Chalk Horses and Ancient Mysteries

 My ankle's lots better so I'm now mobile again, and I'm really appreciating it.  Every gleam of sun there is, I try to go somewhere new and reasonably near home.  Surprising how many places there are. A couple of weeks ago we spent a couple of days near the prehistoric White Horse at Uffington, Oxfordshire.  You reach this curious creature by walking down a long track over the open downland.    

It is a very open, empty landscape, even though it is not far from London, and the slightly lonely walk to the White Horse (which is on the most distant hill in the picture, and no, you can't see it) got me into the mood for considering what might have been going on here in the Stone and Bronze Ages.

Nobody knows for sure what the  history of the Uffington White Horse is, but it's thought to be neolithic.  I'd have taken a photo of it except that there isn't any spot nearby that has a proper view, and you have to go a long way away to be able to glimpse it at all. That alone makes me think it must be very old, perhaps magical, otherwise why spend all that effort on something which will not be completely seen by ordinary mortals?

 But since we live now, in the days of aerial photos, I can show you what the White Horse looks like.  The website the photo is from has lots more background on this huge and mysterious symbol.  (Incidentally is it really a horse? I'm not quite sure. Are you?)

If you look at the photo above you can imagine me standing at the top right, just above the dot of the  eye, looking downwards. The picture below is what I saw. 

The more I looked over this landscape, the stranger it seemed.  That flat topped hill in the centre of my photo, for instance.  The hill was formed by nature, not by man, but its flat top has been deliberately created. Yes, people so primitive they probably didn't even use wheeled vehicles cut off the whole top of that hill and carted it away.  Archaeologists think that the hill was the site of important ceremonies. I don't see how we will ever know, but its name is Dragon Hill, and if you know anything about English place-names, you'll know that most of them have a reason for being called what they are. Dragon Hill's name relates to the legend that St. George killed his dragon there. The white patch where nothing grows is where the dragon's blood was supposedly spilt.
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Just to the left of the hill is a weird valley with what looks like pleats down one side. I have never seen anything else like it in the area,  and there are no streams running down the gaps. The only geological information I have found about it suggests that it was formed by melting ice, but nobody seems quite sure.   It is known as "The Manger" and the horse is supposed to come down from the hill to eat from it at night.



You will by now have gathered that something extremely major was going on spread over a very large part of this landscape in 2-3000 BC or so.  So, after climbing the White Horse we decided to visit Wayland's Smithy, a long-barrow tomb also dating from the neolithic period, which is about three miles to the southwest and down a rather lonely path.    Mike's A Bit About Britain blog  had made me want to visit the area, and it has more information on this and other neolithic sites in the area if you want to read it.

It was a pleasant walk of half a mile or so down the track but when I arrived at the tomb I wasn't expecting to go round the back of the entrance and see this:

One of the large stones making the tomb mouth has a very strange, though not unfriendly presence that looks vaguely like an animal or fish.   I noticed that a stick had been placed in its "mouth" (you can probably just see the stick if you look hard) and a necklace of rowan berries had been carefully draped over its "head."  The rowan is one of the most magical trees in English folklore, and the berries for this necklace had been deftly threaded on what looked like slender stems of twig and dry grass.     Not surprisingly, modern day nature worshippers, witches and druids are fond of these sites, and it is interesting to glimpse their beliefs.  

There are several legends associated with this particular neolithic long barrow. Mike cites one from Saxon times (pre-1066 AD) that concerns a Saxon god derived from a Norse creature called Völundr, a supernatural weapon maker.  

But of course legends don't really explain these neolithic tombs and monuments.     Like the St. George and the Dragon story, they are later attempts to explain features which had already existed for thousands of years - for let's not forget the neolithic people were much more remote from the Saxons in time, than the Saxons are from us, and even more of a mystery. To the Saxons, these places might well have been put here by their gods.  

Anyhow, as we lay on the grass beneath huge old beech trees, it did indeed feel like a magical way to spend a late summer afternoon.  

Next day, still on the neolithic trail, we went to Avebury.  We stayed, by the way, at a very nice community pub in nearby Hungerford Newtown, which I  thought I'd mention in case you are ever passing.  

It's called the "Tally Ho!" and after at least 150 years as a pub it was all set to close down when the locals decided to club together and buy it.  So they did, and now it's a friendly, cosy pub, popular with locals (who of course have more than a passing interest in how well it does) but also with very reasonable prices for any of the three very nice bedrooms upstairs.  

So, onwards to Avebury.   You only have to drive into the village to spot the boulders. 

This picture of Avebury village from the air shows that it is in the middle of a giant earthwork (photo from the wonderful Aeroengland site). This makes it clear that this was an important part of  a gigantic  ritual landscape, which spreads many miles from the village.   

It may not surprise you to know that Stonehenge is only a few miles to the south of Avebury.  So, what with the White Horse, the long barrows and the stone circles, it beggars belief that stone age people were able to create something on this scale with their antler-picks and leather ropes.  

As I was wandering around all this stuff,  a song which my son in law wrote last year was going in my head and I was humming it.  "If you seek then you will find."    He is fascinated by ancient landscapes and folklore, and particularly the many chalk horses (none of them like Uffington, though) that are found in the area.  I thought you might like to hear it too.

(Courtesy of Cunning Folk)

While in Avebury, we also visited Avebury Manor, which really deserves a post to itself, so I'll tell you about it in a few days' time.  Let me just say for now that seven years ago this gorgeous, ancient but empty manor house was put into the hands of historians, BBC set designers and modern craftsmen, and they re-interpreted its interior to create an immersive experience of the manor's life through the ages.    I have even found a clip of the first episode, which screened in 2011. 

With autumn just beginning,  it has been so nice to be in the country. I expect the Neolithic folk picked and ate blackberries, and watched butterflies too.