Winter Solstice Poems

George Mackay Brown from his Collected Poems



Margaret Tait Orkney Archive Reference D97/45/3/5/4

Peace On Earth 1918 - An Archive Advent Calendar #16

100 years ago today, Orcadian poet and marine naturalist Robert Rendall received the letter below from Mrs Alexander McKenzie of Stornoway, Lewis. She addresses him as Bro., presumably short for brother, but I think this is because they were both members of the Christian Brethren

Click to enlarge

Orkney Archive Reference D27/7/6





Rendall served in Scapa Flow aboard HMS Imperieuse and wrote the poem below :

 

Orkney After The War

Now from the pool the tide of war recedes

And upon the water's surface filtered falls

The old tranquillity. Wave the green sea-weeds

Fanning their fronds fearless of sudden squalls.

Ols patient limpets scythe the meads aquatic

And rosy crinoids radiate starry twinkles

While hermit crabs with scuttlings acrobatic

Dispute the tenancy of vacant periwinkles.

Merchant anenomes spread their hungry tentacles

And earnest cattie-buckies keep their social conventicles.

Peace On Earth 1918 - An Archive Advent Calendar #8

Impressively, a couple of months after the Armistice, the author of this poem makes a plea for feelings of civility towards the German nation whilst celebrating the coming of peace.

Orkney Herald - 1st January 1919.

Margaret Tait 100

Margaret Caroline Tait, Orcadian film maker, poet and medical doctor was born, one hundred years ago tomorrow, on the 11th November 1918 - Armistice Day.

Her family lived in a flat on Broad Street, opposite St Magnus Cathedral and so would have heard the ships honking in the harbour and seen the bunting bedecked streets from their window on that day.

Tait trained as a doctor in Edinburgh after primary schooling in Kirkwall and a secondary education in Edinburgh. She enlisted in 1943 and served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the UK and the Far East where she began to write short stories.

Margaret Tait's Italian Student Matriculation Card with photograph dated 1947.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/1/6

After some time working as a locum doctor (and writing screenplays) in various parts of Britain, Tait travelled to Perugia in 1950 to research a film. She ended up abandoning the proposed film and instead enrolled at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia film school in Rome for a two year course. This led to the formation of Ancona films with fellow student Peter Hollander.

Margaret Tait and Peter Hollander
Orkney Archive Reference D97/44/5

For the next 46 years, Tait worked under the banner of Ancona films, largely alone and in various Scottish locations, making short films which were partly funded by her continuing work as a locum. Books of poetry were also produced, short stories and a children's book. She made watercolours, wrote a novel and took photographs.

Watercolour design for film Painted Eightsome.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/44/2

In 1992, Tait finally directed her long gestated feature film Blue Black Permanent at the age of 72.

Continuity polaroids used during the filming of Blue Black Permanent.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/13

When she died at the age of 80 in April 1999, her husband Alec gifted several crates worth of letters, photographs, poems, screenplays, paintings, personal diaries, filming diaries, notebooks and personal documents to the library and archive. 48 boxes worth have been catalogued and are available to view.

Several items are currently on loan to GOMA in Glasgow, Summerhall in Edinburgh and Northlight in Stromness, all of whom are currently hosting exhibitions celebrating Margaret Tait's centenary. There is also a small display in the Orkney Room in the Orkney Library & Archive.

If you are unable to visit us in person, then please see below for more images from our exhibit and click here to watch her films.

Poster and ticket for the 1955 Rose Street Film Festival held in Margaret Tait's Edinburgh flat.
Orkney Archive Reference D97/23/1/19&20 



Storyboard for Blue Black Permanent
Orkney Archive Reference D97/26/8

Orkney Archive Reference D97/13

Happy National Poetry Day

Published poetry collections can be found in the Orkney Room

Regular Radio Orkney listeners will have heard poems by Margaret Tait being read out every day this week in honour of National Poetry Day.




Not heard of Margaret Tait? Simply click here to see our previous blog posts, click here to listen again to Radio Orkney's morning broadcasts and click here to watch her films.


