The Cradle is made up of iron rock chondrules and other constituents. What do people do when they find an object of value with special powers? Hide it behind closed doors? Let it be used for the benefit of everyone? Put it on the market? Otto Rahn, the German Grail writer, looked for this stone that was said to rock Lucifer. It wasn’t hidden in those days. Neither was its existence kept safe.

The Stone Cradle is not the only powerful stone in northeast Spain. Near the frontier, the area is vast and empty, a difficult terrain with dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, and just over the border in France, the oldest cave art going back 50,000 years. Standing in that inhospitable land, I cannot but feel deeply impressed by the immense age of the place. I have come to realise that many of these ancient stones have special properties. The Cradle to heal and give nutrients, the sunstone once in the Cabala centre in Girona to make barren women fertile, the stone in Le Puy, France, to cure, especially in the plague years.