arthur – The Hedge Druid

Beltane 2017 – Seeking Elen

July 26, 2017 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Arthur, Hills and Mounds, Lady of the Lake, Ley Lines

It’s well past the Summer Solstice and I’m only just posting about Beltane. Boy, have I got some catching up to do! Let’s begin. A long time ago I drew my first ley line along a map of North Wales. One of its key points in Snowdonia was the peak of Yr Elen. Something had … Read More “Beltane 2017 – Seeking Elen” »

Camelot Tarot 2015 – The First Half

March 18, 2015March 17, 2015 Gwas 1 Comment

Arthurian, Tarot

It has become almost a tradition for me to do a tarot reading in order to both frame the year, and to inspire my outings. This year I had not felt the need to do a reading until March. This surprised me, but I went with the feeling. Now was the time.

As usual I let my spirit guide (and now my ‘new’ ancestral guide) help determine which cards would best describe and depict my coming year. We chose the “Camelot Oracle” cards. Given the relationship that has been established with Arthur so far this year I wasn’t surprised. He was clearly going to be my central figure, my Camelot resident for this year.

I used the supplied sheet with its eight points and I drew cards that I wanted to link in to the eight Celtic festival dates. In this post I will describe the first set of cards drawn for Imbolc through to Summer Solstice.

My guiding star

My archetype – the card I would use as the central fixed theme for the year – was obviously King Arthur. To me he represented a fixed point in many ways this year – he represented the cardinal point North, the Pole Star, The Great Bear fixed constellation, and qualities such as strength, steadfastness and leadership. Like the Pole Star I might think of him as a “guiding light”.

0_archetype_arthur_camelot — Arthur is the fixed star of my 2015 tarot reading

Next I drew cards for the eight points in the year from Imbolc to Winter Solstice. The first set of cards came out like this.

Imbolc 2015 P4 – Germination at Trefignath

February 18, 2015January 26, 2016 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Arthurian, Landscape Zodiac, Wheel of the Year

We have been to the interesting island of Anglesey many times. We have scoured the island for sacred sites on many occasions. We have spent literally days of time researching places to visit. Somehow, two startling omissions had occurred. Firstly, Kal had never seen the reconstructed chamber of Barlodiad Y Gawres. Secondly, we had never found the Trefignath monuments. We set both of this things right for Imbolc 2015.

We’re not going to cover the reconstructed barrow of Barlodiad here. Let’s just say we visited it. It was cold and windy (as it always is) and there was nothing energetically significant about it. Let’s move on to the fun stuff!

We were at the end of our Imbolc day. The trail of Arthur-related sites had reached the furthest tail of The Great Bear and was pointing us to Trearddur Bay near to Holyhead. That’s where we headed now, knowing that we had never found these sites before, but today we were in luck.

Ty Mawr – The Trefignath stone

Ty Mawr standing stone is set alone in a fenced field. In the background it has the delightful soundtrack of swooshing vehicles hurtling along the A55 trunk road carrying potential ferry passengers and lorries to Holyhead on their way across to Ireland.

As a backdrop it has Holyhead Mountain in one direction and a skyline of dark and square geometric buildings from the neighbouring industrial estates. It’s not a pretty setting, and yet the local council have tried their best to give the stone pride of place.

This seemingly innocuous and out-of-place stone turned out to be strangely synchronistic!

Imbolc 2015 P3 – Arthurs Flower

February 16, 2015 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Arthurian, Energy grid, Hedge Druidry, Landscape Zodiac, Spirit of Place, Wheel of the Year

Having spent a lovely half hour at the church dedicated to Michael at the foot of the ridge known as Bwrdd Arthur (or “Arthur’s Table”) it was now time to find a way up onto the ridge. One of my objectives for this Imbolc was to connect more of the sites that I had identified as having a reference to Arthur, and which were part of a landscape zodiac that I was forming across Northern Wales and England.

At a junction in the road near to a signpost we found the entrance to the ridge and followed the steepest path up on to the crest of the ridge. Kal soon found a comfortable spot in a shaft of sunlight, and I used my dowsing rods to locate one too. The sun at its peak now, and as warm as it was going to get!

Bwrdd Arthur - Anglesey - Imbolc 2015 (8) — Arthur’s Table on a sunny Imbolc day

Adorning the Table

It was close to lunch time but not time for us to eat yet. I had work to do. Bathed in sunshine I began a process of protection (new site – good practise), meditation, then connection with the spirit of the place. I felt that the spirit was keen to work with me, and so I began to mentally cross the country linking this site by an energy bridge to all the other Arthur-related sites I had visited so far on this quest.

Arthurs Table and the Landscape Zodiac

February 1, 2015January 23, 2015 Chris No Comments

Hedge Druidry

I originally named this post “The Second Arthur Site 2015” because it forms a part of what I now realise will be a series of posts that aim to describe a journey throughout the year. This journey will encompass many ancient sites related to King Arthur, and the signature of the site will be that I will be aligned to The Great Bear constellation and the powers of The North (both literally and symbolically).

