00:00:00.000Hello and welcome to Rowan and Pine. We have a new setup today, so I'm hoping that you
00:00:12.200can't really tell from the audio right now because you're just hearing me talk. But the
00:00:16.600main difference in our new setup is I have a very special guest. She's posing. My guest
00:00:23.720is Heather. How shall we address thee, Heather? Are you Heather Wildflower? Are you just
00:00:29.680heather yeah just heather's fine on the podcast but yeah my social handle is heather.wildflower
00:00:35.680and that's how i got connected to the lovely rowan and pine duo yay yes so heather for anybody who
00:00:44.020isn't familiar with her content she makes some beautiful fantasy witchy sacred sites
00:00:52.360beautiful content and is documenting her life as an american in ireland having moved i would say
00:00:59.520moved home you've moved home right i would say i would say as well yeah i'm currently working on
00:01:06.340a project of trying to get to all of the 32 counties of ireland um which has been a blast
00:01:13.480and it's really remarkable how many different landscapes there are within this one little
00:01:19.740island like it reminds me a little bit of remember oh of course you remember when lord of the rings
00:01:25.860came out and we all realized New Zealand was actually all of these amazing different like
00:01:31.080green landscapes and it looked like it could look tropical in certain places and you know
00:01:36.420Ireland's very like that that like depending on where you go it can look like a different planet
00:01:40.360you know for real yeah especially if you go somewhere like the Burren in County Clare have
00:01:45.880you been there yeah that yes I have and it looks like yeah more sci-fi needs to be filmed out there
00:01:53.100for sure it looks like the surface of the moon it does so it's like for anybody not familiar it's
00:02:00.360a landscape with uh limestone it's exposed limestone right all over the landscape i
00:02:06.580remember learning about it in school and having like such a hard time because
00:02:10.960i had seen limestone and i was like how can you have like doesn't it just look like concrete and
00:02:16.040i remember like having computer time in class this is such a 90s child story having computers
00:02:22.140time in class and looking up pictures of the Burrens so that I knew I could picture like what
00:02:27.140my teacher was talking about which you know I wasn't like the kids looking up dirty stuff
00:02:32.360you're just like I want to understand the natural world and look at you now
00:02:37.860I think something about the rock erodes at different rates because you'll look down into
00:02:45.640these big cracks and the cracks are full of like lichen and ferns and like rare species of orchids
00:02:52.120and stuff even and oh my god there's no snakes in ireland but there's a legless lizard that lives
00:02:57.780out in the burn and i was like what is the difference that seems like irish like loopholes
00:03:04.920you know the way we'll be like well we don't have this but we do have this that's very similar you're
00:03:08.740like what exactly is the difference between a snake and a legless lizard i'm gonna have to get
00:03:13.680some like snake experts on to look in that to me or at least if i'm remembering correctly without
00:03:20.100googling it it's something to do with their eyelids and like how they blink that makes them
00:03:25.020a snake or a lizard so i think there was some contention when it was like discovered out there
00:03:30.360people were like oh no that's a snake our whole thing our whole thing our one thing is blown
00:03:36.020it's like oh no sam patrick he was a fraud and then they were like no don't worry it blinks
00:03:42.660it blinks like a lizard so we're grand i do like that i like that quick save of like no no no it's
00:03:47.520not a snake it's definitely anything but a snake because you know just snakes in england that's
00:03:52.080different they have snakes but they have yeah we don't have anything this one little guy raised
00:03:56.260his case to saint patrick he was like yeah no look i blink different my eyelids go this way
00:04:01.280instead of this way it's all good let me stay you are doing your 32 counties challenge what
00:04:08.420number are you up to on your out of the 32 uh i've been to 12 i have videos out about nine
00:04:15.500so I'm in a bit of an editing backlog at the minute but oh same
00:04:19.760so yeah this being our June episode I thought like something solsticey and then I thought like
00:04:27.520stone circles and then I thought who better to speak to me about stone circles than Heather
00:04:32.500because you do a lot of visiting and hanging out like if you just can't find Heather just go to0.98
00:04:38.580your local sacred site and she's probably going to be there in a big flowy dress yeah you're dead
00:04:44.600right there like a flower crown or something I feel very seen yes and I am really fortunate that
00:04:53.660the largest stone circle in Ireland is like a 15 minute drive from my house so it is very fair to
00:05:00.140say if you're looking for me and I'm not at home I'm probably at it's a Grange stone circle out by
00:05:06.600Locker is the one I'd be most familiar with and yeah we have it in the notes we're gonna I'm
00:05:11.100going to get to share a little bit about what it feels like to be there for solstice for all of you
00:05:15.540so a perfect June episode indeed oh so exciting I have not made it down there but I should like
00:05:24.400maybe it'll be like a 2027 solstice sort of vibe that I could think about definitely so let me get
00:05:32.380us started we're going to be talking the original idea was just stone circles but then I typically
00:05:38.560rabbit holed and I went into different sort of monuments and I was like well I can't really
00:05:42.820leave out that because then that doesn't make sense. So this is going to be a I'm going to
00:05:46.700call it monuments and ley lines because we were originally going to call it stone circles and
00:05:50.600ley lines. So we're gonna get started. So even if our international listeners have never stood in a
00:05:57.880stone circle or wandered through a ring fort they've definitely seen them somewhere. It might
00:06:02.940be that you've seen tourist photos of Stonehenge or you watched Claire disappearing through a
00:06:09.000circle of standing stones in Outlander. Maybe you picture the barrow downs in the Lord of the Rings
00:06:14.380book because it's not in the movie. I double checked. Or you associate them with the secret
00:06:20.020of Kells showing fairy mounds and ancient enclosures as liminal spaces. And if you've
00:06:25.020ever watched Doctor Who or Hellboy, you've probably seen ley lines powering time portals.
00:06:29.400these ideas are everywhere in games too like so I'm told because I did check with you in
00:06:35.180Zelda and Elden Ring and we can start out with a little bit of primary school Irish history on
00:06:41.440monuments because very cool thing about the Irish school curriculum is we do talk about all of this
00:06:47.560stuff and we talk about New Grange and so we will cover megalithic which are prehistoric sites
00:06:54.520and then we're going to cover standing stones and circles and then we're also going to mention
00:06:59.940ring forts and cashels because they're always lumped in together with sacred sites or ancient
00:07:05.720irish monuments okay megalithic and prehistoric sites are classified into four main types we have
00:07:12.620court cairns we have passage tombs like new grange we have portal tombs like pool nebron in clare
00:07:18.820and wedge tombs and then for standing stones and circles they're more like prehistoric stone
00:07:25.080alignments they can also be rows but we know them mostly as circles because everybody pictures
00:07:30.400stonehenge really let's be honest and then for ring forts and cashels those are the the fairy
00:07:36.560forts that everybody hears us talking about they're the ones that you usually see in gorgeous
00:07:42.260aerial photos of the irish landscape they're usually earthen so they're they're covered over
00:07:47.640over with grass because the original wood that would have enclosed them has rotted away over
00:07:52.940time with the elements but sometimes there are stones there they were usually originally farmsteads
00:07:58.080or the homes of chieftains or you know essentially a village yeah my understanding is ring forts and
00:08:05.280cashels are more what get called fairy forts 100 nowadays and there would be a lot of superstitions
00:08:13.260about not moving or disturbing them yes and yeah they always look really well in aerial photography
00:08:21.640because they're perfectly circular yeah it like it blows my mind how perfect some of them are
00:08:27.960I'm just like I assume that it was you know they were using it like measuring like taking the time
00:08:33.160to measure it all out but like the fact that like they had no way of seeing how perfect it was up
00:08:38.300that high it's just crazy it's crazy and it's it's so cool that like humans have been doing that for
00:08:44.380so long for thousands of years okay so we'll start out with our megalithic sites they are prehistoric
00:08:50.460in origin they typically have an above ground burial chamber and are built of large stone slabs
00:08:55.860called megaliths hence the name and they're originally covered with earth or other smaller
00:09:00.860stones they were built during the neolithic period and then into the bronze age so that's
00:09:06.240about 4800 to 500 BCE, before Christian era, by Neolithic farming communities. The tradition of
00:09:13.840passage tomb building actually originated around Carrowmore in County Sligo on the west coast of
00:09:19.220Ireland sometime after 4000 BCE and developed as it moved eastward. So I have in brackets
00:09:25.280west coast superiority because... And I won't be correcting you there, living in Limerick.
00:09:31.120We always hear about Nose and Dose and Eugrange and they're so cool and the ancient east and all of that, but it started in the west, so we're going to claim that. Dublin gets everything. Leicester gets everything, so we're taking it back.
