Wishing at the Well of the Queen's Daughter

              Photo copyright Ⓒ  Xander M-B

Different islanders call it by different names and tell different stories about it; the fact is that there is a natural well in the rocks by the sea, and at half-tide or lower, people throw coins into it and wish. It's deep enough for the coins to stay at the bottom even when the tide is high, though in the past, when people were poorer, children used to climb in to get the coins when the visitors had gone.

One Saturday morning I ran into Marg— thin, elegant in old trousers perfectly pressed and a green-blue sweater the color of her eyes — spreading butter on an oatcake. She was in the village to do her shopping; Saturday morning is when the boat brings the most fresh food. Iona, in the village to do her shopping and washing (the community center has a washer and dryer) joined us, and we companionably chatted and drank tea while Marg buttered and ate her oatcakes and Iona waited for her washing to finish. This kind of relaxed, completely unplanned companionship — especially common in winter — is one of my favorite things about the island.

Iona, now 50, grew up there, and Iona came in the 1970s, so they've known each other a long time, but they included me in the companionship. All of us once supported ourselves at our crafts: duck decoys (prized by American hunters), ceramics (beautiful sea colored glazes), writing. We're all single. And we all chose, and love, the island. 

They both knew how to get to the well, but it was too far from my hut for walking the whole way in winter to be fun. So one day Iona  picked me up in her little car. We drove as far as the track to the graveyard where after the burial everyone drinks whisky outside and talks about the person (“When I die, don't buy any liquor, there's plenty in the house,” someone said to me at the one burial I attended). Then we followed another track through the grassy dunes to the right part of the rocks,  and clambered over them to the steps  — the Queen's Stairs or the Giant's Steps, depending upon who's telling it.

The version I like is that after a selkie climbed down them, she put on her sealskin which she'd hidden under the rocks and then — before she returned to the sea — slid into the pool to wash the land off her.

    Photo copyright Ⓒ  Xander M-B

Iona and I sat on a straight rock with a back some people call “the Queen's Throne.” I'd brought some coins, chosen for the selkie, with a dolphin on the back. Of course, we didn't tell each other our wishes. We sat for perhaps twenty minutes without saying anything at all; it's a rare person that I can do that with and feel at ease, but I could with Iona.  It was a grey, cold windy day — the wind whipped our hair and turned our cheeks cold and pink, but it felt right to sit there until we threw in our coins and silently wished.

   Photo copyright Ⓒ  Xander M-B

 I'd brought some whisky, too — good whisky. Six years before, on my first night on the island , my host told me that when Boswell and Johnson came, the islanders offered them whisky in cockle shells, telling them it was an island custom. Boswell believed them.  My hosts told some BBC reporters on the island the story, and, after dinner, served them whisky from cockleshells.

A cockleshell of whisky is not much.

“Don't you think the islanders were pulling Bosewell and Johnson's legs?” I said and his whole face fell. He looked so disappointed — it had clearly been a great night — that I wished I'd held my tongue. 

I thought of that and regretted saying it as I poured whisky into the hot milk and honey I'd also brought (this is a delicious combination, if the whisky is smokey enough), and we agreed that it was indeed delicious. There was still quite a lot of whisky left after the hot milk and honey were gone, and we decided to drink it out of cockle shells.

We walked along the shore, right into the salty wind, laughing and pouring whisky into the shells and then tilting it into our mouths. It was great, better than the hot milk and honey — like drinking the sea. Actually,  we probably WERE drinking the sea, since we picked up the shells from the beach and the air was so windy and wet.

That summer, when I was back in Stonington, Iona emailed me that her wish had come true. And the following January, mine did, too. I had wished to buy a place in America, and while I was back on Coll, my lawyer in Connecticut signed the papers.

Tammy and I went back to the Selkie's Throne to give thanks.

Those aren't our feet: a child on the island kindly went to the site and took these photos for our blog. Thank you, Xander!

Here he is climbing the Queen's stairs — or the Giant's Steps or the Selkie's Way, depending upon who's telling it.