Elgol
the mountains remain
what remains
without sentiment
memorials to nothingness
poem & photograph, AF
driving into Elgol the hill opens out
onto the band of sharp Cuillin;
we are the same people we will be at Sligachan,
this is the same broken-ridged horizon,
though the skyline is entirely different
as the curtain draws
in another direction
at the foot of the harbor road
3 bridges cross the Allt Port na Cullaidh,
where the track winds itself around the burn
and they determine to share
the same briny end
the road gives over to the ramp of the jetty
stacked with creels & a red lifebuoy
to watch over the ferry, Misty Isle
which plies to and fro from Port na Cullaidh
to Loch Coruisk, steered by Seumas,
son of Lachlan, who will ferry us across
& those who come after us
when Alexander Smith was rowed over the loch
he thought himself sailing
from the 19th century
back into the 9th
with Rùm shooting up from the flat sea
like a pointed flame, its granite mass
as firm as the foundations of the world,
washed against by the sea
flushed opal
dim azure
tender pink
sleek emerald
mother-of-pearl
Elgol (Grid ref: NG51SW 45). Site records can be viewed on RCAHMS. The name may mean Noble
or Sacred Hill. The burn at Elgol, Allt Port na Cullaidh, Burn of the Port of the Boat or Treasure,
named after Port na Cullaidh, Port of the Treasure or Cellar. Loch Coruisk, named for the waterfalls
on the precipitous Cuillin, Loch of the Corrie of Waters. Seumas & Lachlan Mackinnon have run the
ferry to Coruisk for many years. Alexander Smith's account of his trip to Coruisk is given in A Summer
in Skye (1865)
poems AF, photograph ENthe Skye Cuillin
word-mntn (Sgùrr nan Stri); poem & photograph, AF
Elgol gives a new view of peaks
heaped on peaks, fanned out like cards;
a deck of Happy Families,
or is it poker that you’re after?
Sgùrr nan Eag
Sgùrr Dubh na dà Bheinn
Sgùrr Alasdair
Sgùrr Mhic Coinnich
Sgùrr Dearg
Sgùrr na Banachdaich
Sgùrr Thormaid
Sgùrr a' Ghreadaidh
Sgùrr a’ Mhadaidh
Bidein Druim nan Ramh
Bruach na Frìthe
Sgùrr Fionn Choire
Am Basteir
Sgùrr nan Gillean
Marsco
Blà-Bheinn
Garbh-Bheinn
Beinn na Caillich
word-mntn, Elgol; poems AF, photograph ENall the while remembering that mountains
have no names to mountains,
all the while smiling and singing along
with Hal David & Burt Bacharach:
lord we don't need another mountain
there are mountains and hillsides
enough to climb
Elgol’s a place to plan your ridge traverse
pointing out all 24 peaks in turn,
scrambling the horseshoe, arguing the toss
over which route's best
is your preference North–South, or South-North;
it all depends which way you want to bow low
before the Inaccessible Pinnacle
the traverse is a long day spent
clinging to a narrow way,
but how much longer yet
if you just stood & quietly looked
for the length of time
it takes to climb
Elgol’s got a fine outlook for settling,
once & for all whether the ridges’ name
is ennobling the warrior Cù-chulainn,
or is the name an imitation of the Norse,
who saw the keel-shaped crests
through their sailor's eyes,
as kjollen?
at Elgol you can look over to Blà-Bheinn
where the first recorded ascent
is reputed to have been made
by Nicol & Crosskey, with their friend Swinburne,
famous poet & infamous drunkard
all sounds of all changes,
all shadows and lights
on the world’s mountain-ranges
and stream-riven heights,
whose tongue is the wind’s tongue
and language of storm clouds
on earth-shaking nights
(Charles Algernon Swinburne)
'What the World Needs Now Is Love', popular song by Hal David & Burt Bacharach. Kjollen, Norse
for keel, is now thought the most likely derivation of Cuillin. Blà-Bhein's name derives from Norse,
Blue Mountain. Nicol, Crosskey and Swinburne are supposed to have climbed the mountain on a
visit to Skye in 1857. The quoted lines are from Swinburne's long poem, 'Hertha', published in
Songs before Sunrise (1870). Gavin Morrison discusses Swinburne's visit to the island in his essays.
