"....I pointed to the slope of Oiseval that rears up into the sky like a great snub-nosed whale, cut off cleanly by the cliffs all around. The turf there was poor and thin, studded with humps of stone cleits that looked in the distance like barnacles on the head of a leaping whale. So I told them all that Oiseval had indeed once been a giant whale, far, far bigger than any that the Norway men leave in the bay to take to Bunavoneader in Harris. How the giant whale came to St.Kilda meaning to eat up little Stack Leveish, but Herta saw the whale just in time and cast a spell from the waters of the hill of blessings and just as the whale rose up it was turned into stone, its great open jaws turned to cliffs. Grass grew on its back, and the sheep went up there to graze, but if you looked sideways with your eyes hal closed you could still see the barnacles on its back and the shape of its big head when it opened its mouth wide.
"I can se it, I can see" said Callum and the others were agreeing.
"And one day a year, you must be careful not to climb it, for it will turn back to a whale eat anyone who climbs it." ..."
Passage taken from 'The Lost Lights of St.Kilda' by Elisabeth Gifford
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Posted by tjj
28th November 2021ce
Edited 28th November 2021ce
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