Swetha Prakash's Jura Diary

Week 1

As the ferry makes its short journey from Islay to Jura, I think of an old Hindi film song - Ye kaun chitrakar hai? - Who is the artist behind this creation? Jura looks like a serene Chinese Shan Shui ink painting from the Song Dynasty come to life.

There is only one road in Jura. I walk up to the scree and quartzite covered Paps -Beinn a Chaolis, Beinn an Oir and Beinn Shiantaidh, popularly known as the mountain of sound, the mountain of gold and the sacred mountain, meeting some fierce looking highland cattle along the way. The Paps look exactly as they did in an 1818 aquatint etching by William Daniell. I guess that’s why so many ancient cultures worshipped mountains – for their changelessness and indifference to the passing play of elements. However, according to local legend, the Witch of the Paps proved her supernatural prowess by leaving behind a slide on the Beinn a Chaolais. In a Circe-like manner, this nameless island witch had trapped the hero Macphie of Colonsay, with a ball of thread. As he escaped (after nullifying her magic) she dramatically flung herself down the Beinn, scarring it.

Jura and Craighouse by William Daniell

I haven’t seen any yet, but the deer head, antler and deerskin decor of the Jura Malt Whisky distillery lodge reminds me constantly that I am in the island of deer.  In traditional Indian art, ancient yogis are usually depicted as wearing deerskin. This might seem puzzling because yogis (like Buddhist monks) took an ahimsa vow which involved complete non violence and non injury to all forms of life.  In Indian mythology, deer represent the fickle, constantly craving human mind. The deerskin in art symbolizes the yogi’s mastery over his mind by losing desire for the material world. In the epic Ramayana, the heroine Sita’s desire for a golden deer (actually a shapeshifting rakshasha in  disguise) sets the tragic narrative in motion.  Shiva, the lord of yoga, is said to meditate without stirring for eons in his icy abode – Mount Kailasha, holding a jumping deer in his hands.

Jura Lodge Interior

Nature, perennially still and yet constantly changing, can be the best guru to learn aesthetics from.  The gnarled ancient highland trees, cornflower blue lochs and moss-covered crags here, reflect the simplicity, balance, harmony and mystery behind all creation. I am working on some short stories inspired by the Indian epic Mahabharata. Interestingly enough, the author of the Mahabharata – Veda Vyasa was born on island. And because this is the perfect place for it, I am writing some zen landscape poetry. In Jura, surrounded by the poetry of earth, I understand why human figures appear as miniscule insignificant shadows in the taoist Chinese mountain-water paintings.

Week 2

Jura is an island of stories. Every part of the landscape has associated myths, legends and tales. This week, I visited Lowlandman’s Bay.

The bay’s peninsula is called point of leap or Rubh’ an Leim. Jura’s legendary robber, Mhic-Libhir (McLever), leapt from the crevice that splits Rubh’ an Leim into two and then dived into Lowlandman’s Bay, to escape his pursuers. But the karmic law and his pursuers caught up with him in a Jura Forest cave that is now named after him – the Uamh na Mhic. Mhic-Libhir’s treasure is allegedly hidden on Cnoc na h-Ilaire, the Eagle Hill. According to The Long Road – A driver’s guide to Jura by Peter Youngson, this treasure can be found by climbing Cnoc na h-Ilaire and digging on the spot from where ‘you can see enough of the Lowlandman’s bay to cover a blue bedspread’. Naturally, this treasure has never been found. But, following Mhic-libhir’s trail through the island, I did find a real treasure - the serene vedute along Jura’s coastline.

While exploring the Manse, I met the Minister who asked me to visit the churchyard of Kilearnadil where according to tradition St Ernan, St Columba’s forgotten uncle, is buried.

The churchyard of Kilearnadil

According to Jura – Language and Landscape by Gary McKay,  it is believed that St Ernan and his sister St Eithne had a discussion with St Columba about creating a law to protect women and children, and this formed the basis of the ‘The Laws of Innocents’ by St Adomnan, St Columba’s biographer. So, the island where George Orwell wrote 1984 is also associated with a thinker behind one of the first laws dealing with ‘crimes against humanity.’

Jura may have another St Columba connection. Some researchers believe that Jura may be the Isle of Hidba, which St Columba used as his spiritual retreat and where he had founded a monastery. WJ Watson, author of the History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland refers to a local tradition of referring to Jura as  't-Eilean Ban’ which means ‘the blessed isle.’

