Picture This: Horned Guardian of the Oa

Islay’s Oa Peninsula seems to stretch on in trackless infinity. Hilly farmsteads and wide, empty wastes run off to the winds pulling electric blue across the heavens. I park the car and hike over grassy mounds and mucky declivities toward a spire in the distance: the American Monument, a marker for those that died on the HMS Tuscania from a German submarine in WWI. The familiar damp embrace of sea air slips inside my coat as I make way into the shade of a hillock. Deep, animalistic moans hammer my ears, and I break my downcast gaze to find myself surrounded by massive, shaggy beasts. Some say Highland Cow, others say Heelan’ Coo, and, at that moment, I thought: horned guardian of the Oa.

The beast towered over me, still as a stone yet blowing in the wind. Beneath his furry brow, I imagined he judged whether I was fit to pass into the lands beyond. My deference was his posture: a head bow, a returned look, stillness. This natural majesty is leaving the world, and we have cordoned off its fade from our view. I might have stayed there a lot longer had I not feared gory retribution. Then again, animals seem not ruled by such petty afflictions, humanity.