Letters from England/Terra Hyperborea
Terra Hyperborea
I AM in the region known as Skye, in the Hebrides, on a large queer island among islands, on an island consisting of fjords, peat, rocks and summits; I collect coloured shells among bluish or sallow pebbles, and by a special favour of heaven I find even the excrement of the wild salmon which is the milch cow of the Gaelic water-nymphs. The slopes ooze like a drenched sponge, the heather bruach catches in my feet, but then, readers, can be seen the islands of Raasay and Scalpay, Rum and Eigg, and then can be seen the mountains with strange and ancient names, such as Beinn na-Cailich and Sgurr na-Banachdich and Leacan Nighean an-i-Siosalaich, or Druim nan Cleochd, while those bald domes yonder are called merely Blaven, quite simply Blaven. And this rivulet here is simply Aan Reidhe Mhoire and that sandy inlet is merely Sran Ard-a-Mhullaich. These and all the other names demonstrate the beauty and strangeness of the Isle of Skye.
It is beautiful and poverty-stricken; and the native huts have such a prehistoric look, that they might have been built by the late Picts, concerning whom, as is known, there is nothing known.
Then the Caledonian Gaels came here, and the Vikings from somewhere in Norway; King Hakon actually left behind him a stone stronghold, and the place is therefore called Kyle Akin. Apart from this, all these dwellers left the Isle of Skye in its original state, as it proceeded from God’s hand: wild, forlorn and rugged, damp and sublime, terrible and winsome. Stone cottages are being overgrown with grass and moss, or are falling into decay, deserted by men.
Once a week the sun shines, and then the mountain peaks are revealed in all the inexpressible tints of blue; and there is blueness which is azure, mother-of-pearl, foggy or indigo, clouded like vapours, a hint or mere reminder of something beautifully blue. All these, and countless other shades of blueness I saw on the blue summits of Cuilin, but there, added to everything else, can be seen the blue sky and the blue bay, and this simply cannot be narrated; I tell you, unknown and divine virtues arose within me at the sight of this unbounded blueness.
But then the clouds creep forth from the valley and mountains, the sea turns grey, and a chill rain flows from the drenching slopes. In the home of some worthy folk the peat is burning on the hearth, a lady with a Greek profile sings Scottish ballads, and with the others I sing a strange and ancient song:
“tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham,
tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham,
tha tighin fodham, fodham, fodham,
tha tighan fodham eirig.”
And then we all hold hands in a circle and sing something Scottish about parting or meeting again. Between the promontories of the island can be seen a narrow strip of open sea; thither, I am told, the whalers sail to Iceland or Greenland. Man, why do you feel sad when you look at that streak of open sea? Be greeted, O lands, which perchance I shall never see!
Ah, I have beheld blue and fiery seas and pliant beeches and palm-trees bending over azure waves; but these grey and cold lochs fairly bewitched me; look, yonder a crane is wading among the seaweed, and a gull or a sea-swallow is gliding over the waves with a wild and piercing cry; above the moorland a snipe is whistling and a flock of fieldfares are snorting, a shaggy little steer gazes at man, and on the bald hills the sheep are grazing, similar, from afar, to yellowish lice; and at evening myriads of tiny flies swarm forth and crawl into man’s nose, while the northern day lasts till nearly midnight.
And the livid, plashing sea beneath one’s feet, and the open road to the north. . . .