Stones are perhaps the most forgotten element of folklore, yet in the past they played a central role in all manner of oral narratives and popular traditions. In a contemporary world defined by transience, it is difficult to understand the time of stone, the slow and solemn heartbeat of the earth. And yet stones abound in legend as entities with a character of their own: the final transformation of the damned; amulets such as thunderstones; bearers of fertility or magical powers; receptacles for ancestral swords; or offerings left to souls that have recently crossed into the other world. Here we reclaim the place that stones deserve in the collective memory of peoples.