Writing
Celtic Quoit a singing stone,
From ancestral voices flown,
Granite legend raised at last,
In a Cornish woodlands past.
Worked at will, with eager hands,
To clear and tend this sacred land.
Heartstone of our pagan story,
Brought alive in all it’s glory.
Watching days turn into night,
Seasons glories passing flight.
Years that turn so quick away,
Decades span and still you stay.
Sacred stones of past reach out,
Hear new voices raise a shout.
Held within from all who came,
Spirits of this place remain.
In Devil’s Frying-Pan field today,
I came across a strange array
Of high-viz coats and bobble hats,
Of buckets, spades and kneeling mats.
These are archaeologists,
Enveloped in the rain and mists,
I’ll introduce them, in a mo,
Starting with the head honcho.
Cuthbert Capstone is a boss
Who really doesn’t give a toss
For cracking whips or being feared
He just smiles, and grows his beard.
Ursula Upright, his number two,
Motivates the motley crew.
‘Dig the dirt until you ache,
And I’ll produce a yummy cake.
’Poised with pencil, Polly Planner,
Hair tied up with a bandana,
Dangling lead on bits of string,
Plots absolutely everything.
Maurice Mattock writes the blog;
A merry little monologue.
He’s also into skulls and bones,
A regular Indiana Jones.
And now we spy Felicity Flint,
Down on her knees – a buxom bint,
Who always gives great satisfaction
With the vigour of her action.
Ernestine Troweller, bum in the air,
Completes this doughty, delving pair;
‘The Rock Chicks’ is their soubriquet,
And granite’s in their DNA.
Percival Potts, alone in his cab,
Scrapes back earth right down to the rab.
He’s at it till the day expires –
A pointless task, as it transpires.
Cecelia Scrubber and Lettice Leaf
Long for a Stone-Age leitmotif.
All boulders they investigate,
Shampoo and then exfoliate.
Then there’s rookie Sylvester Sondage,
A menial, to those in charge;
Made to clean each piddling pebble
As thoroughly as he is able.
Barnaby Bucket, his co-digee,
Loves his archaeology.
He likes to give all food a go,
But most of all, he loves gateaux.
Doug Pitt does what it says on the tin:
Holes appear wherever he’s been.
He’ll hack and hew and till and toil,
And loves to frolic in the spoil,
As does RAFfish Roddy Riddler,
King of the sieve – a mighty twiddler;
Standing, stooping, unawares,
Pushing mud through tiny squares.
Gordon Granite, stoic scullion,
Is a resident of Mullion.
Like his name, he’s hard as nails
When mattocking or furling sails.
Belinda Backfill’s curly locks
Bob up and down among the rocks,
While Shirley Shovel fills her pail
And scrapes away, to no avail.
On half-term, Tobias Turfer,
Is an underwhelmed unearther;
For he, and lithe Lolita Lithic,
Find that flints are not prolific.
Without Philomena Phix-It,
Force majeure, who never bricks it,
Granite upright number four
Would still be flat upon the floor.
With her nous and charm and guile,
This splendid megalithophile
Will beg, implore, beseech and plead
To garner funds that they will need
Next year to finish their exploit
And re-erect Carwynnen Quoit.
We approached in awe the sacred place.
With trembling hands and solemn face
We fell in a circle to our knees
Lest we should the ancestors displease.
With lowered eyes we stroked the soil,
Spread through the years by pius toil.
We scraped aside the covering earth;
Of stones and roots there was no dearth.
At last we found the orange rab,
Embedded with stones in patterns ab-
Solutely mysterious, randomly kept.
A platform or pavement which had slept
For thousands of years around the tomb,
Sealing our path to the Earth Mother’s womb.
(In reverence to Carwynnen Quoit)
You are sly, dear Quoit,
Hiding as a dishevelled heap.
Nothing to look at are you,
Discarded and gone un-noticed to those who seek majestic, neolithic memoirs.
And as I walk across the fertile land that is your home,
The thistles, vetch, hogweed and sorrel seem far more alive than you.
My heart is sunken,
Waiting to embrace your dappled coat of lichens that offer varied shades of colour to your otherwise, grey surface.
Amidst nettles and long grass I reach your chaotic presence,
Order and form eluding you now.
Though as I climb your sturdy rocks,
And find a place to rest my back,
Your stories start to un-ravel and your secret is told.
You, dear ancient stone, are zinging with life,
Igniting the ancient stones, bones, of my body.
You speak of celebrations, Of parties and monumental glory.
Your alive-ness is unmistakeable,
Flowing beneath your unassuming surface.
I am excited by your stories,
Of promises that you’ll rise again,
And as I watch the sunlight play on the fields of grass beside you,
We secretly smile together,
Energised by your hush-hush disguise.
And finally dear friend (for that is how I now feel towards you),
I realise that as the seasons change,
So you too have needed to rest.
Knowing that you’ll return to your former glory,
To be celebrated once again.