Loch Coriusk
after T’ien Hsieh of Wei-lo; rubber stamp circle poem & photograph, AF
look for Loch Coruisk in-between
the outlier peaks
Sgùrr nan Strì
ascended by deer paths
with bold stags
to contend with
Sgùrr nan Eag
where you can sample
the latest rockfall
Sir Walter Scott found fault with this dour rock,
as bare as the pavement of Cheapside,
then took his lairdly possession
of the magnificent prospect in the rhymes
of ‘Lord of the Isles’
– ceaseless change
– lofty range
– foreheads bare
– middle air
– mantle furl’d
– waters curl’d
– breezes whirl’d
– earthquake’s sway
– shatter’d way
– naked precipice
– dark abyss
poem AF (after Sorley MacLean), photograph LA Turner might have slipped to his death here
but for two tufts of grass
the painter lived on to surpass Coruisk's cauldron
with his painterly imagination,
engraving inhanging cliffs, veiled in mists,
jagged images praised by Ruskin
as a geological revelation
rain & seas, amplified by the waterfalls’ white noise
wilden this place
wild to Robert Macfarlane, so wild as
to feel uncaring toward his
brief visitation,
so silent as to seem to be falling
back into the age of ice
beyond the span of human time;
though, like most feelings, it felt much better
after a wild swim, plunging his body
into the lochan
swiMming
At
Coruisk
Feeling
A
wildeR
Landscape
lAcking
humaN
feEling
no, the landscape can't think for us,
being thoughtless, but I understand
you found thought welling up
in this silence
you were struck still
swathed in fear under
the Inaccessible Pinnacle
happening on death you turned
back at the last
exchanging dread for the ice
coursing through you, rising
in an icy band that tightens the skin,
pumping blood through your heart,
cold-wiring your brain
in the lochan
For the stag on Sgùrr nan Strì, Peak of Contention: see here. For the rockfall on Sgùrr nan Eag,
Notched Peak: see here. Gary Snyder's poem 'Endless Streams and Mountains' surveys ancient
Chinese mountain poetics, including T’ien Hsieh (Mountains and Rivers Without End, Counter-
point, 2008). Sir Walter Scott visited Skye in 1814, publishing his acclaimed poem ‘Lord of the
Isles’ the following year. The reference to Cheapside is from the poet's diary, published by J. G.
Lockhart in his Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (Vol. III, 1837). Scott commissioned J. M.
W. Turner to visit Skye, in order to illustrate his poem; the painter visited Coruisk in 1831, later
depicting it in one of his most famous watercolours (1834). Ruskin praised the savage grandeur
of this painted landscape, but referred to the Cuillin themselves as ’inferior’ in Vol. IV of Modern
Painters (1856). Robert MacFarlane describes his visit to Loch Coruisk in his tour of Britain’s
remote landscapes, The Wild Places (Granta, 2007). A version of the mesostic for MacFarlane
was first published in Mesostic Interleaved (morning star, 2009)
word-mntn (Sgùrr nan Eag), AF
Tichy's Murray
Murray wrote Mountaineering in Scotland
in a German P.O.W. camp
(clothes drying in the open air)
and ‘not merely to divide the light
behind some human figure’
And not merely to divide the light
did Gwen Moffat go on her climbing spree:
Holly Tree, Snowden
and six Welsh peaks I can’t pronounce
Barefoot on granite, AWOL in 1945
(watercress green on the cliff-tops)
To wander is Taoist code for ecstasy
To wander is code for ecstasy:
‘lodging in damp rhododendron beds
storm-beaten, stupefied, and sulky’
Or laughing, stupefied, and sulky
for nothing is blacker than wet ink
while ‘even the darkest part of the mountain
is lighter than white paper’
(sunlight or cloud on vertical rock
blue growing tips of the spruce trees)
Play it with the brush, as Ruskin says
until it finds its place
Play it with the brush till it finds its place
Hillary answered ‘because it’s there’
when he got fucking tired of the question
His Sherpas had no word for summit
(footprint of the pot in ashes)
Sherpas have no word for summit
and ‘the Way’s been in ruins a thousand years’
Scratch of coarse lead on coarse paper
Clothes drying in the open air
(Push through willows, there’s a path here somewhere)
Murray wrote Mountaineering in Scotland
in a German P.O.W. camp — twice
hutopia: Coruisk
out of sight is the squat shelter of the Memorial hut,
built by Lachlan MacKinnon in the summers of ‘58 & ’59,
venerable among the 1,000 huts Nueva Scotia aspires to,
inspiring this hutopian fantasy
each hut will have 9 snug berths
cooried in soft feathers below 1,000 peaks,
enamel cups & a broken pot to brew-up in,
while you plan a new route along
the shiels & cabins of the Hebridean
vihara route
in this counter-culture the members' first rule
is to select one & all: for WE-ARRA-ELECT
whether we climb or not!
