The Wicker Man

"Come. It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man."

Halloween in Scotland is not quite the commercial gimmick that it is in the US. And in that sense, it’s refreshing. Yes, there was the odd trick-or-treater here and there, but most of all it seemed that it was just the day that marked the end of October and the beginning of November (and the cold, cold rumblings of winter).

Halloween afternoon found me getting on a bus to head for the lovely little village of Inverurie, northwest of Aberdeen. I met our librarian from Oldmachar, Teri Anderson, and her dog, Tilba. The three of us took advantage of the limited sunlight we had now that time had changed and drove around the countryside in the hills of Bennachie (ben-a-key) for a mini-tour of ancient ruins.

Our first stop was a Neolithic stone circle at Aquhorthies. It was built over 5,000 years ago, and was used, archaeologists think, to observe the phases of the moon and for religious worship. It has eleven stones that stand upright and one that lays flat and perfectly frames the top of the highest point in Bennachie, Mither Tap. It is still located in the middle of a farm and requires a bit of a jaunt up a small hill through the mud. The circle is something that has to be seen and experienced, as it is quite humbling to think of the ancient people who constructed it. It was a picturesque image in the fall, what with the hills and sheep and the orange and yellow of the leaves and little Tilba skirting about the stones.

Our next stop was The Maiden Stone, a comparatively young ruin, considering it was built only 1,200 years ago by the Picts, a group of Celts who lived in Aberdeenshire. The stone stands very tall and on one side has a notch carved into it. The story is that the maiden, for whom the stone was built, made a deal with a stranger that she could bake a bannock, a scone, faster than he could build a road up to Bennachie. The stranger, who was the devil in disguise, won the bet, chased the girl and managed to grab her shoulder just as God heard her prayers and turned her to stone. Just like that! On one side of the stone are a faint celtic knot and cross and on the other a Pictish kelpie—what some think may be Nessy—and mirror and comb. Some of the images were hard to see due to time’s wear, and so the granite stone is kept under a protective case through most of the winter. We were lucky to have caught a glimpse of it just before it went into its winter home.

Our final destination was a living history museum in Oyne, west of Inverurie. Here we awaited nightfall when a group of Picts with their faces painted blue (this is how they acquired their name in Latin), would lead us up the hillside to watch the burning of…(que scary music) the Wicker Man. Picts, being Celtic, were druids, and before they were converted to Christianity, they would burn a wicker man as a sacrifice to the gods. The wicker man is a massive human-like structure that would often have had real humans inside while it burned. While this type of sacrifice was done often, it was especially used to mark the end of the Pictish calendar year, October 31.

And so, at 5:30, just as darkness had settled in, we were led up a muddy hill by some witches and Pictish priestesses and watched the Man burn, burn, burn to usher in the new year. It was a perfect eerie end to a perfect Halloween, and yes, I was more than happy to be on the outside watching rather than on the inside, “keeping my appointment.”