Quick Interlude

By walking Men's reversed Feet

I chanc'd another world to meet;

That it did not to view exceed

A Phantom, 'tis a World indeed,

Where Skies beneath us shine

And Earth by Art divine

Another face presents below

Where People's feet against Ours go.

Shadows In the Water by  Thomas Traherne 

If you were to type 'Celtic Underworld' into my search gizmo you would find a whole lot of stuff pop up.  When we lived in Chelmsford one winter it snowed, freezing cold and as we wandered by the river I took photos of the trees reflected in the glassy water.  You could have turned the photos over the mirror image was so beautifully clear.  It set me thinking of the other world that lay behind what is somewhat derided nowadays as the Celtic world.  

Well reading Bradley - 'An Archaeology of Natural Places' yesterday, he was talking about Scandinavian rock-art, I came across the fact of 'hel-shoes', they are the trail of footprints that lead from the upland cairns of the dead down the rock slope, through the land of the living, into the place of death - the sea.  These worlds represented a view of the Neolithic world which may have gone through the centuries.

A Valhalla, which we all create, when faced with the thought of death.  Paradise somewhere else ;)  The truth of course is that Bradley is giving an explanation of the footsteps to be found on the rocks, they could have had another meaning anyway.

The poem by the mystic Thomas Traherne captures the mood..