SHETLAND DARK

After attending a talk on traditional Shetland basketmaking at the museum in Lerwick, Shetland, a session that was followed by a practical presentation of the craft, we drove back to Unst. Knowing that the event would finish late, we had booked the last ferry into Shetland’s ‘most northerly’ island. This geographic bragging has become the island’s cliché description, with nearly everything unique or north on Unst claiming to be ‘Britain’s most northerly.’

It was while driving through the clouded, moonlight hills** on this return journey that one noted just how dark the majority of places were. Frequently we drove through areas that had not the faintest glimmer of one bulb, with the only light coming from our headlights that helped to decipher what was ahead, sometimes with difficulty, such was the density of this drizzling darkness.

The thought occurred: if the country is so jet black in our ‘progressive’ age of ‘special enlightenment’ - a space station is being built on Lambda Ness, one of the ‘most northerly’ promontories on Unst: WOW! - what must have been the experience of those who lived with more basic forms of lighting like paraffin lamps; oil lamps; and candles? One should realise that this was not so long ago; parts of Shetland only received power and water in the late 1950s/early 1960s: the main roads of Shetland were only improved between the wars, to provide employment. The long dark evenings of winter that would have been a stark contrast to the bright summer days glowing with the simmer dim right through to the late and early hours, must have been grim, filled with every fearful horror that one could envisage. Little wonder that the traditional taatit rug* was woven with symbols to protect one from the evil spirits while asleep, when one was most exposed to the evil forces.

After having sensed the dominating dark of the long night, one can appreciate how stories of ghosts, fairies, and trows^ gained credence especially when travel between croft houses and settlements was by foot. The experience, even with the full moon, must have truly been forbidding. One was under a black sky, surrounded by blacker hills next to the pitch black waters of lochs, voes, and oceans. It was a world of unforgiving darkness where depth has no perceived limits: one was left facing the void – nothingness. Any neighbours might have been specs of light at best; the idea of walking to the neighbour’s crofthouse must have come with incomprehensible concerns when driving through the night’s darkness left one engrossed with worries about how one might cope in the dark nihility alone. Walking would have relied on one’s feeling for place and its intimate details, an awareness of its nooks and crannies that were all homes to the spirits.

We are so used to our illuminated world that we forget about the impenetrable depths of darkness, the huge inky void that eliminates all memories of place, supplanting this clarity with fearful uncertainties and formidable unknowns. It is a world that is now unfamiliar to us; but it is in this context that we have to consider not only the experience of the recent inhabitants of these isles who lived by pariffin glows and candles, but the broch dwellers too, who possibly used oil to light their nights around the glow of the smoking peat fire. Little wonder that the villages gathered close to the broch in a tight-knit community. One has to ask: how was the broch seen in this darkness that extended throughout the long winter months, with special celebrations to mark the nights' looming beginning and brighter end? This was the cold, black void that revealed nothing but the sound of another, an animal, a trow until one was upon the revelation of this phantom figure, or maybe not. We need to come to know this darkness again, not just its metaphor used in mental health. We also need to learn to manage light instead of flooding our firmament with an indiscriminate glow that reflects our arrogance and carelessness; or is it our insecurity? Sensing Shetland’s darkness would be a good beginning.+

The traditional ‘straw’ basket# evening was interesting. The museum’s Ian Tait repeated the presentation he had given a couple of years ago on the traditional baskets, outlining the history, and the materials and techniques used. Basket makers later displayed their skills hoping to interest others in their ‘endangered’ craft that was once so essential for Shetland croft life, and has left us with astonishing examples of both their patience and dexterity. The cheap imports from India changed everything. We need to learn from this lesson today too: the ‘economical’ solution might appear attractive in the short term, but it deskills us, and leaves us with less of everything substantial; literally keeping us in the dark.

**

Waning Gibbous 99% illuminated

Waning Gibbous is the lunar phase on 9 November 2022, Wednesday. Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 99% and getting smaller. The 15 days old Moon is in ♉ Taurus.

https://lunaf.com/lunar-calendar/2022/11/09/

The weather on the evening of 9 Nov 22 was cloudy and showery: see - https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/lerwick/historic?month=11&year=2022

*

https://www.shetland-heritage.co.uk/taatit-rugs-exhibition

For more on the taatit rugs, see: Taatit Rugs: The Pile Bedcovers of Shetland – Shetland Heritage Publications 28 November 2015 by Carol Christiansen (Author), Carsten Flieger (Photographer). 

^

https://shetlandwithlaurie.com/the-blog/shetland-folklore-series-trows#:~:text=Trows%20are%20a%20feature%20of,mischief%20in%20the%20human%20world.

+

Shetland is not alone in this world in being a dark place. There are still places where one can enjoy this mysterious quality. Australia has many dark places too, but its clear skies open up a dazzling display of sparking brightness that amazes, distracting one from the surrounding blackness. Shetland’s skies can be just as starry-brilliant too, but much less frequently.

# baskets use many different plant materials: see - https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/kishie-basket-making/

NOTE

See The broch - its intramural stair: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-broch-its-intramural-stair.html

Did the perpetual, memorable darkness of the broch stair and its upper space self-consciously engage with the spirits of the night so that they could be managed - evoked, addressed and appeased? Was the broch their abode, a place to ensure their satisfaction, so as to encourage their help rather than their retribution?

16 APRIL 23

NOTE

'Little people' turn up in the dark in Australian Aboriginal experience too:

He learned first the social rather than the religious stories of the land. In the rocky ridge country dwelled the menumemeri, Marrithiyel-speaking little pygmy men, quite black, who were felt, or heard, at night or who twinkled at the edges of vision. They are dangerous. A man travelling by night or camping in their country is liable to be enslaved, a woman to be raped. Amongst the men of Bill’s generation, stories were told of Marrithiyel who had found themselves surrounded in the ridges, but who had talked their way out of trouble by speaking to menumemeri in Merrithiyel and by giving gifts of flour, tea or sugar.

Peter Read, Belonging Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2000, p.84