Interestingly, Jura Heritage by Gordon Wright refers to work by Edward Furlong which speculates that Jura may have been one of the islands that Odysseus visited and that Homer’s whirlpool of Charybdis  may actually be whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Odysseus visits an island called Thrinacia, or three pronged – which may refer to the three Paps of Jura. The world’s best known traveller’s journey would certainly have been incomplete without a stop at this quaint island.

Week 3

It is estimated that Jura has been occupied by man since 8000 BC and the island is rich in archaeological artefacts. This week, guided by Islay, Jura and Colonsay – A Historical Guide by David H Caldwell and Jura’s Heritage – A brief history of the Island by Gordon Wright, I visited some of the ancient relics and monuments on the island.
The Lussa Bay in Interlussa, first excavated by John Mercer in the 1970s, is a Mesolithic site where over 3000 microliths has been recovered. Most of these are flakes and fragments discarded in the process of making the implements used by the early nomadic inhabitants to hunt deer and auroch – wild cattle. The Jura Hotel has a display of brown patinated microliths, points, scrapers, gravers and blades collected from here.

The Bronze Age farmers, who cultivated barley, left greater evidence of their settlement in Jura by leaving behind various ritual monuments – standing stones, cists, cairns and cup marked stones. After several hours of hunting, I managed to locate the famous cup marked stone near Keils, an old village with three resident families. This is a vertical rock outcrop with some 28 cup markings on its surface. These cup carvings may have been used to pour offerings to local spirits.

There are several sites of standing stones on Jura. I visited the Curragh a’Ghlinne or Stones of the Glen in the Crackaig forest. Of the four standing stones only one remains upright.  The stones may have been erected for religious purposes – to get blessings for the crop being planted. They may have also been used for astronomical purposes and for demarcation of boundaries.
Unlike people from the Stone Age who buried their dead in communal burrows, the people of the Bronze Age started burying their dead in cists and cairns. There are several of these in Jura and I visited the cist behind the Parish church which also has three cairns.

The Iron Age monuments in Jura consist of dry-stone defended settlements (forts and duns) positioned on hilltops, which were built for the protection of the community and individual family units. The fort at An Dunan has the remains of a wall and a stairwell. These protective structures must have been necessitated by the development of weapons and continuous invasions. Viking raids on the Western Isles have been recorded since 794. These pirates would return year after year in clinker-built longships for their looting missions.
Several of the place names in Jura have Norse origins. The name Jura itself is widely believed to derive from Norse for ‘Deer Island.’ But, Gary McKay in Jura – Language and Landscape suggests that the word Jura may originate from the Gaelic word Diura which means ‘durable, tough, resistant.’
Jura preserves evidence of every stage of human evolution – hunting for food, cultivation, early forms of worship, ritual burial and finally the building of protected settlements.

Week 4

My only major excursion this week consisted of a trip to Ardfin Pier, which has a fine view of Claig Castle on Fraoch Eilean or Heather Island in the Sound of Islay. Gary Mckay refers to the castle as the ‘Gibraltar of the Hebrides’ since control of the Sound of Islay had once assured lordship over the west coast of Scotland. The island was first fortified by Somerland in the thirteenth century and it was then passed on to his descendents – the Clan MacDonald, who were for centuries the ‘Lord of the Isles’.

Ardfin also has a long dry stone dyke which runs from the shore to the hills. There are several dykes along the shore between Craighouse and Ardfin. These dykes emerged as a result of prolonged volcanic activity during the Permo-Carboniferous age and the early Tertiary period. The magma exploded through the crust in volcanoes of large vents, accompanied by a shattering of the earth’s crust. From each centre, linear dykes emerged, forming natural igneous walls.
Raised beaches are another ancient land formation that Jura is famous for. The Geology of Jura by David J Horne and Scotland: The creation of its natural landscape by Alan McKirdy and Roger Crofts explain how these striking coastal features were fashioned. During the Devensian period, the last Ice Age, the landmass sank as a result of the crushing weight of the ice and glaciation. Later, as the ice melted, the land slowly rose up. The beaches and wavecut platforms formed during this time were gradually lifted out of the sea with the isostatic bounce back of land.

Like geology, language too shares an intimate relationship with landscape. Language is shaped and sculpted by the landscape it is created in. So, it is no surprise that there are over seventy Gaelic words which refer to hills and mountains. A beinn is a mountain or hill of substantial size, while meall represents a large hill or a mountain without a clear distinguishing shape. A cnoc is a generic word for a hill which is smaller than a beinn or meall and cnocan is a small cnoc.

This has been an invigorating month – contemplating and working on language while watching the timeless theatrical play of landscape. I am immensely grateful to the Scottish Book Trust and Jura Malt Whisky Distillery for giving me writing time in this serene and secluded island.