Lots of people come to visit our area for its gorgeous views and outdoor activities. But I can’t pretend we always enjoy glorious sunshine The image at the top was taken last week, today we’re back to more familiar March weather. Luckily there are things to enjoy on a rainy day, out if you want to explore local heritage.

On Saturday several local organisations gave a presentation at the Rockfield Centre in Oban, itself worth a visit for its cafe and changing exhibitions. Some like Historic Environment Scotland are big national organisations with lots of sites under their care. Among our local attractions we have Dunstaffnage Castle and Bonawe Ironworks, which are well worth a visit, but be sure to check websites for up to date opening times and facilities. That goes for any planned trip.

In Oban you’ll find Dunollie Castle which has a great offer of – ‘pay once, visit all year’, a bargain for visitors as well as local residents. Between Oban and Seil in Lerags glen the Friends of Kilbride church have been working hard to protect and share this ancient site.

South of Seil is Kilmartin Glen full of prehistoric standing stones, burial kists, and cairns, they also have a museum but unfortunately it is closed for redevelopment this season.

Another museum, the fascinating Glencoe Folk Museum is due a major expansion, but not until next year, so you can put it on your list of places to visit.

Closer to home our own museum at Ellenabeich will be open Mon – Friday, and Sundays, from April. There’s also a museum over on Easdale, and our friends at the Isle of Luing history group have been busy uncovering and documenting their island.

So if history is your thing, there’s plenty for you to enjoy here on Seil, rain or shine.

Caroline xx

Wow! It’s been seven months since my last post. We’ve had a holiday of our own, to France.

We had a lovely time, despite one wee adventure trying to charge the car. (You needn’t worry about that here, we’ve an EV charger for guests – ask about prices)

January was busy with our panto,

Now our thoughts are turning to Spring and beyond. We’ve had almost a week of clear weather with another few days promised. On Sunday we were treated to this amazing sight.

We can’t promise you’ll see this, it’s the only time I’ve seen them like that. But Seil is a treat for your eyes in any case.

George has been taking advantage of the weather tidying up the garden and I’ve been looking out my recipe books.

Full online booking will be open soon and we’re looking forward to welcoming more lovely guests from mid-May.

See you then,

Caroline, George, and Bramble xx

Once upon a time in the land we now call Gwynedd*, a young lad called Lleu Llaw Gyffes** was born. Now for a variety of reasons he became cursed.  For starters his mother wasn’t best pleased about the manner of his birth – a long story and she had a point.  Secondly, as all too often happens, on account of a bitter rivalry between siblings.  And thirdly, well curses were generally quite popular. In fact he was subject to a number of them, and a couple of protective spells. The upshot of all this being that Lleu couldn’t marry any human wife. But on the plus side, killing him would be a complex process involving paradoxes, contortions, and highly specific weapons.  Oh, and a goat. 

After his birth and the various curses little is written about Lleu for the next few years.  Presumably he spent his childhood and adolescence setting the foundations for a lifetime of feuds, and getting into scrapes.  Some possibly involving the more life threatening types of animals. Here his protective spells would have come into their own, most of his foes having difficulty figuring out the paradoxes, let alone finding time to spend a year forging a sword when everyone else was at Mass. Not to mention sourcing the goat. Eventually his thoughts might have turned to love, romance and marriage. Or at least a judicious match securing the future prosperity and expansion of his kingdom. And that’s where the problem arose, because as you will remember he was forbidden from marrying a human wife.*** 

Luckily for Lleu his older male relatives, who to be perfectly frank were responsible for the whole curse’n’spell mess in the first place, had wide ranging magical skills, and so a bride was found for him. Or rather made. Blodeuwedd was her name and she was conjured from flowers, specifically oak leaves, broom and meadowsweet. Now about this marriage, not much is recorded in the old tales, but it didn’t have the best foundation. It seems to me that a cold, dark, stone castle would be no place for a woman made of flowers to thrive. 

What the old tales do tell, whether told around firesides or written in books, is that Blodeuwedd betrayed her husband and conspired with one Gronw Pedr to murder him. ‘Oh yes’, you might ask, ‘and how were they going to manage that? Wasn’t Lleu’s life  protected?’ And ‘well, you might reply’, (if you are given to talking to yourself),  ‘perhaps she used her flowery, feminine wiles to inveigle the secret out of him.’   Because folk do tend to try and blame the woman. And indeed somehow Gronw did manage to capture Lleu in a net, at dusk, while he was standing with one foot on a cauldron and the other on the goat and still keeping a cool enough head to lob a spear at him. Not any old spear mind you, but one which had been forged sinfully during the hours of Mass. 

