Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Side 147

Gannet Catching in the Hebrides
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storms throughout the previous year, the necessary repairs are
immediately carried out. The walls are made as draught-proof
as possible by being stuffed with cloth, sacking, or whatever
material comes to hand. For the first few nights the fowlers
are generally troubled by the presence of great numbers of
earwigs, and sleep with scarves round their heads.
Each hut is about four or five feet high, with an approxi-
mate floor space of forty square feet. The low doorway,
through which a man can only crawl, is partially protected
from wind by a projecting wall which serves as a primitive
porch. More or less opposite the doorway is a stone bench for
sleeping on; on either side of the doorway there are stone
benches called respectively arn bodach and a' chailleach —
»the old man« and »the old woman«. The fireplace, which is
really no more than a crude hearth, is set in the centre of the
floor, as in the old thatched dwelling-houses that were found
throughout the Highlands and Islands, the smoke being allowed
to fill the house and make its way out through the top of the
building. In the past, a fire of burning peat was transported
to Sulaisgeir in the bottom of the sailing boat. When the
fowlers left the skerry a very large fire, completely banked
with peat, was left alight in one of the huts. It was reckoned
that this slow-burning peat would remain alight for the best
part of a week, the purpose being to ensure that, if any emer-
gency occurred on the homeward journey which made it
necessary to turn back, the fowlers would have warmth and
cooking facilities. There is, in fact, no record in oral tradition
of this having ever happened.
Traditionally one hut was occupied by a boat’s crew; the
modern practice, however, is to use three huts: one for sleeping,
one for cooking and general daytime use, and one for stores.
Cylinders of gas are nowadays included among the gear and
cooking is done on gas rings.
There is one building on the skerry which has never, so far
as is known, been used by the fowlers. This is an ancient
chapel, known in Gaelic as Teampull Shulaisgeir — »the