Volister

[Volister or Volaster - Valas place and seter meaning summer pasture]

Volister and Gremister 2005

A township usually consisted of several crofts and was known by a name such as the ‘Toon of Volister’. The settlement of Volister had a few crofts and a chapel east of the loch. A mill was built beside the burn fed from the loch. Some of the crofts had probably been taken from the hill as outsets. Outsets were usually given to young married couples with no grown family and who had not managed to buy stock. Cattle manure was essential to fertilise the ground but as they had few animals the ground was not very fertile. Outsets were the first real attempt at land reclamation. A turf and stone dyke would be put up round a few acres and the heather burned then turned by spade. In Volister there were complaints from other crofters about the outsets which caused loss of common grazing with no reduction of rent. Jokingly two crofts in Volister were named Jerusalem and Jerico because the walls had fallen. Another croft was named Newtoon.

Volister was cleared for sheep twice in the 1800s. It seemed strange to us that this old landscape had once been tended over countless generations. The community had a chapel, fishing had flourished for a time and the scene had been full of life but was now silent and sinking back to nature.

An amusing story told how sheep thieves were killing stolen sheep in a hidden geo when a man from Volister came upon them.

The thieves saw him and caught him. He swore he would tell no one if they would only let him go. He was allowed to go on his way to a friend's house. When he went to bed he took his friend's dog into the room with him and proceeded to relate to the dog what had happened but loud enough for his friend to hear. The thieves were caught but the Volister man was adamant that he had not told any person what he had seen.

My next story is rather fantastic but plenty of these stories were told in an evening around the croft fire. I remember the older generation telling us that often after visiting neighbours and listening to tales of ghosts and apparitions they were too scared to go outside to return home. In days gone by the grown ups seemed to delight in frightening the children. There are several versions of this story of Henry's.

Henry Farquhar or Forker 1792, with connections to Lumbister and Volister told about an alleged encounter with a trowie wife.

The Trowie Wife’s Ointment Story

Henry, an old man, was asleep but in the small hours he was awakened by the glimmer of a weird light. He saw a trowie wife coming in to his house carrying a baby and a little pig [jar made from unglazed clay] of ointment. She sat down near the fire to warm the baby and began putting balm from the jar on to the child’s skin.

Henry was unable to sain himself as the trow had put a spell on him and he could not move. In the byre next door were two cocks, one white and one black. The white cock crew but the trow ignored it saying,

Da white cock is nae cock, wadie, wadie

I can sit still an warm me baby.

Then the black cock crew and the trowie wife jumped up quickly and rushed out crying,

Da black cock is a cock, wadie, wadie

I maun noo flit fae warmin me baby.

Farquhar regained his senses and quickly grabbed the jar of ointment which the trowie wife had left. He kept the jar of fairy ointment and people who believed they had been hurt by trows came from far and wide to be cured by it. Those who applied it ‘in faith’ were always cured. The ointment resembled lard mixed with tar. No matter how much was used it never ran out.

Several people maintained they had the original jar which belonged to Henry Farquhar.

People were exceedingly lucky to possess a black cockerel. There was a belief that trows were powerless within the sound of its crowing.

Apparently there is some truth to the following account of what happened to men accused of stealing.

Two men from Volister were accused by the 17th century laird Charles Neven, of stealing a cow. They were hanged on the Gallow Knowe on the hill of Holsigarth. They were to be hanged at Scalloway but they requested the hanging to take place at Holsigarth so that the laird at Windhouse might have the grisly sight on the hill opposite his home.

In the crofting, fishing areas of the islands almost every family owned a boat. When a boat was left to several sons on their father’s death the boat would have been shared among them. Even a poor man like Donald Johnson (died 1601) of Volister had his own boat although his total estate was worth only £26 13s 4d and he owed £5 6s 8d in teinds to the vicar at the time of his death. His belongings were listed as 'ane half ox, a cow, a quoyack, two ewes, a sow and an old boat.'

On the shore at Volister Chas showed me the empty noosts and a rusted mooring ring, evidence of the fishing stations that had been there, one owned by Mitchell and the other Davidson. The herring industry season at Whalefirth was carried out between the months May and July. From July the fishing boats moved to the east side of Scotland. The fishing stations in the Herra were abandoned around the time of the Second World War.

I had read about a stone circle mentioned by Thomas Mathewson in his notes about The Old Rock but although we both searched we could not locate its whereabouts. As we had nothing to go on and there are many strewn rocks it seemed impossible, however someone else may uncover them someday.

'Mr George told me about the circles of stones which Henry Johnson told him of at Volister being better than those at Snaburgh, Fetlar'

Several years ago the boat 'Be Ready' broke from her anchor when the crew left her anchored near the head of the voe. Chas said she was found aground at Volister where she eventually broke up.