It was with this Arthurian signature on the year in mind that I chose to go and visit two sites in West Wales that were related to Arthur, if not in name then in association at least. On the off-chance I called Kal to see if he was up and available for an outing, Seems I disturbed some necessary sleep, yet still he wanted to come along. Off we go again!

Ystum Cegid Isaf

Our first site was a superb example of a table-like dolmen structure that the Welsh regions do best. The name, if you put it into Google translate, comes back as “Lower hemlock gesture“. Hilarious, even though it may be too literal a translation, such as these tools often provide. Last year it was henbane, and now this year starts with hemlock! Coincidence, or Providence?

Cerrig Arthur dolmen - Jan 15 (15) — Another welsh dolmen related to Arthur

A small road takes you to a lay-by near to a recycling centre just outside of the village of Garndolbenmaen on the A487 road between Caernarvon and Porthmadog towns. If you park close to the footbridge then you get the chance to cross the Afon Dwyfor river either by the new or old bridges. We opted for the old one, and it was fun on a windy day.

Don't look down - it's a fast flowing river! — Don’t look down – it’s a fast flowing river!

Arrows point to Arthur – Solstice 3

January 7, 2015January 2, 2015 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Arthurian, Celestial, Dowsing, Meditation, Quests, Spirit of Place, Wheel of the Year

If I had researched the geographical locations of the sites we were intending to visit I would have placed this one last.As it happens it was positioned in the middle of the day, but as you may have come to expect – it turns out we visited the site at exactly the right time. Here’s why.

The Devil Points North

There are three remaining tall standing stones close to the A1(M) road that passes by the town of Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire. Collectively they are known as The Devil’s Arrows. There is the usual story about their placement – the devil threw down the ‘arrows’:

“The name stems from a legend traced back to 1721, where the Devil was supposed to have thrown the stones, aiming at the next town of Aldborough. He stood on Howe Hill and shouted,

Borobrigg keep out o’ way,

For Aldborough town

I will ding down!

But obviously his aim was not that good, and so they landed short of their mark.”

(source: Brigantes Nation)

Devils Arrows - Solstice 2014 (1) — The southern most Devil’s Arrow stone

Ooh – that angry old Devil! When will he learn that his aim is never that good when he’s hewing these menhirs around? Silly billy. Anyway – there they stand, up to 30 feet tall and in a not-so-straight alignment, said by Paul Devereux to link the southern-most moon setting with an ancient fording point across the nearby River Ure. There is an assumption that they formed a part of a larger complex that includes the three Thornborough Henges.

Thornborough and Arthur – Solstice 1

December 29, 2014December 28, 2014 Chris 1 Comment

Hedge Druidry

This is the first in a short series of tales about my journey into the darkest depths of Yorkshire for the Winter Solstice this year. It was only one day’s outing, yet it managed to encompass a number of new sacred sites and to throw up a number of amazing synchronicities between the work that I did and what Kal was experiencing at the same time. I’ll tell my side of the story, and then you can compare these to Kal’s tales. I think you’ll be amazed too!

A Lesson In Patience

The journey was unspectacular except for one incident. I had arranged to meet Kal at 8:30am and despite the fact that he wouldn’t mind if I was one or two minutes late I was rushing to get there on time. Some people were driving very slowly that morning, possibly having nowhere in particular to get to for any specific time. This was rather frustrating me, and so I was getting increasingly flustered. Then, just as I was about to overtake someone ahead of me I looked up at a tall telegraph pole, and atop it was a hawk – just sitting still, and being patient. I saw the message straight away and my foot moved off the accelerator. I would get there when I got there. Phew – and relax….

Then I realised that only two minutes earlier I had been wondering whether I would see a hawk today as a sign, because I so often see them whenever I am journeying on a sacred calendar day. Well, there he was!

Thornborough By The Thorny Route

Finding Thornborough Henge should have been easy. I mean – you can hardly miss a henge in such a flat landscape! Yet it took Kal and I several attempts before we were on the correct small country road, and we had gone off track and gone through a lovely village called Kirklington before we spotted the structure in a field just beyond the village of Thornborough itself, heading towards West Tanfield. There was enough space to park outside a utility building, and soon we were walking through the impressive Thornborough Cursus – a long wide embanked structure which ended in a dog-leg right turn. What on earth was this structure for, we wondered? Soon we would find at least one purpose! I’ll come back to Kirklington later because the church in the village seemed to call to us.

For a short while we were the only ones inside the henge. The diameter of the embankment is quite impressive. It has an Avebury scale feel about it – far larger than Arbor Low, which is what we are more used to. Despite the cold dull day I felt warm and excited – something special was about to happen!

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