Dumfries and Galloway, 28th October 2022…
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The name of this circle is an example
of what we might want to term
cultural misappropriation.
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There are now only eleven stones
remaining and many if not all of them
show signs of if not attack, then certainly neglect.
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From the gate into the field
the toppled stones
resemble sitting cows.
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And this impression is augmented
by the numerous, if even more distant, sheep.
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Traces of the, until quite recently, dividing hedge
running through the circle are also still visible…
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And we regard our culture civilised!
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The cilvilisation which originally constructed this site
clearly had much wider vistas than our own.
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And what remains of their stone circle
still nestles in its amphitheater of hills.
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The surrounding landscape is filled
with other megalithic features:
cursus, ring ditches, enclosures and mounds.
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The phrase, ‘now fallen and decapitated giants,’
springs rather too readily to mind,
and singularly fails to move my soul.
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Twelve of anything
usually refers to the constellations.
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Weirdly, that still holds good for the Apostles too,
if they ever really existed as flesh and blood individuals.
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Here we have instead
soil and stone.
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What forms can still be discerned
in the stones appear for the most part
violently truncated.
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And rather too angular to be natural.
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Some, though, retain vestiges
of their natural grace.
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This stone is reminiscent
of one of the cove stones at Avebury
bu smaller.
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Which thought proves
too much for the sheep.
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According to Aubrey Burl, for whom such things
seemed to be important,
this stone circle is the seventh largest in the British Isles!
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The notion of measuring the sites in this way
remains faintly ludicrous.
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It is doubtless as big,
or as small, as it needed to be.
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Given the pattern of ‘cups’ it is unlikely
that these stones were ever upright.
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The folklore here,
as at many of the other large sites,
tells of a thunderstorm interrupting
the destruction, and this may well be true.
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Tortoise or bird?
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Do the forms actually
reside in the stone,
or only in our mind?
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Given that we drove up here in a rainstorm
we are now being blessed by the weather.
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And this pattern, once set,
was to continue…
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Soon enough we would
set out in search of seals
but the stones could not have known that.
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Could they?
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It is sometimes difficult
to sort authentic from inauthentic.
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This stone resembles one
from Stanton Drew
but smaller.
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This one, to date,
is unique.
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Next time you want
to scare off the sheep…
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France & Vincent 