Free Seasons on Harris by David Yeadon Page B

Blackhouse Village at Gearrannan—a flourishing community in the 1950s of over twenty tweed weavers that traces its origins back more than two thousand years. And these are merely a handful of the outstanding sites here.

    Callanish Standing Stones
    All these I left for later explorations with Anne and ended up, as intended, walking up the long rise from the recently opened visitor center at Callanish to stand—alone and whipped by a vigorous Atlantic wind—at the base of the great standing stones themselves.
    Nothing seemed to have changed since our last visit two decades ago. Which I suppose is what one hopes to find when faced with such splendid white stone monoliths more than four millennia old. Furious debates continue as to their origin and purpose: Were the stones actually “erratics” pushed south by glaciers or were they hauled across country by mysterious means like the huge components of Stonehenge? Was it a Druidic ceremonial center, astronomical observatory, Christian sanctuary, Neolithic trading post, “ancient saints turned to stone,” focal point of invisible energy “ley lines,” or a flying saucer landing site for extraterrestrial tourists? Many accept the simpler description I found in one of the Hebridean guidebooks:
    The stones at Callanish are older than those of Stonehenge and were erected sometime around 2900 BC . A worthy rival of Stonehenge, Callanish is outstanding especially in the context of the many other smaller stone circles within the area. It consists of a stone circle, a central monolith almost twenty feet high, and five radial “avenues” of standing stones.
    Another commentator was fascinated by the comparative age of this remarkable creation:
    Built two centuries before the Egyptians constructed the Tomb of Tutankhaman, 600 years before Solomon began his temple in Jerusalem, 8000 years before Nebuchadnezzar’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon, 1200 years before the Greek’s Temple of Zeus at Olympia. And when the Chinese started to build The Great Wall these stones had been in position for fourteen centuries.
    Numerous learned tomes (and many far more erratic monographs and lunatic fringe diatribes) have been written on Callanish and the archaeological wonderworld of Lewis’s west coast. I will therefore leave any further academic descriptions and speculations to the “experts”(despite their remarkable ability to disagree on just about every detail and nuance of this amazing place), and merely suggest that Callanish seems to speak to everyone who comes here in a unique and very personal way.
    It helps of course to have the place to yourself, as I did on that first exploratory day, when I sat quietly sheltered from the wind by the central stone and let the magic creep in slowly. And what I sensed was not so much the ghosts of ancient generations (or any “beam me up, Scotty” sci-fi hallucinations) but rather an overpowering sense of the bold certitude—and fortitude—of the builders of these places. On subsequent visits I was equally beguiled by the certitude of some interesting (and occasionally rather odd) characters I found here, lured to the stones by their metaphysical presence and power. Neo-Druids, crystal planters, Travelers (sort of New Age gypsies), worshippers of solstices and the ancient earth goddess Brighde, practitioners of Wicca (white magic), and admirers of the winter northern lights (aurora borealis), which are particularly mystical here—all are lured to this remote and lonely place, seeking spiritual revelations and confirmations.
    In the same way that I admire the intense hermitlike dedication and faith of the early Christian saints (despite the cynicism of those historians who suggest that their primary purpose was not so much the promulgation of the gospels to a Christ-less world but rather the salvation of their own souls), I sensed a similar clarity of original vision and belief here.