Ladies Choice

All the way from Africa, an invasion of Painted Ladies; all the way to our garden. Dozens, nay scores, of orange beauties dancing and fluttering on the buddleia flowers. 

This year has seen millions of them arriving from Europe though they start their journey in Africa to where they will migrate back in the Autumn after reaching as or north as Iceland and even out to St Kilda. Each butterfly's entire life-cycle is about a month so it takes several generations to make each journey, mating and breeding on the move.

How does this tiny creature manage such a feat? With no opportunity to follow its now deceased parents, how does each succeeding generation know where to go and when to turn back? Hard-wired into a brain the size of a pin-head, what are the stimuli that control the mass movement?

We take their beauty so lightly, these marvels of migration arriving in our gardens looking for nettles and thistles for their caterpillars.

Perfect food for Painted Lady caterpillars

A solitary Red Admiral among the Ladies

The future through a stone

On our way south after the trip to the Outer Hebrides, we stopped at Brahan - Brathainn in Gaelic, the ancient seat of the Seaforths, the chiefs of the great Mackenzie clan and erstwhile home at the beginning of the seventeenth century, of Coinneach Odhar," Brown Kenneth" otherwise known as the Brahan Seer.

Brahan today

The stable block and clock tower at Brahan

There is little left of Brahan, the house long demolished but the legend of the Seer lives on.

Coinneach was credited with forseeing the Highland Clearances - the crow of a cock will not be heard north of Drumochter, people would flee from their country before an army of sheep to islands as yet unknown; the Caledonian Canal - Ships in full sail shall pass by Tomnahurich; the coming of the railway or motor car- long strings of carriages without horse or bridle; the Battle of Culloden-Drumossie, thy bleak moor will be stained with the best blood of the Highlands and even the discovery of oil - black rains; as well as many many more.

It is his prediction of the fall of the clan Mackenzie with all the detail of the characteristics of the neighbouring lairds alive at the time which allowed for the incumbent to know when his fate would come, that has captured people's imagination since then.

The Countess of Seaforth had summoned Coinneach and asked him of news of her husband, the third Earl, who was in Paris as an ambassador for King Charles II. Coinneach applied his divination stone, a pebble with a hole through it, to his eye and replied that the Earl was well and happy. The countess plagued him with further questions until the Seer, perhaps feeling aggrieved that his strange abilities were being trivialised, admitted that he saw the the Earl in the company of a young woman enjoying all the delights of Paris. The countess' fury at her husband's behaviour was inflamed further in that it had been made known in front of retainers and servants. In a rage, she condemned Coinneach to a cruel death at Chanonry Point, to be burnt to death in a tar barrel.

 Before of his execution he predicted the death of the last Earl of Seaforth, predeceased by all his four sons and the downfall of the House of Mackenzie with such accuracy that the last Earl would be in no doubt that his line was coming to an end.

In 1815, the last lord Seaforth died in the circumstances predicted by Coinneach Odhar.

Did these giant oaks at Brahan witness the end of the Seaforths?

The Seer made his predictions after peering through a natural hole in a stone. Such "holey " stones are sometimes called hag stones, Odin's stones, or in Scotland, adder-stanes and there is a long-held belief that they enable the viewer to catch a glimpse of other worlds or, like the Seer, the future. They were also worn or hung from doors and boat prows as charms. Some are made by boring molluscs called piddocks, others by the action of sea currents on the stones, swirling one upon another.

Holey Stones

On the point of his execution, after making his famous prediction foretelling the end of the Seaforths, all the more powerful for its being made before an assembled company and in such dramatic and violent circumstances, Coinneach Odhar threw his stone into a loch. It was lost forever.

Dungeness

Flowers in the shingle

A year or two ago, I found such a stone on Dungeness beach or, as is the belief, it found me.

It lies on my desk today.

I have often held it to my eye but no glimpses of the future or of Faerie has it offered me. I live in hope.

A word of warning. Attempts to make such a stone by artificial means are said to bring bad luck on the perpetrator.

