Llety’r Filiast – The Lair of the Greyhound Bitch

Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥

For the first time, I located and visited Llety’r Filiast: ‘the Lair of the Greyhound Bitch’, a badly damaged Neolithic chambered tomb on the Great Orme peninsula.

Despite damage, the chamber, and the surviving cairn c. 12m wide and 30m long, make this monument well worth visiting. It is described by Chris Houlder (1974) as

a polygonal chamber [which] has four supporters remaining, but par to the capstone has been broken away. The mound has been greatly robbed, leaving what is basically a rock outcrop, which gives little idea of the original shape of this neolithic chambered cairn (Houlder 1974: 60).

Frances Lynch (1995) gives a fuller descripton:

This is one of the few north Welsh tombs to have a folk name. Llety’r Filiast means ‘The Lair of the Greyhound Bitch’, a name which, with variation, has been applied to several other tombs elsewhere in Wales. Unfortunately no story survives…

View original post 330 more words

Selling dead bodies and mortuary artefacts in the UK today: Welbeck Hill

Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥

The name of Welbeck Hill (Lincolnshire) is reasonably familiar to me as I’m someone who has researched early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (5th-7th-century AD). It’s now an early Anglo-Saxon collection up for sale: skeletons and artefacts all!

History teacher Gordon Taylor excavated 72 graves (including 5 cremation burials) over 17 years in the parish of Irby-on-Humber, Lincolnshire from 1962. Taylor was not a trained archaeologist and clearly was unable to publish his finds in a coherent and professional manner. Upon Taylor’s death, the collection has been inherited by his family. Two years subsequently, it is being sold off by auction, rather than donated to a museum, by Taylor’s widow and four children.

Details of the sale, by Hansons, are on their website. The justification for the sale is that it was discovered before the law of treasure trove (presumably they mean the current Treasure Act). To promote the sale of this…

View original post 1,923 more words

The Secret Room – Part 1

S C Richmond

The Secret Room

There was a room in my grandparent’s house that no one was allowed to enter, the family endlessly speculated what was hidden behind the locked door. The guesses ranged from hilarious to horrific but no one knew for sure. All of us grandchildren would listen outside the door regularly, our curiosity piqued,  but Grandma would sneak up on us and shoo us away from the door, smiling as she did. She would always mutter ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ as she led us away towards the kitchen to feed us cakes and biscuits. Still we wondered, did grandad have an amazing train set or was it where he went to watch the night sky and learn about the planets, he was interested in both but grandma always tapped her nose and said we were being nosey.

When we reached our teenage years we still hadn’t discovered his secret so when…

View original post 417 more words

Weaving Wyrd – Review.

S C Richmond

5.0/5.0

Weaving Wyrd by Elle Mort

I hold my hands up to having rarely enjoyed poetry but I had read a few of Elle Mort’s poems in the past on social media and really enjoyed them, imagine my joy when I saw a whole book of her work.

Much of the work is dark and will resonate on many levels but it also speaks in a language that beauty understands, there is a talent in this work that is magical, if you have never read any Elle Mort poetry now is your chance as she’s placed it within a binding for your enjoyment. Dare you go there?

The Blurb –

Ever since I can remember, poetry has been part of my life. The words and the flow come easily to me, like the rhythm of the music.
It brings me immense joy in happy times and soothes me, even in…

View original post 155 more words

Glory and Cherry Pride…

The moving dragon writes

Lois was given the theme of ‘Pride’ to write about in her writing group… sometime ago she had written something which was looking for a title and an ending… It was about an unnamed family and their twin daughters. Suddenly everything clicked into place – they would be the Pride family, and their twin daughters would be Glory and Cherry Pride… here it is, so far:

I love my sister Cherry, she’s three minutes younger than me so I’m the eldest. I love her but I have to say I feel eclipsed by her, sort of put in the shade… put in the shade is actually is a good way of expressing it since she’s blond and sunny and I’m dark and gloomy… well actually I’m not gloomy, I just have the sort of face where people are forever saying ‘cheer up’ when I’m actually quite happy but just thinking…

View original post 618 more words

Prussia Street

Today I sit and look around my flat.
I am not rich by modern standards, far from it. I am a full time carer which doesn’t come with an income, but I have all the basic things one needs for living, plus some luxuries (even though they are not new things). I have food in my cupboard and clothes in my wardrobe, I have a choice of things to wear and to eat.
I wonder what my ancestors would think, if I could transport them here for a few hours?

They weren’t rich either. In fact much of my recent family tree screams abject poverty – of living in back to back or slum housing, sometimes even in cellar rooms which were prone to flooding which brought all sorts of disease with it. There were cholera epidemics and any condition we take antibiotics for today was a potential killer back then.

My grandfather was born in the workhouse, as at the turn of the 20th century, medical help was confined to those who could afford to pay a doctor or midwife, so my great grandmother went to Leeds Workhouse to give birth to him, her eldest child.

