‘Amazing!’ he said. ‘It’s exactly as I saw it.’
They stared in disbelief at the huge banks of earth stretching before them into the far distance. This ancient earthwork, presumably the ‘Neots’, stands twenty to thirty feet high and stretches for about half a mile. Divided by a ditch, the two grass-covered banks, about ten yards wide, run almost parallel, and are about thirty yards apart. The researchers later discovered that the banks form part of the Dyke Hills, a promontory fort, which dates from the Iron Age.
The ‘Tree of Jesse’ window at Dorchester Abbey with ‘sleeping man’ carving beneath
‘Follow the Neots,’ had been their instruction. The afternoon sun made it fresh and warm as they walked in single file along the well-trodden pathway on top of the earth banks.
After half a mile they reached a wide river ahead. They had followed the Neots, but there was no sign of anyone. Here, the river split into two, and a small foot-bridge led to a hut on the island dividing the two water courses. It housed the only person for miles around, the keeper of the lock.
Andy suggested that the only person who could possibly be the one they were looking for was the lock keeper. They would have to ask him. Could he tell them of the mythical spirit guardian whom they would then have to summon?
They told him that they were researching traditions and legends in the area. But he knew of no such legend. Andy asked him about the river. Did he know of anything called the Waters of Isis? It was the Thames, he replied, and that particular stretch of water was, in fact, called the Isis. They were taken aback. Everything else was correct, but where was the person who would know?
As they were about to leave, the lock keeper said he had just remembered something. There was a legend. It was rather odd that they should have mentioned it, for only a short time ago he had been reading an old book and had come across a legend associated with a nearby hill fort. He pointed to a high hill across the river, and said that legend spoke of buried treasure there, protected by a guardian spirit that assumed the form of a raven.
The researchers were astonished, for they had been on the point of leaving just when the lock keeper recalled it. Was it coincidence? They would have to wait until tomorrow to find out. It was now around 4 pm and growing dark. That night Alan, Mike and Peter returned home in order to resume work after the holiday.
The following day when Andy and Graham returned, the lock keeper showed them the notes he had made, then directed them to the hill fort. They thanked him and hurried from his small hut. It was around 10 am, and the January morning was cold and crisp as they walked back to the car. The hill was a mile or so distant.
They parked and made their way to the old hill fort, walking up the steep hill and passing through an old wooden gate. Later, they discovered that it was called Castle Hill and dates back to the Iron Age.
The fort was impressive, a large, roughly circular ditch about a hundred yards in diameter. The ditch was wide and deep, and as they walked around it they decided that even if it had not been in existence in Megalithic times, it could well have been constructed on an earlier Megalithic site. On the central plateau grew a small wood. Crows’ nests stood out high in the trees, the birds occasionally alighting on to the thin branches.
As they walked along the dry ditch, they discussed what to do. Presumably they should summon the guardian. Graham was apprehensive. Summoning raven guardians was not to his liking. Neither was it to Andy’s, but they knew it was not real. At least not in the sense of actually summoning a celestial raven. They must go through the motions of releasing the power from the site back into the Stone. They had to follow this belief system, otherwise they would never know if the Lights truly existed.
Who would do it? Graham asked Andy, who felt it best to take Gaynor’s advice. She had chosen Graham, and Andy was to accompany him. He had no choice.
As they walked into the middle of the wood, Graham took the Stone in his right hand. Only a light breeze brushed through the trees that winter morning as they stood alone on the ancient fort. Andy backed away, uncertain what to expect. What would Graham do? Graham himself had no idea.
‘Just say the first thing that comes into your head,’ said Andy.
Graham laughed, shook his head and spoke, his arms stretched out as he held the Stone.
‘Raven Guardian, whoever or whatever you are, give us the First Light.’
For a moment there was nothing. Then he felt it. A tingling sensation in his right hand in which he held the Stone. As he felt it, the wind blew harder. Andy looked towards the trees in front of Graham. The tingling grew, flowing through Graham’s arm and into his body, gushing into his entire being. A warmth, an exhilarating, almost sensual, glow of energy, passing through every vein and nerve ending.
Suddenly the wind whipped up, racing from tree to tree towards them. Andy stared. He could not believe it. In seconds it swirled across the plateau, howling around the fort, an angry blast gusting over them. The two solitary figures were nearly bowled over. Graham almost fell to the ground. Andy raced to the nearest tree and grabbed hold of it, looking back towards Graham. As the wind howled to a crescendo, the dark birds flew from their nests and circled above them, shrieking and crying as they were blown about the sky on the violent eddies of air.
As suddenly as the gale came, it had gone. The glow flooded from him and back into the Stone. Graham opened his eyes.
‘Bloody hell!’ He clasped the Stone tightly in his hand. ‘We’ve got it, but I don’t know how.’ He felt uplifted. All he knew was that the Stone had absorbed the First Light.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Andy. ‘The wind, the birds. It was incredible. Impossible.’
They could not deny it. It had happened. They had both seen the wind grow from a light breeze to a raging gale, the crows circling around them as Graham had felt the fearsome sensation.
They had the First Light.
