"So, Sir Vaulenberg, this is it." -

"Thanks for the ride. Can you set the boat ashore on that beach? By the way, what is the name of that village over there?" -

"Tur Riabhach, Sir. Maybe a thousand souls in there. But you will see that for yourself." -

"I thought this place was deserted a long time ago!" -

"No, sir, why? Actually they are doing quite well."

Andreas passed a few copper coins to the fisherman and was quite happy to leave the shaky boat. What a place! While the slope of the terrain was relatively soft around the shores, some rather massive mountains were stretched out against the horizon. Their tops were up in the clouds - and Andreas guessed that they might be about 700 metres high. However, Andreas noticed that some things were quite unfamiliar to him. There were no street lights, no solid streets, no cars, and, yes, most of the settlements looked a lot smaller than those he remembered. The fishermen on the beach were wearing very plain woolen clothes - rugged, dirty, wet. How could they survive without Gore-Tex? Andreas walked on - and it seemed to him as if the 19th century had come to life again. Was this some kind of a "living village" project? Impossible!

The path wound up to the place where Andreas expected to find the deserted village. Unlike the green scene he was used to, the landscape was dominated by the black colour of the potato crops. They were arranged in "lazy beds" in order to make the most of the boggy landscape. They stretched up across a number of miles. Some people were collecting lumps of peat for their heating, other people were taking care of their cattle. Sheep were grazing up in the mountains. Lots of children were running around, shouting at each other and getting soaked in the heavy rain. The stone houses weren't very big, and Andreas wondered how all these people might live in those houses. Andreas' ankle had just got stuck in some wet and boggy puddle, when he heard the ringing of a bell.