A Day of Summer in Winter
On meeting the late Iain Sheonaidh Smith, a South Uist tradition bearer.
Read the Gaelic version here.
Reading Margaret Faye Shaw’s book ‘Folksongs and Folklore of South Uist’, I came across ‘Duan na Ceàrdaich’ - the Song of the Smith. It’s a tale about Finn and the Fèinne.
It reminded me of spending time with an amazing man in South Uist, called Iain Sheonaidh Smith. He was ninety five when we spent time with him, filming a documentary.
Iain had a hidden world of story inside him. He had learnt Duan na Ceàrdaich and many other pieces, in the taigh cèilidh - the cèilidh house. He had learnt them orally, rather than from the written word. When we met him, he didn’t have much chance to tell his stories and it weighed on him, I think.
The reason I know this, is because of how he reacted to sharing them with us. Iain was hardy. He and his brother, who was no longer alive, lived together in a blackhouse for a relatively long time.
His brother had been in the war and he didn’t want to hear any of Iain’s stories. And he wouldn’t talk of what he’d seen in the war either, although Iain mentioned one thing he witnessed, too dark to write here.
And so Iain kept the stories alive in his memory, at night, by playing them in his mind, ‘as if I was watching them on a screen’, he said. He did that over decades.
The first day we spent with him, you could see his memory of these stories waking up. At the end of that day, I thought it was maybe too much for him. He was very tired and I wasn’t sure he’d want to film the next day.
But the next day, when I went into his house, he was sitting on a chair in the middle of the sitting room, waiting for us. We spent the week with him. We’d sometimes take him places, and we also set up for people to come to his house, singers and story-tellers. And sometimes we all just sat around talking.
One of the singers sang a song about the S.S. Politician, a cargo ship that ran aground off Eriskay in 1941. On board, 264,000 bottles of whisky. Plenty of people sailed over to her from South Uist as well and Iain was among them.
Sitting on the shore in Eriskay, I asked him if it felt like a long time ago and he said no. No, it was like yesterday. It all went by so quickly, he said.
The first time he recited ‘Duan na Ceàrdaich’ was when singer Màiri Smith was with us. Here are some lines from it in English.
“One day the Fiann were on the plain of rushes, four brave members of the band. Myself and Oscar and Daorghlas, and Fionn himself, the son of Cumhal.
We saw coming from the hillside, a tall, dark, one-legged man. A black hood made from animal skin, and an apron of the same material.
Fionn, who was in the company, spoke to him, “To what land does your people belong?”
“Son of Liobhann is my name. Once I used to herd goats for the King of Norway in Gealbhain. But I am putting you under a spell. You are people used to smithy work. You will follow me to a dark glen at the west of the world.”
As time passed, more and more songs, stories and fragments came to Iain. We recorded them all, little jewels.
At the end of the filming, I was still worried it had been too tiring for him. I asked him if he had enjoyed himself alright. Had he enjoyed sharing his stories with us.
“It was the best time of my life,” he said.
That’s how important stories are.
END.