But he still had to confirm this with Gaynor. Quickly they left the fort and made their way to a call box.
Gaynor knew. The First Light was safe, back in the Stone where it truly belonged. Yes, they had it, she was certain. Now they must go on to the Uffington White Horse. It was somewhere near there that they would find the Second Light.
High on the Berkshire Downs is the White Horse of Uffington, a huge chalk figure carved by a Celtic tribe before the Roman invasion. The carving is 374 feet long, and archaeologists have dated it from at least 100 BC. On top of the hill stands Uffington Castle, an Iron Age hill fort consisting of a shallow ditch with earth banks covering about eight acres.
Uffington White Horse
Graham and Andy parked the car and walked to the top of the hill. The afternoon was cold as they stood on the fort, surveying the vast expanse of flat terrain before them.
Wondering what their next move should be, Andy suggested that Graham should again hold the Stone. As he did so, he turned and looked towards a small copse of trees on the distant horizon. Somehow, he knew their answer lay there. A narrow track led from the fort to the wood, forming part of the Ridgeway, a prehistoric trade route that runs across southern England from Dover to Ilchester. As they followed it, darkness began to close in.
Wayland’s Smithy. The stones of the long-chambered barrow stood tall and proud as they approached. Surrounded by a copse of trees, the low earth mound is about fifty yards long and ten yards wide, an ancient barrow over 5,000 years old. One end is higher and here stand the erect standing stones, the gateway to a small chamber within. Graham had no idea that the chamber was inside the copse, and Andy had only heard of Wayland’s Smithy during his studies of Megalithic sites. The barrow derives its name from Wieland the Smith, the blacksmith of the gods in German and Scandinavian mythology.
Graham Phillips at Wayland’s Smithy in 1980
As dusk fell, the two men crouched uncomfortably in the low chamber inside the barrow, talking for a short while, but as darkness came, they had still not resolved what course to take next. Andy suggested
that Graham should hold the Stone and summon the second guardian, although they had no idea of the form it would adopt. As he did so, a distant rumbling echoed through the chamber. Within seconds it grew louder, and the ground began to shake about them. It gathered resonance and volume, as if hundreds of horses were in stampede across the barrow above them, building up to an almost deafening crescendo.
Abruptly, it was gone. All was still in the chamber as they exchanged glances. A moment of silence; then, as if from all around the barrow, came the strangest sound. A distinct tinkling, like the sound of wind chimes played at random, drifting in on the air. The noise was too clear and discernible to be the wind whistling through the trees. It grew louder, the high tones resonating musically around them. Then, suddenly, it too had ceased. They held their breath and waited.
‘Have you got the Light?’ Andy asked, after a few long seconds.
Graham shook his head, ‘No, nothing happened at all.’
They scrambled out of the chamber into the darkness. There was no one in sight, nothing to account for the eerie noises they had heard. They had not released the Second Light, but by using the Stone they had certainly done something. They would never know the nature of the mythical spirit guardian until they had found the person they should look for.
They walked along the pathway back to the car. As darkness fell, it seemed they were hardly nearer to finding the Second Light.
Back at the hotel, they reasoned that, as in the case of the First Light, the person who knew of the guardian might well be someone working or living nearby, perhaps a forestry commissioner or the person responsible for the land the chamber was on. They decided to return next morning and carry out the search.
As they were parking their car near the barrow at about 9 am, a white Range Rover pulled up beside them. They decided to ask the owner and his young son, who had also alighted to visit the Smithy, if they knew of any local legends associated with the place. To their surprise, he was the local forest warden; however, he was a newcomer to the district and couldn’t help them. It was his son who suddenly looked up and said that there was a story associated with the ancient barrow. In legend, treasure was supposed to be buried beneath the chamber, and to find it you must kneel on the top, bow three times and ask for help from the elves who guarded it.
Andy and Graham were astonished. They did not believe in elves, but they had to do it, go through the motions, as they had with the raven, of summoning this mythical guardian. In a way they couldn’t understand, this process acted as a release system for the Light to transfer it from the site and back into the Stone.
Graham knelt on the chamber, with the Stone in his hand, bowed three times and asked for help. As he summoned the guardians, the light breeze changed to a howling gale. The trees in the copse blew wildly, as he again felt the energy surging from the Stone, powering through his body and subsiding, as the howling wind dropped to the former breeze.
They had the Second Light.
Martin Keatman at Avebury Stone Circle in 1980
The Third Light was at the Avebury stone circle near the Marlborough Downs. There, the village of Avebury is scattered in and around the enormous circle of sarsen stones, which have been dated to 2000 BC. Many of them were destroyed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and used to build Avebury village and the nearby farms. The circular bank of grass-covered chalk is 1,400 feet in diameter and has an inner ditch some thirty feet deep, giving a depth from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the bank of fifty-five feet. The circle is huge and impressive, a timeless monument to the achievements of the Megalithic culture.
