Assynt Quotes

“that this dying landscape belongs
to the dead, the crofters and fighters
and fishermen whose larochs
sink into the bracken
by Loch Assynt and Loch Crochach? -
to men trampled under the hoofs of sheep
and driven by deer to the ends of the earth
- to men whose loyalty
was so great it accepted their own betrayal
by their own chiefs and whose
descendants now
are kept in their place
by English businessmen and the
indifference
of a remote and ignorant government.”
― Norman MacCaig, Between Mountain and Sea: Poems from Assynt

“Between the disappearance of the river and its re-emegence is like a desert river valley, clearly carved by water, with rounded stones in the bottom and steep sides, but no water running. Yet here there are elm trees, one of which is huge, with a magnificent trunk festooned with mosses, lichens, polypody ferns and fungi, a rich tapestry of rainforest life. Uniquely, it grows horizontally out of the rock, many metres up the sheer wall of the ravine, a completely implausible place for a tree to grow, hanging in complete defiance of the laws of physics.

I stand beneath it, neck craned in awe, looking up into the lush green profusion of its living community. It is winter, so all this greenery isn't the tree's own leaves, but photosynthesising life using it as a climbing frame. Paradoxically, in this dry river valley, everything about its grand gathering of epiphytes declares it to be a rainforest tree. It is a perfect synbol of survival against the odds.”
― Mandy Haggith, The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them