Here is Harris Island - St. Clement's Church at Rodel. See ://www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/rodel. It was dedicated to Alexander MacLeod, in the Gaelic known as Alasdair Crotach of Dunvegan, in 1528 (he died twenty years later). http://www.treasuredplaces.org.uk/gallery/detail.php?id=82&view=®ion=10.How to get there: We put the car on a ferry at Portree, Skye, see the map at www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usmapindexes/westhighlands.html, in the late afternoon, and arrived at Tarbert, Harris, www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usmapindexes/westernisles.html, just at dusk.
If you look at that map, the dotted line for the Sound of Harris Ferry is the one from Portree, I think. Just over two hours. Do spend time on that little map site. Click on the sights for the best overview of Harris and Lewis.
Do arrive the night before if you have a major site to see. We avoid taking prime morning or daytime on ferries. But arrive before full dark so you can get to an overnight place more safely. We had made a reservation at a B&B before leaving Portree, near where we wanted to be first thing in the morning.
There is a long road from Tarbert to Rodel. We hesitated driving it at nightfall, but prefer a full morning for sightseeing. Be very careful. There was a moonscape-rock-boulder twisty road through steep-sided places to Rodel. People drive methodically, and headlights give you warning. Still, dicey drive. Just go slow around the curves. If this makes you nervous, just sleep over in Tarbert.
See www.visithebrides.com/islands/harris/
At the middle course on the St. Clement's tower, is what some would call a sheelanagig. See the home website for the cataloguing of these at www.sheelanagig.org/, and you can see the telephoto lens close-up: there. It is a woman giving birth.
These sheela-na-gigs are usually Irish or English forms, some celtic and pre-celtic, others seen as fertility-type forms at crossroads or on buildings, or at churches. This one is from much later. Holdovers from earlier religions perhaps, but not to be dismissed lightly.
St. Clement's Church is 15th Century, but the sheela-na-gig looks far older, and some sources say that older components like these were incorporated in the newer structures. It certainly to me is not the virgin and child as some sites say, see //www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/rodel.htm. She is not sitting with knees together there. Novelists - secret traditions of safe havens for fleeing figures from the holy land? You pick your own explanations.
There is a long tradition of sheelanagigs - many are almost grotesque, others simply showing a fact of life and in a dignified and not exaggerated way.
Note at the site that they call the form on the tower outside "virgin and child." Not so fast. That form would not be sitting with knees apart. See www.sheelanagig.org/. We all see what we want to see, and it certainly keeps attention away if you just tell people it is another virgin and child. See post on sheela-na-gigs, the outside of St. Clement's here.
More blogs about Hebrides Road Ways.
