Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2023 21:13:42 GMT
The King of Scarba’s Daughter
Introducing 'The Bone Cave'
'Folktales and myths can do the big work of providing stories to steer our lives by; they can also do the smaller, no less important work of anchoring us to a place'. To mark the publication of his book, 'The Bone Cave: a Journey Through Myth and Memory', Dougie Strang describes two recent encounters with place, and with the stories that are held there.
dark-mountain.net/the-king-of-scarbas-daughter/
A young prince sails out of Norway, across the North Sea and down the west coast of Scotland, to the Isle of Scarba, to court the king’s daughter there. The king of Scarba consents to their union with one condition: ‘Spend a night anchored in the Gulf of Corryvreckan, and in the morning, if she’ll give it, you’ll have my daughter’s hand in marriage.’
Craignish Point sits at the end of a peninsula on the Argyll coast, opposite Scarba and the Isle of Jura. It’s not far from the small hill farm that my wife and I have recently moved to, and last week I went to the point to look out at the islands, and at the strait that separates them.
A powerful tidal flow surges between Jura and the mainland, with the sea being funnelled up the sound and then squeezed between Jura and Scarba. This strait or gap is known as the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Within it, reefs and deep channels create up-thrusts and eddies of water, as well as a whirlpool reckoned to be the third largest in the world – on a spring tide, you can hear the churn of the sea for miles around.
The prince of Norway, aware of the danger of the gulf, but sore-keen on the king’s daughter, and assured by her that the feelings are mutual, says: ‘Fine, I’ll do that, I’ll spend a night anchored there, but not for a month and a day.’
As quick as the wind can fill his sails, he races back to Norway; and there he gathers as many rope-makers as can be found, ordering them to source the best hemp in the land, and to make from it a rope thick enough to withstand the fiercest tide. He orders a second rope to be made of silk: not as thick as the hemp, yet supple enough to stretch with the highest swell and still not break. Finally, he orders that the hair should be shorn from the heads of all the maidens in that part of Norway – only those who were truly maidens – and from their hair a third rope was to be made that would be as unbreakable as their virtue.
The hemp and the silk are gathered, the hair is shorn from the maidens, and three cables of rope are made. Thus equipped, the young prince sails back to Scotland and down the west coast, arriving at Scarba a month and a day after he departed. If the king is impressed by his punctuality, he makes no show of it.
‘Tomorrow, I’ll marry your daughter,’ declares the prince, ‘for tonight I’ll do as you ask, and moor my boat in the Gulf of Corryvreckan.’
The king comments only: ‘It’s slack tide now; you best get on with it.’
The prince and his men row the boat to the middle of the gulf, and three anchors are cast overboard, one attached to the rope of hemp, one to the rope of silk, and the third to the rope of maidens’ hair.
rest in link
Introducing 'The Bone Cave'
'Folktales and myths can do the big work of providing stories to steer our lives by; they can also do the smaller, no less important work of anchoring us to a place'. To mark the publication of his book, 'The Bone Cave: a Journey Through Myth and Memory', Dougie Strang describes two recent encounters with place, and with the stories that are held there.
dark-mountain.net/the-king-of-scarbas-daughter/
A young prince sails out of Norway, across the North Sea and down the west coast of Scotland, to the Isle of Scarba, to court the king’s daughter there. The king of Scarba consents to their union with one condition: ‘Spend a night anchored in the Gulf of Corryvreckan, and in the morning, if she’ll give it, you’ll have my daughter’s hand in marriage.’
Craignish Point sits at the end of a peninsula on the Argyll coast, opposite Scarba and the Isle of Jura. It’s not far from the small hill farm that my wife and I have recently moved to, and last week I went to the point to look out at the islands, and at the strait that separates them.
A powerful tidal flow surges between Jura and the mainland, with the sea being funnelled up the sound and then squeezed between Jura and Scarba. This strait or gap is known as the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Within it, reefs and deep channels create up-thrusts and eddies of water, as well as a whirlpool reckoned to be the third largest in the world – on a spring tide, you can hear the churn of the sea for miles around.
The prince of Norway, aware of the danger of the gulf, but sore-keen on the king’s daughter, and assured by her that the feelings are mutual, says: ‘Fine, I’ll do that, I’ll spend a night anchored there, but not for a month and a day.’
As quick as the wind can fill his sails, he races back to Norway; and there he gathers as many rope-makers as can be found, ordering them to source the best hemp in the land, and to make from it a rope thick enough to withstand the fiercest tide. He orders a second rope to be made of silk: not as thick as the hemp, yet supple enough to stretch with the highest swell and still not break. Finally, he orders that the hair should be shorn from the heads of all the maidens in that part of Norway – only those who were truly maidens – and from their hair a third rope was to be made that would be as unbreakable as their virtue.
The hemp and the silk are gathered, the hair is shorn from the maidens, and three cables of rope are made. Thus equipped, the young prince sails back to Scotland and down the west coast, arriving at Scarba a month and a day after he departed. If the king is impressed by his punctuality, he makes no show of it.
‘Tomorrow, I’ll marry your daughter,’ declares the prince, ‘for tonight I’ll do as you ask, and moor my boat in the Gulf of Corryvreckan.’
The king comments only: ‘It’s slack tide now; you best get on with it.’
The prince and his men row the boat to the middle of the gulf, and three anchors are cast overboard, one attached to the rope of hemp, one to the rope of silk, and the third to the rope of maidens’ hair.
rest in link