I was lucky to have Denise with me, otherwise my Maeshowe experience would have held me back, Fiona, because the cairn of Cuween was much smaller, much darker, much more ominous, as it is fitting for a fairy knowe inhabited by spirits from a non-human realm.

The experience of entering the earth is only romantic in theory.

In practice it involves a lot of hyperventilation, scraped elbows and knees, controlled panic attacks and a feral drive to get out of there as quickly as possible.

We didn’t bend over; we crawled in, against my every survival instinct, we crawled into the darkness of the earth, tightly cradled by corbelled stone slabs supporting what I can only guess was crushing weight from the dirt mound above, with barely enough space to turn around, careful not to bang our heads on the sharp stone edges.

A strange elation overcame me, not panic, rather excited trepidation, the anticipation of an unusual journey outside normal reality, a visit to the realm of the dead.

It’s not a physical journey one engages in here, I understood somehow; the constraints are intentional, the tight straightjacket made of stone is supposed to restrain all the movements we take for granted, and the dark silent space dampens the senses too. How else are you to understand the stillness of the body in death, what it’s like to exist in a state that no longer allows for the perks of the living?