The Orkney Library and Archive hold Margaret Tait's archive of poems, correspondence and working papers and we also keep published copies of her collections of poetry. Those of you who are already fans may wish to read unpublished poems from her collection as well as her many working diaries made during filmshoots and peruse the lovely watercolour paintings which were recently shown at the Pier Arts Centre.

Manuscript of Origins and Elements, Orkney Archive reference D97/46/2/3/1

Manuscript of The Hen and the Bees, Orkney Archive reference D97/46/2/3/2

 

Unpublished writings, Orkney Archive reference D97/46/2/1



D97/44/2/23



"They Have as Much Idea of a Rhinoceros as a Poet..."

We've written about Robert Burns a couple of times before but we have not yet shared this letter. It is a copy letter (before carbon copies, people often copied out letters by hand) and was found, loose, in a book of health reports several years ago.

It is from Robert, writing from his farm at Ellisland, to John Beugo the artist who made the above engraving from the famous portrait by Alexander Naysmith.

In it, he confesses of being bored by Dumfrieshire society; 'I am here at the very elbow of existence' and complains that his neighbours 'have as much idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.'

He asks Buego to keep in touch and to send him proofs any portraits the artist completes.

Orkney Archive reference D1/15/6 - Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Dusty is our resident Rabbie expert because he is her boyfriend but she got all huffy after reading that he was back with his 'darling Jean' and is currently sulking in her office with a bottle of gin.

A transcription follows:

To Mr.John Beugo,

Ellisland, near Dumfries Sept. 9- 1788.

My Dear Sir,

There is not in Edinburgh. above the number of the graces

whose letters would have given so much pleasure as yours of the 3rd
inst., which only reached me yesternight.

I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most
pleasurable part of life called Social Communication I am here at the
very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this
country, in any degree of perfection, are Stupidity and Canting. Prose
they only know in Graces, Prayers, etc., and the value of these they
estimate, as they do their plaiding webs, by the ell; as for the muses,
they have as much an idea of a Rhinoceros as of a Poet. For my old,
capricious, but good-natured hussy of a muse,

  By banks of Nith I sat and wept
   When Coila I thought on,
  In midst thereof I hung my harp
   The willow trees upon.

I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean,"
and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my
becobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand
across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.

I will send you the Fortunate Shepherdess as soon as I return to
Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send
it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be mislaid
or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave
Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings
whenever I think of you.

You do not tell me if you are going to be married. Depend upon it, if you do not make some damned foolish choice, it will be a very great improvement in the Dish of Life. I can speak from Experience; tho' God knows my choice was as random as Blind-man's buff. I like the idea of an honest country Rake of my acquaintance who like myself married lately - speaking to me of his late steps "L--d man" says he "a body's baithe cheaper and better sairt!"

If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be
extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a
regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a
letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week; at other times once
a quarter.

I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you
mention place a map of Iceland, instead of his portrait, before his
works; 'twas a glorious idea.

Could you conveniently do me one thing?--whenever you finish any head, I
should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long story
about your fine genius; but, as what everybody knows cannot have escaped
you, I shall not say one syllable about it.

If you see Mr Nasmith, remember me to him most respectfully as he both loves and deserves respect; tho if he would pay less respect to the meer carcasse of greatness, I should think him much nearer perfection:

My best direction for four or five months to come, is "at Mauchline"

I am truly my Dear Sir, yours to command

Robt. Burns



75 minutes until sunset...

Above is the view from the archive window today as it is the winter solstice and that means a day of approximately 12 seconds in this Northern hinterland. THE SUN SHALL SET AT 3.15pm TODAY!!!


Of course, our microscopic winter days are eventually replaced by epic Summer nights and today is actually lovely and clear but we do like to complain.

Poem by Margaret Tait. Orkney Archive Reference D97/45/3/4

The Wind Beneath Our Wings... Again.

You can't live in Orkney and then complain about bad weather. (Except we do. Constantly.) On days like these it's better just to give in to it. It's not blowing a gale, It's just Orkney 'singing':

Click to enlarge

Poem taken from a 1948 edition of The Orcadian. (16th December 1948).

Orkney Archive Advent Calendar: Orkney Poet

Ernest Walker Marwick was a prolific writer, historian, folklorist and generally a Very Good Thing as far as Orkney Archive are concerned. We hold over 70 boxes of his writings, research and collections of folklore and use them CONSTANTLY.


