HEBCelt Music, Touring the Highlands and the Ceilidh Dances
The Beaten Trail recently led me to Stornoway, Scotland. Mystery and ghosts follow.
HEBCelt-It stands for the Hebridean Celtic Festival established almost 50 years ago on the Lews Castle Green overlooking the harbor of Stornoway. The festival begins after a parade of bagpipers with the youth, women and men in the Lewis Pipe Band marching and playing for a mile up to the gates.
Monday, Day 3 head north on the Isle of Lewis. Jane says the Calanais Stones are probably the oldest stones in the world. I was lukewarm on the idea of driving 6 hours total for stones but they truly rival Stonehenge and are much more accessible. It turned out to be one of the highlights of our tour. I have now included it on my new business card and will use the photo on my future substack writing website. It is difficult to describe these magnificent stones which can be seen from miles away, standing guard with a backdrop of the ocean. Like the Vikings who may have designed this holy place, I will need to ponder this phenomenon more. We went on to the Blackhouses and museum learning about life on the island when locals harvested peat to burn for staying warm. I was on a mission to find a demonstration of weaving Harris tweed and was not disappointed. Sheep’s wool still yields the precious local commodity and sheep have the right of way on any trail. In olden time, the moss that covered the Calanais stones was scraped with spoons and used for the brown dye of tweed.