Littlestone
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The Cerne Giant:An Antiquity on Trial
Dec 06, 2006, 00:20
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"The testimony of Sue Clifford engages the jury with what the figure means to individuals and to local people. She begins her statement by expressing why the giant is so important to her personally and to the people of the town. She talks about the persistence of the giant and how he characterises the town as the ‘Giants domain’... Three poets, James Turner, Sandra Tappenden and Jan Farquharson, all of whom have contributed one poem to the chapter (are introduced)."
* The Cerne Giant: An Antiquity on Trial by T. Darvill, K. Barker, B. Bender and R. Hutton. Oxbow Books. 1999. 172 pages, 19 photographs, 3 maps, 32 text figures/illustrations. ISBN 1-900188-94-5. Review of the book here -
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/03_06_cerne.htm
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moss
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Re: The Cerne Giant:An Antiquity on Trial
Dec 06, 2006, 08:23
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Jacquetta Hawkes (Prehistoric and Roman Monuments) gives a fascinating two pages to this myth/story, which goes back to a St.Augustine legend told by William of Malmesbury about the wicked pagans of Dorset and how the villagers tied tails to St.Augustine and his followers; whereupon, he called on the lord that all their children should be born with tails - which of course they were.. Stukeley said that the Giant went back to to Helis(Hercules). As it has such early legends, I'm inclined to believe there was something there. ;)
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Littlestone
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Dec 17, 2006, 23:05
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Apologies, off topic I'm afraid, but the following may be of interest. Ian McKellen will be reading Simon Armitage's rendering into modern English of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on Radio 4 at 2:15pm on Thursday, 21 December. "The core of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight... embraces many elements central to Celtic mythology, the most prominent being the "severed head" theme..."*
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight
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Rhiannon
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Re: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Dec 17, 2006, 23:45
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maybe not so off topic. As people have interpreted part of it being about a barrow. Though that could be the neopagan view. But maybe. And also there's Lud's Church, which is a site on tma.
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StoneLifter
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Re: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Dec 18, 2006, 04:03
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The big G grew up on the edge of a hamlet called Barrow Bridge - yes, there are barrows there - but his accent is of Burnley, less harsh than that of Notlob and more redolent of the country perhaps.
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Littlestone
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Re: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Dec 18, 2006, 11:28
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Thanks for that mention of Lud's Church on TMA.
My copy of the Green Knight seems to have mysteriously disappeared so might treat myself to Simon Armitage's new version :-)
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Littlestone
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Philip Gross: Rites from A Day at the Earth House
Dec 24, 2006, 06:13
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Rites from A Day at the Earth House
In the church of St James, at his post
on the font a priest with no face holds two smooth-
coiled snakes at bay. The two stone avenues
coil up over the hill to the henge. Out of sight
the organ tunes up for a wedding and, white
ribbons shivering, a sit-up-and-beg
white Morris takes a road marked red
on the map, that cuts the henge. A sideways
glance: the bride in the back looks, let's say
carsick, as they slow to thread between
great stones. The dancers on the green
wag their hankies like aunts on the end
of the platform of centuries: Morris men
in white laundered blouses slashed -
cross their hearts - with these sashes
of blood red, like barber's poles.
Philip Gross
"That intense but ambivalent attraction we can have... to prehistoric monuments, and to the other relics of vanished societies, may be what draws many to archaeology; but archaeology - the telling of stories about the past - can only do so much to illuminate our complex emotions or pin them down. The rest is, or could be, the province of poetry.
Philip Gross is one of the few poets to tackle these dark areas, and his latest collection, A Cast of Stones, is a set of meditations on Stonehenge and Avebury. In these acute, disturbing and often exhilarating poems he nails truths - the sheer indecipherability of the stones, for example, and the limitations of guidebook knowledge - that no archaeologist would dare to state. He also captures what may be the very essence of the appeal of the past - our simultaneous connection to it, and complete separation from it - that necessarily sounds leaden or lame when expressed in prose."*
* http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba18/ba18int.html
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nigelswift
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Re: Philip Gross: Rites from A Day at the Earth House
Dec 24, 2006, 08:27
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"He also captures what may be the very essence of the appeal of the past - our simultaneous connection to it, and complete separation from it - that necessarily sounds leaden or lame when expressed in prose."
Yay!
I reckon that puts its finger on exactly why there's a fascination about ancient sites. They're so near and yet so far.
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moss
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Re: Philip Gross: Rites from A Day at the Earth House
Dec 24, 2006, 09:35
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"our simultaneous connection to it, and complete separation from it "
Tis true, there's me reading all those books about phenomenology, yet, a few choice poetic words express the moment beautifully..
still, on reflection, you have to read all those books to arrive at an answer of agreement or disagreement..... ;)
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Littlestone
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From time without end
Jan 16, 2007, 22:47
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From time without
end
you rest
there in the midst of the paths
in the midst of the winds
you rest
covered with the droppings of birds
grass growing from you feet
your head decked with the down of bird
you rest
in the midst of the winds
you wait
Aged one.
Thanks to moss for this one - she adds that the poem is from the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, and that it's addressed to a stone. The poem is found in David Abram's book, The Spell of the Sensuous. More at http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/spell_eden.htm
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