January 12th 2008

The Sgurr Biorach is the highest sgurr,
but Sgurr nan Gillean the best sgurr,
the blue-black gape-mouthed strong sgurr,
the tree-like slender horned sgurr
the forbidding great dangerous sgurr,
the sgurr of Skye above the rest.

Sorley MacLean

The rain & squalls stopped yesterday & the sky turned blue. Frost rose from the ground very hard, under a sky in which every star could be plucked & the Milky Way spilled itself north. This morning is clear & cold & the road to Aird Tobha is icy. The sun is about as high as it ever gets at this time of year & shining on the sea leads over to Eigg & beyond Eigg, to the little peaks of Rum. They are all wearing snow on their heads & haunches & from this distance, maybe twenty miles, are of a perfect & delicate volcanic symmetry. They are set in a clear sapphire ocean & lead me further, over the hatchery dams, across the tide-low sands of Sailean Dubh, over the inland machairs: inland only so far as they are sheltered by west facing rocks. Where the tide has retreated, it has left goblet-thin sheets of ice across tussocks & over departed pools. Compelled forward by a need to see more of the islands, since I’m now at sea level, but with no sight beyond the nearest rocks, I move crabwise round Carn Mor, where the black terrier bitch that belongs here, to the man of the fishing boat, joins me. Like me, she picks her way delicately; frosted moss has a very thin crust. Where she senses a depth of water, she detours the long & drier way round. I move up & down, still skirting the Carn, past all the headlands – Rubha Fassadh nam Feocullan (which I take to mean the place of the pine marten), Rubha na Clioche Bàine, Rubha na Caillich round nearly to Rubha Mhic Artair. & there, when I finally get a clear view west are the islands: flat little Muck the southernmost, Eigg of course, with its own sgurr & guarding it from the worst Atlantic gales, the hills of Rum. But to the north are the Cuillins & Skye laid out as a summer’s day, north & slewing round out of sight to the west behind the great sgurrs of Sorley Maclean’s poem; Sgurr Biorach & Sgurr nan Gillean, Sgurr na Stri, Sgurr nan Eag & Sgurr Alastair with Sgurr a’ Ghreadaidh; their names a litany of solitude & geology; places known best by those who live there – eagles, buzzards, ravens & crows - but which pierced MacLean’s heart.

The way round the Carn is to move from the islands’ stilling presence, eastwards & inland along the south channel, Eilean Shona to the north. I’ve hunted the small terrier away: I have no knowledge of how she is with sheep, & I’m heading for Fhaodhail Dhubh where the sheep wander at will. I cross the burn at Port na Lathaich with its little groves of snapped & dead birches, the sky punctured by the ravens’ silhouettes & the rush of the water an arrhythmic counterpoint to the soft & melodious prunk prunk of the ravens discussing such a one as myself edging across the hill of the brush.