Stuart France – Writer

Stuart France writes at:https://franceandvincent.com/

A visit to spiral castle…

*

Although we didn’t know it at the time,

Ballowal Barrow is a ‘Faery-Fort’.

It is situated close to a now disused tin-mine

and miners, during the late nineteenth century,

upon finishing their night shift, are said to have seen

lights burning over the barrow and faeries dancing there.

It would explain the sense of caution with which we approached the site.

Getting on the wrong side of the Faery-Folk is never advisable.

And it did feel like we were being watched, observed, or monitored, by something.

Still, as our intentions at these places are generally honourable we managed

to escape with our wits, more or less, intact.

Though, curiously, for the evening was still young, our sojourn there signalled the

end of adventures for that day.

Perhaps, they had some thing in store for us on the morrow…

*

Alder-Ley…

*

A rift in the bed-rock

Makes us wonder

Just what is destined to emerge…

A poisonous fume

Or the trailing plumes

Of a Sun-Bird?

*

Still Stone-Less At-Chat…

*

“No one in their right mind believes that stones can walk.”

“Despite the fact that the Folk-Record is unequivocable on this point.”

“It is also unequivocable about stones dancing, and drinking from streams.”

“I may be able to clarify the streams. They may be underground.”

“They may even be telluric currents, but you promised.”

“That, unfortunately, is deductive reasoning for you. It was the only bit of wall we had not checked.”

“We had so checked it… last time.”

“Only from a distance and that does not count.”

*

*

As it turned out there proved to be another bit of wall we had not checked.

Also distant and too far away to consider once the snow started.

I mean, really started.

There were compensations though, like the trees and the wildlife.

*

*

“Are you sure it isn’t the Throne-Stone?”

“Not near enough to the wall and the gate.”

“But the wall is a mnenomic. Your mind could easily have contracted the distance.”

“Not the right size, or colour.”

“Like that’s not easily accounted for.”

“Maybe you’re right and I’ve discovered a new species of stone, which can walk!”

“But that would be a New-Old species of stone.”

“So perhaps it just went for a stroll, again.”

“What, in the snow?”

“…We did.”

*

Dryad…

*

…That night the world took on strange colours and my dream-girl became a tree.

If I were a Druid I would say that I had fallen under the sway of a wood nymph, a Dryad…

She is certainly very beautiful and pulls me  away from the busy road where traffic endlessly flashes through the ever screaming air…

She always wins.

I always turn from the road and allow her to take my hands in hers.

We roll down the embankment conjoined…

We roll together

for all eternity

but then collide with the bole of the tree

and she is gone.

The Ticket Inspector…

*

I am late.

I am expected in Leicester and now my only option is to catch the last train.

The last train to Leicester is a slow train and also appears to be experiencing difficulties.

Stopping where there are no stations.

That sort of thing.

It becomes clear that many of my fellow passengers are not going to get to their destinations and as the ticket inspector makes his round they discuss alternatives together.

As this is an unfamiliar route I assume that Leicester too is now out of the question.

A strange thing about the ticket inspector, although this is a new route and I have never met him before, he knows my name…

“Yes, Stu…”

…and uses its familiar form.

“You’ll be in Leicester in twenty minutes time.”

Not only does the ticket inspector know my name and use its familiar form, he is also incredibly accurate.

My alarm clock is due to go off in precisely twenty minutes time.

*

*

Fairy Thorn…

*

… Just then there is a flurry of wings, and squawks and screeches overhead and we turn our attention skyward in time to see an enormous buzzard chasing off two ravens from the precincts of Uffington Castle.

“Oh, Don look!”Cries Wen, “the hawk of the morning has chased the shadows of the night away.”

As if on cue a sky lark flies up from the ‘fairy thorn’ with as an incongruous a cacophony of song as you are ever likely to hear in such a setting…

As the ravens fly into black specks and disappear in the mist another buzzard glides into view and we watch the two mighty birds soar on the up-draught for awhile as if spiralling around some unseen cone of power.

It certainly feels like we have been accepted into something although I am not quite sure what.

I make a mental note to look up the origins of the phrase, ‘…the Heart of Albion’…

*

The acrid smoke hung heavy in the night air.

They would feast tonight.

But for now she plaited the strands of horsehair from the white mane.

A gift from the gods she would treasure…

A blessing as she shared the meat roasting in the pit on the plateau.

The flames cast a dull glow across the faces of the clans.

They were expectant, eager yet solemn.

