Mystical Places In England
Stonehenge, Glastonbury, St. Michael’s Mount

Autor:			 Carl Taylor

Introduction 

We know very little about the people who inhabited Britain in prehistoric
times. They didn't leave books or documents to tell us how they lived or
what their traditions and beliefs were. They did, however, leave monuments,
often in stone, and many of these have withstood  both time and the ravages
of the elements.

Stonehenge - Britain's most famous monument 

By far the most famous prehistoric site is Stonehenge. Today a fast road
carries vehicles from London past Stonehenge and to the west of England.
4000 years ago this stone monument stood alone in an empty landscape.
People travelled hours if not days to reach it. Every year visitors ask the
same questions: Why was it built? Why here, on this hill and why in this
position? For the ancient Britons, Stonehenge was probably a very special
place, a place of great natural power. Many civilizations in the past
believed that there was a place that was the Centre of the World, a place
where the world was created and out of which everything came. For the
ancient Britons their World Centre was possibly Stonehenge. Like Delphi in
Greece, Stonehenge possibly had the function of an oracle. The priests
would have had great knowledge, power and skills. A king as great as Arthur
might have ridden to this holy place to meet a great priest like Merlin and
ask for help and advice.

Stone circles - more mysteries 

All over Britain there other interesting and important sites. In many
places, for example, there are fields with stone circles. Sometimes the
stones are as tall as a man or a woman, sometimes they are only knee high.
They have names like the Merry Maidens, the Whispering Knight, or the Grey
Ladies. The rain, the wind and the weather have taken their form away. But
legends and stories tell us that these stones were once people and they
were turned to stone as a form of punishment. One serious "offence" that we
know about from legends is dancing and making music on the sabbath. In some
places legends tell us the dancers were turned to stone by the Devil
himself; in other places they danced to the music of fairies and when they
lay down to rest they were turned to stone.

The need for protection 

If people believed that the Devil could appear in the night and if fairies
and evil spirits could hide in the woods and giants appear over the hills,
they would need to be protected. In the south of England two huge figures
have been cut into the ground in different places. Seen from a plane it
looks as if somebody has painted two white figures into the green fields.
But they have not been painted; they have been cut into the white chalk
stone beneath the grass. One is near the south coast at Eastbourne, and he
is called the Long Man of Wilmington. The Long Man is over 70 metres long.
The other is near the coast at Dorchester. He is known as the Cerne Abbas
Giant. Both figures hold weapons.
It is possible these figures guarded the land and the people who lived on
it and warned those who might want to attack.
The idea of protecting the land with magic is very old. There are legends
that the island of Britain was protected by Merlin's magic so that nobody
could invade it from the sea. And when Arthur died, he was carried away in
a boat to the island of Avalon, where he sleeps to this day with his army,
waiting. Should his kingdom be threatened, he will rise against his enemies
and protect the land.

Man, his beliefs, and the power of nature 

The spirituality of prehistoric people was based in the forces of nature.
The earth was a living thing and had its own energy. The sun gave power to
the earth and the earth produced life. There was a force or power in nature
that was much greater than individual humans. In prehistoric times people
believed there were places all over the country where that energy was
particularly strong.
In a field in Cornwall, for example, there is a large stone with a round
hole in the middle. Its Celtic name is Men-an-Tor. Even today it is in a
lonely and quiet part of England, far away from the noise of towns and
cities. People believed that in this place the earth's energy was strong
enough to help and heal, so parents with a sick child would travel to this
stone. Fathers would pass their daughters through the hole nine times to
the mother. Mothers would pass a sick son nine times to the father.
Today we might laugh at such stories, but there are reports that only two
hundred years ago people still travelled to this stone and climbed through
the hole, especially if they had back pains.

Glastonbury Abbey - a Christian church on an ancient site 

When Christianity came to Britain, people built their first churches on
those same sacred places where they felt the earth's energy was positive
and strong. One of the oldest Christian sites in Britain is in the town of
Glastonbury. In the centre of the town is Glastonbury Abbey. This site was
chosen for a very good reason. This quiet remote spot in the south-west of
England was sacred long before the Christian priests came. For reasons we
no longer understand today this was a very special place, a great
prehistoric sacred site, possibly as important as Stonehenge. Legends even
say that King Arthur was buried here, and the hill behind the Abbey was the
mythical Isle of Avalon. Certainly, a king as great as Arthur would have
been buried in a very special place. So if his body was brought to
Glastonbury, that tells us the land here was thought to be particularly
sacred.

Ley lines - the invisible roads of mystical Britain 

Visitors at the various prehistoric sites in Britain often look at them in
isolation. For a long time some people have believed that many monuments,
churches and sacred sites in Britain were linked or joined together in some
way - as if there was an invisible map of Britain with invisible roads, and
all the sacred places were located on those invisible roads. In the winter
of 1987 two men set out to test a theory. Their names were Hamish Miller
and Paul Broadhurst. The theory was that the earth has energy lines that
run across the country. These are called ley lines. One of the most
powerful energy lines supposedly crossed England from the south-west at
Land's End to the east coast. The ancient people, it seemed, knew where
those lines were. They were aware of special places where the Spirit of the
Earth was strong, where the forces of nature were concentrated. For this
reason they were able to build the monuments and the churches where they
did. Throughout the ages many became places of pilgrimage. Hamish Miller
and Paul Broadhurst wanted to know if there were such powerful natural
energy lines or "invisible roads".

From Cornwall to the east coast of England 

Hamish was an experienced dowser and he used his dowsing rods to follow the
energy line from Land's End in Cornwall to the east coast of England. To
their surprise there was indeed a powerful magnetic line beneath the earth.
One of the first important sites they found was St Michael's Mount: a small
rocky island about 400 metres from the coast near Penzance in Cornwall.
When the tide is out it is possible to walk along a stone causeway to the
island and climb to the castle and church. This has been a place of
pilgrimage for centuries. There are reports of miracles, of a blind woman
being able to see and a dumb man being able to speak. In prehistoric times
a giant named Cormelian supposedly lived on the island. Legends say he
built the island as his home. Incredibly, in the fourteenth century monks
reportedly found the skeleton of a huge man, estimated at about eight feet
tall. One authority states that St Michael's Mount was famous as a centre
of Druid worship from early times.
Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst followed the ley line day after day, past
churches, ancient stone monuments, stone circles - and one of the most
powerful places they found was indeed at Glastonbury.
At Glastonbury, the two men walked to the top of the hill known as
Glastonbury Tor. Here the energy was particularly strong. From the top of
that hill they could see how the line they were following would take them
northeast in a straight line past churches, burial grounds and other
religious sites. But when they looked east, they found another line which
linked Glastonbury Abbey with the most important prehistoric site of all:
Stonehenge.

© Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1999