The Italian Chapel – a lesson in learning not to cut my nose off to spite my face.

During both World Wars, Orkney was strategically important for protecting the North Sea and Scapa Flow, the massive natural harbour fringed by the south isles, was the home of the British home fleet. The eastern approaches to Scapa Flow were known to be a weak link in the defences, with the short stretches of water between the islands of Lamb Holm, Glimps Holm, Burray and South Ronaldsay being vulnerable to exploitation by submarines or small warships.  During World War I, attempts had been made to block Kirk, Skerry, East Weddell and Water Sounds with old rusting steamships that were requisitioned and sunk, thus forming an obstacle to any attacker.

However, by the outbreak of World War II, many of these blockships had moved and shifted in the strong tides and German aerial photo-reconnaissance had spotted a potential gap.  Thus, on the night of 13 October 1939, U-boat 47, under the command of Gunther Prien slipped into Scapa Flow through Kirk Sound – the short gap of water between Mainland and the southern island of Lamb Holm.  They were aided by an unusually high tide and light from the Merry Dancers – the Northern Lights.

Fortunately, most of the British fleet was away on exercise, but HMS Royal Oak was at anchor.  U-47 torpedoed HMS Royal Oak, and she sank rapidly with over 830 serving men and boys losing their lives from a crew of 1200.  Gunther Prien and his crew got back to German where he enjoyed a hero’s welcome and was personally decorated with the Iron Cross by Hitler himself.

This was the first great disaster of World War II and Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty, personally visited Orkney and ordered that the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow be permanently blocked.  Construction of what became known as the Churchill Barriers began in 1940 by the construction company Balfour Beatty but by 1942 more labour was needed to speed up the work and 1200 Italian prisoners of war were brought up to Orkney to work on the project, of whom 600 were put into a prison camp on the island of Lamb Holm.

Of course, according to the Geneva Convention, POWs’ labour should not be used to aid one’s captors militarily, and so the Italian POWs at first refused to work, but they were put on short rations for a few days until they accepted the British explanation that the barriers were being built to make travel easier for the inhabitants of Burray and South Ronaldsay.  With the barriers costing a total of £2.5 million, for a civilian project, the rations surely must have been the more persuasive argument.

The prison camp on Lamb Holm was called Camp 60 and some, but not many, remains can still be seen in the fields, mainly in the form of the concrete foundations for the dozen or so huts.  The POWs asked for a chapel, somewhere they might worship, and they were offered two Nissen huts which they joined together and transformed – it is these huts which are now known as the Italian Chapel or the Miracle of Camp 60 (HY488006).

One of the prisoners, Domenico Chiocchetti, had worked as a church decorator before the war and his talent was known to the camp commander.  Chiocchetti’s home town was Moena in the Dolomites.  It was Chiocchetti who designed the interior of the chapel, but everything was made by the POWs and the ornate appearance belies the simple raw materials, mainly from scrap and salvage, with which the Italians worked.

 

 The outside of the chapel has an elaborate red and white concrete facade with entrance pillars, but inside the huts are beautifully painted so that the interior resembles carved stonework with brick.  The Italians used any materials they had available and the most plentiful was concrete, many items are cast from cement including the facade, the altar and the altar rail; this was carried out by a mason called Bruttapasta.  The wood around the altar was obtained from the blockships and the candlesticks from stair-rods; the hanging lamps were made from corned-beef (“bully-beef”) tins.  The iron for the altar gates was salvaged from the blockships by the smith, Palumbo, who fashioned a forge from a 40-gallon oil drum.  Where these gates close together, on the floor, is set a small iron heart,  because whilst in Orkney, Palumbo fell in love with a local girl but he already had a wife and family back home in Italy, so he left the heart as a permanent symbol of his affection. 

  

The main item which was not available to the POWs was paint, so the Italians would make small items, such as models, which they traded with locals for the money to purchase paint. 

