Hill O' Many Stanes

The Hill O' Many Stanes is another neolithic construction, 4000 years old or so, an alignment of some 200 stones, none very large, into 22 rows proceeding down the hill. Research has shown that at one time there were more than 600 such stones and that, as the alignment proceeded downhill, it fanned out slightly. Alexander Thom, a 20th century astronomer/archaeologist/professor of civil enginnering, suggested that Hill O' Many Stanes was a lunar observatory, that is, an observatory for following and mapping moon positions and period. (The lunar cycle (transfer) repeats every 18.61 years, right?) (Stonehenge, both a lunar and solar observatory, some say, is where they finally got this right.) Anyhow, whether it was all for religious, civic, agricultural, “scientific” or other reasons is anyone's guess. I have read that there are other similar alignments in Britain, mostly quite degraded, and probably more still buried beneath the sand or gorse or heather or peat. Of course, none approaches the size nor extent of Carnac's great alignments. But they're all about equal in inscrutability, I think.

That's how they say it 

 
 
 
 
 
 

One perspective

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Another

By daylight

Thane of Cawdor

September 11 We drove on, just 10 miles or so, to Cawdor and the Castle there. We had seen it in 1989 with our daughters and enjoyed it very much. The 6th earl, now deceased, had a wonderful sense of humor, and himself wrote the narratives describing each room, its history and artifacts. Many of the descriptions, including of ancestors, are hilarious, as are some of the art itself. And the “Thane of Cawdor” connection with Macbeth is played just right...a bit of fun, no more. After walking the woods, maze, and gardens, we drove back through Inverness and then headed north along the A9, across the Firth of Moray and then still further north along the coast.

North of Inverness, the scenery grows sparser and sparser, treeless Highlands on the left, grassy hills and then cliffs falling to the grey North Sea on the right. Another firth contains four massive oil rigs and in the bay and sea beyond there are more. We pass the Castle Dunrobin, set right on the sea, shining in late afternoon sunlight, the stronghold of the evil Sutherlands, arch-enemies of the Mackays. Vicki hisses while I snap a few pix. It is another beautiful fortified residence, perhaps the most interesting I have seen, at least from without. And then we drive still further north, up and down hills, past small villages by the sea, then over round summits overlooking them, until we come to Lybster and the Hill O' Many Stanes, in a farmer's field only a quarter mile off the highway. There is no car park—only a wide spot in the country lane—but we resolve to park and stay at a level entrance to the field. It is getting late.

Cawdor Castle

Cawdor crest, "Be Mindful"

"Double bubble, toil and trouble, cauldron

burn and fire bubble," I always say, watching

the microwave; this is the only reference in

the house to that Macbeth

In the maze garden

In the flower garden

I think I remember this sequoia from '89

Oil rigs in the firth

Castle Dunrobin

Isle of Skye interim report

We are on the Isle of Skye, in the Hebrides, off Scotland, heading next via ferry to Lewis/Harris Islands, to examine the Harris Tweed and the Stones of Callanish, posting presently from the high school library. We'll post more--a week or more now to account for!--when we get back to wifi-land.

Clava Cairns

Next (jumping back a few thousand years), we drove on another mile and a half to the Clava Cairns, a wonderful collection of three different neolithic tumuli, one an open passage grave, one an enclosed and once corbel-roofed passage grave (as in Ireland), and the middle one, something I have not seen, a chambered area, open, but with no entrance nor exit...a ring cairn. All are ten feet high or so and 75-100 feet in diameter, and are oriented to the SW and the winter solstice sunset. Most interestingly, they all size the kurb and other stones, smaller toward the sunset and larger back from it. And, the kurb and outer circle stones are color-coordinated. See illustration. The outer circle of the SW tumulus also has double-stones—one very large, others smaller. Again, something new to me.

Quite a few of the kurbstones have cup marks, suggesting more recycling from previous aeons. Cup marks are both paleolithic and neolithic, found all over Europe. This was thousands of years before metallurgy, especially in these parts, so it was stone on stone, day after day, to cut one of these little figures into, typically, granite or schist. Every one of them must have meant a great deal to whomever was chipping away at them. And we have not the merest clue as to what they or their cup-and-ring figure relations might have meant. “Sublime” generally refers to gigantic natural features...mountains, glaciers, desert wastes...but I am always in awe of these human vestiges. Somehow, they put things in a different perspective, in a different dimension.

