Our explorations had brought us full circle. We had collected Deneb, Vega, Kochab, Polaris, Aldhibain, Alderamin and Gamma Cassiopeia - our seven sparkling stars, a murmuration of stars.
But they were not quite a constellation yet, not until they were given a form to represent, a name and a meaning. After the stars had been chosen, Gill did an extra week of workshops to elicit these ideas. The children painted landscapes with oil pastels on black paper. Pleasingly, they depicted hill and loch and sea with a startling resemblance to their own area. Above these landscapes they pricked the position of the seven stars in the sky to let light shine through, and then drew around them their imagined shape. Many beautiful images included Highland cows, whales, dragons, butterflies, a church, the Skye Bridge, horses, moles, a harp. They paid attention to the pattern suggested by the stars but also thought about what would be meaningful and appropriate for a Highland constellation.
It was the 'Jumping Fish' conceived by Alexander Stewart from Ullapool High School that won the hearts of the selectors.
In Finland, the North Star is referred to as the ‘north nail’, connecting the world tree with heaven; terrestrial with celestial. As I see our fish, pinned by its tail to Polaris, it will dive as well as leap in the course of each night, and around the months. I like to see it as a fat salmon, suggesting the clarity and health of river, loch and sea that characterise the high land of Scotland.
The salmon sleeked amongst a small group of us who gathered in Glenuig and associations flashed into our minds: cunning, quicksilver, glinting, scales, wedding-food, dam-busting, pink-fleshed, fish-farms, SEPA, much-cheaper-these-days. The list writhed on.
The salmon sleeked amongst a small group of us who gathered in Glenuig and associations flashed into our minds: cunning, quicksilver, glinting, scales, wedding-food, dam-busting, pink-fleshed, fish-farms, SEPA, much-cheaper-these-days. The list writhed on.
The salmon’s life is a remarkable adventure. It leaves freshwater for the perils of the sea as a youngster, and goes full circle back to where it hatched, between a year and four years later. It faces challenges on its journey - commercial fishing, chemical pollutants in lochs and rivers, and sea lice from fish farms along the west coast. Over recent years, for a variety of reasons, the salmon has been in decline all over the North Atlantic. But it has spirit and tenacity, no more obvious than when it makes the journey upstream against current and mountainous falls. The highest recorded vertical jump is 12ft (3.7m) at the Orrin Falls in Ross-shire. And it has an eye to the stars itself. Its own attention to their position helps guide it back to the exact spot where it started.
The salmon was revered by the Celts as a symbol of wisdom and poetic inspiration. It had a vital role in the early adulthood of Finn McCool (anglicised from Fionn mac Cumhaill), the mythical hunter-warrior who features in the mythologies of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man and is commemorated in place names such as Fingal’s cave on Staffa island. Although Finn was not the strongest warrior, he was the wisest, kindest and most trusted of them all, a poet and magician, and a leader of his people.
The story goes that the young Finn studied under the druid and poet Finneces who had spent seven years trying to catch the salmon of knowledge, which lived in a pool. Nine old and purpled hazel trees encircled the pool. It was said that if one of the trees dropped a hazelnut and it was caught by a salmon before it reached the water, and the salmon was caught by a Druid before the fish got back into the water, eating that salmon would confer great wisdom and inspiration. The number of bright spots on the salmon were said to indicate how many nuts they had eaten.
Eventually Finneces caught it, and told the boy to cook it for him but not to eat it. While cooking the salmon Finn burned his thumb, and instinctively put it in his mouth, so tasting the skin. From then on he was able to call on the knowledge of the salmon by sucking his thumb. Later he went on to be a King and the leader of a band of exceptionally skilled men. The Fianna or Fingalian warriors are said to be under the Perthshire hill Schiehallion to this day, awaiting the third blast of the horn that will raise them to life again.
Eventually Finneces caught it, and told the boy to cook it for him but not to eat it. While cooking the salmon Finn burned his thumb, and instinctively put it in his mouth, so tasting the skin. From then on he was able to call on the knowledge of the salmon by sucking his thumb. Later he went on to be a King and the leader of a band of exceptionally skilled men. The Fianna or Fingalian warriors are said to be under the Perthshire hill Schiehallion to this day, awaiting the third blast of the horn that will raise them to life again.
Like seven, the number nine has a magical resonance. The Norse God Odin, ruler of the nine Norse worlds, hung nine days on the Yggdrasil tree to win the secrets of wisdom for mankind. There were nine Norse giantesses, who strode nine paces at a time and lived at the edge of the sea and land. The city of Troy in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey was besieged for nine years, while Odysseus wandered for nine more years trying to return home. Nine crops up in old stories - in the number of heads on a Hebridean giant, and in place names like Ninewells.
Our terrestrial pathway for the Highland Constellation had taken in nine places – Cawdor, Brora, Ullapool, Portree, Broadford, Kyleakin, Kyle of Lochalsh, Plockton and Inverness.