This chapel is dedicated to the Queen of Peace: Regina Pacis and She is depicted on the large central altarpiece.  This was painted by Chiocchetti himself with the design being based on a holy postcard, which he always carried with him, of a painting by Nicolo Barabino of the Madonna and Child.  There are symbols throughout the chapel which reminds us of this dedication to the Queen of Peace: the Christ child carries an olive branch, the cherub to the right is sheathing a sword, whilst the cherub on the left holds the coat of arms of Moena: the ship shown is sailing from the dark clouds of war into the calm seas of peace; the white dove in the centre of the ceiling, above the symbols of the four evangelists, symbolises the Holy Spirit and peace.
 

To either side of the altar piece are two stained glass windows which are really just painted glass – but convincing as stained glass.  On the right is St Francis of Assissi, and on the left is St Catherine of Siena, both are the two patron saints of Italy.

It is the altarpiece which first draws the eyes, together with an astounding sense of peace which envelops the spiritual tourist.   I find this a humbling and holy place because those Italian POWs were conscripted into a war, captured in North Africa, and brought to Orkney in January.  That is some contrast in weather!  Now, if that had been me, I wouldn’t have built a chapel to peace, oh no, I would have been Mrs Grumpy-pants: I would have moaned and whinged and made sure everyone around me knew how miserable I was.  I wouldn’t have turned defeat and forced labour into a triumph of peace like those POWs did, and because of that knowledge of my baser self, I remain humbled by their spirit.

I have resisted writing about the Italian Chapel for those stupid Mrs Grumpy-pants reasons, despite the fact that it is one of the most spiritual places in Orkney.  Why?  Stupid Mrs Grumpy-pants had been asked to perform a legal wedding at the Italian chapel, this would have been some three or four years ago now, and I had asked the custodians for permission and been told in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t do it, it was only “recognised religions” that could use the place for weddings and other services and Paganism was not recognised – neither was Buddhism, Islam or a couple of other religions, so I was in good company, but I was so angry about this!  It was illegal!  It was rude!  It was the worst sort of bigoted stubbornness!  

So I decided to punish the chapel: I didn’t take visitors there when I took folk on the “Grand Tour” of Orkney, we’d drive straight past on our way to the Tomb of the Eagles or even worse, we’d sample some wines at nearby Orkney Wine and I’d just gesture to the chapel as an afterthought.  I was being mean.  I was taking my revenge.  I was being resentful and taking it all out on the chapel.  

And then I trained to be a Tourist Guide for Orkney and I had to learn about the chapel.  I learnt about the symbolism to peace and every time I had to tell the story in training, my eyes started to well up.  Even now, tears start to fall when I guide at the chapel.  I cry because I am ashamed of myself in comparison to those Italian POWs, they were the real folk who triumphed after the war.  I cry because despite my punishing the chapel for the past few years, the chapel still enfolds me in a sense of peace and awe when I enter.  The chapel forgives and I am welcome there still, when I had assumed I was not.

Neither story ends there.  

When the Barriers were finished in 1944, the POWs were sent down to another camp in Yorkshire, all then returned to Italy at the end of the war and the chapel started to fall into disrepair and was affected by damp.   Chioccetti returned several times in the 1960s to repair and renovate the chapel, following a BBC television documentary which tracked him down.   He then passed the chapel to the care of the people of Orkney and a lasting friendship has since been built between the people of Moena and Orkney with exchange visits between choirs and schoolchildren.  The twelve wooden Stations of the Cross were carved in Moena and gifted by Chioccetti and his wife Maria.  In the intervening decades, several of the POWs have returned to Orkney, with a warm welcome, but there are less of them with every passing year – although Chioccetti’s own grandchild came over in an exchange visit.  The chapel is dedicated to Roman Catholicism and Mass is said on the first Sunday of every month in summer; it remains a popular place for weddings, Christian ones.

Outside, in the car park, the position of the camp square is marked by a concrete statue of St George and the dragon.  This was built of barbed wire covered in cement and originally there was a roll with the POWs’ names inside the base, although this has now perished.  This statue symbolises the triumph of the human spirit.  Around the base is a link of chains and in the middle of each chain is a pentacle, upright, but there.  This is not a modern fence because a photograph from the 1940s shows the fence and pentacles clearly there from the outset.  I have been unable to find out what an occult symbol is doing in an overtly Christian place, but every time I see it, I secretly punch the air for triumph that yet again a subversive Pagan symbol has succeeded in being sneaked in: something of “ours” in one of “their places” – albeit this being far more audacious than a Green Man.

