Sweeney's Eigg, after Hugh Miller

the sun declined

half-way down

the western sky

the island basking

spread out at our feet

as a map

the gigantic Sgurr

dark beneath us

its one shadow

thrown from one

elevated wall

of rock

an immense dial

tall in the midst

its gnomon rising

colossal between us

and the sky

as if it were a piece

of Babylonian wall

or of the great wall

of China

only vastly larger

set down on the ridge

of a mountain

after Hugh Miller

COMMON CAUSE

given in exchange
for a pair of shoes

tanned with the roots

of tormentil

after Hugh Miller, who, in taking the islanders part,

was gifted a pair of shoes made on the Isle of Eigg.


"They were all around of a deep madder red color, soles, welts and uppers; and, though somewhat resembling in form the little yawl of the Betsey, were sewed not unskilfully with thongs; and their peculiar style of tie seemed of a kind suited to furnish with new idea a fashionable shoemaker of the metropolis. They were altogether the production of Eigg, from the skin out of which they had been cut, with the lime that had prepared it for the tan, and the root by which the tan had been furnished, down to the last on which they had been moulded, and the artisan that had cast them off, a pair of finished shoes. There are few trees, and, of course, no bark to spare, in the island; but the islanders find a substitute in the astringent lobiferous root of the Tormentilla erecta, which they dig out for the purpose among the heath, at no inconsiderable expense of time and trouble."

Miller visited the Isle of Eigg in 1844, exploring the island's
rich geology, and the 'Massacre Cave'. His account, The Cruise
of the Betsey, was published in 1858.

A guide to Sweeney's Eigg is published here.

(AF)

Bothan Shuibhne | Sweeney’s Bothy

Alec Finlay & The Bothy Project

commissioned as part of Creative Scotland’s

Year of Natural Scotland, 2013