With the salmon leaping and diving amongst the stars, what else could this constellation of places represent, but nine hazel trees surrounding a sacred pool? The Gaelic word for hazel is Coll and appears frequently in place names in the west of Scotland, such as the Isle of Coll and Bar Calltuin in Appin. It also appears in the name of Clan Colquhoun whose badge is the hazel. Hazel provides water diviners with forked twigs and, as one of the first trees to recolonise Britain after the last ice age, its shoots have been used over millennia in frameworks for houses and fences. For our forebears, the nuts were both a staple food and emblematic of concentrated wisdom – sweet, compact and sustaining.
Our terrestrial pathway for the Highland Constellation had taken in nine places – Cawdor, Brora, Ullapool, Portree, Broadford, Kyleakin, Kyle of Lochalsh, Plockton and Inverness.
With the salmon leaping and diving amongst the stars, what else could this constellation of places represent, but nine hazel trees surrounding a sacred pool? The Gaelic word for hazel is Coll and appears frequently in place names in the west of Scotland, such as the Isle of Coll and Bar Calltuin in Appin. It also appears in the name of Clan Colquhoun whose badge is the hazel. Hazel provides water diviners with forked twigs and, as one of the first trees to recolonise Britain after the last ice age, its shoots have been used over millennia in frameworks for houses and fences. For our forebears, the nuts were both a staple food and emblematic of concentrated wisdom – sweet, compact and sustaining.
The hills of Roshven and Moidart drain into two rivers – the Ailort and the Moidart. Each flows into a loch to make an arm of sea, meeting around the peninsula on which Glenuig sits opposite the Isle of Eigg. Beyond Glenuig, further west on the peninsula lies the magical township of Smirisary. As you walk (there is no road), you tread the story told by its paths. Threading between small dwellings and the once cultivated stripes of lazybeds, the paths have been worn by centuries of use. Margaret Leigh describes the way names have captured memory in her memoir of living there during the second war.
‘One could not be long in this land without falling into a mood of brooding reminiscence. The whole place was full of memories and our awareness of them, even when the details were unknown. Every rock and burn had its Gaelic name, often commemorating some person or event; Faing Mhic Phail (Mac Phail’s fold) where a man called MacPhail died suddenly while herding; Glac nan Lion (The Hollow of the Nets) where fishermen used to spread their nets for repair.’[i]
Salmon are reared in cages on Loch Ailort. It was the first farm of this type to be established in Scotland. The Moidart river is fast-flowing, with pools and fast runs, and has tributaries where salmon spawn. It flows past banks on which sprout thickets of hazel. As river opens into loch, and freshwater mingles with salt, it passes the ‘Seven Men of Moidart’ - seven beech trees which were planted to celebrate the seven men who accompanied Bonnie Prince Charlie on his journey during the second Jacobite rising.
At Glenuig we contemplated our seven stars and our nine hazel trees. It was an appropriate place to do so. We sat in the village hall overlooking Glenuig Bay, teased and guddled with fact and myth, and asked ourselves the burning question. How did our Highland Constellation, the leaping salmon, get into the night sky?
As the tide went out, our stories started to emerge. As the tide came in again, tongues of water filled and shaped them. And then we knew the answer.
A Beast Worthy Of The Stars
Quiet. But for the sound of the wind in the trees and the burbling of the river. The clouds passed above, oblivious to the man sitting by the bank, his longbow by his side. Behind him, the terrain sloped up towards a pine forest, the darkness of the trees in stark contrast to the sunlight that glinted on the pool before him. The far bank was a mirror of its neighbour, but for a lone rowan tree standing guard over the quiet pool in the river.
The man that sat there had long, straggly black hair and a beard tinged with grey. He had a haggard, worn appearance about him with dark wise eyes. He was in his mid fifties. On his feet he wore high, dark leather boots and his clothes were a baggy white shirt and kilt. He was well built and strong.
His name was Ian Seòras MacDhomhaill, and he had seen much of the world. He had travelled far and wide and had learned many wise things. He knew of magic, of nature and of the stars. He had read many books, seen many wonders and many horrors but now he sat meditating on a sunlit bank by a stream.
As he watched the glistening water slide by, he saw a salmon jump. It was large, strong and he thought what a majestic sight it was. It was then that he saw the bear, large and brown, lumber down from the trees on the opposite bank. It entered the shallow part of the pool and advanced towards the place where it had seen the fish jump. It took a sudden swipe but missed the salmon by a finger’s breadth. Thinking it a shame that such a beautiful thing may be killed, the man took his bow and a single arrow from the grass beside him. He was an expert hunter and shot, not to kill or to wound severely but simply to scare the beast off. Sure enough it turned and galloped back into the trees.
The salmon swam to Ian and thanked him.
“One day,” proclaimed the salmon. “I shall repay you.”
With that it darted off to find a shady reed bed to calm down in.
Ian MacDhomhaill had a young son by the name of Allan. One grey day in late Autumn, a long time after the incident with the fish, Allan was playing by the bank of that same pool. His father was not far off, setting up camp in the woods.
