Manx Gaelic teacher, musician and composer, Annie Kissack is the fifth Manx writer to hold the title of Manx Bard. Each month she shares one of her poems with us, and explains what led her to write it.
I owe much of my interest in Manx folklore to what I have read.
As a girl, I was once lucky enough to have access to the ’Manx cupboard’ which stood in the corridor of the Rural Library in Lord Street.
I would take home old journals of ’Mannin’ and other ageing Manx publications, read them till I felt sleepy, then stuff them under my pillow, until the next weird and wonderful instalment the following night.
Among the assorted writers and collectors of traditional Manx lore, Sophia Morrison (1859-1917), the editor of ’Mannin’, stands out.
Her ’Manx Fairy Tales’, first published in 1911, is a book of traditional stories, many of which she had collected herself as a pioneering folklorist, or acquired from fellow collectors or other literary sources.
When I first read it, it felt rather bleak overall; there is no padding, rather like listening to a piece of music where there is only a single melody line and you have to imagine the rest. That is, of course, what you would expect from true collecting.
I imagined what some of these stories might be like as songs or poems, as others have done.
The Eary Cushlin story of ’The Child without a Name’ is quite disturbing.
You should read the story itself of course, but it revolves around the wandering spirit of a child born to the heiress of Eary Cushlin, left unchristened and haunting the cliff path to Lag ny Keeilley.
To me, it evokes a feeling of deep loneliness.
At its heart lies the deep, human fear of being misunderstood and excluded. It could not be more relevant to the modern age.
The Child that has no Name
I am the child that has no name,
Over the western cliffs I roam
As the fierce red sun goes down.
Free, as the waves to tame the rocks
Wild as the wind that whirls and mocks,
Lost as the drifting, shifting light,
That wavers on the broogh.
Silent in the dank, deep cave,
Fearless, at the edge of wave,
Present on the darkening track
That leads to the priest’s cold cell.
I am the child that has no name,
Down the tangled track I roam
As the fierce red sun goes down.
These cliffs are full of moving things,
Scuttling feet and beating wings
And all the frenzied, hard-won life
Of creatures that belong.
But I leave no mark upon the sand,
No words that you might understand,
No stubborn shell encloses me,
No fretting ropes constain.
For I am the child that has no name,
Over the twisted shore I roam
As the fierce red sun goes down.
The lights that twinkle out at sea,
Will answer to the light in me
But dusk and darkness keep me close
To the shadow of the hill.
Yet I could soar through starry space,
Or with the silvery fishes race,
But all I seek is a warm embrace
And a voice to say my name.
by Annie Kissack
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