You will need to forgive me, I am still Mrs Grumpy-pants and I still haven’t fully slain my inner dragon.

Orkney Witches

This article was originally published in SPIN issue 65 Winter 2012/13.

At the top of Clay Loan, amidst a housing estate and with a magnificant view over the city of Kirkwall, there is a bare patch of green land, mysteriously undeveloped (HY453104).  This is Gallowha, the site for public executions in Orkney, but unmarked as such.  A few of us have begun the process to install a small memorial to the victims of the witch-trials which mainly took place between the 1590s and the 1650s.

Most of the stories of Orkney witches and their associated witch trials date from the early seventeenth century; a period in which there was a genuine and widespread belief in the existence of witches and when no one seemed to expect God to do good in compensation.  These beliefs were fuelled by superstition, high mortality, and poor access to health care and propelled by a particularly twisted Christian theology and a judicial system that was constructed around it.

Folk beliefs and magical practices were abundant at this time and appear to have been widely practiced.  Many of the Orkney charms and rituals seem to have their counterparts with those from the rest of the British Isles and may have been imported and adapted, but Orkney has always had a close relationship with Norway and the Norse traditions also contributed.  In Norse mythology, death and disaster were caused by malevolent spiritual beings working magic against humans.  Only by working a more powerful magic could these influences be countered.  Most Norse witches used magical formulae or rituals – in the Christian period, these often including the sign of the Cross or the name of Christ.  Another influence upon the Orkney variant of witchcraft may have been the vagabonds known throughout Scotland at this time as “the Egyptians”; they were infamous for using magic to take the “profit” from other’s crops and livestock for themselves.

Witches were believed to derive their supernatural powers from the devil or from evil spirits such as the fairies, and it is this association which was the issue upon which witches were tried, whether that was in a theological or legal proceedings.  Any mysterious happenings, or coincidences, could be used to infer this relationship, or witches could have been seen in the devil’s or fairies’ company or might confess to it.

For example, Marion Richart (tried 1633) was seen with the devil “in likeness of a black man”.  And the devil apparently taught Jonet Irving (tried 1616) “if she bore ill-will to anybody” to look on them “with open eyes and pray evil for them in his name so that she should get her heart’s desire”.  Issobell Sinclair (tried 1633) was accused that during seven years “six times at the quarters of the year, she has been controlled by the fairies; and that by them, she has the second sight”.

Orkney witches were not often associated with familiars, although there are many folk stories about witches shape-shifting into cats and cats were often an integral element of a spell.  Marion Richart (as before, tried 1633) was accused of washing a cat’s head and feet in the water in which a fisherman kept his bait, then pouring this water over the man and his baskets – presumably as a spell to increase his catch. 

The main allegations against witches were causing or curing death and disease in humans and in livestock.  Some of the magical formulae, charms and rituals that were used have been preserved and many of them have actions that are carried out three times or contain a number of lines or words that are divisible by three.  This charm was for curing sprains:

Oor Saviour rade (= rode),

His foal slade (= slid);

Oor Saviour lichtit doon (= alighted).

Sinew tae sinew,

Vein tae vein,

Joint tae joint,

Bane tae bane,

                Mend du i’ Geud’s neem (= God’s name)!

Many of these charms have references to Christianity, such as this one used by Christian Gow (tried 1624) to cure a bewitched or forspoken horse:

                                                                Thrie things hath the forspoken,

                                                                Heart, tung, and eye almost;

                                                                Thrie things sall the mend agane,

                                                                Father, Sone, and Holie Ghost.

Stones, water and sea-water are often used alongside these charms.  For example, Margaret Sandieson (tried 1635) touched her patient’s head three times with each of three small stones which cured the patient.  Katherine Grant (tried 1623) pushed a distempered cow backwards into the sea until it was washed by nine surges.  Three handfuls of each wave were then washed over its back and it was brushed with a bunch of burnt malt straw.

Witches also had the power to transfer disease from person to person, person to animal, or from animal to animal.  For example, Katherine Grieve (tried 1633) took sickness from her patient and cast it onto a calf, whereupon the calf died.  Katherine Bigland (tried 1615) cast a sickness on her master, then transferred it to his servant, and then back to her master.  Cirstane Leisk (tried 1643) spread her hand over a man’s back to make him sick and repeated the action to make him well again.

