T.C. Lethbridge, A Broken Spectre and The Rock of Angels15th Sep 2004 by welbourn TEKH “I have heard his (T.C. Lethbridge’s) books criticised on the grounds that they are repetitive and inconclusive. But this is necessarily so. They are a kind of working journal into which he poured his fresh discoveries and insights year by year; if they are chaotic, they share that fault with the notebooks of Leonardo and the daily journals of every important discoverer.” Taken from Colin Wilson’s Foreword to T.C. Lethbridge’s ‘The Power of the Pendulum’ (p xv) In ‘Gogmagog – The Buried Gods’, T.C. Lethbridge makes reference to a phenomenon known as a Broken Spectre(1). He suggests that ‘The Gruagach’ of South Uist, a grim giantess who appears on a misty hillside and is said to lure young men to their doom, could indeed be explained as a Broken Spectre. In 1921, Lethbridge experienced the Broken Spectre phenomenon himself whilst exploring the island of Jan Mayen with his friend James Wordie. Lethbridge describes their experience; “A gleam of sun through the mist threw the monstrous images of our dirty and unshaven figures on to the fog across a valley. Anyone who did not know how the Broken Spectre was formed would surely have taken them for giants. Stories of giants in the mountains often must have begun like this.” In ‘ESP – Beyond Time and Distance’(2) Lethbridge also makes reference to the fact that a Broken Spectre can be created in foggy conditions by standing in front of the headlamps of your car. On many occasions, whilst undertaking field-studies, I have encountered local curiosities and quirks of nature that Lethbridge himself chose to remark upon in his own writings. Proving the point, that often the most trivial of annotations can give specific meaning to the interpretation of local folklore or legend. When I encountered a Broken Spectre whilst exploring the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire, I too chose, like Lethbridge, to record my observations. A Rock of Angels The importance of the mountain shrine known as Carningli or ‘Rock of Angels’ to the ancient inhabitants of Pembrokeshire cannot be overstated. Overshadowing the small garrison town of Newport, she rises above the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastline. Carningli is the northern-most peak of the famous Preseli mountain range, before the land eventually falls away to the coast at Newport Bay. The Preseli mountains are the alleged home of the famous bluestones, that make up the inner ‘horseshoe’ ring at Stonehenge and are said to have been taken from nearby Carn Meini to Salisbury Plain. This unsubstantiated claim was suggested by H.H. Thomas in 1923 and has since inspired countless recreation theories regarding their method of transportation. Another theory of origin is Killaraus in Ireland, a notion instigated by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his ‘History of Kings of Britain’. The seventeenth century antiquarian John Aubrey embroidered the suggestion by stating that this source was in fact Killian-Hill in County Kildare and expanded upon Geoffrey’s notion. Further evidence to substantiate an Irish source for the bluestones, was provided by T.C. Lethbridge, who undertook an experiment using chippings obtained from the stones. Utilising a pendulum and a map, he suggested that the home of the bluestones was in fact an outcrop of rock in Tipperary(3). In ‘The Stone Circles of the British Isles’(4), Aubrey Burl suggests, that the stones, having been quarried from Carn Meini, would have been transported, first by land, to Milford Haven and then on rafts, by a sea route, out of this sheltered harbour into open sea and then down the Bristol channel, utilising the River Avon, before finishing their journey across land to Salisbury Plain. It is known that this spotted dolerite, was initially used by Neolithic farmers for the making of axes and axe-hammers which were used for bartering purposes, by the ancient people of south-west Wales with their neighbouring communities in Wessex. Although Burl later contradicts his earlier view(5), by stating that the Stonehenge bluestones were in fact glacial erratics, naturally deposited on Salisbury Plain. This view was based on an observation of the rough nature and the poor quality of the stones which indicated; that had an ancient race decided to transport ‘sacred’ stones over a considerable distance, they would most certainly have chosen better quality examples than the ones that make up the