44 Comments

The sound of snipe drumming is quite something - otherworldly if you hear it at the quieter ends of the day.

Expand full comment
Oct 30Liked by David Knowles

Are you kidding? I so enjoy your writing!

Expand full comment

Thanks so much for this: it's not too long at all. Fascinating about the rhythms in Celtic languages. Learning Welsh, it's much the same. Only thing is, being dim, I want to know whether you walked or drove from your old house to Stornoway. Doesn't matter at all, a diolch am y swniau Snipe.

Expand full comment
author

You are right, Caroline. It is the music of the language that draws us in, once our ears have attuned to it. How lucky we are to still have these languages on our doorstep :-)

Expand full comment

By bus, I hope - it's a long walk from Mangurstadh to Stornoway!

Expand full comment
author

Hi Caroline, hi again Lynn. Pretty much walked. A magical old lady offered me a lift a few miles up towards Callanish - and it seemed unwise to refuse ;-) But mostly it was a walk of penance, a journey of mitigation. And I'm not unaccustomed to long distances on foot.

Expand full comment

Oh my goodness! A departure from the island that'll never leave you!

Expand full comment

Wonderful writing and I wished it were longer.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks, Michael. That’s generous of you.

Expand full comment

Wonderful writing and not a bit too long…☘️

Expand full comment
author

That's kind of you, Ruth. Thanks.

Expand full comment

Ah, Dalriada (spelling?) lives!

Words are magic. Language is what makes us human, in all our many ways.

Expand full comment

Yes, to the many lovely particulars pointed out in these comments. Mostly I want to tell you, David, and Sharon too, how much I look forward to these Riverwitch weavings in all their swirl and chuck, tenderness and nostalgia. Deep bow, from Cambridge Ontario.

Expand full comment

Thank you, David, for your compelling prose and stories. Your voice around the natural world (Gaelic) and your experiences bring that world forward.

I’m so enjoying this reprisal of the conversations that you and Sharon had in writing a decade ago, and your thoughts now.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you Lisa, that is generous. You have the most lovely title for your substack. With a name and a heart like that it will surely run and run :-)

Expand full comment

Reads like a pilgrimage .

Gorgeous and wistful are your written memories .As if you collaborated with ;

“The giant silent swifts of the open ocean, dipping their calligrapher’s wingtip onto the wavetops”

Only your words were written in the land. Then swept away by the winds. I so enjoy when you dive into language. I’ve mentioned a long while ago that my only familiarity with Gaelic is the series Outlander. It is fascinating to hear historical fiction come to life. Oh, and your stories can never too long.

Expand full comment
author

Hi again, Lor. Thank you for reading so deeply. It's funny - I always feel a sort of tingle when I hear the Gaelic on Outlander. Just reminds me of the time when the beautiful language was everywhere in Scotland and at the forward lines of history. So nimble. So canny.

Expand full comment

Glad to hear the series is doing justice to the language. I wondered.

Expand full comment

Thank you for the journey and the bird walk. The snipe drumming and call were fascinating. When I was a girl at camp in the Southern California mountains, one of the camp jokes was to go on a nighttime "Snipe Hunt", an allegedly mythical creature. Little did I know I would get to hear one drum and creak in the same day many, many decades later. Perhaps that is also covered by 'the clause'!

Expand full comment
author

Hi again Leslie. Thanks for reading on. I think your wonderful ‘snipe hunts’ are probably covered by the clause :-)

Expand full comment

'The mainland is so unexpectedly heavy'. In that one sentence sits all the sadness and finality of leaving your mystical island. This descriptive and very poignant last journey (even down to the midges!) is almost unbearable - how relieved I was to read your recent continuation and sit with you in that country bus with two old boys from your new life as company. Life in all its glory!

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for reading again and so deeply, Vanessa. The joys of country buses. Almost like time machines sometimes :-)

Expand full comment

I am so in awe of how words can recreate a landscape, of your ability to do that. As others have said, not one single word too many.

Expand full comment
author

That is kind of you, Lise.

Expand full comment

Absolutely beautiful writing David. As always, I am mesmerized by the way you weave your words.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you. You’re right, writing is a bit like weaving. All the fibers depending on all the others for tension and strength.

Expand full comment

I love your artistic use of words - thank you!

Expand full comment
author

Thank you Anne, that is a kind thing to hear :-)

Expand full comment

This gave me chills. A few months ago we were hunting aurora borealis in western Montana and heard a mystery sound. My instinct knew it was birds but only after reading do I know it was snipes drumming in the field. Thank you!

Expand full comment
author

Crikey - that would be a spooky thing to hear out of the blue :-)

Expand full comment

Lovely lovely lovely. Medicine.

Expand full comment
author

Thank you, Sheila, that's kind. Hope I got the dose about right :-)

Expand full comment