Listening to the Bones
There is a tangible feeling in the islands off the West of Scotland. Here in some of the most westerly islands of Europe there is a feeling of this place overlapping with the Otherworld, it’s a place where worlds merge and ancestral voices whisper on the wind.
Looking Over to the Isle of Rum
I have spent a long time pouring over maps, exploring the contours and plotting out the path to the Oracle’s Cave. It’s a curious site which archeologists named which indicates how even they were affected by the air of mystery of this place. It was probably on Julian Cope’s site the Modern Antiquarian that I first read about this site. Then reading further archeological reports which uses descriptions such as ‘ritual enclosure’, ‘ermetic’ and ‘prehistoric’ engaged both my interest and imagination.
Sron-na h-Iolaire – the Eagle’s Promontory
I try to visit this little island every year (grateful to take folks on the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland / Gather the Keeners retreat). A second name for the Islands is the sea kenning name of the Isle of the Big Women. There is always a day midweek, as by this time the woman has gotten to know the island a little that they are invited to undertake a pilgrimage. We begin the day in silence and then each woman makes her ritual journey off to a particular place to spend the day. They are encouraged to perform a small ritual as they enter into a deeper level of conversation with the land. This is often a rare opportunity for women plus there is the added layer of feeling relatively safe as opposed to being out in nature in other parts of the world (human predators being the main risk).
On this day I decided to make my own pilgrimage, one I had been looking forward to for a long time. on this day. The journey to the cave took 18 miles on an island that is around 5 miles long and 3 miles across.
It was a very windy day and so being high on the cliffs was a little daunting, at times and I had to crouch down to traverse small sheep paths that had been made through scree slopes of landslides of rocks, boulders, and soil that had come tumbling down from the cliffs above. Often vertigo got the better of me and I slid down 20 meters or so on my backside just to stay safe and not be blown away. The view over to the Isle of Skye was stunning and I could see no signs whatever of human activity as if I had indeed slipped between worlds, or perhaps gone back in time.
The site area is in an area called the ‘Struidh’ which translates as rocky place. I found myself scrambling over massive boulders, which often resulted in spaces between them suddenly dropping down 6 feet or so. I retreated for a while to find an archeologist photo which highlighted the entrance so I could work out its exact location.
As I rummaged and rummaged in my rucksack, my mind recalled it sitting by my bedside back at the hostel. It seemed an absolutely impossible task to find a small oval opening which was probably obscured by bracken.
The Oracle Cave Entrance
I need a sign – such as a small bird or a mystical gravitational pull. You need a signal seemed to be the reply. I need a sign, not a signal I thought – wondering if I was having this conversation with myself. I pulled out my phone to check the time and amazingly, on the remotest part of the island I had a phone signal. This was indeed my sign, so I quickly looked up the archeological record and saved the photo which highlighted the entrance. This way I could position the eagle rock with the cliffs and be able to work out where the entrance to the cave (on relatively flat land) was located.
The interior of the cave
‘This unusual site is situated in the midst of a boulder field on the broken ground between the cliffs of Sron na h-Iolaire and the coast below. It consists of a substantial grass-and bracken-grown platform that measures about 20m from E to W by at least 10m transversely, on top of which there are the remains of a circular enclosure, probably a roundhouse, measuring about 6m in internal diameter within drystone rubble walls 2m thick. The wall thickens to 4m at the entrance to the enclosure where a narrow passage provides access to the interior. On the far side is the entrance to a large boulder cave that runs W beneath the enclosure wall. The main chamber of the cave measures about 7m from NE to SW by up to 3.5m transversely and 2.5m high; but there are other smaller chambers opening off to either side and at the end. The cave entrance and the sides of the chamber have been modified by the insertion of rough walling, while a thick deposit of midden material covers the floor. This includes animal bones, shells and broken hammerstones, some of which have a concretion of crushed shell to their points. Other hammerstones occur in the many small caves and voids found between and beneath the boulders nearby.‘ – Archeological Report/Canmore Record.
What hands collected the shellfish from the beach below?
Hammerstone
I sat quietly in the space, examining the shells and the hammerstone used to smash them. I have heard of local folks who used this chamber to shelter from storms, but who was it that modified this place, and what was its purpose?
Looking Out to the Entrance
Although I had researched this site and looked forward to visiting for over two years somehow it was more about the journey to this place – the physical and psychological barriers rather than reaching the place itself. The previous year I was packed and ready to make the journey but on awakening, I hadn’t felt quite right, and knowing it’s a physical journey I had decided not to go – which was the best decision as days later my not-quite-right feeling had turned out to be Chicken Pox.
Slowly over the next few days, I kept returning to the place and the land released her story.
An offering to this place
It’s been a long journey through many decades of my life and an otherworldly figure who was as much bird as human, visiting this cave was an important part of her story.
It was here on this island at the edge of the world that she revealed herself as Eagle. It was as if I had to journey with her through all these stages before I could really get to know her.
There is much more to her story, a story that will be in my book The Ancestral Mothers of Scotland.