Neolithic, Iron Age and Clearance-period poems

I read these poems at the ceilidh in Drumbeg last night, and was asked to post them here.

Over recent years I have written stacks of poems and stories inspired by the stone remains of past inhabitants of Assynt. Last night was the grand finale of the Life and Death in Assynt's Past project (see the project diary here), and it seemed appropriate to read last night one from each of the three periods we have been looking at in this project.

Here they are. The first is about a neolithic chambered cairn I am credited with finding, and it's now known as Mandy's Cairn (or Carn a' Mhandy!) - very exciting indeed to have made an archaeological discovery! The second came from a walk to a possible Iron Age round house in Glenleraig with a very old wall, likely to be a cattle enclosure. The third was inspired by a huge fin whale washed up on Raffin beach, and the pre-clearance township ruins on the south side of Loch Druim Suardhalain.

Chambered Cairn (NC 24051450)

A shrine tumbles up from 5000 years or so ago
into this breezy secular present.

Stones offer a threshold
where dead and living crossover

a territory edge to wonder
where understanding might begin.

Trying to trick nature
to slough below the surface
asking if body-mind is divisible from spirit

I climb inside the neolithic cairn
enter a portal
allow cogs to turn.

I will re-emerge from this tomb
a ghost from the future
in an ancient time.

Were the dead known then?
Was then closer to now then?
Do these doors open?


Proof of iron age cheese

A tumbled line of dyke may tell which side is inside:-
    a wall’s steep face shows where livestock stayed;
    even faces mean winter in but summer out.

Mossy stones:-
    cattle mooing,
    grassy breath and hairy hides…

                crowdie.

Around the lost

circumambulate the washed-up whale
make a circuit of a Clearance ruin

encircle a mystery
pay out a little awe

recognise a sofa-sized tongue
wonder at its song

reach arms out to an angel tail
to people long ago

before these houses tumbled
when trees grew not inside the walls

these heaved-together stones
like that giant baleen

still speak of home
of lives lived where we cannot go

Who goes there? Mink or otter?

Great excitement this morning when we checked the footprint trap - a paw mark! Mink or otter?

This afternoon we went back with ruler, camera and mammal book. We're pretty confident it's an otter print - 7cm would be the Big Foot of the mink race. Phew!

Otters are of course very welcome and we're very grateful that one has taken an interest in what we're up to!

How poor were the people here before the clearances?

I was on the telly yesterday (on BBC Alba, speaking English on the Gaelic news, at 13.30 minutes through the programme here). I am talking about the surprise of discovering fine pottery and wine bottles and other 'high status' objects in the dig of a 200 year old house here in Assynt.

There's a stereotype that the people who were cleared from the glens in the Highland Clearances were destitute, poverty-stricken folk who went off to find a better life in distant lands. But perhaps there's more truth in other stories, about good lives brought to an abrupt end by landlords who simply wanted to use the lands exclusively for their own ends.

The people who lived in the Glenleraig house we recently excavated seem to have had disposable income - cash to spend on luxuries like fine china, good boots and wine. The archaeologists are surprised by the wealth of the finds. Perhaps these people weren't being 'helped out of their poverty' by being made to leave their homes.

Today I spent the afternoon at Ledbeg exploring a stone that someone tripped over a few weeks ago, which was thought perhaps to be a fallen neolithic standing stone. Today a bunch of us dug back the turf to see what it looks like. It's much bigger than we expected: 3 metres long, deeper than it is wide and, to my mind, looking like a huge goddess statue. I wonder what the archaeologists will make of this?

A slow film from Bill

a splash of colour from Bill Ritchie on Vimeo.

Mink patrol

It was supposed to be wall-to-wall sunshine this morning, were the Met Office to be believed, which of course they're not. But it was dry, so we set off anyway to circumnavigate the loch system and move one of the mink traps, which had washed out completely during the big rains recently. These are just footprint traps - covered boxes of clay which are supposed to appeal to a curious mink who will enter and leave their tell-tale signature paw marks.

We have no mink here in Assynt. Or not yet. The odd sighting has been made too close for comfort, however, and animals have been caught in Loch Broom. We don't want mink. They might look cute but they don't belong here and cause havoc to fresh water ecosystems.  This corner of Scotland is the last bastion of the water vole, the national population of which has reduced by 90% since mink arrived. See the Scottish Mink Initiative for more information, and thanks to them for the picture below.

We've been monitoring two mink traps for a year now and this is the time of year when young animals will be migrating and seeking their own territories, so we need to be vigilant.

One of the traps is a floating raft, and we check it most weeks. We have never seen a footprint in it, which at one level is really good news, though a water vole footprint or two or even a frog visiting would have been nice!

The trap that was swamped is a tunnel, dug into the bank. We rescued it and carried it through the lochside woods to a safer place close to a weir where the water flows down into a brackish loch. We dug a new pit for it right next to an otter run and filled it with fresh clay, then covered it up with bracken. An otter is theoretically too big to get in, but we frequently see young otters and they could presumably check it out.

Unfortunately the spot we chose is over on the other side of the weir from here, so that's going to mean a regular trip across it to check the trap. There's a big gap in the middle of the weir where you have to jump across, from one rickety gabian to another, over the water in full flow, so winter's walks will now include a weekly scary teeter and leap - good for the soul perhaps? I hope the water voles appreciate what we're doing for them!

A plug for a bit of paganism

This is the bonfire created by Stewart Yates at Torbreck last night. He also produced a spectacular fireworks show, but it was the bonfire that made the evening for me. There's nothing quite like a burning effigy and this was something else - the actual bonfire was built as a monster, was lit by a rocket and then squatted, with blazing eyes and mouth belching flames, looking for all the world as if it would soon take to its feet and start running rampage. Fantastic. (Thanks to Helen Lockhart, who took the photo).

For thousands of years people have celebrated this time of year with fire ceremonies. Traditionally this is when the sun god Lugh dies and the earth goddess takes on the form of the crone, or Cailleach, who will protect us all through the winter. Lighting a bonfire to mark this passage was a signal to warn off evil spirits, and to burn up the final fragments of the old year. 

Now all the plants have finished their season and have made their seeds and nuts. Now is the dormant time, the long slow germination of new life. Traditionally, in the old Celtic and Wiccan view of the world, this was the start of the year. I like the idea that winter comes first, that we can begin with sleep, with rest and quietness, now that the harvest is in. 

 

The wonders of wool

Just spent a very happy day learning to make felt. Thanks to Pat Robertson for good teaching and lots of lovely coloured fleece...