The Cave on Skarra Brae
High on the windswept hillside of Skarra Brae there is a cave.Many tales of folklore about this place have been lost in time. This could be one of them.
A girl, way back in the 3rd century was lost overboard from a Norse Longboat. She was the daughter of the master and was being taken to meet her assigned husband to unite the two tribes. The weather was far to bad for a search to be made so she was considered lost at sea.
many years later a fisherman happened by and as the weather was starting to close in he found a very small inlet, previously unknown to him and he thought he knew all the landing spots where he could find safe harbor when the weather could change in mere minutes as winter approached. He beached his little craft on the pebble shore and with a few heaves he had it well above the water line and fairly safe from the foul weather to come. He decided that while there was still some light left he would scout out the island. To his knowledge it had always been uninhabited and used only as a landmark due to the high pinnacle of black rock ,The Charraid Dhubh. There had been many stories handed down over the ages and most of them from seamen much the worse for drink so were taken with a good pinch of sea salt. Fergus had grown up with the tales spoken over the night fires and the one that stood out in his memory of the place was of the fair haired maiden who lived alone and shunned company so much that she would drive men to leap off the high crag to escape her witchcraft.
Maybe, Fergus thought, that she was so ugly,that was why they jumped.
He was lost in his reverie as he found himself high over the small inlet where he had left his boat. When he looked down it was no where to be seen and certainly not where he had tied it up to the small rock high on the shore. Probably it was there but out of sight, he would find it easily enough when the approaching storm had passed in the morning.
Now he felt the sharp drop in temperature and the sky was turning a forbidding grey. The storm was almost upon him. He needed to find shelter and quick. No sooner had the thought occurred when he spotted a slot half hidden behind a large boulder. The slot turned out to be the entrance to a large cave. It was dry and with the boulder there it was well sheltered. This was where he would spend the night. Dropping his knapsack he ventured outside to find fuel for a fire. He was looking forward to cooking the fish he had caught earlier.
As he finished his meal the storm finally hit and from his vantage point he could see that it was going to be very bad and could last longer than he had thought. He didn't mind though. He was warm, well fed and dry. The cave had over the years grown a layer of soft earth and leaves where he made a bed for himself, his knapsack a pillow and his thick cape a blanket. He settled down for the night.
The howling gale outside lulled him and soon he was drifting off to sleep. A sound amid the storm brought him alert.
It came from not outside but inside. He looked sharply around but saw nothing in the faint glow of the dying embers of the fire. he assumed it to be an echo from the storm and turned over, hugging his cloak around him.
It came again, was it calling out he wondered, he actually thought he had heard his name. He decided that he had been dreaming and had heard his mother calling him in for the night as she did when he was a wee lad playing outside the croft. When it happened a third time, he knew he was awake and shrugging his cloak he stood up and looked towards the back of the cave. It was in darkness. He fashioned a torch from the dry grasses in the cave and lit it.
The back of the cave showed yet another opening larger than the one he had entered. He slowly moved forward. Underfoot the ground sloped slightly downward. One hand holding the torch and the other touching the wall he carried on, going deeper into the cave. The wall disappeared from his touch and the torch guttered. In the seconds before it went out he saw that he was in a vast cavern. The darkness was abrupt as the torch went out. He knew he had only taken 2 or 3 steps from the tunnel so he simply had to step backwards those 3 paces and he could return to his safe spot. The opening wasn't there. All he felt was solid rock. He shifted to the left a few feet than to the right. Nothing, the opening wasn't there. Fear was like a fist in his stomach and it was growing. He tried to reason with himself but the utter blackness seemed to choke him. He sat down , unable to think while standing, in fact , having no focal point he was having trouble with his balance.
Even in a state of fear the human body will shut down if it needs rest and this is what happened to Fergus. He fell asleep. maybe it was the cold, he had left his cloak by the fire, or was it a noise that woke him. He was instantly aware that he was not alone. It now occurred to him that this could be the lair of a wild animal. A bear, wolves. They were all there on other islands why not here also. Standing up he reached for the wall to steady himself, it was no longer there. He knew he had sat down with it at his back, in fact he had leaned against it. He must have shifted in the night and now fear was gripping him again. Then he heard a sound, at first it was far off and then it sounded closer.
It was singing! He thought he was going mad. Singing? Who would be singing here in this place?
He shouted out and the singing abruptly stopped. Silence again, now what he thought. Am I dreaming? Hoping that he would soon wake up in his cot at his mothers croft and all would be well.
