WHY ARE ISLANDS ‘OTHERWORLDLY’?

Not for nothing is Britain also called the British Isles. It was once named the ‘Land of 3000 islands’. While in area the islands off mainland Britain add little to the land mass, consider the view from the gunwale. A seafarer takes as his measure the shoreline as he navigates from headland to headland, and is aware of the inlets that are havens at need. Numerous bays and coves give feature to this coast. In fact, the coastline of the Britain is extremely long because it is heavily crenated, especially the western coast, but add to it the myriad islands and the coastline almost doubles in length, such is Britain’s insular abundance.

Throughout prehistory the best means to travel was by boat, from the Jutish keels or the first longboats of the Norsemen to the curraghs, the sea-going coracles used by the Celts. The sea is in the British blood, however mingled the Viking, Saxon or Celtic extraction. So when we look from the shore out to sea and spy an island, does not that very blood race, and as such we yearn for a seaworthy boat to take us to it? What calls us to the distant islands that dare defy the restless, treacherous waves? Some have strange and beautiful features, Fingal’s Cave on Staffa or the Sgurr on the Isle of Eigg, but sight-seeing curious topography does not explain the sea-longing. The clue, perhaps, is that many of islands off the British coast have provided sanctuary to those seeking spiritual solitude, those such as hermits, or others preferring the collective solemnity of monasteries. Could they be drawn perhaps by the same sense of indwelling mystery that has long associated such islands as the norse-named Bardsey, Lindisfarne or Lundy, or the jewel of the Hebrides, Iona, with the otherworld?

Some, for instance Lundy, despite its prosaic name meaning Isle of the Puffin, have even been called ‘Annwn’, the name of the Celtic otherworld. Is it their relative remoteness, their inherent otherness that grants them a liminal quality? Could it also be the pilgrim in us that feels fulfilled when the journey, its challenge and difficulty, is as important as the arrival? Crossing water is always a challenge, and can be dangerous, of course. Moreover, a body of water, whether it was a lake or sea or river, had perhaps more significance to the prehistoric sensibility, yet still plays upon us atavistically.

Many legends arose around one island more than any other, the Isle of Avalon. Few dispute its association with Glastonbury Tor, which until relatively recently stood with its feet in water, brackish to boot. That Arthur was taken across that water to the Isle works powerfully on the imagination. On reaching Avalon, Arthur passes into the otherworld, to live on, healed of his mortal wounds until needed. Thus is the stuff of legend, with a dreamlike island at its heart.