I left the cave and wandered down the slope to the foot of the hill. I did not know where to go, and did not care, for a crushing tiredness gripped me. Groaning, I tumbled to the ground, hugging my knees to my body.
And then I heard it. Jingle, jingle, like fey ghost bells on the wind. Lifting my head, I quickly scrambled up as a shaggy pack pony burst out of the morning mist, followed by a group of small dark folk—a man, a woman, a pack of children of all ages and sizes. I stared amazed as cried “Tulkar. Oulagh. You’re back!”
I rushed into Oulagh’s waiting arms. Tulkar grinned at me while the children clustered around, poking and giggling. “I never thought to see you all again,” I wept, embarrassed by my tears but too worn to contain them any longer. “Tulkar, I must tell you, I broke your sword!”
“I know,” he said. “Do not worry, Ardagh. The sword’s purpose has been served.”
I shook my head. “You know? But how? News could not have spread so quickly!”
He shrugged. “Let if suffice to say I know. Now come – you look weary and hungry! Climb up on our beast and we will take you to Fyn camp where we have made a new smithy. The Dov-folk from the next valley are already buying many bronze axes and cauldrons.”
I mounted the pony, still confused by Tulkar’s knowledge of my adventures. As we moved off, I glanced back at Haddery Burn, the start of my quest. And there, for one brief second, I saw a slender dark-haired woman standing in the cave mouth. She waved at me (or was it just vines tossing above the cave mouth?) and then she vanished.
Was it Ourar? I hoped so, but could not be sure. I was tired. I was certain of nothing. Not until I looked away from Haddery Burn and gazed into the knowing eyes of Tulkar the smith.
CHILD SACRIFICE
Beneath the Moon the moor was dark
while in the shadows leaned the stark
and gaunt grey pillars of the ring
bent close as if whispering.
Who knows what strange tales pass
from stony lips to blowing grass
that grows about the stony feet
where rain and time have hardly beat
their fists, upon those standing stones,
uprooting one, revealing bones
of a tiny child, burnt and brown,
buried till the stone came down.
The bones of a child who died long ago
to encourage the sun and make crops grow.
IN THE ANTHROPOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Young man inhumed
under a standing stone
Twenty four by his perfect teeth.
An archaeological exhibit
in a cheerless
museum
amid musty urns,
spearheads
…and dust.
I examine his bald
round pate
and wonder…
what cruel fate killed him
so young.
Was he dark?
Was he fair?
Did he love?
I fear he died
with his song of life
still unsung
Poor neolith—
a flint arrowhead
is still
most carefully balanced
between his white
and perfect
ribs.
THE WHITE LADY
A white woman whirls in the meadow
On nights when the Moon’s nearly dead,
Her white gown blowing, her white arms glowing,
And a milk-white wreath on her head.
She sways and she dances so gaily,
Her hair webbed against the horned Moon,
But her eyes like night have swallowed the light
As she whirls to a soundless tune.
But at dawn when the sun crests the hilltops.
Filling the meadows with light,
There’s a great aged stone, standing alone,
Windbitten, leaning and white.
NUCA
I am Nuca-a wizard—
I live in Kerlescan
The Place of Burning
where the dead flame
in rings of longstones
and spirits soar skyward
to escape the long teeth
of charred black menhirs
that grind and champ souls.
I live in a mud hut…
I speak with the spirits…
I light the hot fires…
and sing to the moon
which rides like an old skull
across star specked heaven
above the Place of Burning
where I-Nuca-dwell.
DOLMEN
Grey dolmen, capstone bleak and bare,
What ancient hands set you there?
What hands laid a princess deep below,
Where only the tender grasses grow,
Beneath your arches cold and grey,
Dark shadowed in the light of day?
O did you weep a stony tear
As they brought her hence on branch-wrought bier?
And did you mourn as they dressed her hair
With beads of amber, round and fair?
Beneath your arches cold and grey,
Dark shadowed in the light of day?
O did you whisper words to deafened ears,
And wipe away her unseen tears?
As the bronze on her dress turned to rust
And her comely face all fell to dust
Beneath your arches cold and grey
Dark shadowed in the light of day?