Or, as Vicki observes, hey, no internet, no DVDs, no television, nothing to read: what are you going to do?

We camped at the Clava Cairns car park, way off the main roads, near the Firth of Moray, deep in farm country.

Lest anyone be concerned, we're eating well. Dinner tonight was Scottish breakfast, eggs, tomatoes, mushroom, toast, beef lorne, fruit pudding, black (blood) pudding, and beef links, washed down by Dark Island, the best dark brew I have yet had (from the Orkneys, “5,000 years in the making”). Cholesterama.

All three of the Clava Cairns

The northeastern-most cairn, used to have a corballed roof,
like in Ireland

Middle cairn, the ring cairn

No exit; no entrance

Double-stones on the outer circle of the
southwestern-most cairn

Color-coded stones

Cup-mark city

Dinner

Culloden

From Killiecrankie we drove further into the Highlands on the A9, stopping at Aviemar and then Inverness for shopping. We proceeded on to nearby Culloden, the great battlefeld where, in 1746, the Duke of Cumberland finally and decisively put down the Jacobites and Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Catholic and Stuart claimant to the British throne. (Well, his dad, actually). It was a great slaughter--”with extreme prejudice”, "no quarter," that is, no prisoners--after which followed the Proscriptions, banning weapons, tartans, and the clans, for good. All this despite the fact that Cumberland's army included many Highlanders loyal to the King. Oh well, collateral damage. Personally, I am grateful in that, after the rout, the Bonnie Prince hid out with various of his followers, including the Mackinnons of Skye, to whom he gave his still-secret recipe for Drambuie, my favorite liqueur. They're still making it. And we'll be making the pilgrimage to the Isle of Skye a bit later.

Entrance to Culloden; on the field, the placement of the regiments is denoted by 
red and blue flags

Culloden has a superb visitor center that makes sense of these highly complicated 
times and issues, using all kinds of hands-on as well as high-tech means; we also 
went on the battlefied tour

One of many Highlander memorials

The memorial wall: 1500 off-set stones for Highlanders 
killed, 50 for government troops killed; the Redcoats at 
this point had figured out the Highland Charge (or, as 
Frederick the Great once said, "God favors the larger

armies")

Prince Charles Edward's Liqueur, the "Spirit of '45" the labels used to say...

Killiecrankie

Wednesday the 9th we got a very late start (1 PM) due to various chores, blog posting blog, etc. We got as far as the Asda in Perth, our first stop at the UK branch of Walmart. Interesting they don't call themselves Walmart. Then, crossing the majestic Tay, we drove back up toward the Highlands, getting a few high speed pix as we passed through Birnam Wood (Forest), which seemed stationary enough, and stopped at Killiecrankie, the site of the 1689 battle between the first-generation Jacobites and government forces led by Vicki's (very distant) cousin, General Hugh MacKay, of Scourie. MacKay lost the battle, but his counterpart, the Viscount of Dundee, was killed, and, leaderless, the rebel forces were crushed soon thereafter. At least for that century. It was the Redcoats' first taste of the Highland Charge, something they never learned to handle until Culloden. The Killiecrankie visitor center features the (government) soldier's leap, 18.8 feet across the River Garry, which we hiked down to. We camped at the Killiecrankie visitor center car park, on the A9.

Birnam Wood

Asda (Walmart) in Perth

Coolest Mini T-shirt of All Time, found at

the Asda

Killiecrankie, a narrow defile of the River Garry

General Hugh Mackay, leader of the Government forces

Soldier's Leap (to escape the bloodthirsty Highlanders)

Scone of Destiny

Scone Palace (current version, c. 1802, but very, very

impressive inside, especially gifts from Marie Antoinette

(one of the earlier earls was ambassador to France),

paintings, royal mementoes; as usual, no pix

Vicki on the (replica) Stone of Destiny, aka

Stone of Scone

A scone, destined to be devoured by me

The Stone of Destiny is the stone, located in Scone, upon which Scottish kings were coronated, that is, until 1296, when Edward I conquered Scotland and took the Stone back to Westerminster Abbey, where it lay for the next 700 years and upon which sat all the British kings and queens since. In 1997, HM the Queen returned it to the Scots, and we saw it along with the other Scottish relics and crown jewels at Edinburgh Castle. Given its original location in Scone, we visited the castle/palace there, and learned more about the Stone, Scone, Macbeth, and much more. Most interestingly, it is now believed, by some, that the stone Edward carted off was a fake (the Scots knew he was coming and his intentions), and that the real Stone of Scone still lies hidden on the estate. The stone at Edinburgh is simply the the same kind of rock quarried in the area for the castle and the abbey. Contemporaneous descriptions of the Stone of Scone suggest a very different kind of mineral, etc.  Oh, and Macbeth, it turns out, did not kill Duncan, had a legitimate claim to the throne, and was regarded pretty well during his 17-year reign. FWIW. And, the locals pronounce scone "scoon." FWIW.