While exploring the ruined buildings we found what Chas thought would be the ruin of the old chapel of Volister. Hosea Brown preached there about 1600. He had three sons. The Yell family name Brown was said to originate from this family. We imagined that this Celtic chapel would have been attended by people from other parts of the Herra as well as from Lumbister and Windhouse. Boats would have been the main mode of transport.

It's supposed that when the Volister Kirk was no longer used people took the artifacts which had been left. It is not known what happened to them. They might have been given to the other island churches. It would be interesting to know if there were any records kept.

Long ago a man was resting in the Kirk of Volister when he heard the sound of whales in the voe. He alerted the people so that boats could be taken to the water to caa the whales to shore where they were captured.

Towards the end of the 1800s the croft houses were empty and falling to ruin and sheep the only occupants of the crofts.

The last person born in Volister was Robert Scollay in 1863. In 1881 he was at Linkshouse, Mid Yell. In 1906 he was described as a pauper and received, under Lunatic Poor entitlement, £9 for ailment + £1.14s 10s for other help.

Years ago a poem was penned about the deserted dwellings of Volister, author unknown.

The Beard of Ramalina

Vollister, Vollister!

Where are your children

dartin' through the door?

The stone lintel grows

a beard of lichen four fingers long.

Cottages are roofless

a hundred years now gone.

How many rocks to raise the wall towards the sky?

How many man-hours sweating

to keep the bairns dry

Loch sand and lime once

held massive blocks in place.

Now crumbling to powder

the wind blows in my face.

Sheep replaced the child

no laughter, playing tig, running wild,

no peat smoke in the air;

the fire place now a heap of stones.

One hole for smoking fish, remains.

each cottage, stany pound to side

sheltered pony, milking cow and child.

Croft pasture dips towards the shore

a stand of yellow iris grow in flower

a wreath to childless Vollister.

But wasn't it for the best

they left and settled another shore?

Bailiffs hooked the rafters down

and eased up and off the doors.

Life here's too hard for a man-

though good for sheep, and besides

a laird of men has responsibilities.

The beard of Ramalina stirs in the breeze.

Pensive stacks of rock are not deceived,

the wind blows stronger

lichen flapping wild.

No, crass profit sucked the laughter from a child.

As we planned to make our way to Windhouse I was thankful of Chas's advise to walk close to the shore as the deep heather higher up made walking very difficult. This proved to be a better option and the walking was much easier. On crossing a few burns running down the hillside we arrived at Ligaldis Ness, a noticeable point at the shore. Across the voe is another point and between these the voe narrows slightly. It has been suggested that in very early times the land was joined forming a loch and that the bank between was broken with the result that the loch was lost to the sea. There have been detailed studies by the University of Oxford which indicate tsunamis hit the coast of Shetland between 8000 and 1500 years ago. That there had once been a loch here appears less of a fantastic story.

On looking directly across the voe we were able to see an area of flat land on the opposite side of the voe from Ligaldis Ness. Chas said this is where the sixareens were pulled up, outwith the fishing season, to be repaired.

Our next stop was another previous dwelling at Bartie's Skoe. This is an interesting site where there are many small mounds which indicate a burial site. These mounds stretch from Bartie's Skoe to the house of Windhouse. At Bartie's Skoe a barrow containing burnt ashes was dug up. The grave showed that the ashes of the dead had been placed in a flat stone trough. Beside these ashes had been placed melde-coom which was food. It was said that the whole side of the hill was covered with graves, and older generations thought it unlucky to tether cattle, or cut grass, there. A small stone pestle, supposedly used with the stone trough was also dug up and smaller stone troughs were dug up by R H Spence. These troughs were used for bruising [grinding] grain, melde-coom or runshie, and were the precursors to the rotary querns and water mills. They would have been used along with a stone, probably a split beach pebble. The stones would have started off relatively flat but over time would have hollowed out into a bowl form. The stone troughs were held in the Shetland Museum, Lerwick.

I wanted to tell Chas about an interesting character who had lived there.

Born at Sound, West Yell on 11.5.1810, Daniel Scollay was the sixth child of Robert Scollay and Agnes Tulloch. His father was lost from a sixareen. The family were destitute and went to Brother Isle. Son John obtained tenancy of Bartie’s Skeo and joined the whalers. Daniel went to Volister. He married Barbara Petrie of Vatster. Daniel had exceptional strength and fought a polar bear when at the whaling. After sailing and going for a time to the gold diggings in California and Spain he was injured and returned to Shetland. On October 5, 1860 he and his son William were drowned while returning by boat from Burravoe.

We both agreed that we would have liked to have met Daniel and heard him tell of his adventures.

As we neared the head of the voe we could not miss seeing the forbidding ruin of the imposing Big House of Windhouse in its commanding position on the high ground there. It is described as the most haunted house in Shetland. Many stories are told about it and many people visit it. The estate of Windhouse includes all the farmland and houses.