Brewing storm on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, by Donald Mackinnon

Here is a story told by the Scottish storyteller, David Campbell – courtesy of Christine Stone – that speaks of the childhood places that ground our whole lives:

He was a boy of seven and he lived in his own sweet green glen in the west of Lewis
playing with his companions in the stream
with all his relations about him.

And he thought of the glen as his whole world,
And over and above all was
the sound of the surge of the sea.

And he was only a boy of seven and he didn’t understand when the factor and the sheriff’s officer said that they were to be evicted.

It had no meaning to him, but three weeks later they came back and his parents were taken down and put into a ship, and he himself was taken down and put into the sternsheets of a boat to be rowed to the big ship.

He still didn’t understand.

He thought that surely sometime that evening he would come back to his own green glen
and hear the sound of the surge of the sea.

When they were aboard the ship they were shown their accommodation for the voyage.
It was an area six feet long,
by three feet broad,
by eighteen inches high.

This was for his mother and father, and the same area
Six feet long,
by three feet broad,
by eighteen inches high
for himself and his brother and two sisters.

For six weeks they travelled towards Nova Scotia:
it was a fearful voyage; the sea was rough,
food was scarce.
Many were sick and many died.

But always the boy thought that he would soon be back in his own sweet green glen and hear
the sound of the surge of the sea.

But the ship landed at Nova Scotia and put them ashore.

There was nothing there for them.  They had been told that there would be land there for them to work,
but there was nothing, nothing there for them.

The only offer they had was to work practically as slaves and still the boy thought only of his own sweet green glen
and the sound of the surge of the sea.

His parents decided to travel onwards into the mainland of Canada, and to walk until they could find a spot where they could build a farm.
And this they did.
They found a spot and built their farm.

And the boy grew up and worked there with them but always while he worked about the farm,
always at the back of his head was the thought of his own sweet green glen
and the sound of the surge of the sea.

Time passed, time went on and he left the farm and worked at many things,
in the steel mills of America,
on the railways
at anything wherever he went.

But wherever he went and whatever he did,
the dream was there always in his mind that one day he could see again
his own sweet green glen
and hear the sound of the surge of the sea.

But time passed and time passed, and he realised that age was coming upon him.

And still he had not returned to his own sweet green glen
and the sound of the surge of the sea.

At last he gathered what money he could and he made his way after all these years, back to Lewis.

He walked from Stornoway to his own green glen, but when he got there,
everything was changed.

No longer were there companions,
No longer the little black cattle.

The stream still flowed down the hill where as a child he had played.
The glen was still green, but no longer was there laughter of love in the glen.

And he realised that the only thing that he remembered of the glen was the sound of the surge of the sea.

And he realised that all he could do was to make sure that when he died, for now he was an old man, was to make sure that he would be buried there.

He made all the preparations so that he would be buried there in a knoll above his own sweet green glen where he would hear forever the sound of the surge of the sea.

And he sat on the knoll, the little hill above the glen above the sea, before his death and he thought of his childhood and of the time when the ship had taken him
away from his own green glen,
his own island
his own native land.

Hush.  Hush.  Time to be sleeping.

Says their website -

Ouse Washes was the name originally given to the area deliberately allowed to flood between the two great canals, dug by thousands of prisoners of war under the direction of Cornelius Vermuyden, in the 17th century. This flooding enabled the remainder of the fenland to be drained and turned into the best farmland in Europe. The Washes, therefore, is the only area that resembles the great watery wilderness that the fenland once was. There the customs, superstitions and ways of life lingered longest. In winter the flooded land is home to one of the largest gatherings of wildfowl in Europe, with ducks, geese and swans travelling from as far as Siberia and Iceland. In the summer the waters recede, the grass grows incredibly long and the Washes are home to many breeding species as well as birds and animals.

And -

The Ouse Washes Molly Dancers are a throw back to those halcyon days where the dance glorified the local heroes and reflected the uniquely freezing, windy wilderness where morris dancers dared not tread with their little tinkling bells and handkerchiefs. The Ouse Washes dance kit is itself indescribable but is said to be based on what the traditional dancers would have worn had they had access to today’s local charity shop, in other words colourful stuff.

Out of the murky, legendary depths where boggarts and the o’the wykes weave reedy dangers come the Ouse Washes Molly Dancers, where echoes of Fenland heroes, vagabonds and ne’er- do-wells are expressed in their unique brand of Norfolk Dance. Molly Dancing.

Ploughboys traditionally performed there own distinctive East Anglian dance when they were unable to work during the frosts, and on plough Monday (the second Monday in January) they would drag a plough round the villages, and dance whilst collecting money for beer and food. Some ploughboys even blackened their face so that they wouldn’t be recognised afterwards, particularly if they had just ploughed up some poor unfortunate’s garden who had refused to put money in the collecting tin (you are warned!). The dances they performed were either country-dances or a stylised interpretation of then, and became the forerunner of molly dancing, as we know it today.

We took the name of the area for our dance group as no one could object as no one lives there. We hope that we keep true to the traditions of the place, which is wild, dark, frightening and teeming with life – just like our dances.

I don’t know the name of the dance that they’re doing – and it’s not Morris Dancing! I find their looks, rhythm and moves mesmerising…

Their history is fascinating -

Lynn Advertiser, Tuesday 16th January 1844
The town of Downham, according to general custom, was visited this week by six or eight individuals, miserably decorated with ribbons, accompanied by a wretched tormentor of cat gut, designated a fiddler, styling themselves ploughboys, extracting alms of the inhabitants.

The police are generally alert in suppressing vagrancy, and were they to exert themselves to prevent cases similar to the above, the suppression would be a boon to the community.

The principal portion of the public in this neighbourhood are zealous advocates for and supporters of the plough, and would willingly give a trifle to the honest plough lad, when solicited to do so; but when the scum of the village, as in this instance, palm themselves upon the public as plough-boys (the principal portion of whom, it is doubtful, whether they know how to manage a plough, if they were ever engaged in such employment) it must be admitted the imposition is unbearable and ought to be put down- to say nothing about the gross insults generally given to those who refuse money when solicited.

Folklore, vol. 72 (December 1961) pp. 584-598 – Folk Life and Traditions of the Fens

‘The seasonal festivals of the year brought to the Fens, as elsewhere, their customs and traditions, most of them not surviving beyond the First World War.

Plough Monday saw the traditional procession of the plough and the demands for money made by the men and boys, many dressed as women or as horses. In the Southery and Littleport Fens, any woman refusing to give money would have her long drawers dragged from her and hung round her neck.

In the evening, at the Molly dancing, the money would be counted, and next day groceries would be purchased and delivered to needy old women. On this day too, teamsmen were initiated by having their noses rubbed against the horse’s tail.’

This dance is called the ‘Strange’ -

This dance came about because some of us liked the tune and thought that it felt right. It took six months to develop the figures and has become one of our core dances. The contrast between the darkness of the sound and the wildness of some moments in the dance comes from the heart of The Ouse Washes and reflects the environment from which the dancing comes. The fenland is the ultimate bland countryside, or so it seems from the horrible roads that cross it. Mile after mile of corn and sugar beet, roads that infuriatingly won’t go straight, drivers in cloth caps who won’t go more than 35, tractors which swing in front of you and stay there forever. But, get off the main roads, get out of your car and the sky towers above you. Ancient stories about Will o’ the Wisps and malevolent spirits seem very real. No wonder when they got together, fenlanders could be a little wild… the tune fits the place.

The group created a dance to the story of Mucky Porter, for which this is the music.