Culloden

When I first walked onto the Culloden battlefield it was morning and the mists hung heavy over the long grass. You couldn’t see far over the landscape, and the air was damp yet, as was the ground.  Everything was still. Beyond human noise, there was no sound. In a country where the birds are constantly singing, there was not a bird to be found, or a song sung. I’ve heard from others that birds don’t come near Culloden. Perhaps it’s natures respect for the dead who lie there.

In fact the only wildlife I witnessed were spiders. The fields of Culloden are strewn with the webs of spiders, making lacy patterns through the grass. You don’t walk through the fields because of the spiders,  and so spider webs guard the dead on this ground.

Knowing the history of this place made the experience rather intense.  I took a guided tour and she stopped us in this one spot where 700 Jacobites died in about 3 minutes, and that hit me like a punch in the gut.  To stand on ground that once ran red with blood and echoed with the cries of the dead and the dying was very powerful.

 

But what affected me the most were the clan stones. They stood there before mounds in the earth. Mass Graves holding only some of the dead, remembering only some of the men. Each stone is marked with the names of the Clan members who were laid to rest in the graves, but not everyone was known on the battlefield. Not everyone could be remembered.  It chocked me up a bit when I saw the stones that simply read “mixed clans.”

You see these mounds of earth and you know that an untold number of men lie underneath. That is a powerful moment, especially when you remember that Culloden was the last battle. The fight was over, Bonnie Prince Charlie never returned, and the Highland people suffered greatly afterwards. That field echoes with a sense of defeat and loss.

But even more than that was the idea that I stood there at a time when Scotland was yet again fighting for independence,  but this time democratically. The vote has since come in,  and it was a No. Scotland will remain part of the United Kingdom. But being at Culloden while the decision was still in the air and wondering what the men buried beneath that earth would think of it all,  is an astonishing feeling to have.

Culloden will stay with me for a very long time.  To have walked in the steps of history does something to an individual. I saw the stories of those men played out before me and I wondered about them, their thoughts, feelings, and dreams.  While my connection to the dead there is through personal interest alone, and not blood ties or patriotic ones, I will remember the dead, and that will just have to be enough.