We had a full day. Amy and I had been to Culloden but DeAnna hadn’t, so we spent three hours there this morning, soaking in the history of the ’45 uprising.  It is a very  emotional place for me. I find it so poignant as an American whose country won its war for freedom to visit the place where so many Highlanders died in that same quest which failed.

From Culloden, we went to a place called Brodie Country Fayre, where we ate and shopped. We were looking in particular for the work of an artist that Niall had had hanging in the Byre, and we found it. All three of us now own Jonathan Wheeler prints.

From Brodie we went into Forres, looking for the Witch’s Stone. DeAnna had read about it in her sacred Scotland guide book. We had a hard time finding it, and in the search, we ran across Sueno’s Stone, a Pictish standing stone we hadn’t heard about. Amazing.

We did find the Witch’s Stone, eventually. The story goes that a witch was burned at the stone at the foot of Cluny Hill. Years later, someone broke up the stone to use in building a house. The house owner became ill, and the house was seen as cursed because of the stone. So the house was torn down, and the stone was replaced in its original spot. It had to be put back together with iron bands, presumably to break the curse.

From Forres, we headed back toward Culloden to the Clava Cairns, a set of ringed structures thousands of years old. They are as stunning in their own way as Stonehenge. Amy and I had been there before, but we wanted to go back and for DeAnna to see it. The sun came out like a blessing, the wood doves or pigeons were cooing and sparrows singing in the trees, and it was a perfect end to a full day.

There should be a few pictures of these places on my Jean L. French Facebook page, if my phone battery holds up.