I have this theory that we are all -- occasionally -- led astray by the fairies. Some years ago I came across this interesting feature on the edge of the common, not far from Carn Alw. The nearest farm is Mirianog Ganol. "Wonderful!" I thought. "This has to be a previously unrecorded burial mound -- maybe Neolithic, maybe Bronze Age -- in which the burial chamber in the middle has collapsed, maybe through the action of Victorian antiquarians, and maybe because of the digging of grave robbers". It had all the right elements -- right sort of location, constructed with very large stones, etc etc.
When I got home I did some research, and discovered that it is a medieval corn drying kiln, well known to the local Archaeological Trust.
Mind you, I still have this sneaking feeling that they might be wrong, and that my instinct might be right..........
By the way, Carn Alw (just up the hill a little distance away) is well known as a place where fairies are likely to take you away to Fairyland.
My mother used to quote the verse "There are fairies at the bottom of the garden"; but my grandad saw me looking bored one day at the age of 5 or 6, and told me to go down his garden with a bucket and spade, and see what interesting things I could find, which I did, therein beginning a lifetime's interest in archaeology.
ReplyDeleteI have just come across, by serendipity, Pomponius Mela, described as a Roman Geographer who compiled his work around the time of the Roman Invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 (Dennis Price). To my surprise, his name cropped up again in connection with Fairies - by chance (or was it??).
ReplyDeleteNow I quickly see he has connections with Brittany. Wonder if he ever visited South West Wales or Ireland?