00:09:44.780it reached its cultural peak with the great monuments of the boyan valley county meath
00:09:50.820nearly a millennium later so a thousand years later they're sometimes called megalithic tombs
00:09:56.420but that's a bit reductive human remains have been found there but the complex ones are more
00:10:01.180like gathering spaces like our modern places of worship so if you think of everything that goes
00:10:05.600on in a church or a mosque or a synagogue you know all of the weddings and celebrations and
00:10:11.720all that sort of stuff this is what these were for these people they were gathering places and
00:10:17.220celebration places and mourning places and yeah humans are just we just don't change right yeah
00:10:22.000it's one of those comforting things but yeah like you wouldn't call a modern church or mosque
00:10:27.300just a tomb even if people happen to be buried in it or buried nearby they've done math more
00:10:34.080advanced than i can comprehend about like the amount of people it would take to build the amount
00:10:38.440of manpower and hours and size of community that it would take to build some of these megalithic
00:10:44.720structures um is you know hundreds and hundreds of people but then there will often be like around
00:10:51.60020 the remains of around like 20 to 50 people actually inside of it so there's some question
00:10:57.720as to is it the highest status people is it maybe um like a priest class is it you know
00:11:04.160all kinds of interesting stuff goes on at the different monuments about are any of the people
00:11:08.260related to each other are they similar ages or who is cremated versus buried whole like right
00:11:14.740it's one of those things that like I'm always so jealous when I say like one of the things with
00:11:19.100like say for something like Outlander time travel is like the thought of going back to when they
00:11:23.880were built and seeing like how these people talked about it and viewed it and what they did there and
00:11:29.520you know and just seeing it like on a solstice day and you know what the vibe was you know
00:11:35.280absolutely yeah agree and it's kind of one of the only ways you'd ever be able to know for sure would
00:11:40.700be to time travel back like all we have are theories and yeah trying to put together kind of
00:11:46.520the pieces we've been left but yeah there's kind of infinite possibilities definitely so let's get
00:11:53.040the big one out of the way new grange is our most famous megalithic site built or it was built around
00:11:59.4403200 BCE by farmers during the Neolithic period. This means it predates Stonehenge by approximately
00:12:06.780a thousand years. Up the Irish. Every Irish person will tell you this. If they know it,1.00
00:12:13.740they will tell you. It also predates the Great Pyramids of Giza by over 500 years,
00:12:19.560one of the world's oldest and most important prehistoric sites, which just makes me so damn
00:12:25.060proud wow it's a huge circular mound measuring approximately 85 meters or 279 feet in diameter
00:12:32.900and 13 meters or 43 feet tall and it covers an area of about one acre it has a stone built passage
00:12:39.700which is 19 meters in length and leads to an inner chamber with three recesses which I remember when
00:12:46.080we were learning about this in school we learned about it again in my like my secondary school art
00:12:51.820class and this just like occurred to me when I was doing the research for this so my art teacher
00:12:58.300she was also the religion teacher in the class or in the school right because you know rural Ireland
00:13:04.240and she used to always refer to it as having a cruciform shape or it was shaped like a cross
00:13:11.160and looking back at this I'm like Christianity has nothing to do with this. Jesus wasn't even
00:13:16.580a twinkle in his daddy's eye exactly like why are you shoehorning that into it um yeah so
00:13:24.360you'll see later they refer to it as a sun dagger so like the dagger shape and like i think that's
00:13:31.060a lot more like relevant to the time right yeah they would have been more familiar with daggers1.00
00:13:35.380than crosses so yeah damn you miss mccallag why are you shoehorning that in i'm calling you out0.95
00:13:40.420my podcast the passage and the chamber are precisely aligned with the rising sun on mornings0.97
00:13:47.260around the winter solstice a feature that has made new grange famous worldwide more on that later
00:13:52.800the mound is encircled by 97 large curb stones most of which are decorated with prehistoric
00:13:58.620carvings the most striking being the entrance stone known as curbstone one i actually wanted
00:14:03.920to lock this up because i was like i feel like people would have been living around new grange
00:14:08.320and then might have been chatting about it and didn't really know what it was, you know,
00:14:11.820after with each generation, like the knowledge would have been lost.
00:14:15.860And I was like, you know, did somebody just decide to go in and start excavating it or what was it?
00:14:20.920So what happened was New Grange had remained closed since shortly after its construction,
00:14:27.480sometime between 3320 and 2910 BCE, which is, that's a big time period.
00:14:35.320Yeah, it's a couple of centuries there.
00:14:36.660like yeah and by closed i think you mean like they they filled the way you would get in they
00:14:42.100filled in the little door with rock and dirt is my understanding so whoever was using it it's not
00:14:47.920like they put caution tape around the outside or whatever they filled in the pad the entrance way
00:14:53.500yeah or like like a padlock on it's not really that no we're not talking about that the winter
00:14:58.840solstice sun dagger was first seen again by human eyes in 1967 like imagine that was like basically
00:15:06.480dormant for so long the local folklore still referred to the phenomenon directly before the
00:15:11.560excavation meaning that new grange and its folklore has an oral tradition spanning approximately
00:15:16.6804 000 years new grange and its neighboring sites noth and doth form the major part of the boyne
00:15:22.720valley complex and attract well over 200 000 visitors annually i have 4 000 years of people
00:15:30.260talking about like yeah this will happen on the solstice and first of all i don't know how anybody
00:15:35.640didn't like break in and go look like maybe they did maybe it just wasn't yeah i think really part
00:15:41.020of that is probably due to the superstition um like this kind of mound is known to be like a
00:15:46.680fairy mound or a liminal place or dangerous in ireland for sure i think that's why a lot of
00:15:53.080these megaliths are so well preserved is there's such a strong uh your granny telling you off if
00:15:59.760you go near one kind of tradition one of the other oral folklore pieces that survived about them that
00:16:06.200i love is the people actually knew where the stones came from when he was excavating they told
00:16:11.660him those really big curb stones around the outside that are so elegantly carved were from
00:16:17.940the mourn mountains and he was like well that can't possibly be right how would they know
00:16:21.680uh and when geologists finally got in there and actually the technology was there to test them
00:16:26.420that people knew and they were correct it's from the mourn mountains just for for context the more
00:16:31.060so the mourn mountains are in northern ireland and then new grange is like closer to dublin so
00:16:36.920you're talking like in a car nowadays it would be about two two and a half hours drive away so like
00:16:42.820imagine transporting those stones these giant stones all the way down there like the mind
00:16:48.460it's unreal and i assume whoever was recording that folklore was like that couldn't possibly
00:16:52.340be true yeah there's there's stories about the the king that supposedly constructed them and the
00:16:58.160different deities that are supposed to live are supposed to have lived inside oh including a very
00:17:03.720practical element of where did we get these rocks from that yeah survived 4 000 years of retelling
00:17:09.740that's crazy and that it was it was passed down because i do i remember and we'll talk about a
00:17:14.920little bit later was it like maybe two two years ago that like they were testing stonehenge to
00:17:19.780find out where they got those from and the idea that they had brought them from Scotland and
00:17:25.840people were like no way but like I mean I think it's Ireland isn't it don't they say that Merlin
00:17:30.700brought them from Ireland in one of the stories at least that is one of the stories but I think
00:17:35.100when they tested them it was Scottish stone that they were they were finding like amazing that's
00:17:40.600still very far that's crazy like all the way down to Salisbury from Scotland like what the hell
00:17:47.420like i i think a lot of times we do and the exact same thing happens with the great pyramids that
00:17:53.800like we sort of condescend a little bit and think there's no way that people like that like it had
00:17:58.440to have been this that or the other or like the absolute the worst thing is the ancient aliens
00:18:02.280theory which is so goddamn patronizing but like if these people were transporting and they had
00:18:08.320trade routes and they had relationships with people like miles and miles away it just shows0.94
00:18:14.860that they're a lot freaking smarter than we give them credit for or that we think they they are
00:18:20.020just because they're not they're not modern intelligence quote-unquote like what what we
00:18:24.780would class it or educated as as we would class them you know to me and how my brain works i'm
00:18:31.340very bad at math uh doing the math of like how to get the alignment of the hole in the ceiling so
00:18:39.500that the winter solstice light comes in at a particular angle would be harder than getting
00:18:44.920the big rocks there like I can get my head around the getting the big rocks there I can't get my
00:18:49.960particular type of brain around because it's not even that the light comes in the door that part
00:18:56.420stays dark it's that the light comes in a hole in the ceiling and illuminates the inside but if you
00:19:03.620look back where you came in that is still dark because it's sloped downward yeah slightly so
00:19:09.540it's a really spooky effect the fact that like if you were trying to get something like that in your
00:19:15.240house you would have to have like a really accomplished architect to like come and like
00:19:20.020you know okay so this is and like on whatever like would they even be considering the day of
