Chapter 1
My great uncle Hugh, born on the Isle of Eigg in the Western Isles of Scotland, never lived to see the age of seven. His father, my great-grandfather Roderick—known to locals as “Roderick the Red”—was both a crofter and the island’s ferryman. He earned his nickname from his striking red beard, said to be a legacy from Viking ancestors who had once settled these windswept isles. With ten children to feed and a chronically ill wife, Roderick led a demanding life. His wife, Morag, had been paralyzed and bedridden for the last eight years of her life. Much of the child-rearing fell to Roderick’s elderly sister Flora, who, being over sixty, could hardly keep up with a brood of barefoot, free-roaming island children.
The boys especially would scavenge the beaches for seafood or climb the jagged cliffs in search of birds’ eggs. Among them was Hugh—strong, fearless, and agile—who met a tragic fate while hunting for the eggs and chicks of the Manx shearwater, a prized and perilously elusive bird.
The Yearly Hunt for the Fachach
The people of Eigg were known colloquially as the “fachach”, a Gaelic term for the Manx shearwater. Each summer, the islanders would scale the island’s steep cliffs to harvest the birds and their eggs from burrows hundreds of feet above the Atlantic. The young shearwaters, fattened on ocean fish, were so oily that “you could squeeze them and oil would pour from their beaks” (Dressler: 2007). These birds provided the islanders with a seasonal bounty of both food and oil.
Children, especially boys with nimble limbs and small feet, were often tasked with the most dangerous work—reaching into narrow ledges and burrows on cliff faces to extract the chicks. It was risky, but also a point of pride. Bravery was measured in how far one dared to go. Hugh—also called Ewen after his grandfather—was among the most daring. He was, as some said, “like father, like son”.
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“Young Ewen Has Fallen!”
Summer 1890
The cry rang out across the island: “Young Ewen has fallen on to the rocks!” He had been attempting to retrieve chicks near Craignafeulac, close to the Cathedral Cave and not far from the Campbells’ cottage at Galmisdale. At just six years old, Ewen was the favourite of both Roderick and Morag. Like his namesake, his grandfather Ewen (Morag’s father), he was bold beyond his years. But his courage proved fatal. As he reached into a nesting crevice, the mother birds attacked in unison. Startled and pecked, Ewen lost his grip and fell to his death on the jagged rocks below.
His body was later recovered—broken, bloodied, and limp—and laid in the small croft house. Aunt Flora, hardened by a lifetime of loss, muttered grimly, “That’s one mouth less tae feed”. Morag wept silently, her grief intensified by the earlier death of her infant daughter Marion. She felt her womb ache as if in protest. Roderick, stoic and silent, said nothing.
An Official Inquiry Into a Child’s Death
At the time, child deaths—especially among the rural poor—were often dismissed as tragic but unremarkable. If a child died of illness without a doctor present, the cause was often listed as “unknown”. As Hugh Miller observed in “The Cruise of the Betsey” (1858), the authorities were reluctant to acknowledge the suffering of the rural poor, lest they be obliged to act. By 1890, little had changed.
Yet when a child died by accident, particularly in dramatic or public ways, the machinery of the state reluctantly stirred. Investigators were dispatched from Edinburgh, and Dr. Carruthers certified that young Ewen had died from an “accidental fall” at Craignafeulac. Ironically, though Ewen’s life had barely registered with the authorities, his death became a bureaucratic matter of record—and a financial cost.
Ewen’s Burial at Kildonnan Graveyard
Ewen was buried in the ancient graveyard of Kildonnan on Eigg, believed to hold the remains of the Christian missionary St. Donnan and his fifty monks, who were slain by Viking raiders—ironically, the supposed ancestors of Ewen himself. Morag, still bedridden, could not attend. Roderick carried the small coffin alone, his children and sister Flora following behind. Other islanders, including those who had joined in the annual bird hunt, joined the sombre procession. The grave had already been dug beside that of Ewen’s infant sister, Marion.
The island’s minister, John Sinclair, urged Roderick to bury the hilt of a sword said to have belonged to the very Viking who beheaded St. Donnan—a family heirloom passed down through generations. The minister believed it cursed, suggesting that it had brought misfortune upon the family. Placing it in Ewen’s coffin, he said, might appease the saint and end the streak of early deaths.
Legacy and Renewal
Not long after Ewen’s death, Morag gave birth to another child in 1890, naming him Ewen in memory of his brother. In 1892, she bore another daughter—Marion—named both after her lost daughter and herself. Marion is the English form of Morag, and that child would become my grandmother!
Endnote
This story is explored further in “Eigg and Its People”, available at: https://macgillivray-culloden.com/category/eigg-and-its-people