Doing anything withershins or witherways was malevolent behaviour.  For example, Marion Cumlaquoy (tried c.1630) “turned herself three times witherways around the fire” in a farmer’s house and that year his crops were rotten.

Witches often used items from the deceased as a talisman or a cure.  For example, Katherine Craigie (tried 1643) used a dead woman’s snood (=a ribbon used to tie a woman’s hair) around a man’s waist to cure abdominal pain.  The same Katherine Craigie was also accused of killing Annabell Murray by binding three grasses in a knot and hiding them in a cloth.  Rarely are Orkney witches accused of using herbs although James Knarstoun (tried 1633) rubbed the arms and legs of a woman with an “oyle, made of mekillwort” (=deadly nightshade) as a cure for sciatica.

The cause and effect of magic working could be even more subtle than this as Orkney witches were believed to be able to hex and to heal simply by looking, ganting (=yawning or blowing breath) and touching.  They might also issue vague threats, sometimes quite specific ones, or loosen their hair to fortify their workings.

Many witches were believed to have second sight or the ability to see into the future.  The men of the southern island of Hoy would ask Bessie Skebister (tried 1633) if the fishing boats would come safely home or not.  There was a proverb on Hoy that “Giff Bessie say it is weill, all is weill”.  The Orkney Storm Witches, made famous by Sir Walter Scott, mainly flourished in Stromness later in the nineteenth century.

Whilst considering the type of magic being performed, a large proportion of it appears to be what Terry Pratchet would label “headology”.  It appears to consist of some basic hypnotism and suggestion, augmented by an individual’s reputation for power, and a pervading belief in the supernatural that thrived at this time.  There also seems to be an ability, or perceived ability, to transfer energies.  In such a climate, it was probably only the coincidences that gullible people remembered, the many threats that did not come to pass were probably conveniently forgotten.

But were they witches?  Possibly not in the modern sense; although there are parallels with some of the practices performed by present Pagans, the accused almost certainly would have considered themselves to be Christians, as would have almost everyone at that time.  They seem to be operating within a mental framework structured around a Christian cosmology, as evidenced by the references to Christian deity within their charms.  They may well have tried to “sell their soul” to the devil in some way, perhaps in a desperate bid for earthly power, but the charms they were using and their magical practices seem, from the trial records, to have been part of a tradition of folk magic that was in common usage – indeed, this argument is often presented as part of their “defence” at trial.

Once accused of witchcraft, a couple of witches in Orkney had “justice” meted out to them immediately by their neighbours, but usually they were tried first before a minister and a Kirk session as there was a special injunction placed upon the Kirk to seek out witches.  Civil Court was subsequently held in St Magnus Cathedral, with the accused being held in Marwick’s Hole – St Magnus Cathedral has the dubious honour of being the only cathedral in the British Isles with its own dungeon!  15 men were chosen as jurors.

Torture was used to extract confessions but the psychological stress of the judicial process and the discomfort of being held in Marwick’s Hole would probably have been enough to break anyone of a nervous disposition.  Many of the accused were brought to Kirkwall for trial from some of the remote northern islands, the whole experience for them must have been terrifying and confusing.  On some of the trial indictments are annotations such as “The panel denyet not, scho said scho was vncouth, and wist not quhat to say” (=The accused denied not, she said she was uncouth, and did not know what to say).  The only victim whose torture is known in detail is Alysoun Balfoure (tried 1594) who was accused of being involved in a plot to murder Earl Patrick Stewart.  Alysoun was kept in the caschielawes (=torture involving weights) whilst her husband, son and daughter (only aged 7) were tortured in front of her.  Most witches were sentenced to be strangled and burnt at Gallowha.