Depictions in Meigle

There's a great little museum of Pictish stones in Meigle, not far from Glamis, all culled from the very old church cemetery next door. It's small, but the one-person staff will tell you everything you need to know and answer every question. Small, but well-known and evidently very popular.

Part of the very old church cemetery--half the markers are

tumbling down and are so noted

Mound where, legend has it, Vanora (Guinevere) lies buried;

according to this less well known Arthurian legend, Vanora

was raped by Mordred, and so, to preserve his honor, Arthur

had to have her killed; not exactly Lerner and Lowe material,

I'd say; and no role for Robert Goulet

Weird Pictish animal depiction

This is a Class 2 stone, that is, mixed Christian

and Pictish--this is the Christian side, with a

Greek-style cross

And this is the other, Pictish, side; obviously,

they were hedging their bets; but it's even

better, in that the stone originally had extenive

cup marks (look at the bottom), indicating use

aeons before the 7th and 8th centuries;

obviously, they were into re-cycling as well.

Towers of Power

In 16th and 17th century Scotland, the fashion--among the few--was to build fortified residences, tower-houses, whose great height added to their defensibility. Monday and Tuesday we saw a few of the better preserved instances.

Craigievar, not far down the Dee from Braemar, is noted 
for its great 7-story height; alas, it was closed for 
renovation--the hurling put on the exterior in 1970 was 
defective (this is not a Mike Myers term)

Very large Monkey Puzzle tree on the Craigievar grounds; 
and behind it, a 160 year- old Sequoia; the Victorians were 
really into exotic tree specimens for their estates' grounds

Craithes is noted for its original furnishingsdating to the 1590s 
(beautiful carved stuff), painted ceilings, and its gardens; great 
tour, too

Craithes' gardens--a view from the castle

Vicki in Craithes garden

Glamis castle/palace; considerably greater wealth and connections on display; 
the Queen Mum's family; most impressive; but, as with all the others, no 
interior pix allowed; we visited Glamis for its Macbeth connection, only to 
learn that it was built 300 years after Macbeth's reign; our faith in Shakespeare 
the historian is shaken; actually, the only tragedy about Macbeth was his

treatment by the Bard; but, then, we understand Will was working under some 
serious deadlines...

Vicki adds:

Glamis, Scotland September 7, 2009

Visited the castle of MacBeth today—though MacBeth never lived in it since he lived over 250 years before it was built. Shakespeare is full of poetic license! However, it was very interesting anyway. We went to the Royal Braemar Highland Games on Saturday and the Queen, Prince Philip and Charles and Princess Ann all attended. They drove in about 20 ft from our seats so it was all very exciting—as was the caber toss, the 58 lb weights, tug of wars and about 5,000 men in kilts.

We are headed to Scone Castle tomorrow and then north to the Orkney Islands and then Mackay (McCoy) country in far northwestern Scotland. My ancesters were about the bloodiest clan in Scotland and one of the first to be sent to Ireland when the English took over. We have had very little connectivity and it will get worse as we head north. It reminds me of rural Montana—even the cell doesn't work well. So I may not be able to post again till we leave the Highlands.

Last Day in Braemar

Mar Lodge, a beautiful hunting lodge once part of the

Invercauld estate, now in the National Trust; it is

decorated with, among other things, and ISIANMTU,

2,500 stag head mounts

At the Linn of Dee, we thought we'd be seeing a great gorge

Linn of Dee; well, it is nice

The Robert Louis Stevenson cottage in Braemar, where he

wrote Treasure Island in the summer of 1881

We left Braemar reluctantly--we had a great four days there

--after seeing some further local sites. Rather than heading

north toward the Orkneys, as planned previously, we decided

to linger a bit more in the east here, to see a few more castles,

distilleries, and other sights (Balmoral, alas, is not open

when the Queen is there).