From Glens and Hillsides

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 62, 15 March 1938, Page 11

From Glens and Hillsides

The crofters and the fisher-folk of the Highlands of Scotland lead a hard life. They have lived a hard life for centuries and it has taught them to be i wise and thrifty, writes Mrs Frank 1 Gresham in “The Countrywoman.” It i has forced them to make use of every ' gift which tho stern and wind-swept ’ mountains or the seas and the glens have bestowed on them. It has taught , them to be enduring and self-sacrificing. . To be sparing of idle words and to com- ! inune with their iron hearts, j Yet the beautiful things of life have , not escaped them. Just the reverse lias L happened. For, as it is on the dark > forbidding rock that the most delicate » wild flower opens its petals, so in these ‘ bleak regions of tho north there has [ come into being & mystical understand- ! f ing of rhythm and melody, of poetry ' and music, and dancing. The deep emo{tions of the Highlanders are expressed the wistful loveliness of their cradlei songs, their love lyrics and their laments. They Sing While They Work. > Often they join together to sing as • they work. The woman who has spun i the wool from her own sheep and lias ■ had it woven on a hand loom by her • neighbour has before her the heavy task r of shrinking the length of tweed. She does not attempt to do this alone. In- • stead she gives a ‘ ‘party ’ ’ and some • ten or twelve of her friends and relations assemble in her tiny cottage, with its low roof and its peat fire, that they may beat and wring the loose woollen , material into a harder texture. This , they do by soaking it and laying it on a i table around which they sit shoulder to I shoulder. Then, in accord with tho music of a song in which they all take , part, they squeeze, and thump, and I press the tweed as they pass it from j hand to hand somewhat in the manner that the fishermen haul their ropes. It ; is deftly done in time to the music with j tho result that the weed becomes narrower than it was and the strands of . wool more closely knit together, i Because the women are thinking of what they are singing they forget that they are tired and sway to and fro, enwrapped in a kind of magical sympathy. When the men come in from the plough or the fishing-boats they find that their women folk cannot cease from making 1 music but call on them to give them songs and perhaps to dance a little. There is a strange power in it all. The | little wife who holds her husband’s | hand in hers remembers how he wooed 1 her in the green barley fields with the blue hills looming against the sunset. jThs old man with his plaintive fiddle is 'jthinking of the days when he rowed across the loch to find tho red deer. 1 The girl with her Jong grey eyes is seeing visions. 1 No one who belongs to a colder and , niort prosaic race can understand this .matter. It is to them both odd and in- | explicable. But the Scot though, he has cbeen on alien soil for four generations I can understand it. He understands by ! instinct when he hears the pipes or the ■'songs his grandmother used to sing to ' | him. ! Look closely at your Harris tweeds, L spuD, dyed and finished by the island|ers in their own homes in those lovely ‘ j isles of Harris and Lewis, of Barra and ! ,Uist. Look at the cobweb fine shawls from the Orkneys and the Shetlands the rugs and tartans from Suther--1 |lad or Inverness. There is romance in them and self-sacrifice and beauty. Colours From Many Sources. Some of them are made from the natural wool of the sheep that wandered on the slopes of the Grampians and Cairn Gorms and may bo dark brown or grey or cream-colour. Others have [ been dyed with natural vegetable dyes. Tho exquisite “crotal” brown was ob- [ tained by patiently scraping the brown - lichen from rocks on the sea-shore and . this lichen boiled with onion-skins gives , varying shades of creamy gold or fawn j colour. The blue dyes come from the indigo plant and to make the shades (paler the roots of the water lily or 'common iris are added. To make them | more violet the juice of the blueberry. | The young tips of the heather yield a dye of a kind of electric green. It is surely not unfitting to consider for a moment the conditions under which these Highland materials have been produced and to remember the poentry and the melody which helped to create them.