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Circles under churches
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m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 10:35
yes - they built a '5 Miler' chapel into the Inner South Circle and at the same time Avebury's most impressive monolith, the Obelisk, mysteriously vanished without trace...

perhaps this thread should be renamed 'circles under attack'?

:(
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 10:43
that floor always looks quite new to me - when i first visited Alton Priors about four years ago, both megaliths were accessible; but now 'somebody' at the church has seen fit to build a dais over the second trapdoor, effectively sealing it shut. i am extremely suspicious that this second stone has in fact been quietly concreted over?
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches [Alton Priors]
Nov 27, 2005, 10:51
the megalith still accessible is a veritable 'holed stone', you don't need me to relate the lore of holed stones here? - there was at least one - a famous holed stone - at Avebury a couple of miles away, called the 'Ring Stone', until it was destroyed in the 18th century . . .
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 11:01
why the blazes go to all the trouble of building and consecrating an Xtian 'House of God' only to plant a tree outside it to 'keep away the devil' - the logic elludes me?

had the early Xtian Fathers so little faith in their own Faith?

:-|
m6
32 posts

Re: see yews!
Nov 27, 2005, 11:05
he had a yew stave
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 11:16
springs were generally regarded as sacred - the nature of the mysterious 'bubbling' spring at Alton Priors might add to this impression. add the yew. add the megaliths/holed stone. add the prehistoric Ridgeway connecting Priors with Avebury, Uffington (and Stonehenge?) ... there was another church in Wiltshire which seems to have attempted to dominate a natural, boggy spring site, this was at Swallowcliffe in Wiltshire. the church sank.
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 11:25
maybe for medieval longbows - but earlier flatbows have a far more forgiving design
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 11:35
yews are darkly mysterious and funereal - which probably associated them, immemorially in peoples' minds, with the afterlife?
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 15:11
i agree with the following - is this importation theme folklore, or were all the stave-bearing yews used up in Britain, at an earlier stage?

"yew - in Britain, Ireland, Europe, N.Africa and Asia Minor its the same one - Latin tag or not... I merely state that the yew that was growing in those countries which could export to Britain is EXACTLY the same species of tree that was growing in Britain. So if "English" yew was brittle and unsuitable for bows, so was the imported yew because its exactly the same. Only variation would be that caused by climate and soil condition affecting growth".

"Cheshire place name survey "Thorn and ash are the commonest trees in English placenames (also Welsh and Cornish)...but yew is apparently ABSENT.."

see below on placenames

"On churchyard yews...are supposed to have been sacred trees before the churches were built. As far as I know, however, there is nothing to connect yews with any of the pagan religions of Britain",

see below re MacKillop and druid wands

"- though there may be a connection with early Christianity. The theory that churches were built on pagan sacred sites has received disappointingly little support from excavation. If yews were a feature of early churches, why are there no place-names such as Yewchurch?"

see below re placenames and, i cannot believe this? - look at Alton Priors, look at Knowlton, look at Avebury - even St Paul's is supposed to occupy the site of a pagan temple in the heart of London - all these are former pagan sites sat upon by the Church . . . excavation? forget excavation! - just use good old fashioned eyes!

"(Yews were not grown for longbows, which were normally of elm or imported yew.)"

check out the neolithic Meare Heath yew bow from Somerset - a very fine bow (now in Cambridge, i understand?), and don't forget Oetzi?

"red berries and resurrection elements are most likely Christian..."

so why the yew over the holly; or pine, ivy, fir, as far as the evergreen symbolism goes - why the terrific emphasis on yew, there has to be a reason?

"Irminsul, Yggdrasil and all that? Oak, ash and thorn are the real pagan trees of British myth and legend aren't they? Anyone know of any really genuine old folktales about yews and yew magic ? (apart from the Greek and Roman ones)"

James MacKilop has this (and more) to say -

'Druids preferred yew wood for making wands, more than other favourite woods, apple and oak ... several Irish and Scottish placenames allude to the yew tree, notably Youghall [Eochaill, yew wood] in County Cork ... Lugaid mac Con and Eogan hear the magical music of the yew tree over a water fall; the musician is revealed to be Fer I [man of yew]'

Celtic Mythology, 1998
m6
32 posts

Re: Circles under churches
Nov 27, 2005, 15:19
it is a flat bow - an awesome piece of technology
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