Bits and bobs

 

In the darkness

This is a print by Jane Tomlinson and though it has a childish element, it reflects some of my life.  It represents the birds, animals and megalithic stones that slowly revolve round in my head.  I can see Silbury Hill, Wayland's Smithy long barrow, the Uffington Horse.  Though I have never quite worked out the white oxen (which you can't see for reflection).  Jane also does maps, and has even won an award for her Shipping Forecast one, which you can find here.

The basket, it has turned slightly asymmetrical but normally it has a straight top

-------------------------------

The other thing I have been looking through are the churches we visited, and now I have worked how to get photos up on my blog.  The ones below was an ideal talking point, in my head at least;)

So what caught my  attention this morning.  It was pudding stone in Essex.  Essex as a county, as is most of the Eastern side of England, a megalithic stone desert.  Yet they do crop up here and there, like Alphamstone church (but is it a stone circle???) which is presumed to have a small glacial outcrop of stones down y the River Stour.  And here at Little Baddow church.

Now if you are building a great cathedral or abbey, the stone would be quarried from one place, there would be an uniformity of design, yet in these small country churches you used whatever was to hand.  Old tumbled down Roman villas, Saxon churches and any local stone you could find.  This of course was flint, and its neatness was banded into the wall. But there are also courses of pudding stone.  From a distance it looks like mussels clinging tightly to the rock.

In the link below, the archaeologist refers to possible sites of ritual significance in prehistoric time, and it is definitely one of the things to look out for when walking round churches.

I think the Pewsey church in the Pewsey valley in Wiltshire the most sacred of spots with its old Yew tree and the wooden covers that hide below the great stones that once may have been a stone circle.  One religion crushing another.

 

Christianity makes it slow progress to convert  the heathens

Pope Gregory's answer to a letter from Augustine in the 7th century as they tackle the native paganism in England, converting the Anglo-Saxons.

"Because they (the English) are in the habit of slaughtering much cattle as sacrifices to devils, some solemnity ought to be given in exchange for this. So on the day of the dedication or the festivals of the holy martyrs, whose relics are deposited there, let them make themselves huts from the branches of trees around the churches which have been converted out of shrines, and let them celebrate the solemnity with religious feast.
Do not let them sacrifice animals to the devil, but let them slaughter animals for their own food to the praise of god, and let them give thanks to the giver of things for his bountiful provision."

Alphamstone: Were these ice age rocks an ancient sacred place? - BBC News