The Isle of Skye Part 4 - Fairies

  The Isle of Skye Part Four - Fairies

I'm sure this isn't the kind of fairies Gaelic folklore talks about

Today we're going to take a look at An Sithean on Skye, using things from Peter Martin and hoping to find further information to add to this, or at least some sort of supporting information in our ongoing look at the stone lifting culture on the Misty Isle. Under the contents page of Twixt the Stones and Turf it is listed as "The Stones of An Sithean".

"Place Names of Skye" explains further; sith being both a hill and fairy, with sithich being a male fairy and ban-sith a female fairy. He goes onto describe the female fairies of Skye were always dressed in green, males in a lichen dyed red and brown. Below is a description of the place from "Skye: The Island it's Legends".

"Aant Sithe, a green mound close to the roadway on the right-hand side. This, as its name implies, is a fairy place. On clear moonlight nights the fairies can be seen dancing on the grass that surrounds the central stone and anyone approaching quietly and with a receptive mind may hear the wonderful strains of fairy music issuing from the ground. What the mound was before it was a fairy dwelling is something of a mystery. In the centre of the summit stands a large stone, perhaps once a 'standing stone' but now closely resembling a broken tooth. Round it is a ring of grass, and then a ring of stone much over-grown; from this stone ring or circle run causeways (or perhaps old fortificaitons or walls), like the rays of a star, to the low ground around it."

- Otta F. Swire, Skye: The Island and its Legends, 1961, p. 219

OS maps of the area describe the place as a chambered cairn, which alongside it's Canmore record answers what the place was prior to being a fairy hill. If you're like me and didn't really know what a chambered cairn was, then look no further. They are Neolithic burial monuments - large stone chambers over which they would cover with stones. The Neolithic age in Scotland was 4000-2500ish BC for perspective, and many megalithic stone monuments and standing stones come from this time period. The world of megaliths in Scotland is a ginormous rabbit hole to go down, and you'd spend many more lifetimes visiting them all compared to stone lifting travels. 

The Standing Stones of Stenness in Orkney - up to five metres high and according to wiki, potentially the oldest henge in the British Ises, is a Neolithic monument. That's some serious stone lifting.

The Canmore description of the site describes the cairn as being 75' in diameter with a maximum height of 6', not all being manmade. That link has some stunning photos of the area, I recommend you go take a look. Another Canmore record for the area describes a number of hut circle remains, dating back to Celto-Viking origins. The Fairy Folklorist  has some amazing pictures of the site, as does this entry on a megalithic website.

You'll have to excuse the history we delved into there (I suppose if you didn't you're no longer reading this anyway,) but it seemed relevant for the site. I think if you're participating in stone lifting without absorbing the history of not just the stones but the areas they reside in, you're doing yourelf a disservice and missing out on a lot. 


All said and done there, time to look at what Peter Martin wrote about these stones - for I'm afraid that's all I have. 

I hope that's readable? If not, original post on the IronMind Forum from Peter Martin can be found here. A description of a local strongman from the 19th century who lifted stones at An Sithean. 

From a letter Peter Martin wrote to the Glenbuchat Heritage Society during his work looking for a stone in Glenbuchat, well worth a read found here

Given Peter's large body of work and expertise on the subject, the fact it was to be included in his book on stones is probably enough credos to this location that stone lifting did happen here. We're told above that there was no plinth like a few other locations have, and that there is more than one stone that was lifted. An early look at the area and pictures would suggest that maybe atop the cairn would be the best place to look for stones, but Peter wrote suggesting otherwise: 

From Chapter Five of "Twixt the Stone and Turf", "Are you going to the stones - Religion and ait's attitude towards Gaelic Strength", under the sub-heading Pagan Beliefs.

So if you're looking for stones but fancy not being kidnapped by fairies, staying off the cairn maybe in your best interests! Below that section is a small photo of An Sithean, taken from the road (I believe,) with an imposing set of mountains in the background, the caption ending "-the lifting stones are not in the photograph being below the hillock". I've been unable to find information about the strongman Peter mentioned - it turns out Alasdair Maclain is also the name of a famous Scottish author, and is as one imagines a rather common combination of names. Snapper brings up lots of results about fish.  I like to imagine this Alasdair MacLean might be related to our "Snapper", being born in 1919, Broadford, his father was a farm labourer, so likely from a family or group of people to whom strength and physical activity was important. No real facts there from me, just some leaps. 

So whilst I'm unable to make a guess at weights, sizes, or even what the stones at An Sithean look like (or how many!), I think it'd be well worth a visit. If I was to try make a guess as to what kind of stones would be the ones they lifted here, the safest would be anything akin to most of the existing island stones in the Hebrides - typically not very round, often more angular and irregular in shape. Given that "Clach Ultach" was the dominant style on the islands, they might have been very large where an "armful" length of putting wind beneath the stone would be the goal - dependant on interpretation of "Ultach" of course. Broadford sits on the A87, the main road on Skye, and this fairy knoll is only three miles away. If the stones still exist they will be by the roadside, so in absence of any formal recognition and identification of "the stones", lifting suitable stones with An Sithean in the background will continue the tradition and who knows, maybe the same stone you lift will be one that Snapper did in the 1800s.