Uist, where there was a lot of heather but hardly any marram grass. Out on the west coast machair, in places like Balgarva, everything was truly plentiful. In that part of Uist marram grass was abundant. In Balgarva the MacPhees had no need to make rope or thatch solely from heather. In its season they also used marram grass.
Marram grass, bent grass or beach grass elsewhere in the English-speaking world,
muirineach
in Scottish Gaelic,
ammophila
(sand-lover) in Greek, is native to sand dunes all around the sub-Arctic coasts of the North Atlantic Ocean. Its relationship to dunes is symbiotic: it helps to create them by binding blown sand, and then marram grass flourishes in the stabilised dune.
It grows in thick clumps, and in Europe its broad, fibrous, resilient strands can reach a foot in length. Marram grass has always been exploited by the people who lived near its dunes. In Denmark, where it proliferates on the Baltic coast, it was used for fuel and cattle feed as well as thatch. In Ynys Môn, the Isle of Anglesey off north-western Wales, a Celtic domain 300 miles south of Uist, marram grass was turned into brushes and mats as well as thatch. Up and down the east-coast links of Scotland âthe bentsâ became a generic term for the sea-shore.All over the country marram grass was once so commonly harvested for thatch that in places the coast disintegrated, villages and farmland were buried under sand, and in 1695 âHis Majesty does strictly prohibit and discharge the pulling of bent, broom or juniper off the sand hills for hereafter.â
In the Uists and other Hebridean islands where the Kingâs writ failed to run, marram grass was used for thatch until the second half of the twentieth century â until, in fact, thatched roofs themselves were replaced by corrugated iron or slate. It was used for practical, playful and confessional purposes. It was woven into dolls, and even into Roman Catholic icons â perhaps half in appeasement. In Scottish Celtic legend, when the fairies stole away a Christian child they left in his place a facsimile made from marram grass. An echo of the Gaulish wicker man, this chimera had human faculties, but had no human soul.
The folklore collector Alexander Carmichael described a typical Hebridean household in the late nineteenth century as being one in which âThe houseman is twisting twigs of heather into ropes to hold down thatch, a neighbour crofter is twining quicken roots into cords to tie cows, while another is plaiting bent grass into baskets to hold meal.â He noted a local saying:
Ith aran, sniamh muran,
Us bi thu am bliadhn mar bha thuân uraidh.
(Eat bread and twist marram grass,
And thou this year shall be as thou wert last.)
Carmichael discovered a festive cereal cake called âstruan Micheilâ to which batter was ceremonially applied as it baked by the fire, and âin Uist this is generally done with âbadan murainâ, a small bunch of bent-grassâ. Ears of corn were bakedby hanging them over a slow, smokeless peat fire in nets made of marram grass.
âThe people of neighbouring islands,â said Carmichael, âcall Uist âTir aâ mhurainâ, the land of the bent-grass, and the people âMuranaichâ, bent-grass people. Even the people on the east side, where there is no bent, apply the name to those on the west, where this grass grows.â
Apart from making baskets and thatching outbuildings and the family home, as a young
Muranach
back in Uist Angus MacPhee would have used marram grass and heather to make rope. It was a skilled process, but straightforward once mastered. Three strands of grass were plaited into a short string. Three of the strings were then plaited into a thin rope. Three of the thin ropes were plaited to make a thicker rope. Perhaps halfway along the length of the uncompleted plait, three new strands were introduced and bound in to increase its length. The process was
Marram grass, bent grass or beach grass elsewhere in the English-speaking world,
muirineach
in Scottish Gaelic,
ammophila
(sand-lover) in Greek, is native to sand dunes all around the sub-Arctic coasts of the North Atlantic Ocean. Its relationship to dunes is symbiotic: it helps to create them by binding blown sand, and then marram grass flourishes in the stabilised dune.
It grows in thick clumps, and in Europe its broad, fibrous, resilient strands can reach a foot in length. Marram grass has always been exploited by the people who lived near its dunes. In Denmark, where it proliferates on the Baltic coast, it was used for fuel and cattle feed as well as thatch. In Ynys Môn, the Isle of Anglesey off north-western Wales, a Celtic domain 300 miles south of Uist, marram grass was turned into brushes and mats as well as thatch. Up and down the east-coast links of Scotland âthe bentsâ became a generic term for the sea-shore.All over the country marram grass was once so commonly harvested for thatch that in places the coast disintegrated, villages and farmland were buried under sand, and in 1695 âHis Majesty does strictly prohibit and discharge the pulling of bent, broom or juniper off the sand hills for hereafter.â
In the Uists and other Hebridean islands where the Kingâs writ failed to run, marram grass was used for thatch until the second half of the twentieth century â until, in fact, thatched roofs themselves were replaced by corrugated iron or slate. It was used for practical, playful and confessional purposes. It was woven into dolls, and even into Roman Catholic icons â perhaps half in appeasement. In Scottish Celtic legend, when the fairies stole away a Christian child they left in his place a facsimile made from marram grass. An echo of the Gaulish wicker man, this chimera had human faculties, but had no human soul.
The folklore collector Alexander Carmichael described a typical Hebridean household in the late nineteenth century as being one in which âThe houseman is twisting twigs of heather into ropes to hold down thatch, a neighbour crofter is twining quicken roots into cords to tie cows, while another is plaiting bent grass into baskets to hold meal.â He noted a local saying:
Ith aran, sniamh muran,
Us bi thu am bliadhn mar bha thuân uraidh.
(Eat bread and twist marram grass,
And thou this year shall be as thou wert last.)
Carmichael discovered a festive cereal cake called âstruan Micheilâ to which batter was ceremonially applied as it baked by the fire, and âin Uist this is generally done with âbadan murainâ, a small bunch of bent-grassâ. Ears of corn were bakedby hanging them over a slow, smokeless peat fire in nets made of marram grass.
âThe people of neighbouring islands,â said Carmichael, âcall Uist âTir aâ mhurainâ, the land of the bent-grass, and the people âMuranaichâ, bent-grass people. Even the people on the east side, where there is no bent, apply the name to those on the west, where this grass grows.â
Apart from making baskets and thatching outbuildings and the family home, as a young
Muranach
back in Uist Angus MacPhee would have used marram grass and heather to make rope. It was a skilled process, but straightforward once mastered. Three strands of grass were plaited into a short string. Three of the strings were then plaited into a thin rope. Three of the thin ropes were plaited to make a thicker rope. Perhaps halfway along the length of the uncompleted plait, three new strands were introduced and bound in to increase its length. The process was
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