The "Weird Sites" series started with a re-write of Andrew Behan's original article. I tried a couple of them on my own after that.
The "Weird Sites" series started with a re-write of Andrew Behan's original article. I tried a couple of them on my own after that.
WEIRD SITES : STONEHENGE
By G. W. Thomas
HISTORY
Stonehenge is the most famous site in England. The oldest prehistoric structure in Europe, the “hanging stones” as Wace named them, were built before the Celts, the Romans, or the Saxons came. Added to the splendor of Stonehenge is a past shrouded in mystery, mythology, and sheer imagination.
Though many have tried to explain who built Stonehenge, it is only recently we have found the answer. The builders were a Neolithic (New Stone Age) race of farmers and miners. Using the most primitive tools such as flint chisels and antler shovels, they assembled some of the most enduring monuments in Europe. The purpose of Stonehenge and other megaliths have yet to be fully discovered, though some scientists, including NASA, have theorized that Stonehenge acts as a massive calendar, an observatory for sun and moon, or a religious temple.
THE SITE
Stonehenge is composed of several different concentric circles, referred to as Stonehenge I, II and III. The first work on the site took place around 2200 BC, by New Stone Age men. The construction was composed of a large circular space 100 yards (91m) across, surrounded by a dirt bank and deep ditch. Crossing this barrier was a wooden bridge. Two megaliths marked the entrance to the circle. Of the original stones, large solitary megaliths, only the “heel stone” remains. The heel stone stands outside the area commonly thought of as Stonehenge. The heel stone marks the sun at the Summer solstice, and is also known as the “sun stone”.
The second stage, Stonehenge II, was completed circa 1600 BC by the Beaker People, a prehistoric tribe known to archeologists by their pottery shards. These builders took down the original entrance stones and wooden archway, and dug a narrow ditch around the heel stone. These renovations were followed by the addition of “bluestones” (called ‘blue’ because of their grayer color), Welsh slabs quarried over a hundred miles away. These rough flats were set in two circles inside the original perimeter. Not all the bluestones were laid, leaving Stonehenge II unfinished.
The last stage dates to the beginning of the Bronze Age, around 1400 BC, when the metal-working tribes raised the spectacular Sarsen stones, the yellowy sandstones that typify most people’s idea of Stonehenge. This massive undertaking required the builders to work from the middle and move outward as they erected the stones. At the center of these largest stones, called the ‘inner horseshoe’ or ‘inner court’ lies the altar stone, which is made of the same rock as the bluestones, and is the only stone of that kind inside the temple of the inner court. The altar stone was misnamed by researcher Inigo Jones, who was charged by James I to map the site. The altar stone had no religious connection. Its name, like that of the “slaughter stone”, is a later romanticism.
Work on Stonehenge III ended around 1300 BC, seven hundred years before the arrival of the Celts. During the nine hundred years the site was under construction, the design was changed several times, and was never fully finished. Today the inner horseshoe is forbidden to tourists, having been fenced off, and is observable only from a distance. These precautions are to prevent damage due to vandalism and foot traffic.
Outside the main grouping of circles lie some other interesting features like the strange pits called “Aubrey holes” (named after John Aubrey, a 17th Century antiquarian who originated research on the site) which encircle the fantastic stones. These shallow holes have been used by later people for burials, though the original purpose of these indentations is still not clear. Dispersed intermittently between the Aubrey holes are the station stones and the ominous sounding slaughter stone.
The slaughter stone was named in ignorance. Never used as a sacrificial altar, the idea became common when antiquarians noticed that the stone has shallow flutings, supposedly to carry away the blood of slain victims. In actual fact, many of the stones have the indentations. At one time the slaughter stone was a standing stone, but was knocked down and now lies partially buried in the soil outside the circles.
CREEPY CONNECTIONS
Merlin
Popular explanations for Stonehenge do not begin until the Middle Ages. The Romans invaders ignored the “gigantick pile”, though some scholars hearing of it second-hand theorized it might be a temple to Apollo (as Fraser suggests in The White Goddess). Of the later monks, Gildas, Aneurin and Nennius all speak of Stonehenge and its origins, but it wasn’t until Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Histories of the Kings of England (circa 1135 AD) that a great myth was created for Stonehenge.
Monmouth borrowed from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the story of Vortigern’s four hundred and sixty warriors that were killed by treachery and buried on the Salisbury Plain. To mark this site, Merlin advised Ambrosius Aurelianus (King Arthur’s uncle) to import the colossal ruin known as the “Dance of the Giants” from Ireland. These sacred stones, according to the wizard, were carried all the way from Africa by a race of giants The Britons defeat the Irish but were unable to remove the stones. Merlin, using his magic, takes them across the sea and raises Stonehenge, all in a single night. For four centuries (though the details changed), Merlin was believed to be the builder of Stonehenge.
Druids
With the coming of the Age of Reason, theories about Stonehenge proliferated. Edmund Bolton thought it a monument to Boadicea, the warrior-queen who fought the Romans. Dr. Walter Charleton believed it to be of Danish origin, while Henry Browne looked to the time of the Biblical flood, contributing the dilapidation of the southwest side to the residing of the waters as according to the Book of Genesis.
