Hebrides Quotes

“Here I first mounted a little Highland steed; and if there had been many spectators, should have been somewhat ashamed of my figure in the march. The horses of the Islands, as of other barren countries, are very low: they are indeed musculous and strong, beyond what their size gives reason for expecting; but a bulky man upon one of their backs makes a very disproportionate appearance.”
― Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

“One of the most astounding places elms grow is on Canna, a remote Hebridean island with a valuable safe harbour for sailors (my summer obsession). There is nothing to the south-west of Canna except a few thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean, and that's the prevailing wind direction, scouring the island with salt-laden rain and gales. Yet here I find a craggy slope swathed in elms, sculpted by the wind into wedges, repeatedly clipped to the distinctive wind-raked shape of the slope. In mid-July, the trees were in full leaf and thriving, and underneath the triangular canopy the ancient trunks were chunky and strong. They must have been hunkering there in the teeth of the wind for centuries. Here was a perfect example of elm's toughness and ability to survive the ravages of severe weather.”
― Mandy Haggith, The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them

“What does his lordship dae? He buys up a bunch o' islands in the Hebrides; carts in the native crofter population to Stornoway; runs them through a sapple o' Sunlight Soap, cuts their nails; learns them the English language; gets them an eight-'oors day, and starts them fishin' on scientific principles. Stornoway becomes the Port Sunlight of the North; every man has a nice wee red-tiled cottage, and a picture palace at the door, and the cod fish is fair worried oot o' its life.”
― Neil Munro, Erchie, My Droll Friend

“Voices in the wind ripple of oats, voices
At the back of the blood, at the back of the brain,
Below the deepest roots of the trees, the blown shouting trees,
Below the oats, below the rocks, below the islands,
Behind the ploughing and the sowing, the harvesting and threshing,
At the back of life.”
― Naomi Mitchison, A Girl Must Live: Stories and Poems