LAND OF BIRD-MEN - History of St Kilda

By Roberto Zanolla

St Kilda is the most remote and smallest island of the Hebrides of Scotland, in the Atlantic Ocean. The storms beat it incessantly and is the realm of huge colonies of seabirds. It was the cradle of a unique and rare civilization. Men were strong and fragile at the same time, broken in all the hardships, which for centuries they have lived with the little that Nature gave them, almost only meat and bird feathers. Bird-men have lived in harmony for centuries in isolation, without laws or obligations, without wars or money.

Civilization disappeared in 1930. Perhaps this was the mythical Utopia of Thomas More. St Kilda is a magical place, today protected by the National Trust for Scotland, and a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site of UNESCO.

This book is an exciting journey through time and space. Most enthusiasts will want to visit the place, for all the others, it will remain a fascinating world to think and dream.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244622121

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INTRODUCTION

I came across St Kilda by chance, flipping through a geographical magazine many years ago. The article was devoted to the Hebrides, off Scotland. Here and there, the author mentioned that lonely place. The island had developed an ideal civilization. The islanders had a proper parliament, had developed an autonomous economy and had lived in almost total isolation. The last survivors of that community were evacuated on their request in 1930. It was quite a story! I couldn’t believe that I had never heard of their story before. I was fascinated. The script ended recalling that even today there are those who believe that the island is populated by ghosts and, if there is a bagpipe, the fishermen will sadly sing ‘St Kilda goodbye...’ and soon will be a chorus. I went on to look at encyclopedias I had at home. I found nothing. St Kilda was not even on the maps of the UK. What was I to do? The internet did not exist yet at that time. I went to Trieste to probe the archives of the great public library. 

Yes, there was something about the island, especially in the American encyclopedias, but almost all of the few that I found was the information that I already knew. I continued with my research in the vast files of the library. In the end, I found joy with a yellow tag, on which was written by hand St Kilda, and the name of the author was Huxley. I will forever be grateful to the obscure librarian that explained that St Kilda on the tag was not strictly the title but one of the many topics included in that book. It was a book which contained various writings of Julian Huxley, founder of the WWF and brother of Aldous, the science fiction writer. At home, the same evening, I devoured that book. It contained an article from the 1930s, entitled Men and birds in St Kilda. It was the first leg of a journey that would take me to learn the many aspects of an incredible fantasy world, that of St Kilda. A world unto itself, from the poignant story, irretrievably lost, unique and exciting.  

HEAVEN AND HELL

…out in the mayne ocean seas, be three-score of myle of sea, layes ane ile callit Hirta, ane maine laiche ile, sa far as is manurit of it, aboundant in corne and gressing, namelie for sheipe, for ther are fairer and greiter sheip ther, and larger tailled, then ther is in any uther ile about.

Sir Donald Monro, 1549

A SPECTACULAR PLACE

It is said that Scotland has about eight hundred islands, but it is difficult to enumerate them exactly since there are numerous rocks and land that appear when the seas are tormented. Throughout history, almost two hundred islands were inhabited, but today, no more than fifty host permanent settlements. Everything suggests that in the future, this number will decline even further. Among all, one can claim the distinction of having been, for over a thousand years, the cradle of a unique civilization and unrepeatable, Hirta, the main island of the archipelago of St Kilda, the most remote piece of land inhabited in the British Isles. 

A little more than eighty years ago, on a misty summer day, the last thirty six inhabitants of that spectacular corner of the world mounted one after another on the ladder of the Harebell, the ship that would take them aware forever from the island where generations and generations of their ancestors had created one of the most picturesque and suffered civilization of Scotland. 

On August 29, 1930, the Atlantic anomaly disappeared forever. It remains only a memory, one of the most vivid of which Scotland can boast of.

