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Infestations / Plagues, The McLellan Festival and The Largs Viking Festival, it must be September! Some people gage the seasons by the leaves on the trees etc. I gage them by the uninvited beasties I鈥檓 battling and which festival I鈥檓 partying at.

Every year, depending on the season, ants, beetles, wasps, spiders, mice and frogs try to move in with me and seasonally I find different ways of murdering them. But this time I had to call in the big guns as saw a rat in the house! I don鈥檛 feed the birds, compost or do anything to encourage rats and keep all the doors shut and have never had any bother with rats till now. I鈥檓 blaming the rat on the friend who was staying with me who must鈥檝e been born it a barn and raised in a midden as he鈥檚 allergic to shutting doors, washing dishes and putting food away. So I thought, might as well kill two pests with one rat catcher and get rid of the wasps as well. I rang the council and the lady pointed out that I don鈥檛 live in a council house. I explained that I was aware of this. She seemed suprised that I was prepared to pay for someone else to deal with wasps and rat. The council finally sent the exterminator last week. He was casually explaining to me that the wasps in the bathroom must be coming in from outside because if there was a nest in the house he would be able to see them going in and out, then he had a look in the garret, went pale, said something to the effect of, 鈥淛ings! That鈥檚 the biggest wasp bike I鈥檝e ever seen! The blighters!鈥� Only he put much more colourfully. Then he went back to his car, got another two buckets of wasp bike killer and disappeared in to the attic of stingyness. The wasp bike covered most of the gable wall. Brave man, whatever he's paid, it's not enough.

Then he decided to tackle the rat. This wasn鈥檛 quite what you would expect as the rat got jammed under the boiler and by the time he managed to dislodge it, it was toast, literally. It鈥檚 an unusual odour. I would鈥檝e taken a photo for you all but I was suddenly taken poorly. There are now trays and bags of blue pellets all over the house which may well discourage the annual influx of mice, have also set the nipper traps. I can鈥檛 put poison down outside as the partridges, pheasants, ducks, oystercatchers rabbits etc. might eat it, the smell of rotting animals all over the place wouldn't be plesant鈥�

As Jura Stores pointed out, the council appear to be taking a proactive rat encouragement initiative. The Coup is closing and all our rubbish will be taken to the mainland. We will be getting blue wheelie bins for recyclable stuff; this will also be transported by road, ferry and lots more road to a mechanised sorting plant on the mainland. The Council says this is good for the environment. There are no plans for any facilities for large amounts of business rubbish and nowhere for anyone to take rubbish to which won鈥檛 fit in the wheelie bins that will only be emptied once a fortnight. They won鈥檛 lift anything that isn鈥檛 in the bin. Fly tipping must be good for the environment too. Following the councils鈥� logic, the smell from the bins won鈥檛 encourage the already excessive rat population, the frogs, ants and mice are bad enough.

So I finally settled down to watch the chick flick believing myself to be happily alone, only to spot a mammoth harvest spider taking his evening stroll across the curtains, EW! Pressed pause, got the huge spider sized cup from the back of the cupboard and threw the monster out into the rain. Half an hour later something bounced across the carpet鈥� Once I鈥檇 peeled myself off the ceiling I investigated and yes, it鈥檚 a frog. The cup was still handy so after a mental chase, he joined the spider outside. For some reason the frogs prefer the route from the back garden to the loch via my drawing room every year about this time. I have no idea how they get in or why they come in and they are always travelling in the same diagonal direction. The house had been there for hundreds of years; surely it would be easier for the frogs to go round the outside if they are trying to get to the loch. I鈥檓 wondering what鈥檚 going to try to move in next! That reminds me, full moon, better look out the silver bullets.

On a more pleasant seasonal note The McLellan Festival is running this week, celebrating the poetry, writing and plays of Robert McLellan. I went to see The Smuggler and The Caileach last night at Corrie hall and both plays were excellent. For more info go to www.arranart.com. Next year is the centenary festival with events across Scotland. There is a poetry evening at Corrie Hall tonight, another chance to see the plays on Friday night, 8pm Corrie Hall and the culmination on Saturday night again at the hall, it鈥檚 all free and there鈥檚 plenty of wine. There is also a fantastic exhibition inspired by Robert McLellans' work at The Burnside Gallery, Brodick, running all week.

It鈥檚 also Largs Viking Festival this week. Our longship is moored at the beach and there are events all this week. We will all be invading Largs on Saturday for Up-Hellia and will be sailing the Longship as part of the celebrations. We are sailing it back to Arran on Sunday leaving the yacht club after lunch. If you are around the Ayrshire coast come down to the Viking village and have a look around or join us at the pencil on Saturday evening for the party!