The people came from all around to hear the story told
How Manawydan the son of Llyr became a warrior bold.
They sat beside the Giants Quoit upon Treslothan Moor,
This place where he, the son of Llyr had seen the large white boar.
And as the winter’s night came in they listened to the Bard
He drew them closer to the fire where the ground was not so hard.
Today it is the Solstice. He spoke in a voice so clear.
The day when Llwyd the Winter God chose to do battle here.
He’d stolen the golden cauldron, from out the sky so blue
The days turned grey and nasty what could the people do?
The plants and flowers they’d nurtured, under the golden sun
Were withering and dying, they lost them everyone.
But as they died they dropped their seed upon the earth below,
There to remain for ever without the suns warm glow.
Manawydan and his faithful friend a promise they would keep,
They told the elders they’d go out and for the sun would seek.
They’d search the wide world over, and their search would not be done
Till they found Llwyd the Winter God who’d stolen golden sun.
Through Asia and through Europe they sought him everywhere
At times they thought of giving up, filled with a deep despair,
At last they came to Kernow, much more they could not take
And as they crossed Treslothan Moor they saw Pendarves Lake.
A large white boar was standing there and they began to run.
He led them too a castle, yes, it was the magic one.
Pryderi, Manawydan’s friend, said let us enter here,
Manawydan urged more caution as the outcome was not clear.
But Pryderi his headstrong friend rushed onward through the gate
And in the inner sanctum saw a sight that made him shake.
It was a cauldron made of gold gleaming, twas the sun,
Hung over a slab of marble by Llwyd the evil one.
As nightfall came the thunder rolled across Treslothan Moor,
The mist rolled down upon the ground, visability was poor.
And when they came down to the lake they found the fortress gone
Pryderi’s mother, Rhiann cried, she’d lost her only son.
I made a promise Manawydan said and that promise I shall keep,
I’ll find this Llwyd the evil one, yes we shall surely meet.
The lightning flashed and thunder crashed around Pendarves Wood
Then rain poured down upon the ground causing it to flood.
Manawydan called “Will thou come forth, right now you evil one.
Let you and I do battle, for release of the Golden Sun.”
Llwyd the God of Winter this challenge could not refuse,
To fight a mere mortal there was no way he could lose.
Standing toe to toe they battled neither one would give an inch.
Manawydan grabbed Llwyd’s arm and held him in a clinch.
But Llwyd’s strength was mighty just like a God at War,
He pulled him down upon the ground and held him by his Jaw.
The battle it seemed over Manawydan he was spent.
But one last cut with an upward thrust with power from heaven sent.
Llwyd the God of Winter lay wounded in his blood.
Of power he was forsaken, he lost it all for good,
Oh, he’s allowed his season, but only for so long,
Then Pryderi – now the Sun God – comes and fills the earth with song.
But what of Manawydan, I hear you ask of me.
He was buried under yonder Quoit, but his spirit lives in thee.
For you who are of Celtic blood, will feel your Celtic bonds
You’ll always know within your heart the place where you belong
Although you travel the wide world o’er, away from Kernows shore,
You still will hear the wild winds call as it blows across the moor.
Calling you back homewards, to the place of ancestral birt
To celebrate the Solstice with the Goddess of the earth.
The fire light was fast fading as the embers they burned down
And the people started leaving, it was time to be homeward bound
But the Bard he made no movement at the embers he still stared
He poked them with his bardic staff causing them to flare
And in the sudden blaze of light a young deer he did see
He knew it was Manawydan from death he’d been set free.
Happy Solstice
How they got up onto their capstone seat
five feet above the ground,
Lulu Hosking, and Mary Bennetts
(their names are written neatly on the photo),
is anyone’s guess,
though it looks to me as if Peter
has taken off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves
and lifted them there – hard for a chap like him,
not cut out, the pen in his waistcoat tells us,
for physical work.
They sit round the quoit
awkward in tea-treat best,
look shyly at the camera,
think less about their future
than we about their past
as we turn up crumbs
of their blurred afternoons,
trowelling on hands and knees
for The Stone Age.
By Pam McInally
Carwynnen quoit, the Devil’s quoit
Is just a pile of rocks;
It’s not a very pretty soight,
Though once it proudly stood uproight
Till felled by seismic shocks.
to hand daughter mine
through autumn’s rustling talk
pass moss leaf cushions
under flat grayling sky
listening to cawing order
Balanced on fingertip supports
And splayed inward leaning legs,
As precarious as life itself,
A platform, barely head height.
Prone under the mourning clouds,
The cold capstone stretches to accept
The burden of the newly stiffened dead,
Our dearly blessed, our sorely missed.
A little house raised of mighty stones,
standing on a little hill within a field.’
John Norden 1584.
A tumbled heap of lichened stones
A fallen cromlech on the ground
Earth scattered – its dissembled bones
Lie silent and mysterious