bluestone ring. In 1991, Geoffrey Kellaway suggested that the Stonehenge bluestones were in fact local, glacial deposits associated with the Pliocene Epoch - 5.4 to 1.6 million years ago. This opinion further substantiates the view that the bluestones were local to Salisbury Plain. Whether the Stonehenge bluestone ring originally came from Preseli or not, it does not detract from the significance that this locality possessed for prehistoric tribes. The area surrounding Carningli is rich in history and legend. All around, evidence can still be seen of its prehistoric legacy, including standing stones, cromlechs, hut circles, and the later hill-forts, built by the Iron Age Celts. It is obvious from these ancient remains, that the whole Carningli environs, would have had a considerable religious significance to the ancient farmers and this sacred peak would surely have been regarded as a focus for their beliefs. The predetermined sacredness of this heathen place was continued in the legend of St. Brynach, an Irish Monk, who had a cell built at the nearby village of Nevern. It is told that St. Brynach regularly went to the Carningli summit to ‘speak’ with angels. It is most likely, that it is from this union that Carningli owes its name; ‘The Rock of Angels’. What communion St. Brynach had with his ‘angels’ is unknown, but it may be of interest to our story to reflect on a personal observation I made at Carningli back in 1997: Notes from my diary: 1 October 1997 - 9.15pm “Sometimes there are too many stars. As I write, I am staring up into the blackness above Carningli and more just keep appearing, the vastness of it all puts everything terrestrial into perspective. This is my second visit here, the first, seven years ago, was on new year‘s day in 1990 and I have returned here to further investigate Carningli and its satellite monuments. The night is warm and clear and from my tent, I can hear the sea fifty yards or so to the north. To the south, I can see across to the low cloud that now shrouds Carningli, silhouetted against jet-black sky. This morning was one of those mornings when clarity kicks-in, experiences that the author and philosopher Colin Wilson, describes as ‘glimpses’. As the darkening sky distances me from the day’s events, this peak experience begins to fade, and I now making a futile attempt to capture it with the limitation of words, before it all becomes a distant memory; The rain which had been relentless over the last two days, had ceased and it was almost as if someone ‘up there’ had tested our endurance and had given us a reward of a beautiful morning. After breakfast, my friend John and I made our ascent of Carningli. Stopping half way, we looked back down onto the village of Newport where we had spent the previous night and decided, that if there was a ‘god’, then she/he, was smiling on us today. As we climbed, we were privileged with a view across the ocean towards the Wicklow Hills in Eire and north, towards Snowdonia. The climb was taxing, rather than difficult, especially after a huge breakfast and it wasn’t long before we had soon built up a sweat. The heat from the sun was intense and it wasn’t long before we were walking without shirts, but this ‘Indian Summer’ was just too good to last. During our climb, John had just discovered and identified a rare type of beetle, when, from the north-west, a dark cloud silently began to move in. Within minutes, the small town of Newport and the Nevern Estuary had disappeared from our view. Seconds later, we ourselves had become enveloped in this damp, rolling cloud. Our climb to the summit of Carningli had reached a watershed and although neither of us stopped to discuss whether to continue, we both instinctively pressed on upwards, on a now seemingly pointless journey to the pinnacle. Shrouded in the low cloud, the rocky outcrop at the summit of Carningli looked sinister and foreboding and we joked nervously about St Brynach’s angels springing out at us from the mist! After five minutes or so, it began to feel quite chilly and it seemed as if we had been plunged into the depths of winter, especially after previously experiencing such a beautiful, warm autumn morning. With our view now limited to only a few feet, we took the obligatory ‘self-timer’ photograph at the summit and we planned our descent. Suddenly, there was a glimpse of blue sky and we decided to ‘hold-fire’ on our descent, just to give view we had anticipated one last chance. We waited, as the sun desperately tried its