HEBRIDEAN SHIELINGS

Evening Star, Issue 21749, 18 June 1934, Page 10

HEBRIDEAN SHIELINGS

SUMMER PASTURAGE The old-fashioned agricultural methods still obtaining in the more remote parts of the Scottish Highlands and islands have their economic drawbacks, but they are associated with customs and institutions that have come down to us from early Norse and Celtic times, writes Alasdair Alpin MacGregor. Among such institutions is the shieling. During the last twenty or thirtyyears the shielings on tho mainland of the West Highlands have been abandoned for one reason or another. Today .we must go to the Outer Hebrides to study them. They are still to he found in the Island of Lewis, particularly in its westernmost parish of Dig. Broadly speaking, the word “ shieling ” refers to the hut and pasturage on the moors or among the hills to which the cattle are driven in early summer when the grazings around the crofting townships have been exhausted. The shieling is occupied for several weeks each summer, usually by the young women of the townships, since they are better adapted to the work connected with cows, such as milking and the making of buutter and cheese. ...

There are no fences of any kind on the shielings, and only a dilapidated dry-stone dike here and there. _ As a rule a territory sprinkled with shielings knows no boundaries, except perhaps where the vast moors are bordered by a stream or the sea., One may wander indefinitely without seeing any indication as to where two or more grazings may impinge on one another. At night the women attending the shieling shelter in little huts scattered about the moors, and usually situated where there are patches of grass among the heather. These summer dwellings are constructed of turf or stone or both, since the Hebrides are almost entirely devoid of trees. They are as simple and unpretentious within as without, for the womenfolk only bring with them such necessary utensils as may be required in the preparation or their food; and, of course, milk-pails and churns, cogues and , cheese-vats, and the like. THE SHIELING FIRE.

The shieling fire is of peat, and it is laid on the floor. It is never allowed to go out during the weeks that the shieling is inhabited. When not needed for cooking purposes a little peat is placed on it, and it is simply left to smoulder away until required. A peat fir© will live for hours if not disturbed. Seldom is there any scarcity of fuel at the shieling. A peat-moss is often within easy reach of it, and it is customary to cut peat at shieling-time and to build a small stack of peats on the leeward side of the shieling hut, so that an adequate supply is always ready to hand. Even yet in western Lewis it is customary for one member of the shieling party to carry a smouldering peat all the way from the township, so that the fire may be lit from it on arrival of the shieling. There are seldom either feather mattresses or pillows at a shieling, and the beds are made of fragrant heather and bracken and sometimes of dried moss. During the daytime the maidens of the shieling are engaged in making dairy produce or in watching the kye lest they should stray across the fenceless moors. Their idle moments are occupied in preparing wool or at the spinning wheel. These are the, scenes from which have emanated many of our most beautiful Hebridean melodies, for the weavers and spinners are wont to sing at their work.

There are many shielings belonging to the island in western Lewis known as the Great Bernera. The inhabitants find it necessary to transfer their cattle in summer to the shielings allocated to them on the mainland moors of western Lewis, and their sheep to the Seven Hunters (Flannan Isles) and the several islands lying at the entrance to the great sea loch known as Loch Roag. SWIMMING THE CATTLE. With the Great Bernera shielings is associated a most picturesque scene. When the day appointed for the exodus to the summer shielings arrives the cows are herded to the jetty at Barraglom to swim at slack water across the Sound of Earshadir. Such calves as may accompany their mothers are conveyed across in boats if too young and timid to swim the narrows. Usually the cattle are taken across in two lots, when a number of small boats plies abreast with them to keep them to the shortest route. When summer is over and shieling time past the cows are collected at Earshadir once more, whence they swim back to their island home. The womenfolk assemble on the Bernera sido of tho narrows and speak assausively to their cows, calling them by their names; and then the cows wade into the tide and swim across. “ Troimhad, the Daisy!” the women will be calling. “ Thig dachaidh a Mhair bho’n airidh!” (“ Mary, come home from the shieling!”) Tho, swimming of cattle across the Sound of Earshadir, in western Lewis, when going to or returning from the shielings, has survived in Bernera for centuries. It is alluded to by William Black in ‘ A Princess of Thule,’ and no one should visit Dig in the early summer or autumn without making an endeavour to witness this picturesque sight.