The archipelago of St Kilda stands alone and is majestic on the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, 64 km west from the Outer Hebrides islands, extreme offshoot of the continental shelf to the west of which nothing but sea separates Europe from the American continent. Its exact location is 57°49’N, 8°34’W. St Kilda is what remains of a Tertiary volcano, its explosions and the glaciation of those masses of rock. The nearest land, undisputed reign of the Atlantic seal, is another tiny group of islands call the Heisgeir Rocks. Very distant, barely visible from the highest hills of Hirta, even with the clear sky, North Uist and Benbecula are the nearest inhabited land. Farther still is the island of Skye, with Dunvegan Castle and the lands of the MacLeod's Clan which St Kilda belonged for most of its known history. It can be said that St Kilda and MacLeod are inseparable and we cannot speak of the islanders without naming the Clan, nor separate the events of MacLeod from emotional bond that always tied them to their distant island.

St Kilda is a spectacular place and the islands have always been described in great superlatives, reflecting the range of emotions felt by those who had the good fortune to travel to those places and see the archipelago. The dramatic glance, combining the vertical cliffs to grassy terraces and the rounded tops of the hills to the sharp rocks, literally takes your breath away. If you add to this spectacular proscenium the history and culture of the people who inhabited the island, you get a scene so full of surprising values. The ferocity of the waves of the Atlantic, the nature with its vast colonies of ubiquitous seabirds, almost total isolation and the remains of the village, visible just above the coastline, leaving the visitor astonished and adds to the landscape of a place that truly has a unique touch. Normally you get to St Kilda from the sea and you get to admire the archipelago from a vessel that passes between the islands and reefs that amplifies the dramatic impact of the place. The small size of the archipelago heightens the emotions associated with the beautiful landscape, conveying strongly the spirit of the place to the lucky visitors.

EPIC POETS

The island appeared on maps as Kilda at around 1500. A map of Germany in 1666 was the first to indicate the small archipelago 

off Uist, which precedes its name from the Saint. But, you would never know of a saint named Kilda in Scotland or elsewhere. It is curious that the islanders were calling it each other Hirta or Hirt, more often than Kilda. It was thought that the strange name drew origin from the habit of the people to pronounce the letter r, aspiring to the point of scan Hirta almost like Hilta. On one side it would have been born as a mispronunciation Kilta, until the birth of the name by which it is known today.

It also argued that some Danes cartographers had mistaken the island with the nearby  Skildar rock and that error, from then on, had spread and perpetuated. Other scholars instead would like to trace the name to Culdees, from Latin Colidei. And this is a very common name in medieval churches of Scotland and Ireland, with roots in Ceili-de or Companion of God. In the Scottish scriptures, this term is often present as Kelidei and an hermit movement, known as Companions of God, apparently had formed the first Christian settlement in the islands of Scotland.

No less discussed was the etymology of Hirta, in Gaelic Iorta, who claimed to have been derived from the Irish Hiort, defined as death or darkness, because of a legend that he wanted the existence of a land inhabited by the spirits beyond the sea; and what better than the distant and mysterious land St Kilda, for the Highlanders of Scotland, could he hide such a secret? Disputes about the origin of the name did not fail to engage the Rev. Neil Mackenzie, who was the priest of the island for 14 years, in the last century. He argued that Hirta derived from I-ard, ie Island High. The geography of the place does not seem to blame him. Other scholars finally believed to guess its roots in Norwegian Hirt, meaning shepherd: the large number of sheep that always graze in that place also fully justifies this interpretation. Not to say that Hirta, suddenly rising and vertical from the sea, dominates the other Hebrides, guardian of those islands as a pastor of his flock.

Popular among the people of Scotland as mysterious and remote, which many considered the edge of the world, the island had its first brief description as Isle of Irte around 1360, in the book Cronica Gentis Scotorum by John of Fordun, chaplain of Aberdeen Abbey and attentive chronicler of historical events of Scotland, whose work was resumed and expanded by Abbot Bower in his Scotichronicon. From then on, St Kilda became the object of attention of scholars, erudites and the many who made it the subject of poetic descriptions.