we will all sign the petition, pledging
to forgo rope, carabiner & piton,
chanting Alba’s latest revolutionary slogan:
not climbing but viewing!
in gales that last for days, hutters
will brew oolong, sharing a chuckle:
how long has yon window held
ma gaze!
when the skies clear we will stargaze
from Yird Muin Starn
we’ll toast Outlandia with nips of Super-Nikka,
drink to the pioneers of the hut insurrection,
fondly recall the kennel-wigwam of 1897
ferried in to Coruisk by Douglas & Rennie
we will name our new huts:
Wee Malkie’s
Cold Mountain
Mt Analogue
The Bothy Anaitis
The Deer Path
Hozomeen-upside-down
Macnab’s
Heather Thatch
Kasane’s Grianan
The SMC Loch Coruisk Memorial Hut, the best loved hut in Scotland, for its remote location. The broken
pot hut is a reference to zen master Daito Kokushi: ‘Let, however, there be just one individual, who may
be living in the wilderness in a hut thatched with one bundle of straw and passing his days by eating
the roots of wild herbs cooked in a pot with broken legs; but if he single-mindedly applies himself to the
study of his own spiritual affairs, he is the very one who has a daily interview with me and knows how
to be grateful for his life. Who should ever despise such a one? O monks, be diligent, be diligent’ (‘Daito
Kokushi’s Admonition). Vihara, Buddhist pilgrimage hut in India.
The list of proposed hut names refers to Mt: Analogue, after René Daumal; Wee Malkie’s, after Stephen
Mulrine’s well-known comic Glasgow poem; Cold Mountain, after the Chinese hermit-poet Han Shan;
The Bothy Anaitis, after the pre-Celtic goddess; The Deer Path, after Gerry Loose & Morven Gregor’s hut,
Carbeth; Hozomeen-upside-down, after Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder’s stints as fire lookouts, gazing at
Mt. Hozomeen, described in Synder’s poems and Kerouac’s novel, Big Sur; Macnab’s, after the John
Macnab novels by John Buchan and Andrew Greig; Heather Thatch, after the tradition of using heather
for roofing material for shelters in Scotland; and finally, Kasane’s Grianan, after Matsuo Basho’s ‘Kasane’,
a little country girl named after a pink flower.
I thought the voice
of a lovely woman less melodious
than the dawn-cry
of the mountain grouse
Rody Gorman, an Irish Gaelic poet who lives on Skye, composed his own poem to Sweeny and all,
nakedwoodloonies, for the Cape Farewell project. 'We ar-ra elect', after the popular cry 'We are the People',
uttered by fans of Glasgow Rangers Football Club, sometimes considered within their own ranks as an elect.
Super-Nikka, superior Japanese whisky.