She went on to have 9 more children (over a 19 year period) at home, losing only two boys at very young ages (and one in young adulthood) in an age where infant mortality was shockingly high. Harry, who died in 1917 at the age of 20 months, passed away in the Leeds Workhouse Hospital, as again, we can surmise that medical care was beyond the families purse.

For many years the family lived in Prussia Street in Leeds which encompassed a dire collection of slum housing just off of Lady Lane in Hunslet. They have long since been demolished to make way for council housing. The street was no stranger to gang crime and to visits from Sanitary Inspectors who were trying to minimise outbreaks of epidemics due to the overcrowding and virulent conditions.

 

 

 

The Last Kingdom Season 1 – Megaliths are All!

Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥

I’ve now watched the first season of The Last Kingdom from 2015, and blogged about its fire and death. Here I turn to the megaliths of the 8 episodes.

So The Last Kingdom’s set designers have a clear way of articulating the antiquity of the British landscape in which the Anglo-Saxons and Danes are inhabiting: megaliths. Yes, it’s an age-old trick deployed since the 19th century and the birth of the novel – Saxons live in an ancient land, and megaliths – the ruins of the Celts and all that they embody – materialise this antiquity. We find it in Sir Walter Scott, they are found in Tolkien’s Barrow Downs, and we find them in the writings of Bernard Cornwell.

If there is any real-world monument that embodies this reality, it is Wayland’s Smithy: a Neolithic chambered tomb dedicated to the legend of the Germanic shaman-smith Weland (ON: Volundr).

View original post 1,200 more words

Brymbo Man Rocks!

via Brymbo Man Rocks!

The Fairy Glen

Thea was yearning for home. The fairy glen of her childhood called her in a voice she could not fail to answer.

It seemed like years since she was last there, but saw it with the same clarity every night in her dreams. Every breeze that gently moved the trees seemed to whisper her name and she was transported back to the day she watched the dragonflies dancing on the shallow stream. They had basked in the sun atop the smooth flat rocks and fascinated her with their hues of peacock blue, green and gold. Darts of colour flitting here and there across her vision.

To her innocent mind they were the folk of the fairy who lived in the mound nearby, come to take a human child, and Thea would gladly have gone, except her fairy tale books had spoken of children who ate and drank with the fair folk and hadn’t returned to their homes for long years, and Thea loved her mammy and da very much.

Each time she came, she left an offering of a little cake for the fairy folk. They liked that, she’d been told. Thea went to explore, clutching the sticky cake in her hand until she found a fairy ring to leave it in. It had become a ritual of her childhood, and even when Sean, her brother had teased her, she continued doing it.

One day she had wondered off a way from her family and become lost. It had taken her a long time to find a ring to leave her cake but she still left it for them even though she was hungry and tired herself. When Thea realised she was lost, she’d started to cry quietly. After a while, she opened her eyes and saw a lady coming towards her. The lady was little and dark and wore the most beautiful dress Thea had ever seen, it was made from lace, as fine as cobwebs and was all the colours of the forest. She took Thea’s hand gently and led her silently through the woods. The lady had little bells on chains around her ankles and they rang gently as she walked, making music among the trees.

When after a while they neared the edge of the woods and Thea could see the stream again, she hugged the lady tightly to thank her for helping and turned to run to her mammy and da so they could meet the lovely lady who brought her back, but when she looked behind her, the lady was gone.

For years afterwards when she visited the glen, Thea could hear the music of her bells if she listened hard enough.

Water lily

A water lily lies calmly on the surface, all we can see is the flat green leaf and sometimes, if we are really lucky, the beautiful delicate flower opening to the sun.

Do we ever really think of what lies beneath? The struggle for survival in the undertow?

Sometimes the lily can be dragged under by the sheer weight of something pushing down on it, but it soon floats upwards, as serene as ever.

Sarah was like a water lily. She looked beautiful and fragile, but was tenacious and brave. No matter what life threw at her, she was buoyant. At least that was the impression she gave. Nobody saw the struggle beneath the surface, not even her closest friends. She was their anchor, the person they could go to for good common sense advice or a shoulder to cry on.  Her smile could light up a room and she made people feel valued and loved, even in their darkest times.

Sarah awoke, showered and dressed carefully. Today was the day she would go to her magical place. She chose her favourite floaty skirt and a green top which matched her eyes. She was dressing for a lover. She wove flowers into her wavy auburn hair and put on her jewelled sandals, painted purple toenails peeping out, and rings on her fingers and toes.

The sun warmed her through the canopy of the ancient woodland, throwing dappled light on her as she walked along the side of the stream. This could be the land of the Fae, there had always been something otherworldly about it, Sarah had sensed it from childhood and periodically it called her to return. There was a bond with this landscape that Sarah never fully understood, nor did she need to, it was enough that it was so.

The gentle lapping of the stream was hypnotic, she stopped a while to watch as the stream skipped across stones worn flat by the movement of water across time. Dragonflies in a ritual courtship of dance skirted across the surface.