Category: local history

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Live music is back!

One of the things that used to be a huge part of our lives and which we’ve missed since lockdown began has been live music.

Being on the Isle of Skye doesn’t mean that gigs stop. Far from it. The nature of them is a little different (we’re unlikely to be seeing the Foo Fighters in the tent at Armadale any time soon), but we are rich in local musicians and there is a very active music scene here.

I’ve always preferred small venue music anyway – the intimacy and immediacy of a band or singer just a few metres away is, to my way of thinking, a much more real experience than being part of a crowd so big that the best view is via the video stream screens.

Innes Watson and Ross Ainslie

This summer SEALL was able to restart its festival programme, albeit with social distancing and other Covid protection measures in place. Established in 1991, the name means Look or See in Gaelic and is pronounced “Shall”. It celebrates the wealth of home grown musical talent in the area.

The first of the events we attended a few nights ago was an evening concert held outdoors in the grounds of Armadale Castle. Innes Watson and Ross Ainslie, two very talented young musicians. It was so good. I love that we celebrate Gaelic culture in its music and that the next generation fuse it so seamlessly with their own creations. We have a few more concerts booked in for July.

Open Air at Armadale Castle

We also watched Skye Live via livestream feed a few nights back. An amazing fusion of traditional and electronica performed and filmed in the Mountains in Skye. I’ve copied a YouTube link to it for those of you that would like to have a taster. https://youtu.be/596iVkMGj-g

Niteworks on the Quiraing

I’m so happy that live music is back.

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Ancient Drovers Track

This is the ancient Drovers track that runs up the side of our croft, providing access to the common grazings on the hill behind us for the people of the village and their sheep.

It’s a path not much used these days except for occasional walkers, but once upon a time it was clearly well used judging by the width of it.

I love how the heather embankments enclose and protect it, creating a sunken lane in the landscape. The colours of purple, gold, russet and green in the low autumn sunlight are beautiful.

There is one lone tree (I will need to check what this is) bravely growing through the hedging, and standing proud despite the predominant winds with no company for shelter.

My eyes are usually drawn the other way, to the South, to our view of the Sound and the mountains beyond, but there is an equal if more understated beauty in the hills to the north of us.

Autumn in Skye is a truly stunning season.

Two weeks to go and the anticipation is almost painful.

All photos by kind permission of the wonderful Sara Louise Taylor @sara_louise_taylor on Instagram.

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Skye Legends

I’ve been reading this wonderful little book over the last weekend, in between sorting out cupboards and packing for the island. I have to confess to more tea and reading than actual packing…

It was written in 1952 by a lady called Otta Swire who loved the island and who collected its folktales as she travelled.

It does a complete circuit of the island, stretching out into each winged peninsula and recording the tales and legends heard in each village. Some of them are Celtic, stretching back into prehistory, some Nordic, some medieval ;- all fascinating.

It’s a fabulously rich source of the most amazing stories, and for those that don’t know the island well, a superb introduction to the differences between the areas. It’s true that the nature, feel and landscape of each of the peninsulas of Skye are all very different, and Otta Swire captures this uniqueness beautifully.

I laughed out loud and ended up recounting several of them to husband at various points over the weekend, always a good sign that I’m enjoying a book.

For me personally it’s important to know something of both the history and the folklore of the area that you live in, and Skye is deeply steeped in both. I think that learning the local lore binds you more closely to the land, gifting you the insight and the experiences that shaped those that lived before you.

Who knew for example that a local lochan was once said to host a magical water horse, that a bay less than a mile away from the croft sports the name “The Bay of the Forsaken Ones” or that the legend surrounding Castle Dunscaith includes the tragic tale of a wife who killed and fed her children to her cruel husband then threw herself to her death onto the rocks from a castle window?

Black cats feature heavily in the local folklore, as do blue men, kilted warriors, strange beasts such as water horses and the walrus….

It’s all part of the magic of this incredible place – dark, brooding, mysterious, sometimes grim, and very close to faery and the otherworld.

Perfect for dark evenings sitting around the fire and tale-telling over a glass or two of the local Talisker.

The best seat by the fire is always reserved for the Story Teller.