#stonee

LOLOL!!

The stone family huddle by their turf-roofed shelter, looking eastwards to the shrouded summit of Meall Daill, Perthshire, as the mists roll down from the burnt orange mountainside. The tallest of the figures, still under a foot in height, is a water-worn rock with a feminine torso and slim neck. She is the Cailleach: a seasonal deity in Gaelic mythology who bestrides the winter months, known variously as an earth-shaper, wise woman, storm-raiser and mistress of deer. Around her are ranged her husband, the Bodach, and their children.

This weekend, at Samhain, the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season, according to a modest local custom that may span centuries, the figures will be returned to their quartz-studded shieling – a basic shepherd’s hut – to spend the winter months undercover. They will be brought back outside, as they are every year, around Beltane, next May.

The unique ritual has deep roots in folklore: after the Cailleach and her family were offered shelter during a snowstorm, she was so grateful that she left their likeness in stone with the promise that, as long as they were well cared for, the glen would remain fertile.