GORDON STRONG

Writer - Speaker - Magician

UK MYSTICAL SITES

Rollright Stones

Every stone here has a character, but one or another may speak more clearly to the individual. The tallest and most male stone stands in the North, the most female in the East.  Two dragons are tail to tail in the South.  In the west there is a portal into the next world.  Be very careful if you choose to pass through it.

Perhaps this was a place for moon worship, where priests prostrated themselves before the Goddess at the Full Moon.  Male and female energies are balanced equally at this site, implying the presence of priest and priestess.  A feeling of age and eternity is present in the circle

The nearby Kings Stone is an imposing fish-head pillar, a powerful sentinel.  Charged with life by the shaman, it would have an imposing power. The whispering knights are a benign group of three standing stones and two recumbent. Many offerings are scattered there, munificence and understanding beam from the weathered faces of the stones.

BREAN DOWN

Sea Priestess of Somerset

 

 

 

The Mendip Hills extend from Cley Hill in Wiltshire to Brean Down on the Somerset coast.  Along the summit of these peaks once ran the Roman trade route that took lead from Charterhouse to Uphill, a port in those ancient of days.  From there, this valuable metal was shipped to Rome to be used to line the aqueducts of the imperial city.

 

Brean Down, a promontory into the Bristol Channel surrounded on three sides by water, has a majestic presence.  Dion Fortune in her novel The Sea Priestess described it as ‘…shaped like a couchant lion with his tail into the sea.’ [1] From its highest peak Brent Knoll dominates the view, yet Glastonbury Tor can be clearly seen in the distance. In 340 A.D. the Romans built a temple upon Brean Down, probably upon a site revered in Bronze Age times. It is thought that even earlier settlements existed in the Ice Age.

 

Halfway across the waters to the Welsh coast can be seen the Viking Island of Steep Holm.  It is the people of Wales who gave Brean Down its name, for Bryn means ‘hill’. The Celtic connection is strong, for once Irish pilgrims beached their coracles on Brean shore.  They founded the church of St. Bridget a little way inland, beyond the sand dunes.  Both my grandfather and my great-grandfather were its incumbents. Did Mrs. Penry-Evans[2] take tea with the vicar?   

 

Dion Fortune must have known Brean Down in the 1930s when the Victorian Fort had been converted into tearooms for day trippers. The magical drama in her novel is played out beyond the battlements at the very tip of the rocks. In a cave, its entrance appropriately facing West, is the secret abode of the Priestess.

 

It is certainly a potent place, one akin to the Celtic consciousness, a race who considered any place where the elements met to be a gateway to the next world.  At Brean Down the winds of the Air swirl about the rocks of the Earth, and the Water of the tides embraces them also. The Fire of the Sun plays upon the scene, animating all with the energy of Sol. But it is the water that dominates, as Dion Fortune describes,

 

…the currents and tides took charge, everything broke up into a welter of foaming roaring water, with squirts and boilings where the sunk reefs checked the rush.[3] 

 

The Goddess energy is an unceasing, infinite power overseeing creation and dwarfing all that is mortal. Healing, calming, nurturing, but always has the Goddess a hint of sadness about her - that is Awen.  Her music is in the sea,

 

…there was a rhythm, and my ears began to pick out the tremendous orchestration of the storm; I could hear the deep-toned roar of the surf under the cliffs, and the clangour of the waves on the outlying rocks of the point, and the tenor of the roaring gale and high piccolo notes of the wind…[4]

 

At the centre of creation is the unspoken promise that one wave will follow another in an endless cycle.  It has always been so, and will always be so.  At Brean Down, the sense of being is so strong that it gradually changes to a state of non-being - a feeling that nothing exists, nothing has ever existed, and nothing will ever exist.  Only understand this and you will know where resides the essence of magick.

 

Retain such a moment.  Let your soul return to it when your being needs reassurance.  The might of Creation is a realization that every individual is entitled to be themselves and the gentle gift of life allows this to be.  At Brean Down the throbbing rhythm of the Goddess energy can be seen in the sensual abandon of the sea. 

 

The goddess is there always, in the moonlight when her hair is aglow with silver stars…at Dawn, with the sun reflecting gold in her eyes, her features translucent, made of cloud and sky... Dion Fortune knew the beauty and majesty of the Goddess, and in The Sea Priestess she recorded her magical vision of Somerset and Brean Down. 

 

~o00o~


[1] Dion Fortune, The Sea Priestess (Maine; Samuel Weiser, 1978) p. 73

[2] The married name of Dion Fortune.

[3] Fortune, p.165

[4] Fortune, p.165

 

Cley Hill

 

 

On arrival, a slight whiff of pot smoke emanates from the Glastonbury Festival camper van in the car park.  Bent on higher things, we obey the silent summons of Cley Hill.  A dragonfly leads the way up the path to the stile. A fey guide one might think, and indeed the same theme was to recur later.

 

Seen from some distance away the mound seems immense and looms above the surrounding land, seen close to it is more inviting.  Our climb to the summit is aided by a friendly dog who encourages our progress at every stage of our ascent.

 

To the East lies Little Cley, not a little resembling Dragon Hill in the Vale of Uffington. It seems very poised and complete. It is illuminated by the sun, reflecting the solar energy that is very marked on this day.  We wonder how different the character of the hill would be at a Full Moon in Winter.  The sounds of insects and birds are loud here and when gently meditating, images of mantras and geometric patterns come unbidden into the mind.

 

The landscape seems to roll placidly to the distant horizons; a sense of completeness pervades the scene. We climb down to Little Cley. There, we tone sounds until we discover the note that resonates most strongly with the hills.

 

Walking back we look up at the ridges on the East side of Cley Hill. The ground itself seems very protective and when we reach the spinney of thorn discover why.  The faery presence is unmistakable.  Sprites gambol in the shade and spin the enchantment that gives the place its mystery.

 

On our return journey we briefly visit St.Mary’s church at Temple. It is an oddly uninviting place, enlivened only by the gargoyles that leer from the top of the tower at the Christians below.

 

 

~o00o~

 

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Belas Knap

 

 

It is a long walk from the road to the site of this long barrow.  The way passes through evocative woods, ascends a field or two, winds along an endless track, and finally there is revealed - Belas Knap.  Situated on high ground overlooking a valley – this is a classic location for such Neolithic monuments. 

 

The barrow has probably the same dimensions as Stoney Littleton, but there the similarity ends.  Puzzling, and rather frustrating for the visitor, is that no central chamber exists. The front entrance is palpably false, no way in there, and the three other cavities (one in the west, two in the east) are modest in dimensions.

 

Most odd, is that the site is orientated north to south, one of the only barrows in the U.K. to possess this feature.  One can only speculate as to the reason for this.  The site lies neatly alongside the woodland, but it is not clear whether that arboreal feature existed many thousands of years ago. 

 

Belas Knap has a strong feminine energy, and this is confirmed by the knowledge that discovered here, at one time, were the bones of several women and children.  It is an imposing site and seems to demand a certain respect, perhaps because of its very uniqueness.

 

 

 

~o00o~