Portmahomack Holiday Part 4! - Pictish Stones, Selkies, Dolphins and Gnomes!

Day 5 was fairly uneventful. We met up with some distant relatives over lunch in Tain and did our best to explore the town before either the rain got too heavy, or, as became pretty apparent early on, everything closed up for the day at 4pm!

I don't think we really saw it at its best due to the weather, but I thought Tain was a little nondescript.

This rather fetching colour scheme was the exception!

We nipped into the local museum and learned about the town's long history with silversmithing which was pretty interesting - apparently Tain silver is very uncommon, so if you've got any it's definitely worth holding on to!

The church next door - St Duthac Memorial -  looked fairly average from the outside but the interior played host to some stunning stained glass windows and a lovely timber framed ceiling!

 

There was a Pictish stone outside in the graveyard somewhere, though it took us ages to find, eventually discovering it tucked up right next to the gates as we came in - very difficult to spot but blindingly obvious once you knew where to look! None of my photos came out I'm afraid, the sun (or lack thereof) wasn't co-operating, but it wasn't as dramatic as the windows!

One feature we did manage to track down easily was this cluster of Viking grave markers! Well over 1000 years old, the three long, narrow slabs seemed somewhat out of place amongst the far newer and more ornate stones that filled the area.

My charity shop bargain of the day was pretty good! 20 pairs of doll shoes, some (hideous) pink clothes hangers, a couple of riders and a tiny Pikachu all for £1! 👌 Now that I'm home, I discovered that most of the shoes are too narrow for my dolls but tbh I was going to use them to build new shoes/boots around anyway, so as long as they'll mostly fit I don't really mind.

As the weather turned, we just went back to the cottage rather than explore any further. I felt the need to paint, so I broke out the watercolours and some of the mini canvases I'd made before I left, along with one of the photos I'd taken earlier in the week of Tarbat Ness.

64mm x 64mm

I started one of the lighthouse at Chanonry Point as well which was initially hampered by me accidentally flicking some darker paint onto the sky!

I was able to darken the sky to the point where it wasn't very noticeable, but this one is still very much a WIP, I just haven't managed to start painting again since I've got back home.

64mm x 64mm

 Day 6 was still decidedly soggy, but far more enjoyable!

We travelled down the coast to the Seaboard Villages of Shandwick, Balintore and Hilton. These were proper old school fishing villages with a rich history stretching back thousands of years.

The first thing we visited was the Hilton of Cadboll stone, standing tall in a nearby field. Before we even managed to park the car however, our day had already been made by this bin. XD

Car now parked and laughter stifled, we trudged our way through the muddy field to two sites of interest. The first, we didn't really pay much attention to as the mounds that make up the remains of an ancient chapel were difficult to see, so we moved on.

The Hilton of Cadboll stone is a beautiful carved Pictish standing stone - the original is broken, with the base on display at the Village Hall and the rest in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. What you see here is a modern reproduction but it's every bit as stunningly carved as the 1200 year old original.

When you think of ancient standing stones, it's sometimes difficult to fully appreciate their size, so here I am in all my 5' 6" glory so you can see just how massive these things are! 

(also marvel at my colour coordinating genius)

I was pretty chuffed that it was full of ponies so I had to get the obligatory picture with it, seeing as I didn't get to say hello to any real ones that week.

((Shoutout to my massive scarf for making my hair look even more ridiculous than usual 👍🙄)

This side of the stone is dripping in Pictish imagery, from the woman riding sidesaddle with brooch, comb and mirror in a hunting scene, to the intricate knotwork and strange, otherworldly beasts coiled around each other.

One thing I find really fascinating about this stone is the sculpting of the horses - the ones at the bottom are clearly trotting but the big one in the middle appears to be performing some kind of lateral gait! Gaited horses were once common in the British isles but alas, no longer. I'm not sure if the extra legs were supposed to indicate there was another horse behind this one, or whether it was some kind of mythological version, like Sleipnir in the Norse sagas.

The other side however, is full of Christian motifs; the most obvious being the giant cross slab in the centre, replete with some poor sod getting munched on by a lion.  He doesn't look hugely thrilled by this turn of events, it has to be said.

 

Shockingly, on the original, this half was completely re-carved as a gravestone in the 17th century which I think is utterly criminal - why on earth would you deface something this beautiful?!

 

 

 

 

 It's funny how people often imagine the Picts as being these really wild pagans, gallivanting around in nothing but woad and scaring the bejeezus out of the Romans (which, ok, let's be honest, is pretty likely, given the number of walls they built to keep them up here and away from their nice civilised Britannia down south!) but in reality, they seem to have taken to the newfangled Christian religion pretty well, and managed to maintain their unique identity and culture, at least when it came to their art and iconography which they blended seamlessly with their new found faith. Over time the Picts vanished as they were amalgamated with the rest of the ancient cultures of the British isles, but their legacy remains in these beautiful monuments.

