‘In the long-before – the bad old days when men wore hair all over, nothing more, and spirits stalked about, and all men saw – this land was given over to the bear, the wolf, the boar. There lived three sisters in those days, one large, one squat, one thin; and whether they were troll or witch, or both, no one knew, but it’s certain that they kept their own company, and were seen only at night.

‘That was for the best, for they wore their hair long to their toes. Thick and matted it was too, with flies and worse things in, and never cut, so all you could see were the ends of their lumpen noses, and sometimes, a dark eye.

‘Well, one midwinter’s night, they crept from the woods to a sacred place – it fairly reeked of power – and there they formed a circle, and began to make a spell. And such a spell it was: a hex to crack this land apart and lay it at their taloned, warty feet. And as they worked it, they sucked the strength from the earth below and the trees around, so that they smiled wickedly behind their hair. Soon enough, all that power felt that good, that they just had to yell for the joy of it. A little more, and the world would be theirs.

‘But all that magic must have made them a touch slow, for they lost their heads for time, and right before the work was done, the weakling winter sun arose and turned them into stones. One large, one squat, one thin: the Yelling Stones, frozen fast, and the yell itself – a mad, terrible, powerful thing – hanging in the air between them. Hanging forever on the edge of glory.’