The Aurora Borealis
The Ceilidh Stitchers came together from across Inverness to stitch the story of the aurora borealis, our glorious night skies and the generations of communities who have lived under them for millennia.
This is their story.
Gaelic has more than twenty words or expressions that deal with different sorts of twilight.
It can last a long time in northern latitudes, often more than an hour and so phrases like liath-fheasgar were important at the end of a day working outside. Or breac-sholas, breaking or broken evening light. And there are technical phrases that were useful, like aomadh na grèine, the oblique descent or setting of the sun and where it might or might not meet horizon clouds.
Others are poetic and do not readily translate. Glasadh is a paling, a growing dim. Gealach a’ bhruic is literally the badger’s moon, the time when the animals gather and dry grass for their setts, but it is used to mean the full moon in October, often the turning moon of a waning year. Precision rather than poetry was handy. Ceòban is small, drizzling rain with mist and sgòthachan is the shade caused by a cloud momentarily obscuring the sun.
A purely rural society that lived by crofting, fishing and whatever else might be productive needed precision when it came to describing the weather. It was simply not enough to say it was sunny or raining. This was also a community that paid less attention to time as it is measured on watches or clocks, and more to the nature of the day, the quality of the light and the transit of the seasons.
The 'Aurora Borealis' panelImage provided by Kirstie Campbell
BEHIND THE PANEL WITH THE CEILIDH STITCHERS
When we came together to work on The Spirit of the Highlands and Islands tapestry, only two of us knew each other previously. We decided to call our group the "Ceilidh Stitchers" which we felt reflected the fact that our members came from around the world: South Africa, Australia and Europe as well as Scotland. Ceilidh means a social event with music, dancing and storytelling, and although we didn’t have music and dancing, there was always lots of stories being shared while stitching the panel, some of which appear in our Journey Stones.
We applied to use the Eden Court Community Table (a free allocated meeting space for Community Groups) as part of the “Warm Welcome Campaign”. They certainly provided us with a warm, welcoming space for us to use twice a week. Whilst we stitched many curious folk came over to ask what we were doing and were very impressed with our work and the idea of the tapestry.
We were delighted to be allocated the Aurora Borealis panel, as it gave us freedom to be creative in developing the design and include the stitching abilities and talents of everyone in our group.
Apart from the individual Journey Stones which surround the Aurora, four of the stones represent each of the signs of the zodiac of the regular eight members of the Ceilidh Stitchers. These were beautifully worked by Karen Sutherland, as were the ten tweed stones around the top of the Aurora, each containing a different Gaelic word for Light. These Gaelic words were kindly supplied by The Highland Council Gaelic Translator.
We all enjoyed researching information on the Aurora and discovered there is so much folklore surrounding the "Merry Dancers". The name Kristian Birkeland is stitched into the Aurora, as this Norwegian scientist was the first to discover the actual cause of these amazing lights: That charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetism to create the dazzling displays of light in the night sky.
It has been a very rewarding experience working together and developing friendships and since our panel has been completed, we continue to meet socially on a regular basis. We also plan to do more creative work together!
We would all like to say thank you for the opportunity to be part of this fantastic tapestry project, we can’t wait to see all the panels displayed together.
- The Ceilidh Stitchers
An evening hard at work on the panelImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
Great progress on the 'Aurora Borealis' panelImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
Preparing the outer circle of the panelImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
Stitching the 'Eternal/Endless Knot' journey stoneImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
Around the table with the Ceilidh StitchersImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
The Ceilidh Stitchers together with their finished panelImage provided by The Ceilidh Stitchers
WITH THANKS TO THE CEILIDH STITCHERS
This panel was stitched by Karen, Jo-Anne, Adrienne, Agathe, Agnes, Carron, Gilly, Judy, Mytilda and Susanne who gave their time, skill and energy to completing a fantastic artwork for their area.
If you would like to see the panel up close and admire the detail of their work, please look out for the panel at an exhibition near you soon. To find out more, follow Inverness Castle Experience on Facebook for all the latest updates on the Tapestry of the Highlands and Islands and the new visitor experience in Inverness, open 2025.
