Stuart France writes at:https://franceandvincent.com/
Tag Archives: standing stone
Stoneland…
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… “What, not even Stoneland?”
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“Not even Stoneland,” smiles Wen.
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“Pity, they will never know what they are missing.”
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Still Stone-Less At-Chat…
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“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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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Wandering Stone…?
‘…All the henge stones…’
‘…were thought to be alive…’
‘…both individually and as the cells of a larger organism.’
– Michael Dames.
The Hooded Stone…
“It has to be the Stone on Gardom’s Edge…”
“What does?” says Wen.
“My Robin Hood Stone… I mean it didn’t look much like the stone on Gardom’s Edge but that could have been the angle.”
I study the sketch in our guide book.
“A lot of these stones look different from each and every angle you know.” …
…“Let’s go find the Hud Stone,” say I.
“Is the Hud Stone the same as the Robin Hood Stone?”
“Well of course it is!”
“The same stone that we are not totally sure exists at all?”
“Well it most surely does exist if it is what Mr Harris is calling the Gardom Stone.”
“All these names are apt to become a tad confusing don’t you think?”
“Not at all, it’s just one more way of marking time.”…
…A short walk later and we are approaching what are undoubtedly the outer precincts of a prehistoric enclosure.
Just then I catch sight of the Gardom Stone from some distance.
There is always a thrill when seeing a site or stone for the first time, but in this case the thrill is tempered somewhat by the simultaneous realisation that, even from this distance, it is obvious that the Gardom Stone is not the Hud Stone.
“It’s there,” I say, “but it is not the Hud Stone.”
“It’s been called, ‘The Devil Stone’ before now.”
“I can see that too, but let’s face it, we’ve had more than enough truck with that particular personage these last few months.” …
…“Is it significant,” interrupts Wen.
“Is what significant?”
“The fact that a lot of these stones look different from every angle… I mean it starts to look like another involution.”
“It’s spatially significant for your ubiquitous theory but how so otherwise?”
“Well, take your traditional temple of the elements.”
“Which few people ever do…”
…“Of what does it consist?” says Wen, ignoring me.
“It consists of a uniform central point and the distinct cardinals.”
“Eloquently put, O Something Feral, eloquently put,” she smiles.
“Oh I see, the distinct cardinals have been collapsed into a central point…”
“Collapsed and reversed, which is something of an involution is it not?”
“It is indeed, Little Grub, and if that is what they were doing…”
“It is genius.”
“Genius, yes, but to what end?”
‘A very special place’…
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The Eskimo has over fifty words for snow…
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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.
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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’…
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These days we do not have to be told twice…
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Although, ‘The Dragon’s Breath’ was proving restrictive…
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Our request for clarity was graciously accepted…
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Albeit briefly…
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And why is Carn les Boel so special?
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It is a place where Dragon Energies meet the sea…
The Lost Stone of Chat…
“There is a stone which would be worth visiting. It is in Baslow which is on our way to the Symposium so we could stop off there, grab some lunch, check out the stone and then head off to our meeting.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“If I can remember where it is.”
“I thought you knew where it was; why else tell me about it otherwise.”
“I do, sort of, only we will be coming at it the other way, the last time I visited I came down off the moor but we won’t have time to do it that way.”
“How long ago was this?” says Wen becoming somewhat suspicious.
“About ten years. It’s a huge stone. You can’t miss it and I know the general direction of its whereabouts.”
“How big is the stone?”
“It’s massive. It’s the largest free-standing monolith I’ve ever come across and we found it quite by accident.”
“Bigger than the stones at Avebury?”
“Not bigger, but taller than the stones at Avebury.”
“By accident you say?”
“Look, there’s nothing mysterious about it, I’d taken Al and Sal to see the Park-Gate stone circle and then we walked back over the moor, which is another necropolis by the way, to Baslow and lunch. There was some sort of monument giving a rather splendid view of the area and just after that we came down off the moor and found the stone.”
“A necropolis you say? It is not marked on the map,” says Wen with some conviction.
“Well, not all of them are.”
“The big ones though, they usually are, surely?”
“I didn’t imagine it. We even took a photograph. Al and I were laughing because of the, shall we say, somewhat rude reputation of such stones, so we got Sal to stand next to it and Al took a photograph on his phone.”
“Okay, if it’s as big as you say we should be able to find it again quite easily.”…
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Amazon UK and Amazon.com for Book One of the Doomsday Triad:
Doomsday:
The Ætheling Thing
Stuart France & Sue Vincent
“Who was this Arviragus bloke anyway?”
Don studies the light as it plays through his beer, casting prisms on the table. 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.
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Wen is checking something in the Dictionary, “Get this… ‘ætheling from O.E. .Æpling, ‘son of a king, man of royal blood, nobleman, chief, prince, king, Christ, God-Man, Hero, Saint…’
“Wait a minute… wait a minute… give me that last bit again.”
“…Christ, God-Man, Hero, Saint…”
“Didn’t we call our Arthur, Aeth in, ‘The Heart of Albion’?”
“We did.”
“And didn’t we set his story in Mercia?”
“We did.”
“And didn’t Mercia grow to become the largest and most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Albion at one point in its history?”
“It did indeed.”
“Well that’s it then…The Anglo Saxon kings were claiming divine descent.”
“…Along with most other European kings at that time no doubt.”
“That’s true, but the Anglo-Saxon kings’ descent wasn’t from God it was from Christ.”
“And how did they get there?”
“They got there from their very own High One who also hung from a tree with a spear in his side… screaming.”
“Odin!”
“They evidently regarded Christ as an avatar of Odin.”
“Blimey, you’ll not read that in any history book!”
“Just as well we’re not writing a history then isn’t it?”
Full colour illustrated
Also available in Paperback.
Hart Hill Close…
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Question:
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How
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Many
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Stones
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In
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‘Nine
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Stone
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Close’ ?
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Clue: It’s not Nine…
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Chanteater…
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It was probably foolish, I know…
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But I took a liking to this ‘little lady’.
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Who, if the board is correct, could have been supporting the capstone’s weight for over six thousand years.
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Which is some feat, as you can probably see…
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We call it stone technology and we have been experimenting with sound in a number of these ‘chambers’.
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I was expecting the chant to have little vibratory effect because the tomb was clearly, in part, wrecked.
What I wasn’t expecting was for both the sound and the breath to be sucked from my being, like something or someone was thirsty…
Like I said, foolish, but maybe it also served…
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Hagiology…
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How big is the body?
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Big as a house…
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Big as a temple…
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Big as a mountain…
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Mountain body…
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Ocean eyes…
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Cloudless mind.
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Stuart France 
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