Christina here. There are certain places that feel timeless and really evoke the past, and stone circles, standing stones and cairns always have that effect on me. What is it about them that draws us in and has fascinated people for so long? Perhaps it’s the sheer mystery of the how and why? Because we can’t be sure exactly what they were used for, they make our imagination run riot. It’s easy to picture ceremonies honouring the sun, moon or stars, perhaps featuring druids in flowing white robes, chanting and dancing. Who knows if that ever actually happened, but it’s a nice fantasy.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to come across two places featuring such ancient monuments, and each time I found myself spellbound. They have a certain aura and just being among them gives us a feeling of awe and of stepping back in time. Most such monuments were built thousands of years ago, but they are so well constructed they’ve survived and stood the test of time. It’s mind-boggling when you consider the enormous amounts of work and manpower that must have been required, and the primitive tools in use back then. I never tire of watching programmes with theories as to how it was accomplished.
Sumit Surai, Wikimedia Commons
The most famous one is probably Stonehenge, and I was fortunate enough to visit that back in the early 1980s when you were still allowed to wander among the stones and touch them. It was a wonderful experience! For obvious reasons, that’s no longer possible, but they are still a majestic sight when you view them from slightly further away. It’s easy to see why this has always been such a special place; magical even. And I find it really interesting that our ancestors paid such detailed attention to the sun’s movements that they could align the stones so precisely.
I also used to regularly visit the stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire, as I lived not too far from there. It is the largest megalithic one in the world and originally it had about 100 stones. The circle is so big it encompasses part of the village, and each stone is gigantic. They make you feel small and insignificant, perhaps the way ancient people felt about the skies above them and the natural phenomena they couldn’t explain?
Then there are sites like the Carnac stones in Brittany, France, and the Ring of Brodgar on the Orkney Islands. I haven’t visited either but would really love to.
They don't have to be huge to be impressive though. Recently, a friend took me to a slightly smaller site, Nether Largie standing stones at Kilmartin in Argyll, Scotland. These consist of five large stones – two sets almost like goal posts and one placed in the middle to roughly form the shape of an X. They might be marking where “the moon rises and sets at key points in its cycle”, according to the sign at the entrance of the site. They could have been raised as long ago as 3,200 years, which is amazing. The sign went on to say that someone “… believed these stones offered protection to those who camped nearby but inflicted bad fortune on anyone who touched them.” Being superstitious, of course I made sure I didn’t touch them at all!
Nearby was also a large cairn (Nether Largie South Cairn), which was built as a tomb even earlier between 5,600 and 5,500 years ago, then reused by later generations. There are apparently four more in this area but I only saw this one. Luckily it is now empty and I was able to wriggle inside it to look out. It felt a bit eerie being down there, but fascinating at the same time. It was giving me inspiration for future stories – but I need to mull it over a bit more before writing anything down. That’s usually how my mind works, with a tiny seed of an idea germinating over time into something more substantial. Being able to experience something like this in person really helps.
This month I’m in Sweden visiting my relatives after two years of Covid separation, and while out driving through the nearby landscape I came across an old burial site covered in both standing stones, stone circles and a cairn. It’s called Fagertofta Gravfält (Fagertofta graveyard/grave field in the county of Småland), but is way older than the name would suggest (Iron Age). I had vague memories of being taken there on a school outing as a child. The place is situated a few kilometres outside the town where I lived. I remember my whole school class cycling out there with one teacher in the lead and one at the rear, and us kids (about 25) in between in a long snake of bicycles. It seems very dangerous now, thinking back on it, as the route lies along a main road where cars drive quite fast, but back then no one seems to have minded.
Anyway, I decided to take a quick peek and was amazed at what I found. I had completely forgotten what a treasure this place is! Situated on a slope, in a field deep inside a Swedish forest, there isn’t just one, but 24 little stone circles! There is also a massive cairn, one circle made up of smaller stone constructions, and in the middle of the site there is a triangular shape laid out with stones. The sides of this measure about 30 meters each. These were all graves apart from the triangle, which might have simply been for cult or ceremonial purposes. In the past, the locals believed that all the stone circles had been used by “judges” for the ting (primitive court of justice), and they called it “Domarsätet” (“the Judges’ Seat”). But that is not the case as they have all been confirmed as burials. (And why would they have needed 24 of them anyway?!) Even so, I couldn’t help but imagine people sitting on all the stones, coming together for yearly events perhaps and discussing important matters or maybe just venerating their buried ancestors. My classmates and I certainly sat on them to eat our picnic lunches, which I think we had definitely deserved after cycling so far!
Apparently, people also used to think that trolls lived here, as well as dragons! They believed that on sunny days the dragons would bring out their hoard of gold and allow the sunlight to make it glitter and shine. The dragons were thought to live inside the cairns and lights were said to have been seen from inside them on dark nights. I love old folk tales like that and the deep, dark forests all around the site make it easy to imagine that all manner of creatures lurk there. (Incidentally, the belief that the place was special in some way may have helped to preserve it for posterity, so it was a good thing).
Near the ancient site I also came across a sacred spring, but that is a theme for another day.
Currently, the most famous use of standing stones in books has to be in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, which makes me wary of using anything similar in my stories. But walking around a place like that, you can’t help but use your imagination to conjure up all sorts of scenarios. And for someone like me, who writes timeslips and time travel, it is very tempting to have these ancient monuments play a part. I do mention a small cairn in WHISPERS OF THE RUNES, but it has nothing to do with magic in that instance. I will have to give it some more thought as it seems a shame not to put this in a book.
Do you have any favourite novels that feature stone circles or standing stones? And do you enjoy visiting such sites?
