We were on the Coast to Coast Walk and had just left Kirkby Stephen. Occasionally, we glimpsed a group of tall cairns known as the Nine Standards. No-one really knows who built them or for what reason, but one story is that they were placed on this Pennine ridge to give the marauding Scots the impression that here were able folk, always ready to defend their lands from unwelcome interlopers. Another theory held that the cairns were associated with the Norse usage of the numeral nine, which was … [Read more...]