Sacred Places - Pentre Ifan, Wales

[Echo]

I love the old places and visit them when I can. I have been fortunate to spend time at many of these sites over the years.. though there are thousands more in Britain alone that I have yet to see. I never drive past one of those intriguing brown road signs that say 'Ancient Monument'.


There is a real feeling of connection with the past of our race, a surge of continuity and rightness at these places, and a feeling of coming home as one enters the compass of the forces that swirl through these sites.

Perched on a hilltop, guarding a vale that looks to the sea stands Pentre Ifan. The massive capstone , 16 tonnes and 5 meters long, balances incredibly on the uprights that have held it for over 5500years. From these same hills the bluestones were quarried that were transported to Stonehenge.


This site was a home for the dead of Ivan's Village (Pentre Ifan) and the ditches and mounds can be traced on the ground. It is a lonely site and remote, now, but traces of the community that held faith here can be found in abundance.

Excavations in 1936-7 and 1958-9 showed that the burial chamber originally lay within a shallow oval pit, and that the trapezoidal mound of earth covering it was up to 36m (120ft) long. It is a design that is found in many places throughout the British Isles, and mounds like this still exist in varying states, from those still shrouded in their blanket of earth to scattered stones, folornly bereaved from their purpose.


Bryn Celli Dhu on the Isle of Anglesey still retains its earth and circle wall.

At Pentre Ifan there are legends of ghosts and fairies and of a portal to the Otherworld and it is easy to feel why. These houses of the dead, where the ancestors bones were kept, tended and honoured are indeed the hollow hills of myth where one can step across the threshold of life into the continous stream of existence that is the Otherworld.

[Drachemond]

This is quite amazing Echo! I find you post the coolest monuments and you have opened to my knowledge more than what I thought Stonehenge had in uniqueness. I can now see there is much more to this planet in our history regarding standing stone monuments than I thought.

It is difficult for me to know in the first place since I have never had the chance to travel to these places. I don't mind Canada and I can find many beautiful things here, but I wish one day to have the chance to go and visit these spiritually charged monuments.

The first picture I find interesting. It is impressive that such stones can stand on each other in such a way for centuries without falling apart. There must be so much magical energies in these areas...?

As for the second picture...Shire anyone? I love it and love reading your posts about all these monuments.

Thank you for bringing your home to my home in pictures!

Blessed Be.
Drach

[Echo]

I love the wealth of old places here, Drachemond, and have always 'known' that they were part of the network of power the ancients built to enhance the natural energies of the land, ever since I was a child...long, long ago! Whether that is right or wrong, who can know, but to sit and meditate in these places can bring some awesome experiences, and other than the major monuments, most of these places tend to be visited only by a few, so one often has them either to oneself, or shared with others who have respect for them at some level.

Oh.. and being only five foot, I have been nicknamed the hobbit by my sons friends for years..

[Mozelle]

Forget Stonehenge! The Capstone takes the cake. I think I'd feel nerves standing under it. But for some reason I feel drawn to it. Maybe its something that seems so impossible, but it is. I feel a rush through my body looking at that photo.

[Celtaur]

I saw a program today that spoke of Tara and Newgrange... the host of the tourist program spoke of his explorations and said that it seemed the fairies were hidden away but he could feel their energy in some way.

Do many still believe in Fairy Folk in the UK, or is it moving on to viewing it as superstition, rather than something more?

I also found a site with some great pictures too.

[Haruth]

Do many still believe in Fairy Folk in the UK...

<choke> Of course we do! Fairy Folk tend the plants... How do you expect your plant to do well, if you don't believe in the Fae? :p

[Celtaur]

<choke> Of course we do! Fairy Folk tend the plants... How do you expect your plant to do well, if you don't believe in the Fae? :p

I have no idea I haven't really ascribed to fairy folk. I don't know enough about them to have an opinion either way. I would consider them maybe like elementals or some sort of spirits, rather than physical level beings I suppose, but not completely sure. Enlighten me