00:19:24.820the year they'd be considering the time of day for sure and like the you know the sun will be
00:19:28.440here on this time of day and it'll light up this room and you know you'll get a lot of morning
00:19:32.380sunlight or evening sunlight or whatever it is but the fact that they have this and it's
00:19:36.500it's aligned and the other sites in Noth and Doth are aligned geographically so that this event
00:19:43.340happens on solstice and that it will literally light up this chamber under the ground that has
00:19:49.480been there for thousands of years that it's just full of beautiful art like there's a megalithic
00:19:56.960carving of a fern inside that is so lifelike and beautiful i should say it sounds like and even i
00:20:03.940have been in there for the winter solstice but that's actually a really coveted yes special
00:20:08.840event so they mock up using a light bulb outside of the tomb what it looks like on any tour that
00:20:15.880you go through on any day of the year you can see the sunrise on summer solstice or sorry where
00:20:21.460solstice effect yeah on any tour regardless of the weather which is nice also because Ireland
00:20:27.540and then if you want to be inside it for winter solstice sunrise there's actually a lottery system
00:20:34.140that like thousands of people enter every you know I'm in there with those lottery tickets every
00:20:40.980every year um just so people from around the world can enter yeah and be part of that the alignment
00:20:48.060works i think six or seven days of the year so a little bit on either side of the exact
00:20:53.860winter solstice anyone listening who would like to shoot your shot you can enter it online as well
00:21:02.000and they have i can't remember did they do a live stream last year i remember when emily and i first
00:21:07.220mentioned new grange on the pause there was talk of like having a live stream for the solstice that
00:21:13.660year so you could watch it but i think i remember going on maybe last year and i couldn't say it but
00:21:18.940it was probably just me having a technology fart yeah whatever it was but i know they did it during
00:21:23.980covid they live streamed all the days because no one could be in there which was actually beautiful
00:21:29.020i still lived in the states at the time and i remember my partner and i stayed up until like
00:21:33.0603 a.m or whatever it was at our time to watch it um but i i wonder if they still i feel like
00:21:39.980they still live stream one of the days that it works instead of letting people in which is a
00:21:44.140nice way that like anyone in the world could it could experience it yeah especially if you like
00:21:50.160you know you just don't have the means to ever get there i mean like that's crazy i definitely i
00:21:54.520always say i'm going to enter the lottery i kind of wish i did enter it like way back in when i in
00:22:00.680the 90s because i was like maybe i would have had more chance if i just kept entering it but
00:22:04.440just never never got around to it so yeah i should should have my name down there
00:22:08.300the uh boyne complex aren't just tombs though burial mounds are thought to represent a ritual
00:22:14.220space and as we love here on ronan pine perhaps a liminal space where mortals who built them could
00:22:19.700interact with the spirits of their dead ancestors who might mediate for them with the gods and we'll
00:22:25.340get into that a little bit more that's the the death fascination that we have really soon but
00:22:31.080first of all, I have to introduce stone circles. So stone circles also were used for various
00:22:37.020purposes, both cultural and practical. They were burial and ceremonial sites. They were
00:22:43.020for religious practices and community gatherings. They were places of exchange and trade. And they
00:22:49.000had possible astronomical uses, which is once again, absolutely mind boggling to me. I still
00:22:56.440need an app to tell me what stars I'm looking at. So for burial and ceremonial sites, early in the
00:23:03.580history of the monuments, stone circles were associated with the cult of the dead and mortuary
00:23:08.820practices. And you guys know me, if I see cult of the dead written anywhere, you know I'm like,
00:23:15.060what is that? I was like, I have to like go down this rabbit hole. I could probably have spent way
00:23:22.080longer on this and looking into like the Celtic fascination with the dead but I feel like that is
00:23:27.000a later in the year thing okay so I have to rein myself in you should all be very proud of me that
00:23:31.880I didn't shoehorn absolutely everything that I found into one episode I'm getting a lot better
00:23:37.100at that watch out episode on cult of the dead yeah sometime in the future just very quickly
00:23:45.760in medieval Ireland the dead played a more active role in society for example ancestral tombs called
00:23:51.960firta were used as boundary markers defining territories between different family groups or
00:23:57.220kingdoms these ancestral burial mounds were very important to the community one early irish law
00:24:03.400tract outlined how a long dead and buried ancestor could be called upon to adjudicate in property
00:24:09.640disputes so like if any of you guys are having like a will dispute in your family and somebody
00:24:14.320suggests having a seance that is not completely outside the realms of possibility according to
00:24:21.760old Irish law anyway. Integral to the process was the role of the burial mound which a claimant to
00:24:27.640the land must walk over successfully and in one piece. The implication made by the text is that
00:24:33.780the act was only safe for the claimant if indeed she or he was a descendant of the individual
00:24:39.120buried as the buried man or woman would repel outsiders but not their own descendants. I would
00:24:45.100like to know what happened to the the fakers like were they literally would they just like0.77
00:24:50.300fall over dead like what the hell yeah but i love the idea of that interesting they are very steep
00:24:55.800little hills um i'm thinking of like the mound of the hostages at tara is one that people may
00:25:01.700have seen or be more familiar with i wonder if it's almost as simple as like if you're doing
00:25:07.780this at night or whatever do you trip do you fall like you know yeah you don't have to die necessarily
00:25:13.620but i don't think i've i've never walked over the top of one it does kind of give me the like oh
00:25:18.780i wouldn't be doing that now like yeah it wouldn't be an easy thing to walk over at any time but yeah
00:25:25.820there's a spooky element as well for sure right the spookiness i feel like something like this
00:25:30.600could only you can only do it at like the witching hour like it's in my mind that's the only time this
00:25:36.280will work you have to do it at like 3 a.m with like a bonfire just off to the side and like somebody
00:25:41.740has to like try and walk over and a crowd gathered around like just imagine you can like imagine it
00:25:46.600in your head like this scene being set definitely so yeah um if you guys are arguing with any um
00:25:53.920selfish relatives who say that you aren't entitled to something in a will maybe try that
00:25:58.500um but maybe also don't walk over somebody's grave i don't know i'm not your mom as burial
00:26:05.360and ceremonial sites they were repeatedly used for rituals and as places where people congregated
00:26:10.160to participate in ceremonial burial rites mainly cremations within the stone circles otherwise
00:26:16.400they would have gotten very full very quickly yeah because they tend to be a bit smaller
00:26:20.120in terms of people congregating for ritual use the one out at locker has almost a stadium seating
00:26:29.960effect where this the inner part of the stone circle is dug down and that is intentional and
00:26:36.200it's not just erosion like it was done at the time of construction the inside of the circle is down
00:26:41.180and the outside of the circle is built up so the idea is there is an observational element like
00:26:48.020whatever ritual is happening in the middle you want space for a lot of people you could fit a
00:26:52.980good few hundred people out there around the big it's the biggest one in ireland so around the
00:26:58.280exterior of the circle but that one interestingly as far as it has been discovered so far it doesn't
00:27:03.820have any cremated remains oh interesting remains of anybody uh cremated or otherwise i guess i
00:27:09.660should say there is a wedge tomb that's like just up the road so it's possible like the few the wake
00:27:16.900is at the stone circle and the burials at the wedge tomb i don't know um you know after an
00:27:22.300irish funeral it's like you go into the graveyard no it's freaking raining i'm not going to go into
00:27:25.940the graveyard but sure i'll just shake their hand outside the chapel here and then that'll be me
00:27:29.500you have to go back to work so we just haven't changed i'm just going to keep saying that the
00:27:34.260most famous stone circle of all is Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. It was built
00:27:40.340in several phases between 3000 and 1520 BCE during the shift from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
00:27:48.220Stonehenge is unusual because its massive sarsen stones were shaped and set in post and lintel
00:27:54.440formations. So that is, for anybody not like, does not see my hands, it's two posts vertically
00:28:00.260and then something horizontal you you know you can picture stonehenge yeah it looks like a door frame
00:28:06.100yes exactly not all of the horizontal stones are left in stonehenge from what i remember there's
00:28:12.000some of them that are just the vertical ones are left but i think they were all originally horizontal
00:28:16.300i believe stonehenge is unusual because its massive sarsen stones were shaped and set in
00:28:21.020post and lintel formations and because its smaller blue stones were brought from south wales over a
00:28:26.000hundred miles away no single purpose has ever been confirmed but the site was almost certainly
00:28:31.240ceremonial it may have served as a religious center a place connected with ancestors a healing
00:28:36.920site or a way of tracking the movements of the sun and the moon for the farming calendar the
00:28:41.820monument is aligned with the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset marked by the line running
00:28:47.200through the entrance and the heelstone once again how how did they have this did somebody just stand
00:28:52.200there and be like right this is it's going to take us forever to build this thing but