In 1698, Martin Martin wrote A late voyage to St Kilda, the remotest of all the Hebrydes, an interesting compendium of the history of the island and its people, which is a real milestone in the extensive bibliography on the subject. Born in Bealach on Skye, Martin studied at Edinburgh University and lived in London. Samuel Johnson - better known as Dr. Johnson - and James Boswell did not fail to bring a copy of Martin's book during their famous tour of Scotland, organized in 1773, although they had criticized that writer, for having omitted important aspects of life of those places. Another important work is The History of St Kilda, by the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay, published in 1764. Dr. Johnson, essayist, biographer, poet and literary critic - took issue with Rev. Macaulay, which he considered to produce a work that was far-reaching as it was his book.  Dr. Johnson argued that the Reverend could at most be the architect of the topographical observations in the book, but the author was probably a priest friend of his, that Macpherson. Martin and Macaulay, careful observers of the natural beauty of the archipelago and faithful chroniclers of events long past time, both had the good fortune to visit those places during their heyday, when the island community of Hirta had almost two hundred inhabitants.

Later, chroniclers of the history of the island multiplied. Dr. Johnson and James Boswell himself, his witty friend and travel partner, William Collins and many others put on paper their impressions of the trip. In 1737, an anonymous poem was published in London, entitled Albania, lauding the island. In 1748, David Mallet made St Kilda the background of a story in a verse titled Amyntor and Theodora, or the Hermit. James Thompson, who was a friend of Mallet, devoted himself instead to melancholy verses in St Kilda, mentioning it in his book The Seasons. Most of the books describing the island  saw the light in the nineteenth century. Improving links with the mainland, due to the introduction of a summer fairly regular maritime service, after centuries of almost total isolation gave new opportunities to visitors, encouraging the visit of Hirta by a large number of tourists. Many journalists had the opportunity to finally see that mysterious place, and remained fascinated. The numerous articles published in newspapers so began to reflect the deep impression that this wild place aroused in visitors. In the eyes of the reporters, St Kilda appeared tied to ancient traditions, in an age that on the mainland saw the emergence of new values that arose from the rapid expansion of the industrial revolution, now involving large sections of the population, changing costumes in a hurry. Hirta was portrayed as a mythical ideal city, only a few hours by boat from the civilized world. Among the writers who have described St Kilda should be mentioned: John Sands, Robert Connell, reporter of the Glasgow Herald, Norman Heathcote, George Seton, the Kearton brothers, and who can forget Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, the Times reporter who was the only witness of the evacuation, in 1930. No one can learn more about St Kilda without reading the books of Tom Steel, Charles MacLean, Francis Thompson and many others. 

A REMOTE PARADISE

Getting to the island was always a difficult task, as well as during the winter season. The stretch of sea between the island of Uist and the archipelago of St Kilda can become a dangerous trap even today and this is also true for the newest ships, equipped with navigation systems that are secure and sophisticated. You have to think that, until the mid-nineteenth century, the only way to reach it was the boat of some adventurous fisherman. Eight rowers would be employed for one day and one night to cover forty miles offshore. It was never a smooth ride. Often, it was just the last couple of miles that would put a strain on the arms, the morals and the very life of the crew. The waves would come relentlessly crashing on the islands of the archipelago, upsetting the coast with the brutality of a whip. At these latitudes, storms are frequent and often the waves take revenge on the rocks, and the challenge is emerging from the surface of the boiling sea. The seabed around the archipelago is not deep and, except for some rare depression, their average depth is 60 meters. Village Bay reaches 50 meters depth and, from the center of the bay, the bottom slopes down steeply to the shore. The last hundred meters from the coast have a backdrop fraught with submerged rocks and the depth is just a meter or two. For this reason, the ships were always prevented from approaching the shore and even most of the vessels had to anchor off to avoid damage because the winds and the waves could push without notice against the rocks. 

It was often that the island community remained cut off from the rest of the world for long periods, for weeks and months and sometimes, for entire seasons. The islanders always tried to overcome this dangerous drawback by sourcing in advance all essential commodities. Food, tools and seeds were stored with care in order to overcome the difficult times. They would then present themselves in the long winter season. In early summer, they received the visit of the steward of MacLeod, the owner of the island. He carried a deposit of supplies ordered by the community last year, during his previous visit. During the summer, the Tacksman, as he was called, would take another trip to complete the supplies and collect that part of the products of the island that the community had for the payment of rent in nature due to MacLeod. The emissary of the clan on that occasion was informed about the needs of the islanders for the following year. If the winter had been mild, the community could hope for a visit in late spring. Otherwise, they would have to sip stocks and wait for the summer. During the winter, they would certainly receive some sporadic visits of vessels Fleetwood and Aberdeen, but the sea conditions were so changeable that it couldn’t be relied on with certainty the help of extemporaneous fishermen. The whole story of the island is characterized by the incessant succession of storms that isolated St Kilda from the mainland, preventing the visit of those who would have to bring help, sometimes indispensable and vital. Every time that the steward of MacLeod could not reach Hirta because of bad weather, the islanders found themselves having to face a period of famine. 

