Blood out of a Stone. A Journey into the Megalithic Portal.

"While you were out at the Rollright stones, I came and set fire to your shed" - Twenty Four Hour Garage People, Half Man Half Biscuit.

I almost always enjoy the events that the London Fortean Society host. Should they take place in The Bell in Whitechapel, Conway Hall, or The Miller in Borough. This year alone I've attended talks about vampires, mermaids, magic, and the life, times, and counter cultural theories of John Michell so I had reasonably high hopes for Andy Burnham's talk 'The Old Stones' about megaliths, other standing stones, and the prehistoric places of Britain and Ireland.

I'm no expert on these places, more a keen hobbyist, but I've visited both Stonehenge and Avebury several times, I've watched a few episodes of Children of the Stones, and, sometimes, on our TADS treks we may stumble upon a stone or two. Burnham founded The Megalithic Portal in 2001 and last year published a book, also called The Old Stones, which was awarded the Current Archaeology Book of the Year award and is thought to be the most comprehensive and thought provoking guide ever released on the subject.

It's about the size, and colour, of an old copy of Yellow Pages (for my older readers) so that doesn't seem in doubt. Even more impressive (to me at least) is that one of its finest contributors was an old friend of mine from Basingstoke, Jackie, who I'd have loved to join me for the evening.

So, all that in mind, why was the evening a touch disappointing? It wasn't because it was so hot and there was no bar. It wasn't because the salsa dancers in the main room were playing their music so loud they nearly drowned Andy out. It was, I think, that the evening lacked any real narrative thrust or structure and, instead, was a bit like being round someone's house as they lead you through a slide show of their holiday snaps while lecturing you in a monotone voice devoid of humour or insight. I checked the clock more than twice.

Duloe

Shame, and a bit harsh too, but that's how it felt it to me and I've got to call it how I see it! On a hot July day in Conway Hall, Andy kicked off with a reading about dolmens (how they're sometimes, but not always, used to store the dead and how the largest capstones can give the illusion of a floating stone, as well as telling us the largest example is in Carlow, Ireland) before going on to show us slides of some examples like Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall and Pentre Fan in Pembrokeshire.

 

Lanyon Quoit 

Pentre Fan

The problem was that the evening carried on in much the same vein, and at much the same pace.. I guess it's understandable that the narrative, what there was of it, was so loose - nobody really knows for certain what purpose these stones serve and Andy Burnham seemed too honest a guy to make up a load of bullshit about them just for the sake of it.

Which was almost a pity. In these days of liars and deceivers it seems wrong to crave further untruths but this wasn't about Boris fucking Johnson getting hold of the keys to 10 Downing Street, it was about old stones and, sadly, could have done with livening up. I was starting to think that all you can really do with these old stones is go and look at them. You get a nice walk in the country that way too.

Examples came thick and fast:- the Golden Stones in Yorkshire, Louden Stone Cricle, Grey Wethers near Stafford, Duloe, Pan Maen Wern, the Devil's Quoit in Oxfordshire, the Cleggan Court tomb, Alphamstone (the Essex stone circle!), Machrie Moor on the Isle of Arran, and Long Meg and her Daughters in Cumbria. There's absolutely loads on Dartmoor, apparently! We were travelling the length and breadth of these isles, we were looking at lots of old stones for sure, but I didn't feel I was learning very much about them.

 

Louden Stone Circle

Devil's Quoit

Machrie Moor

I did learn that quoit is basically the Cornish word for dolmen, that there's a theory that triangular stones are built to mirror hilly landscapes or even act as primitive works of art, and that the Medway megaliths (is there some meaning in the 'stone' part of Maidstone) like the White Horse stones, now right next to the high speed rail link, are still used in ceremonies by local druids.

Some of the things Andy mentioned I'd heard (and dismissed as silly) before. Things like dowsing for processional routes, rubbing one's head on a stone to feel its energy, or, daftest and most eccentric of all, whirling a bullroarer around in the West Kennet Long Barrow to release inherent ancient energies.

Everybody's entitled to spend their free time how they like as long as they're not hurting others - but I think I'll leave the dowsing rods and bullroarers at home next time I'm in the vicinity of some standing stones. A camera and a pair of walking boots are sufficient enough for me to enjoy them. But some take them more seriously.

Nothing wrong with that but it was interesting to see how, like snobbish music fans who only liked the 'early stuff', there are some megalith megamaniacs who look down their noses at the more well known sites. We were shown a photo of the Tolvan Stone in Gweek, near Heslton (because "everyone knows Men-an-Tol"), and Stonehenge was brushed over very briefly as if a tired old cliche. Andy Burnham instead choosing to focus on the no doubt very interesting and nearby Durrington Walls where those who built Stonehenge are believed to have lived.

Tolvan Stone

Men-an-Tol

I did find it interesting to learn that these sites aren't all in the countryside and that they're not all in Britain. To the point that I felt that either of those subjects may have given the talk more focus. There are sites in East London and Essex and there's even stuff in Hackney, Greenwich, and Woolwich. Not sure what though. We didn't stop there long.

We were soon to be scooted off, via the Ridgeway and Ingatestone (its Sarsen stones not native to Essex, I just about managed to gather) to Denmark, Sicily, and the now Christianised Chapel of the Holy Stone in the Czech Republic. But I didn't really learn that much about those European locations either. It's possible Andy Burnham assumed too much knowledge on behalf of his audience (always a danger where I'm involved) but it's equally feasible that there simply isn't that much to say about these places.

Or maybe he could have said it in a more interesting way. It was nice to, once again, touch on the Dagenham Idol, to hear stories about fertility rituals and passing babies through the holes in these ancient stones, and (a bit less so) to learn that Bryn Cefli Dee on Angelsey has an avenue like that of Newgrange in Ireland and is primarily used to celebrate the summer solstice. But the Google Earth/Google street view tour of some of the sites mentioned fell a bit flat and went on for too long.

The Q&A touched on ley lines, Avebury, dowsing (again), how long it takes for bones to decay (nobody seemed to know but all agreed it was a very very long time), and how slippery seaweed may have been employed in the movement of some of the larger stones. Julian Cope, perhaps predictably, popped up, as did altered states of consciousness, but there was less about UFOs than I might have expected.

It wasn't a great night, but it wasn't a terrible one. I thank Dewi for joining me and, as ever, the London Fortean Society for hosting. I'll be in Greece for the wedding of my friends Simon and Ciska so will, sadly (but, hey, I'll be on a Greek island so not that sadly), miss the next talk. Jules Howard's Nature's Strangest Genitalia which, judging by its title, should be a real treat not least because there is promised a "a 3D tour of a duck's vagina"! But, all being well, I'll be back in August, on my birthday no less, for Poltergeists and Possession. I'm confident normal, or at least Fortean, service will be resumed. Stone me!