The Old Woman of Inchmarnock

Now and again I have to satisfy that little part of me that needs adventure. Not often, for I am no great fortune hunter. Every few years or so the mood takes me and I set off. Had I lived at another time, and had I been another man, I might have signed up for a voyage to Tahiti under Captain Bligh or I might have joined a whaling ship in search of Moby Dick the White Whale. But no; my venture this time was only to chase hazy dreams and would risk little more than the humiliation of a telephone call for help. My wide rolling ocean would be the watery bays, and sea lochs, around the Western Isles of Scotland. My ship; just a small boat, a kayak. I would be Captain, First Mate and deck hand all in one.

I plotted a course of romantic names; Kilbrannon Sound, The Mull of Kyntyre, Drummerdoon, Holy Island, the Cock of Arran, Cowal, Inchmarnock and the Kyles of Bute.

My days I paddled away in lonely fantasies under a sky full of birds, surrounded by heather laden hills and over a crystal clear sea of steel blue jelly fish and fat mackerel. I came to a long open sea crossing from Arran to Inchmarnock and when the mist rolled in I followed my tiny compass needle through the hours of silence. Spying fulmers and shearwaters circled close by to eye me up and then were off as if to warn someone of my approach.

Inchmarnock arose like a print in a photographer’s developing tray. My arrival sent up ten thousand gulls screaming warnings to, who knows? For the island was, as far as I knew, uninhabited. I paddled up an inlet between two rocky walls to a steep beach of pebbles and drift wood. I pulled my boat out of the sea, made my camp on a green cropped shore under a struggling oak, clinging to a rocky crack, I lit a fire, cooked a mackerel, sipped some tea and played a tune on my tin whistle. The mist cleared from the sea, over which I had recently paddled, and the sun lit the golden clouds that hung around the Isle of Arran’s rain washed hills.

The day had gone well, I would reward my self with a tot or two of whisky but first I would savour the sight of the bottle on a rock in the evening sun with the hills of Scotland behind it. On journeys such as these, one has to make space saving sacrifices but whisky has to be in a proper bottle and drunk from a cut glass tumbler. I carefully unwrapped the glass and placed it beside the bottle on a mossy rock. My vessel, like any ship, has rules and the rule about whisky on my ship is that it can only be drunk when the sun is seen to set. So far, that trip, my bottle had remained unopened I had not seen the sun for several days but just then it was sinking majestically towards Arran’s hills. I put a log on the fire and licked my lips in thirsty anticipation as the sun touched the peak, then slowly slipped behind Arran’s Goat Fell. I sank down with my back against a rock and lined up the sun through the malt whisky and sang a little goodnight love song to the setting golden sun:

“And if I should loose my true love
I would surely find another
By yon pure crystal fountain
All around the blooming heather.
Will ye go, Lassie go?-

And we’ll all go together
To pluck wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather
Will ye go Lassie, go?

The sun was gone. I picked up the bottle and looked at the golden liquid through the glass, shook it a little for no reason and unscrewed the cap, placing it carefully beside the glass. I quarter filled the tumbler, placed the bottle next to the cap and raised the glass to my lips. I swallowed the whisky and clenched my eyes shut tight as the warm glow was followed by the fiery aftershock and the great shroud of the sea rolled across the inside of my eyelids as it had rolled five thousand years before. With my eyes still shut fast, I called out:

“Here’s to the Great White Whale!”

A voice answered:

“I’ll be thinking that it’s a bigger craft than this strange one here, you’ll be needing if it is the whale fish you’ll be after.”

Startled, I opened my eyes to see a man sitting on the rock beyond my whisky bottle and poking the fire with a stick.

“You have made your self comfortable on my wee island home, then!”

“Oh, hello! I did not see you there, I thought the island was empty!” I said.

“Obviously! As you can see it is not! But you’re most welcome to stay for a night or two, if that’s wa’ you’re be wanting. It’s been a wee while since I saw some one on these shores, so I’d welcome some conversation.”

