Descendent of Smith

At the risk of boring everyone witless since what is to be said has already been written and re-written again and again, I should confess that it always takes my mind several weeks to topple the neuronic megaliths that are always erected there after a visit to Wiltshire's ancient sites. The ley lines converge in my frontal lobes and my dangly bits get all electrified like that impressively powerful phallus chalkily exposed by the hillside dwelling giant Rude Man of Cerne Abbas (of whose likeness I bought an irresistable souvenir tee shirt). One of my earliest and most vivid memories is of entering Wayland Smithy - a place of death - with my father. I must have been less than four years old but I can still recall the ancient, enshrouding darkness within the burial chambers as if it were only yesterday. It was here that I suddenly realized that I was me, an independent individual in a cosmic jigsaw of time and space and something else that would always be undefinable and ineffable, for the air within and around these henges and barrows is always heavy with soul, as if the people who built them still stand sentry alongside their solemn creations; and you can slip into easy empathy with those old wives who believed these great sarsens were enchanted wrongdoers turned to stone in a single second that lasts for an eternity.

Comments

[Andraste]

Wicked!

Remember that line from "Alas, Smith and Jones," where Smith says "...and still, no one knows how the ancient Britons erected the stones," and Jones goes, "Well, it wasn't the ancient Britons that did it. It was the young Britons, the ancient ones just told them where to put them." ?

That was funny.

[Bleak Mouse]

Wonderfully evocative post, S'esq.

At very least, it saves me a trip.

[Fcb]

Went to see King Tut exhibit in LA tonight, and thought again of this post, because I completely understand the phenomenon though lack the words to properly describe it. There is something strangely wonderful about standing face-to-face with a remnant of the ancient world, even if it is just some boulder (and you're surrounded by people saying "isn't even very big?")

It isn't just a boulder, and by God you know it.