They were waiting…

***

THE INITIATE

Book One of the Triad of Albion

Stuart France & Sue Vincent

The Initiate is the story of a journey beyond the realms of our accustomed normality.

It is a true story told in a fictional manner. In just such a way did the Bards of old hide in the legends and deeds of folk heroes, those deeper truths for those ‘with eyes to see and ears to hear’.

Don and Wen, two founding members of a new Esoteric School, meet to explore an ancient sacred site, as a prelude to the School’s opening event. The new School is to be based upon a nine-fold system and operate under the aegis of the Horus Hawk.

The trip does not unfold as planned.

Instead, Don and Wen, guided by the birds, find themselves embarking upon a journey that will lead them through a maze of spiritual symbolism, to magical mysteries and the shadowy figure of the Ninth Knight.

As the veils thin and waver, time shifts and the present is peopled with shadowy figures of the past, weaving their tales through a quest for understanding and opening wide the doors of perception…

Now available via Amazon worldwide.

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Pieces of Nietzsche…

*

ON PHILOSOPHY

It is clear that every ‘great philosophy’ is, no more and no less than, the confession of its author.

To explain how a philosophy’s highest flung claims have been derived, therefore,

we need only ask, ‘what really makes its author tick?’

The desire to know, is not, then, the Mother of Philosophy.

For, look, here one desire, and now there, another, has put knowledge

to use as a means to, shamelessly, further its own ends…

The fundamental desires of Man have always been ‘philosophers’.

And each of them is only too happy to present itself

as the be all and end all of existence!

As master of the others.

All Man’s desires are tyrannical.

And for the philosopher, everything is personal.

His ideas, inevitably, bear testimony to the hierarchy of his secret desires.

*

Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophical and psychological genius of the nineteenth century, in his book, ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, presaged the breakdown of the Western Aristocratic ruling elite and the irresistible forces that led to two catastrophic world wars. This new poetic interpretation of his master work teases out still relevant lines of thought for the reappraisal of our rapidly disintegrating current world order.

The question of value goes to the heart of who we are, what we are and why we think we are here… A tendency to make certain assumptions about our environment appears to be intrinsic to our nature, yet the meaningful existence we crave can only ever be granted by a ‘higher power’ which we now seem loathe to recognise outside of ourselves… We have always looked to those best qualified to answer our most fervent questions but what if they too have fallen foul of the ‘Auction-House of Things’… And what of the Beyond?

Pieces of Nietzsche: A Thinker’s Bias

available from Amazon UK, Amazon.com and worldwide.

Weathering?…

*

If Giants…

*

*

Could construct…

*

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Balance-Stones…

*

*

They would look a little like this…

*

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And for those still in need of perspective…

*

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‘TAKE A LOOK AT THESE HANDS’…

If these stone structures are produced by ‘nature’s hand’,

it may be salutory to consider ‘modern man’s hand’ in contrast,

which has, by quarrying, made a ‘bit of a mess’ of what was once

a ‘hill-fort’ possessing as much beauty as that of Carn les Boel or Carl Wark.

*

 

 

Something fishy in Preseli…

‘Pentre-Ifan’

*

‘I know we’re not in England but it doesn’t even feel like we’re in Britain!”

We were in Nevern churchyard in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on one of the Silent Eye’s Workshops…

And a familiar feeling was creeping over us…

The church and the ‘Stone Cross’ too seemed vaguely reminiscent of ‘something’ and we began to entertain the notion that we might have inadvertantly stumbled upon one of the treasures we had recently come across in our reading.

We were not destined to get to the mound at the back of the church, unfortunately, but we were near enough.

The garden walls of the houses which huddled around the local church were packed with quartz crystal, huge chunks of the stuff in some cases…

*

‘I made a mental note to look at the relationship between Pentre Ifan, Nevern church and Carningli Peak… The three locations appeared to form an equilateral triangle. .. I revisited each site and retook their co-ordinates. The triangle is astonishingly accurate and places the three sites in a geometrical relationship that cannot be accidental. Students of the Traditional Arts will know that the equilateral triangle is the basis for a vesica pisces. Within the intersecting circles of the vesica are two equilateral triangles arranged back to back in a diamond shape… Is there a second triangle south of the ‘Nevern Triangle’? It did not take long to confirm that there is a standing stone that completes the second equilateral triangle. Waun Mawn is a six feet high single stone… whose location matches perfectly the requirements for the apex of a second triangle. These two triangles, together, form the basis of a vesica pisces.’

Robin Heath – Bluestone Magic