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“It’ll have been some distance you’ll have travelled to get here, for if you were local you would have ne’er stopped on ‘Inchmarr Rock?”

“Well, I’ve paddled from....”

“It’s the stories you ken! The local folk all ken the stories and stay well away from here!”

My visitor sat and stared into the glowing embers of the fire. He had a weathered old face beneath a mop of windswept grey hair. His skin was wrinkled and stretched around eyes that had spent a life time staring into the sun, wind and rain. He put a log on the fire and rubbed his hands, a trickle of sparks darted past his eyes and behind him, across the sea, Goat Fell made a thunder cloud of a silhouette against the golden sky.

“You’ll have no doubt ne’er heard the tale of the Auld Woman of The Inchmarr Rock, then?”

“Well, ah, no I havn’t, I’m afraid. Did she ...?”

He interrupted my answer:

“Is this whisky you have in your bottle here?” He said picking up my lovely bottle of malt.

I made to move back to my tent, “I’ll get a cup!” I said. But he had already put the bottle to his lips and taken a gulp.

“Help yourself!” I said.

“The story is not of this time, but of days gone by, long ago.” He pulled his feet together in front of the fire, made himself comfortable on the grass and took another swig of my whisky keeping a grip around the neck of the bottle as he rested it on his lap.

“These rocks had a good head of kye on them then”, He said taking his stick from the fire and waving it around him to indicate the surrounding islands.

“They were brought over each spring and every isle had a family or two living there to look after the beasts until the following year; when the kye would be taken by boat back to the main land and a new herd brought over to be fattened up on the island’s grass.

On Inchmarr Rock a certain young newly married couple came to live. Their names were Mary and Donald. They were very young, very handsome, admired by all the folk on the neighbouring isles and when the ferrymen returned the following year to collect the kye everyone fully expected to see a wee bairn in Mary’s arms. But it was not so. Few folk gave it much thought when there were still just the two of them there the second year and wished them well for the following spring. The years went by and eventually the departing ferrymen ceased to wish them good fortune with their family and watched as time wore away at their youth on each successive visit. On the twentieth return of the ferry boat, Donald stood on the strand with his arm around Mary and in her arms she held a bairn wrapped in a shawl that she had been keeping all those years. The couple’s glowing pride was enough to light the dark side of yon Goat Fell.
It was decided that as the couple would need some new supplies for the wee lad that Donald would travel back with the ferry towing his wee boat and then row the three miles back to Inchmarr Rock.
He would be back the following day.

Mary watched through the small window of their hut as the clouds hid the mountains of Goat Fell and listened as the crashing waves grew louder on the beach below. She watched and listened as the storm roared in from the distant Western Ocean and went on to the Eastern mainland mountains. She waited as the waves subsided and faded to a flat calm. In time a boat came and Mary listened to the story of how Donald had tried to return before the storm hit, but he had been found drowned a few days later tied to his upturned boat. Donald was buried just about where you are sitting.”

The storyteller paused and took a large gulp of my whisky. I held out my glass for a while but his eyes were fixed on the glowing embers of the fire. Then he continued the tale and I eventually lowered my empty cut glass.

“Mary stayed on the island with the bairn and looked after the kye by herself, although she had many an offer to move to the mainland. The years past and the boy became a young man. He grew to ken every corner of the island and then looked longingly at the world across the sea and asked his mother if he could go to the main land. She refused saying that the sea here was far too dangerous to cross. He looked at the broken boat of his fathers and began to collect driftwood and rope to repair it and make a sail. When he was sixteen years of age he told his mother that he was to leave. Mary carried some live coals from her hearth to set fire to the boat. But the rain put them out. The next morning the boat and Mary’s son were gone!