Sweeny’s Wee Hut, AF
hutopia: Scotia
Rennie's hut, SMC camp, Coruisk, Summer 1897
my own contribution: Sweeny’s Wee Hut:
4 walls lined with 10,000 colourful feathers
& pinned quotations from Han Shan
aye, my hut's magic, for you take a wee snooze
snug on the slopes of Blà-Bheinn,
& wake to a windowful of the Quiraing
none of these proposals is more fanciful
than the floating hotel MacIan schemed
anchored off Coruisk, with a brass band
playing the latest operatic hits,
& waiters serving the best cuts of meats
& plentiful quantities of drink
Sweeny’s Wee Hut is named after the hermit Suibhne, who lived in the trees – Meg Bateman
suggested the idea that Sweeny’s flight with the birds recalls shamanic Druidic visions, and
Trevor Joyce published innovative translations of his tale, poems of Sweeny Peregrine: a work-
ing of the corrupt Irish text (New Writers Press, 1976). The SMC Loch Coruisk Memorial Hut
inspires this vision of contemporary 'hutopia', combining recently constructed huts by artists
and architects, along with the possible huts of an ideal future Scotland. These projects belong
with the 1000 Huts campaign; together they constitute a new movement, or renew an old trad-
ition. MacIan’s hotel scheme is described in Alexander Smith's A Summer in Skye (1865).
Ninian Stuart, 1000 Huts Campaign
The hut projects include: a visionary hut on Skye, by the bothy project (Iain MacLeod and Bobby
Niven), who recently opened a bothy in Inshriach Forest, near Kingussie – the first in a network
of small-scale art residency spaces in distinct and diverse locations around Scotland.
Yird, Muin, Starn (Earth, Moon, Star), a bothy for star-gazing in a remote forest in Galloway,
conceived by Mandy McIntosh & Kaffe Matthews.
Outlandia, an off-grid tree-house viewing hut in Glen Nevis, opened in 2010; pioneer among cont-
emporary hut projects, conceived by London Fieldworks and designed by Malcolm Fraser architects.
A forerunner of these huts was the temporary portable wooden 'tent' Rennie designed for a climbers’
camp at Coruisk, Summer 1897, featured in Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1898.
Rennie, plan drawing for a hut
poem label: PAPER, CLOUD, MOUNTAIN, poem & photograph AF
credo; poem & photograph AF
hutopians will play our new game
PAPER–CLOUD–MOUNTAIN
CLOUD
obscures
MOUNTAIN
PAPER
absorbs
CLOUD
MOUNTAIN
pulps
PAPER
PAPER–CLOUD–MOUNTAIN, a variant of rock-paper-scissors, devised by
Ken Cockburn & Alec Finlay at Outlandia on the road north.
Momus's visionary Skye
Scotland 84
The Scotland in which the crofters
evict the landlords
Scotland 35
The Scotland in which you’re not allowed
to own more property than will fit into a rucksack
Scotland 105
The Scotland of the Munro Mao
whose Long March takes him over
two-hundred-and-eighty-four mountains
Scotland 93
The Scotland which revives Gaelic
the way Israel revived Hebrew
Scotland 120
The Scotland which becomes the world’s
first successful post-Industrial matriarchy
(with its High Temple of Anaitis, High Pasture Cave)
Momus (Nick Currie), The Book of Scotlands (Sternberg Press, 2009)
Pat Law's anchorage
swim, PL
when you steer your way in
you find the anchorage feels
even smaller than it is,
one cold steel ring
fixed in a south-facing rock
where we tied Kirsty
inside the witches cauldron
whose lava black cliffs
cloaked in swirling clouds
should be monochrome,
but those blacks are so rich
you could jump into them
holding on to dreich weather
wind & rain keep up their
relentless pounding rhythm,
so much part of Scavaig
it stops feeling threatening
and becomes almost comforting
Pat Law’s account of the anchorage on Loch Scavaig, by Coruisk, composed from emails to AF.