But none of these theories had the power of that started by men like Dr. John Smith and John Aubrey, who felt the site might have been a Druidic temple. The Druids were the wise men of the Celtic people living in Western Europe (2000 BC-100 AD). We know very little about the Druids for two reasons: 1) they had an oral tradition and made no permanent records, and 2) they were systematically wiped out by Julius Caesar. This void of information has been filled with much wishful thinking.
Some of this started with Aubrey but was fueled by writers like William Stukeley, and ended with the formation of groups like The Most Ancient Order of Druids which began in 1781. The group, formed in London, developed a mystical and philosophical basis, rather than a religious one. T. A. Wise re-established the Druidic connection in the 19th Century, calling it “the high places of the Druids”. Wise claimed that the Druids lost Stonehenge to a group of Buddhist missionaries. Such pseudo-druidic groups exist even today and are allowed to hold “inauthentic” ceremonies and rituals at Stonehenge.
The Devil
The Heel Stone at Stonehenge, in one folk-tale, is said to be named such because of an indentation in the stone. A Friar once had a wrestling contest with the Evil One at the site. The holy man fought long and hard until sunrise. With the coming of daylight the Devil fled the field. When the Friar tried to pursue the Devil, Satan struck the priest on the heel with the rock, and escaped. The mark on the side of the stone is the Friar's heel print.
Atlantis
Of the more fascinating ideas is one created by W. S. Blacket, who, in 1883, first theorized that the stones were laid by the descendants of Atlantis. This theory is based on Plato who writes of Atlantis in the Timeaus and the Critias. Plato claims Solon says the Egyptians reported that nine thousand years ago a great island sat in the Atlantic. Blacket felt that the survivors of that land, which sank in a day and a night, had emigrated from North America and resembled the “Appalachian Indians”.
Ley Lines
During the 1920’s Alfred Watkins, an amateur antiquarian, developed his ideas concerning “leys” and “ley lines”. Watkins observed that many of the thousands of standing stones, relics, and ruins that dot the English countryside could be aligned into “old straight tracks”. These lines were then mapped, denoting an area of great power called a “ley” or “ley site”. The energy in these places has been connected with water dowsing, geomagnetic energy, and, of course, Stonehenge. The force from a “ley site” was considered to be positive, while the energy from individual stones was negative.
In European folklore, many different things were thought to counter evil influences (ranging from fairy magic to the spirits of the Devil), items like ash and elm wood, iron, quartz, salt, amethyst, and jasper. The giant bluestones of Stonehenge contain flakes of quartz crystal. These stones were dismantled but re-erected twice during the on-going construction of the site, as if the builders recognized their mystical properties. The quartz in the bluestones may have acted as a defense against the negative energy of the stones themselves. Many of the individual stones at Stonehenge are thought by some to have certain properties. If one pours water over the Heel Stone it is thought to have curative powers.
MYTHOS CONNECTIONS
Many of the stories surrounding Stonehenge are suggestive to the Mythos investigator. Stukeley believed that Stonehenge and Avebury, another site, had been the temples of serpent-worshippers known as Dracontia. They may have been centers for Serpent People and their degenerate offspring said to inhabit the English Hills (spawning the tales of "the Little People") or the Lloigor, who also inhabit remoter places in Wales. The Slaughter Stone and the Altar stone could have served for gruesome rites. The Aubrey holes, containing the remains of sacrifical victims, surround the perimeter.
Morris Dancing is a common activity around Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice and old holidays. The dance performed (by men only) with wands may have been introduced to England by John of Gaunt. Gaunt, the father of King Henry IV, had lived in Spain for a good part of his life. The Morrocan cult known as the Dhulqarneni or "Two Horned Ones" again suggests the involvement of Night-gaunts or Nyarlothotep, in one of his many guises.
In Cotswold, (the area made famous in Ramsey Campbell's "The Church in the High Street" and other stories) the Morris Dance is performed with handkerchiefs, sticks, bells and hand-clapping. The Morris-men are surrounded by masked dancers who portray bulls, stags, hobby horses, and dragons. These strange beasts may be representations of the creatures found in Goatswood, while dancing may be descended from actual rituals.
BOOKS
A complete list of books about Stonehenge would be voluminous. I have included here those that are most mystical and fantastical and might possibly contain clues or Cthulhu Mythos Knowledge at the Keeper’s discretion.
Histories of the Kings of England (c.1135) by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Chronicle of England (15th Cen.) by Anonymous
The Most Remarkable Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stone-Heng, Restored (1655) by John Webb
A Fool’s Bolt Shot at Stonehenge (1670’s) by John Gibbons
Stonehenge, a temple restored to the British Druids (1740) by William Stukeley
Choir Gaur, The Grand Orrery of the Ancient Druids (1771) by Dr. John Smith
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abels, Harriette. Stonehenge. Mankato: Crestwood House, 1987.
Brown, Peter Lancaster. Megaliths, Myths and Men. Dorset: Blandford Press, 1976.
Capt, E. Raymond. Stonehenge and Druidism. Thousand Oaks, : Artisan Sales, 1979.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. New York: Facts On File, 1989.
Hawkins, Gerald S. Stonehenge Decoded. New York: Doubleday, 1965.
LINKS
Copyright G. W. Thomas 1993