Mary ran to the end of the cut and stood on yonder rock there calling out across the waves. A storm came and the wind and waves drove her back to her hut but when it past she returned to her rock. She greeted, as only a mother who has lost her son can cry, her voice carrying out across the sea. Three young men were crossing from Arran to Bute and heard the woman greeting on the rock. The waves were high and crashed all around. The lads could see her distress but could not make out what she was calling. They lowered their sail and took to their oars but these were smashed on the rocks and the three young men were pitched into the cold sea and drowned. A few months later another boat, with five men, was drawn in through the waves by Mary’s terrible cries. They too came to grief on the rocks but this time, two of the men clung to some wreckage and were swept past Inchmarr Rock and managed to struggle ashore on Bute. Here they told their story and it was decided that Mary, the Auld Woman of Inchmarr Rock, should be taken to the main land because the poor woman was obviously quite demented at the loss of her husband and her son. In the Spring a boat was sent over to collect the cattle and to bring the poor Mary back to the main land but they found that the fire in Mary’s hut had not been lit for many days and she could ne’re be found anywhere on the island.

It has now been a long time since kye have been kept on this rock and many a boat has sailed past since that time and many have heard the sobbing cries of Mary in the dark of the night or seen her shadowy figure waving in distress from yonder rock.

Now the folk in these parts will ne’re come near Inchmarr Rock and will certainly ne’er put a foot on its rocky shore.”

The old man turned on his rocky seat to stare out across the sea. He made a fine silhouette against the last western glow, as he drained the last drop of amber spirit from my bottle.

The loss of my whisky softened the impact of the story but I thanked him and he bid me good night, stood, stepped away from the glowing embers and vanished into the dark night.

As I lay in my tent thinking over the story, the strange visitor and my empty bottle; it occurred to me that the scarcity of whisky on this island would make that story one of the costliest I had ever listened to!

I awoke to the sound of waves crashing on to the beach below my tent. This was unexpected as the weather forecast had not indicated any strong wind to bring waves to this island. I got up and watched as huge waves came up the cut between the two smooth slabs of rock that squeezed and forced them spewing up the beach and dragging at the pebbles which had reluctantly been left there the last time. I wondered what distant storm had sent these waves on their journey to land here on this beach.

I considered my options;

Firstly; I could sit it out until the waves died away.
Secondly; I could carry my canoe and gear over the hill to the other side of the island where I would be sheltered from the waves.
Finally; I could load my canoe, slide down the steep beach and fight my way out through the waves.

The first option might take days; the waves could get bigger, as well as smaller and the second option would also take at least a day. I could not carry a loaded canoe across the hill to the other side. It might mean three or four journeys and be a lot of hard work. Now for the last option. This would be the quickest. It would only be about thirty minutes paddling to escape to the calm waters of the far side of the island. All being well I could cope with such waves, but there is always a risk and being alone, if I capsized and failed to roll up I would have to swim. It would be difficult to get ashore without injuring myself. I figured that the last option was too dangerous, and that carrying across the island was the best plan.

Then I ignored my careful analysis of the situation, loaded my canoe, missed out breakfast and launched down the beach. The first wave crashed right in my face, trickled down the back of my neck and woke me up in a way that corn flakes never can. I gripped my paddle leant forward and crashed through the next wave. The walk across the island began to seam very appealing!

It was difficult to keep straight in the cut and the waves seemed to never end. Approaching me was a huge wave, bigger than all the previous ones and It was touch and go whether it would break before it reached me. It reared up in front of me; a shear wall of water. My canoe started to go up but the wave was too steep, the boat stopped and seemed to hang in the air for a while before fell over backwards and to one side. I was upside down under the water but had not fallen out. I would have to roll up before another wave caught me and washed me onto the rocks,
“Don’t rush it!” I told myself, leaning forward, the paddle felt right, I swung it around and leant back and the under water silence gave wave to the roar of the waves and amongst all the noise I heard a voice crying out,

“.. Come back! Come back!”
I thought that I must be imagining the sound and gave my attention to getting out of this situation.