00:28:56.000these two spots have to be definitely kept free so that the sunrise and sunset can line up like
00:29:02.340what just crazy yeah I think before living indoors and having all of these light sources and stuff
00:29:10.800people must have just been so much more connected and like the average person must have cared so
00:29:16.200much more about where the sun is and where the moon is and what it means yeah and I mean we're
00:29:22.400also like in like from where we are on the planet we're so fortunate because i do love the long
00:29:30.380irish summer days you know there's sometimes you can be driving home from somewhere at 11 o'clock
00:29:34.420at night and it still looks like nice and bright and you can see everything and you can you can
00:29:38.280see the stars out but you can still see so much and i was speaking to because i work with people
00:29:43.040um rwanda and they were saying that there's sunsets at the same time every night throughout
00:29:49.180the year and I was just like I think I would find that so boring or like it would just be so like
00:29:55.860I just love that there's a change and like Irish people we love talking about the grand stretch in0.55
00:30:00.040the evenings. Heather I'm sure you know that if you you can officially call yourself a citizen1.00
00:30:04.680here once you start telling people about the grand stretch. Definitely. Yes so the grand stretch is
00:30:12.580just when you after usually after the clocks change after they go forward in spring and you
00:30:18.320have an extra hour of your your sunlight and you notice the grand stretch in the evenings
00:30:24.140great stretch and it's good it's usually good for the farmers because they get more time out to do
00:30:29.040their silage and their baling and and all of that but um yeah it's just so endemic within our culture
00:30:34.220that we like we're so fascinated by the sun and how much sunlight we get because we get so little
00:30:39.880of it in the winter don't like yeah we're like a different country in the summertime truly we've
00:30:45.100had really nice weather here in limerick the past week and it's just such a difference people stop
00:30:49.680and like talk to each other in the street and everyone's not just like hurrying with their hood
00:30:53.820up you know yeah a different country in the summer in nice weather for sure yeah so stonehenge sits
00:31:01.200within a wider ritual landscape of more than 350 monuments including the related complex at
00:31:07.300avebury today it's a unesco world heritage site and still draws huge crowds for the summer solstice
00:31:12.760including modern druid groups who gather to greet the sunrise that sounds like a good time sounds
00:31:18.040like that would be like absolute immaculate vibes meeting the sunrise at stonehenge i also think it's
00:31:24.580one of the only times of year if i'm remembering correctly that you can get into the actual stone
00:31:29.880circle like usually because they get so much tourism you'll have to view it from a distance
00:31:34.040but i think on the solstices now i don't know if you need to apply or there's a lottery or whatnot
00:31:38.980but it's one of the only times you can get closer do you remember that viral video there was a cat
00:31:43.280in there yes the winter solstice this year yes do yourselves a favor and look up that video if you
00:31:48.660haven't seen it because it's really something yeah because that cat is just and of course it's
00:31:54.360normal cat energy but like you know cats always just look like they're so important anyway
00:31:58.400that's like they're the most important being in the entire stone circle um and you do get that
00:32:04.260vibe that cat is reincarnated some from somebody definitely like yes bow down yeah I'm exactly
00:32:10.880where I'm supposed to be right now yeah because I even remember like older photos before it became
00:32:16.380this you know the world heritage site and before it became this huge tourist attraction there was
00:32:21.500like farm animals grazing around Stonehenge like it was just such a like a just a part of the
00:32:26.600landscape that it was it's sad in ways that like they have to fence it off but I 100% understand
00:32:32.240why you know it would just be trampled you know yeah there's definitely a wider discussion there
00:32:36.940about like preservation versus letting people experience it that um i'm sure like parts of
00:32:43.640ireland are going through as well like the more famous that new grange gets like are they going
00:32:47.540to keep letting everyone go inside every day of the year but then some of them some of these things
00:32:53.400are still the one i go to all the time by locker does have cows grazing yeah like you know it's
00:32:59.680very someone owns it and it's only by the grace of the farmer um and kind of keeping keeping right
00:33:08.520relationship there that people can access it at all yeah yeah yeah and being showing them their
00:33:15.000respect that they're they're due yeah you hope everybody respects it as much as like you were
00:33:19.440you or i would when we went there i know it's not obvious always going to be that way but
00:33:23.580yeah be cool people when you're visiting these places just maybe maybe a good place to note
00:33:29.400that it's not really appropriate to light candles on the stones I've seen that it's not appropriate
00:33:37.160to leave jewelry or offerings I know you're thinking offering and it's coming from a good
00:33:42.320place but yeah some of the things left around that could hurt the livestock of the farmer who
00:33:48.120the land belongs to um yeah being mindful being mindful like offerings can be something like
00:33:55.620singing a song playing a tune on some kind of instrument I would say like leave a little bit
00:34:02.680of moon water a little bit of oats and honey is a big one in Ireland I know for leaving oats and
00:34:09.200honey for the sheep but then practically maybe a bird or a fox will eat that and it wouldn't hurt
00:34:14.540a cow if a cow happened to eat it kind of thing so right yeah with this kind of spiritual tourism
00:34:20.020we have to think don't leave glass I've seen broken glass and I'm like I don't know what that
00:34:24.700was meant to be i'm sure it was an offering of some kind but like it will outlast you it's not
00:34:29.220biodegradable yeah oh my god and a lot of these things like you feel like it's you know it goes
00:34:34.740without saying but i guess people you know i understand people are so excited to get to these
00:34:38.460places and especially if they live abroad or they live like it like it's a once in a lifetime chance
00:34:44.860for them to get there um like i totally understand your excitement but at the same time yeah like
00:34:50.840heather said it's be cool just be cool please just another honorable mention to another famous
00:34:58.460stone circle clava cairns in inverness scotland they're a group of three bronze age cairns one
00:35:05.020of which is known to most as the famous craigna dune stone circle from outlander they're about
00:35:10.4004 000 years old and were built to house the dead the cemetery remained a sacred place in the
00:35:15.680landscape for millennia and provides many clues to the beliefs of bronze age society yeah it's
00:35:21.160just that's those scenes in outlander where claire's passing through the stone circles are
00:35:25.180just iconic like even just artistically it just makes they just makes the stone circles look so
00:35:31.880magical and beautiful and mystical and yeah i mean they're a vessel for time travel in the book and
00:35:38.600in the show so of course people are going to be excited to to visit them i love that and i think
00:35:43.320there is something to the idea that they were marking something important we don't know what
00:35:49.100it was like is this a place that people fall through the veil that certainly a lot of stories
00:35:54.540would say so whether you fall through the veil to another place or another time we don't have
00:35:59.480enough people coming back to let us know yes exactly will you have a gorgeous Scottish man
00:36:04.560waiting for you on the other side we cannot guarantee that nobody can there's plenty of
00:36:10.260gorgeous Scottish men on this side so but yeah they're they're marking something it's a lot of
00:36:16.260effort to put in and the idea of kind of why are they where they are so it's questions a lot of
00:36:22.980people have tried to answer especially because and we'll get into the symbolism and things like that
00:36:27.480especially because these things are like they pop up within different communities I wonder is there
00:36:33.380ever a sense of well that community that's like three villages over they have a stone circle maybe
00:36:39.260we should have our own and maybe ours should be bigger I'm sure there's an element of like sort
00:36:45.540of keeping up and or you know somebody visits so visits one elsewhere and they're like yeah that's
00:36:50.940like I feel so spiritually connected to that place and this is somewhere I feel spiritually
00:36:55.160connected to in my community so I would like to mark this place as well you know I would just
00:36:59.920I would love to know how that came about how the decisions are made you know to to build these
00:37:06.160places and to choose the locations and and and start building you know yeah and as you were
00:37:12.240saying earlier there's some evidence that it goes west to east especially the passage tombs like
00:37:20.220I've been to the ones in Sligo and they're definitely a little bit rougher or less refined
00:37:26.380than Newgrange so as people are kind of migrating they're improving their building techniques and
00:37:34.960things and i think you can see it in stone circles too come like if you compare compare
00:37:40.240locker to stonehenge like locker doesn't have any of the top stones right um it's very big
00:37:47.660across but the stones are not quite as large as the ones at stonehenge so the idea that people
00:37:52.480are learning and the idea is spreading but then why do they choose to put them where they choose
00:37:58.420to put them yeah we don't know but we'll have some theories later on in our final part of this
00:38:05.400episode stay tuned yes the circular design of stone circles had function as a gathering place
00:38:13.260but the fact that this design was repeated over such a large geographical area reflects a sense
00:38:18.400of spirituality and belief in the other world capital o other world they were sacred sites
00:38:23.500and many may have been the focus for ancestral veneration housing the remains of individuals
00:38:28.340who are important to the collective memory of the community.