He wrote poems too.








Orkney Archive Reference D31/41/4/3

Half Way To Spring...

These days, the big February festival would seem to be Valentine's day, mainly because this celebration is easily commercialised and has been since the 19th century.


In the Northern Isles, however, Candlemas, which falls on the 2nd of February, was far more important to young people. We have blogged before about some of the strange rituals young Orcadian lasses followed when trying to find the identity of their future husband. According to local folklorist, historian and archivist's dream, Ernest Walker Marwick, Isles folk would have "thought it soft to send a love token" but that didn't stop the young women from following a Candesmas ritual:


"It was at Candlemas that the lasses chased the crows. In the grey dawn of a winter morning, a maiden would steal forth with a fluttering heart, and give chase to the first 'craw' she chanced to see, and anxiously watch in what direction it flew, for there dwelt her husband to be, and there lay her future home."


Candlemas was also very important as that was the very first day that ploughing could commence in Orkney. It was also an immovable date (40 days after the birth of Jesus) from which all other Easter holidays could be calculated:


"First hid comes Candlemas Day,
And than the new mune;
And than hid come Brose Day
If hid wis ever so sune,
An than there's forty days
Atween Brose Day and Pase Day (Easter)
The forty days o' Lent."


Lastly, the other significance of this date to the islanders was as a weather predictor:


"If Candlemas Day is fair and clear
There'll be twa winters in the year."


Groundhog day in America also falls on the 2nd of February and has a similar significance. If it is cloudy when the Groundhog emerges then winter shall soon be over. If it is sunny enough for the creature to cast a shadow and startle himself back into his den then six more weeks of winter are to be endured.


We have been complaining about the weather a lot recently which is most unlike us, but we were very cheered to see several candle-lit windows in Orkney this winter. Flickering flame or battery powered plastic both lifted the spirits during this stormy winter. When discussing this candle profusion with a customer she said:


"I always light a candle every morning from the Winter Solstice to Candlemas." We liked this idea so much that it inspired this post.


Before calendar re-jigs, the 13th of December was the date of the Winter Solstice and that is when the Scandanavian festival St Lucy's day is celebrated in Kirkwall.


On these cold, Northern rocks, you sometimes need a bit of light to keep you going through the long, dark nights.


Lighting Candles In Midwinter

Saint Lucy, see
Seven bright leaves in the winter tree



Seven diamonds shine
In the deepest darkest mine



Seven fish go, a glimmering shoal
Under the ice of the North Pole



Sweet St Lucy, be kind
To us poor and wintered and blind.


George Mackay Brown







Information taken from Orkney Archive reference: D31/BBC/6


Lighting Candles In Midwinter taken from The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown, Edited by Archie Bevan and Brian Murray.

This is an Exception to the Rule...

You know how we feel about people writing on our books readers. You know.

But.... Look at these! They're lovely little illustrations pencilled into our copy of Voices From The Light House, a poetry collection by James Morrison,

No, not that one.

No.





Our James Morrison (we think) appears as an assistant light house keeper on Walls, aged 28 in the 1881 census. He was born in Bemera, Invernesshire.


We like to rename this one 'archi' and pretend that it's about us, :

Voices from the Light House, a book of poems by James Morrison, Orkney Room reference: 800 Y MOR

George! Mackay! Brown!

It is the anniversary of the wonderful George Mackay Brown's birth today. He would have been 91.

We used to feel a little silly as an archive because, until recently, we did not really have many documents relating to one of Orkney's best known authors. A couple of letters and a few copies of the magazine he edited whilst at Eastbank hospital and that was about it.

However, as posted here in December, we are now lucky enough to hold 21 boxes of letters, poems and stories by the great man on permanent loan. The collection holds the reference D124 and is ready to view.

Never Mind 50 Shades of Grey...

Check out this home-grown Orkney filth! The terms of our Disclosure Scotland contract probably forbid us to directly type this vile and sinful poem, so here is a scan taken from David Hubert Balfour's book entitled To The Unborn:

Steamy stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. The archive staff have attached a fan to the spine of the book after one member of staff fell into a swoon of horror upon discovering it and several customers have been threatening to sue the library after suffering heart attacks, seizures and/or strokes.

