Orcadian Tales

[ewein2412]

 

There may be somebody out there who will be amused by this. Everyone else will go… What is she TALKING about?

The first time I went to Orkney a shepherd named Iain tried to seduce me. I was a girl alone, he was travelling with his mother; I was tempted, but naïve and a little scared. They tried to get me to come on a trip with them to the outer islands. I fled, as fast as I have ever fled from anything, to my beloved Pennines for the next season. It was nearly 20 years before I went back.

I went back because the Orkney Islands Council asked me to come. They arranged and paid for my journey, they provided food and a comfortable place for me to sleep. (I swear I saw no ghosts of ANYBODY.) But it was very windy. My children followed a day later, when my interview was over and we would be able to explore. When my four-year-old disembarked the adults had to make a barricade around him to keep him from blowing over. He had to creep to shelter bent double, hair blown flat against his skull, laughing hilariously the whole way.

I didn't get the job. I wasn't entirely disappointed, as it would have meant staying there, without the children, for two seasons, and not the light ones.

But we had such a marvellous visit, that time, that the following summer my husband and children went back without me, taking grandparents along for the ride. I was at WorldCon in Glasgow. (I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP, YOU KNOW.) Thus, when  sdnor  ellen_kushneror someone asked if my children were around, I was able to reply truthfully (and not without some small amount of hilarity): "No, my entire family is in Orkney." 

This post brought to you courtesy of the fact that I've been reading some of the HIGHLY UNPUBLISHABLE stuff I wrote in high school.  By "unpublishable" I don't mean "Viking wouldn't buy it"--I mean that it should be burnt, and that I would spontaneously combust of shame if anyone ever read any of it. Not that they would understand it if they did. I myself had some trouble with it, having forgotten, for example, that the boy magician was in fact a sort of transgender Orlando creature, and that his twentieth century arch-enemy does turn out to be Mordred. Or that he and Telemakos have the same birthday. Can I possibly have done that on PURPOSE?  It really is a miracle that I subsequently ever wrote anything remotely readable.

Comments

tried to seduce...

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

That's what you get (got) for being a traveling nubile, after all.

Our trip to Orkney (1994? I'd have to look it up) was so wonderful that
I'd hate to go back, for fear of being disappointed, although we have friends who went this summer and loved it as well.
Have you ever seen "Oliver's Travels," partly filmed there?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112109/

Re: tried to seduce...

[ewein2412]

gosh, no, I'd never even heard of Oliver's Travels, and it looks great (as well as something I'd appreciate all the more for having lived in Scotland for the last EIGHT YEARS). I love Alan Bates.

I've also, believe it or not and very sad to say, kind of forgotten that I was once a Travelling Nubile. Actually, my first visit to Orkney predated my first pull on a bell rope by about six weeks. But I'd just finished a tour with Liz T that ranged from Cornwall to Edinburgh, so I reckon it counts.

Re going back.... My first trip to Orkney was in 1986. Although (for many reasons) I was pretty weirded out and didn't enjoy it as much as I might have, and although I really loved it when I went back in 2004, it is safe to say that Maes Howe and Skara Brae have lost quite a bit of their magic. There is a huge tourist center, gift shop and cafe and car park at Skara Brae that didn't remotely exist on my first visit (when I arrived on a rented bicycle). But I really loved the Celtic church and Viking settlement on the tiny island north of there--I crossed over the causeway, by myself, as the tide was going out, leaving Tim and the weasels stranded on the mainland (I mean, Mainland Orkney). So there I was among these 1000 year old ruins in bare feet, on an island ALL BY MYSELF... it was delightful. A couple of months later Mark (who was 4) drew a picture that he still calls "Mummy on an Island" and I always imagine it is the Brough of Birsay.

Re: tried to seduce...

[handworn.livejournal.com]

So there I was among these 1000 year old ruins in bare feet, on an island ALL BY MYSELF... it was delightful.

Sounds like it. Did you hunt around for a little cave to try to find some Lewis chessmen? That discovery happened under somewhat similar circumstances, after all, though I bet you wouldn't mistake them for the Little People as the 1830s shepherd was said to have done.

Your burn-bag stuff reminds me of one of Dorothy Parker's book reviews: "This is not a book to be laid aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force."

Re: tried to seduce...

[ewein2412]

I bet you wouldn't mistake them for the Little People

no, but my head would have exploded with delight.

I once found a red glass scarab bead on the beach at St. Andrews.

Re: tried to seduce...

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Neat! Did you find out any story on it-- how it might have gotten there, that kind of thing?

Re: tried to seduce...

[ewein2412]

it never occurred to me that I could! hmmm. Making something up is also a useful option.

Re: tried to seduce...

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

gosh, no, I'd never even heard of Oliver's Travels, and it looks great (as well as something I'd appreciate all the more for having lived in Scotland for the last EIGHT YEARS). I love Alan Bates.

It is good! There's a lot of sex, which I find objectionable*, but it's really good. And there are too many puns. :D

* /squicked by TV sex