There has been some research carried out into the type of persons who were alleged to be witches in Orkney.  They were predominantly women (of the 70 known trials in Orkney, only 12 are of men), usually poor and on the margins of society, but it was not unusual for them to be married or widowed with surviving children.  Many of them were vagabonds and were labelled as “wanderer” in the Court records.  This was because some alleged witches, who had escaped a sentence of execution, perhaps on insufficient evidence, had been subsequently banished from their native county and had to survive on their wits whilst being hounded from place to place.  Perhaps it is not unreasonable that, given their lack of options, such women may have pretended to or cultivated supernatural power as their only viable means of livelihood.  Thus they would have lived by exploiting the credulous through either conferring favours for bribes or running a “protection racket”.  For example, Jonet Rendall (tried 1629) asked Gilbert Sandie for “ane plack (=sum of money) of silver in almis fra him for his mearis (=mares), that they might be weill over the year”. 

Prior to trial, these witches may even have been tolerated by their communities and been allowed to build a reputation for power, until such time as their community no longer needed them, or needed to be rid of them.  It is particularly tragic that many of those who bear witness against these women were the same people who benefitted from their healing.  Often there is a 10 to 15 year gap between the events that indict them and the trial, yet there is never any Court reference as to why there is such a long delay between the events and the accusation, there is never any questioning of the witnesses’ memories or their motivations.  The accusation, trial and execution of these victims are a direct result of a collusion of community, church and state to institutionally abuse individuals.  The accused never stood a chance.

And that is why Orkney needs a memorial to these victims of the witch-trials, not as a religious Pagan monument, nor to seek apology from any other parties, but rather to construct a positive memorial with the message of "never again" and to commemorate an important episode in Orkney's history.  Our intention is to look ahead together to teh future, in thanks that such cruelty no longer occurs at an institutional level and to mark an intention that it should never do so again.  The suggestion has been made that a fitting memorial might be a small stone ornament such as a sun dial, perhaps appropriately engraved with details of what it commemorates.  And ornament of this type would be fairly cheap to install, be unobtrusive, be decorative and useful, yet also would not be macabre or offensive, nor would it need maintenance (an important consideration given Orkney's weather!).  Symbolically too, the combination idea of sunlight as a natural positive image and time as a healer is particularly apt.  Given that we plan for it to be located in the middle of a housing estate, our intention is to be sensitive to the current residents - many of whom don't know the sad history of their little patch of grass! - and install something that will attract no more attention than, say, a memorial to the fallen of WWII currently does.  We hope, however, that some sort of inauguration ceremony might take place when the installation is first opened. 

The following sources were used as reference for this article:

Marwick E W (1991) “Northern Witches” in “An Orkney Anthology – Selected Works”. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh

Rendall J (2012) notes taken from her lecture “The Orkney Witchcraft Trials” given as part of the “Women’s Things” Conference to mark International Women’s Day, Stromness

Ness Battery

A meditation on gilding the past.

Being a prehistorian, I am not a tremendous fan of World War I & II archaeology, but I do love a good story well told with enthusiasm and for that reason, I recommend a visit to Ness Battery (HY 248 079).  The tours are offered by Stromness Tours Ltd (refer www.nessbattery.co.uk).

  

Ness Battery, just outside the town of Stromness, was built to protect the western entrance into Scapa Flow through Hoy Sound.  During World War II, Ness Battery became the head-quarters of Orkney’s Fixed Defences, from where several gun batteries around the harbour entrance were controlled.  There are observation towers, gun houses, magazines and stores, but the most interesting part of the tour are the preserved painted murals inside one of the huts.

Whoever painted those murals (and they are still doing detective work on that) was really pining for the Home Counties!  And that homesickness must have been a shared feeling because those murals stayed.

There are depictions of black and white mediaeval cottages with roses climbing the walls and cats snuggling in front of cosy fires, afternoon tea and cakes, apple orchards, English pubs and pints of ale, strolls in the woodland, fluffy white sheep, picturesque windmills, jolly gypsies around a camp fire, bridges and meandering streams ... England, oh England.  And all of it faked theme-park memories of a place that never was and which has been idealistically distorted by distance.

But as I looked and smirked, my laughter turned right around and inwards at myself, for I recognised that I empathised totally with that yearning for a home far away and a perfect life I had left behind.

Our guide informed us that in World War II the depression that set in amongst military personnel stationed in Orkney was well known – it was provoked by my own all too familiar complaints: cold, damp, dark days, miles from loved ones and a real sense of being trapped on an island buffeted by all that raw nature can chuck at you and not being able to get away or being able to obtain home comforts easily.  There was a name for the condition: “Orkneyitis”, which was even used on official medical reports.

