That Old-Time Religion: The Opiate Of The People?

I spent my last day on Lewis in Stornoway (Steònabhagh in Gaelic), the burgh where one third of the island's 26,000 inhabitants live. I pitched my tent on Laxdale Lane's small, immaculate campsite, then washed some clothes and hung them out to dry on a line I'd strung between the branches of a nearby tree. Rain had threatened in the early morning but had managed to hold off. Clouds were still massing, but the sun popped out from time to time, and there was a warm, welcome breeze.

I took a stroll across town in the general direction of the harbour. It was Sunday and the place was dead. Not a shop, not a bar, not a café was open. Bizarrely, the only money changing hands in the whole of Stornoway was in the public toilets - where an attendant demanded 20p for the use of his pristine facilities. I roamed aimlessly through deserted streets. Apart from the occasional scream of gulls, the only sounds came from the churches: a congregation's swell of voices, a preacher's hectoring boom.

Religion is big here on Lewis. Strict observance of the Sabbath is still adhered to. Traditions are ingrained, preserved like the bog corpses which are sometimes dug out of the surrounding peatland - proudly-kept traditions such as crofting, turf cutting, speaking Gaelic. A deep strain of Calvinistic Presbyterianism holds sway, particularly amongst the older generation. Even the smallest settlements often have their own church - crude, not pretty buildings, but generously proportioned, dominating the rest of the village. Scottish Presbyterians believe in hard work, abstemiousness, simplicity - the extravagance of ornate, expansive church architecture would offend their moral rigour. In these austere churches the decor must not detract from the business of worship.

The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was founded by John Knox (a follower of Calvin) in 1560 as a consequence of the Scottish Reformation and the break from Rome. Unlike the Church of England, it's completely independent of the 'state'. In its fervent desire that everyone should read the Bible, the Church promoted the idea of universal, public education - and Scotland became the first country in the world to adopt such a system.

Over the following centuries, various splinter group churches formed and reformed, seceded and reunited. There is now a plethora of Presbyterian denominations - the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the United Free Church, the United Free Church of Scotland, the Associated Presbyterian Churches... Don't ask me to make sense of it all! Suffice to say that all these churches are united in their belief in education and life-long learning, and put a strong emphasis on Bible study and church doctrine. But they also keenly advocate turning passive knowledge into informed action: there are firm traditions of generosity and hospitality, the pursuit of social justice, and the witnessing of Christ's Gospel.

In the afternoon I took a delightful saunter through the grounds of Lews Castle - the only deciduous woodland on Lewis. This was the country house built for the businessman-philanthropist, Sir James Matheson, in the mid-nineteenth century - and paid for with his profits from the Chinese Opium Trade. (Matheson went into partnership with one William Jardine, and this was the origin of today's Jardine Matheson company - which still maintains such a strong presence in Hong Kong and the Far East. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the company's present promotional literature erases any reference to opium, upon which the fortunes of the firm were built.)

Whether the influence of Matheson - who actually owned the whole island before selling it to Lord Leverhulme in 1918 - was baleful or benign is a controversial issue in Lewis to this day. Though I think it's beyond dispute that Matheson did much to alleviate the islanders' one-time starvation and poverty - the result of a potato famine.

There are several water mills on Lewis, and I came across one on Matheson's old estate (now belonging to the democratic Stornoway Trust) at Lews Castle. Its overshot water wheel has been painstakingly restored - the wheel fed by a reconstructed leat which channels water from a nearby stream (see top pic). The mill stones - vertically positioned - were used to grind grain, and the grain was dried in kilns. Other mills (Norse mills, saw mills, carding mills) in the area had horizontally placed grinding stones. Anyone who read the recent post I wrote on my father will not be surprised at my more-than-casual interest in these pre-industrial mills...

Early next morning I took the ferry back to Ullapool. I could have caught one a day earlier - on the Sunday - as Calmac, the ferry company, had just won a decades-long battle with the religiously entrenched authorities on Lewis to allow a Sunday crossing. But I decided to leave on the Monday. Just for old times' sake...

