Holiday in the Hebrides - I
A Christmas-themed Art Cavanagh Adventure Story
As a Christmas special this December, I’m releasing this month’s short story in two parts! Today, on the first night of winter, comes the first installment of Art Cavanagh’s latest adventure taking him to the far-flung reaches of Scotland’s western islands in search of a treasure from an ancient Gaelic clan. He is not alone in his endeavor as he is joined by Mòrag McNeil, a native of Barra yearning for some adventure outside of her home island. Together, they follow the legend of an ancient treasure hidden by Norsemen on an isle hidden in the waves. With any luck, they’ll be home in time for Christmas!
Icy rain lashed out of the black December night against the windows of McNeil’s, a small public house in Castlebay. Mòrag grimaced as her eyes strained through the dimming candlelight to make out the shapes of the sea and clouds. At such an hour during the black month, it might as well have been an endless pit in the earth; it looked as if nothing existed outside the walls of the house. At least seemed that way to the few remaining patrons. Mòrag had given the call for last drinks about an hour ago, but her words did not stir either the gloomy locals or standoffish outsiders haunting different part of the pub. One of the latter, an American, hunkered in a candlelit corner, covered in a heavy, waxed greatcoat. He faced the wall, leaning over a journal that he had concealed from Mòrag when she had gone over to deliver him a whisky. His kept his head low and covered with a wide-brimmed hat, shadowing his face. The stranger had spoken curtly to her, but enough so Mòrag could tell his origin.
Another pair of outsiders sat a few tables away from the American—Brits, to Mòrag’s chagrin. They looked to be shipmen with how they dressed, drank, and spoke; even at the height of the evening, they were the loudest table in the pub. Their palaver centered mostly around their work and women they had met in different ports, however, Mòrag spied them glancing over at the American during the rare lulls in their conversation. She thought little of it and wanted to get home before the clock struck midnight.
“Ceart,” she said, coming around the bar. She waved her hands towards the door. “Out, you lot. We’re closed now.”
The locals begrudgingly shuffled to the exit, a few blessing the house before stepping into the rain. The British sailors took a little more coaxing.
“Just another hour, love!” protested one with several missing teeth. “The rain ought to let up by then. You islanders wouldn’t be so rude as to deny that hospitality.”
Mòrag rolled her eyes. “I’ve been hospitable enough to you tonight.” She pointed to the door.
The other, a barrel-chested behemoth with arms like a gorilla flashed a yellow smile and rumbled, “Then why haven’t you shown us your bed?”
He and his toothless friend broke out into howls of laughter. Mòrag weathered the storm of their hacking, raspy cackles. While she was not a stranger to these sorts of passes made by vagrants and itinerants coming through the island, they were no less annoying.
The scraping of the American’s chair legs against the floor seemed to shut up the sailors. The occupant rose to his full six feet and set his broad shoulders straight. He turned around and walked slowly past the noisome, stubborn patrons. They avoided his glower, hidden under the shade of his wide-brimmed hat, chuckling to themselves and swirling the dregs of their drinks around in their glasses. The American nodded to Mòrag before opening the door and vanishing into the rain.
Before the door even swung back shut, the Brits were on their feet. They left a few banknotes on their table without giving Mòrag a second glance, and strode outside. Their footsteps slapped heavily against the sodden ground, speeding up suddenly before stopping. Grunts and shouted oaths split through the rain and fell muffled upon the door. Curious, Mòrag crossed over and peered outside. At the edge of the lone light shining above the threshold, she saw a cluster of three silhouettes. One of the larger figures held another in his massive arms while the third laid into the captive with savage blows that echoed through the torrent.
“You!” Mòrag rushed over to the unfair mêlée. Although her obligations did not extend beyond the walls of the pub, she could not stomach the thought of letting such a crime unfold so close to the place that bore her family name. sprung off the slick ground. She swung a lithe, powerful leg up over the captive’s head and struck his grappler full in the face. His nose crunched audibly beneath her foot, clad in a tough leathern shoe. She spun out of striking distance as the brute threw his hands up to his face, glistening crimson trails streaming over his lips.
The captive heaved himself upright and threw a punch at the man in front of him. His fist met only air as the man retreated and ran down the hill towards the port.
“Get back here,” the captive growled, Mòrag discerned his accent as American—the American that had haunted the pub for the evening. As he staggered in pursuit of his former assailant, the other thug lumbered up behind him, one huge fist raised over his head.
“Look out!” Mòrag cried, hurtling herself into the fray once again. She planted a kick on the brute’s lower back and sent him sprawling face first into the mud. The American heeded her warning in time to avoid the big man’s tumble; he sidestepped and beheld the collapse, ending with Mòrag landing deftly before him.