utmost to burn its way through the rolling cloud. I stood on top of the rocky outcrop staring out into the grey, fast moving, swirl of cloud around me, waiting for just a glimpse of a vista. As the pale sun became stronger, I noticed my shadow being projected onto the cloud below me, when suddenly, as the sun burst through the cloud, my shadow was encircled by a giant rainbow effect. It lasted a split second, as the sun was swiftly enveloped in thick cloud. I shouted to John and explained what had happened, so we waited silently, for the ‘event’ to reoccur. Within moments our shadows appeared again and when the sun eventually burst through, not only were our individual shadows encircled by arc-like rainbows, but a giant, twenty foot diameter, circular rainbow engulfed both of our images, almost as if in a colossal, triumphant finale. We stood in cruciform shape projecting our ‘angels’ onto the cloud, like a scene from a deranged, religious, sixteenth century, Italian painting. Where these the visions that St. Brynach had seen, when he ‘spoke’ with the angels? I guess it could have been, and without our present day, scientific knowledge of light refraction, these images, created by freak weather conditions, could certainly have been interpreted as angels by our good friend, St. Brynach. The mist began to clear and we soon began to see larger patches of the land below us. Coincidental with this change of the weather, the temperature began to rise and soon we were transported back to the beautiful day we had experienced earlier that morning. Below us, stretched the Pembrokeshire coast but the distant landmarks of the Wicklow hills and Snowdonia remained tantalisingly hidden, behind a shimmering sea mist on the horizon. The descent was slow and beautiful, for we were forever glancing back at the rock, its dark outline silhouetted against a glowing sky. It is now 10.40pm, John has gone home and I am alone in my tent, the lights from the harbour cast long shadows across the campsite and I feel privileged, to have been given, yet another glimpse of finer things.” I do not want to belittle the visions of St. Brynach, but it is possible that naïve early Christian visitors to Carningli, who witnessed similar Broken Spectre phenomenon, may have associated their experiences with ‘divine’ intervention. Just because we now have conceived a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, it shouldn’t detract from this ‘communion with nature’ that was being experienced by visitors of yore. This occurrence, whether it was ‘scientifically’ understood or not, would have reinforced to the ancient, pagan visitors a ‘oneness’ with nature, upon which their whole philosophy and lifestyle was centred. This elevated experience would have most certainly installed a belief in the existence of sky gods and communion. Carningli would therefore have been regarded, as a holy place, providing advocates that they were ‘in-tune’ with the gods and the elements. If this was the phenomenon experienced by St. Brynach, then the interpretation of him being in communion with ‘angels’ only goes to reinforce, the separation that had occurred, between the Stone Age ‘nature/earth worshipping’ religions and the denial of nature and natural cycles, that was being experienced at the time by the later sky-god worshipping Christians. Holy men like St. Brynach, were intermediaries who liaised between the sacred and the secular and were surely descendents of the Stone Age shaman. During correspondence with the author Paul Deveraux, he explained to me of a similar, spectacular phenomenon he had experienced, not at Carningli, where he had conducted numerous dream experiments, but at Silbury in Wiltshire. This experience is referred to in his book, ‘Symbolic Landscapes’. Here he describes a halo effect, created not by sunlight on clouds, but by the effect of sunlight on dew, an impression he also refers to as a Broken Spectre. It is of course the phenomenon also encountered by T.C. Lethbridge and James Wordie on Jan Mayen. “We walked up one ridge and unexpectedly saw two giant figures on the next, the Broken Spectre, silhouettes of ourselves. This to people who had no knowledge of how such things are made would have been monstrous and quite out of this world.”