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?

*

*

 

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?

*

Chapel-en-le-River…

*

“There was one thing.”

“Oh yes?”

“Well, two things, really.”

“These days ‘really’ is not a precise term, but proceed anyway.”

“No, no of course not… it’s just that, it struck me that the stones were conceived as shadows.”

“Shadows of what?”

“The ancestral realm.”

*

*

“And the second thing?”

“We’re being haunted.”

“By what?”

“By a shape!”

*

*

“It’s a Cop.”

“Look again.”

“It’s still a Cop.”

“Or a very big Long Barrow.”

“But it’s a hill.”

“Look again.”

“It’s still a hill.”

“Or a very big Long Barrow.”

“They didn’t build Long Barrows that big.”

“Why not?”

“It’s absurd. It’s preposterous. They simply couldn’t have.”

“They built Silbury.”

“Silbury’s not a Burial Mound.”

“No, but the ‘Archaeos’ used to think that it was.”

“The ‘Archaeos’ are always getting it wrong.”

“They think it’s a hill.”

“They thought all the ‘Motte and Bailys’ were mediaeval.”

“Precisley, it’s definitely a big Long Barrow.”

“It’s not definitely anything but what makes you so sure?”

“Numbers.”

“Numbers?”

“Most of the sites hold a lot of people and there are thousands of them. A lot of them would have taken huge numbers to construct and there are thousands of them and yet, the burials are relatively few. Even at the massive sites…”

“Where are all the bones?”

“I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking.”

“Especially on Ilkley.”

“We know Ilkley’s a Necropolis…

“…And yet, there are hardly any cairns.”

*

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.”

*

Far-Shore…

*

The tide’s

a-comin’ in…

*

Don’t get stuck

on the sand bank unless

you can swim…

*

The tide’s

a-comin’ in…

*

Carry our

daughter’s body

back from the drink.

*

So the story goes…

*

From a lake such as this…

*

*

A supernatural hand yielded forth, a sword!

*

*

Can’t really see it, myself…

 

Field-Mouse…

*

Field-Mouse was out gathering wild-beans for winter when Buffalo came down to the meadow to graze.

‘He will mow down the long-grass with his prickly tongue and there will be no where left to hide,’ thought Field-Mouse, ‘I will offer him battle, like a man would do.’

“Ho, Buffalo!” squeaked Field-Mouse, “I challenge you to a fight.”

Buffalo went on grazing.

Field-Mouse repeated his challenge but still Buffalo went on grazing.

With his third challenge, Field-Mouse laughed contemptuously at Buffalo’s inaction.

“You had better keep still, little one,” said Buffalo, still grazing, “or I will come over there and step on you.”

“You can’t do it!” squeaked Field-Mouse in defiance.

“If you don’t be quiet I will certainly put an end to you,” said Buffalo, quietly.

“I dare you!” said Field-Mouse.

Before Field-Mouse had quite finished, Buffalo charged at him…

*

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?”

Scions of Albion

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.

*

*

The Old Woman’s Hole…

*

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…