The American grinned, his teeth showing in the small bit of light that reached him. “Thanks,” he said, “but I’ve got to run.” He dashed in pursuit of the fleeing thug, Mòrag followed despite the rain and despite her having no business with whatever was going on. Although the odd brawl or knife fight happened among visiting sailors or patrons of McNeil’s, there seemed to be a little more mystique than an ordinary scuffle. She placed herself a few yards behind the American as he raced to the docks. His quarry leapt into one of the vessels—a motorboat—and slashed the ropes mooring it with a long knife he pulled from the bottom of the boat. The motor roared to life and the villain pulled away from the dock as the American’s footsteps thundered on the planks. He halted and swore, clenching his fists and staring out at the boat as it vanished into the black.
Mòrag halted as the American shuffled landward, seeming to look past her. In the lull and light around the port, she finally noticed his face laid bare. It was broad with a proud chin, framed by sandy blond hair wet and darkened by the rain. He bore a few bruises on his cheeks and a split lip. He sidestepped her and walked up the hill back towards McNeil’s.
“Suppose you might tell me what all that was about?” asked Mòrag, following him. Her legs quaked slightly following the fight and chase; she had not moved like that in a good while.
The American scoffed. “Just another run of my bad luck. I wouldn’t want any of it to rub off on you so it’s best you keep as you were.” He jogged ahead, swearing again as he neared the spot where the large thug had lain; he had managed to steal away while the American and Mòrag pursued his companion.
“Well,” the American threw his hands in the air, “at least it’s consistent.”
Mòrag rolled her eyes and walked towards the door of McNeil’s, seizing him by his coat sleeve. “Thig,” she said. “Let’s get you dry and cleaned up.”
He resisted. “Thanks, but I wouldn’t—”
“Giving me some answers is the least you can do for starting a fight near my establishment.”
“Now, I didn’t start it!” the American protested, but relented to Mòrag’s invitation and followed her inside. “You saw they had me up on the ropes.”
Mòrag sat the American down at the table nearest to the hearth. She took a cloth and mug of water from the bar and brought it back. She took her seat across from him and started wiping the grime and water out of his face. In brighter light, he looked less stern and a little more boyish than Mòrag expected; a bit of mirth played on his lips and in his eyes despite his earlier frustrations.
“Maybe we ought to start with names,” Mòrag said. “I don’t usually let strangers in here after hours so we’d better get friendly.
The American nodded. “All right. Art Cavanagh.” He stuck out a large, calloused hand towards Mòrag. She clasped it and squeezed with a sudden firmness that forced a surprised grin out of him.
“Mòrag McNeil,” she replied, breaking off the shake and returning to tending Art’s face.
“So,” Art swept a hand towards the pub, “this is indeed your establishment.”
“It has my family name, yes, but hasn’t been in my family since mo sheanair was still alive.”
“Your grandfather?” Art’s smile faded. “Someone took it from him?”
“You have Gaelic?” asked Mòrag.
Art nodded. “I learnt it in Ireland, but some of the words are the same up here.”
Mòrag gave a slight smile, but frowned as she truly answered Art’s question, “He sold it off to a landlord. The man was considerate enough to keep the name and let my family work here, but not enough to give us a good wage.”
Art furrowed his brow. “What would this chap’s asking price be?”
“Far too high for me to afford in this life.”
Art reached inside his coat and withdrew his leather-bound journal. As he did so, his hand brushed out a flint arrowhead dangling off a cord around his neck. He set the journal down and flipped it open to a page bearing a graphite rubbing of a stone etched with symbols.
Mòrag leaned closer, scrutinizing it. “What is this, now?”
“What those goons filched from me. It’s a runestone I found in a field outside town, left here by the vikings.”
“What does it say?”
Art shrugged. “I was hoping to find that out with the actual thing, but at least I made this in case something like this happened.”
“And why were those men so interested in it?”
“I’ve got a hunch they were hired out by some English nobleman I had a few run-ins with before. He likes to collect Celtic stuff—Irish and Scottish, mostly—and put it on display like some twisted safari trophies.”
Mòrag scowled and shook her head. “But what do the vikings have to do with it?”
“A story from a seanchaí in Uist led me up here,” Art explained. “He said some Norsemen, when they’d settled in this parts, plundered a Gaelic sea-king’s fort and took a share of the booty to some islands in the west. When they had come back for it years later, they encountered something that made them turn tail and quit the place for good. One of their number who washed up on these shores left the directions to those islands in that runestone, hoping someone in his family would claim the treasure for themselves.”
Mòrag ran a finger over the rubbing. “I think I know someone who can help you with reading this.”
Art smiled and slapped his palms on the table. “Great! Who—”
“I’ll show you to him if you’d take me along. It’s a rare thing for me to go outside of Barra, much less deeper into the sea than we already are.”
Bringing a thumb to his chin, Art looked down at the journal for a moment, then nodded. “All right, I haven’t really had a companion on one of these outings in a good while.”
