A Bulletin from Stromness

1 Nov 2009 in Orkney, Writing

Disappearing Islands and Grinding Goddesses

IAN STEPHEN embarks on a storytelling adventure on Orkney

THINK I must have really wanted this one. It’s a bit of a thought, travelling from Lewis to Orkney in late autumn, for the chance of winning a job in the face of serious competition. This was one of these e-mails you get, the circulars. Wait a minute, 6 weeks in Orkney, storytelling, working with primary schools and with a fair allocation of time to develop your own work. Hmmm.

Residencies, whether in visual art, literature or anything else, can be a mixed blessing for the artist. I’ve learned to make sure of two things before even applying. First, the work you’re expected to do should be close enough to your own working practice so you’re not burning too much midnight oil in preparation and development.

Ferry to Rousay (photo - Ian Stephen)

Second, it’s best if there’s a close overlap between the work you’re doing with the schools or other community and your own work, which you want to develop in the period.

Well, I was working on two different projects with Primary Schools last summer, using storytelling as a starting point. These were with different partners on Mull and Lewis, but both relating to the visit of the historic vessel, Reaper, flagship of the Scottish Fisheries Museum.

Further research has taken several forms, though I’ve not as yet been granted any interviews with goddesses

And as to my own work – some years ago I completed a Creative Scotland project to sail the routes of West of Scotland sea stories. But last year the route was extended to Ireland and Brittany and the links in that direction strengthened by being a guest at the Cape Clear Island storytelling festival in September. But the Northern Isles of Scotland are a world of their own when it comes to stories.

Genetic analysis has recently proven that the Viking gene is still very strong in Orkney amongst the male population. It doesn’t take much time in the reference section of Stromness library to find that Norse imagery and concerns are prominent in Orkney stories. Trolls, various small people, the occasional giant – they all stroll by.

Cheesing a rope - or grinding salt (photo - Ian Stephen)

But strongest of all are the recurring parallel worlds of the Selkies and Fin Men. These are particular and well documented beings, so you’d better not get confused between them. The characteristics are constant from story to story. The variations occur in the narratives but the near-human elements seem to me, after two weeks of near total immersion, to have their own convincing genetic footprints.

So what’s happened so far? The interview was an adventure, with two ferry crossings in the season of equinoctial gales. There was a fairly low-key notice to be prepared to do a story with some children from the school where it was to take place.

I judged that this would be the main element – the greatest storyteller ever would be no good here if the children could not relate to him or her. I found it natural to strike up a bit of conversation with the pupils who after all are the main partners in this project. And then we were just into a story and that was that. I was offered the post and accepted at once.

A creature from the sea (photo - Ian Stephen)

I solved the problem of what to do with my own boat (which is now sometimes my home and sometimes my office and needs continuing work) and the question of where to stay in Orkney with one move. A night passage from Stornoway to Stromness, catching a south to southwesterly airstream reaching 30 knots but in the right direction. The seas had not built up too much in one day of strong breeze so we made good time.

This passage is always a bit of a race because there’s a tidal “gate” at Stromness. You’re unlikely to get into harbour if you arrive when the tide is setting strongly back out to the west. I had the best of company and fine helming from my semi-housemates, John and Franzi. They were not too phased by the interesting water you usually find even five miles out of Cape Wrath.

Already I was tuning in to how significant the changing light is to Orkney stories.

A very clear night was followed by close rain squalls and poor, dreich visibility.

The Old Man was hiding. Now you could see the classic light column on Graemsay island. Now you couldn’t.

And that evening, well fed if not rested, we were able to take in the same Sound in luminous evening light. The disappearing island is a recurring theme in these latitudes. A dense fog comes. A dark and close-mouthed pilot takes you out of your normal seamarks. Maybe you have to be blindfolded, maybe the fog itself does that.

Out of nowhere a landmass arrives which is unfamiliar. The Orkney pastures are green anyway but these are just that bit more dense. The cattle are just that bit more glossy. And the snug, tightly built, farmhouse of good stone has that bit more shine to it, too. A door opens and a long lost daughter is there, proud in her new domain, with a hint of loneliness. But it’s an island you will never find a way to again once you’ve been led away from it.

Big folk and wee folk - two kings of Ireland (photo - Ian Stephen)

This route to Orkney didn’t take us anywhere near the Pentland Firth. Water that’s thrust back and forth between huge differences of gradient and subject to altering wind and pressure systems – it achieves characteristics that have to be named. So the tide races and features become personalities – the Merry Men of Mey, the Swelkie.

Now I’d often heard of “Why the sea is salt” in a version where Norse goddesses are enslaved and rebel and grind on till the salt they are producing from a hand mill sinks the ship. But of course they’re grinding yet, which explains the Swelkie whirlpool.

Further research has taken several forms, though I’ve not as yet been granted any interviews with goddesses. In Cape Clear island this process of “research” involves several pints of Murphy’s. In past lives I’ve taken tea with George Mackay Brown and pints with his cousin Frankie, from Hoy. The yarns ranged respectively from the short-stories of Flannery O’ Connor to the possibilities of taking a halibut with a silvered lure in Hoy Sound.

So far I’ve had yarns with Tom Muir and Marita Luck. Tom, an Orcadian, has published a wide ranging collection of Orkney stories, quoting a range of source material but all in a steady natural consistent voice. Marita, a German woman who has made her home here for over 20 years, studied stories from a psychological perspective, noting the recurrent elements and concerns which traverse cultural boundaries to range worldwide.

There’s talk of another session next week. But already I’ve found affinity with a version of the salt-mill story translated from the Norwegian and I’ve given it a wee run in Rousay and Firth schools. I can’t just nip to Lewis to pick up forgotten props and technology and teaching aids. So I’m re-learning that simplicity is good. So mainly I’m using bits of string, relating the imagery within a story to a sailor’s way of doing things. And I’m finding that farmers have their own ways of doing things too.