Tag Archives: meaning

Overkill Hill…

hm15-025*

Never look back!

It is good advice, unfortunately, in story-telling this advice,

when given, is never adhered to.

Orpheus… Lot… Dr Faustus…

They are all concerned with Soul.

The Soul that turns to look back is caught in time.

It may be an ‘intention thing’, like trying to serve two masters, do not walk one way and look the other.

There are any number of mythological monsters depicted in this way to prove it.

Tiamet… Nergal… The Dread Beast of Mercia.

The hero ‘slays’ them all, by moving forward.

*

hm15-001*

But going back to take another look, that is different.

That is part of going forward.

And it is also inevitable.

This time we inadvertently found ourselves following our own advice from one of our books.

*

hm15-003*

We started at Hordron’s, that hoary old receptacle of time, went on to Strines, the ‘Peacock Pub’, and finished up at the Old Horns Inn.

And this time when we got to Bradfield, ‘Castle Hill’ was illuminated.

*

hm15-008*

No need to wonder where we will be heading next then.

*

hm15-013*

But first, we had another encounter with one of our mounds to experience.

We needed more photographs.

*

hm15-014*

And photographs…

Were duly forthcoming.

*

hm15-011*

Once we had braved the curiously over-friendly sheep…

Holy Scions…

*

Given that we were now checking out the ‘Michael Line’,

One might have expected some sort of ‘Angelic Support’…

*

*

But even by our standards,

The send off assumed ridiculous proportions…

*

*

It also offered unexpected vindication

for our speculations in the ‘Doomsday Trilogy’…

*

*

A ‘Glastonbury Thorn’.

***

DOOMSDAY

The Aetheling Thing     Dark Sage   Scions of Albion

All books available via Amazon in Paperback and for Kindle

Don and Wen, following the breadcrumb trail of arcane lore and ancient knowledge, scattered across the landscape of time, turn their attention to the myths and legends of Old Albion. They delve into the tales of King Arthur, asking some very strange questions about biblical family trees and exploring the many stories that abound in the very landscape of Avalon. Meanwhile, in Derbyshire, the voices of the past still whisper from the stones, opening a passage through time, place and memory to another world…

 

Doomsday: The Ætheling Thing

How is it possible to hide such a story… the hidden history of Christianity in Britain? Oh, there are legends of course… old tales… Yet what if there was truth in them? What was it that gave these blessed isles such a special place in the minds of our forefathers? There are some things you are not taught in Sunday School. From the stone circles of the north to the Isle of Avalon, Don and Wen follow the breadcrumbs of history and forgotten lore to uncover a secret veiled in plain sight.


Doomsday: Dark Sage
…. something was spawned up on the moor… something black that flew on dark wings. It heeds not time or place… but it seems to have developed a penchant for the travels of Don and Wen….
“Are those two still at it?”
“Apparently….”


Doomsday: Scions of Albion

Things are getting serious…

Exactly what is Wen doing with that crowbar and why is she wearing a balaclava?

All will be revealed…or will it?

Follow the story begun in The Initiate and the Triad of Albion,

as Don and Wen explore the ancient land.

Traced by Angels…

*

‘Of wheel-tracks there were none just strange,

narrow paths across the moorland.’

*

*

With the dust well settled over the Living Land Workshop, and already two days into our vacation, we found ourselves in search of a map.

A big map.

One which showed in greater detail the ways and by-ways of Old Cornwall.

*

*

We had done well that first day, discovering a goodly number of the most obvious and easily accessible sites…

But this was going to need precision.

*

*

We had a name.

We had a description.

We even had a picture, and now, we had a good map.

We could not fail, could we?

*

*

 

Clues…

*

“Well, it has taken a while, but I think we can be fairly certain that this particular example of the symbolist’s art has something to do with the number eight.”

“‘Fairly certain’? ‘Something to do with’? It is hardly the stuff of science, now is it?”

“Symbolism, by its very nature, is much more than science, and much less too.”

“You are not making much sense.”

“It is open like an ‘art’, but its precision is less focused and more inclusive.”

“I keep wanting to turn it on its head.”

“Which would give us a… mirror!”

*

*

“And the ‘S’?”

“Stands for saviour.”

“Or a stream.”

“Which flows underground.”

 

 

The Old Woman’s Hole…

HM15 1281*

PC 963 Kraas turned and walked head-long into the sea breeze.

Her hair flicked in the wind like rampant flames.

“You know, I can’t help feeling we’ve missed a trick with this one.”

“It’s mentioned in the book,” replied Jaw-Dark pensively, “and in any case, it’s a pleasant enough spot.” He paused and bent down to look through a large eye-shaped ‘blow-hole’ in the promontory.

“What’s that?” said Kraas.

“Well, that depends…” said Jaw-Dark.

“That depends upon what?”

“…Upon your perspective,” finished Jaw-Dark.

“Nothing is ever straightforward with you is it?”

“The Irish name for this and other similar landscape features is Poll na Seantuinne.”

“Which means?”

“‘Hole of the Old Wave’.”

Just then the sea crashed beneath the promontory and the foaming waves, in the mouth of the sea cavern, a hundred feet below could be clearly seen through the ‘chasm-hole’.

“Seems an apt description,” said Kraas, “if a tad unnerving.” Her gaze followed the slow drag of the tide and then lifted to the sky where wisps of grey cloud scudded on the wind, “in the beginning,” she said, “everything was chasm and chaos.”

“There is though another interpretation.”

“Which is?”

Poll na Sean Tiene means ‘Hole of the Old Fire’.”

“Okay, I can see where that might fit in with some of their concerns. Especially with all this baleful eye stuff.”

“Personally though I prefer the third alternative…”

“Ever the storyteller,” smiled Kraas, “Well, I’m waiting!”

Poll na Seantuine,  is the ‘Hole of the Old Woman.”

Kraas’ smile turned to a grimace, “Well, I wouldn’t go shouting that particular preference from the cliff tops if I were you,” she said through the grimace, and then added more seriously, “so which one is it?”

“Unfortunately for us and also quite possibly for them too, it is more than likely that it is all three of them.”

*

 

Lands of Exile:

KITH ‘N’ KIN

Stuart France & Sue Vincent

The Beeley Stone, ‘liberated’ from the churchyard at Bakewell, stands proudly in the centre of its village green once more. While the locals enjoy the fruits of its restoration, Ben, who had led the daring raid against authority, still languishes in jail.

Don and Wen, arrested and released without explanation in Ireland, now plot an erratic course through the wild places of Wales, while Jaw-Dark and Kraas, seeking the legendary stone of Fergus Mac Roy, have been separated in the most uncanny of circumstances…

As the darkness closes around them, the Black Shade haunts the moors above Beeley and, in the shadowy rooms of the old tower, an ancient and even stranger story begins to unfold…

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.

Paperback UK     Kindle UK    Paperback Amazon.com    Kindle Amazon.com

 

Pieces of Nietzsche…

centaur f 2

*

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…

*

*

Balance-Stones…

*

*

They would look a little like this…

*

*

And for those still in need of perspective…

*

*

‘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.

*