Day 5 - The Isle of Lewis

For our first full day on the Island of Harris & Lewis, our plan was to travel northward into Lewis. As we boarded our coach, we were met by our local guide for the day, one Joan Morrison. (As neither Alex nor Barry had been to Harris & Lewis, Alex had retained a local guide for the day.) Joan’s first act was to greet us with a short discourse in the Gaelic tongue. (In Scotland, Gaelic is pronounced like the word garlic without the r. However, in Ireland the “ae” is a long a as in gay lick.) After translating her greeting, she handed us each a sheet of paper with a list of common phrases, their pronunciation and their meaning. I will not relate the entire list, but a couple of key phrases were Fàilte, pronounced Faaltshe meaning “Welcome” (we would see this word many times welcoming us to a town or region), Madainn mhath, pronounced Matin vah meaning “Good morning” and Latha math, pronounced Laah mah meaning “Good day”. We would get a chance to not only use these, but hear them repeatedly throughout the day. While most inhabitants of the Inner Hebrides (the island group to which Skye and Harris & Lewis belong) are bi-lingual, Gaelic is actually the daily language in many areas. When I say that many inhabitants are bi-lingual, of the remaining that are mono-lingual, many speak Gaelic only! While all of the road signs I saw were in both languages, in some areas, English is not shown. And in all of the signs that I saw, Gaelic was the first version and English second in smaller letters. (It’s like being in another country.)

As me motored northward passed the many small lochs (most with no name), we were informed that, with the crossing of a “wee” bridge, we had crossed what most people considered the line between Harris and Lewis. I did not see a sign or other indication that we had made the transposition from one “island” to another. However, this was considered a grave difference by many of the inhabitants of both sides.

We continued northward toward our first destination - the Gearrannah Blackhouse Village. The trip was through geography that many would consider sparse and harsh. However, Joan reassured us that both the flora and fauna of the entire island chain was both varied and extant. One thing we did see in abundance and greatly to the consternation of Alex, was sheep. There are definitely more sheep on this land than people. They are everywhere including in the middle of the roads. Some will stand and watch you pass whilst others will run as if he devil were himself in pursuit. Especially the lambs which Joan explained were still quite young.

The Blackhouse Village is located at Calloway on the Atlantic coast of Lewis. It is a unique group of restored thatched cottages that represent a way of life that goes back to the iron age. However, these houses were inhabited by folks as late as the 1970’s.

The houses themselves are constructed with three foot thick walls made up of two walls of stone with dirt in between. The roof is supported on the inner wall of stone unlike modern houses in which the roof is supported on the outer wall. Until recent times, the inner walls were unfinished as were the floors. The interior is divided into two distinct areas - the living quarters which often were made up of a single “living” room that also served as the kitchen and dining room, and a separate bedroom. The second half of the dwelling was given over to the storage of winter fare, dried meats, grain, etc., and, in winter, the farm animals. Prior to the invention of the fireplace and flue, a central fire pit was maintained with a hole in to roof for the exit of the smoke. Except in heavy rain, the fire hole did not permit much of the weather due to the updraft of the heat escaping.

From the Blackhouses, we backtracked a short ways to the Carloway Broch, located on a rocky knoll above Loch an Duin. A Broch is thought to be another Iron Age structure which were designed to both impress the locals and defend against enemies. They were probably the dwellings of chiefs and impotant tribal members. A Broch is constructed of two concentric walls containing a stairway to the upper level. The Carloway Broch is one of the best preserved in the Hebrides and is believed to date back over 2000 years.

Taking leave of the Carloway Broch, we turned back towards Tarbert. But we had one more stop to make before ending our day. As we had journeyed north and west, Joan had pointed out two groups of standing stones that were clearly visible from our roadway. The more extensive of these are the Callanish Standing Stones. Approaching the stones, we journeyed back from the Iron Age of the Blackhouses and Broch to the Stone Age. As it turns out, the Callanish Stones are one of the most significant and important megalithic complexes in all of Europe. It consists of about 41 stones set in a cross configuration. The base of the cross consists of 38 parallel stones, topped by a circle of 12 with 3 each radiating horizontally and vertically from the circle (think of a tall Celtic cross) with a central monolith. The stones are large pieces of the local Lewisian gneiss stone (a type of granite).

We finally completed out day of traveling back in time and hastened back to the hotel for dinner and an evening of rest. However, Alex still had one last treat for us after dinner. We were treated to an evening of music presented by the Sir E Scott School, a group of girls aged 12 through 14 (accompanied by one lad, the director’s son, on the electric base). Their repertoire consisted of mostly traditional, sprinkled with contemporary, songs. The singing was performed a’ cappella in solo, duo and as a choir, and every song was sung in Gaelic! In addition instrumental performances were done as a group consisting of accordion, guitar, bass (the director’s son), flute and fiddle. Alex performed three songs including Mark Knoffler’s “Fiddler to the End” to everyone’s delight. At the end of the the performance, the group raffled a number of items including candy, wine and copies of their cd’s. To assure that I had a beggar’s chance of winning, I bought 50 tickets myself (at 20 pence per). In the end this paid off as I was the proud winner of a cd. Everyone agreed that this was indeed a special night that would be remembered by all.