Saturday, April 30, 2016

30th April

St.Dogmael's Church, Mynachlogddu
 © Copyright 
ceridwen and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
The only reason you see this photo is that this little, I think redundant church in the Prescelis is in a rounded enclosure, which in my terms denotes a Celtic start in life, especially as it can be found in the rich landscape of the prehistoric past.  Dedicated to St.Dogmael (d.500 or early 6th Century).
See; The Book of Welsh Saints.


As it is tulip time this beautiful example would have cost you the price of a house in the 17th century, there were only 12 bulbs at the time.  And if you want to see tulips in all their splendour, 27 thousand bulbs planted this year at Pashley Manor in Sussex.  They actually dig up all the bulbs after one planting and distribute them to charities and then start afresh the next year!

As the family is coming this weekend, my time on the computer will be restricted, which is no bad thing.  Shocked by the trivia of antisemitism on the media at the moment, when other parts of the world are in such dire straits.  Cross at The Guardian for doing a feature on "The Wild" how can it continue to be wild if it is publicised for people to go and tramp it into the ground - or am I being mean?  And so to a poem, for a bird that is fast disappearing, though I have learnt that there are at least two barn owls and the tawny owl in the village.

Cuckoos by Andrew Young

When Coltsfoot withers and begins to wear
Long silver locks instead of golden hair,
And fat red catkins from black poplars fall
And on the ground like caterpillars crawl,
And bracken lifts up slender arms and wrists
And stretches them, unfolding sleepy fists,
The cuckoo in a few well-chosen words
Tell they give Easter eggs to the small birds

10 comments:

  1. Thelma am very interested in your top photo of the inlet because it looks to me that on the right hand side there is perhaps part of an ancient Dolmen. What I am referring to is a large flat stone supported by an upright. Do you have the rest of the photograph ?

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    1. Hi Heron, Yes it is, called Coetan Arthur, hidden amongst the rocks on St.Davids Head. I have to reduce the photos in the header and can never quite capture the whole photo. Think because there were Irish raiders/immigrants to the Pembrokeshire coast that these cromlechs are very similar to Irish ones. Anyway I have put the photo above.

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    2. Ha'h I was right it is a dolmen - thank you Thelma!
      In the days that the dolmens were constructed there was much to-ing and fro-ing of the Celtic people between the two islands. In fact historians can actually pin point the many ancient settlements of the Cymru throughout Ireland. The surname Walsh a derivative of 'welsh' is one of the names that springs to mind, there are many others too. So perhaps best not to refer to them as raiders or immigrants perhaps migrants would suffice ?

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    3. Nice call, Heron. It would be interesting to make a world tour of dolmens, sitting quietly in them or next to and feeling the energy around them.

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    4. Morning Toni, perhaps you should start with the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, the cromlechs litter the high places, one of the most beautiful is Garn Wynda.. I will put next to Coetan Arthur....

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  2. Well perhaps migrants Heron, I have always thought that because these cromlech are facing out to sea, is that their occupants are homesick for Ireland... You will find these cromlechs along this stretch of the coast, slightly hidden amongst the rocks.

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  3. Ha' ha'ha' Thelma I very much doubt that the Neolithic constructors of these graves were homesick for anywhere at all actually.
    The reason why you find so many near the coasts is because they were probably seen like the hill tops as being spiritually important places. There predecessors the Paleolithic people were the lake shore and coastal dwellers, were the earliest migrants to the island that we now call Ireland and believed to be only summer visitors too.
    The national names that we know today did not exist six thousand years ago, so we cannot classify those people as belonging to any particular country.

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    1. Well I like to keep the idea of 'homesickness'. Also, of course, the high land is where everyone lived in the Bronze Age, and perhaps when buried they just wanted to be nearer the stars.

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  4. I'd love to seat on those stones so interesting....Thank you Thelma.

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    1. It is a lovely part of the country Ana, especially the small city of St.David.

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Love having comments!