“There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” so Hamlet
tells his old friend and intellectual sparring partner in the play. Actually
there are more things in heaven and earth, particularly earth, than are dreamt
of in most philosophies. Shakespeare knew this; for he was in possession of a
wisdom and understanding long vanished, sublimated under a heavy defensive
crust of rationalism.
Let me give you some
more words, this time from A Midsummer Nights Dream, the most
magical of the bard's plays, full of mystery and music. The words in question
are those of Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow;
Now
it is the time of night
That
the graves all gaping wide,
Every
one lets forth his sprite,
In
the church way paths to glide.
Perhaps you know the
play well, seen it performed or even performed in it yourself. I did, when I
was at school. When I was fourteen years old I was Titania, Queen of the
fairies. Ever since it has had an abiding fascination for me, particularly some
of the more enigmatic lines. Do you know, for example, what a church way path
is? I didn't that midsummer of my teens. I do now; I have done for some time.
I'll tell you in a
bit, but first a word on ancients paths or roads. Alfred Watkins was an amateur
archaeologist born in the county of Hereford on the Welsh border. The Welsh
name for Hereford, incidentally, is Henffordd, meaning an old road, a striking
coincidence, considering that old roads were to have a major impact on his
life. In the early 1920s, while examining some county maps, he noticed that
various ancient sites, including barrows, standing stones and stone circles
seem to occur in an exact alignment. Straight lines could be drawn between
them. Looking deeper, he subsequently found that old churches built atop pagan
shrines could be similarly aligned.
In 1922 he published
his findings in Early British Trackways, followed up three years
later by The Old Straight Road, the book he is best known for.
Watkins had discovered what came to be known as 'ley lines', chosen because the
tracks passed through place names that often ended with the syllable 'ley.'
Yes, he named them, that's true, but he 'discovered' them, in might be said, in
the same way that Columbus 'discovered' America!
In Harper's
Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience ley lines are
defined as follows;
Ley lines are
alignments and patterns of powerful, invisible earth energy said to connect
various sacred sites, such as churches, temples, stone circles, megaliths, holy
wells, burial sites and other locations of spiritual and magical importance.
In fact what Watkins
had stumbled upon was a feature that for centuries before his time had been
known as fairy roads; spiritual highways, in other words. Shakespeare knew,
hence the mysterious (not for him) reference to church way paths. This is just
the English name for something that occurs across so many different cultures
and ages, the belief that that spirits of one kind or another, living or dead,
move through the physical landscape along special routes.
The church way paths
constitute a special class here, known elsewhere in Europe as 'corpse roads.'
In Britain they are also known by other names, such as burial road, bier road,
coffin road or lych way, the latter derived from lyches, the Old English word
for corpse. In Saxon time they were known as the 'deada wegg.' I don't think
there is any need for translation here, is there?
The church paths were
simple enough: they were the prescribed route by which the dead were carried to
their allotted burial place, straight to the gate. But more than this they
accumulated a long tradition of spirit lore, routes believed to be followed by
the dead after death, as Shakespeare revels in A Midsummer's Night
Dream. This was a belief so widespread in Medieval Europe that the
remains of those whose return was not desired in any form were often buried at
cross roads, specifically to confuse their spirits. Unable to travel, the
spirit would thus be 'locked' in a single location.
Just as Watkins had
inadvertently stumbled across church paths, the people of the Middle Ages had
stumbled across something even older, a more archaic spirit lore. We now know
of Neolithic earthen avenues called “cursuses” linking burial mounds. These
features can run for a considerable distance, some for many miles, and are
largely straight. All of them connect funerary sites. We know the exist, yes,
but we have no idea what the were for. It's not beyond possibility that they
were specifically intended to serve as spirit paths. Some Neolithic and Bronze
age graves, particularly in Britain and France, are fitted with blocking
stones. Why? What was being blocked?
We are not simply
dealing with man-made features or human superstition here. In 1987 the New
Scientist magazine published an article suggesting that species as
diverse as pigeons, whales, bees and -of all things – bacteria can navigate
using the earth's magnetic field. Ley lines may be human but we know that they,
too, have a close relationship with the same magnetic field. So, take your
pick: the lines are are simply areas of altered magnetic fields or they carry
traces of all past energies, of those who have trodden these mystical ways
since before history and before time.
Puck's words, you see,
have a wider significance than even Shakespeare may have understood. They connect with a spirit lore that extends all the way from Ireland in the west to
China in the east. It's possible to come across references time after time and
place after place. In Germany they were called Geisterwege, routes
to be avoided at night. The Handwortbuch der deutschen Aberglaubens describes
them thus;
The paths, with no
exception, always run in a straight line over mountains and valleys and through
marshes...in towns they pass the houses closely or go through them. The paths
end or originate in a cemetery...therefore this way or road was believed to
have the same characteristics as a cemetery...where spirits of the deceased
thrive.
In Ireland these were
the fairy paths, routes that had such physical reality in the minds of the
living that building patterns were adapted to ensure that they were not
obstructed. Does this sound familiar? It should do if you have any acquaintance
with Chinese culture; for the same belief underpins feng-shui divination,
in which homes and other places have to be protected, so to speak, from the
straight and narrow! The belief is that troublesome spirits travelling along
such ethereal pathways will bring bad luck if blocked on their journey. In
Ireland those who suffered unforeseen misfortunes, or sudden illness, were said
to live in houses that were in a “contrary place.”
Now a real life story,
one I got from Paul Devereux, writing in the Fortean Times. There
is a croft, now a cattle shed, at Knockeencreen in County Kerry. In an
interview carried out in the 1980s, the then occupant told of troubles his
grandfather experienced with cattle dying from wholly unexplained reasons. The
front door is exactly opposite the back door. A passing gypsy told the
grandfather that the building stood on a fairy path between two hills. “Keep
the doors slightly ajar at night”, she advised, “to allow the fairies free
passage.” And so he did, and so the cattle stopped dying. No more bad feng-shui.
The important thing
here is that the energy is not obstructed, either on the ley lines or the
dragon paths of Chinese tradition. For if they are...well, you've been warned.
If you would like to discuss this further you might care to join me for a drink
at the Ancient Ram Inn in Wooton-under-Edge in the county of Gloucestershire. I
should warn you, though, that it is reputed to be one of the most haunted
places in England. A few years ago an investigation was carried out by a team
from the UK Paranormal Study, headed by Kieron Butler. Mr Butler – silly man –
decided that a spot of Ouija game play was called for, which called for an
unexpected entity:
We asked for a sign
outside the board and we heard a deep kind of groan or yell. I felt his
presence rush across the attic towards us as did Mr Al and the others felt a
freezing blast of air hit us with force. I felt him at first right behind me,
we continued then I felt him stand in the spot I was sitting, I felt overcome
by a feeling I cannot explain but I think he was trying to get into me as if I
could be used as a channel. This was getting unbearable and I then felt a terrible stabbing
pain in my back, moments later the board spelt out stab & die...then I felt
all the pain and feelings return before I passed out.
What's the problem
with the Ancient Ram Inn? Why, it's right over a ley line.
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