Memories
A stone
standing in a field
with a star crowning its tip
remembers.
The moon,
sailing over a barrow
on a bleak Scottish moor
recalls.
The sun,
blazing by the Heelstone
on Midsummer’s Morn
has memories
Of ancient astronomers
charting sun and moon
in times we call
uncivilised.
ON SALISBURY PLAIN
On Salisbury Plain the cold rains weep
while in the mounds the old ones sleep,
and across the Plain the sad wind shrills
singing dirges to the hollow hills.
To those who slumber deep below
the forgotten folk of long ago,
who wandered field, fen and wood
ere iron was forged or castle stood.
Small dark farmers, gold-clad kings,
users of the lintelled temple’s rings.
A folk who have by time been slain
and lie buried neath the hills of Salisbury Plain.
THE PEOPLE OF THE HILLS
We are the People of the Hills!
Long eons ago we ruled this land,
We built long mounds to house our dead
And raised the mighty stones that stand
Unto eternity, their grey faces
Enigmatic to all after-coming races.
We are the People of the Hills!
Little and dark, with our fine flint tools,
The Outsiders name us spirits and faeries—
Oh, those poor, poor ignorant fools!
Aye, years will come and years will fade
But long will the Land bear the things we’ve made.
We are the People of the Hills!
Small and weak with our bones all bent,
And our children dying in the cold;
Yet we first farmed; aye, the earth we rent,
For THEM to steal for their own;
That and the camp and the standing stone!
We are the people of the Hills!
Outsiders brought bronze, stronger than stone;
Made us raise new temples to their Gods,
While our folk withered; flesh clung to bone.
But when outsiders and bronze weapons are gone
The Pe
ople of the Hills shall still live on.
Cave of the Sun
Morning clouds vanish from the hills
Cold stars sink and the sky grows bright.
Red as a wound, the sunrise comes
Pouring Midwinter’s light over green fields.
Dark and silent, the stone hill lies sleeping
In shadows deep and curling mister,
Its portals open to the eastern skies
A mouth to be kissed by the morning sun.
A finger of light stabs through the dark,
Running down a passage old as time,
Tracing whorls and spirals on the walls,
Where none now remember the carver’s name.
At hill’s heart, in the darkest close
The Cave of the Sun grows bright as day.
Old spirits wake; the ghosts of men
Long passed away; who toiled of old.
They leap in the light, hands held aloft,
Beneath the watchful spiral eyes
Of the Mother who guards the Dead
Ere they rise in the new morning.
The sun moves West; the lightbeam fails,
Cut off as if by a wizard’s blade.
The spirits slip back into night,
To long rest bade by the passing Sun.
Hill of the Witch
Cold stone bowl upon a hill,
cracked by time and bitter frost,
exposure to a thousand winter’s nights
and the ungentle hands of men.
On the Hill of the Witch
the old stones lie fallen,
carven faces staring blindly at the Sun
with spiral-eyes once meant
to gaze only on the ancient dead.
The rain weeps like woman’s tears
filling the cracked shell of the bowl,
washing last traces of funeral ash
from the thick green layers
of spotted lichen and dew-drenched moss.
The wind wails out a mourning dirge;
on its breath the bean-sidhe’s cries,
echoing the keening of a forgotten folk
at the mouth of the tomb
on the Hill of the Witch.
THE STANDING STONE
High on a hill it stood, overlooking the land.
For four thousand years, its grey, eyeless face had gazed out over the valley. From a distance it bore the semblance of a hunched, hooded man on one side; on the other it was a warning finger, a fang of stone rising from the green gums of the downland around it.
No one knew who put it there, or why. Only that it had always been.
Then the newcomer came, to the farm below the hill. A man narrow eyed and narrow-minded, who saw nothing beyond his pay at the end of the day. The beautiful lands around him meant nothing --'Just boring trees and rises!' he'd quip, and the ancient stone even less: 'Stupid old thing; can't see the fuss. Just a rock! Should be knocked down so we can build there!"
