Loughcrew: Metempsychosis…

County Meath, Friday, 29th July 2022…

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‘Cairn of the Cailleach’ and its satellites

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The apron or skirt-full of stones motif

is associated with these sorts of sites in Ireland,

England, Wales and Cornwall.

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It is usually an old hag or a giant’s wife

and often these things are synonymous.

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At any rate the ‘stone-dropper’ needs to be huge,

if not gigantic, and also needs to be capable

of, as Swift puts it, prodigious leaps!

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Mister Swift certainly seems to have known

more than a thing or two

 with his Lilliputians and all.

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Didn’t they make

our gullible Gulliver a giant?

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If the renowned men of power

from our story of the two bulls

were capable of a sort of living metempsychosis

which in the tale they most assuredly seem to be.

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Then they may also have been capable

of moving large stones

here, there, and everywhere?

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Could such contortions of space and time, and also of form

be regarded as ‘prodigious leaps’ we wonder?

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The Loughcrew complex originally comprised

over seventy astronomical chronometers

many of which have been destroyed

by our worthy industrialists of the nineteenth century.

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Wiped completely from the face of the earth

leaving no trace whatsoever.

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But the watchers

still watch…

and wait.

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Inside the ‘Cairn of the Cailleach’ at a certain juncture of time.

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It was in this way that Big-Boss Stud managed to sleep with Aini;

and he lived with her in her house on the bank of the river Avon

for nine fulls of the moon, while the child of their union grew in her womb.

 

When Aini was about to give birth,

Big-Boss Stud called for his harp

so that he might smooth the pangs

of the child’s passage with his music…

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HEART OF ALBION

Stuart France & Sue Vincent

Unwittingly drawn into the mysterious and magical landscape of The Initiate, Don and Wen pondered the visual language of symbols, stumbling across revelations and realisations that would alter their perception of the age-old stories they thought they knew… tales that entwine across the tapestry of time.

A hilltop steeped in tragedy, a child whose eyes see too much… a Word-Weaver’s birth into darkness… strange forms shimmering on the edge of vision. They learned to walk the Living Land, listening to the whispers of Earth memory and the ghosts of the most ancient past. And from those tales, another line of communication opens as they explore the folklore, legends and traditional tales handed down, from heart to heart, over the millennia.

As the two friends travel between the sacred sites of Albion, they discover stories that tell how the leys were made, the true origins of the hill-forts and the reason why Father Fish had breakfast in Slug Town.

Striding across this landscape of myth are the giants. From Cerne Abbas to the top of the Beanstalk, from Camelot to the Castle of Maidens, how and why is their presence stamped on the Living Lore of the land by their seven-league boots?

Join Don and Wen as the adventure continues, un-ravelling its mysteries and the magical relationship between Albion and its people.

Available in Paperback and for Kindle

via Amazon UK, Amazon.com and worldwide.