Look at this! :

Uggggggghhhhhh!!!

David, the last Balfour laird, was described as a 'charming, convivial, utterly irresponsible man-about-town*' who was married and divorced four times. Reminds me a little of another Balfour cad...

*Who Was Who In Orkney, W. S. Hewison

Alice, Margaret and Their Rivers

The St Magnus Festival has drawn to a close once more and, yet again, some fabulously talented performers have thrilled, moved and delighted both Orkney dwellers and visitors alike.

The poet Alice Oswald performed her work in both Stromness and Kirkwall and amazed audiences by reciting lengthy selections from several of her collections FROM MEMORY. With one foot tapping in time with her poetry's rythymn, back-lit by the stained glass sunlight of King Street Halls, she seemed, as a fellow audience member put it, 'a force of nature'.

On Monday, she shared a couple of excerpts from Dart, her T.S. Eliot Prize-winning 2002 poem which follows the River Dart from its source - Cranmere Pool on Dartmoor - to the sea.

This reminded me of Margaret Tait's film Orquil Burn which followed a body of water from the sea in search of its source. When writing about its making, Tait said:

"Strange, strange people asked me why I went from sea to source and not from source to sea. 'Why not' they said, so so puzzled, not the more obvious the more logical direction of source to sea. It was a voyage of discovery. Exploration. They wanted me to know beforehand where it started, what it all is. A river is known in its busy part. You follow it up. Those puzzled people think you know it all, so you can start with the Source, the cause, and demonstrate the issue. All already known." D97/32

Diary of Orquil Burn production, D97/11/2

Transcript of Orquil Burn commentary D97/12/1

Leaflet for Orquil Burn D97/12/1

Still from Orquil Burn - Scottish Screen Archive.



Margaret Tait, Poems, Stories and Writings

A few days ago, we received an advance copy of this book on Margaret Tait:

The author, Dr Sarah Neely has visited us several times to consult the Margaret Tait collection and we are delighted to finally see the fruits of her labours in print.

Margaret Tait is known (when she is known) primarily for her films but her poetry is just as wonderful. Frank and funny, weird and wonderful, magical and matter of fact, her three collections of poetry, origins and elements, Subjects and Sequences and  The Hen and the Bees, as well as some unpublished poems shall finally be available to be read by the audience they deserve

The sky has finally broken blue after a day of cutting winds and so here is an appropriate excerpt from Subjects and Sequences:

But in the land of the North there are no trees:
In the land of Pomona the apples don't grow.
In the Spring there is no blossom sweet as song
Nor song like honey in the perfumed night.
Instead, we have the flashing white
Seagull cutting the iridescent blue,
The crying blue of sea and sky, the white
Of flying clouds and birds. Oh, who
Would sip the honey in the dark and lose the light?

from Pomona

George Mackay Brown

Yesterday was the anniversary of George Mackay Brown's birth. He would have been 89. Orkney Archive do not hold GMB's papers*, unfortunately, as they still reside with his executors, but we do have a few relevant archives.

We hold some of his correspondence, mainly with Ernest Walker Marwick, some B.B.C. scripts which were written for programs on Orkney and several recordings of the poet either reading his own works or talking about the work of others such as Edwin Muir.

A personal favourite, is the set of Saga magazines which George Mackay Brown edited during his stay at Eastbank tuberculosis hospital. Originally an unsophisticated, hand-typed effort with cardboard covers, the third  edition was printed by the local newspapers and made available outside of the hospital. The magazines contain poems, songs, articles, journal extracts, short stories and a murder mystery by fellow patients as well as Brown himself. The magazines ran from the summer of 1953 and the summer of 1954 and there are 5 in total.

We have also found a photograph of the young poet amongst our school class photos from Stromness. Can you spot him in the third row?

Saga magazines reference: D1/296

 

 

*In 2012 we received, on permanent loan, 21 boxes of GMB's papers. For a contents list click on this link.

'Oui....un petit, petit, petit peu...'

It has been a cultural day at Orkney Archives.

First of all, our valiant leader has returned from France bearing a load of French delicacies. After we had all struggled to open the little sealed packets which the tartlets came in, we munched contemplatively whilst making mmmmmm noises. Proud that we could remember the word for 'cherries' from French at school, we  crossed off 'gastronomic appreciation' on the fancy pass-time list in our heads.

