The Bone Cave: A Journey Through Myth and Memory by Dougie Strang
One morning after camping in Glen Affric, The Bone Cave author Dougie Strang jumps into Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin.
Gasping with the cold, he feels something within him shift. As he writes, ‘the man…whose head was busy with the surface of things, gave way to the man who’d swam in the deepening landscape of the loch.’
This is a book about going deep into the Highland landscape. Strang undertakes a journey on foot, tracing and retelling the very particular stories attached to specific locations, and untangling what these tales reveal about our relationship to the land. Looming over his walk is the powerful figure of the Cailleach, who stalks Highland hills and stories in various guises, sometimes Celtic deer-goddess, sometimes malevolent witch.
The Bone Cave touches on many topics, including Strang’s own history – estate management, rewilding, and the ongoing upheaval to the landscape through the development of greener technology.
Though the legends that Strang chases and retells are ancient, this is an exploration of the Highlands today, as Strang’s dispiriting experience in a pub on Fort William High Street shows.
The Bone Caves is at its best when focusing on the unforgettable, personal moments of Strang’s journey: entering Gleann Cailliche at twilight with six owls circling overhead; a night spent sleeping in the Bone Cave at Creag nan Uamh, being woken up by a bellowing stag in the darkness.
In these moments we glimpse the essential strangeness and wildness of the Highlands that still persists in pockets despite a millennia of being shaped by humankind.
This book asks questions that are of pressing importance today: who do the Highlands really belong to? How should this extraordinary place be managed?
Strang doesn’t always have answers to these questions, but shows that by preserving the stories of our land, we care for our land.
I loved the book’s exploration of how telling these tales is an act of love, rooted in deep knowledge of place. However, I wish he’d give a night in Fort William another try!
Sally Hughes, The Highland Bookshop, Fort William, www.highlandbookshop.co.uk
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