The Elven Boots

Little did I realise that my visit to Fogarty's Gentleman's Outfitters for Field and Gun would result in the extraordinary events that followed.

I needed new walking boots. My current boots had served their time; they were comfortable but badly worn, and they had lost their grip.

Fogarty's was in Ring Street, a Dickensian back-alley in my hometown of Brome. The small bell, suspended over the door, tinkled as I went in. It sounded almost embarrassed to be announcing the arrival of a customer. The shop smelt of polish and old clothes. I glanced around. It didn't look promising.

'Can I help?' – a croaky voice came from a shadowy corner between two rows of neatly hung jackets. I turned.

Mr Fogarty came into view. He was old, wrinkled, and spare, dressed in a dark, blue-worsted suit, starched white shirt with winged collar and a neatly knotted military tie. I was the only customer, and retreat was not an option. "Can I help?" Mr Fogarty asked again. I explained my requirement. He glanced down at my feet. "Walking boots, Sir? Size eleven or twelve, I presume?"

"Twelve and a broad fitting if you have it", I replied, beginning to hope I would be disappointed. But no, with a nod, the old fellow retreated into a poorly lit storeroom muttering: 'size twelve, wide fitting, size twelve, wide fitting…' like some ageing schoolmaster who had long given up hope his pupils would ever understand anything he said.

A minute later, he was back carrying a cardboard box with a number 12 stamped large on one end. "Take a seat, Sir", he said, nodding towards an old oak chair alongside a tall mirror in the corner.

"I only stock one type", he explained, extracting a pair of boots from their red paper wrapping. I looked at them; the soles had a strange ribbing and tread which, Mr Fogarty assured me, would grip under any conditions. "They're from Skye", he intoned with hushed solemnity. "Made by a master bootmaker".

Skye? That was a strange coincidence. I was off to the misty isle for a few days of walking at the end of the month. The boots looked comfortable and supple; indeed, the leather appeared to flow with the shape of my foot as I pulled them on. They were a perfect fit, but I was undecided. There was no choice, but I couldn't think of a good reason not to buy them.

The boots were just like any other; they were made from dark brown, almost black leather with red laces, which was a bit odd, but they were indeed a perfect fit. My concerns that I had just one pair to choose from began to fade. I carefully checked them over before asking Mr Fogarty the price. "As much as you can afford", he replied. That was not the answer I was expecting. It's not usual to bargain, particularly in a store like Fogarty's. 

When I offered £150, he seemed put out and started to put them back in their box. I ended up paying £400. "Do remember," Mr Fogarty said as he shook my hand at the door, "they will never slip. All you need do to keep them in good condition is to give them an occasional rub with a little beeswax and fish oil".

It was two weeks before I put them on again. I had arrived in Skye the previous evening after a twelve-hour drive through wind and rain. On my first morning, I planned to get the boat from Elgol and take the short sea-crossing to Loch Coruisk. It would be an easy walk for the first day and perfect for wearing-in my new boots. I lifted them out of my old boot bag and put them on, tying them tight with their red laces. 'Heaven is a pair of boots that fit', I muttered as I flexed my toes in their new home. 'Thank you, Mr Fogarty,' I thought as I set off to drive the winding road to Elgol. 

It felt good to be alive as I drove along, admiring the scenery. There were scattered sheep on the hillside, and a woman, filling some feed troughs with grain, waved as I drove past along the single-track road. The sun was just rising above the hills to the East as I passed the old, ruined church at the head of Loch Cill Chriosd. I drove on feeling better than I had in a long time. The fifteen-mile drive to Elgol took me through stunning scenery past the towering peak of Bla Bheinn and then over the moor to my destination on the Island's west coast. The Bella Jane was just boarding when I parked at the small harbour.

Half an hour later, I climbed the rickety iron stairway from the landing stage and headed up over the small peninsular towards Loch Coruisk and the surrounding peaks of the Black Cuillin.  

Before me were the steppingstones where the Scavaig River tumbles out of the loch and flows a few hundred yards to the sea. The river was in full spate, and the rocks were green with lichen and looked treacherous. Indeed, my old boots had upended me on these very stones the last time I had walked this path. So, I took care, but to my relief, my new boots did their job well and I was soon congratulating myself on my brilliant purchase – forgetting the large amount of money I had paid Mr Fogarty.

