There are many ways that people have devised to find the centre of lands. From the beginnings of recorded history and probably much before then humans have established centres of land masses in order to establish a “pole” – a symbolic tree whose roots are planted in the core of the planet and whose branches stretch up to connect to the heavens. The World Tree, The May Pole, the Pole Star – these are the anchor points of civilisation.
When Britain was colonised by invaders they each re-worked the centre to fit their own surveying techniques. For example, one of the naming conventions used by the Viking race was the word “Ting” or “Thing”. On many of the islands to the north and west of the mainland we have place names at the centre prefixed by this word. These places, the moot places, are often mounds – artificial hills created for the purpose of providing a meeting place. It was always more than just a meeting point though. It was the very centre of government, and a meeting point for celebration and festival at special times of the year.
You may remember that in a recent vision I had been shown a dragon rising from the centre of the land. I knew that I needed to find where this place was. There are myths often associated with the central point, I later discovered, that recount tales of two dragons fighting. This was a myth that I knew related to Dinas Emrys, and which involved Merlin. Now I wanted to find the centre of all of the land mass on which I stand – the central point where my visionary dragon would emerge, somewhere in England, I guessed.
I set off with the idea it was a geographical place located in these lands, but my first question received a NO response when I asked – not with the current idea I had of the place. I would need to learn more about it to find it. The centre should not be thought of as a physical place. It’s tied to a physical place only in the sense that it can be placed in the third dimension. Here are some of the properties of the place I needed to find:-
- it is symbolic
- it is mobile, not static
- it’s location and nature changes over time
- it is created by the interaction of humans and the land
- it can be located to a specific place when coordinated with a specific time (i.e. one can find where it is now)
- the centre moves due to human interaction
- it moves at irregular intervals (not associated with the movement of stars, moon or sun)
I map-dowsed the country using the Megalithic Portal Map. The square that reacted to the dowsing rods was ‘SK’.
I zoomed in. What kind of site was I looking for? I dowsed the list of types of site. The result was “artificial mound”. I filtered the list. Only one – Thynghowe Mound [link]. This mound was only rediscovered in 2004-5. From what I read it has been recorded as a place of feasting, celebration, meeting and racing. Sounds like a fun place to be! It was later renamed “Hanger Hill“. Oh some people will go to any lengths to choke off a place of pagan fun, won’t they? “Don’t go to the hanger hill – it’s a place of death!!!” For a thousand years or more it sounds like it was place of life.
I got to Steetmap – show me the OS map of this mound’s position. It’s a few hundred feet away from where I found the Spirit of Place in Sherwood Forest! A few hundred yards away from the mound – an ancient meeting place between three parishes and possibly two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms – is a tree called “Centre Tree“.
If this turns out to relate to the movement of the Spirit of Place that I did earlier in the year then I will know why it is movable! Something is telling me I have to go back to Sherwood Forest!
Gwas.
References:
- http://www.thynghowe.org.uk/Thyng.html
- John Michell – “The Sacred Center” and “Twelve-Tribe Nations“
‘Hanger hill’ is interesting, presumably it refers to a place of execution at one time, like so many ‘Hangman hills’ or ‘gallows hills’ – as you probably know most of these places were built on crossroads, one would assume due to the superstitions connected to the shades who had met their end on those lonely spots. The old crossroads were sites sacred to the Goddess Hekate who’s emblem was the large black dog. There are also a lot of sightings of spectral black dogs associated with crossroads and gallows sites. This was something I looked at a little a few years ago, knowing that Hekate or ‘Black Ana’ in her English form was the Goddess of the witches, who we are told in older times worshiped at old country crossroads, because they were more correctly ley line crossings. I was also intrigued by the fact that the Jackal headed god of the Egyptians ‘Anubis’ who weighed the hearts of the dead – was a black dog, was this anything to do with the spectral black dog or ‘black shuck’? Was this a type of spirit/energy acting as guardian of the gateway? I really like that you’re looking into lesser known spots Gwas, here we’re so on the same page! 😉 It’s also really strange you mentioning the ‘world tree’ as I was told by the SOP at my own ‘centre place’ that it had been a ‘tree of life’ site, and I had no idea that was of any great significance until I started telling people! And yes, I agree the dragon centre has changed throughout history, the one I found was from VERY early back, and I was surprised to discover a fairly organised civilisation of sorts in Britain much earlier than supposed. I’m finding things that challenge my assumptions all the time with archaeology and history as I dig deeper and begin to ask the land ‘what happened here’? For some reason I seem to be very tuned into times prior the Bronze age, which is when I consider our cultural continuity ceased. We really should talk in more depth about this some time Gwas 🙂