00:38:32.100Stone circles close to trackways may have been centres
00:38:35.140for the acquisition and distribution of stone axes
00:38:38.160and their transfer to rich settlement areas.
00:38:41.200The connection between regions of early stone circles
00:38:43.620and stone axe factories and their distribution
00:38:57.720like you know they didn't have slack or microsoft teams or anything like that they could build these
00:39:03.340things they could advertise them it's like where did you get that axe it's really good yeah i got
00:39:07.800it from this guy at this stone circle and you have to go there on the first fourth friday of
00:39:11.620the month or whatever it is you know just crazy side quests yeah you just gave me a like idea of
00:39:20.520the slack chat between some people of like oh so-and-so's really slacking off today like he
00:39:24.740didn't move nearly as many stones yeah that's i would say it's definitely where the the expression
00:39:33.260if there was work in the bed he'd sleep on the floor came from like it's definitely like i love
00:39:37.740he's not pulling his weight some stone circles were built on land previously used for agriculture
00:39:43.940with its decline the land was chosen as a site for funerary activities involving the building
00:39:49.760of stone circles and alignments it's believed that the appearance of stone circles and related
00:39:54.240monuments in southwest ireland by 1500 bce marked a distinct arrival of new people or new ritual
00:40:00.980practices so yeah you see it like changing and as heather was talking about how the engineering
00:40:07.320evolves you also see like as we're moving away from maybe who knows they could have been thought
00:40:15.080to be more temporary than they are but they're like they want these things to to be built to last
00:40:20.960and new people brings new knowledge and new probably new building practices or possibly new
00:40:28.360new uh celebration practices um so yeah that's how you like it all comes together in this big
00:40:34.620rich history um the idea of the symbolism too it kind of pinged for me of building stone circles
00:40:41.940and then also the passage tombs are round but people were living in round structures as well
00:40:46.740the ring forts and cashels are homes that have or homes are animal enclosures that have been
00:40:54.100abandoned since that are also round so there's a culture that comes in that really wants to live
00:40:59.560in and worship in circular spaces i don't know yeah something there yeah yeah good point it
00:41:08.740seems nice it seems cozy it does and it's it probably feels more defensible i would say
00:41:16.020as well like if you know if you were expecting unwanted visitors it might be easier rather than
00:41:22.980anything that's at like right angles who knows but yeah i definitely think it's definitely a
00:41:27.640running theme through their structures that they were building yeah and because they have been part
00:41:32.360of the landscape for so long of course we have the rubs hands together the folklore um around
00:41:38.520sewn circles hi everyone emily here and neve over here we're just popping in right before the ads
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00:42:16.240the episode description that includes our patreon which is where we upload everything early and ad0.77
00:42:21.520free including some fun extras for paid tier members go check it out and fuck yeah folklore
00:42:27.860So we have the Carnac alignments in France.
00:42:32.440So these are, it's not a circle, but it's like a straight, straight formations parallel to each other of megaliths.
00:42:43.160Supposedly, Saint Cornelie, I hope I'm saying that right, patron saint of cattle, was pursued by a region, a legion of Roman soldiers and finding no other means of escape, had hidden in the ear of an ox and turned the legionnaires to stone.
00:42:55.980So that's why they're in straight lines, because they were marching in legion formation.
00:43:00.960Other stories say Merlin keeps showing up at the scene of the crime.
00:43:04.640Merlin turned Roman soldiers who marched through here into these stones or that they were burial sites or an ancient earthquake detector.
00:43:12.460I would like to know more about that. I would like to know how it's detecting an earthquake.
00:43:16.560Also, like how many earthquakes were you having?
00:43:18.520i was gonna say i because i don't i wouldn't be familiar with france but i know ireland and
00:43:25.240ireland and england are not very prone to them no yeah like europe in general we're not really
00:43:30.480an earthquake prone place so whatever tectonic plate that we're sitting on seems to be pretty
00:43:35.760stable um i guess yeah maybe there was some more in france yeah exactly my god don't attempt that
00:43:42.900fate. So folklore around Stonehenge. Stonehenge has been accused of being a circle of frozen
00:43:49.960giants and stolen from Ireland. According to legend, the monument was once situated
00:43:55.440in County Kildare, which is southwest of Dublin. As explained by Geoffrey of Monmouth,
00:44:00.840Marilyn the Magician moved Stonehenge from Ireland to England to serve as a memorial
00:44:05.580for the hundreds of Britons treacherously slain by the Saxons during a truce meeting
00:44:10.360on Salisbury Plain. In the story, which Geoffrey claimed was based on an older work that he
00:44:15.640had found, Ambrosium Aurelinius, not like to meet him drunk because I could not say
00:44:20.200that name, who was the uncle of King Arthur, wanted to build a memorial for his dead warriors
00:44:26.040which would last forever, but his builders could think of no way of doing it. Merlin
00:44:30.440provided the solution, go to Ireland and bring back the ones there.
00:44:34.480excuse excuse me even in the old stories they're acknowledging like nicking interesting stuff
00:44:44.920from marlin yeah what in the british museum like excuse you just like imagine seeing somebody's
00:44:53.520lovely house going i don't really know how to build that so i'm just gonna steal their house
00:44:57.380and an incredible show of power from merlin like the idea of teleporting this huge stones there
00:45:06.040yeah across the ocean like really interesting also kildare is a really interesting town
00:45:12.060um that's bridged bridged territory big time the goddess saint i believe you guys have an episode
00:45:17.640on her but we we haven't done like a dedicated one yet but i have a friend from kildare that i
00:45:23.040might rope into uh to doing a bridget episode yeah i would love to do a full one the because
00:45:29.860we we did touch on her on our in our midwifery episode i think oh yeah yeah yeah um so yeah
00:45:38.340like the the idea and also merlin if you're able to do that with stones could you not have done it
00:45:42.760like for better things like could you not be bringing people grain you know starving people
00:45:52.560It's just, at least give them a finder's fee for finding all the stones.
00:45:58.440God, the Brits are at it again, always.
00:46:01.300So we have Long Meg and her daughters in Cumbria, also England.
00:46:06.260Tradition around Long Meg and her daughters in Cumbria claims that you can't reach the same number twice when counting them
00:46:11.920and a fierce storm would rise up if anyone tried to uproot them.
00:46:15.280Local legends claim that the stones were witches turned to stone for punishment, as punishment for doing magic on a Sunday, or that they were Meg's sisters punished for, quote, soliciting her to an unlawful love by an enchantment.
00:46:28.780So they're very anti-love potions, partly.
00:46:31.300I love that you can do magic on every other day of the week, though, just not Sunday.0.69
00:46:35.000Yeah, this feels like my art slash religion teacher shoehorning Christianity in there again, because it's like, oh, it's not the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath.
00:46:44.460it according to legend meg the stone meg stands above buried treasure and the stone apparently
00:46:50.820bleeds if you chip pieces off now i love that last part because it's stopping people from
00:46:56.220from interfering with it and taking parts i think we should spread that around all of the stone
00:47:01.380circles that they will do if you chip pieces off them for sure well and um around ireland it'd just
00:47:08.520be you'd be cursed and your whole family would be cursed if you move one or take anything or
00:47:13.240exactly but yeah bleeding is a is a new one but i love that it's similar to there's a there's a
00:47:20.220stone circle in county wicklow called the piper stone circle uh where it's the same thing i believe
00:47:25.240where a piper was playing music for people on a sunday and then got turned to stone by god i guess
00:47:32.180and see there's one that's the piper and one that are meant to be the people that were were dancing
00:47:38.220It's a beautiful one out in County Wicklow, I believe.
