The Skerry of the Blacksmith’s Daughter

There once lived a man named Macintyre in a small village on the island of Islay. In the same village,   there lived a woman who was in love with him and had reason to hope that he would one day marry her. But, when the time came, he did not marry her. Instead he married the daughter of the blacksmith.

In consequence of this the woman who was in love with Macintyre had a bitter hatred in her heart for the woman he married. But, she did not show it. Actually, she went out of her way to make friends with Macintyre’s wife and tried to see her as much as she could.

The years passed by, and one day the two women went down to the shore to gather shellfish. After they had been gathering shellfish for a while, they felt tired and walked out to the skerry some way from the shore, and there they sat down to rest. At low tide there is no water between this skerry and the shore, but at high tide the sea rushes in and covers it completely.

As they were sitting together on the skerry, the woman who was in love with Macintyre brought out a comb and began to come his wife’s beautiful long hair so soothingly that, after a time, she fell asleep. Once she was asleep, the other woman, pretending to plait her hair, tied it strand by strand to the seaweed that grew on the skerry. Then seeing that the tide was coming in fast, she made her way back to the shore and sat down there to watch what happened.

At some point, Macintyre’s wife was awakened by the sea washing over her. Realising her danger, she called out to her friend to come and rescue her. But, with joy in her heart, the other woman now stood up and started to walk away.

‘Do you not pity a woman drowning?’ wailed Macintyre’s wife after her.

‘I do not pity her in the least,’ was the reply. ‘She is no concern of mine.’ And left her there to drown.

To this day the skerry, which can be seen at low tide without too much difficulty, is known as the Skerry of the Blacksmith’s Daughter