Summer solstice

Solstice sunrise

The summer solstice and, for once, a sunny day. Having seen solstice sunrises when the sky, sea and shore looked like paint shop shade card - light grey, dark grey and brown - it was great to have a mid-summer day that lived up to its name.

In recognition of the day, I headed off to the Lammermuirs to seek out the stone circles that still dot the grouse moors. These enigmatic stones must have witnessed thousands of solstices and possibly been part of their celebration.

The Whitadder Water

A tramp up from the Whitadder took me towards Nine Stanes rig passing a circle of stones between two tumuli. The moors are defaced by the march of pylons across the landscape and the new invaders, the wind farms.

Stone circle and tumuli

Despite their presence, the bird life thrives, at least until someone with a gun comes and blows them out the sky or some gamekeeper decides that some others might pose a threat to those that are going to be blown out of the sky so they have to be eliminated first... and we think we live in a civilised society.

Today was different. The grouse were telling me to "go-back, go-back" and luring me away from their chicks with the broken wing trick. The oystercatchers were piping their shrill deterrence and the curlew were adding their eerie whoops. There were golden plover, lapwing, snipe, sky larks, pipits.... and me.

The Nine Stanes

I found the nine stones, now recumbent having been disturbed in the past by digging for non-existent treasure and wondered about the folk who erected them and the other circles on the rig, Why nine stones? There are a number of nine stone circles...and twelve stone ones. Were the numbers significant?

We will never know the reason for the stones. They probably had a calendrical and astronomical purpose so the solstice may well have featured n their use. Today, it did.

The stone circle  and tumuli from Nine Stanes rig

Where the bee sucks

Bloomsday, the sixteenth of June passed with little celebration this year in our house. In the past we have gone to Dublin follow Leopold Bloom and Simon Daedalus as they make their way through the streets and places in the novel, to mimic Bloom and feed the seagulls and enjoy the celebration of James Joyce's works, in particular, his masterpiece, Ulysses. The action of this, one of the greatest novels of the twentieth or any other century, takes place over the course of one day - 16th June 1904.  This was Joyce's recognition of his partner and muse, Nora Barnacle, for it was the day they first went out together.

Finns Hotel where Nora worked as a chambermaid

So, no trip to Dublin, no visit to Davy Byrne's pub, no Martello tower, just a viewing of John Huston's film of Joyce’s short story from Dubliners, "The Dead" and a dip into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The weather has improved and sitting, reading, in the garden, I became increasingly aware of the hum of bees. The warm weather has brought them all out to feast on the cotoneaster flowers, the foxgloves and the Iceland poppies. Watching them and trying to identify the different bees, I was delighted to see the bumble bees disappearing up the trumpets of the foxgloves like cars entering a garage.  The honey bees seemed to spend most of their time on the tiny flowers of the cotoneaster.

A bee-keeping friend explained that they have shorter tongues so prefer open or small flowers while the white- or red-tailed bumble bees are better adapted for the bell shaped blooms.

Bees on Thyme

I found a black bee among the flowers. Apparently, the native black honey bee was thought to be heading for extinction but is now making a comeback.  Hurray

In Joyce's unfinished, autobiographical first novel, Stephen Hero that provided the basis for Portrait, Stephen (Joyce) discusses with his friend, Cranley, how, in order to devote himself to writing, the best way to live with the minimum of labour.

 Cranley suggests keeping bees.

Stephen quotes Shelley.* Cranley scoffs at him.

In December 1903, Joyce offered to translate Maeterlinck’s study La Vie Des Abeille (The Life of the Bee) for the Irish Bee-Keeper, and the journal is mentioned again on a book-cart in Ulysses.  Joyce obviously had an interest in bees which is hardly surprising as he was the great explorer of communication, verbal and otherwise and bees are the great communicators.

The hum of the bees on a warm summer day, bees on the blooms on Bloomsday. Perfect.