I walked on, following the twisting path by the loch. The air was crisp and fresh in the light breeze, and the small clouds were creating drifting patterns of light and shade across the dark mountains that surrounded me as I trod the circular path back to the landing stage and my return boat ride back to Elgol.

It was later that night that I discovered something very odd about my boots. Well, two things to be precise. The first was in the bar at my lodgings in the Hebridean Inn. Talking to the owner at the bar after dinner, he was surprised to hear of a bootmaker on Skye. 'Never heard of one', he said, 'what was the name again?' The name had come from a small card in the cardboard box with the boots. The box had gone into the recycling, but I had kept the card. I had it in my wallet. It said: ‘Alasdair MacDhuibh, Bootmaker, Breiðafjorðr, Skye’. He looked at it, then at me, then back again, very puzzled. "Breiðafjorðr is the ancient name for Broadford, but MacDhuib? Not someone I have heard of – you could talk to the leather retailers on Waternish – they may know." He gave me the name.  

Later that evening, the second odd thing about my new boots became apparent. What happened was weird, very weird.

Before going to bed, I decided to give my boots a rub over with some organic beeswax and fish oil dubbin – they almost sighed with pleasure as I rubbed the smelly mixture into the leather. 'Look after your boots, and your boots will look after you', I thought as I rubbed away.

When finished, and I don’t know why I decided to put them on – I picked up the boot on the left, and for some reason, I put it on my right foot. It slipped on perfectly. Hmm! I thought, I must have picked up the wrong one and, yes, there it was, the left boot was on the floor. But that had been the right one. I was sure of that. I took them off and put them side by side, left and right. There they were.

I got out my mobile and took a photograph. There could be no mistake this time. I took the right boot and tried it on my right foot. It fitted perfectly. I took it off and tried it on my left foot. It fitted perfectly. I looked at the other boot; it was the right boot.  

'What?' the world seemed to stop moving, 'was I going mad?'. If I put the right boot on my left foot, it slid on as though made for it and at the exact same moment, the other boot became a right boot.

'What madness was this? What was in the beer?' I stood both boots in front of me, left and right; they were a perfect pair. But as soon as I put my foot in one, whether left or right, the other instantly changed to match – so fast that in the time my eyes moved from one to the other, it had changed – in every curve and detail – in a blink of an eye. Literally.

I tried it again and again. If the boots were off, nothing odd. But as soon as I put one on, it immediately fitted whichever foot I put it on, and the other boot instantly changed to match. I put one boot in the wardrobe and the other on the wrong foot. Faster than I could see, it changed, and when I retrieved the other boot, that had changed too. I had planned an early night, but my head was spinning. 

I sat and stared at my boots. I had a sleepless night; my boots had upended my sense of what was real. Early the following morning, I set off for Waternish, hoping to find some answers. I arrived at the turn on the Dunvegan road and, after a few yards, pulled into the rough parking area next to the Fairy Bridge. I needed to think.

The morning was warm and still. The ground looked dry, so I got out of my car and sat on the grassy bank overlooking the narrow, rocky burn with its quaint stone bridge. The other bank was partly hidden behind the lifting mist, and the morning sun was playing tricks with the light. It was too easy, I thought, to believe in fairies. I stretched my legs in front of me and stared at my boots. Was my mind playing tricks? Boots just don't change shape – it wasn't possible. Things just don't work that way, I thought, so I resolved to stop worrying about their strange ability to change shape and just enjoy them as a fine pair of walking boots.

I was about to get up and head north into Waternish when I heard what sounded like a recorder playing – just like the ones we had at school. It was an odd melody of ascending and descending scales. There was no one to be seen, so curious, I got up and walked down the shallow embankment and up and over the bridge. 

The narrow road over the bridge had long crumbled away, and what was left was a lightly trodden grassy path. My heart was pounding, my feet had taken control, and I was walking somewhere, and I didn't quite know where. The sound faded away as I walked up the grassy slope where the original path had been. The grass was as green as green can be, and then, turning a corner, I came across an old croft. There was a thin curl of smoke rising from the chimney at the centre of its low-hanging thatched roof. The door was open.

"Welcome, do come in", a golden voice called out as I approached the door. I entered the small room, and sitting by a small fire was a young man with short, cropped hair the colour of straw. I bent to undo my boots. "Leave them; come and sit for a moment", he said, smiling and waving me to a seat opposite him. I sat and looked around. My attention snapped back to the figure opposite me, the same person, the same clothes, but now the hair was longer, and I was looking at a young woman. The room started to spin. I went to stand; she waved me back into my seat with a gentle laugh. "Let me make you some tea", she said. I nodded, speechless.