Fergus wished he had kept his flint in his pouch but it was lying by the fire, ready to use in the morning. He hadno horizons in this darkness until suddenly he glimpsed light, then it was gone. he turned and slowly made his way to where he had seen it, not knowing if he would be stepping off into a chasm. he stopped and scrabbled around for stones. He found a small handful and stopped searching fearful that he would loose his direction. He threw a pebble in front and heard it land, so, he moved forward, another pebble landed he moved forward again and so on until he had covered a good distance without mishap or seeing any more light. He tossed another pebble and it hit something. He moved forward and hit the rock face. As panic once again threatened to overwhelm him he saw the light again to his right and moved toward it. This time the light stayed and as he got closer he could see that he was in a narrow tunnel sloping down. The light got brighter and then the singing started again. Fergus slowly moved into the light and saw a girl bending low over a fire. She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. He thought she was the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. er flaxen hair hung almost to her knees in braids. She was dressed in some sort of animal skin that shimmered in the fire light. without a sound she bent over the fire and raised something to Fergus.
"Who are you"? Fergus asked. "Agathe", she replied in a soft tone. "Here have some food".
Fergus reached out , she didn't flinch as one would when a stranger suddenly appeared, he took what she offered, it was a piece of fish, he tasted it and finding it good he ate. All the while she just stood and watched him.
"Where is this place"? "Home", said Agathe, " it is where we live".
"Where who live, are there more people here"? "No", said Agathe, "just you and I".
"This is not my home", said Fergus, " I only sheltered here from the storm and somehow got lost in this cave".
"Well your home safe now", said Agathe, and sat cross legged by the fire.
"This is not my home", said Fergus, getting angry, " please show me the way out so that I can get back to my boat and I will be on my way home. My mother will be feared that am lost in the storm".
Agathe stood and beckoned Fergus to follow her as she moved into a low tunnel, he had to duck low but it ended, after a series of twists and turns, outside. The sudden glare of sunlight almost blinded him after the intense blackness. As he opened his eyes he saw that they were on a cliff face with a narrow path leading to a tiny curved beach. The weather was perfect after the storm had passed. He made his way to the beach but the girl remained at the cave entrance.
When he looked back he saw that the path he had come down led only to the cave and the girl standing there. The rest was sheer smooth cliffs all around. They seemed , to Fergus, to go up for hundreds of feet, with no way of climbing them, even if he could climb, he had a fear of heights so it was out of the question. Seaward, could he swim around the cliff? It looked to dangerous to attempt, he was trapped.
The girl had said this is our home. Fergus thought this an odd thing to say if she were the only one here. Getting back to the cave Fergus said as much. Agathe told him that she meant his and her home. Fergus now angry said that he wanted to go home and she would have to show him the way through the caves to get back to his boat.
"There is no way through the caves", she said, once you have arrived here you cannot go back; you can try if you wish but you will not succeed".
Fergus found dry grass and made a number of torches. He lit one from the fire, wondering how the girl had lit it, and made his way along the tunnel. It ended in another cave which he circled, finding no other exit than the one he had entered by.
Going back he asked Agathe how did she get there in the first place, had she been shipwrecked?
"No", she said, she had been washed overboard in a storm from her fathers longboat as she was being taken to be married to Ragnar Ragnarsson to join their tribes as one to make them stronger in battle.
Fergus stared in utter disbelief thinking that she had lost her mind by being so isolated. She was talking of times hundreds of years ago.
"How long have you been here Agathe"?
"Not long", she replied, "You will get used to it, just like the others".
"What others", demanded Fergus, who was now feeling very threatened by this slip of a girl.
'Oh,they come now and then, usually after a storm, the same way you did, though the cave".
Well where are they now,how did they leave?"
" Oh you cannot leave this place", Agathe said, "they are still here, come, I'll show you"
She led him down to the beach and to a spot that was concealed by a huge rock he saw grave mounds.
"How did they die"? Fergus asked, nervously.
"After they had tried to swim around the cliff to get away some were drowned and washed back onto the beach and I buried them here".
"Some", said Fergus, "what of the others, where are they"?
"They lived here for a while and then they died and I buried them on the beach" said Agathe, quite unperturbed.
"So, let me get this right ", said Fergus, Some lived here with you until they died, died of what"?
"They were very old, older than my grandfather was when he died in my homeland".
"Then why are you not old Agathe"? Fergus asked.
"I think because I have not tried to leave this place", Agathe said.
"How old are you Agathe"? Fergus asked.
"I was to be married to Ragnar Ragnarsson when I became 18 years old.
Fergus sat down hard on the beach looking out to sea for a very long time.
He knew in his heart that he would never see his mother again and he wept.
On the mainland the Coastguard Cutter pulled into the jetty where a lone woman wrapped in a shawl waited.
The skipper went to her and shook his head and she wept.
© Dave Timperley 16 May 2017
Comments