“I’m not so difficult to get along with, so long as you aren’t too much of a fool or flirt.”
“Neither am I, so long as you’re not a drag, which seeing how you handled ol’ gorilla-arms out there I wouldn’t think you are.”
Mòrag nodded. “Ceart, we’ll start this little adventure off tomorrow.”
***
The next morning, the first true day of winter, Mòrag roused Art from one of the old guest rooms in McNeil’s and brought him to Raghnall MacLochlann, an old hermit at the edge of town. His surname was a bit of a pun in regards to his heritage; legally he would have been known by his mother’s family name of McCrory (Mac Ruadhraì in Gaelic). He was born out of wedlock with his father being a Norwegian sailor. The whole of Scandinavia in Gaelic is known as Lochlann, which was potentially the kingdom where the mythic Túatha dé dannan originated from, and its inhabitants are called na Lochlannaich (a term used for “vikings” as well). Raghnall’s first name also stemmed from the Norse Ronald, which his mother claimed was at least suggested by his father. In his young manhood, he left Barra to travel the whole of Scandinavia in search of his father, gathering fragments of lore, language, and some material treasures from the northern land itself he placed like museum pieces about the sitting room of his small, stone house. Art easily slipped into conversation about the salty-bearded adventurer’s different encounters and anecdotes.
Mòrag, accustomed to her fellow islanders’ longwinded palaver, waited patiently with a cooling cup of tea for a lull in the conversation. “′Nis, Art,” she said as one finally came, “would you show Raghnall what we’re here for?”
“Right.” Art removed his journal from his coat and opened it to the page with the rubbing. He showed it to Raghnall who squinted at the image.
“Where’d you come upon this?” inquired the elder.
“Beneath a mossy cairn outside of town,” replied Art. “I’d followed a legend here and it turned out to be true.”
Raghnall laughed. “The story of Hakon’s spoils?”
“You knew about it?” asked Mòrag.
“Ja,” Raghnall said—he had effected some phrases from his time in Scandinavia. “It’s not told so much anymore, but I always wondered about it myself seeing as it relates to my kin.”
“I don’t suppose you learnt how to read runes.” Art relinquished the journal to Raghnall.
The old adventurer traced his fingers over the pages as he spoke, “Some kind folk in Sweden taught me. It’s an alphabet for another language so it’ll take me some time to figure exactly what it says.” He stared at the symbols at considerable length before finally saying, “Well, the words on here are in an older tongue but close enough to the modern Nordic languages that I can make some sense of them.”
“Smashing,” Art said, handing Raghnall a pencil. “What does it say?”
With a shaky hand, Raghnall made a translation in the blank space beside the rubbing. With a satisfied nod, he handed the journal back to Art. Mòrag rose from her seat and sidled next to him, looking at the script:
Hakon laid the Erse-men’s spoils on the island they call Tethra’s Jaw, surrounded by sharks. We hid it there in the spring and returned at the next thawing, but found it warded by devourers from the deep. I and Torvald and Sinfjotli alone lived to flee. We will not return, but I leave this here so braver men might. Follow friggerock until the rocks rise from the waves.
“What does all this mean?” Mòrag wondered, reading over the inscription again.
Art shrugged. “Even in plain English I still have more questions.” He looked up at Raghnall. “What is ‘friggerock’?”
“And what are these ‘devourers’?” added Mòrag.
Raghnall poured himself another cup of tea as he answered, “‘Friggerock’ is what I’ve heard na Lochlannaich call Orion’s belt, which should be well in the sky by now. As for your question, a Mhòrag, I wasn’t certain what to put there since the runes read ‘jotnar.’”
“Giants?” asked Art.
“That’s what most of the books from learnèd men call them,” said Raghnall, “but the skalds up north don’t always think of them as giantish in size. They are creatures that lived outside the customs and understanding of even pagan society.”
“They ought to be long gone by now,” reasoned Mòrag, “that is if they ever existed at all.”
Raghnall sighed and shook his head. “Och, och, what would your seanair say to that, a Mhòrag?”
She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, yet gave no response.
“We’ll need a good boat,” said Art.
“Iain Gilbride at the wharf is the sort who’d go that far,” suggested Raghnall. “He’ll be wanting a cut of the spoils, however.”
Art sighed and replaced his journal in his coat pocket. “What the hey. It’s Christmas after all. As long as it’s not in Aly’s hands, I can live with that.”
“Who?” asked Mòrag.
“That Englishman I told you about. Alexander Allard is his given name, but the name I put on him is ‘Aly,’ which seems to get me a good sneer from him.”
“Well, what else do we have to wait for?” Mòrag sauntered towards the door. “I want to see this plunderer’s face once we get to that treasure before him.”
Thanks for reading the first part of this month’s story! Be sure to share it and tune in on Friday the 27th for the next part!
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“Holiday in the Hebrides” © Ethan Sabatella 2024 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.