Josee Morneau journeyed to the Scottish Highlands to try the ancient stones

Almost 80 years ago, in the valley of the River Dee, Alexander Anthony Cameron of Dochanassie came to the village of Inver, where rested a stone of great fame - a clach cuid fir, or manhood stone, which up till then had resisted the efforts of every Scot who had tried to lift it. The Inver Stone was, and for that matter still is, a smooth, gray granite boulder shaped through the centuries by the Dee River into an almost geometrically perfect sphere weighing 268 pounds. It was - and is - the largest manhood stone in Scotland. Comeron had come 130 miles with the firm intention of raising it from the ground and placing it on a waist-high wall.

Josee visiting Scotish house in the fall of 2002

For hundreds of years young Highlanders had tested themselves in this fashion on these stones, most of which weighted between 175 and 225 pounds, and it was part of the rite of passage from boyhood for a lad to go to the home of his chieftain or laird and lift the local stone onto a wall. The Inver Stone, though, was a bit different. So much larger and smoother was it than average manhood stone that it had become widely known not as a challenge through which post pubescent boy might become a man but as a challenge through which a man might become a legend.

Josee Morneau lifts the smaller of the two Scotland's famous stones.

...and the bigger stone clearly of the ground. Way to go Josee.