The Misty Isle of Skye

Scotland doffs its dingy russets and rusts for the brightening emeralds of spring; the largest isle of the western coast basks is more than usual sunshine, gracious host to her most recent visitor. I arrive tired and jaded barely healed by time in England, eaten up with work, impatience and the realities of life. Before the fickle sun can dodge behind persistent cloud, I am in the silence of the hills, the medicinal repose of hiking the awakening moor, admiring the path of diamonds sprinkled generously over the sea loch.

In Skye I shed my century; the present retreats into a Norse murmur of briny wind, soaring gull and restless sea. I sit on the ruins of antiquity, lying in sunny hollow of the ruined Duntulm Castle keep.
Duntulm Castle -MacDonald stronghold of the north Trotternish Peninsula
Motionless, I spy a soft brown bunny wiggling his nose whilst munching tender clover. My city weary eyes wash with grateful tears of release.

Surrounded by Macleods and Macdonalds, I wonder how this thinly peopled country of solitude fostered such bloody struggles--narrow clan fights and revenges. The Highlander has been shut against civilisation by mountain and sea; modern life taken longer in reaching him in his mist shrouded environ.

Some might term the moor monotonous, the clash of waves on rock, the sigh of wind through heather and gorse melodic melancholy in deserted churchyards and hill. The Cullins verily spring from the sea, fantastic backdrop to isolate white cottage.

When the Lords of the Islands departed, the clans regarded the king that sat in Holyrood nominally, still valuing the broadsword and dirk over plough shaft. Indeed the poor rocky soil and windswept moor is unsuitable for the farming of the lowlands. Grim, fierce and dreary are these isles on many a day as seen by the outlander. Supernaturalism belongs to the folklore as the aurora borealis does to the skies. Ballads exist in popular memory taking the colour of the period through which they’ve lived repeated generation to generation around island peat fires. Curiously culled in Celtic scenery and imagination, one is lured by this mystical magic, impressed and bewitched by desolate woodlessness, soaring peaks and distant crash of waves muffled in the wind. The peace of the hills, the strength of the Northern sea move me.

This island is pervaded by a subtle spiritual atmosphere, long floating spring days, light streaked midnight skies

and torrents of cascading waterfalls flow over stalwart granite. No one truly knows a country until he walks through it; he then tastes the sweets and bitters, smells the earth and air, sees the vastness of its panoramas, hears its earthen sounds, feels the spirit of its people.

I have covered the walls of my mind with a variety of new pictures. The challenge now is to weave the setting as warp, its sounds, smells and tastes as weft into a Scottish Isle tapestry of tale. I am filled…and humbled.

Central and most populace town - Portree


Across the sound of Sleat to the most remote area of Knoydart
(fisherman in skiff close up)

same fisherman location central right - in the sound of Sleat
The Village of Staffin - Trotternish Peninsula



Thatch roof crofter’s cottage

Gate to burial place of Skye's most famous resident, Flora MacDonald (protector of Bonnie Prince Charlie after the Jacobite bloody defeat at Culloden)

Flora’s grave

Far flung village of Uig


area of Uig

Black Cullins right, Red Cullins left


Trees drawrfed by the wind

wildflowers by the sea

Dunvegan Castle - Clan MacLeod stronghold

View from room at Luib House B&B

Christine in the highlands