Hermits around the web – Hermitary
news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
STVNews reports that Scotland hermit Ken Smith, subject of the documentary film The Hermit of Treig, surprised attendees by personally appearing at the Glasgow Film Festival that featured the film about him. For an interview with the film director Lizzie MacKenzie (pictured, right), visit https://youtu.be/vSW5HlKl7Y0
URL: https://news.stv.tv/scotland/man-living-as-a-hermit-in-the-scottish-highlands-makes-surprise-appearance-at-glasgow-film-festival
Marcus Moon of the Scottish village of Lybster, a hermit living off-grid, without power or running water, recently self-published a book in tribute to Mobius, a goat he befriended and kept in youthful years when he was an itinerant busker with horse and wagon — and goats. Settling in the small rural spot, Moon assembled his house himself and planted gardens, trees, and an extensive orchard . He hopes that the native trees will become a forest.
Moon tells the John O’Groat Journal and Caithness Courier that his book celebrates “a way of life that has been lost … It’s about a way of life that was community based and where everybody knew their neighbours and things were produced locally. That way of life has just been thrown aside. A lot of the old style of community has been lost – that is a big theme of the book.”
A BBC News item about 74-year old Ken Smith, who is — as the article headline puts it — “The man who has lived as a hermit for 40 years” in the Scottish highlands. Ken visited the Canadian Yukon when young and was at once attracted to wilderness. Returning to his native UK he considered what region was the most isolated, and settled there, eventually building a cabin and settling into routines of foraging and fishing. Smith is the subject of a BBC Scotland documentary titled “The Hermit of Treig.”
URLs: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-59174870 (article); https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011hp3 (film).
Scottish hermit Jake Williams, now 70, is profiled by Daily Mail (UK). Once a science teacher, Williams moved to forested land in the 1980s, hoping to create a hippie commune, but found himself alone in a rundown cottage, since enhanced by solar panels, windmill, and other gadgets. Williams calls himself a “sociable” hermit who does not avoid people, even calling himself a “phony” and ” reluctant” hermit.
Includes a short video clip: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9189043/Reluctant-hermit-tells-Ben-Fogle-hopes-rent-caravans-propped-trees.html#v-1057422349824838438.
Part of the television series “New Lives for the Wild,” hosted by Ben Fogle.
In a Guardian piece titled “I ran away to a remote Scottish isle. It was perfect,” Tamsin Calidasa describes her discovery of solitude and the wildness of nature on a remote Scottish island. Her narrative is unique, compelling, and enlightening, and her cultivation of relationship with nature is a key element in her coming to embrace solitude. Excerpt from Calidasa’s book, I Am an Island.