The Hebridean Àirigh: Summers on the Shielings

The Hebridean Àirigh: Summers on the Shielings

One project from primary school has stayed with me vividly. We were put in pairs to study the shielings of the Hebrides. As children travelling across the Barvas Moor, we would see the older ruins, and one or two of the later huts, which weren't built in the blackhouse style of stacked stone but had a more modern, white-house feel.

One warm May afternoon, our class headed out along the moor to investigate the ones closest to the village. The project was made up of our sketches and descriptions, and it ended with us being trusted to go and find someone in the village who remembered a' dol dhan àirigh, "going to the shieling". My friend and I spent the whole afternoon listening to an elderly woman in our village recount her memories of being out on the moor as a child. It was a great afternoon of stories, tea and chocolate digestives!

Muigh air an àirigh

Going muigh air an àirigh, "out to the shieling", was the island version of an ancient custom called transhumance: moving people and livestock to summer pasture. As the West Highland Free Press notes, it was once common right across Europe and survives today in Norway, the Alps and the Pyrenees.

In the Hebrides it made practical sense. With the cattle out on the moor, the crops around the villages could grow undisturbed, and the grass near home was saved for winter. The cows enjoyed rich summer grazing, and their milk became butter and cheese to see families through the winter months.

The custom is older than anyone can say. The Norse word for a shieling, sætr, lives on in the many place names ending in -shader across Lewis, a sign that families were already going to the moor a thousand years ago.

The Flitting

The move, or flitting, happened around Là Buidhe Bealltainn, the first day of May. In recordings held by Tobar an Dualchais, Donald MacDonald of North Tolsta describes the whole village rising early on the day. The men had already been out to repair the huts after the winter storms.

The animals knew exactly what was happening. As soon as the byre doors opened, the older cows headed straight for the moor, led by the oldest cow in each herd. The calves, loose for the first time, ran in every direction. Behind them came the people, in single file along old moorland paths trodden for centuries, carrying everything in creels and sacks: bedding, food, pots, even ropes for pulling cows out of bogs. It's recalled that even the cats came too, to keep the rats down. Most shielings were within six miles of home, but the Point families faced a 15-mile journey by horse and cart to the Pentland Moor, between Marybank and the Westside.

On arrival, the men lit fires all through the huts, even on the bed platforms, to drive out the cold. Beds were built from layers of turf, heather and grass, with blankets on top. Then the older folk headed home, leaving the mothers, young women and children for the summer.

Life on the Moor

The days began and ended with milking. Fresh milk was carried back to the villages in pails packed with moss in creels, so they wouldn't clatter. In some districts the children went to school from the àirigh and came home at weekends for church.

For children it was a kind of paradise. They roamed and swam, and ate crowdie, crowberries, trout and wild eggs. To check an egg was fresh, they dropped it in a pool; if it floated even slightly, it went back in the nest. Donald MacDonald's memories of these summers, republished by the Stornoway Gazette, are well worth reading in full.

In the evenings, families gathered for worship, just as they would at home. Later shielings, built after the war, were surprisingly cosy, with papered walls, a heather mattress and a curtain across the bed. As Iain Mhurchaidh of Uig remembered, "It was always a happy experience to visit a shieling." People filled the long evenings with knitting and storytelling, went visiting neighbouring huts, and got a head start on next year's peats.

Songs, Stories and Superstitions

With so many young people out on the moor together, the àirigh was, unsurprisingly, a place for courting, and Gaelic has many love songs set at the shieling. There were darker tales too, of fairies and water horses, and one firm superstition: if anyone died at a shieling, it was never lived in again.

Coming Home

The last night on the moor was one of feasting, singing and dancing, as neighbours arrived to help carry everything home. In the morning, after a late breakfast, the old bedding was carried outside and set alight. That was the cows' signal, and the herd made for home just as keenly as it had set out in May.

A Tradition in Living Memory

Across most of the Highlands, the shielings were lost in the 1800s, when the moors were cleared for sheep and sport. Lewis held on far longer, and when it ended varied from village to village. In some districts the custom faded after the First World War. In Shader, Joan MacDonald of Claide recalled in 1963 that families had still been flitting until the early 1950s. And according to Point and Sandwick Trust, some Lewis families carried on as late as the 1970s, possibly making the island one of the last places in Europe to keep the tradition.

That means the àirigh isn't ancient history here. It's a way of life, in researcher Andrew Dunn's words, "that has now disappeared but remains in living memory." Plenty of islanders still remember those summers, and many huts are still used today.

Did your family have an àirigh? We'd love to hear your memories in the comments.

Sources

Photographed on location on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

Back to blog

Leave a comment