I watched as a black kettle hanging from an iron tripod over the fire began to puff steam. A few moments later, I was holding a small stoneware mug, sipping the fragrant liquid, and beginning to feel a little better. We sat quietly for a few moments.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice trembling. 

"I am Banríon", she replied, "I am the queen of these parts, and you are Alfur from Somerset in England. I have long waited for this moment; may I call you Alfie?"

I nodded dumbly. Alfur was a strange name, but my parents were strange people.

"You know the story of the Fairy Bridge?" she asked. I nodded again, tongue-tied, afraid to speak.

She paused and then started to talk again. "I have a surprise for you – you are precious to me; you are of my line". There was a tender sadness in her voice. My face must have been a picture of disbelief; she smiled, pausing before she explained: "it is more than a dozen lifetimes since I gave birth to your forbear and laid him by the bridge".

"Who, what are you?" I stammered. "A dozen lifetimes – that's more than 700 years" She smiled and leaned forward. 

"Relax Alfie, I know you have so many questions, and I will answer them all if you stay awhile."

I sat, I stared, I must have looked bewildered. 'My boots" I said. It was, in the circumstances, irrelevant, but it was all I could say. My voice, despite the tea, was dry, and my hands holding the mug were still shaking. My thoughts were in turmoil. All I could think of was my boots. She looked at them and laughed. 

"Are they good boots?" she asked, I nodded. "Good," she continued, "they were made for you some time past; I did not know when the forces of the universe would align and you would be born. I am so delighted to see you now, and they have done their job well bringing you here".

She carried on talking. I listened, believing but not believing, but slowly calming down.

"I am what some call a fairy", she said, "others call me an elf, others an angel, and I live here, there, and everywhere. I live outside space and time. I am both real and not real; I am a free spirit. I exist in the margin between the world of the very small and the world of mountains, fields, and creatures that fly and those that do not. I am not bound by the physics of the world of beings, I live where all things are possible, and all things are connected."

I listened to the magic of her voice; she was indeed beautiful. She was tall and slender, her hair the colour of old gold and her eyes brilliant green, the colour of grass. There was a hint of jasmine in the air alongside the smell of woodsmoke from her fire. If she was the fairy queen of myth and legend, no wonder the Clan Chieftain of the McLeods had lost his heart to her. 

I had begun to calm down. "Tell me", I asked, "you were a boy when I came in, and you, you..." I didn't finish the sentence.

"…turned into a woman?"

I nodded.

"In my world, everything is possible, and all possibilities are in everything. Man, woman, male, female, boy or girl – such differences are an illusion, there are no opposites, what matters is the eternal virtues of love and beauty." She pointed at my boots. "Take your boots; each is both left and right at the same time. When you look at them, they are one or the other, but as soon as you touch them, they change to what you want them to be. You have a word for it – your scholars call it 'superposition', the state of all possibilities."

She paused before continuing: "You also noticed that as one changes, so does the other, at the same moment – they are, as your scholars say, 'entangled'. I laughed when you put one in the cupboard to see if the distance would break the link. It wouldn't, and it cannot; your boots are tied in a bond that can stretch from here to ever and back again. In this, your boots reflect what is real about your world, but a reality hidden behind the veil of presence".

I gulped because, as she talked, my mind was starting to get into gear. "So, are you saying that in your world that everything can be everything; it can be all at once and that everything, just like my boots, is connected?"

"Yes, indeed, that is the paradox of being", she replied. "Your boots are two products of the bootmaker's skill, they serve just one foot each, but they are forever a pair, no matter how far they travel, together or apart. When one changes, the other changes; before your eyes and under your feet, the flowing waves of energy that hold you aloft are merging and unmerging, entangling and untangling to the music of creation".

I sat, absorbing her words.

"Come with me for a moment, and I will show you the eternal". With that, she waved her hand, and suddenly we were together, suspended in space, suffused in a changing sea of light, with the earth far below.

She turned and kissed me gently as a mother would kiss her child. Smiling, she asked me to visit her again twelve months hence. She made me promise to return, and with my agreement barely spoken, I was back, sitting on the grass, looking at my boots.