Since we started sailing the Longship it's been more rowing than sailing due to lack of wind, even with Peter on board! Someone suggested sticking a knife in the mast and whistling, this wasn't very effective. I've heard about tying three knots in a length of rope, hanging it from the yard arm and untying a knot everytime you need more wind but never undo the third knot. My thumb is getting stiff from trying to get a tow so could you all wrack your old wives brains and post what you know about summoning wind, I already know about the power of Emporio Alan Johns antiquated beans. I had lots of work to do today so here's what I found out on the internet instead regarding wind summoning:

Sir James George Frazer (1854鈥�1941). The Golden Bough. 1922.

搂 4. The Magical Control of the Wind

ONCE more, the savage thinks he can make the wind to blow or to be still. When the day is hot and a Yakut has a long way to go, he takes a stone which he has chanced to find in an animal or fish, winds a horse-hair several times round it, and ties it to a stick. He then waves the stick about, uttering a spell. Soon a cool breeze begins to blow. In order to procure a cool wind for nine days the stone should first be dipped in the blood of a bird or beast and then presented to the sun, while the sorcerer makes three turns contrary to the course of the luminary. If a Hottentot desires the wind to drop, he takes one of his fattest skins and hangs it on the end of a pole, in the belief that by blowing the skin down the wind will lose all its force and must itself fall. Fuegian wizards throw shells against the wind to make it drop. The natives of the island of Bibili, off New Guinea, are reputed to make wind by blowing with their mouths. In stormy weather the Bogadjim people say, 鈥淭he Bibili folk are at it again, blowing away.鈥� Another way of making wind which is practised in New Guinea is to strike a 鈥渨ind-stone鈥� lightly with a stick; to strike it hard would bring on a hurricane. So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying:


鈥淚 knok this rag upone this stane

To raise the wind in the divellis name,

It sall not lye till I please againe.鈥�

1
In Greenland a woman in child-bed and for some time after delivery is supposed to possess the power of laying a storm. She has only to go out of doors, fill her mouth with air, and coming back into the house blow it out again. In antiquity there was a family at Corinth which enjoyed the reputation of being able to still the raging wind; but we do not know in what manner its members exercised a useful function, which probably earned for them a more solid recompense than mere repute among the seafaring population of the isthmus. Even in Christian times, under the reign of Constantine, a certain Sopater suffered death at Constantinople on a charge of binding the winds by magic, because it happened that the corn-ships of Egypt and Syria were detained afar off by calms or head-winds, to the rage and disappointment of the hungry Byzantine rabble. Finnish wizards used to sell wind to storm-stayed mariners. The wind was enclosed in three knots; if they undid the first knot, a moderate wind sprang up; if the second, it blew half a gale; if the third, a hurricane. Indeed the Esthonians, whose country is divided from Finland only by an arm of the sea, still believe in the magical powers of their northern neighbours. The bitter winds that blow in spring from the north and north-east, bringing ague and rheumatic inflammations in their train, are set down by the simple Esthonian peasantry to the machinations of the Finnish wizards and witches. In particular they regard with special dread three days in spring to which they give the name of Days of the Cross; one of them falls on the Eve of Ascension Day. The people in the neighbourhood of Fellin fear to go out on these days lest the cruel winds from Lappland should smite them dead. A popular Esthonian song runs:


Wind of the Cross! rushing and mighty!

Heavy the blow of thy wings sweeping past!