Scavaig, PL
Climbers' Camp, Coruisk
rain! rain! rain!
rain all day!
it rained most of the morning
it had been raining all day
rain, rain, rain! pouring all day
real Skye rain and no mistake
another night of heavy rain
all night the rain came down in torrents
as the evening advanced
the storm increased
the rain descended in sheets
the rain was now coming down in floods
the noise of many waters
the howling of the wind
the rattle of the wind
high up in the corries I could hear
the storm-fiends shouting and howling
the roar of the winds
and waters was deafening
the whole air was filled
with driving sheets of spindrift
the wind, too, came
in sudden and cold gusts
sweeping the rain from off the rocks
in clouds of spray
last night we had a renewal of the storm
last night we experienced
another stormy night
the heaviest gale we had yet had
of wind and rain
the storm still continues
even worse than we had had it before
we had a tremendous gale last night
it was the worst we had yet had
if the gale of the 16th was bad
that of last night was infinitely worse
(W. Douglas)
Composed from Douglas’s record in Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1898. Douglas
commented: ‘in reading over this record of our daily doings there appears to be an undue proportion of
"weather", and too little "climbing" recorded, but no doubt "weather" always impresses one more when
camping out than at any other time.’
Isle of Soay
word-mntn (Beinn Bhreac); poem & photograph, AF
Elgol road-end’s a place for soaking it all in
with a panoramic view of the small isles
Canna, small as a postage stamp
that shows Compass Hill & a pair
of shearwaters
due west is Soay, the isle of sheep,
shaped like an hour-glass
with perfect harbours on both sides
of its low hill, Beinn Bhreac
the islanders were fire-starters signalling
for a boat to cross, while the ferryman guesses
who is coming or going by the location
of the rising plume of smoke
nowadays Soay has an easier time communicating,
plugged in via the sun, dialling up via number one,
fully connected through the world’s first
solar-powered telephone exchange
Gavin Maxwell spent his wartime service
training Special Ops sabs & agents
to kill in the wilds of Arisaig;
after the war he bought Soay
with £900 borrowed from his mother,
making the old stone warehouse
you can see by the harbor
a base for an industrial scale basking shark fishery,
processing 1,000 livers for oils & aphrodisiac,
hunting these harmless plankton grazers
to the brink of extinction
when the venture failed Maxwell’s islomania
carried him to Sandaig, his Camusfearna,
then on to Eilean Bàn, with its white lighthouse
and white keeper's cottages, upon which
the Skye Bridge rests its immense
white concrete column
BASKING SHARK
sunfish
Canna, Porpoise Island. John Lorne Campbell, laird of Canna, issued a postage stamp featuring a pair
of shearwaters, sgrail. Beinn Bhreac, Speckled Hill. 'Camusfearna' is the name Maxwell gave to Sandaig
in his Ring of Bright Water trilogy. Eilean Bàn, White Island, where there is a natural heritage centre,
Bright Water. The Basking shark is traditionally known as sunfish. You can read Gavin Morrison's
account of Maxwell in his essays.
Beinn Bhreac, AFspotting submarines
HMS Astute
on Elgol jetty peel your eyes for porpoise,
dolphin & sharks, minke & killer whales;
but beware, for in the Sound of Soay
the sea may cough up larger mammals,
for there are hunter-killers
plying these waters
cast your eyes from stone to sea
for there are subs in the Inner Sound
making their way to the testing grounds
where BUTEC tests their torpedoes
before a new patrol begins
despite their infra gear electronics & radar
subs don't always run smooth
on one nautical reconnaissance
the nuclear-powered attack sub, HMS Trafalgar,
made a navigational error & went aground
on the rocks of Fladda-Chuain,
one of the flat isles north of Trotternish,
in a mishap the R.N. attributed to
the misapplication of tracing paper
once the Trafalgar had been rescued
from the perils of stationery, she limped
back to Faslane
a similar mishap befell HMS Astute,
which was not, when, weighed down with
spearfish torpedoes & tomahawk missiles,
the captain's course was obscured by post-it notes
and the sub beached on a shingle bank
a surprise for commuters, as she was
in sight of the Skye Bridge;
worse followed when the tug took a bite
out of her starboard
a statement was issued by the R.N.:
this manoeuvre went slightly wrong
BUTEC, British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre. HMS Trafalgar grounded on Fladda-Chuain,
6 November 2002; HMS Astute grounded 22 October, 2010; the tug which came to her aid was the
Anglian Prince.
