Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Mary and the Berries is a short story written by Rory McJoy about Morag’s daughter, Mary, who met her demise eating poisoned berries. Mary’s death certificate doesn’t state that she died from eating poisonous berries. The story is based on the oral account of my grandmother, Morag Campbell.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, don’t frolic in the waves!
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, don’t gae near the caves!
Don’t work ower hard, you’re juist a child!
Come play wi me, be free an wild!”

Mary is walking along the Singing Sands beach of Eigg. She turns to look at the waves when the wind temptingly whispers the sea’s sweet longings into her ears. The sea and the wind are eternal lovers, locked in an everlasting embrace. They dance to primitive music with a rhythm as old as time. They are seducers, enticing dreamy-eyed children, such as the likes of Mary to frolic in the waves. On some days, they are kind, gentle, and calm in their ways during warm, sunny days. On other days, they are harsh, creating tempests, and even taking a life or two into the sea’s depths to slake their hunger.

Today, the sea is calm. Siobhan, a girl of five, the same age as Mary, is trying to coax Mary to wander from their usual path. Their parents have told them to go and find berries in the woods and fields. 

“Please Mary, juist for a short while. Let’s tak a dip an swim for a moment. It’s been sae long syne we did it.”

Mary is tempted for a while, as she is just a child, playful by nature, as a child should be. She stares longingly at the waves, but seeing some boys her age treading a path to the shore, she stops in her tracks. The boys are perennial teasers, and the brunt of their jokes are aimed at girls. The girls shy away from the shore when the pesky boys are around. It is only in their absence that the girls get to pick up some seashells from the shore and bring them home for dinner. Because of the boys’ presence, Mary drags a protesting Siobhan into the wood to carry out their task.

The year is 1893, and food on the island is somewhat scarce. The children are employed to augment the food on the table by combing for seashells, searching for eggs, or gathering wild berries.

Mary is just five years old, but she is already a sensitive soul in spite of her young age. She knows that her mother, Morag, loves blackcurrant jam. But because she has many children (Mary is the seventh child in the family), Mary has noticed that her mother eats only a sparing amount of jam. There are plenty of mouths to feed, and extravagance is a way of life only reserved for the rich. Not only that, her mother has lain sick in bed for many years, struck down by paralysis.

Despite lying paralysed in bed, her mother is heavy with child yet again; she is so paper-thin despite the bulge in her stomach. Mary knows her mother needs nutritious food, so Mary is determined to bring home as many blackcurrants as possible so that her mother can fill her stomach that will also feed the child in her stomach. 

Driven by this determination, Mary goes deeper into the wood. Because of last night’s heavy rain, plenty of fruits have ripened and are ready to be plucked. Mary is so happy because she knows that she will be bringing home plenty of berries for her family.

She comes across a fruit bush that seems to be blackcurrant. “Perhaps last night’s rain produced a different version of the fruit,” she thinks to herself. Not one to waste things, she plucks them all from the twigs of the bush.  

She finds Siobhan, whose hands are also full of berries. They decide to build a fire to boil some of the berries. Mary had filched some of her father’s Lucifer matches, so she could make a fire to keep warm, or cook food when foraging in the fields and wood of the island. 

They built a small fire in the wood, after collecting some dry twigs. Mary had been given an old cooking utensil by an uncle that had fought in the Crimean War. So she was able to fill a small pot with water from a nearby beck, build a small fire, and boil some of the berries.

Little did they know that the strange berries they had boiled were not blackcurrants, but poisonous, deadly nightshades.

They ate the boiled berries, and lay back for a while on the moss of the wood floor before going home. Sated and content, they started to get up when they felt cramps in their stomachs. They are not dull cramps, but very intense and vicious. Writhing with pain, they stare into each other’s eyes, intuitively knowing that what they ate a while ago is what is causing the severe pains.

Siobhan vomited and fell to the ground, pale and sweating. Mary tried to vomit, but was unable. She also fell to the ground, eyes glazed.

“We are no gaun’ae dee, are we?” Siobhan sobbed, her voice weak with pain.

“Na, we are no gaun’ae dee as a still neit tae brin the guid berries tae ma mother,” Mary stuttered to Siobhan. Mary still felt happy that she was the one to have eaten the bad berries, and not her dear mother. She wanted to bring the nice berries back home, but knows now that this is quite impossible.

She closed her eyes for the last time. In her mind however, she ran to her mother and handed her the nice berries. Her mother smiled happily, and lovingly caressed her hair. “Guid girl,” her mother whispered in her ear.

The islanders found her lifeless the next day. Clutched in her hands were some of the poisonous belladonna berries, which she held close to her heart.