On Law Hill

 on Law Hill

There are ravens here, I think. I hear their voices, the clap of their wings, but those voices croak with laughter as I turn to spy them and I don’t know if I am seeing or simply feeling the metallic gleam of sunlight on green-black wings.

I would like to know the story of this hill, of the Scots Pines who grow straight on this windswept outcrop. Standing here, I can turn east and feel a wind fresh from the North Sea and see the Lomond Hills. Westward on a clear day, there are the Ochils and past them the Campsie Fells and beyond them it feels that all the reach of the central lowlands lies before this knoll on the foot of Hillfoot Hill.

I would like to know who grazes this hill. There are no little offerings, although sheep nibble the flanks of the hill where the scouts of an army of gorse are poking cautious gold-dusted green heads over the curves of the hill. The grass here inside the fenced compound is short. Rabbits? Deer? Fence-hopping sheep? Perhaps this is just new spring growth but even in summer the grass here is short. I would like to know. I would like to know who walks the gentle curving paths that circle the hill, wandering routes that spiral to a tree-ringed centre. It feels a more ceremonial approach than simply to march up and stride on to the hilltop. The modern access is fenced. It is straight and obvious and terribly sensible but is a good path to walk barefoot when you are clear of the trees by the car park. Then it stops and you step from that straight, orderly path onto soft grass in the shadow of the trees and a curving path to peace.

Under the gaze of the Ochils, of Hillfoot Hill, of Whitewisp and Saddle and Kings Seat, Law Hill is an outcrop, the upthrust toe a sleeping giant. It feels like it should be a hillfort or hold a barrow or a Roman sentry post or perhaps a camp of brigands watching for the Muckhart Droves, bringing pigs down Glendevon to the Pools and the Gates.  It might be a faerie hill with no camp or barrow or building for the good sense of not doing any such reckless thing on a hill where the Good Neighbours watched. I could fill this small hilltop with stories.


On this cold spring afternoon, a moment comes when everything stops. Even the wind takes a breath and the hilltop echoes with silence. Unexpected, unbidden, lines from the Havamal surface in my thoughts, “word following word, I found me words; deed following deed, I found me deeds…”. Angular pine twigs lie in runes in the grass and I am sure there is the story to tell. Then an explosion of titmice bursts through the trees and the moment lifts into a small glory of feathers and avian laughter.

I could fill this hill with stories, my stories. Or I can listen to the stories the trees tell me. Or i can just soak in a spring afternoon and walk homewards refreshed and uncurling like the ferns in the sweet chestnut woods below the hill.

https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/local/law-hill-clackmannanshire


An earlier visit:
On Law Hill
    They always say you should never…
Early autumn, mid-day and safely,
I went for a walk

An east wind blowing, long and cold
Over flat lands with a distant taste of the sea

Scots Pine sigh like a shore
Receiving waves.
The grass moves,
A round hill breathing peace

    They always say you should never…..

I leant against a tree-trunk and
Let my worries go,
Feeding them as leaves to the wind

I let them go
    (They always say…)
I let it all go
    (They always say you should never…)
Debt, doubt, despair, despondency,
The wind took them for me
And left.
    (They said. They always said.  Who ever listens…)

Ever now,
Never now,
Ever and for always,
Old stone and tree-roots,
I am sitting here still.

And you…
You may choose a spring morning,
    (Please don’t sleep, don’t snooze in the...)
Stones warmed on the edge of summer.
Sitting back, leaning back,
Slipping gently, warmly,
Comfortably into sleep.
An afternoon snooze,
Endless dozing,
    (Don’t...)
Rest your back against me,
Listen to the trees speaking peace.

You may prefer a frosty noon when,
(Inviting rest, Faerie Hills and Faerie Hollows)
Sun melting invites a rest or
A fey midsummer with heat shimmering the distance,
    (They said, they said, too late, they said...)

But rest, just rest, a while.
Settle.
Slide down the stone beside me.
Slide into stone beside me.

On Law Hill is to be found in the book Old Stones and Ancient Bones: poems from the hollow hills, by Gordon MacLellan. Find it on Amazon or buy direct from me (cheaper!)

Plan your own visit: https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/local/law-hill-clackmannanshire