According to the celebrated 18th century historian, Donald Donald, there is no doubt that the islanders were among the most sullen and sulky people ever to have existed in history. Each time they quarrelled with one of their friends and neighbours, they would march from their homes. Picking up two large stones from a nearby wall, they would head out beyond the boundaries of Village Bay, laying these rocks on the ground there, murmuring and muttering their resentments against those with whom they shared their world.
Over time, both the pile of stones and arguments grew. A wall of rock would form, accumulating from each fresh generation of family quarrels, layer upon layer, word upon bad-tempered word. They did this until they created thousands of cleitean or cleits, little stone outhouses which many later came to believe were created to store bird-flesh, eggs and feathers, all the things that were essential to a St Kildan’s life.
They did no such thing. Instead, they were employed to shelter the islanders from the lash of wind and rain, the consequences of their ill-will to each other, as they brooded on the wrongs that had been done to them, each word of hate and insult weighing them like stone.