Going Walkabout (British History)

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Claire]

[Mick Harper]

Just google troy game and maze and you will get trillions of hits. This is the first one
http://www.saradouglass.com/troyhistory.html
which suggests that it all goes back to Theseus, the Minotaur and the Labrynth.

[Hatty]

St Piran is the patron saint of Cornwall though there's competition from St Michael and St Petroc for the position. Interestingly, Petroc tamed wolves amongst his other achievements; he's usually accompanied by a stag so clearly a hunter (like Herne?).

Piran, or Perran, is the patron saint of tin-miners and said to have come to Cornwall from Ireland where he'd performed various miracles before being thrown into a raging sea chained to a mill-stone but the minute he rolled off the cliff the storm abated and the sea grew calm; he then floated on the stone to the Cornish coast, to Perranzabuloe where there's a St Piran's church as well as one in Bodmin. He is shared by Brittany. Sounds like Petroc and Patrick and Piran are the same, all 'stone' names.

[Hatty]

[Claire]

I'm just reading a Colin Wilson book 'Mysteries'. There is an interesting aside about Stonehenge I hadn't come across before.

Wilson is talking about Tom Lethbridge's theories -- and one point he makes is that it is just dogmatically assumed that the blue stones come from the Prescelly mountains on the basis that it is the nearest site geographically to Stonehenge. Geoffrey of Monmouth famously states that Stonehenge was built by King Ambrosius after Merlin told him of a stone circle known as the Giant's Dance, near Killaraus in Ireland whose stones were originally from Africa. Lethbridge found that Kilaraus can be translated as 'the church on the River Ary' (I don't know how) and there is a River Ary in Ireland (the town of Tipperary stands on it).

...'.not far to the west is an area of diorite, the stone of the bluestones. The River Ary joins a larger river, the Suir, which in turn flows into the sea at Waterford; so the stones could have been transported from Ireland as easily as from Wales.'

He goes on a little later:
'In fact, Lethridge's theory provides a simpler explanation of how the bluestones were transported. One of the main arguments against the Prescelly theory is that the stones would have to sail on the open sea, which would have been dangerous. (Rafts are difficult to navigate -- particularly when carrying a five-ton load.) But Lethridge points out that an extremely heavy type of anchor, known as a kedge, is easily carried slung between two ships, so that the sea bears most of its weight. The bluestones could have been taken by sea all the way to the south coast of England -- near present-day Christchurch -- then up the River Avon to within three miles of Stonehenge with a minimum of effort.'

What do you think? All rubbish? I can't think why the builders would go to the trouble to source blue stones especially, no matter where they are from, unless they had some particular significance -- (and it seems to me to make no difference whether it's bluestones or local sarsen stones if they are just for guiding routes.)

[Claire]

[Mick Harper]

Yes, wrong books. But you are hereby appointed official AEL expert in this entire field. Get to it! Even though I haven't a clue yet what you have to get to.

[Hatty]

[Claire]

Here's a funny thing:
'Now Lethbridge produced an even stranger hypothesis. Since most of the megaliths are not visible from the sea -- where they might serve as landmarks for sailors -- could they have been intended to be visible from the air -- to serve as guides to some kind of aircraft?'
I think guides for on foot is a better fit!

[Mick Harper]

[Hatty]

Our St Piran may be a 'fire' saint, pyr being a cognate of fire. Why are dragons fire-breathing creatures? Claire, does your Colin Wilson person have anything on dragons?

[Mick Harper]

If the Irish origin of the bluestones is true then bang goes the best Stonehenge theory of all -- the 5,12,13 right-angled triangle formed by Stonehenge, the Prescelli blue-stone mines and Lundy Island.

[Hatty]