Gray Dog tidal race
In "The Silver Bough" by F. Marian McNeil we read that 'The Cailleach is the genius of winter and the enemy of growth. Her chief seat is Ben Nevis. She ushers in winter by washing her great plaid in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan (Coire Bhreacain : the Cauldron of the Plaid). Before the washing, it is said, the roar of a coming tempest is heard by people on the coast for a distance of twenty miles, for a period of three days until the cauldron boils. When the washing is over, the plaid of old Scotland is virgin white.'
In 1947, the writer George Orwell rented a place on Jura, a Hebridean island shaped like an elongated raindrop overlooking some of the filthiest seas in Europe. Barnhill, a farmhouse tucked right up on the island's north-eastern edge, satisfied Orwell's desire for distance. It is five miles down a track impassable to anything but tractors, and twenty-five miles from the nearest shop.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
The three slogans of the Party on the Ministry of Truth building
While he was at Barnhill, Orwell began work on the novel which was to become 1984, his apocalyptic fable of the individual within the totalitarian state. During the summer months, Orwell spent time with his son Richard (then still a toddler), his sister Avril and his nephew and niece Lucy and Henry Dakin.
Barnhill, Isle of Jura
The house owned by the Fletcher family who rented it to Geoerge Orwell in 1946-1948.
He wrote '1984' in the small room above the kitchen.
In August, Orwell proposed a camping expedition over to Jura's western side for a couple of days. On their way back to Barnhill, he took Henry, Lucky and Richard with him on the boat and set off for home, skirting along the island's northern tip. It should have been a brief and unexceptional trip; as it was, Orwell met the Gulf of Corrievreckan.
View of Corryvreckan whirlpool from a boat
Corrievreckan is the largest whirlpool in European waters and the second largest whirlpool in the world superseded only by the true Maelstrom off the Lofoten Islands near Norway's west coast. Sailors have always considered it one of the great maritime dragons, up there with Portland Bill, the Alderney Race or the Men of Mey in terms of risk and challenge.
Image Credit: Hebridean-Wild
The whirlpool runs between the islands of Jura and Scarba and is formed both by the pressures of a 9-knot tidal bottleneck and by two significant underwater obstructions. The flowing tide pulls water northwards from the Clyde estuary and the Irish Sea into the narrow gap of the Sound of Jura. As all the accumulated weight of water races north-eastwars uup through the Sound, it gathers pace. By the time it enters the channel between the two islands, it is moving at 9 knots or more, and as it rounds the corner into the Gulf it runs directly into four major opposing forces: the two islands themselves (no more than two-thirds of a mile apart at their narrowest point); a large submerged rock stack to the north of the channel, smooth-sided and vertical on its eastern edge and rising up to within 29 metres of the surface; the current running in the opposite direction round the coast of Scarba, and lastly, a deep sub-aquatic pit hollowed out by the movement of water reaching down 219 metres below the surrounding sea bed and known as the Gateway to Hell.
The pit sucks water down and the stack throws it upwards, creating vortices which rise to the surface as pulses. In a heavy wind, the standing waves directly above the stack can reach 10 to 15 feet high, and during the autumnal equinox, when the whirlpool runs in fullest spate, it can revolve at up to 10 knots, pushing the water up at the sides to 30 foot above the surrounding seal level. In those conditions, the water roars. They say that Corrievreckan's thunder can sometimes be heard ten miles or more inland. As the old Statistical Account of Scotland put it:
'Three currents, formed by the islands and mainland, meet a fourth, which sets in from the ocean. The conflux is dreadful and spurns all descriptions. Even the genius of Milton could not paint the horrors of the scene. At the distance of twelve miles a most dreadful noise, as if all the infernal powers had been let loose, is heard.'
Common seal in speckled dress, Jura
References:
Text extracted from The Wreckers: a story of killing seas, false lights and plundered ships by Bella Bathurst, 2005
Images plundered from Hebridean-Wild: exploring in and around the Gulf of Corrievreckan
Further Reading:
Jura & the Corryvreckan ~ tales and legends from an Easter Expedition in 2004. A delightful travel journal by UK sea-kayaker, Mike Buckley, that tells of little boats and aching arms.
Isle of Jura website
Whirlpool-Scotland ~ get up close and personal with Cailleach's washing-tub in a purpose built catamaran, 'Sea Leopard II' which took over from its predecessor as the main vessel in operation for Craignish Cruises, in late 2010.
The story of how Corryvreckan got its name by Scot AnSgeulaiche, local historian and storyteller.
About the Cailleach, or Hag of Winter by Stuart McHardy, writer and folklorist. One of the many versions of the Scottish Hag story makes her the chief of eight big old women or witches. This group of nine suggests Ptah and his eight earth gnomes, the nine mothers of Heimdal the Norse god and the Ennead of Heliopolis.
The Goddess in the Landscape - Many mountains and glens in Scotland have stories of the Cailleach, always associated with the local landscape, for the stories were always told in such a way as to find an easy reception amongst their audience. Placenames and associated tales put her all over our landscape
Priestesses of the Deer ~ J.G. Mackay published an article on Deer Goddess cults in the Scottish Highlands in Folklore 1934. He drew attention to the two meanings of the Gaelic word Fiadh as deer and God. He cites numerous examples of Highland tales which refer to the Cailleach associating with deer.