00:48:33.660i definitely know some poets and musicians who have stayed the night like kind of before summer
00:48:39.200solstice morning because the sun comes up at like five uh lots of people stay in the with
00:48:45.280permission of the farmer in the field nearby to be there for summer solstice so now i'm like oh
00:48:49.740lads wait should we not be doing this yeah don't do it if you have a deadline or something if you're
00:48:55.040trying to get a book done you know yeah yeah some kind of inspiration yeah obviously that's
00:49:02.000that's one of the stories running around about it and it's a place that has a lot of stories
00:49:06.380um it's associated with the goddess Anya uh is also meant to rise out of that lake or live under
00:49:13.440that lake and like a perfect reflection of limerick underneath of it which is really beautiful
00:49:18.240gorgeous imagery um she's a great example of how Ireland's immortals got de-deified to coexist
00:49:28.080with the church so she starts out in some of the oldest stories as the goddess Anya and then she
00:49:34.080gets demoted to the fairy queen Anya gets demoted further to a banshee who cries in warning for the
00:49:43.300particular family who has their castle on this lake and then even down into like the national
00:49:49.320folklore collection in the 1920s she is just a human there's a hill called knock Anya and they're
00:49:55.360Like, oh, a human woman called Anya got taken into that hill by the fairy.
00:50:00.900So there's this like kind of straight line down of how much power or importance she's allowed to hold in conjunction with the rise of Christianity.
00:50:09.900That's like infuriating, but also like does not surprise me whatsoever.0.91
00:50:14.780The de-deification of Anya as like, you know, we mentioned Bridget, same thing happened with Bridget.0.94
00:50:20.280And it's, I've definitely heard the Anya-Banshee connection before.
00:50:23.920i think we might have mentioned it in our banshee episode because my my thought is always
00:50:28.260the like a banshee called onya is just so funny to me because onya is like a millennial irish
00:50:33.620woman name yeah i was gonna say it's a really common name so it's like for anyone else who's
00:50:40.120like in a you know it'll be like it being called sarah like a banshee called sarah or whatever
00:50:45.620like it's just it's just so funny but like i didn't know that that was the specifically
00:50:49.580like the locker connection that's that's really good and it makes a lot of sense
00:50:54.040makes a lot yes there's a family i don't remember their name off the top of my head but they have a
00:50:59.200castle on the lake uh and she's meant to cry for their oh i think it's the fitzgeralds because
00:51:05.580okay the f in jfk his side of the family is also like from this little town and they're very proud
00:51:11.040of it um you can't get a pint in that town without hearing about jfk jesus
00:51:17.720it all comes together banshees jfk stone circles yeah it's like a bingo if you had an irish bingo
00:51:28.160card like you're filling out a line yeah you go to brough and the area round locker to get it
00:51:33.960filled for sure for sure but um the circle there is at least 4,225 years old um and there's actually
00:51:42.880two there's a really big one that has the biggest diameter across of stone circles in Ireland
00:51:48.880and then off to the field to the left if you're in the parking area there's a smaller one
00:51:55.460that is known as the healing circle and that's the one that has the cludi tree
00:52:01.100growing out of one of the stones um so don't miss that if you are ever going out to it
00:52:06.540the smaller circle um has has a lovely beautiful energy as well and actually has
00:52:11.160entwined trees a hawthorn and an ash tree growing out of one of the stones um so it's like a really
00:52:19.340interesting half and half they kind of lose their leaves and bloom at different times and that's the
00:52:24.740one that people tie their requests to healing to um i will again encourage using something
00:52:31.900biodegradable even a strand of grass rather than plastic ribbons or things like that
00:52:37.380but really beautiful nice smaller stone circle as well and then there's some local lore that
00:52:43.440there used to be a bigger third circle that encircled the other two um that comes to us
00:52:51.540from the national folklore collection in the early 1900s but wow no evidence of that one either the
00:52:59.600road was paved over it or or it never existed in the first place it's just a story but interesting
00:53:06.180thought there that there might have been more um the other really beautiful thing about that one
00:53:12.380is there's a huge ash tree like like you would take it would take three adults probably to get
00:53:17.160your arms around it growing at the exact midpoint of the circle in the back so like when you walk
00:53:23.760in the entrance you're facing this huge tree huge ash tree dead on but looking at that huge tree
00:53:30.240it's so much younger than the circle whoa yeah so that's something I always think about when I'm
00:53:37.780standing there of like I look at this big old wise tree and then I'm like oh you're not even
00:53:43.000yeah a tenth of as old as this circle is that's crazy it's not it's almost like a time marker
00:53:50.900like just to like it's nearly like a flex and like this this tree is so old it's like you know
00:53:56.060you always associate the oldest things on earth to be like trees and the mountains and stuff but
00:54:00.640like yeah the fact that that was a later addition or it was a later do you think it was just a little
00:54:05.440acorn fell between two particular stones at some point I was gonna ask do you think it was
00:54:10.560intentional or do you think it was like a it's a magical place so i feel like it might have been
00:54:15.540just a by chance yeah i don't know it is exactly opposite the entrance like if the entrance is at
00:54:23.84012 o'clock on a clock this is at six so i wonder if it like got more light even or something on
00:54:30.000that one spot um but it is beautiful and definitely one of the most iconic parts about it that people
00:54:36.340photograph and things at this point is this huge huge ash tree which you have to remember is
00:54:41.280just like a baby compared to the actual age of the circle um there are some carvings on the stones
00:54:50.280if you kind of shine a flashlight or your phone flashlight at the back of them there have there
00:54:56.540are spiral carvings that you can like just barely make out it's one of the one of the things we've
00:55:03.240lost to erosion yeah um so I can only imagine what they looked like way back when or what may
00:55:10.900have been carved on them at the time yeah because that's that's the thing like we have we're so like
00:55:17.160preoccupied with what we have retained and what has survived for so long but like and I feel this
00:55:22.660way about ring forts as well it's like what was lost like what was there originally what did that
00:55:27.360look like like they must have been just absolutely stunning you know yeah for sure we're looking to
00:55:33.820have them we are yeah folklore practice that people still do at this stone circle is the
00:55:39.520idea of walking it clockwise and repeating a prayer or intention at every stone so there's
00:55:45.240113 stones it's uh it's the undertaking of an afternoon for sure i've but i've seen people do
00:55:51.480it and talk to locals that that's an important part of their practice with it and then my thought
00:55:55.800of course was the first time I was out there I was like clock they didn't have clocks like
00:56:00.140what's the idea what's the idea of clockwise about um but when modern people invented clock
00:56:07.060it's sunwise like the way the sun moves through the sky is is the direction uh and in Irish it's
00:56:15.380is the word for it for going clockwise and it just means sunwise so this is potentially a very
00:56:21.940old tradition that has survived if you walk sunwise around the circle.