HMS Astute, AF, photograph LAIsle of Rúm
poem, AF; photograph, LA
turn and look over the horizon
to the skyline of Rùm,
of which the poet Peter Levi said
this isle resembles
Prospero’s
it was too good to
be true
in 1826 Lachlan MacLean, incumbent laird of Rúm
cleansed the island of islanders, for the benefit
of 800 black-face sheep; a shepherd recalled
the terrible scene
they were carried off
in one mass, forever,
from the sea-girt spot
where they were born & bred
the wild outcries of the men
and heart-breaking wails
of the women & children
filled all the air
For the quotation from Peter Levi, see his memoir The Flutes of Autumn (1983); for extracts from
his long poem describing his sojourn on Rùm in the 1960s, see 'The Shearwaters', included in the
from the unknown shepherd’s description, quoted in Edwin Waugh, The Limping Pilgrim (1882)
This conspectus is composed from the names of some of the mountains that
are
visible from this location. The centre-point marks the location of Elgol.
The
typography represents the view as it is experienced by the human eye,
giving an
approximate impression of distance and scale. Mountain ridges are
indicated by
overlapping names. The gradation of hill slopes is suggested by
the use of grey-
scale, with the peak in black.
Click on this graphic to view the original and, if you wish,
print it out for use in
situ. A booklet containing all 14 conspectuses is available from ATLAS Arts. The
14 conspectuses have also been archived in an
album, indexed here. A complete
list of the mountains referred to in the Elgol guide is given below, with links
from each one to its OS map. English translations have been given where possible.
A gallery of word-mntn drawings, including mountains visible from Elgol,
can be found on the drawing page.list of the mountains referred to in the Elgol guide is given below, with links
from each one to its OS map. English translations have been given where possible.
A gallery of word-mntn drawings, including mountains visible from Elgol,
| Am Basteir | The Executioner |
| Beinn na Caillich | Mountain of the Crone |
| Bidein Druim nan Ramh | The Summit of the Ridge of the Roots |
| Blà-bheinn | Blue Mountain |
| Bruach na Frìthe | Brae of the Moor Forest |
| Garbh Bheinn | Rough Mountain |
| Marsco | Seagull Rock |
| Sgùrr Alasdair | Alexander’s peak |
| Sgùrr Dearg | Red Peak |
| Sgùrr Dubh an Dà Bheinn | Black Peak of the Two Summits |
| Bruach na Frìthe | Brae of the Moor Forest |
| Sgùrr Mhic Coinnich | McKenzie’s peak |
| Sgùrr Thormaid | Norman's Peak |
| Sgùrr a' Fionn Choire | Peak of the Bright or Cold Corry |
| Sgùrr a' Ghreadaidh | Peak of the tormented torrent |
| Sgùrr a' Mhadaidh | The Foxes' Peak |
| Sgùrr na Banachdaich | Pockmarked Peak |
| Sgùrr nan Éag | Notched Peak |
| Sgùrr nan Gillean | Peak of the Lads |
| Sgùrr na Strì | Peak of Contention |
contributors
Alec Finlay (AF)
with
Luke Allan (LA)
the bothy project
Pat Law (PL)
Momus
Gavin Morrison
Emma Nicolson
Gaelic consultant
Maoilios Caimbeul
navigation
to view the next conspectus click here
to return to the map with links to all 14 guides click here
to read the project overview click here
to return to the map with links to all 14 guides click here
to read the project overview click here
for basic project information, including acknowledgements, click here
Còmhlan Bheanntan | A Company of Mountains
commissioned by ATLAS, Skye, 2012
http://atlasarts.org.uk/