And so, despite the laws that protected such old stones, one night he crept out to the standing stone, shrouded in darkness. He carried wood and petrol for the burning. He knew how to get rid of the unwelcome long-time tenant on his land...In the morning, he'd make a show of dismay and blame the 'vandals'...the bratty teenagers from the nearby town, up to their boozing and partying. A pity, a shame...but he'd put the empty spot to good use...something better for the town than some crusty monument.
He approached the stone, feet swishing on the dewy grass. It loomed black against the sky, sturdy, solid, eternal. The wind suddenly dropped; it felt very still and very cold on the bare hillside.
Man stared at stone.
Maybe the stone, which looked in some lights like a hunched man, stared back with eyes of granite.
The farmer cursed. He flung down his kindling and poured petrol on it. He lit a long match, hurled it on the petrol soaked wood and ran. Flames whooshed into the night.
It took a long time, but he kept the fire burning hot at the base of the stone. Eventually, he heard a crack, a groan, a screech like that of a tortured soul. The stone shifted in its age-old bed and began to lean to one side.
And then he saw something, revealed by the crater at the stone's foot. A bald skull. A shattered pot. Dead man's teeth glowing in the moonlight.
And, the glitter of gold.
The farmer cursed and tried to wriggle in to see. Gold! Gold! Treasure trove would earn him plenty! He chuckled, thinking how wise he had been to take down this ancient blot on the landscape.
Trying to avoid the flames, he stretched out a hand for the brightly shining ornament, a lozenge-shaped breastplate. Ashes and sparks flew around him, half blinding him, burning the hairs in his nose.
His fingertips traced the cold, grave-chill surface and then he heard a sound. A familiar sound. One he had rejoiced to hear before, but which filled him with terror now.
The stone above was shrieking, groaning as its foundation failed and its base dissolved. With a roar it suddenly tumbled forward, striking him, driving him down into the revealed grave pit, burying him with the treasure he had craved.
In the morning, the police came. Vandals...kids from town they said, as the farmer had
thought they would. A shame.
A week later a business colleague reported the farmer missing. None mourned him much; he had no close family and fewer friends. He was known to have had dodgy financial dealings; many who had known him though he had run off abroad, to a new life in South America.
On the hill, lying across the spot where it had once stood in wind and rain for a million nights, the ancient stone marker and its ancient burial kept its secrets
AUTHOR’S NOTES
‘SWORD OF TULKAR’ is based on a real life find in the cave of Heathery Burn near Co Durham, England (now sadly destroyed). In the 19th century the remnants of a bronze age smithy was found, including bronze cauldrons and weaponry. Amidst this assemblage was also found human remains, which appear to have been interred while the cave was in full use. The inclusion of human bones into the foundation of dwelling places is a very old tradition, also found in the British Isles in places such as Skara Brae and at the recently discovered Cladh Hallan, where not only was there some evidence of mummification but also, as it turns out, the ‘mummy’ was assembled from several different people. The insertion of human skeletons may have several reasons, but the most plausible is probably that they were ancestral bones, used to mark territory and space, just like those in barrows which appear conspicuously on rises in the landscape and may have signified tribal boundaries. The spirits associated with the dead also probably may have been regarded as ‘house guardians’. Similar practices have been found in even older Neolithic sites such as at Catal Hoyuk in Turkey, where the people slept over the dead and the walls were painted with graphic scenes of excarnation.
The first draft of Tulkar was originally written in the late 1980s, and although I have modified some of the dialogue and text, it still contains some of the ‘thinking’ of the era in regards to British prehistory—that there had been wave upon wave of violent invasion, each successive wave obliterating the culture and people before it (often violently). Now, of course, no archaeologist worth their salt would suggest this was the case; small amounts of migration from the continent did occur, but much of the change was cultural rather than genetic…and certainly the bronze and Neolithic people are our direct ancestors as surely as more recent migrants to these isles.
If you enjoy stories about this rather neglected era of prehistory, please take a glance at my full length novel ‘STONE LORD’ on Amazon. This is a retelling of the Arthurian legends but with a twist—it is set in Wessex in around 1900 BC, and Stonehenge is the Round Table. It will be followed by a sequel, ‘MOON LORD’ in May.
J.P. Reedman
stone-lord.blogspot.com
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