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Sam: Stonehenge is draped in darkness as thousands await dawn. Suddenly – there is light! As a ethereal sunbeam flashes through the stones...
Sean: Woah, woah, lets hold it there for a second. This is England, and it's Spring.
Sam: Stonehenge is one of Britain's greatest ancient sites, but we still don't know what it is!
Sean: What we do know is that it aligns with the sun, moon and the stars. And that four times a year, on the equinox and solstices, it draws academics, revellers and druids.
Sam: March 20th was the Spring equinox, and we sent Nicole down to Stonehenge to see what goes on.
Rollo: May there be peace in the North!
Crowd: (May there be peace in the North!)
Rollo: I've been doing the solstices and equinoxes here at Stonehenge for about 22 or 23 years now. It's the most powerful place we could be to celebrate the equinox, really. It's the hub, the epicentre if you like, of the whole system of ancient sacred monuments in Britain.
Nicole: I'm here at Stonehenge and I've just seen the ceremony for the sunrise – it was pretty brilliant!
Frank: Well equinox actually means equal night and it means the day length and the night length are exactly the same. Because the Earth leans over at a funny angle, in summertime we're leaning towards the sun, in winter we're leaning away. And halfway between the two, there's equinox. On equinox, the sun rises due East. It's a very important day if you need to generate your own calendar. You don't have radio, televisions and astronomers telling you where you are in the year.
You would've seen today, people at Stonehenge – big crowds, lots of banging of drums and calling of the quarters and chanting, and what that's really about is the recreation of an ancient tradition, and being at Stonehenge, there's a connection between you today, standing in that place at this special time to the ancestors who have done that right back through the millennia.
Nicole: “Why is the equinox so important to you?”
“Umm.. I don't know if it's really important.”
“It has a groovy vibe”
“My husband and I have been coming to Stonehenge since the 60s. We're Pagans but not sort of like Druids. We leave the Druids to do the words for the ceremonies.”
Frank: In ancient times, the Druids were the inheritors of a much older tradition where watching the sky and knowing when you are in the year, and being part of the natural cycles was really, really important to the people. We like to keep that tradition going, so even though today we have TV sets and radios and iPods and phones, we like to keep the old wisdoms and the old traditions going. It's also important to just tune yourself into the cycles of the year, and be one with nature.
Simon: Looking eastwards, if we'd had a sunny morning this morning, we would have seen the sun rise through the Outer Saracens circle, over the barrow that is just in front of the woods over there.
Nicole: I'm on my way back to London, and I'm really tired, but it was well worth it. I hope I did a good job bringing in the summer, as I think I need a bit of sun. I can't wait until my next adventure!
Sean: The equinox is one of only four times of the year you can visit the stone circle at Stonehenge.
Sam: But if you want to get inside at any time, then visit Stonehenge Virtual at Heritage-Key.com. There you can explore Stonehenge throughout the ages from the comfort of your own home.
Sean: So what do you reckon? Should we have access to the stones all year round?
Comments
At a London conference years ago I raised the idea that henges were originally sites of giant haystacks.Next day The Daily Express said "Stonehenge a haystack, wrestle with that" alluding to the then famous wrestler.Nothing has changed my view in fact it has been reinforced. Hen is a high place and geat an enclosure from which we get the word gate.The original abeit smaller ring of stones formed the thrashold or threshhold and the high spot provided the wind that was the engine of the winnowing, blowing away the chaff as the crop was stamped upon within the threshold.The high value low volume grain was taken away from the windy inhospitable spot but the bulky straw was then stacked around a rig pole. A groove in the ground, a riggoll, drained it and aeration bundles bolraces were placed sideways through the stack. The riggbands stopped the straw from blowing away and they were fastened to riggbols.As the people returned for their shares through the winter (doles) the riggbolls were moved closer to the centre . Go to Woodhenge to see the pattern.The whole thing was built on what was called the dolepiece. Having brought in produce for later retrieval some token of the share brought in had to be doled out and this was in the form of the original corn dollies.These were unique to each site and those in charge had to store them safely and at the same time be sheltered. Maybe the dolmens were these early banks.They might have been situated on nearby banks.
Having received all your corn dollies, each uniquely woven to represent the share values in each separate site, you took them home and stored them safely out of reach of maraudng creatures.They were hung up in the home and many corn dollies have a hanging loop on the back.The riggoll groove started simple but eventually evolved into the classic maze. We call a maze a maze, the French say le dedale after the inverted tree that formed the original rig pole but the Germans are much more pragmatic, they call a maze a Dolhaus (a house of the dole).
This sytem provided life for a long time and the association with the forces outside man's control, sun and wind and al sorts of light provided the basis for what initailly was celebratory activities and later religions to worship.
The large stone constructions were expressions of grandeur from a society that was becoming so rich it had spare time and money.
I reckon most high ground that was a bit windy was in the frame for a haystack and when at each site the last starw was seen and they saw the gras was gworing for their cattle they grabbed hold of the riggbands (ribbons) and danced around the maze pal. (maypole).
graham@gyrdan.demon.co.uk
GYRDAN IS A FENCE OR GIRDLE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD GARDEN