October 12, 2015

Callanish, from Tursachan Calanais, “The Place of Sadness.” Gaelic place names are always poetic, but this one is unusually apt for me. Callanish was the site I most dreamed about visiting, more than the Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, or Stonehenge. Something about this odd configuration of stones had captured my imagination from a young age, and I knew one day I would have to see it for myself.

That day came one afternoon in October of 2015 when I was traveling through Scotland touring ancient monuments. This was going to be the highlight of my trip. Callanish is sometimes called the Stonehenge of Scotland, except it is so much more. To begin with, it is older, more complex in design, and more astronomically interesting, with connection to important lunar and solar events.

Aubrey Burl in his Circles of Stone; The Prehistoric Rings of Britain and Ireland, repeats the theory first proposed by John Toland that Greek historian Diodorus Siculus provided an astronomical explanation of the site in the first c BCE:

He wrote of a 'spherical temple', presumably in Britain. This has been taken to refer to Stonehenge. It does not. The statement that 'the moon as viewed from this island appears to be but a little distance from the earth' refers to something impossible at the latitude of Stonehenge, but exactly describes what the southern moon does at Callanish, where it seems to roll along the top of the skyline.

It does this every 18.5 years, which at the time was more than half the average lifespan, making the observation of such an event and construction of such a monument even more remarkable. The effect is stunning and would have been memorable and worth commemorating (images can be found here at this new-agey site.)

Myths and legends also surround the stones. One is that they were once giants who assembled in a council but, refusing to convert to Christianity, were turned to stone by St. Kieran. Another claims cuckoos returning in the spring fly to Callanish to give their first calls from there. According to another legend, on Midsummer morning, an entity known as the "Shining One" walks length of “The Avenue,” accompanied by calls of the cuckoo.

With all of those grand expectations, maybe I was bound to be let down by the real thing. Arriving at Callanish, I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t the crowded, junk-ridden mess I encountered. Getting to the monument requires a walk through what is essentially a tightly-clustered modern shantytown of cottages lining the base of the hill on which the stones sit. A cheap housing development could have been built anywhere, but that it was given permit to be built there is a crime. Would someone build a McDonald’s in the middle of Machu Picchu? Actually, they might, and that’s just what’s wrong here. Once inside the circle, movement is restricted by the barbed wire fencing of a neighboring farmer determined to eke out every last inch of pasture, which lays literally against the stones at the end of “The Avenue” so that you cannot walk freely through or around all of the stones. This is a frequent sight at monuments like this as you begin to travel, where petty farmers will shove a fence post into the center of a stone circle because the survey shows they own that inch of land, regardless of the historical or cultural value of the place itself.

Mine might seem like small squabbles, but for an ancient work of art, astronomical observatory, temple, burial ground, and who knows what else, it should not have been hard to prevent encroachment, keep the surrounding area to a certain standard, and preserve something of its original dignity and integrity. Instead, the state of this magnificent site made me sad. This was, without a doubt, the most poorly managed of all the monuments I have ever visited, and I’ve been to dozens, large and small. Callanish deserves better.

But the stones themselves are still breathtaking.

Callanish itself could never disappoint. After all, there were rainbows…