Megaliths Menhirs and Tewlwolow Hollows

Snaking down from the hinterland the ceaseless ancient river furls long to the dark mor of ocean- pouring through the rich verdant pasturage of the tewlwolow valley and hollow hills of home - this very same waterage being the one that the medieval peasants of Buryan mistook for the River Jordan when they set off for the crusades a thousand odd and even years back in blissful past pastures and meadows of golden mind - 

Flickering the centuries and eons flit by and crones archaic pass by unseen by eyes of yourn - the old meadow ploughed again and again - first by hartshorn hand of Beaker bloke and Keltek folk with stick and spoke the clods he broke - finding it good he camped by the wood - deep and clear and dancing with dragonflies and you could drink your fill all day - 

Spun the centuries as the world spins through space - blue the cowl against the ruddy jowls of the one-eyed wanderer and hail rattled and bounced off the icy puddles fore the leaf of spring broke the bud and the voice was heard from the beaks of the flock - Tattered cloak wrapped the huddled shoulders of the folk swarming through time and fields of golden grain - surging on - the people coming in waves - generations - a tumult - the people surge forth and the land gives them footage to run - trees loom dream and drop leaves eternal loaming the land with decayed sunlight resparkled next spring to sing again - crystal river soaks through it as a grete wyrm winds a way through lands of the singing silent sun -

Spinning sun hurls seasons to batter and caress the land juddering and sprinkling snows seeds pollens drops life-essences and hailstones - a twittering sparrow flits - flies buzz and drowze - the mead - the meadow - the dragon flie-a-drowze a-sparkle - drowzing off in the summertime meadow by the brook - by the river - the singing river of gurgle where wrens dance and hide secret in hollow nests and caves below the bank where the river turns and spins out slowly sending shales and sandbanks to break up the mosaic sparkling flow - 

Bronze children of your echoed past play here and splash in the river by the circle and play in the meadow and play through the trees singing and jumping off the great rock by the river 

Buryas Bridge Menhir

Gwidhen gwag yw ha idhyowek yn tewlwolow hunros - A hollow tree covered in ivy at dusk dreams - Trees tracery of twigs spread to the twilight sky in the valley - from out of the hollow flew a feathery old thing - it fluttered and flittered and flew back in again -

Nobody even saw it -

From the valley issued forth a vapor that sent me reeling hypnotized I spied my gull-quill pen and seizing a megalith for a rough Druidic table I scratched noisily at the parchment with brilliant quill dipped in dripping squid-ink - my propinquity-

Gulls rooked the crows and leafs dry spittle-brown sprinkle down and kommolek fog brews the Cornishe Sky to down-falling tewlwolow mist - molecules and myriads -

Ghostly riders troupe through the sky glimpsed only by badgers bats and lonesome crepuscular muscle-men creeping disguised as archeological overblown arachnid-poets of the blustering Western Marches -

You get a lot of them round here -

Vapors boulders flood-plains as the river-meadow shoulders a curve - dragonflies swerve over and when wrens flit kingfishers are sure to follow -

Boswarva Carn Settlement

Boswarva Carn Settlement lies above Madron in West Penwith - Kernow -  
The picture below shows what I believe to be a large fallen Menhir (long-stone) lying in a moorland field where it fell centuries earlier - this one is very near the top of the hill where you would expect to find a larger obelisk - it conforms to the typical leaf or blade-shape often found in these objects -

The stone below is another one I am sure is a fallen menhir - 
Around six feet long - you can just see a large flat rock leaning on the left end of it - I believe this to be one of the original packing-stones used for holding the upright in place - the left end of the menhir is the end that would have been planted -
This object was largely obscured by brambles and tufts of grass - I spent about ten minutes clipping around it and then removed the layer of moss and soil (about 4 inches deep) which had accumulated in the system of cracks on the upper face - this soil accounts for the large blackish stain visible on the rock -
In my opinion this menhir - like many others - including the South West Piper - was picked out for these very cracks - I believe they are a vital feature of a lot of these long-stones -
A typical menhir stands tall and is often pointed - it is hard to avoid phallic connotations and there is no reason to suppose the Ancients were shy about sex - however after looking closely at more and more of these interesting stones I noticed that many of them featured large cracks - often conforming to the pattern seen on the South West Piper where you have a descending crack that does not reach the bottom and an ascending crack that does not reach the top - thus these stones are not merely phallic - as is pretty obvious - but are also vaginal - they aptly and vividly illustrate the union of male and female that lies at the heart of creation and is therefore sacred to so-called primitive people -

When I arrived at the site the sun was about to set and I had not much time to look around - clear some undergrowth - and try to snap these pictures - I wanted to upload them to a popular archaeological website but this is initially proving tricky -  I did manage to post a comment - my first - on their site - regarding Boswarva and you can read how Floydy Steps Through The Megalithic Portal - it-s an excellent realm for anyone suffering from menhirgitis!

The stones seemed to form a broad double-row that headed off down the hill in an orientation that would apparently take you just South of Lanyon Quoit - - - Going the other way it was aimed towards the top of Madron Carn - the modern road that crosses the hill-top at this point possibly pierces an ancient structure or complex as the field adjacent to the opposite hedge is also rich in large stones -

The site offers the usual sweeping views of a hill-top settlement and in this case you can get a good view of Trewern Round and Lanyon Quoit amongst other notable places - 

I have checked for the official designation  of this site and it looks like the Boswarva site is considered to lie in three lumps - whereas the menhir-row (posited) that I found lies outside all of the three designated zones which makes me wonder if it appears on the list of  "suspected" monuments - I imagine some-one must have paid it some attention in the past - however - a menhir does not look like a menhir if you can only see part of it - so maybe the significance of these particular stones had escaped notice until now - time will tell - - - - - 

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I-m Jeremy Schanche - Author - Activist - Archaeologist - Anarchist - Arachnid - 

When I-m not hacking my way through some of Cornwall-s finest brambles I have a couple of other occupations - I-ve been working with Harold Hempstead  - Florida-s Caged Crusader - to publicize the story of Darren Rainey - a case which will not be closed until justice is served -

I-ve also published my first book - available in electronic form only at the moment - which is a romantic mystery set in early twentieth-century Cornwall - - -cause I-m a twentieth century boy - - -

Under the brambles - the bracken and gorse - lies The Bronze Age - sleeping like King Arthur - waiting to be awoken - - -