The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘hurlers’

Sunday 22nd August, 2010 – The Cheesewring, Minions, Cornwall.

Just a mile or so further down the track from The Hurlers are a set of curiously eroded stones perched precariously on the edge of a hilltop that has been extensively quarried on one side. The journey to the stones is hard on the feet – the only path, although not steep, is littered with loose granite lumps and so sturdy boots are recommended in all but the finest of weathers. Today was not the finest of weathers at all – it was the wettest. The South West was about to enter one of the wettest periods in its recorded history (not forgetting the awful year when they had the flood at Boscastle, of course).

If you don’t have a map then remember this simple strategy to find the Cheesewring stones – keep right on the track until you reach the quarry then look up!

It's as tall as a giant called Uther

The legend of how this incredible formation came to be is recounted on a plaque in the car park near to the Hurlers, but a fuller account is given in Wikipedia:

“A local legend about this rock formation is the result of a contest between a man and a giant. When Christianity had just been introduced to the British Islands, the giants who lived at the top of the mountains were not happy about it. The Saints had invaded their land and were declaring their wells as sacred.

One of the larger giants, Uther, was given the task of ridding their land of the Saints. He confronted the frail St Tue, who proposed a rock throwing contest. If Uther won, the Saints would leave Cornwall. If St. Tue won, then the giants would convert to Christianity.

Uther took his turn first and easily threw a small rock to the top of nearby Stowe’s Hill. St Tue prayed for assistance, and picking up a huge slab found it was very light. One after the other, they threw their rocks, stacking them up in perfect piles. When the score was 12 stones each, Uther threw a thirteenth stone, but it rolled down the hill. St Tue picked up this fallen stone, and as he lifted it, an angel appeared to carry it to the top of the pile of rocks. Seeing this, Uther conceded and most of the giants decided to follow Christianity after that.”

This is a classic folklore tale following the usual formula: a seeimingly impossible David & Goliath contest which the saint wins with divine intervention. Note the number twelve and then a thirteenth being the saviour. Obvious astrological themes going on here. Usually I would then go on to tell you which astrological, zodiacal or cosmological entity is associated with a site like this, but in this case that is all unnecessary. The Cheesewring is a pure earth energy site. It is a formation from natural rock, occurring naturally on Bodmin Moor. Unlike stone circles there has not been any man-made alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment. of the stones.

There has, however, been some manipulation of the existing stones. Occasionally they have been propped up, and that was necessary because the features of this rock formation have been somewhat exaggerated by the local inhabitants. When I dowsed I found that they had chipped away at the bottom portions to exaggerate its top-heavy look, and then smoothed the rocks off again, as they had done with many of the ‘dressed’ stones for places like Stonehenge.

For wringing cheese

The Gnome in the Cheesewring

Luckily for us there were no other people around. Perhaps the winds that tore across the hilltop as though racing each other were putting some people off, or perhaps it was the fact that visibility was down to several feet that made the climb up to the rocks both difficult to find and arduous to endure. Whatever the reason the gloom made me want to do some work to stay warm.

I dowsed as to what kind of site this was (er…look at it! It’c clearly stone and therefore an earth site! Idiot!). It was an earth site. (Told you so). I wondered if there was a genius lociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place. for this strange place, and the rods confirmed that there was. I don’t usually dowse for a name for such things, but occasionally I do. Luckily for me (Kal chuckled) it was a three-letter name. “What would you have done if it was a thirteen-letter name?“, he taunted. I shrugged – it wasn’t. The earth energy spirit’s name was Hor, causing Kal to chuckle to himself again as he huddled from the biting roaring wind. I asked if it would be appropriate for me to connect to this entity, and the rods told me it was fine, so I asked them to take me to the best place to do this. The best place, apparently, was right in the centre of the rocks in a small space barely big enough to hold me, and exposed to the wind. Nice. I put up some standard protection (see – remembering now) and in I climbed wondering if I would be able to get out again.

Somehow the roaring winds seemed to silence. I could feel them still tugging and battering at my back, but their deafening roar had diminished to a whisper. I took the opportunity to visualise the form I had been working with lately at all these Bodmin sites and I conjured up the rosy cross shape. Now the shape had a circle drawn around it to form a more Celtic design. After some jiggery pokery (well, you’d only get bored if I told you) I had what I would call a “full house” – the Hor gnomic earth spirit had facilitated my work with its elemental kind, to go along with the air, water and fire elemental forces that I had re-collected at the start of the year. This seems like a yearly “pact” of co-operation that must be renewed annually. In return for this help I offered my usual thanks of love and gratitude. I cannot stress strongly enough how useful these energetic gifts are. You can leave all the flowers and corn-dollies and notes that you want – nothing, but nothing, replaces the honest and heartfelt offering of love and gratitude to an energetic being.