Next, I felt smug when a customer came in to enquire about the Melsetter house papers. He was researching the visit of two members of the Bloomsbury Group, painter Duncan Grant and economist John Maynard Keynes to the house in 1908. "Ah" I said nodding my head knowledgeably, "yes, economist John Maynard Keynes...". The customer does not need to know that the sum total of my knowledge is that there was once an economist called John Maynard Keynes.

Anyway, Keynsian theory was recently re embraced by Western economies and is behind the fiscal stimulation idea that if we all just keep spending like fools then everything will come out in the wash (to summarise.) Thanks wikipedia.

Literature was crossed off when researching an enquiry on the genealogy of the Orkney Earldom. A customer was keen to find out if the poetic talents of both Rognvald Eysteinson and his son Turf Einar, were passed down to their descendants. I could not find any evidence of this until I came upon this poem by the excellently named Snaekoll Gunnason:

The Poet complains of being captured while on business in Norway

I shall never,

though I live for ever,

ask for business

in South Moer,

since enemies

took me from there

to Bergen

at the king's command.

Cutting.

Here is my poem in homage :

The poet complains about being aggressively sale-pitched whilst visiting the bank.

I shall never,

though I live forever,

use a credit card

for my Lovefilm,

nor do I want

to buy a mortgage,

as I have one.

Stop reading my purchase history.

That will show them, I think.

Year Of Orkney Dialect Winners.

The Folk Festival is over and all the fiddles have been packed away, how sad. We can still enjoy the winners of the Year Of Orkney Dialect poetry competition,however, which were debuted at one of the Festival Farewell concerts. The poems were very well received and are of excellent quality.

The winners include a few of our customers and it is wonderful to see this new side to them. Personal favourites are Marlene Mainland's haiku about cattle (High Coo), Fran Flett Hollinrake's Assipattle and the Mester StoorWorm and Jane Harris' Me Laand.

Margaret Tait - 1918-1999

11 years ago today, Margaret Tait passed away at the age of 80. She left behind one feature film, several shorts films, short stories and three collections of poetry.

We are currently cataloguing her archive of papers, photographs, scripts and correspondence.

It is only in that last few years that Margaret Tait has been properly celebrated.

In 2004, LUX arts agency published a Margaret Tait reader names 'Subjects and Sequence', the name of one of Tait's poetry collections and a DVD of selected films from 1952-1976 followed in 2005.

The author Ali Smith is a fan of her work and included some of her poems in 'The Reader', an anthology of personal favourites published in 2006. Last year , to mark the 10th anniversary of her death, the Tate Modern screened a selection of her films and Ali Smith read some of her poems.

The rainbow is still a miracle

Even when we know what it's made of,

Or think we do.

Whether we really know, as perhaps we do,

Or just think we do,

As is very likely,

It's still magic.

It's just there.

Water particles, refracted light, curvature of space,

might all be a part of it

But it's still what it is.

It is still there.

It is irrefutably a miracle.

Extract from 'Cave Drawing of the Waters of the Earth and Sea', taken from the collection 'Origins and Elements' by Margaret Tait.

Letters, lovely letters...

One of the most delightful parts of this job is making connections with people all over the world. We communicate with people in Canada, The U.S. and Australia frequently and it is always a thrill to know that your words are being read (or heard) thousands of miles away, across an ocean and on another continent.

I particularly like when people write a little note about where they are from with a pen, on paper or card. (Emails are great, but nothing beats a proper letter.) We did an enquiry for a gentleman in Prague a couple of years ago who sent us beautiful postcards of the view from his window and always ended with a weather update. He was interested in island postmarks and stamps and his letters always wore gorgeous examples of them.

We have been sent bookmarks of landscapes from Australia, exquisite written enquiries from County Durham and today we received this lovely card from Japan.

George Mackay Brown is very popular in Japan and his work is gradually being translated into Japanese. The translator was in touch when working on his poetry collection 'Following A Lark' and writes in the card that they are 'as happy as a lark!' to have finished. We also received word that the cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Japan at the moment. Lovely.