*
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy bloom

The Enchanted Isles

The road to Tarbert

For some time a trip to the Shiants  has seemed like good way to enhance our annual pilgrimage to the Outer Hebrides. but we never quite got round to it. This time we did.
A car drive down to Tarbert in Harris and then aboard the twin-hulled motor cruiser and off we went, bound for these elusive islands that seem to change shape according to the weather conditions.

www.isleofharrisseatours.co.uk

The Shiants, Na h-Eileanan Seunta, lie off the east coast of Harris.The name translates as "holy", "enchanted" or "charmed".

 They comprise of three islands, Eilean an Taighe ( The Island of the House), Garbh Eilean ( Rough Island), Eilean Mhuire ( the Island of the Virgin Mary) and a line of rocky islets, the Galtachans, with equally evocative names Galta Beag, Bodach (old man), Stacan Laidir, Galta Mòr, Sgeir Mhic a' Ghobha and Damhag (bullock)

Approaching the Shiants

                                     

The Galtachans 

Eilean Muirhe

Once owned by Compton Mackenzie, though he never stayed there, they have been occupied since at least the Iron Age and supported five families in the eighteenth century.

Old "tigh dubh" or black house in ruins on Garbh Eilean

Uninhabited for many years, they had become over-run with black rats, probably from a shipwreck.

A successful programme of eradication removed the invaders and allowed the seabird colonies, particularly the puffins with their nesting burrows, to flourish. It is hoped the shearwaters and petrels will also return. The re-introduced white-tailed sea eagles are ruling the skies. We saw five in the course of the trip. Watching a raven harassing a circling eagle, we later discovered the reason when we noted a pair of them guarding their nest in the rocky outcrops on Garbh Eilean.

Sailing round to the eastern side, we passed rafts of guillemots. razorbills and puffins as well as shags, cormorants and eider duck.

 Porpoises and seals investigated our boat and bonxies, great skuas, wheeled overhead chasing the kittiwakes for their catch.

The landing was a bit tricky as we scrambled ashore from an inflatable on to the shingly isthmus between Eilean an Taighe and Garbh Eilean then clambered up the rocky "path" from the shore.

There are no longer any sheep on the islands so the wild flowers flourish with lousewort, milkweed, tormentil and hebridean orchids between the rocky outcrops and yellow irises in the marshy spots along with the insectiverous butterwort.

Tormentil, Hebridean Orchid, Yellow Iris, Butterwort, Lousewort

The islands are geologically much younger than the rest of the Outer Hebrides and the dolerite columns of their cliffs, similar to those on Staffa and the Giants Causeway, provide nesting for tens of thousands of sea-birds.

The cliffs on Garbh Eilean are pierced by a spectacular arch. Toll a Rhoime though passing through it would be a hazardous business.

Approach to Toll a Roimh - No passage through !

On the way back to Tarbet , we passed the deserted coastal village Bhalamus.

 A settlement with no road to it. A reminder of a time when the sea was the easiest way to transport people and goods.  

Finally, under the arch of the bridge to Scalpay to tie up in Tarbert and have a wee dram of Tamnavulin to finish off the day.

Ne'er cast a cloot

The May Tree

Beltane, half way between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, has come and gone.

Now sanitised into the May Bank Holiday, it was once the time when the cattle were led out to the summer pastures, passing between two fires in symbolic purification. Youngsters would leap over the fires in celebration of the start of the growing season, a time of fun and courting when maidens would wash their faces in the first dew and dream, that night, of their husband-to-be.

The may bush, the hawthorn, was central to the rituals, the flowers being used to decorate the doorways of houses.

This year, the may bushes have hardly started to blossom.

 Geans and Scrogs

The geans and the scrogs (bird cherry and crab apple for the Anglophones) are in bloom in the garden of the Priory ruins where the old symbols still manage to find a place in the imagery.

The Green Man

The Green Man peeps from the carvings and the hawthorn still holds pride of place.

The wind from the north has a touch of Arctic ice in its veils and the may flowers stay tightly closed except for a few on the sheltered south facing hedge.

The fleece jackets are still zipped up and the old adage holds true.

"Ne'er cast a cloot 'til the may is oot"

We will have to wait.