Certainly much has changed in Orkney since then, particularly with the growth of the internet making the world a much smaller place, but there is still a sense of being cut off from the rest of the world, of being exiled here in this forsaken place.  But unlike those military personnel, I had chosen to come here and as I looked at those pictures I realised how false they were and how golden I had painted my own past previous to moving here.

As winter gears up again, I have found myself descending into my annual “depression” – a withdrawal which I am convinced now is born from spiritual needs not mental imbalance (not that this is a justification, I suspect that many modern maladies both physical and mental are spiritual in origin).  The self-obsession which characterises depression, forces me to reflect on my life and to germinate what is to be. 

I moved to Orkney because I sought a monastic experience of retreat and I thought I would be more likely to achieve that on a remote Scottish island than elsewhere.  However, since moving here I have focused more on what I have lost than on what I have gained, to my detriment, and I have been striving to find a way to rekindle my “career”, “status” and “earning ability” through increasingly desperate means.  In other words, the spiritual dedication I swore to myself I would make “once I have the time” has been repeatedly postponed now that I do have the time.

I reflected recently how I continue to read “spiritual” books but I still do not practice the exercises in them.  I do not have a daily disciplined meditation, ritual or prayer routine.  There is a yearning in me for something I do not yet have and which is just out of reach but which I cannot seem to identify or name.  This unmet need feels like an internal emptiness and in my younger days I could divert my attention from it by consumption: thrills, purchases and alcohol, but even that temporary relief is less easy to achieve these days.

The last time I was ecstatically happy and focused on the present moment was when I first fell in love with my husband.  Reviewing my life, the times when I have been in love have been times of peak experience for me.  I wonder now, if I my seeking love via romantic attachment in the past was an attempt to fill this inner void.  What then was I really seeking?

This deep sense of lack would appear to be a part of the “human condition” and most belief systems attempt to explain what is being sought and how to find it.  It is expressed differently in all religions but agreement within the mystical traditions is that it is for the true self, the inner divine, the direct link to God / spirit.  Moreover, these traditions teach that this connection has not been severed permanently but simply needs to be rekindled, the seeker just needs to awaken, to change their consciousness in some way.

So, I am gradually coming to realise that what is missing from my spiritual practice is love, but not as love has previously manifested in my life (i.e. romantic attachments to a series of men unto whom I project my subconscious desires).  Instead I need to love being alive and to love this world.  I need to love all, as all is already perfect and a manifestation of the divine, including all of nature and all of humanity.  All is one, all is loved and lovable.  And what I have been learning is that there is a promise from most mystical traditions that my seeking and yearning for union will be answered equally fervently; perhaps it already has been?

On hindsight, what perhaps I should have done was to have taken a “career break” and rented a place in Orkney for a year, to set myself a specific period of retreat, rather than creating a life trapped here in perpetuity.  That way I would not have "burnt so many bridges".  The hero’s journey is not only an adventure but also a return and I have a feeling that I will be required to bring what I learn in this experience back and that will no doubt mean that I will have to re-enter the fray that is urban England.  But I am jumping ahead, I have hardly set out on the journey yet, I may not survive to return.

But for now, in looking at those murals at the Ness Battery, I realised that it is time for me to stop mourning the past and gilding it with gold.  When I left the south of England it was fast becoming frantically unliveable for me, the pace of life here is slower and, for me, preferable.  Yes, both myself and my husband had jobs back in the south that we would bite your hand off for now but those jobs are now gone or under threat (inevitable change for changes sake and the recession).  And yes, we miss our friends and family in the south but we have many friends here in Orkney now.  And not being able to purchase things immediately has made us much less materialistic.

So, I am currently reflecting on what I have now in Orkney with a new and fresh gratitude – it is really rather lovely here and my greatest asset in Orkney is the friends I have.  Even now, just embarking on another winter, I am neither positive nor negative about it, but just accepting.  And whilst my husband will go “home” this year to visit his family, I will not, I will be staying.  And I don’t mind.  Perhaps I have found a cure for Orkneyitis?  And that cure is love.