Tag Archives: Scotland

Who Will Play Me?

Posted on by

Listening to Jafar Panahi speak about his film It Was Just An Accident made me think about my life, the things that I do, the things that I say I’ll do, my half-baked words and actions, the things that make me the regrettable quagmire of contradictions that I am.

I know one thing and one thing only: time passes. No matter the tastes and pains, the magic and nothingness-eses, that’s what it does. It passes.

I’m on the side of a narrow, cold channel. The lighthouse is in the distance. I take off my boots and socks and make my way across the kelp and rocks, expecting to fall, my body to wash out with the tide, found in the years to come, a human interest story on the northeast tip of Sanday Island in the Orkneys.

It is not as difficult as I imagine and brush the sand off my feet as I examine the small bird skull. The path winds beside a fallow field. The nettles are thick. I look back, wondering if the tide is already rising and I will be stuck here for the night. The lighthouse is fenced in and fully automated.

I return along the coast and am dive-bombed by oystercatchers. They screech and shit, and I scream back and throw rocks. They terrify me.

The tide rises, and I walk in the knee-deep water. There is an ancient tomb at the side of the road, but it has been covered over. Sheep stare back, their bodies oddly sheered and painted blue. I want to write, but I don’t know what about. Something true and real. Something fantastic and simple. Something about what I was doing here. Can oystercatchers be trained? And who will play me?

Ferry Rights in Loch Aw, Scotland

Posted on by

My ancestors were granted the ferrying rights across Loch Aw, Scotland in 1488. The (much abridged) document reads:

In the name of god amen… in the 7th year of Innocent, the 6th divine providence, Pope, in the presence of me, the notary public, the good and honest man, Moricius McFedran, handed over a certain letter written on a parchment about the ground as it appeared to be…lochaw1…containing word that it to me be clear to all that, given and to the honour and praise of Almighty God of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints for the safety of our soul and of the souls of all our ancestors and to the successors of the Lord of Lochaw, to have set and demitted to our faithful Dominicus McFedran by force of those present to his male heirs begotten or to be begotten the one mark of land of Sonachan near to the port extending to the river which is called Altbane and the river which is called Altynesperry lying in the Lordship of Lochaw, to be held and possessed all and the whole of the mark land along with the duty of ferrying …understanding that Dominicus and his heirs will carry all infirm, lame, poor and pilgrims without price or charge across the Loch.lochaw2The cost per year: 10 shillings of silver, two bolls of grain which are called barley and oats, one pound of cheese and a sheep.