here. Once you've found the tiny entrance to the cave, and crawled inside to see how large it is, you'll realize what a good refuge it had been. But not good enough on a winter's day four centuries ago, when footprints in the snow are said to have allowed the Macleods to find it. See this CANMORE page for more on Massacre Cave.

Wanderings on Sanday - St Edward's

Over the years I've visited Canna about eight times. On three of those occasions I made the long walk to Sanday to see if I could get inside St Edward's. Each time the church turned out to be locked. While on Canna again this August, I thought I'd make another try at getting inside. To my surprise, the church wasn't locked.

The church was in use from 1890 to 1963, and then for the next 35 years was neglected and vandalized. If you ever have the chance to go inside St Edward's, there is a book you should read first: Restoring Canna's Chapel, by Alasdair Ross McKerlich (2007). It is a fascinating book that details the restoration work done from 1998 to 2001. The author's company did the work, and his book is highly critical of the architects running the project; especially of the plaster mix they specified, one not appropriate to the climate and the porous stonework. Water ingress had been a problem since the church was built in 1890, and continues to this day.

I believe I met Mr. McKerlich in 1998. It was a Saturday, August 1, and I was on my way to Rum on MV Loch Mor (see book 1, chapter 25). We departed from Mallaig at 5 am, and the first stop was Canna. Aboard was a builder on his way to Canna - unfortunately I did not write down his name. Here's an excerpt from my journal for that day:

I met a builder this morning on his way to examine the old church (St Edward's). He said there was a project going on to refurbish it as a visitor centre, and was investigating how the locals got materials to the island. Will have to come back in a few years and see what they've done.

As it turned out, it took me more than a few years to see what they did, it took seventeen years. The work started in 1999, and when finished there was a grand opening ceremony with Princess Anne on June 5, 2001.

The church with construction debris

Since 2001 there have been several other efforts to stem the water ingress, none very successful. And at the end of Restoring Canna's Chapel there is a sad scene, when the author, who'd put so much time and effort into the restoration, returned in 2005 to find the church vandalized and stripped bare of furnishings.

Below are some photos of the interior of St Edward's I took on August 9, 2015. It was a sad sight. As you can see, even after some two million dollars of work, the walls are severely damaged by water ingress. The church was restored with the intent of being a study centre for all the Gaelic poems, songs, and books collected by John Lorne Campbell and his wife, Margaret Fay Shaw. But I doubt if that will ever happen.

Handicapped accessible bathroom - note the water damage

Steps to the upper floors

Rose Window and more water damage

Bunks on the first floor

More bunks

The original cross that stood atop the bell tower - what's on the tower now is a replica of this one

St Edward's today