As the largest area of high ground in the UK and like a small island of the arctic in the heart of Scotland, the Cairngorm mountains have long been a draw for explorers. Historically, these were ancient cattle thieves finding places to hide their bounty, or drovers making tracks to the great Trysts. Gradually, the mountains drew adventurers seeking exploits of physical daring: the pony trekkers, walkers, climbers, skiers, runners and now swimmers.
Somewhere in time, the exploring found its way into words. Early people told stories and wrote ballads; later ones penned diaries. None of those forms has stopped, but new ways of writing about these mountains keep emerging, from books to blogs to back-of-an-envelope notes. There is no end to the exploring of the Cairngorms, in body and in words, and no limit to the kinds of people who will find a path here and a new pattern of language to tell the tale.
In 2019, Cairngorms National Park Writer in Residence, Merryn Glover, developed the Cairngorms Lyric, a short poetic form inspired by Japanese Haiku and the American Sentence. While loose in structure, the lyric’s three rules mean it must be composed of fifteen words, include an element of nature from the Cairngorms, and use at least one non-English word. It can have a title, which can include or be in addition to the wordcount.
Why fifteen words? The national park was established in 2003; it includes 5 local authorities; carries water to 5 iconic rivers; and has 5 of the 6 highest mountains in Britain.
5 x 3 = 15.
The High Tongue
A series of Cairngorms Lyrics on the Gaelic names of the Cairngorms mountains
Ben MacDuie – Beinn MacDuibh
The Mountain of the Son of Duff
High King of Thunder
Old Grey Man
Chief of the Range
Head of the Clan
Cairn Gorm – An Càrn Gorm
The Blue Mountain
Rainbow height:
blaeberry
bog brown
red deer
snow white
blackbird
dog violet
moss green
bright
Cairn Toul – Càrn an t-Sabhail
The Barn Shaped Mountain
Storehouse of stone
Boulders shouldering like beasts
in this dark byre
Hail drumming the watershed
Ben Vuirich – Beinn a’ Bhùirich
Mountain of the Roaring
Once the haunt of wolves
howling at night
now just their ghosts
in failing light
Carn Ealer – Carn an Fhidhleir
Mountain of the Fiddler
She plays the rock
with the bow of the wind
for the stars to dance
Braeriach – Am Bràigh Riabhach
The Brindled Upland
freckled speckled wind rippled
shape shifting fallen sky
dark light shadow bright
land up high
Beinn a’ Bhuird
The Mountain of the Table
Giants gather in clouds of black
for a bite and a blether,
bit of craic.
Coire an t-Sneachda – Coirie an t-Sneachdaidh
Corrie of the Snow
Bowl of white light
black rock wind run ice hold
hollow of the mountain’s hand
Ben A’an – Beinn Athfhinn
Mountain of the River A’an
in a cleft of silence
hidden loch secret river
name breathed out
like a sigh
Am Monadh Ruadh – The Red Mountains
Range of russet hills
forged in fire at first sunrise
old rust rock
glowing still
In The High Tongue, Glover uses the Cairngorms Lyric to explore the meanings of the Gaelic names of ten mountains in the area. Many of the place names across the Park arise from Gaelic and are rich with history, culture and ecology. But both the language and the landscape are threatened. Few native speakers remain in the Cairngorms and many of the natural features that the names conjure are now missing. The poems, therefore, use a contemporary form to explore the deep time of mountains, the lost time of a particular culture and environment, but also a future time of reclamation.
The High Tongue series was originally published in Shared Stories: A Year in the Cairngorms, an anthology of community writing that emerged from Glover’s workshops and an open call during her residency with the Cairngorms National Park. The works reflect the range and distinctiveness of relationships people hold with the nature of the UK’s largest National Park.