In 1724, Dr William Stukeley, a noted antiquarian, made an engraving of the site as it then looked. He saw that it represented the solar serpent, formed by the circle and two avenues of stones stretching for more than a mile each to the south-east and south-west. The south-east avenue ends in a stone circle 130 feet in diameter, called the Sanctuary, on top of Overton Hill. Sadly, the second avenue no longer exists. Stukeley considered that the site represented the solar serpent of the ancient Egyptians, a symbol representing the highest ideals of inner truths and the supreme creative being. Graham and Andy could see why the Egyptians had chosen the monument as a location to hold the Third Light.
En route to the circle Graham held the Stone and had the vague impression that a stampede of horses was involved with the summoning of this particular Light.
As they parked their car in the village Andy mentioned that years earlier, he had visited the circle with John and Sue Avis, the UFO abductees, to research their psychic abilities at the site. At lunchtime they had been in a pub having a drink, discussing the day ahead, when John suddenly had the unexpected psychic impression that here there was someone who would one day guide them to something, and that she was a woman who worked behind the bar at that very inn! At the time, they could not explain John’s strange impression and dismissed it from their minds. Now, years later, the meaning became clear. Before calling in at the pub they had asked a local shop proprietor if he knew any legends about a stampede of horses. He did not, but said there was a woman who would know, who at one time claimed to have had a strange experience involving phantom horses. She was a local and her name was Heather Garland. If she was not at home, they would be able to find her that evening at the village inn where she worked. By now, they were hardly surprised to find that the pub was the same which Andy and John had visited all those years before.
On calling they found no one home. But as they left the cottage, they saw a woman walking across the circle. Andy suddenly felt that this was Heather. He was right.
She told them she used to ride her horse along the nearby Ridgeway. One night she heard a ghostly stampede of horses, which approached and passed straight through her.
This must be it.
They made their way to the section of the Ridgeway where Heather had experienced the stampede, and as they stood between two of the ancient monoliths Graham held the Meonia Stone. Again, the light breeze suddenly rose to a howling wind. Then he knew that the Third Light would be found between two large standing stones in the village.
Standing between the two grey stones, known locally as The Cove, Graham clasped the Stone and summoned the spirit guardian. For the third time he felt the same glowing sensation from the Stone rising through his body and subsiding back along his arm as the Third Light entered the small green gem clasped firmly in his hand.
After hundreds of years of lying dormant in the fields of Avebury, the Third Light of power was once again returned to the Meonia Stone.
Once more they telephoned Marion to ask Gaynor for confirmation that all was well. It was, she said, and they must continue.
The Fourth Light was at Glastonbury Tor.
That night, back in the hotel, Graham held the Stone and felt that it was important for Alan and Terry to help with the search. They telephoned them and arranged a rendezvous the following day outside Glastonbury Abbey.
When the group met, they discovered the reason for Alan being there. The previous night he had had a vivid dream of a house at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, where he was sure they would find the person who would know of the mythical spirit guardian.
That afternoon, the four of them made their way from the Abbey to the ancient Tor of Glastonbury. The 500 foot hill towers above the surrounding plain, a site of so many ancient legends and scenic beauty that every year thousands of tourists climb to the summit to gaze over the Somerset vista below.
St Michael’s Church on Glastonbury Tor
All that remains of the church on the Tor, erected to the memory of St Michael, is a rectangular stone tower, the adjoining church having been wrecked by an earth tremor some hundreds of years ago. Archaeologists claim that a group of hermits founded Britain’s first monastery on the site as long ago as the fourth century. It is believed there was also a Megalithic stone circle on the Tor, long since destroyed, some of the stone being used to build Glastonbury Abbey. (2)
As they drove along the road at the base of the Tor, searching for the house that Alan had dreamt of, a small dwelling marked St Michael’s Cottage caught Terry’s eye. He had a feeling that this was where the person lived.
To their surprise, the young girl who answered the door told Andy of the legendary associations of a phoenix with the Tor. Again, they had it, the spirit guardian, a phoenix, the fire-bird that perishes in its own flames to be reborn anew.
They made their way to the summit, arriving as the sun slipped below the horizon. On the tower was the carving of a phoenix, and, as Graham again held the Stone, the now familiar surge of power once more flooded through him. Terry and Alan stepped back in shock as the wind howled for a fourth time, almost bowling them from the Tor. A number of tourists standing around looked about them in confusion as the wind abruptly ceased.
The Fourth Light had been returned to the Meonia Stone.
The quest for the first four Lights was now complete. How or what had happened was beyond them, but all were witness to the remarkable events accompanying the return of the first four aspects of power to the Stone.
A few days later, Alan, Terry and Mike took the Stone to Penny Blackwill in Staffordshire. She took it in her hand. As she did so, she felt that it now possessed a greater power than when she had last held it. As the group passed it round, they saw it change to a deeper shade of green and felt it grow hotter and heavier as each person held it.
So ended the first quest for the Lights. Some weeks were to pass before they would again be called to search. Until then Gaynor decided that they must wait and be patient.
The Dark Man by Danielle Lainton
Chapter 15
The White Dragon
It was dark. The tall shadowy figure was less than a hundred yards away, walking slowly to the top of the road. He was dressed entirely in black with a long coat reaching well below his knees and wore on his head a wide-brimmed hat. A black dog pattered obediently beside him.
The Green Stone Page 18