00:56:28.040Yeah, because I'm trying to think, like, clockwise would be to the right, and
00:56:31.980aryash is Irish for on your right, so there's aryash and airclay, so dachel would be right
00:56:43.440Yeah, because I was just like, well, this must be a very modern thing, because they
00:56:46.940didn't have clocks, but it turns out, no, when people were inventing clocks, they had
00:56:50.720it go the direction of the sun that's just what we were used to maybe from sundials or what have
00:56:55.320you before that we're all going sunways all the time and we don't even know it makes so much
00:57:01.700sense it really does and that one is summer solstice aligned uh so the the entrance way
00:57:08.220that you would walk in the area that's kind of left open so you can get into the stone circle
00:57:13.020is still where the sun comes up on the summer solstice and there are loads of people out there
00:57:19.180for it. It's a really beautiful experience. And something that struck me the first time I was
00:57:26.040there was there was obviously more like Druidic people or witches out there, but there were also
00:57:32.640traditional Irish musicians. So it was kind of like a dance environment. And there were people
00:57:39.140just kind of like the farmers that live on the road walking over with their coffee. And there
00:57:44.620were kids in their school uniforms. Their parents were taking them to school right after. Like it
00:57:49.020was just such a mishmatch of all humanity that were there to see it and even though there were
00:57:54.740all these kids running around and playing the moment that the sun came up through the stones
00:57:59.800and you could see it it was silent there was not not a baby crying not a child moving like everyone
00:58:05.360was just absolutely still looking at it and looking at how that alignment still works that's
00:58:12.800crazy and like it sounds like an just an echo back through like history because like that probably
00:58:18.780just happens every year you know people just stop and take a minute and just pay attention and like
00:58:25.120are present in the moment because it's so hard to be present all the time that's beautiful it was
00:58:30.140such a gorgeous connection you know like a moment of connection really really powerful and that
00:58:34.560there were so many different people like different age ranges and different demographics of people
00:58:39.040that were there but it obviously meant something to everyone and was yeah as you say a very present
00:58:45.160very grounded moment of i mean at the summer solstice you're like oh it gets darker from here
00:58:50.240like we have arrived at the peak of summer i better savor it i better enjoy it yeah yeah
00:58:56.460um that's gorgeous it's such a special tradition and it's such a special thing that like we still
00:59:03.380have people who are interested in it who notice these things who preserve these sites that like
00:59:08.580they put the work in to like make sure that you know as we said people don't treat them badly or
00:59:13.520you know that they keep them in the condition that they are in and like these national heritage
00:59:18.280sites and it's just i need to actually show some appreciation for that because it's such a cool
00:59:23.320aspect of living here so even if you can't go on the day of the 21st or 22nd of june that it falls
00:59:30.340on the alignment of most of these things works even i was saying about new grange six ish days
00:59:37.080you know so if you need to wait for a weekend or for the bank holiday or something yeah like it is
00:59:43.100still worth doing um because and then like especially the solstices part of what's remarkable
00:59:50.300about them is the sun kind of stops in the sky for three-ish days it's in the same place that's
00:59:55.660where we get the irish word for solstices green sad uh sun stop yeah so that means the alignments
01:00:02.120work for longer and sure with our like gregorian calendar we can all be like it's june 21st and if
01:00:08.560I can't go on June 21st it doesn't matter but the sun literally stops in the sky and then the
01:00:13.420alignment works for kind of a few days on either side of the stop as well so don't hold yourself to
01:00:19.020yeah it's June 21st or nothing yeah yeah definitely and that brings us in really beautifully thank you
01:00:27.480for the segue to the astronomical orientation of these sites so solar or lunar alignments
01:00:36.120are features of many stone circles. Stone circles in the South Munster group have a general
01:00:42.220orientation between West and South. The respect for the sunset horizon in the darker months of
01:00:46.920the year is consistent with the funerary function of these monuments. The orientation was seemingly
01:00:52.720considered important by prehistoric societies. By marking the approach of the winter solstice
01:00:58.500and the returning sun, stone circles properly aligned may have acted as calendrical symbols
01:01:04.380in the farming cycle for instance as well as in the seasonal timing of ceremonies whether however
01:01:10.600stone circles functioned as astronomical observatories as is often postulated has been
01:01:15.980questioned i never got an observatory vibe off it i just always thought it was like um
01:01:22.540like a gathering thing like i didn't think it was it was like the the sun was your indicator of when
01:01:29.960to gather there but it wasn't there specifically for the sun you know that's that was always just
01:01:35.580my vibe so it's interesting that like in the research that i they had pulled for this that
01:01:40.360there is some like suggestion that people thought it was gathering to be an observatory or to like
01:01:47.120look at certain stars or whatever it was yeah i think they are i can understand where people get
01:01:53.380that idea because they are kind of consistently spaced. So it's a nice way to think about where
01:02:00.580certain planets or stars are. So I went for the winter solstice to Grange Stone Circle out of
01:02:07.720curiosity of it's aligned on the summer solstice, but where is the winter solstice sunrise anyway?
01:02:13.940And in my own naivety, I thought that it would be completely opposite. I was like, okay, so if
01:02:20.960the sun rises in the summer through the door the sun will rise winter solstice behind the tree it'll
01:02:26.360be like 180 degrees different um and it would if we lived on the equator but we don't oh okay so
01:02:35.100it's actually more like if the thing was a clock the summer solstice sunrise is like 11 a.m and
01:02:42.700then the winter solstice sunrise is like 3 30 okay yeah yeah so it's not the complete opposite
01:02:51.680like i thought it was going to be and it it would be i guess if we were on the equator but because
01:02:56.440we're so far north it's like a smaller slice of the pie um that the sun swings back and forth
01:03:03.460in between and that's why we get our brutal winters yes really nice long summer days yeah
01:03:09.980So it worked as an observatory for me, and I found it helpful of like, oh, because it's circular and evenly spaced, it kind of helped my brain understand the part of the sky that the sun moves through for us in this part of the world.
01:03:24.860that doesn't necessarily mean it's how the ancients were using it but especially on that
01:03:30.260day I was like oh I kind of get that of like maybe if one of your druids is like astronomically
01:03:35.620challenged you take them to this and you're like look observe this for a few days see how it moves
01:03:42.480from one stone to the other like it's yeah it's a study tool for yeah no that's that's like so and
01:03:49.480it's such a good way of looking at it as well as like this slice of because it's like the the place
01:03:54.580that we basically occupy in space like this the slice of the sky that we get right which is such
01:04:01.480a it's such a a nice and unique way of looking at and it shows that like why sometimes they're
01:04:08.040like the suggestion of moving these places or these monuments anywhere is just absolutely
01:04:14.980sacrilegious which we will get to very shortly so so this astronomical alignment it is really
01:04:21.620complicated to figure out at any site to discover where the sun or moon will rise or set at their
01:04:28.360northern or southern extremes. An inquirer must know three things. So the azimuth, which I definitely
01:04:34.540did not know off the top of my head, which is the azimuth is the direction of a celestial object
01:04:40.340from the observer expressed as the angular distance from the north or south point of the
01:04:45.860horizon to the point at which a vertical circle passing through the object intersects the horizon.
01:04:51.620So Heather has said she is bad at maths. I am probably even worse. Geometry, no. So I will just take their word for that. It's just a very complicated angularly to figure out where these things will line up as somebody standing on the Earth and in that particular point on the Earth.
01:05:13.060And then so you have the azimuth and then you have to figure out the latitude and the horizon height.
01:05:18.820From these, the necessary solar and lunar declinations can be calculated.
01:05:23.360But you also have to allow for the declination of the sun and the moon compared to where they were when the circles were first in use.
01:05:30.380So when you think about like how different the sky must be after around four millennium, millennia, like and the fact that they're still working, the way they're aligned.
01:05:42.880I think they're slightly off at this point, even because both Newgrange and the Stone Circle I was talking about are slightly off at this point, even just because 4,000 years is a really long time.
01:05:55.260It's like that, you know, that meme that you see is like, I'm so happy to be alive at the same time as Dolly Parton.
01:06:00.760We're so happy to be alive at the same time that these work.
01:11:07.560Oh, but you won't find anyone who will go develop one of those.
01:11:11.940Those were built during the early medieval periods, about 500 to 900 AD or Christian
01:11:18.560era though some are thought to date to late iron age um which is 100 to 500 however many are found
01:11:25.660on or within earlier sites that have origins going back as far as the bronze age so we have
01:11:31.800these sacred sites that we are reusing and recycling because we just we just know that
01:11:38.120there's something special about these places and magical um which as much as you know we're talking
01:11:45.580about we that we try not to build anything or destroy any of their ring forts just shows that
01:11:50.860our ancestors definitely did believe in redeveloping places even if it was something
01:11:57.320that was special to their own ancestors uh that came before but um i give them a lot more grace
01:12:03.820for doing it um we shouldn't do it they can yeah it is interesting so these are the ones that people
01:12:09.960say are fairy forts and you'll notice them in the landscape a lot of times it looks like a perfect
01:12:16.540ring of trees or a perfect ring of vegetation in a field that otherwise has cows or crops or
01:12:22.800something in it because the superstition or the folk tale is to do not you do not take a single
01:12:30.060stone we do not touch or move these but yeah it is interesting that archaeologists prove that
01:12:37.880they were dwelling places for people and animals in the past so it's almost a form of like ancestor
01:12:44.920veneration to leave them alone yeah i would agree yeah definitely like just showing that respect and
01:12:50.540you know even if it's even if it's not for superstitious reasons or like for fear that
01:12:56.780it's just like well no this is special and somebody's relatives or somebody's family line
01:13:02.200can be traced back here it's gone you know they they inhabited this place and we're not gonna
01:13:07.200to mess with it because it's not ours to mess with exactly i have also wondered if um part of
01:13:13.840it could be farmers that do leave them alone prosper more because you're leaving biodiverse
01:13:20.700a biodiverse area right in that you do not develop in your field so you're giving home to
01:13:27.560native habitat and maybe like the foxes and the kestrels that live there are helping keep the
01:13:32.960rodents under control or you have more pollinators because you get the native flora and fauna in that
01:13:38.640one area that you leave alone so i think it's possible there's like an ecological explanation
01:13:44.460as well for why people who leave them alone fare better absolutely it's just become kind of worked
01:13:49.600into the lore over time which is my favorite aspect of folklore when there is something that
01:13:54.200when you look back there is like a a scientific or a sociological explanation for the stories that
01:14:02.140we're telling each other and there is a reason for them it's just I just love it so much gives
01:14:07.340me goosebumps so these circular earth banked enclosures were the standard farmsteads for
01:14:12.460free families and cattle farmers providing security against cattle raiders and predators
01:14:17.340rather than acting solely as military forts the name the word predator gave me pause and then I
01:14:23.140remember that we used to have wolves and I was like all right yeah we actually did it's not just
01:14:26.560these badgers because that's the biggest carnivore we have in Ireland it's not just oh no the badgers
01:14:31.200are out again we did have wolves so and badgers are yeah my god cute very cute but give them
01:14:38.540so many dogs that have been messed up by badgers good lord because people actually lived in them
01:14:43.180they show some exciting elements of life for the medieval irish excavations at rathgurin ringfort
01:14:49.020in galway shows evidence of contact with rome gotland france and scandinavia possibly including
01:14:55.180the trade of a valuable purple dye made there i love that i love that they had like this special
01:15:01.560like when you think of like all the like whiskeys and gins and all all those regional things that
01:15:07.200we associate with place names in ireland that they had their own dye that was something that
01:15:12.340they exported and people like traveled and wanted to barter with them and trade with them it's just
01:15:17.700like yeah these people were just so much more widely traveled than i think we give credit for
01:15:24.080Because the idea of walking or riding an animal as your only kind of transportation is so daunting to a modern person.