The community was dedicated to agriculture and the grassy slope place behind the village was used for this purpose. The crop was subject to varying fortune. Barley was the grain that was being grown, along with a little oats. The crop was stowed in cleit, stone shaped warehouse vaguely pyramidal, three meters wide and one meter high above the ground, with the roof slabs of stone covered with peat and grass. The rain does not penetrate, while the air flows freely through the entrance of different shapes and sizes from one store to the other, but always without a door. Inside, there were specific niches for storage stocks called cuiltean. There were hundreds of cleits built and down the slopes of Hirta today, there are 1,260 while 170 others are scattered among the smaller islands and most important rocks. 

In addition to cereals, there were preserved peat pellets, the carcasses of seabirds, their feathers and eggs. The salt always cost too much and was used sparingly. The wind whipped the island in the cold months. The cold air dried the meat in those small stores and in that way, it could be kept for a long period of time. Sheep farming was very developed and the islanders could count on a flock of two thousand sheep. There were also a few goats and fifty cows. In 1700, there were also twenty pack horses, and they ate more grass than there were available for them. The calves were sold as a rule, but the islanders could not always do it because the periodic famines often involved the killing of some head. In doing so, the islanders avoided the risk of starvation, but the damage inflicted on those occasions to the assets of the island was always very serious, contributing to the progressive collapse of the fragile social structure of the community. But, it was bird hunting that was the cornerstone of the economy of the island. 

The massive bird colonies have always been present in the archipelago and are still present in St Kilda, the most important British station of many species. The islanders had made their main economic resource, and it indeed still takes place in many Scottish islands and, even more, in the island Far Oer. The birds were a virtually inexhaustible source of food. The community always made enough to pay the rent of land to MacLeod from their meat and feathers. They were able to buy precious supplies and everything that could serve to conduct their entire life in that corner of the world. Only the bad weather could jeopardize the hunting season, turning the island into the most cramped prisons and sometimes in a dangerous trap for the very survival of the community. Sometimes storms and heavy seas prevented anyone from reaching the archipelago and, at the same time, did not allow the islanders to put in water the boats which were to reach the farthest rocks for hunting. The most numerous bird colonies lived on the island of Boreray, which was unattainable in rough seas. To undertake an expedition during a storm would have meant unnecessarily risking a precious boat and life itself. Luckily, they often were able to reach the rocks. The ascent along the steep slopes to undermine the birds on their land would have been in any case a real difficult undertaking. A bad hunting season, especially if accompanied by a small crop, could have ruined the community. When the hunt was not producing the desired results, the islanders would have to decimate their flock. There were winters that saw the islanders eating their own sheep, and then they would feed on algae and even grass to survive until help arrives. On the mainland, you would think that the islanders were lucky mortals who did not have to divide their freedom with anyone. While that happened often, less romantically, people in Hirta were struggling for life. 

St Kilda was still a prison and a paradise but, beyond the vicissitudes of which were protagonists of the islanders, now more than before, visitors were fascinated by the crystalline purity of the natural environment and the grandeur of the majestic cliffs that rose from the sea. There were three major islands: Hirta, Dun and Soay. 

The first was the largest and the only one in history that was inhabited. A few miles further north on the horizon was the impressive rock of Boreray, guarded by Stac Lee and Stac an Armin twin, with two sharp teeth driven into the sea. The island of Hirta measured three kilometers in width and three kilometers from north to south. The surface is just over 600 hectares. Its shape is reminiscent of a letter ‘H’, slightly tilted on its axis. The island was hemmed and protected almost everywhere along its perimeter by granite cliffs that at higher points plunge into the sea from an altitude of 400 meters above the waves. 

