Monday, May 17, 2010

Cloven hooves on Holy Island


Under an overhanging cliff on the west side of Holy Island, we spotted a cave.


It is the cave of St Molaise who established a Christian retreat here in the seventh century and lived in this cave for ten years. Over the years a number of species have been introduced to the island. These Soay sheep and Saanen goats have taken possession of the cave and St Molaise would not find it a very pleasant place now.


Eriskay ponies are another of the introduced species and one of my friends was warned by a monk that the ponies are savage and aggressive. In fact they are very calm and docile animals.


The steep sides of the island tumble straight into the sea in a boulder field but there is actually a lovely grassy path that winds its way in and out of the rocks above the beach.


The monks have painted colourful images on some of the boulders by the path.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know Douglass about colourful paintings. Looks more like elaborate grafitti to me. Maybe the monks are happy with it but it makes me wince so see nature defaced.

    Tony :-)

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  2. Tony, I could not agree more. I was going to title this post "Cloven Hoves and Graven Images on Holy Island" but I thought I had probably done enough monk criticism!

    :o)

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