Tag: Iron Age

The mourning chant of the Islands

An excerpt from the prose/poem The Seer to be found
here on Kindle Books.

The Seer speaks the mourning chant of the Islands
with the congregation repeating the last line.

Life is brief, love is deep, the soul sings,
As the seasons come, the seasons go,
What are we but passing travellers,
Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the sea wave breaks on the rock,
As the clouds flee across the sky,
So we traverse this land, and are gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the eagle swoops and soars,
So the deer come and go, the salmon spawn,
Child turns to adult, and is gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Land of sorrow, land of joy, land of blessing, land of toil,
From your bosom we are born,
To your bosom we return,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Each day is precious, each hour passed,
is an hour fled, never to return.
Love, know what you have, be grateful
Praise the Gods for the gifts that come from land and sea.

Praise to the Gods!

Inkwork (5)
Skara Brey, the remains of an ancient village on the Orkneys. Did its inhabitants help build Maes Howe or the Ring of Brodgar?

Voices from the past

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Rudston Church, East Yorkshire, England

It is both surprising and stunning. As you come around the edge of Rudston church, there is the monolith, the tallest in England at 7.6 metres, with reputedly the same length buried under the ground. It is so unexpected that the stranger can only stop and admire. Of course, it predates the church by many thousands of years, and it’s presence says something very clearly. This is a holy site and has been for millennia. It is one of many henges, standing stones, circles and tumulus that still litter the landscape, that speak of a past now lost to us. Their silent witness tells of people who cared enough to put a huge effort into constructing and erecting monoliths such as this one. But why? We can only speculate. Speculate not only about the purpose, though that is grand enough. But who organised the fetching of the stone that forms it? Who fed the labourers, who had the knowledge and skill to erect a structure that has lasted thousands of years? They clearly had the leadership, resources and commitment not out of place in a modern company. Reflect on the fact that the monolith weights some 26 tons, and was transported a distance of 10 miles to its present site, and ask yourself the question, how far have we really progressed today?

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Hillforts

An atlas listing and detailing 4,147 hillforts was released to the public for free on the 22nd June. The atlas gives an exhaustive list of all the known hillforts in Britain, and adds considerably to the previous list of  1,224 hillforts listed in the Wikipedia entry for June 2017. The press release states:

Mostly built during the Iron Age, the oldest hillforts date to around 1,000BC and the most recent to around 700AD. Hillforts were central to more than 1,500 years of ancient living: with numerous functions – some of which are yet to be fully uncovered – hillforts served as communal gathering spaces. The research also shows that, fascinatingly, not all hillforts are on hills; nor are they all forts.

And that is part of the mystery. There are some hillforts, for example, Maiden Castle in Dorset, the biggest hillfort in Europe, that are truly hillforts, not only atop significantly high hills, but with impressive defences, and in the case of Maiden Castle, with clear evidence of attack(s) by the Romans.

Yet there are others that look at first glance as “defended enclosures” to use the archeological term, but are indefensible.  They have a bank and ditch, but arranged in such a way that they offer no impediment to attackers.  Thornborough Henges is one of the most important examples, and is viewed as being part of a ritual landscape, whatever that means!