Up close and cheesy

As I climbed out of the cramped space I noticed the wind howling again. Fine rain scraped at my face, depositing itself on my growing whiskers like hoar frost (Ha! Hor frost, even!). I visited the other rocks formations nearby on Kal’s recommendation, including a man shape that someone had laid out on the ground in lumpy granite rocks – to which  I added a third-eye stone for a laugh. Kal did not look amused, however, but looked like a man who had been patient whilst I worked, but now who needed the warm reward of a quiet heated car.

We trudged back to the car park in good spirits, ready to see what happened next in this already very interesting day. Nothing could prepare me for the happenstance nature of the wonderful event that we would encounter next, however.

Gwas.

Sunday 22nd August, 2010 – The Hurlers, Minions, Cornwall.

Having driven through the village of Minions to get to Trethevy Quoit the night before we were fairly confident about finding the famous stone circles called “The Hurlers”. There was a big brown sign pointing to them and everything so how could we miss them? We missed them. The morning mist was so dense that visibility was down to twenty feet, and as we trudged along the damp granite path our attention was on avoiding the larger puddles. At one point I stopped, intuitively feeling something was nearby. As I looked up I could see a small marker stone making an unusually prominent shape in the white misty background. We decided to head in that direction across the moorland and soon other shapes were coming out of the mist confirming that we had made a wise choice. Luck was with us and we hadn’t gone too far past, and soon dark shapes were appearing in regular patterns like dull ghostly sentries. We remarked how ‘atmospheric’ it was, which translated meant, “Dammit – why couldn’t it be sunny – this is spooky!”

What the Hurlers can look like

The Coach and Four

Other people were knocking about too, somewhere. Occasionally we would hear the sound of feet on the path and calls to a dog, or a group of walkers crunching past. It seemed that everyone else was missing the stone circle too because we were not disturbed during our hour long visit by anyone else, despite hearing man other voices nearby. Talking of which, as Kal and I convened on our way back we discussed the sounds we had heard in the mist and realised that both of us had heard the same strange noise. It was the sound of a carriage being pulled by horses. Undoubtedly. I’ve heard that sound in so many films that I couldn’t mistake it. I heard the sound of at least two horses, more like four, and they were accompanied by the sound of wooden wheels crunching on the path. There was no engine noise accompanying it. Most odd. Maybe some people with horse and cart were going past at nine in the morning? Even odder, the sound didn’t fade into the distance as you would expect, but disappeared as it passed us. You heard it clearly for a moment, and then as it passed by it died off quickly, it didn’t fade away. Again, very odd. I shivered a little in the morning gloom, and put it down to the atmosphere, but then when I mentioned it to Kal he nodded – he’d heard the same, and he added his own impressions of the noise which confirmed mine. However, on to the circles….

The Hurlers – The Male Circle and the Cross

There are three circles marked on OS maps, but in the mist we only found two of them. The Secret Cornwall site tells us that we are even wrong about that:

“The remains of a smaller fourth circle have recently been found north-north-east of the obvious three circles and a further fifth circle has been suggested between it and the others” (source: Secret Cornwall)

The first circle we encountered was the larger of the two, then there was a small pathway which linked to a slightly smaller ring of stones a few feet further north. One of the first things we independently dowsed was that the larger circle had a female characteristic, whilst the smaller circle was male.

Can you spot the stones?

Kal spent his first hour in the female circle, or rather, around its periphery, whilst I tried to get to grips with the male circle. I had come to the circles with an idea: I wanted to know whether it was possible to connect to the Sirius star energy, and what would happen if I did. I found a power centreA place where a person of a particular alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment. (see ‘AlignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre. and began to work with it, connecting to its core. I identified the location of Sirius, and then sat facing it. Almost immediately I got the impression that I should walk around the circle to stir up the energies. I dowsed for the start point, and then which direction – clockwise. No surprises there. I walked around twice, the second time the path began to weave as though the energies around the stones were becoming agitated. This was good – I had done a similar thing at Mitchell’s Fold stone circle once. At that Shropshire circle I had walked around five times, each time dowsing a more erratic path with higher peaks. This was similar, but only required two perambulations to get the energies flowing enough to work with.

Male circle Power CentreA place where a person of a particular alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment. (see ‘AlignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre. marked by feather and staff

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