This must be my laziest post by far. I had read about the witch of Swona in Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill’s book “The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish legends”1Westwood, Jennifer and Sophia Kingshill. “The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish legends”. ISBN 9780099547167. 2011. but I never expected to get so close.
Swona is a smallish island west of the southernmost tip of South Ronaldsay and the Orcadian ferry skirted the eastern coast unbelievably close. You could almost touch the razorbills and other seabirds on its craggy coast. It seems wholly uninhabited now but the numerous empty crofts tell that this was once a strong community.
The island is situated in the Pentland Firth where it creates an obstruction to the strong tides producing tidal races, over-falls and whirlpools. One of these whirlpools is known as the ‘Wells of Swona‘, and legend has it is caused by a witch struggling to save herself. To quote directly from Westwood and Kingshill’s book:
A witch once took a fancy to a dark and handsome young man and wanted him for her lover. When she asked him to go to the beach with her, however, he refused, as his sweetheart was at that moment on her way to join him. Concealing her anger, the witch persuaded the young man and his girl to come out with her in her boat. As they approached Swona, she worked a spell on the boat and it overturned. The young man caught his girl’s hand in an attempt to save her, but at the same moment the witch caught hold of his to drag him under the waves and into her power. The three were so entangled that they could not be pulled apart. The young man and his sweetheart were drowned, but the witch is still struggling to get free, and it is her frantic churning of the waters that causes the Wells of Swona.
- 1Westwood, Jennifer and Sophia Kingshill. “The Lore of Scotland: A guide to Scottish legends”. ISBN 9780099547167. 2011.
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