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Once upon a time, mankind would settle, where rock, water, forage and game said, yes, here, there is enough at hand to pause and consider, and perhaps take root, at least for a while. Where, in short, habitat afforded survival. The sheilings, na h-àirighean, of the Scottish Highlands, the summer settlements of the Gaels, were placed near where mountain pastures flourished anew each spring. Where there was freshwater for washing cheese. Where there were peats for fuel, and freestone and rushes to repair the walls and thatch to roof the huts, after winter gales. Sometimes there was a slab, leac a’ mhuidhe, for the butter churn.

Many songs and poems were composed about life spent amongst the summer sheilings. Many testify to the carefree times and courtship that could be enjoyed on the sunlit, upland pastures after the privations of the dark months, an Dùbhlachd is an Gearran – a’ mhìos mharbh - the Black Month and the Short Month or dead month, spent in the hollow of the glen, where winter sun does not shine. The sheiling would have heard the telling and retelling of the great stories of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna, the legendary ancestors, the role-models and protectors of the Gael in Ireland and Scotland. Landscape character and toponymy could play a symbolic and yet tangible role in orchestrating the narration of these stories: a sounding box of hill and dale, beinn is gleann. Events, fiction and myth were written into landscape form (Potteiger & Purinton 1998).