Ancient Stones: Tradition and Stories in solid form

What is it about stones that make us want to pick them up? From small to large, there is something about them that makes you want to grip them, run your hands over them, maybe pop a small one in your pocket.

Across the world stones have been the crux of strength traditions, heavy lifting and power events now translated into sport alongside symbolism and myth. We can find these traditions in many places, including Ireland and Scotland.

I recently read an article on Aeon by Daniel Kranzelbinder, which considered if traditions are conservative or progressive. Daniel discusses these ideas via stone lifting, a vibrant tradition still popular in the Swiss Alps.

Very simply, ‘conservative’ suggests that nothing should be changed as the tradition is passed down, for example, using the same words objects and location for a royal coronation. ‘Progressive’ recognises traditions must fit new experiences. While the spirit of the tradition is kept, aspects of it will change as time goes on.

I recommend reading the full article on Aeon, especially if you're interested in the sport of stone lifting; it seems no one can resist trying to lift a really heavy rock. This article sparked a number of thoughts, about traditions and storytelling, that I wanted to share.

In Scotland, stone lifting traditions are best known through the Highland Games. Most would recognize the McGlashan, or Atlas, Stones, which incredibly strong men across the world lift every year in numerous strong man competitions.

These reflect a progressive tradition, where the form and idea of the stone is the thing preserved, but new stones are created and new histories developed as the stones are lifted again and again in the same competition. A sporting tradition, if you will.

As a storyteller my focus is less on the sporting and more on the wider context of such stones. Less people will know of the ancient strength stones, stones which remain in specific locations and with specific requirements for the feat to be completed. Stones like these can be found in Scotland and Ireland, and other places as well.

Much has been lost about these stones, often even the stones themselves, buried in moss and earth over decades and centuries. What remains is often passed down in story or anecdote, a comment from a local or an old story of the fairies is sometimes the only evidence that there even is a tradition in the first place. 

In this way, the stones feel like a conservative tradition, one that is strongly linked to a specific place with specific requirements for the feat of strength, nothing changing over the years. The stone remains the same and is left exposed to the elements all year round, a poetic image when you think of what has eroded from our knowledge of these symbols of strength.

But does the knowledge erode? Stones across Ireland and Scotland are being brought to wider audiences through the power of the Internet and the dedicated work of individuals such as @oldmanofthestones in Scotland and @_indiana_stones_ in Ireland (both on Instagram). 

Maps of stones, with locations and details, collected over many years and involving significant travel to remote areas has resulted in a corpus of knowledge about these stones like nothing that existed before. As more information is added, more flesh is placed on the bare surface of the stones and we understand a little more of what these rocks might have meant, and what they mean to us.

“The Bare Bones” is something shared with me by a genius storyteller, Phyll McBain of Stonehaven, a storyteller I've had the pleasure to learn from. It's the idea that has transformed my storytelling by recognising that so long as you have the basic structure, the Bare Bones, of a story, you can flesh it out in any which way.

I think the stone traditions of Scotland and Ireland are similar to this way of telling stories. We have the bare bones, the stones themselves, their location and maybe a small story or two. But the rest of it changes depending on who is there, who is listening and who is lifting. 

Your hands touch the grooves and fissures, your muscles strain around the shape and in that space between stone and air something forms. Each time it is different, personal. Whether good or bad both yourself and the story-stone are changed when you walk away, and you know a little more about what it is all about. The tradition endures, but it is always changing.