Standing stone circles are remnants of a Neolithic age that used a technology that modern archaeologists are still struggling to understand.
The far flung islands of Scotland’s northwest coast are studded with ancient stone rings that have survived for centuries. The sparsely populated region seems a strange place to find such timeless monuments, and to this day their presence is wrapped in many fascinating legends and modern-day mysteries.
Callanish Stones
The Callanish Stone circle is categorized by archeologists as belonging a group of at least 19 different circles, standing stones and cairns that are scattered across the islands of the Outer Hebrides, also known as the Western isles of Scotland. Visitors to the main site on the west coast of the isle of Lewis will find a visitor centre that features an exhibition hall and nearby shops.
Studies of these stone relics have dated their construction between 2900 and 2600 BC, although it is believed some of the buildings could be over 3,200 years old. The stones actual patterns seems to be in the formation of a Celtic Cross inside a circle. The stones are made of local Lewisian gneiss and can vary in height from 1 to 5 meters.
Local Legends
The folklore of the region tells of a race of giants that once liven on the island, and their refusal to covert to Christianity caused Saint Kieran to turn them all into stones as punishment. But more distant legends tell of the sunrise at midsummer that served as a path from other worlds for “the shining one” who would walk along the stone avenue, “his arrival heralded by the cuckoo’s call,” which is still considered the birdcall that heralds the arrival of the spring rains to the region.
It is left by tradition that these were a sort of men converted into stone by ane Inchanter: others affirme that they were sett up in places for devotione.
Astronomy
The stones are tied to a nearby horizon phenomenon made by the undulating hills of Mt. Clisham, sometimes referred to as “Sleeping Beauty” or “Cailleach na Mointeach”, the “Old Woman of the Moors,” who was the goddess who married the Sun god.
The network of standing stones at Cailleach align to the moon’s rare moment in its orbit, when it stands still in the heavens, an event that only happens every 19 years.
The moon rises between the twin peaks, or “breasts” of these hillocks and is “reborn” five hours later. The moon’s rays silhouette anyone standing on the natural outcrop in the stone circle. This intricate complex was aligned to many celestial events and might have been viewed by the ancients as the hill of creation — or place of emergence — for the goddess Cailleach herself.
