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Mutilated Sheep Carcass Near Druidic Rituals Site

I came across this mutilated sheep carcass the other week a few hundred yards from the Cauldstane Slap, which is part of an old cattle route about 20 miles south-west of Edinburgh.

I thought it was interesting as the carcass exhibits many of the classic signs of livestock mutilation: the sheep is obviously dead, has been disemboweled, and there is little sign of any blood about the place. My hunch is that there is a fairly simple explanation for these phenomena, at least in this case.

You can see in the photos that the sheep has lost an eye. Apparently it's fairly common for crows to peck out the eyes of carcasses. Certainly a larger animal wouldn't be able to remove a sheep's eye so cleanly, so it seems likely that crows or other birds, buzzards perhaps, have scavenged on the carcass. My hunch is that they were also responsible for the disembowelment. Foxes and rats may also have lent a hand. Why a disembowelment? Easy entrance. Most of a sheep's body is inaccessible to scavengers. The lack of blood is probably due to rain washing it away. The sheep likely died of natural causes.

I'm not saying all livestock mutilations can be explained by natural deaths and subsequent scavenging. It's hard to comment more generally, but I didn't see much in this case to make me think there was anything other than a fairly mundane explanation.

Then again, if you've ever been in the area near the Cauldstane Slap you'll know that it has a peculiarly ancient and haunting quality, and would be a perfect place for any weird cults wanting to conduct ritual sacrifices. It would probably make a good landing spot for alien spaceships too, if a little boggy.

The location of the carcass is also interesting in that it's right between two ancient cairn peaks. East Cairn Hill to the north was the site of druidic rituals in bronze-age times, and the area has a murky history, with covenanters and thieves hiding out there. The two hills form a curious symmetry and according to my map differ in height by only one metre. Perhaps I'm jumping to a mundane explanation too readily.

I've included some pictures of the landscape, which give some measure of how wild and barren it is, but it really is only a small measure.

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