Kilted at Stonehenge

[McClef]

I find the list of reasons quoted as having being given by English Heritage somewhat extreme and weird.

So they don't trust the public well many don't trust them either. Some would conclude that they couldn't manage a p$$s up in a brewery. They waste taxpayers money too on failed legal actions that should not have been engaged in to begin with.

example: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4822941.html

The heritage bodies in other UK countries do not apply such restrictions as far as I am aware and the above problems do not seem to be observed.

Most people will treat historic sites with respect and a little human presence and supervision should deter such things occurring.

What do they charge for this out of hours privileged access?

[Chas]

You really don't like English Heritage do you Trefor? How do you feel about Cadw?

Regards

Chas

[O'Callaghan]

I haven't been there since I was a child. At that time there was free unfettered access, and I remember climbing on one of the large stones that had fallen down. or more likely my dad lifted me up. There was graffiti carved into the stones, which I was always told was the main excuse for fencing them off, but AFAIK some of the graffiti is thousands of years old, so don't let anyone tell you that's a new thing. I think it's a shame that access is limited nowadays.

As for there being access for a 'hippie festival' at the solstices, this is a bona fide religious service, and the people conducting it are druids. Naturally, of course, there are other people present, simply because they are denied access at other times. It is sad, but gatecrashing a religious service has been the only way for people to get proper access, until apparently the EH started offering paid tours.

It also goes without saying that there is only limited continuity between the druids that built the circle and the druids of today, but I believe they respect the original builders and that we should respect them in turn as much as, say, we would respect the Church of England, for example, speaking as a non-religious person.

[Bugbear]

I just got a history and anthropoligy book on druids, but I haven't had time to read it. I recall reading an artical saying that Stonehenge was in part a barrial site, but that is not seddled yet; I'm sure there will be arguements for a long time into the future.

I doubt many archeologists would look at it using the idea of the Jungian archetypes, so there really is no connection...

Where's beloitpiper?

[McClef]

I have no issue with Cadw nor Historic Scotland Chas - they seem to happily trust their visitors.

[Phil]

Nice photos and very smartly turned out if I might say. I didn't know you were able to get so close to the stones nowadays, unlike other sites such as Callanish.

[Bugbear]

Um... This is the book I just got on the Druids:

Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Druids. London: Constable and Company Limited, 1994. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-3798-0
It does seem to have an abundance of citations and says up front that we really don't know a lot about the actual Druids... They have almost become mythilogical figures themselves.

I'll try to finnish the bookover the next day or so.

[Freelancer]

Um... This is the book I just got on the Druids:

Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Druids. London: Constable and Company Limited, 1994. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-3798-0
It does seem to have an abundance of citations and says up front that we really don't know a lot about the actual Druids... They have almost become mythilogical figures themselves.

I'll try to finnish the bookover the next day or so.

Interesting Ted, hope you respond with further info once you finish the book.

From what I've read, the henge construction predates the Druids by hundreds of years and there is really no evidence that they had anything to do with it. The henge was already a ruin at the time of the Roman occupations. The modern Druid revival is less then 200 years and they seem to have just "adopted" the stones and and other ancient sites without real evidence to support their claims.

[Panache]

Wonderful photos

Cheers

Jamie :ootd:

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

In order to become a druid priest it is believed that it was necessary for the aspirant to go to either a stone henge or wood henge during the dark of the moon. There, in the center of the henge, in a hole in the ground, he would would find a scroll, upon which was written, in ancient runic symbols, a druidic "mass" which he had to commit to memory by the next full moon. Come the full moon the aspirant would return to the henge where, in the presence of three "olaves", or high priests, he would have to repeat exactly and verbatim the text of the mass written upon the scroll. If he made even the slightest error he was immediately put to death as being unworthy to be a druid priest because he didn't know his "mass from a scroll in the ground".