Each time I pick up the research for this novel I settle into a deep part of myself that knows this work is important and powerful for me. It’s a whole other conversation about how that also makes me avoid it, but another time. Today I wanted to talk about the ‘missing’ island of Hinba which will play a very important role in our story.
We know the King of Dal Riada gives St Columba (Colmcille) the island of Iona to operate his monastery from. We also know that Comcille’s uncle Ernan, in our story Erna’s father, becomes the Abbot of Iona and Hinba. After his death he is succeeded in that role by Baodáin (who play a glorious bad guy in our story). But where is the island of Hinba? Well we don’t know. We haven’t found it yet. So a disappearing island and a lost saint make very good story mates.
For the purposes of my story the island of Hinba will be what is modern day the island of Inchmarnock just off the coast of Bute. Obviously Inchmarnock is tied to our story because of the name. There was a standing church to St Marnoch on the island that survived at least into the 18th century. (There are also delicious stories of stone being robbed from the chapel and all sorts of misfortune befalling the fellow who took it).
As I start to write I can feel the historical criticism coming for me about this choice. So I’m writing the footnotes first to get them off my mind. Of course I don’t know that Inchmarnock was Hinba. But like the story of St Marnoch and my imagining of Erna, ‘missing’ things in christianity tend to be about women or older faiths. We have to ask ourselves why one of the most important locations of the revered and protected eras of St. Columba just simply disappears from the historic narrative so much that we can no longer even identify it’s location?
With the asterisk in place of *I don’t know Inchmarnock really was Hinba, this is why it is in my story.
There is archeological evidence of a monastic settlement on Inchmarnock around the time of our story.
The island, like Iona itself for connection with Ireland, is a self enclosed location in a strategic position for the mission work that Columba and his disciples will undertake on the mainland of Scotland. It is safely around the hazardous waters of the Mull of Kintyre and even more gently approached via a short overland stop at the king’s residence at Dal Riada and Loch Fyne.
There is evidence on Inchmarnock that it was a teaching place for scribes. There are written fragments of practise writing in Gaelic, Latin and Ogham scripts.
Thirty four pieces of early medieval sculpture have been recovered from digs at the site and in terms of numbers in all of Scotland that puts it only behind Iona itself. But that can’t be significant right?
One of the famous finds at Inchmarnock is called The Hostage Stone. It is a carving that shows figures in chainmail escorting another to a ship. There is some discussion whether or not it is a viking slave taking raid and the presumed monk is captive or if it is an armed transfer of valuable relics. The monk figure has a reliquary box chained around their waste. Are the armed figures Celtic or viking? Is it traumatic or celebratory? The only thing we know is that it was found here, on Inchmarnock and is another wonderful piece of a missing story.
So why not my imagined version of events for the destiny of this special little island with our heroine’s name?