The Standing Stones At Calanais

One of the most remarkable sights on Harris and Lewis is the standing stone complex at Calanais (Callanish). These ancient megaliths are black, white, grey, pink, green-lichened. They are all different shapes - like people. They stand defiantly upright, but their strata strain to the horizontal. Tourists gaze uncomprehendingly in the rain.

We know the world in shorthand, through a veil. Much travelled we may be - but how deeply travelled? We tick off the landmarks - but do we look beyond? Do we really know the first thing about the places we visit?

There are many theories and suppositions about Calanais, but actually we know nothing for sure about the true purpose and significance of these haunting monoliths.

Rodel: Honest Error And Icy Perfections

Leaving Uig, I drove south through South Lewis and onto the Isle of Harris. As I headed into the mountains the rain fell ever more heavily. Agnes Maclennan had been right. I stopped in the small fishing and ferry port of Tarbert and ate some venison sausages and mash in a pub. Then I took the coastal route round Harris. Harris is wild, mountainous, magnificent. On the west side there are splendid beaches. On the east side it's even more remote, the coastline more indented, the narrow, single-track road more challenging. I drove slowly, scattering small flocks of wheatears and grey wagtails as I passed. Sheep grazed at the edge of the road and sometimes wandered into the middle of it. The east side looks like this...

On the tip of Harris stands the church at Rodel. It was built around 1500, rebuilt in 1784, then restored in 1873...

The dark, atmospheric interior is quite empty except for the tombs of 3 armoured knights carved in black gneiss. You can see one of these tombs on the left in my pic...

I climbed the tower (square-shaped - very unusual for these parts) via a gloomy, stone staircase then 2 vertical wooden ladders. At the top were 3 lancet windows facing north, south and west, each with a deep recess. In each recess visitors had left little notes - containing prayers, personal messages, spiritual observations and homespun philosophies...

One of these hand-written reflections struck me with the force of a lightning bolt. I memorized it, then later wrote it down. Here it is verbatim: "There is hope in honest error, none in icy perfections or the mere stylist..." I don't know who wrote this, whether it's a quote from anyone, or whether the writer was inspired to scribble it on the spot. But it certainly inspired me that rainy day in Harris, on my own, at the top of a church tower, on a far-flung island, miles from anywhere. Perhaps 'error' is not such a bad thing, even a noble thing, if it is 'honest'? And perfection, or the striving towards perfection, can be such a cold, heartless and 'icy' thing, can it not?

I wonder if you who are reading this identify more with 'honest error' or more with 'icy perfections'? Be honest! I know I'm heart and soul in the former camp... But I also know I have a wilful perfectionist streak in me too...

'Style' alone is just cleverness, surface gloss. It's what's behind the style that counts - the substance behind the seductive, flickering shadow, the narrative behind the verbal and artistic trickery...

Castles in Camas Uig

Early next morning I went to Camas Uig (or Uig Bay - 'camas' means 'bay' in Gaelic) - just a few miles west of Cnip. I left my tent pitched at Cnip, wanting to stay there another night. Camas Uig is one of the wonderful places of Lewis (and, believe me, Lewis has many wonderful places)...

Before my arrival someone had left a temporary fortification on the broad sands of the bay...

But mine seemed to be the the only footmarks. That is, until these two people appeared... The bridged stream drains the freshwater loch of Loch Suaineabhal, which lies between the peaks of Suaineabhal and Cleite Leathann...

In a sand dune somewhere at the head of this bay was discovered the collection of 12th century chess pieces which later became known as the Lewis Chessman or the Uig Chessman. Exactly where and when they were found, who found them and whence they came remains something of a mystery. But what's beyond doubt is that they are the most exquisitely beautiful objects - 78 pieces in all, carved from walrus ivory and whales' teeth. They were probably made in Norway (the Outer Hebrides were ruled by the Vikings during that period). The British Museum in London holds some of the figures, and Edinburgh's Royal Museum the rest.