01:15:30.620But then you hear things about how far away they were getting goods, like beads found at the Hill of Tara are amber from Russia and like fans beads from Egypt.
01:15:41.940And I'm just like, who now maybe one person didn't walk that whole distance, but the good made its way that far.
01:15:48.380Like they interacted with enough people for it to make it like a bridge of like people and trade the whole way from those places.
01:15:56.060And there's some amount of like, if you're trading, there's some amount of language or hand signals that you're using to get across from so far.
01:16:29.180I didn't know that it was more widespread than Ireland.
01:16:31.780Yeah, I didn't know that until I was researching this,
01:16:33.700because I thought it was just like Ireland, Scotland, UK sort of a thing.
01:16:37.680Yeah, the idea that everyone forgot that people built them.
01:16:42.620and everyone thinks that they're magical because they're round yeah i'm like what is the magical
01:16:48.980part but it's like it gives me the similar vibe to you know as like you know the do people find
01:16:54.720dinosaur bones and that's how we have dragon mythology is it that so many people in so many
01:17:00.200different places found these things like in their local area and came to similar conclusions that
01:17:07.680it's like oh they must be magical that must be a giant it must be fairy people or whatever it is
01:17:13.360like that it's yeah just this shared human explanation for it even if these people didn't
01:17:18.760really interact much or maybe it was just a like a game of telephone the whole way that like
01:17:24.060these people in ireland think that and then they traded with people in france and they told the
01:17:29.200people in france and then the people in france you know like the way it's spread it just moves
01:17:34.920Yeah. And it's really in Ireland, because there's these mounds that people are buried in these passage tombs that are meant to be where the she the fairies can come in and out of and it's where they live. It's where they like retired to when humans started being in the land. And I almost wonder if because a ring fort can kind of look like a passage.0.96
01:17:56.640yeah they all maybe it's actually going ireland to france that way of like oh fairies come out of0.97
01:18:02.980some of those so like mind yourself um because they just end up looking very similar as they0.98
01:18:09.700get covered in vegetation and partially buried and yeah and like you have no way of knowing
01:18:14.380obviously we're only finding out now with like modern archaeological practices how old some of
01:18:19.400these things are so like to anybody it's you know like wrapping your head around the difference in
01:18:24.800time between these things that were that were built like you would just lump them all in
01:18:30.000together and you just think that they're all the same like magical things and just as well just to
01:18:35.060point out that the irish word she the word for fairy just means like people under the mound or
01:18:40.460mound people so like that is that is where this whole folklore comes from um which is just it's
01:18:47.260just magical and it's why these places are so magical and they're so respected and venerated
01:18:51.420you know so uh i did of course want to dive into the national folklore collection and see
01:18:57.500if we have some folklore just because the folklore collection because it's told by children it's just
01:19:03.720so beautifully innocent and like there's half a story missing there's something that doesn't
01:19:10.160quite make sense the sentences trail off halfway like it's just such a delight to go through
01:19:15.720i feel like this is our like take a shot when we mention yeah this episode is the national folklore
01:19:23.560collection 100 so a story just a couple of stories that i picked out of the school's
01:19:29.780national folklore collection we have tales of fields housing fairy forts where it was believed
01:19:35.160that if you went into them you would never get out again we have a story of a man named kinsla
01:26:04.600would have used white quartz. The quote is, it said there were never white quartz stones anywhere
01:26:09.560but a place where the hill folk had a dwelling. They are fairy stones by right and it is not good
01:26:14.600to have anything to do with them. People have always been forbidden to use them in the stonework
01:26:18.900when building a house or buyer. Any building in which they were used would be unlucky. In the old
01:26:23.340days when people were being evicted, it was a custom that the evicted family would make every
01:26:27.860effort to get back into the house at night and light a fire of quartz stones in the hearth
01:26:32.820before the new occupants came in they were convinced that if they succeeded in doing so
01:26:37.220the new people would never have a day of prosperity or peace i love the pettiness0.97
01:26:43.940i was gonna say what a way to cope yeah kind of like sicking the fairies on whoever gets the house0.98
01:26:52.140definitely like i don't want you to enjoy the house that i essentially this could be a house0.89
01:26:59.120that they built and it's been taken off them yeah so like you're sickening the fairies off0.80
01:27:03.140on them and just saying like yeah do you know what if we can't enjoy this house neither can you0.75
01:27:07.600cursing rituals involving quartz were recorded in several regions and using nine white stones
01:27:13.340in a fire misusing quartz in this way was believed to provide that to provoke the anger of the good
01:27:18.460people yet quartz could also be used for healing fairy doctors were said to use stones and crystals
01:27:23.600for curative purposes at new greens the role of quartz has been debated robert hentsey argues that
01:27:30.640the famous white quartz facade was not part of the original neolithic construction but was added
01:27:35.980after 2500 bce if people walked or stood on court on a quartz platform that produced tribal
01:27:42.200luminescence the effect may have been interpreted as a powerful communal invocation directed
01:27:47.740towards ancestors or deities i just think that is so cool like walking on the course
01:27:53.080like in low light and you see like little like lights and sparks coming off your foot i want to
01:27:58.020do that i just want to see it in person yeah yeah so for people who haven't seen the outside of
01:28:05.540new grange it's like very visible in the landscape because they've put white they found a lot of white
01:28:10.960courts around it and one archaeologist interpretation of what to do with it was it must have been up on
01:28:15.920the walls around the outside. So it really pops now. And it's very white and bright. But people
01:28:23.380have since pushed back and said, well, what if they were meant to be on the ground around the
01:28:28.000outside? The idea being when you walked on it, they would spark a little bit, or even that it
01:28:32.360would reflect the moonlight inside for ritual use so that you could see perhaps inside without
01:28:38.580candles. It's around a lot of these kind of passage tombs as well. I saw it in Sligo at the
01:28:45.180kind of like pre new grange three monuments up there also have a lot of white courts and then
01:28:51.540i know there's an experiential archaeologist in wales whose name escapes me his theory is that
01:28:57.680they would go inside these hills and like kind of whack the courts together in meditation wow
01:29:04.560and like kind of be sitting there making these sparks making these sparks all night until the
01:29:09.360sun comes in and does the alignment thing which definitely holds some i can it's very visceral i
01:29:18.220can feel that the idea of like almost they're striking yeah or like you're trying to restart
01:29:23.740the fire of the sun almost like you're sparking and you're sparking and you're sparking all night
01:29:28.420and then eventually it does it um perhaps it's like a trance kind of activity so in his view
01:29:34.600there's white courts around the outside of these passage tombs because people were using it
01:29:41.440right so it's almost like they were littering it's like we use it right they're just like oh
01:29:47.320because it's our sacred site after we i banged these rocks together all night i'm sick of them
01:29:51.140yeah i'm leaving them and i'm going to have some breakfast like their version of like the you know
01:29:55.960the empty beer cans or like after a concert like the empty empty plastic cups but no like i essentially
01:30:02.780because it was so sacred maybe they just left them there because they were like this is where
01:30:05.940the courts lives like we're banging them together i do not take anything away from this yeah i am
01:30:11.380and then over time it just becomes people associated with the fairies because the fairies
01:30:16.940are associated with these passage tombs and coming in and out of them uh so then you could use it to
01:30:22.620to curse people or to draw the ire of the good people yeah i love us i just love it so much
01:30:28.660One other thing you can look for if you, if you too enjoy creeping around old church ruins like myself, there's often a piece of white quartz or quartzite in the back, like the altar wall of old churches.
01:30:44.240There's a really pronounced one in Glendalough.
01:30:47.340So like churches of that kind of age around Ireland specifically.