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The writing of this book has been supported by research leave and funding from the University of Edinburgh.

All drawings and photographs are by the author.

… gach aon ghinealach a dh’fhalbh.

… every single generation gone.

(MacLean in Whyte and Dymock, 232-33)

In a sheltered corner, beneath a small cliff in upper Hallaig, behind the rickle of a ruined house, there is a heap of stones, carefully stacked, one upon another. A pile anyone would rake and gather from the tilth of their plot, as they made ready for spring, and thought about a new sowing. Nothing has been added for over one hundred and fifty years. Nothing has been taken away. The stones have stuck together since then. They were stacked with the same skill with which the low, windowless houses of Hallaig were built. In their constructed, chance contiguity, the stones stand, as mute as mourners witnessing the last rites, and the vacant place before them.

Spring and the anticipation of summer have gone, like morning dew in waxing sunlight. The stoney evidence of hope and expectation, building every season, is stranded, beached in perpetuity. Seeds, saved from the last, remembered, precious harvest, will never be sown. The last broadcast, catching light, as its sunny yellowness cascades through the air, to settle softly in malleable soil, will never be cast. The folk have gone. Their seed has gone. Stones in their soft green coat of time, remain. Moss thickens.