Megalithic mapping

[jon]

21/29ths = 58.9655 deg north
Within a megalithic stone's throw of the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

Seems a bit of a stretch to me Boreades: Not very simple.

[Boreades]

You may well be right. I was rather hoping that the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar are the Orkney's equivalent of Stonehenge and Avebury.

[TisILeclerc]

I'm not really sure what you are trying to prove Borry but what is wrong with the longitude and latitude of the Ring of Brodgar etc?

Most of eastern Scotland is west of the west of England. Edinburgh is farther west than Bristol and about on a line with Cardiff.

Inverness is about on the same line as Swansea.

Callanish is west of Dublin and more or less on line with Waterford or Wexford.

Does this affect your calculations at all?

http://www.mapsofworld.com/united-kingdom/britain/

Oh, and by the way, speaking of Edinburgh with respect to our earlier discussion, it is known in Gaelic as Dun Eideann, and is supposed to have been known as Din Eidyn or Din Etin in Cumbric.

Since the early nineteenth century it has boasted of being the 'Athens of the North'.

Dun Eideann is pronounced more like Dun Eitchen. The 'd' is a softer sound than a hard 'd'. Perhaps it really was Ethan or Athen at one time? That would tie in with the Troy in England supposition perhaps?

[hvered]

Edinburgh is probably no more Gaelic than Athens is Greek. Edinburgh's port, Leith, is supposed to be derived from the Gaelic 'lite' meaning wet or water. Could be that lite is simply 'light' as in lighthouse/beacon though I read a rather convoluted etymological breakdown of Leith as El-Ait(h), "two of the many titles of the solar deity" (which I quite liked as Athens of the North could be conjoined with Aten, the Ancient Egyptian solar god!)

There's a Leith Hill in the Surrey hills a couple of miles south/south-west of Dorking, where Stane Street intersects with the 'Pilgrims' Way'. Leith Hill is the highest hill in the area, very flat on top and is exactly the same height as Tan Hill in Wiltshire *on the east-west Wansdyke route. It's on the same latitude as Stonehenge which seems a happy coincidence.

Some legendary battle against the Danes en route to sacking Winchester is said to have taken place here; Winchester, thought to be the terminus of the so-called Pilgrim's Way, is on the River Itchen (etymology unknown) which flows down to Southampton Waters opposite the Isle of Wight.

[* Tan Hill as readers of TME may recall is also the same height as Milk Hill, the two equal highest hills happen to be between Stonehenge and Avebury.]

[TisILeclerc]

Edinburgh is definitely not Gaelic. And in the sixties and seventies most lowland Scots considered it English.

Dan, Tan very suspicious. Didn't the Irish have a run in at one point with the Tuath De Danaan?

All this thing about Wessex Boy Alfred hiding in the marshes, burning cakes, or was it spiders, then discovering ancient Roman battle tactics and chasing the blonde haired rascals back to wherever they came from? Sounds like a story down at the pub to me.

Abbot's Bromley didn't make such a fuss about it. Just killed the lot, skinned the deer and have danced about with the antlers for the past thousand years. Now that's what I call tradition.

By the way, 'lite' also means porridge.

'El-Ait(h)' I'm sure there's something in Guichard about that name. He mentions something about that and it reminded me of Alyth in Scotland. I'll have to re-read the chapter.

And another by the way have you come across this site that reckons the Malvern hills are pyramids?

http://www.european-pyramids.eu/wb/page ... hp?lang=DE

[hvered]

The Malverns look extraordinarily unnatural from the photo



Certainly worth investigating.

[hvered]

By the way, 'lite' also means porridge.

Etymonline says lite is a suffix meaning 'stone'

from French -lite, variant of -lithe, from Greek lithos "stone"

A traditional trick in megalithic lore is to feed porridge with great stones concealed in it, to kill the dragon/giant.

[hvered]

Celia Fiennes who journeyed around most of England in the early seventeenth century noted the Malverns were pyramid-like.

The Malverns have a long association with 'secular' hermits pre- and post-Conquest so presumably this has always been a crossing-point or barrier. A Wiki article mentions that a nursing home called Bello Sguardo used to be 'Hermitage Cottage' and was built on the site of a St Michael's Chapel (next to the main road with St Anne's Well on the other side). St Anne has been linked rather unconvincingly to Anu, 'a Celtic goddess', in line with monastic ownership of water sources.

[TisILeclerc]

'Anu' being one of Guichard's water words.

I was reading that Watkins first got his inspiration from seeing a track along the top of the Malverns.

A Perthshire story from Loch Tay tells of the Uruisgean who lived out on the crannogs coming on to land to steal from the local people.

One particular youngster used to spy on an old woman baking bannocks. He was on the roof looking down through the hole in the roof and when the woman turned his back used to jump down, grab a bannock and run away.

One day she put a flat circular stone on the girdle and waited till it was nice and hot before turning her back on the fire. The urisge jumped down and grabbed the red hot stone and was out of the door on his way home before the pain hit.

[Boreades]

Is that the Faery Folk that were caught by the Trossachs?

http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... sachs.html