Calanais

I didn’t expect to find myself at Calanais (or Callanish) this year, but thanks to our daughter Leonie, who was going up to the Isle of Lewis for work, I was walking around there a few weeks ago on a vibrant morning of sunshine and rain, and remembering just how amazing this place is.

There are few sites that can rival Calanais for drama, elevated as it is on a grassy promontory in Loch Roag, with rolling hills and peatland stretching away to the horizon. (To be clear, this is Calanais I, as there are at least 11 other stone circles and individual standing stones in the vicinity.) You have to walk up quite a steep slope to get to it, and your first glimpse leaves you awestruck. Silhouetted on the skyline, this assembly of giants has a magnetism that makes you catch your breath, and then it lures you in.

Loch Roag

Added to which, the crystal-clear light was almost making the stones sparkle. Up close, the Lewisian gneiss has big inclusions of quartz, and in the stripes and folds it seemed as if every little grain was gleaming. These stones are so tactile – it’s fascinating to trace the patterns on their rough surfaces with your fingers – but there’s nothing understated or subtle about them. They exude presence and purpose.

The exact nature of that purpose is still a matter for debate. The website calanais.org has a great deal of fascinating information about the alignments of the stones and their position in the wider landscape. Chronologically, Calanais is believed to have started out around 2900 BC as a stone circle enclosing a taller central stone. Viewed from the north, this may have marked the midday position of the sun at midwinter, shining through a natural cave-like formation in a rocky outcrop called Cnoc an Tursa, which lies just to the south.

Looking across the outcrop of Cnoc an Tursa towards Calanais

About 400 or 500 years later, a timber structure and then a small chambered burial cairn (below) were added inside the circle.  The cairn has been dated by finds of small sherds of pottery in its base layers and underlying clay which had been laid to form a level platform.  Built of upright slabs, and lying directly beneath the tall central stone, the chamber was probably roofed with a capstone and stood about a metre high with a passage leading to the east.   In subsequent centuries, deposits of pottery were made nearby, and evidence was found of a burial made between 2150 and 1750 BC, just outside the original chamber.

The central stone stands well over 15 feet high.  Even its shadow is magnificent.

Seen from above, Calanais forms the shape of a slightly skewed cross, with the circle at its centre, a long avenue to the north, and shorter rows of single stones to the south, east and west.  The avenue and rows may have been added around the same time as the chambered cairn.

Looking up the avenue (above) and in the opposite direction (below)

It is believed that avenue and rows focused on a phenomenon that takes place every 18.6 years: this is when the moon reaches a ‘major standstill’, a term used when the northernmost and southernmost moonrise and moonset are furthest apart. At Calanais, when viewed from the northern end of the avenue, the moon appears to skim along the southern horizon, where the hills resemble the silhouette of a sleeping woman – the Cailleach na Mointeach or Old Woman of the Moors.  A major standstill is happening this year, although the timing of our own visit meant that we couldn’t witness the moonrise (in fact, there was a new moon).

The western row (above) and eastern row (below)

Looking south across the chambered cairn with the southern row in the distance and Cnoc an Tursa behind

I’ve written about some of the legends and superstitions connected with Calanais in my book, Britain’s Landmarks and Legends. According to one tradition, the stones were originally giants who refused to build a church and were turned to stone by way of punishment (this theme, or a variation of it, occurs in many other places with standing stones).

But there are other, more fascinating tales: a white cow is said to have appeared out of the sea during a time of famine and generously allowed the local women to milk her, but she disappeared when a witch arrived with a pierced bucket and milked her dry.

And then there’s ‘the shining one’, which walks up the long avenue of stones at sunrise on the summer solstice, heralded by the cuckoo’s call. What – or who – were people seeing? To me, it feels like there’s some powerful old magic preserved in that memory.

When I was last at Calanais, which was over 15 years ago, I had a feeling that I shouldn’t step inside the circle, despite the fact that other visitors were doing so. I walked around the outside, and some of the stones had a subtle ‘buzz’ about them.  I didn’t enter the circle this time, either, although I’d find it hard to explain why. There’s nothing sinister about it, more a sense of something ‘other’ which I didn’t want to trample on.

Driven by blustery winds, the brisk showers of the morning had swept every speck of dust from the air and the entire wide-open landscape of lochs and moors seemed to be recharging and revitalising itself. Fanciful, perhaps, but to me the stones were focused intently on the sky.

Another squall was darkening the horizon to the south-west, and approaching so fast that the sun went out like a light. We ran down the hill as the first big spots began to fall.

More information:

• Historic Environment Scotland
• Calanais.org

Photos copyright Jo Woolf