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| Antique steam tractor sitting in front of Avebury village dwelling. Note the thatched roof on the building in the back. |
I hear Leotine's Man in Back complaining: "What is going on? That doesn't look like the Avebury Stones. There doesn't seem to be a single picture of the Stones on this page."
That is correct. For pictures of Avebury, pick up Aubrey Burl's Prehistoric Avebury, a very thorough book which also includes high quality pictures of the Avebury stones and of Silbury Hill. You may also look on the web at http://www.avebury-stones.co.uk or some such site. Though I carried my camera all the way around the Outer Circle, and everywhere else I stepped, I felt no impulse to take a single snapshot. I spent my walk enjoying Avebury, and trying to feel Avebury.
For the unfamiliar, Avebury is the largest of the British stone circles, large enough that it now has a village in it -- a village that has occupied its place for several hundred years or more (significantly less time, we note, than the stones which Burl suggests have been in place since about 2600 BCE & earlier). The structure consists of two small circles, one of which apparently included three center stones, both fully encompassed by a large outer circle, which follows the inside of a human-created high hill and deep ditch. There are four entrances to the outer circle, one of which has an impressively long avenue of stones leading to it. A second entrance has a shorter avenue.
The various components of Avebury were built over a several hundred year period, with nearby Silbury Hill having been constructed early in that period. As to what, exactly, Avebury was, only the fanatic claim to know for sure. Burl offers a healthy uncertainty. It is safe to say the circles were not a burial place (too few bodies); not a calendar in the sense of Stonehenge (too few significant astronomical correspondences); not a center of sacrifice (evidence indicates a few people were ritually killed there, but not a large number). It is reasonable to say that Avebury was some sort of religious center, and likely a cultural center. Such will suffice.
My one note regarding the site is that we see the remains of Avebury -- time has done it more damage than some of the smaller sites, and 18th. Century farmers, who deliberately broke up stones to use as building material, did the Circle more damage than might be expected by any natural pattern of malice or neglect.
As for the mystic question -- What did I feel at Avebury? -- I have no better answer to that than Burl offers from his archeological perspective. I was impressed by the size. It felt important, yet I had this notion that its grounds were maintained by the same sort of grazing sheep that keep it pastureland today. There are a pair of beech trees standing atop the chalk mound that provide as delightfully peaceful a spot as one can imagine. There were no spots at which I felt uneasy, yet there were also no spots where I felt any intense presences. Perhaps the Spirit(s) of Avebury have gently dispersed themselves over that wide Circle, leaving gentle wisps of memory. Or perhaps I just suffered too much residual jet lag to properly feel.
| I enjoyed great company: Wood Avens, who devoted a day to driving me to Avebury and back; Francis Freespirit, who joined us for lunch, and Leigh, who joined us for lunch. |  |
| We enjoyed a lunch of steak & ale pie at The Red Lion, and I savoured an Old Speckled Hen. My experience suggests that every horrible thing you have been told about English food is false. And yes, Marmite and lettuce on sourdough bread is delicious. |  |
| The steam tractor showed up by pure chance, if not as a gift from the Lords of Karma <wink>.. |  |
| I also have failed to include a picture of the White Horse of Uffington, though I suppose a small plane would be required for a good photograph. Were I the sort who carried a camcorder about (I'm not), I could have produced a wonderful short of us whizzing down narrow English lanes where the hedgerows occasionally brush the car fenders. It was as much fun (and the ride much smoother) than those afternoons I've spent clattering down West Virginia logging roads in a four-wheel drive pickup. | |
| And now to London for a Midsummer night's dream. | |
| Greenwich 1 / Greenwich 2 / Thames & Tower of London / Avebury / Regents Park / Trafalgar Square |