GLADMAN

It’s certainly not labouring the point to assert that fairies play a significant role in the myth, legend and folklore attributed to the wondrous Isle of Skye. From ‘The Fairy Bridge’ (on the approach to Waternish).. to Dunvegan’s ‘Fairy Flag’.. to the ‘Fairy Pools’ at the head of Glen Brittle.. to Uig’s ‘Fairy Glen’, the wee folk appear to hold the island in their thrall, even in today’s space age of digital communications. Neither must we forget supernatural creatures at the other end of the scale, such as The Old Man of Storr standing proud – if a little ragged these days – beneath The Storr (appropriately enough), summit peak of the Trotternish Ridge.

But what of The Quiraing, arguably the most ‘other-worldly’, bewitching landscape of shattered, Jurassic rock formations in the whole of the UK, forming the eastern flank of the otherwise ordinary Meall na Suiramach at the northern extremity of said ridge? Created by an immense landslip during time immemorial – and (apparently) still a work in progress upon Mother Nature’s ‘to do list’ – this is a place to let your mind run riot, a secret rock garden of gigantic proportions... or a mountainous topography in miniature? Guess how you view it depends upon your point of view. Whatever, The Quiraing is just the locale to potentially spy all sorts of enchanted goings on.

Consequently, it comes as rather an ironic surprise, if not disappointment, to discover the paucity of such intriguing tales that still pervade the very essence of this island elsewhere. No giants, fairies, elves or goblins. However, all is not lost. Assuming cows dispensing UHT milk are your thing? If so, literary scholar/poet Nevil Warbrook relates the following (never underestimate the power of a milk-white cow, as they say):

“’Quiraing’, so I am informed by the owner of the Staffin Guesthouse, the one-time Staffin Inn that appears in volume one of Acts of the Servant... [by Sir Tamburlaine Bryce MacGregor], ... approximately translates as ‘Pillared Fortress’, which seems appropriate. Among the pillars are several with their own names, such as The Prison, a towering mass of stone evocative of a castle keep complete with turrets, and The Needle, a jagged one-hundred and twenty foot spire. At the centre of the Quiraing, and perhaps most extraordinary of all, is a steep-sided miniature plateau named The Table. Perfectly level and grass covered it was used once to hide cattle during clan wars and more recently has hosted games of Scottish hockey, or ‘shinty’. Winding between the pillars of rock are chasms filled with boulders and scree which make ascending into the Quiraing not for the faint-hearted.

The only tale I can find concerns a milk-white cow said to graze on the grassy Table at dawn on Mid-summer’s day and who would only yield milk to a virgin maiden over sixteen years of age.

Her milk was said to taste exactly as the drinker wished and never soured and for many decades the cow appeared once a year and was milked by the fairest virgin maiden of the surrounding parishes. It all ended badly when a tinker up from Glasgow heard the tale while selling his wares in Portree and lay in wait on Midsummer night to claim the milk for himself. After ravishing the maiden and leaving her for dead on the slopes, he disguised himself with a wig and climbed into the Quiraing. There he found the cow but as soon as he tried to milk her she caught him on her horns and tossed him into Staffin Bay where he drowned. The maiden recovered but the cow never appeared again. Exactly which year this was no one can say. In some accounts it was in the time of King James the First of Scotland and in others it was ‘before my father drew breath’ but all agree the tinker was a Glaswegian.”