I was in luck, my boat was almost facing the right way but in front was yet another huge wave. I paddled as hard as I could. My fully laden boat seemed to take an age to get moving. The wave reared up, like the last one, and my canoe once again stood on its end but this time I managed to get my paddle into the crest of the wave, the bows crashed down onto the other side and I pressed on through the next, now less precipitous waves, until I reached the end of the cut. Here the sea was all mixed up, with no regular shape to the waves as they bounced off the rocks all around. Rocks that had been underwater in the calm sea of my arrival were now rearing up at me! I was too close to the shore with white water all around and if I tried to turn being broadside onto the waves I would be sure to be swept onto the rocks. I shook my head to clear the stinging salt from my eyes and caught a glimpse of a dark shape moving on the nearby rocks to my left but there was another wave coming and I lost sight of the figure. When the wave had cleared I turned to glance at the shore and saw a woman waving her arms, her hair was soaked with spray. One moment she was screaming and the next sobbing. Another wave hit and as it cleared I tried to get closer to hear what the woman was shouting between her sobs but the rocks in front of her would rip my boat to shreds. As the next wave past me I heard a snatch of an agonised crying;

“.. don’t leave, please, please,........I beg ...come back ...”

Her crying was awful to hear. She held up her arms and screamed out one moment, then covered her face the next and cried like I had never heard any one cry before. It welled up, and gurgled in the poor woman’s throat. I could not have landed there, I would have been killed! So I dug my paddle in hard and pulled for the open sea and safety. There, I turned to look back at the rock and the poor woman but the mist and the spray almost hid the island. An hour later I was in the shelter of the far side of the island, where it suddenly came to me; that what I had seen and heard was not an old woman, it must have been the man that had told the story the night before, or an accomplice of his, dressed up to play the part of the old woman in the story. My temper grew. I was furious, I could have been killed!

But I was not! And it had, after all, been a hell of a paddle and, as all mariners know, any trip that ends with you still in your boat; has achieved a fair degree of success.

I paddled on and, in a few more days, my trip was over and I returned to my life on the dry part of the world.

The old man’s story and his dangerous trick, played on my mind and would not rest. So I decided to find out where the he had found the story from and I got some books out of the library; Stories of the Western Isles and the like but without success.

Then one night in the middle of winter I was searching the Internet from my home computer, I typed in the word; “Inchmarnock” and clicked on “search”. There was only one reference returned to me that meant anything, it was a web site in Ontario, Canada. I clicked onto the site and found information all about someone named “Don Inchmire”. There was information about his family tree; his ancestors came from Scotland. There was a picture of his children and a collection of Old Scottish legends, from the Western Isles but nothing about Inchmarnock. At the bottom was his E-mail address, so I sent a query about Inchmarnock and left it at that.

A couple of days went by until I received a reply. Don told me that his father had told him that part of the Western Isles of Scotland used to be ruled by a warlike king who had a castle on the Cowal Peninsular and it was thought that this king was the subject of the children’s nursery rhyme Old King Cole; (Cole coming from Cowel). However, it seems, that he was far from being A Merry Old Soul; this king was one of the cruelist there was, even for those harsh times. He was also famous for lavishly entertaining his guests. His castle was filled with dancers, actors, a storyteller and musicians - the fiddlers three, pipers and drummers no doubt. Those who pleased the king were rewarded well, but those who did not were punished without mercy. If they were not killed in some bloodthirsty manner to entertain the king, the best they could hope for was to be set down on a remote rock or small island; to end their days eating limpets from the rocks or trying to catch gulls. The locals were forbidden to set foot on these islands on pain of death. As the king aged his temper grew worse and one by one his house hold of entertainers fell fail of his wrath. Until the only person left with the king was his storyteller. The storyteller was famous throughout the Western Isles and never failed to entertain his dangerous master. But in the end, he too, fell fail of the tyrant’s temper and was banished to Inchmarnock to end his days scavenging the rocky shores for crabs and scraps.

And what crime drove the king to rid himself of such a fine teller of tales?

He was caught once too often drinking the king’s best malt whisky!

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he.
He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl
And he called for his fiddlers three.




Graham R 1998