The Kyle of Durness boulders

Big Anna of Sarsgrum and Strong Mary of Na-heallaman live on opposite sides of the Kyle of Durness, and each is convinced that she is the stronger woman. Both are remembered as witches, which may explain how they come to settle the argument by throwing seven-ton stones across the water. The rules are simple enough. Your stone has to reach the opposite shore and land beyond the high-water mark, so getting it across the kyle is only part of the job.

Anna goes first, lifting her great boulder at Sarsgrum and sending it out across the water towards Mary’s shore. It makes the crossing, but when they look at where it has landed, it is two feet short of the mark. You can imagine how galling that must be. She has managed to throw seven tons of rock across the Kyle of Durness, only to find that she might as well have left it where it was as far as winning the contest is concerned.

Mary now has Anna’s stone in front of her and knows exactly what she has to beat. She lifts her own boulder and sends it back across the kyle, where it clears the high-water mark and lands a hundred yards beyond it. There is very little room for Anna to dispute the result, but rather than start another argument, the two women become firm friends. Perhaps once they have settled who is stronger, they can get on with being neighbours without having to prove it every time they meet.

The stones give us something to look for when we drive beside the kyle, where the mountains, sand and shifting water usually claim most of our attention. Some of the boulders look as though somebody has simply dropped them there, and the ice that once covered this country did carry rocks and leave them behind as it retreated. That explains how they arrived, but I think Big Anna and Strong Mary give us a much more enjoyable reason to remember them. Once you know about their contest, it is difficult to pass a particularly large stone without looking across the water and wondering which shore it was thrown from.

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