(6) As I mentioned in my diary notes, it is said to be possible to witness the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland and Snowdon in North Wales from the summit of Carningli. Because of the weather we experience here in Britain, these vistas, like perfect sunsets, are rare occurrences. Therefore to catch glimpses of these distant, sacred peaks, would have been regarded as ‘sacred moments’ by ancient observers from the summit of Carningli. The Pembrokeshire coast between Fishguard and Carmathen Bay would have been an ideal place for sea crossings to Ireland by ancient mariners, for it avoided the area around St. David’s Head, where there would have been strong currents. Coincidentally, the area to the south-west of Carningli, is also rich in prehistoric monuments. The remains of a stone circle Meini-Gwyr (SN 142 267), ten miles to the south east of Carningli, was built during the earlier part of the 2nd Millennium (BCE) and bears a striking resemblances to similar sites to be found in Ireland at Castleruddery in the Wicklows and the Lios near Lough Gur, therefore highlighting a possible common link between the sites. Similarly, twelve miles west of Meini-Gwyr, there is another much ruined circle at Letterston (SM 937 294) where there is evidence that Quartz had been spread over the interior of the ring and similarities have been found between this circle and the recumbent stone circles in Cork. The best preserved and surely the most famous stone circle in the area, is that of Gors Fawr (SN 134 294). It is situated on a baron piece of ‘peat-drenched’ common land and it is not too difficult to imagine this circle being a cultural centre for the region. The archaeologist W.D. Bushell once described it as a “prehistoric Westminster”. During the Stone Age, Carningli would have been perceived as a sacred peak, not only from the surrounding land, but also by mariners negotiating the Pembrokeshire coast and those crossing the strait between Fishguard and Ros Làir (Roslare). The megalithic monuments that are manifold across the surrounding landscape, evidence this adoration. At each site, the visitor never fails to be overawed by the presence of Carningli, a peak that dominates the entire prehistoric landscape. Here one is reminded of Dunnydeer in Aberdeenshire and how this sacred hill again is central to the encircling megalithic monuments. The summit of Carningli is strewn with prehistoric activity, but like at Dunnydeer, Brentor on Dartmoor and Glastonbury this occupation is attributed not to the builders of the megalithic structures in the surrounding land, but to later, Iron Age Tribes. Here the Height is acknowledged as a symbol of their adoration of a pantheon of sky gods and unlike the earth worshipping Ancient Britons of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, their focus was on the sky. The occasional appearance of the Broken Spectre’ would, as we have already stated only further enhanced this association. Later perceived by St. Brynach as the presence of ‘angels’, this phenomenon enabled locals to honour this sacred peak with its eponymous name. Built by the north-western, British tribe the Briganttes during the first century AD, the ‘defensive’ enclosure upon the peak of Ingleborough in Yorkshire, is at 3,000 feet, the highest example of a hill-fort in Britain. Here, like at Carningli, the peak is scattered with the remains of hut-circles that are uniquely enclosed within what remains of an impressive shale embankment. Diary Note: 18th October 2001: Ingleborough, Yorkshire “The heavy rain that we had encountered earlier in the day had passed suddenly and left us in the wake of a most glorious autumn day. We began our ascent of Ingleborough fearing the worst from the weather, but as we began to climb, the layers of clothing were soon removed as we broke into a sweat on a sweltering, un-seasonal day. As we passed the lead mines of White Scars, the depressions in the ground reminded me of a similar landscape I had previously witnessed at the Neolithic flint mines at Grime’s Graves in Norfolk. As you ascend Ingleborough, the temperature, even on a sunny day, begins to drop and soon the discarded clothing was retrieved from the rucksacks. From the summit, the views are breathtaking, to the west, there is a magnificent view towards Morecambe Bay and the Irish Sea. It is even said that on a clear day, the Isle of Man can be seen, but on this occasion, a veil of mist on the horizon hindered this observation. This really is an important site and as its name suggests, this really is a place for angels. For here, this elevated station not only creates a virtually impregnable fortress, but a place where those who chose to focus their adoration on the sky can