They are the highest cliffs in Britain with the green hills that slope towards the sea, forming steep cliffs, deep ravines of bare rock and step meadows, to rocky pinnacles rising here and there. One of these was particularly beautiful in the past and was the scene of daring climbing. It was baptized as the Lover’s Stone and it was the goal of all people of the island to be married. That rock was sharp and after climbing laboriously and reaching the summit, the young would perform acrobatics in the community to show their worth and prove to the family of the bride that he need not fear for the future of their daughter. 

Throughout the island, there are only two opposing depressions, one north and once facing south, which are protected by the fury of the sea by two small bays that are set among the rocks. The highest hill of Hirta was 425 meters and is called Conachair and the north plunges straight into the sea, while the southern slopes protect the back of Village Bay. From the top, you can see the waves crashing on the coast below, but it is so high that you cannot hear the roar with which the waves rage against the rocks. Admiring the cliffs of Hirta amazes the helpless and speechless. Hill Oiseval, however, is the lower sister, although impressive in its granite cream-colored dress. Oiseval closes in the bay at East, and overlooks the plain of the village. Glen Bay on the north and Village Bay on the south side of Hirta, are the only two possible landing points in that picture of rocks, tormented by the foaming waves of the Atlantic. 

The first settlers of this strip of wilderness chose the slope behind Glen Bay for their original settlement. That bay was strongly arched shape and it sheltered itself from the wind, and is washed by a small stream and has a beautiful spring called Tobar-na-Buaidh, which flows a short distance from the mouth of the stream. At first it seemed the ideal place to protect the fishing boats. It probably also served as a refuge for pirates who often infested those seas, who did not escape the importance of a strategic shelter to make it difficult for their pursuers. Later came the gradual abandonment of that site in favor of the bay located on the south. Village Bay became a center of the island, in the course of history hosted numerous settlements, each of which still recognize the traces on the slopes between the houses of the village and the ones built in the second half of the nineteenth century. The plain on which the village continues in slope and gentle hillside is wet by a narrow stream called Abhainn Mhor - ie Great River - which after a short ride, it restlessly flows into the bay. Water is abundant on the island and there are many springs that flow on the sides of the mountain. They are all linked to ancient legends and religious beliefs that are lost in the mists of time, likely the result of animism that had permeated the islanders before the advent of the Church. The water source Glen Bay was long believed to be miraculous and not a few were willing to take the tourists - even in recent times – to the long walk to the north to be able to drink. The most popular source of the south, however, was Tobar-na-Cille, known as Source of Saint Brendan. Abhainn Ghlinne Mhor, or River of the Great Glen, is the name of the stream which flows through the opposite side of the island. Many streams are deprived of water, in the absence of rains, while many others come from sources and are perennial. There are two small ponds: a pond on the Glen Mor, which has an area of one-tenth of a hectare, and a small pond on the saddle between Conachair and Mullach Mor.

During the low tide, in other parts of the coast brings out a thousand rocks. At Village Bay, however, instead of that, you will be able to see a thin strip of sand from life too ephemeral, however, to be of any use. As soon as the sea covers it, is replaced by a steep step of rock which prevents a safe landing. Enclosed by hills covered with very green grass, very suggestive scenery for those coming from the sea, the main bay is a circular amphitheater sheltered from westerly winds from the island of Dun, old stalk of Hirta, which was united thanks to a string of rocks eroded by the wind, whose collapse has created a narrow passage between the rocks, in the millennia and became a tumultuous channel, called Gap. The channel, just 20 meters, it may seem like an easy task, but is actually full of sharp rocks, surfacing only occasionally. Anyone trying to recklessly reach Dun is warned from the first breath of wind: the growl of waves that penetrate into the cavities between the rocks overlooking every other noise soon. The island is the daughter of the wind, relentlessly blowing the top, has surprisingly modeled flattening the bumps. And it is thanks to the shield formed naturally from the island of Dun that Village Bay avoids being invested in the first instance by the Atlantic