Drowned, Drained, Swamped & Bogged Down:
Initiating A Creative Exploration Of Mythterious Scottish Marshes & Wetlands
CREATIVE: RANNOCH MOOR
Something about the vastness of the moor was all-consuming.
Its dark pools and quaking bogs seemed to breathe and swallow.
The landscape was whole, alive and powerful in its empty loneliness.
It was showing me its strength.
And it wanted me to know that I meant nothing to it.
My world and my voice didn’t matter - it had decided I would be part of its story.
And it was bigger than me.
All this drowned land.
Lie down and find your way.
My child, I know it’s time, for we danced all night and all through the dawn.
All as one my lungs fill for all men.
All the dead and all the dark shall come and bring you back.
All this I know.
Here comes the storm that will blow through the trees.
That will blow you back down to me.
In this vast “empty” landscape, I was intrigued by the idea of things hiding out of plain sight.
The haunting echoing call of a curlew across the wet moorland stuck in mind.
The tiny midges humming over the bog too small to see.
On the night of the walk (my sleep disturbed by screeching owlets) I had strange dreams of a “midge man” with a curved probing nose or beak, matted hair with bald crown, and blank gold eyes. His moist skin was covered in warts or boils and was almost fluid, like the dark boggy pools - it wrinkled and stretched as his nose (beak?) writhed and probed.
Somewhere between the screech of owlets and the whaup sound of the curlews, I think the stories of “whaups” had also worked their way into my half-sleep - those little goblinesque dwarf creatures "with a long neb or bill” to carry away ill-doers.
I decided to make this character as best as I could remember!
I chose a painted clay mask as my medium.
Following my development session with Vomiton Collective I also felt inspired to do something a bit more fun and silly - somehow a contrast to this “serious” place.
I felt inspired by the thought I’d had at the stream resting place. The bog wood like bones over the peat and humanoid shapes in grassy tussocks and rocks.
The lonely figure of the bean-nighe by the stream, next to the drover’s road. It had to be her!
The Gaelic “washerwoman” spirit - omen of death and a messenger from the otherworld, haunting desolate streams and washing the clothing of those about to die.
Of course, her snaggletooth and unusually long breasts (slung over her shoulders to avoid interference with washing!) presented an avenue for humour.
I wonder what all those walkers along the West Highland Way would make of her?!..