Wild wailing wind of misfortune and sorrow,

Wizards of Finland ride by on the blast.
2
It is said, too, that sailors, beating up against the wind in the Gulf of Finland, sometimes see a strange sail heave in sight astern and overhaul them hand over hand. On she comes with a cloud of canvas鈥攁ll her studding-sails out鈥攔ight in the teeth of the wind, forging her way through the foaming billows, dashing back the spray in sheets from her cutwater, every sail swollen to bursting, every rope strained to cracking. Then the sailors know that she hails from Finland. 3
The art of tying up the wind in three knots, so that the more knots are loosed the stronger will blow the wind, has been attributed to wizards in Lappland and to witches in Shetland, Lewis, and the Isle of Man. Shetland seamen still buy winds in the shape of knotted handkerchiefs or threads from old women who claim to rule the storms. There are said to be ancient crones in Lerwick now who live by selling wind. Ulysses received the winds in a leathern bag from Aeolus, King of the Winds. The Motumotu in New Guinea think that storms are sent by an Oiabu sorcerer; for each wind he has a bamboo which he opens at pleasure. On the top of Mount Agu in Togo, a district of West Africa, resides a fetish called Bagba, who is supposed to control the wind and the rain. His priest is said to keep the winds shut up in great pots. 4
Often the stormy wind is regarded as an evil being who may be intimidated, driven away, or killed. When storms and bad weather have lasted long and food is scarce with the Central Esquimaux, they endeavour to conjure the tempest by making a long whip of seaweed, armed with which they go down to the beach and strike out in the direction of the wind, crying 鈥淭aba (it is enough)!鈥� Once when north-westerly winds had kept the ice long on the coast and food was becoming scarce, the Esquimaux performed a ceremony to make a calm. A fire was kindled on the shore, and the men gathered round it and chanted. An old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing voice invited the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm himself. When he was supposed to have arrived, a vessel of water, to which each man present had contributed, was thrown on the flames by an old man, and immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot where the fire had been. They thought that the demon would not stay where he had been so badly treated. To complete the effect, guns were discharged in various directions, and the captain of a European vessel was invited to fire on the wind with cannon. On the twenty-first of February 1883 a similar ceremony was performed by the Esquimaux of Point Barrow, Alaska, with the intention of killing the spirit of the wind. Women drove the demon from their houses with clubs and knives, with which they made passes in the air; and the men, gathering round a fire, shot him with their rifles and crushed him under a heavy stone the moment that steam rose in a cloud from the smouldering embers, on which a tub of water had just been thrown. 5
The Lengua Indians of the Gran Chaco ascribe the rush of a whirl-wind to the passage of a spirit and they fling sticks at it to frighten it away. When the wind blows down their huts, the Payaguas of South America snatch up firebrands and run against the wind, menacing it with the blazing brands, while others beat the air with their fists to frighten the storm. When the Guaycurus are threatened by a severe storm, the men go out armed, and the women and children scream their loudest to intimidate the demon. During a tempest the inhabitants of a Batak village in Sumatra have been seen to rush from their houses armed with sword and lance. The rajah placed himself at their head, and with shouts and yells they hewed and hacked at the invisible foe. An old woman was observed to be specially active in the defence of her house, slashing the air right and left with a long sabre. In a violent thunderstorm, the peals sounding very near, the Kayans of Borneo have been seen to draw their swords threateningly half out of their scabbards, as if to frighten away the demons of the storm. In Australia the huge columns of red sand that move rapidly across a desert tract are thought by the natives to be spirits passing along. Once an athletic young black ran after one of these moving columns to kill it with boomerangs. He was away two or three hours, and came back very weary, saying he had killed Koochee (the demon), but that Koochee had growled at him and he must die. Of the Bedouins of Eastern Africa it is said that 鈥渘o whirl-wind ever sweeps across the path without being pursued by a dozen savages with drawn creeses, who stab into the centre of the dusty column in order to drive away the evil spirit that is believed to be riding on the blast.鈥� 6
In the light of these examples a story told by Herodotus, which his modern critics have treated as a fable, is perfectly credible. He says, without however vouching for the truth of the tale, that once in the land of the Psylli, the modern Tripoli, the wind blowing from the Sahara had dried up all the water-tanks. So the people took counsel and marched in a body to make war on the south wind. But when they entered the desert the simoon swept down on them and buried them to a man. The story may well have been told by one who watched them disappearing, in battle array, with drums and cymbals beating, into the red cloud of whirling sand.

As you may have seen on Calumannabels blog, there is deep concern regarding the desecration of the Godwin natural habitat. As Calumannabels blog has already disappeared from the front page of the western isles I'm carrying on his campaign over here but please add your comments to either blog. I've drafted a letter to Jeremys' local rag as below. However this should really be from all Godwin officianados and I'm worried it might not be convuluted enough, so please feel free to write your own or suggest additions and changes below. I won't send it until everyone has had the opperchancity to contribute:

Sir,

I recently heard from someone I have never met, living on the Isle of Lewis, via the medium of the bbc island blogging website, that the centre of Penrith is to be regenerated! Many of the Island Boggers are deeply concerned that the natural habitat of the Godwin may be destroyed. Mr Godwin shares his wisdom with the readers of most of the Scottish island local newspapers, who will be decimated if they can no longer benefit from word of Godwin. Indeed Jeremy wrote to my local paper, The Arran Banner only this week, imparting valuable advice regarding the housing crisis on Arran and other stuff, opinions the people of Arran surely depend upon!

Jeremy Godwin has built a strong fan base throughout the Northern and Western Isles through his numerous epistles, it is time for all followers of Godwin to stand and be counted! We demand to know if the bulldozers are trundling toward Drovers Lane so we can organise a suitable demonstation against such an outrage!

I call upon the readership of remote local rags everywhere to make their voices heard by writing to Jeremys' local paper as he has done for us for so very, very long and open up the Penrith Regeneration debate!

Yours faithfully etc.

I know, it's just nor rambling properly, can BoB help out here?