surely be at one with their gods.” In his ‘Dictionary of Place Names’(7), Adrian Room suggests that ‘Ing’ is ‘Ingus’ an Old English suffix simply meaning ‘place’. However this may well be the case in names such as Barking, Epping and Hastings, but situated as a prefix, as it is in Ingleborough, the ‘ ing’ is most probably a derivation of ‘ang’ or angel as at Carningli. The ‘ang’ as in Anglesey, is a translation of the Latin ’Anglorum’ or ‘island of the Angles’ and lends its name to many places around the Welsh coast and of course to ‘England’. Incidentally the Welsh name for Anglesey is ‘Mon’, simply meaning ‘hill’ or ‘mountain’ and in turn gave its name to the Isle of Man, which coincidentally, can be observed from the Ingleborough enclosure. It appears we are saying that both ‘Ing’ and ‘ang’ are synonymous and this in turn suggests a Scandinavian root. If this is the case, then it might be fair to suggest that Ing the Norse fertility God gives his name to sacred peaks such as Carningli and Ingleborough. For as a sky god could he to be perceived as an Angel in a broken spectre occurrence? Was it not Gregory the Great (see note 10) who perceived the Angles by saying “Non Angli - Angeli” ie. not Angles - Angels. This ‘angelic’ association with sacred peaks and the later Iron Age tribes, who worshipped at them, is a marked contrast to the shrine builders of the Neolithic and early Bronze Age. Having established that their staunch affinities lay with the earth, a view confirmed by their choice of venues for the building of their shrines, the later Iron Age tribe’s attention was shifted from earth to sky. In his book ‘Total Man’(8), Stan Gooch explores the antithesis of two ‘imaginary’ entities; fairies and angels. Gooch defines fairies as being; female, of the earth (they flit around woodlands and glades rather than fly) and are creatures of the night time/moonlight. This is opposed to angels who are; male, associated with the sky (ie. heaven) and appear in day-time/sunlight. He concludes that the worship of fairies can be attributed to matriarchal cultures and angels, in contrast, have a patriarchal association exemplified in Christianity. It is becoming clear that these two entities, throughout history, have become logos for opposing religious points of view. T.C. Lethbridge suggested that fairies were in fact the Stone Age Britons, their earthbound association encapsulated in folklore as a permanent reminder of the terrestrial adoration. In ‘Merlin’s Island’(9), Lethbridge also mentions that place-names ending in ‘-ing’ are often quoted as a certain indication of early settlement. Plotted on a small-scale map, there is often a close conformity between the distribution of the ‘-ings’ and pagan cemeteries. However, on the ground, Lethbridge discovered this proved not to be the case. He discovered the ‘-ing’ was often several miles away from any known cemetery or the likely site of one. He suggested that there must be some other interpretation of the ‘-ing’ than that it indicates the homestead of an early settler. He concluded in his inevitable way, by throwing in a solution to his conundrum that; “Perhaps it is the place to which his family went with the cattle for the summer grazing; a kind of saeter, or havod, or shieling. In any case it does not appear to have been his home. There are practically none in Cambridgeshire, which is thick with early cemeteries.” Once again, T.C. Lethbridge’s pragmatic approach to his field-work enables us view our land without a preconceived vision, proving the invaluable nature of primary research and the importance of experiencing the land and its people first hand. welbourn TEKH – Lincoln – September 2004 Notes: 1. Lethbridge T.C. (1957) ‘Gogmagog – The Buried Gods’ Routledge Kegan Paul. p.20 2. Lethbridge T.C. (1965) ‘ESP – Beyond Time and Distance’ Routledge Kegan Paul. p.23 3. Lethbridge T.C. (1972) ‘Legend of the Sons of God’ Routledge Kegan Paul. p.13 4. Burl A. (1976) ‘The Stone Circles of the British Isles’ Yale University Press Ltd. p. 5. Burl A. (March 2001) Article in ‘History Today’ pp.19-25 6. Lethbridge T.C. (1965) ‘ESP : Beyond time and Distance’ Routledge Kegan Paul. p 23 7. Room A. (1988) ‘Dictionary of Place Names’ Bloomsbury. 8. Gooch S (1972) ‘Total Man’ Sphere Books. 9. Lethbridge T.C. (1948) ‘Merlin’s Island’ Methuen & Co. p 67 10. I am not certain if this name is correct, I will check through my notes to confirm. Sorry for this shoddiness! |
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