When on
holiday if we are driving with no time constraints and something looks
interesting on the map we like to pull off the road and investigate. Cairn Holy
caught our eye last week whilst in Dumfries and Galloway (Scotland.) Cairn Holy is the site of two
Neolithic burial chambers situated on a hillside overlooking Wigtown Bay, a
short drive up an unmade single track road.
I spent time
lining up artistic shots with the camera, to frame the view with the bay in the
background, lying on the grass, trying to avoid the plentifully scattered sheep
poo, the wee timorous beasties (midges) and other flying insects.
While we read
the information on the display board, taking in the details on age and purpose of the stones,
another man had noiselessly parked up and joined us in the enclosure. As we
were about to continue up the hill to investigate the second cairn he approached
us and asked a question ‘What do you perceive?’
All those
lessons about how much do you engage with strangers flooded in at once. But we
quickly realised he was an earnest sort of facially hirsute fellow, armed with
nothing more threatening than a notebook and pencil, so we stuck with him.
Although his delivery was a little irritating and pendantic and he used those
types of closed questions designed to make the answerer look a bit dim if they
get it wrong (a teacher that likes to show off his knowledge), he actually had
really interesting perceptions to share. This is the short-winded version.
If you stand
directly in front of and facing the tomb on a particularly spot of grass that is well worn, you will see the sun set as follows on
these days:
winter
solstice – sun sets at the point of the stone on the far left
summer
solstice – sun sets at the point of the stone on the far right
on the days
of the equinox and those days only - sun sets exactly in the centre of the
middle two stones
None of this
information was available on the tourist display board nor does it seem to be readily
available on websites. The tangible sense of history with the landscape was
quite moving. That people could have stood on the spot we did for thousands of
years and watched the same sun setting had brought an extra dimension to the
place, because of an encounter with bearded bloke unknown.
Once we had
returned from investigating the second cairn the stranger had disappeared down
the road, gone as quickly as he had suddenly materialised.
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