(As usual, please double-click on the pix to enlarge.)

Cnip

It was early evening when I reached the campsite at Cnip (pronounced 'neep'), a small crofting community on Lewis's western coast. You have to be fairly dedicated to get there. You turn off the A858 just beyond the standing stones at Calanais, and follow the recently improved B8011 across a wild landscape of lochs, lochans and grey-green hills. Rocks of Lewisian gneiss stick up through thin, acidic soil. It's true wilderness here, empty, elemental; shaped over eons of time by the raw, brute forces of nature.

The weather had become rainy and blustery, but it was still pleasantly warm (Lewis has a moist, mild climate, with no great extremes between its summer and winter temperatures). Eventually you branch off along a narrow, minor road which unrolls by one of Loch Rog's slender inlets. It then follows a short, stark, river valley, and winds through the tiny, windswept, coastal settlements of Cliobh and Bhaltos, until finally finishing up at Cnip.

There was an end-of-the-world feel to the place. If you discount the more southerly isles of the Outer Hebrides, you can't get much further west in Britain than this: there's nothing but ocean between here and the Labrador coast of Canadian Newfoundland.

I pitched my tent behind the dunes on the machair - a flat, grassy strip carpeted with wild flowers. Occasionally the sun broke through chinks in the cloud and illuminated dazzling white sand, aqua blue water and the little islands in Traigh na Beirigh bay. Later I found Agnes Maclennan from the Cnip Village Grazing Trust assiduously cleaning the campsite's small shower and toilet block. She spoke English with a soft, Gaelic-inflected accent. "You should have been here these past few weeks," she said. "The most wonderful weather. But I fear the rain has now set in."

Butts, Brochs And Blackhouses

One Friday morning I took the Calmac car ferry from Ullapool to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis...

Lewis is the largest and most northerly island in the archipelago of the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles. (Actually it's joined by a narrow isthmus to the Isle of Harris further south, so the two 'isles' are in fact one complete island - known as Lewis and Harris.) Most of Lewis is flat, featureless terrain, a plateau of peat stretching from horizon to horizon. Peat cutting has always been an important part of the island's frugal economy, and you can see now and again stacks of cut turves from the roadside...

I followed the straight western coastal road right up to the Butt of Lewis, the island's most northerly point. The landscape was desolate and treeless, buffeted by North Atlantic gales. It took some getting used to after the majestic peaks and troughs of the Scottish Highlands. At the Butt fulmars and kittiwakes had colonised the high sea cliffs and gannets divebombed the choppy ocean. (Amazing how the gannets' wings fold back just before hitting the water - perfect aerodynamics!) Here was an abandoned lighthouse, designed by David Stevenson, uncle of the writer and adventurer Robert Louis Stevenson, one of my favourite childhood writers, author of Kidnapped and Treasure Island and A Child's Garden Of Verses - and, of course, Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes, one of the books which fed my own emerging wanderlust...

Travelling south again I reached the isolated crofting community of Arnol and its cluster of deserted blackhouses. Most are in ruins, but one of these long, low cottages is preserved in Arnol's Blackhouse Museum. It's built in the traditional way with thick, drystone walls packed with earth, wooden rafters and a thatch of turf and straw. See from my pic how the roof is roped down against the wind...

In these old crofting houses man and livestock shared the same space. The living room stood next to the byre - sometimes without a partition. The floors were of flagstones or compacted earth. An open peat fire burned in the centre of the living room, and the smoke percolated up through the roof. There was no chimney. This helped dry the thatch and killed off any bugs. Why were they called 'blackhouses'? Perhaps because they were dark and smoky places. Or perhaps because of a confusion between the Gaelic words dubh (black) and tughadh (thatch)...

A little further south I came upon the broch of Dun Carloway. (You'll recall my previous post on the brochs of Dun Telve and Dun Troddan...)

It was getting late in the day, and I still hadn't found a campsite in this barren and windswept wilderness...