Trying to make some notes, I realised I had dropped by pen somewhere. I had a bit of a look around, but couldn’t find it. Disappointed I sat on a rock and wondered what to do next. Then, realising I was actually quite upset about it, I asked that I may please find my pen, and the other circle.
Retracing my steps while counting them, I found my pen easily the second time. By careful counting I also found the middle circle, which had no path leading to it or round it. It was the largest of the circles and had a complete bank around it, with lovely strong, protective energy within. Trees grew just outside the banks adding to the sense of being in another world and time. It felt really quite special, hidden as it was, with a focus on peace and completeness.
Central Circle, Stanton Moor, taken while sitting inside the circle. There is a strong sense of enclosure from this level, with birch trees all around the outside of the circle but not encroaching upon it.
Finally I made several attempts to find the ‘Northern’ circle, although I knew it to be badly damaged and overgrown. The bracken was up to my chest, the ground covered with brambles, rocks and ruts from vehicle tracks long overgrown. I tripped and found myself sitting in a jungle. While I am fairly sure I was in the right place, and could get a sense of it energy-wise, trees grew on and in the circle and it was not possible to see or photograph anything meaningful. Instead I turned around and walking back to the path a different way, found the wonderful Oak tree I wrote about last week. I had already learned what I needed to from the land, and was being shown something else.
I attempted to journey later, to try and understand the relationship between the circles better. While on this occasion nothing was clear or coherent to me, I had the following impressions:
The circles were used at different times, with some of the stones being moved from the previous circle to the new one.
The energy flowing through the Earth at this point is not stable but twists and turns like a serpent; the prime spot moved over time or possibly over the year with the seasons and with the rainfall.
There is a strong connection to the Andle stone. (A large lump of rock with some carving half a mile to the West; just outside the Open Access Area and not yet visited. Originally Anvil Stone.)
There was tribal conflict in this area, and different chiefs gave their influence through the circles and cairns where their remains were interred.
Whether there is any truth in these impressions I have no way of proving. What is known is that the King’s Stone is exactly on a line between the Nine Ladies circle, the Andle Stone, and Doll Tor the other side of the Andle Stone, which probably marks Imbolc / Samhain sunset if there were fewer trees. This may help explain why this energy link is so strong.
The other three circles line up along a SSW / NNE line, Nine Ladies being just off this line. They are of slightly different character and may have been done at a different time, by a tribe with a slightly different set of practices.
There are around 70 burial mounds on Stanton Moor, which covers an area only about a mile long and half this wide. Most have been found to contain cremations from the mid-Bronze Age, some several, and a bronze knife was found in one.
The Cork Stone is also recorded as having had four sanding stones around it pre-quarrying, and a symmetrical pothole usually containing water in the top. (I haven’t yet climbed up it…) There were also three large stones along the gritstone edge, natural outcrops that would have been seen from some distance.
As a witch I cast circles regularly, indoors or out, wherever I chose to connect with Spirit and create ceremony. As a mother however, I sometimes struggle to explain how what I do is equal to those going to a splendid building like a church when I have no equivalent to show or books to read. Yet in the circles can be found an outdoor temple where people of many faiths and none still come to marvel, and frequently, to pray. On a personal level, I would love to know what directions they called in these circles, given that the cardinal points do not appear to be significant in their construction, why the entrances are where they are for each circle and how they used them, and the significance of the egg shape so many have in this area.