The Glen Of Insanity
Far, far over the Western Sea, in darkest Harris, there is a glen called The Glen of Insanity. Folks say that the souls of the mad go there to rave and rant until the end of time, and do basket-weaving on Tuesdays.
There is only one house, in the Glen of Insanity and it isn’t a house, it’s a lighthouse. It belongs to Calum-Neally MacTorrid, aka The Caretaker, and its beacon shining in the night draws the maddest souls of Scotland to the glen, like stalkers to a starlet.
“Come to me, ye troubled and ye restless!” the lighthouse seems to call, this strange and stripey lighthouse in a glen far to the West of your wildest imaginings. “Come to where the world is safe for you, come home!” Adding, “Dill pickle!” because it is an exceedingly mad glen lighthouse indeed.
The only living (or non-dead) people that can survive the Glen Of Insanity are simpletons and the hairless so once a week Daft Baldy Dougal from the village of Dalbeag is sent in with a red-spotted kerchief on a stick containing a Charley-Barley steak-and-kidney pie, some bread, eggs, tea and rum. He delivers this to Calum Neally, sometimes stops for a chat with a rabbit he knows, and makes his way out unscathed. People ask him what it’s like in there but he just says things like “Minty” or “Oblong” or “Hurty” and is just too bonkers to speak to.
In actual fact, Dougal is a very accurate reporter on the glen but just because he also fell in love with a blue-bottle once and enjoys gnawing on houses, people just dismiss his accounts, thanking the gods of mild legal stimulants that their parents weren’t first cousins (those whose parents weren’t, that is).
Many others have tried to enter the Glen of Insanity, of course. Bossy women with headscarves and flask tea, paranormal researchers from the mainland and local have-a-go hard-men have all, at various times over the years, crossed the mossy stile at the entrance to the valley. Those that survived to make it back never spoke a word in their lives again. They twitch a bit and have to be restrained on airplanes but otherwise are mere empty shells of the meddling arseholes they once were.
But there is one other very rare kind of person who legend says can traverse the glen unscathed. Under the altar of the ancient church in Rodel, a minister in 1843 found a mysterious parchment, which is of course the very best kind of parchment to find. When he brought it up to the sunlight it fell to dust in his hands but, before that, in the candle-light below ground, amongst many strange squiggles and a section headed The “Protocols of Simon”, he had read a passage which said:
“Only he who is the 7th crofter of a 7th crofter, pure of heart, and hairy of forearm may tell at all of the world inside the Glen of Insanity.”
(The good reverend couldn’t know it, of course, but the strange squiggles he saw before the wholesome light of day destroyed them were primitive molecular diagrams for Prozac and Lithium; and “The Protocols of Simon” bit was an early outline of cognitive behavioural therapy in small supportive group sessions. And it’s just as well for you there’s an Omniscient Narrator in this story to tell what the minister saw, otherwise you’d never have known how advanced ancient islanders were in the treatment of madness either. This evidence explains how the Outer Hebrides were able to survive the many epidemics of madness that periodically swept the land, making men brothers of chisels or worshippers of blue-bells or voters of the SNP for many terrible years at a time.)
As it happened, in 1974, such a special crofter was born unto Jessie-Belle MacCuish in the village of Tarbert. Jessie, a girl of easy affection and six other wee ones, had had it away one night with Findlay Mackay, 7th youngest son of old Norrie “10-tups” MacKay. As an older brother had been lost in infancy to the butter churn one heart-breaking day, Jessie-Belle’s newest baby, Tormod, was only counted as the 6th surviving son and his birth passed unnoticed by everyone except Howling Margaret who lived in the whiskey barrel at the end of Smelly Lane, but she was too smelly to matter.
Young Tormod grew tall and strong and his forearms were considered to be the sexiest from Tarbert to Tolsta and back again. And so it happened that a 7th crofter of a 7th crofter, that is to say a Far-Squinter, came of age only 12 miles away from the Glen of Insanity. The land shivered its recognition of this on Tormod’s birthday and doe rabbits told their wee ones of a great new magic in the land – a magic as yet undiscovered. A magic that came to fruition on Tormod’s 21st birthday…
One day, maybe I’ll tell you the Story of Tormod and The Glen of Insanity*. Right now I need my bed. Night.
* Don’t count on it though, I haven’t made it up thoroughly researched it yet.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:15 am
This sounds like it would make a great serial for the Storytellers Blog. Get yer Microphone out again Sam
November 12th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I – alas – have never been to Lewis but last week I was watching it on TV and fell asleep ( exhaustion not boredom) and dreamed about you. No details just a pleasant experience. I don’t remember an Insanity place.
Did you say Findlay Mackay? I’m saying nowt!
November 12th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Hmm, I don’t know why but those McLeods at Rodel are upsetting one of my dna strands.
And if Tormod is 33 does that make him ripe for crucifixion this year?
November 12th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Luvly jubly Sam. If you’re casting this, I’ll pitch for and can be type cast as “Daft Baldy Dougal”. BTW, Tarbert is from where the ferry runs in Kerry, to Killimer in Co. Clare ( at the back of Kilrush ). Kissing cousin and twisty eye territory. Excellent.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
“but just because he also fell in love with a blue-bottle once”
That’s the damnedest thing I ever heard. Did it buzz sweet nothings in his ear? I think the Scottish Tourist Board should employ you, Sam.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Kim, I quite fancy having a shot at the voice of the lighthouse – but how to get in character for such a building? I could swoop loud and very very soft, I suppose like the turning light. But I really want to nail it the lighthousey essence. I’ll have to spend some time as a lighthouse to research it first though, I think. Method acting that’s called. It’s very hard and impressive, like Marlon Brando’s, um, bicep.
