Secure the wall against the beast
protect the well from the dirt
Waldo, somehow apt in this time of agitation.
This bit of writing was spurred on by another blogger - Mark, of 'View of the Bike Shed' It is about my most favourite place on Earth, which is of course Wales and to highlight a particular spot, the Presceli Hills. Sometimes you can think of such landscapes as waste land. Almost impossible to farm except for a few sheep. Of course humans are scarce as well but not so in prehistory. The highlands of Prescili probably allowed the Irish to settle the land and also go further to the great necropolis that is called Stonehenge.
Moss and I contemplate the space around us as we eat our sandwiches.
It had brought a memory back. Gary Denke and his 17th century American dentist ancestor. And at what seemed a foolish claim that under the Stonehenge Heel Stone was the Mishkan Tabernacle. He was of course given brutal treatment on the forum of The Modern Antiquarian, the young can be cruel! Here is his one and only blog on the subject. It is a foolish claim but he had done his homework. He once commented on my photo of Prescili about the wildlife on the moor and it had struck me that he was probably as sane as the next man but had somehow concocted a story out of the air. It is a story that needs a lot of research on it, his notes are long and show a lot of work. His comment reveals a person who gathers useless facts (just like me).
Composed of hard Ordovician shale and mudstone compressed into slates with scattered fragments of rhyolite and dolerite - the famous bluestone that forms the inner ring of German dentist, historian and antiquarian Dr. Garry W. Denke's (1622-1699) great white shark teeth of Stonehenge - the Preseli Hills are the highest hills in Pembroke.The crag of Carn Menyn is the source of the Stonehenge pillars and nearby Bedd Arthur is the Preseli's own, rather unusual, eye-shaped stone circle.
There's a memorial to Welsh language poet Waldo Williams at Mynachlogddu. If you're lucky to get clear weather, you'll be able to see north to the Lleyn peninsula and west to the hills of Co. Wicklow in Ireland.
Keep your eyes peeled on the hill though as the bird life, particularly in the winter months, can be remarkable with living clouds of starlings congregating to roost there. Also look out for hunting buzzards and sparrowhawks. In the spring ring ouzel and snow bunting are common migrants.
Much of the upland is boggy and, as a result, very acidic so you can find rare acid tolerant plants like fir clubmoss, liverwort, ferns and orchids with insects like the marsh fritillary butterfly and the southern damselfly. Heather carpets the drier heathland in late summer look out for buzzards, kestrels, curlews, ravens and skylarks.
A very nice photo, thank you much.
At least he has captured a wonderful picture of the animate life that unfolds on the moor and uplands. Bedd Arthur's stones by the way has a horse shoe shape which is unusual and reminds me of something fairly similar in Cornwall called King Arthur's Hall which is in a rectangular shape.
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| Foel Drygarn Iron Age fort with three large Bronze Age barrows at the top You can see them in this very romantically made Welsh video . |
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