*
With the afternoon heading inexorably
towards evening at a pace…
and a two-and-a-half hour drive
before our next hostelry
ahead of us…
*
*
We probably did not really have time to explore…
*
*
But I am so glad we did.
*
*
Deep within the Forest of Yore…
*
*
We discovered a Clootie Tree…
*
*
And an Old Celtic Chapel.
*
*
*
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…
*
*
‘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?
*
*
*
The Eskimo has over fifty words for snow…
*
Carn les Boel, is marked on the map as a hill-fort but it is very different from the two ‘hill-forts’ we had just encountered on our Workshop…
It is difficult to imagine anyone living here, although, doubtless a presence would, in former times have been maintained.
*
*
The stones, predominantly erratic, have been judiciously supplemented, and in case we had arrrived with eyes wide shut the avian populations seemed keen to call our attention to the ‘salient points’…
*
*
These days we do not have to be told twice…
*
*
Although, ‘The Dragon’s Breath’ was proving restrictive…
*
*
Our request for clarity was graciously accepted…
*
*
Albeit briefly…
*
*
And why is Carn les Boel so special?
*
*
It is a place where Dragon Energies meet the sea…
*
Well, it didn’t take us long to get there did it?
But let’s ponder a moment
what this structure could mean…
We could call the two flanking uprights,
Summer and Winter,
or Night and Day,
or Them and Us,
and it would not really matter which was which.
If we did that though, what would we call the holed stone?
*
*
Two singular stones,
And one duality…
*
Yet, tantalisingly,
there are lots of other stones,
seemingly strewn,
and lumps, and bumps, and cavaties,
which make us suspect
that what we now see
is not all there once was to see…
*
*
If ever there was a monument that ought to be regarded as fake.
This is surely it.
So far as we know it is unique,
although there are many holed stones.
The others are usually uprights, stand alone, and have much smaller holes.
But if it is authentic, and we have never come across
any suggestion that it is not,
then it is an indication that the ancients
ritualised, and that they thought symbolically.
This should not come as a surprise.
*
*
“It’s got a ‘wen’ in it!”
*
And if we had not already twigged
that really should have clinched it!
*
“How are they pronouncing it anyway?”
“‘Bosk-a-Noon’ – ‘The House of the Elder-Tree.'”
“They’re ignoring the ‘wen-bit’ then.”
“Or, we could just call it hidden.”
*
*
“How do they do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make a stone that size disappear.”
“Well, at least it’s not yet started walking…”
“Or dancing…”
*
*
By the time we left, though,
all the stones in the circle had begun,
what we call, ‘morphing’…
*
*
And somewhere a horn was sounding.
*
“If I didn’t know better,
I’d say the Wild Hunt was abroad.”
*
…And the well,
*
*
And the cross…
*
*
Which now starts to look
even more like a Needle of Stone.
*
… We just went blithely on…
*
*
with our impromptu itinerary…
*
*
When even the densest of travellers might have wondered
at the plethora of feminine iconography…
Stuart France 
You must be logged in to post a comment.