Toran gazed at the eastern horizon and observed the gradual lightening of the sky. Slowly the black was turning to deep purple and then into a wonderful color of rose. Checking his watch, he noticed that more than an hour had passed and soon the sun would peer above the horizon. That was the moment he was waiting for.
He had read that the sun’s rays would shine straight into the cairn’s long passage, illuminating the carvings on the massive stones. Above the main entrance to the cairn were two lintel stones and between them an opening, called a ‘light box’. One of the primary purposes of the long passage leading into the mound was to reduce the light in the interior of the passage chamber. The darker the chamber, the more brilliant the narrow shaft of light would appear to be. Furthermore, the ability of such devices to precisely observe the sun increases in proportion to the length of their passages. Unless the construct is of an extremely large size, such as is found at Newgrange, the varying positions of the light beam will be almost undetectable during the twenty-two day period of the solstice.
Drinking the last of his coffee, Toran switched on his flashlight and slowly walked to the end of the cairn’s long passage. He sat and waited for the light. Minutes passed and then, first growing slowly in intensity but then shinning with an amazing brilliance, a shaft of light shown into the long passage and set the rocks glowing with a lovely golden hue. Overcome with the stunning beauty he was witnessing, Toran remembered an old Celtic passage about Newgrange,
Aengus was an externally youthful exponent of love and beauty. Like his father, he had a harp, but it was of gold not oak, as the Dagda’s was and so sweet was its music that no one could hear and not follow it. His kisses became birds which hovered invisibly over young men and maidens of Erin, whispering thoughts of love into their ears. He is chiefly connected with the banks of the Boyne, where he had a Bru or shinning fairy palace.
The chamber was brilliantly lit for approximately 15 minutes and this solar display manifests for five consecutive days around the time of each winter solstice. Archaeoastronomers studying the various cairns at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth have determined that the sunbeam on the solstice is accurately observed at sunrise and sunset by the different cairns. Furthermore, various standing stones and smaller cairns in proximity to the Newgrange tumulus create sight-lines which demonstrate that the ancient builders were aware of other astronomically significant periods such as the equinoxes, the cross-quarter days, and both the major and minor lunar standstills.
Beam of sun light entering stone-lined passage of Newgrange on day of winter solstice
After three weeks studying megalithic sites in Ireland, Toran flew from Dublin to Edinburgh and then made his way by bus and ferry boat to the Isle of Lewis off the western coast of Scotland. The northernmost of the cluster of islands known as the Outer Hebrides, the Isle of Lewis was a remote place of rolling green hills, frequent rain, and friendly people. Several hundred megalithic sites were known to exist around Scotland and England, but only having the time to visit a few of them, he had chosen the more visually spectacular sites since they would provide good photographs for the magazine article he was preparing. After the stone ring of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, he planned on traveling to other stone rings such as the Stones of Stenness on the Orkney Islands and then south to the famous stone rings of Stonehenge and Avebury.