The local village hall houses the original base of the stone, which was only discovered fairly recently.

Being buried for hundreds of years has kept much of the carved detail intact, and they've cleverly set it up with a mirror behind it so you can see the other side.

I didn't realise I frowned so much when taking photos ahahaha

After all that history, we settled down in the Seaboard Centre's rather nice wee cafe for some lunch. The sea was easy to see from the window, so I asked Dad to bring his binoculars in from the car while we had our lunch, and on a whim I picked them up and scanned across the sea out the window to see what was out there. 

Gull. Cormorant. More gulls. Dolphin.

Wait, what?! 😱😱😱😱 

As I looked across, a familiar dorsal fin surfaced right in the middle of my field of vision before disappearing back into the depths. 

I think my actual words at this point were simply 'oh my god, I've just seen a dolphin, oh my god.'

It was surreal just how calm I was, having had to deal with the disappointment of seeing nothing at Chanonry Point, to see one seemingly at random was breathtaking. 'Two!' cried mum, and I panned across to see another fin breach the surface. As I tried to follow the first, which was swimming off to the right, I saw another fin going left - possibly three altogether? I rushed outside to see if I could get a better look but they were pretty speedy and I lost sight of them shortly afterwards. I was bouncing with excitement for the rest of the afternoon though - I'd FINALLY seen dolphins!

I didn't manage to photograph them but I saw them, so that was enough!

Thoroughly cheered up by that, we went for a wander on the beach, and discovered that it was rather good for finds, even if it was a pretty dreich kind of day.

Beaches right next to settlements usually yield the best finds, and so it was here, with a good selection of pottery and glass.

This one was by far my favourite however. Whilst scanning the ground for any interesting shapes, something unusual caught my eye and I tried to pull it out. It appeared to be a fragment of a statue, perhaps an old victorian wally dug or something, so I excitedly called Mum over while I tried to clear it off sand. She immediately took it from me and tried to wash it in the sea, only for the waves to rush in faster than she anticipated and got her feet absolutely soaked!

After all that, the reveal of its identity was hilarious.

Half a gnome.

😂

It's either plastic or that kind of polyresin stuff, but I couldn't bear to leave him on that cold beach, so he'll join the rest of my eclectic collection.

He was obviously some kind of good luck charm because after I found him, the weather started to improve.

There's a sculpture trail throughout the Seaborad Villages, so this next feature wasn't entirely unexpected, but she was still a welcome presence.

The Mermaid of the North

Originally sculpted in wood by local artist Steve Hayward for the Highland Year of Culture in 2007, she was damaged in a storm in 2012 and reproduced in bronze a few years ago in 2014. She's taller than she looks - around 10ft!

She depicts a mermaid, symbolising a local legend which isn't far from the classic selkie myth - a man tricks a selkie into giving up her sealskin which forces her to remain in human form. Having stolen her way home, he forces her to marry, and while she's more or less happy in her new life, she longs for her ocean home, but cannot return without her skin. Eventually, so the stories go, she or one of her children rediscover the stolen skin and she leaves that night, never to return.

I've always loved the Selkie myths and I intend to make a doll of one at some point, but I can't help feeling that this particular sculpture is lacking something. Her face is a bit creepy, I think it's the lips or the fact that the whole head is a little undersized.

 

A little further down the way was Balintore Harbour.

The water was so incredibly clear and the sand so clean it could have been somewhere considerably warmer!

I even found a palm tree!

The sky said otherwise though.

Nope, definitely still Scotland!

We only intended to walk to the corner here at Shandwick Bay, but got a little carried away.

 This part was pretty lacklustre in the finds department, the only highlight being this brilliantly marked crab claw which I left behind as it was still pretty er...fresh.

The sand was littered with fragments of equally brightly coloured Sea Urchins, but alas, we never found anything more than those.

We did meet a very excitable whippety thing though!

 

According to the geology of the area, there should have been a fossil-rich band nearby, though we weren't sure entirely where. As it turned out, it was a few miles further down than we walked to, so we got footsore for nothing!

My dad got a far better photo from further down as he walked further than I did.

We were treated to yet another incredible sunset when we got back, and as ever, I couldn't resist the beach!

Oh to see these views every night! 💓

If you hadn't already guessed, I love sunsets. They're always so different, and I can't get enough of ones by the sea, as the way the light plays on the damp sand and reflects off the waves is just captivating.

My phone wasn't coping with the lack of light so I wandered back to the cottage, but I wasn't done taking photos for the night, oh no. The sky was incredibly dark and nice and clear of clouds.

The stars beckoned.