As it began to get dark, Allan spotted movement on the other shore.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
The next thing he saw was a massive brown, shaggy bear emerge from the darkness on the other shore. Part of the bear’s ear was missing and it had a long ragged scar down the side of its face. It entered the water and began to swim towards him.
Taking fright, Allan jumped up to run but slipped and fell into the water towards the bear! He screamed and thrashed about in the water, panic stricken and unable to think clearly.
Not far off, his father heard the scream. He grabbed his bow, knife and a handful of arrows and dashed towards the pool. He arrived in time to see the bear baring down on his son.
Quick as a flash he drew an arrow, but he knew he dare not shoot for fear of hitting his son. Before he could think of anything else, there was a flash of silver and the bear turned. The salmon leapt again and Ian knew that it was that same salmon. It was trying to buy him time. Quickly he knelt and pulled his son out of the water, then looked back towards the bear. The salmon gave one last twisting leap, higher, higher, then fell and was caught in the bear’s jaws.
The old man looked on in sadness but he knew he had no right to shoot the bear for obeying its natural instincts. He took his son back to the tent to give him dry clothes and warm him by the fire.
That same night, with the moonlight illuminating his long dark hair as it whipped in a cold wind, Ian used his wisdom of magic and the world to mark the fish in the stars. There it found its place of honour, commemorated for the sacrifice it made for Ian and his son. Forever it burns brightly in the night sky.
Alasdair Begg
[i] Spade among the Rushes, Margaret Leigh, Birlinn 2001
A Beast Worthy Of The Stars
Quiet. But for the sound of the wind in the trees and the burbling of the river. The clouds passed above, oblivious to the man sitting by the bank, his longbow by his side. Behind him, the terrain sloped up towards a pine forest, the darkness of the trees in stark contrast to the sunlight that glinted on the pool before him. The far bank was a mirror of its neighbour, but for a lone rowan tree standing guard over the quiet pool in the river.
The man that sat there had long, straggly black hair and a beard tinged with grey. He had a haggard, worn appearance about him with dark wise eyes. He was in his mid fifties. On his feet he wore high, dark leather boots and his clothes were a baggy white shirt and kilt. He was well built and strong.
His name was Ian Seòras MacDhomhaill, and he had seen much of the world. He had travelled far and wide and had learned many wise things. He knew of magic, of nature and of the stars. He had read many books, seen many wonders and many horrors but now he sat meditating on a sunlit bank by a stream.
As he watched the glistening water slide by, he saw a salmon jump. It was large, strong and he thought what a majestic sight it was. It was then that he saw the bear, large and brown, lumber down from the trees on the opposite bank. It entered the shallow part of the pool and advanced towards the place where it had seen the fish jump. It took a sudden swipe but missed the salmon by a finger’s breadth. Thinking it a shame that such a beautiful thing may be killed, the man took his bow and a single arrow from the grass beside him. He was an expert hunter and shot, not to kill or to wound severely but simply to scare the beast off. Sure enough it turned and galloped back into the trees.
The salmon swam to Ian and thanked him.
“One day,” proclaimed the salmon. “I shall repay you.”
With that it darted off to find a shady reed bed to calm down in.
Ian MacDhomhaill had a young son by the name of Allan. One grey day in late Autumn, a long time after the incident with the fish, Allan was playing by the bank of that same pool. His father was not far off, setting up camp in the woods.
As it began to get dark, Allan spotted movement on the other shore.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
The next thing he saw was a massive brown, shaggy bear emerge from the darkness on the other shore. Part of the bear’s ear was missing and it had a long ragged scar down the side of its face. It entered the water and began to swim towards him.
Taking fright, Allan jumped up to run but slipped and fell into the water towards the bear! He screamed and thrashed about in the water, panic stricken and unable to think clearly.
Not far off, his father heard the scream. He grabbed his bow, knife and a handful of arrows and dashed towards the pool. He arrived in time to see the bear baring down on his son.
Quick as a flash he drew an arrow, but he knew he dare not shoot for fear of hitting his son. Before he could think of anything else, there was a flash of silver and the bear turned. The salmon leapt again and Ian knew that it was that same salmon. It was trying to buy him time. Quickly he knelt and pulled his son out of the water, then looked back towards the bear. The salmon gave one last twisting leap, higher, higher, then fell and was caught in the bear’s jaws.
The old man looked on in sadness but he knew he had no right to shoot the bear for obeying its natural instincts. He took his son back to the tent to give him dry clothes and warm him by the fire.
That same night, with the moonlight illuminating his long dark hair as it whipped in a cold wind, Ian used his wisdom of magic and the world to mark the fish in the stars. There it found its place of honour, commemorated for the sacrifice it made for Ian and his son. Forever it burns brightly in the night sky.
Alasdair Begg
[i] Spade among the Rushes, Margaret Leigh, Birlinn 2001
No comments:
Post a Comment