Picture it now, the spear is flying through the air towards Lleu.  So at this point things are not looking too good for him… But before it makes contact, Lleu transforms into an eagle and soars away. Nothing is mentioned about the cauldron, net and goat, but if the goat had any sense it would have put quite a bit of distance between itself and the cauldron. 

Now, I don’t know whether Lleu had form in the old eagle transformation stakes, whether it was something he’d been practising up at the castle or if his uncles had a part in this as well. And if you ask me, the paradoxes weren’t properly satisfied either, but maybe I’m being picky.  But… the upshot of it all is that he survived to be nursed back to health by his uncles Math and Gwydion, who were the ones responsible for Blodeuwedd, and truth be told, for the whole sorry mess.  They had caused the rift between Lleu and his mother in the first place. But that’s another story and not a very savoury one.

And Blodeuwedd, what became of her?  She was turned into an owl and cursed to spend her days shunned by the other birds.

Let’s have a little think about that…  

What exactly did she do? One minute she was happily growing in the forest and the next she was turned into a human and married off to someone she’d never met before. Now I’ll admit, even flesh and blood women had no agency back then and were likely to suffer the same fate, but shouldn’t we feel sorry for her? She’d lived in a bright, scented world, where she could enjoy the cool tang of the earth after rain, and then was plonked into a castle which was all mineral and metal, and perfumed with death. 

Actually, despite the malice behind her transformation, Blodeuwedd was happier as an owl than she’d ever been as a human. Lleu was pretty dull, he’d only wanted a wife to produce an heir and continue his line. So that they could go on fighting their neighbours, stealing land and horses, and generally causing mayhem. As an owl, far from being shunned, Blodeuwedd reigned over the darkness, gliding on soundless wings. Enjoying the night scented flowers which reminded her of home. Ok, she wasn’t a particularly benign figure to mice, voles and the smaller types of birds, but were you really expecting happy ever after for everyone?  And Math and Gwydion, who orchestrated all her transformations may have been pretty useful with spells, but their knowledge of bird hierarchy was flawed. Far from being shunned, Blodeuwedd was a sovereign of the birds and definitely a queen of the night. 

Gronw? I’m afraid he got killed by a spear, which passed straight through a rock before piercing him. No eagle or other large bird transformations for him. Which was pretty par for the course in being a blood thirsty, kingdom-hungry young warrior back then. 

Lleu? His story doesn’t tell, but I like to think of him in his cold, dark castle watching the graceful creature flying outside with a certain degree of regret.

*Gwynedd is the north easterly county of mainland Wales, including the pointy bit, the Lleyn peninsular. It’s topographically pointy too, Snowdon is there.
**if you think that’s a mouthful the English translation is ‘the fair haired one with the skilful hand.
***this is not the time for goat jokes.

Our scarecrow will feature Blodeuwedd mid-transformation, part flowers, part owl. And don’t worry, no swans (or owls) were harmed in the gathering of said feathers, they were foraged last Autumn by my niece.

If you liked this story I have more here, on the stories page.

Caroline xx

NEW – EV Chargepoint
We now have an electric vehicle chargepoint for guests. It’s the untethered type, so you need to use your own cable, and has a maximum output of 7KW. Just let us know when booking that you want to charge your EV.

We’ll charge at cost (~30p per KwH at time of posting)

We were on our travels recently and found the charge points at Inveraray and Moffat good places for a stop over. We haven’t checked out the more local options but there are eight in and around Oban, check out Charge Place Scotland for details.

Back in 2019 Seil enjoyed its first ever Scarecrow Festival, the island was invaded by around a hundred of the straw creatures.

We had a naughty dog causing havoc with the breakfast sausages

But the winning entry showed the crows fighting back

The festival kicked off on a drizzly start with umbrellas protecting Juliet Cadzow (Balamory’s Edie McCredie) when she cut the ribbon across the bridge, but as the week progressed, the sun began to shine and temperatures soared. A pop up cafe ran every day in the hall.

You could pose as a scarecrow

Or enjoy a heritage walk, a potluck lunch, yoga, a scarecrow themed quiz and lots of other activities. Thankfully there were no Midsomer style murders.

The week culminated in a Highland Fair, with fun stalls, a dog show, and someone put in an appearance as a living scarecrow

Then we danced the night away with a ceilidh in the hall afterwards.

So it’ll be great to welcome them back again and see what our creative community comes up with this time around.

The festival will run 23rd – 30th July 2022

I’ve already had my thinking hat on, and am planning one to celebrate Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022 and my Welsh heritage.

So watch this space