Ooh, i just realized the Findlay part. Exhaustion, my bum. Lewis isn’t known as “the least riveting of rocky promontaries” for nothing you know.
Conan, who can say Tornod even survived to the present day. That’s one of the bits I haven’t researched yet. Try a safety-pin for the DNA strand in the meantime. It’ll hold until you can get your hand on some annealing NaOH.
Sniffle, Tarberts everywhere are full of the inbred. The number of simpletons and socially awkward maths geniuses that come out of Tarberts is beyond unusual. It’s UNusual, which is like a sort of unusual sooooo unusual, they have the UN keeping an eye on it.
Nanas, I heard a damnedester thing once. It was to do with the Golden ratio, the stars and a jar of lemon curd. Damnediest ever. The Scottish Tourist Board have let it be known to me that they consider me a cheap peddler of outrageous and perverse slanders on the subject of the Outer Hebrides. “That sort of thing is fine for Perth,” they say, “but you’re not in Perth, Sunny Jemima.” Which is technically correct, I guess – so I mean, they got me. Anyway I’m not allowed on National Trust property any more.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Lost me with Findlay Mackay … is he the chap that works for Quaker Oats? No, that’s Findlay Scott, silly me!
What worries me about the Glen of Insanity – but maybe this is what Daft Bald Dougal does – is that there doesn’t seem to be an illicit still up there. Surely all remote and wild glens have that?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Sam, my clumsy size twelve’s, they’re just totally inadequate for hill-walking in your Glen.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I think I may have stayed in a caravan in that very glen.
November 13th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
People must’ve emigrated from the Glen. How do you explain my Scots forbears to this fair land, eh?
Cheers.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
OOh a lovely tale seems to be in the offing here. With families shrinking do yiu think one day it wll be the 2.4th child of a 2.4 th child
November 13th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Belle, Pat means Dr. Findlay of Dr. Findlay’s Casebook. It was an old tv show with a handsome Scottish dr. At least I think that’s what she meant. Pat?
Sniffy, size 12s eh? Golly! Well you know what they say, and all…
Docs, I think you very might have, I think you very might.
Rand, Ah but this is a glen for the dead. The dead and mad and usually those who are dead and mad at the same time. Twisty souls in pain and elation – slightly odd ones and raving loony ones were accepted but only the real howlers went to this glen usually. Less mad ones have enough reason not to go. They all go to a wee hillock in Fort William.
Apprentice, ha! I like it. Fractal magic.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Damn. I was looking for an excuse — something about immigration laws not being up to snuff. Oh well.
Cheers.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I guess you could worship worse things than blue-bells. Begonias, for example.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:06 am
I lived around the bend and on the edge once but that was only because they were close to the shaps.
November 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Awesome, I was transported to the wilds of wicklow reading this, then once there I wondered what the hell wicklow had to do with anything, so I climbed over a gorse bush and hightailed it back to the ‘city’ where I made hot chocolate and pondered what a gal had to do to get someone to deliver rum to her house.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
?Come to me, ye troubled and ye restless!? the lighthouse seems to call … ?Come to where the world is safe for you, come home!?
This is obviously allegorical, the lighthouse representing Alex Salmond, the Glen of Insanity a thinly-disguised SNP, and Daft Baldy Dougal is patently Sean Connery. Tormod, I can see, is going to grow up to be the Conservative candidate for East Lothian who restores sanity and the English language to the western isles.
It was Dr Finlay’s Casebook, by the way, set in the wee highland village of Tannochbrae, and apocryphal exchanges between him and his spinsterish housekeeper Janet abounded, always told in an exaggerated Highland accent, such as:
“Doctor, Doctor! There’s a case of syphilis in the waiting room!”
“Put it in the back, Janet, I’ll drink it later.”
or
“Doctor, Doctor! I’ve got terrible heartburn!”
“Well get yer tits oot ma porridge, Janet!”
November 15th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Rand’, they’re not – they let me in.
Carolyn, don’t talk to me about the begonia worshippers – they behead all non-begonia flowers in the name of begonia supremacism. Madder than a sporran full of weasels they are.
Old Knudsen, convenience is terribly important. If you’re a human you must live near a shop. If you’re a squirrel you must live near a squirrel shop Hippos have the same worries we do. There’s no point a hippo living in Paris. How would she ever find a swimsuit to fit? Location location location.
fmc, in Lewis, if you need a drop of something and can’t get into town for whatever reason, you can call a taxi, have it stop at an offy and drive your bottle out for you. It’s not cheap but when the thirst is great there’s always a way.
Daphne, by gum you’ve got it! I did think the SNP was a little too thinly disguised as an insane glen. Tormod, though having strong libertarian tendencies and eschewing the welfare state in favour of a society where everyone wears Argyle loincloths and a handsome grin, isn’t a Conservative at heart. His heart’s too big. He could fit several Conservative candidates in it at once. If anything, he’s an Islamo-Communist. (a party still in its incipient stages of 1 member.)
November 15th, 2007 at 5:24 am
God bless Dr. Findlay. Phwoooar too, of course.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
No darling it was the closeness of the name to yours truly.
Back in a mo!
November 15th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Ooooooooooooooh! Are you a MacKay? A MacLay? I feel like Sherlock Holmes.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Wirepeach was me by the wayside.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
SSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!
November 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
This is just brilliant. I can see this published by Picador.
And bless you, you’ve brought in hairy forearms again. Or were they sturdy ones? Forearms, in any case — a highly under-rated body part. Parts, that is.