Further Travels on Tayside

Julia Smith returns to NE with more nuggets unearthed around Kenmore and Killin from Northern Earth 72

Readers may have seen my previous articles on the area around Loch Tay, in Scotland (NE 56 & 58) and therefore will know that I feel this is a very special place. I am researching the whole area, but when I was there last Easter I came across a couple of things I thought would be of particular interest to NE.

I stayed once more at the water-sports centre at Croft-na-Caber, Kenmore, and was interested to see a lot of activity taking place on something that appeared to be under construction just off shore. I eventually caught up with a young woman, Barrie Andrian, of the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology, who told me they were building a replica of a Bronze Age crannog. These were artificial islands built in the loch by the Celts who transported themselves and their livestock to them by dug-out canoe. One of these canoes was found just off-shore at Croft-na-Caber in 1994. It was thought the crannogs were only used in times of danger, from marauding animals from the surrounding forests or from enemy clans; now it seems, however, that people actually lived on the islands for decades. Evidence for this is being found at a submerged crannog higher up the loch at Fearnan, where the Trust has been carrying out underwater exploration since 1981. The reconstruction, based on this site, is using traditional materials and methods wherever possible.

I wondered what was the point of all this hard work. To develop an interactive interpretation centre, it seems. But then Ms. Barrie is a Texan! What this means, I think, is a hands-on museum designed to extend our knowledge of these very early settlers. Not only will there be the crannog itself, complete with round house, there will be displays of the excavations and reconstruction and, more importantly, the opportunity for school groups to attend on-site workshops where they will be able to build and float miniature rafts, collect branches and build baskets or make hedges, collect plants to extract dyes or sculpt totemic Celtic objects.

The other development since my previous visit had taken place at the opposite end of the loch, at Killin. In NE 58, I wrote that the mill founded by St. Fillan in the 8th century was now closed and that the stones he used for healing were being kept at the Tourist Information Centre, where I had a look at them. Now the mill has been restored and houses not only the TIC, but also the Breadalbane Folklore Centre. The top floor is devoted to St. Fillan and includes a very imaginative mock-up of his cell. On the ground floor is a model of his companion, a wolf, and a case containing the healing stones. Traditionally the straw they rest on is changed every Christmas Eve.

The stones were used for healing purposes until the 19th century, according to the literature, but I was amazed to be informed by one of the ladies in the TIC that they are still being used! I thought she meant by the odd one or two but she meant by the coach load! It seems the couriers on the tourist buses tell their charges about them and some visit the mill with the sole purpose of handling the stones or rubbing them on some affected part. Not only that, but quite a number of people claim to have been cured.

Different stones are used for different parts of the body. The stone for head problems is very large and looks heavy; I suspected it would give me a headache rather than cure my migraine if I tried it on my head! However, whether or not you wish to test the efficacy of the stones yourself, the mill is well worth a visit.

In my earlier article on Finn or Fingal, the Celtic hero and leader (NE56), I mentioned the tradition of the twelve castles of Finn in Glen Lyon, which at the time I had not visited. Last year we managed to locate one of the 'castles', near Caslie Farm. There is very little left to see of what was once, in fact, an Iron Age ring-fort - just a scatter of stones on the hill-side, the grandeur of the place slightly marred by the line of telegraph poles marching to some remote farm.

Though Finn's 'castles' may be forgotten, it is interesting to see that around the shores of Loch Tay the past is definitely not forgotten. At one end the healing stones of the Celtic saint are still working their magic, while at the other, the crannogs of much earlier Celts are being given a new lease of life.

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