"But the English still derive most of their current gene pool from the same early Basque source as the Irish, Welsh and Scots. These figures are at odds with the modern perceptions of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ethnicity based on more recent invasions. There were many later invasions, as well as less violent immigrations, and each left a genetic signal, but no individual event contributed much more than 5 per cent to our modern genetic mix."

Originally posted by kidflash2008
reply to post by vonspurter

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It is interesting that most myths have a "door" to the underworld/afterlife. Author Laurence Gardner speculates that some Egyptian Pharaohs made the journey into another dimension while still living. It is an interesting hypothesis that ancient people had a path to another dimension. Purely speculative, but interesting none the less.

his area of North-West Dyfed had strong links with the Gaelic world (Davies p.47), and also was also home the highest concentration of bilingual inscribed stones in Early Christian Wales. It is tempting to see in this distinctive local culture some continuity with the pre-Christian, indigenous past: the same area also housed the largest concentration of cromlechau or megalithic chambered tombs in Wales. (Davies p.8). The famous 'bluestones' of Stonehenge were also excavated from the Precelli Mountains were also excavated form this area, providing the tantalising hint that Dyfed's traditional had associations with the Indigenous Underworld may have a basis in prehistoric fact: going back to magico-religious and/or commercial ties with Stonehenge in Wessex, the cultural centre of the Late Megalithic world (see pp. ##-##).

ix years of excavation at Preseli have revealed settlements as old as four millennia BC, before Stonehenge. Burials also suggest visitors from far afield. The hills are peppered with holy wells, most of them spilling over pieces of the dolerite bluestone placed at their mouths, some carrying carved decoration. The stone, unique to the Preseli area, was clearly special.
To the old archaeology, special tended to mean sacred. But the constant search for “primitivist” reasons for prehistoric phenomena is questioned by Wainwright and Darvill. Why not offer workaday, rational answers? Holy wells throughout history were curative, usually associated with components such as chalk, sulphur or iron.
The plethora of wells at Preseli and the associated burial mounds appear to go back long before the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge, about 2300BC. This suggests that the wells and their bluestones were famed far and wide, a reputation repeated by the (albeit unreliable) Geoffrey of Monmouth in the middle ages.
Into the 19th century, visitors could buy hammers in Amesbury to chip bits off Stonehenge in honour of the old tradition of its healing power. This may explain why only the underground parts of many of the bluestones survive, and why chippings are found in graves across the country, including at Silbury. Bluestone, like a copper bracelet, was plainly long thought to be a health-giving token.

In the year 1827 a very large blue stone occupied a conspicuous position at the entrance to Loath, and which was supposed had retained its station for at least three centuries. It is somewhat noticeable that Louth and Grimsby should have had large blue stones in similar positions. Where did the blue stones come from? and how came they to be placed in such positions? Are questions to be answered by Antiquarians. At the point of junction of Abbey Road and Brighowgate facing Bar- gate, a thatched cottage stood, which, with its whitewashed walls and rose-covered porch, was always a picturesque object.

It is known that a stone once existed in the town of Grimsby and was known as ‘The Havelok Stone’. Although no longer in situ, Holles(10) remarked that a stone known as Havelok’s Stone once stood in the town to the east end of Briggowgate (Brigghowgate) and was alleged to be a twin of another missing stone known as ‘The Lincoln Stone’ which once stood in the City of Lincoln. Bob Lincoln, writing in 1913(11) described the existence of a large stone in the town, composed of imperishable materials, and this, like many of the local megaliths, were considered to be the result of Danish activity. At the time of Lincoln’s writing, the Havelock Stone stood as a landmark separating the parish of Grimsby from the adjoining hamlet of Wellow. It is clear that this stone ‘did the rounds’, until eventually being lost, or destroyed sometime during the twentieth-century. Its disappearance is coincidental with the populous’ gradual disenfranchisement of the land.

The Odin link with these stones is sustained when we discover that that nearby place name of Thoresby is derivative of ‘Thor’ the Teutonic thunder god of war. In domains where Odin was regarded as the supreme god, Thor was often perceived as being his son. As well as Thoresby a number of other place names make reference to this deity including the coastal promontory Donna Nook. Donna or Donar is considered another aspect of Thor. The place-name ending ‘thorpe’ is associated with the Danelaw of eastern and northern England and simply means ‘secondary settlement’. This inferior principle fits neatly with local tribes who venerated Odin/Grim as supreme god and Thor as his heir. It can therefore be no coincidence that the sticks used to whip the Boundel Stone were made of Hazel, a wood sacred to Thor and considered a protection against lightning.

The story of the transportation of the two ‘magic’ stones is a fabrication. We know this, for the deposits known as ‘bluestones’, of which the Grim and Boundel stones are referred, were glacial erratics bought over on ice sheets from Scandinavia. It is no coincidence that this is where Grim and Boundel are said to have fetched the stones. The myth probably portrays the machismo of the Scandinavian settlers during the Dark Ages. Having recognised the bluestones as being of the same stock as ones ‘back home’, they chose to concoct fanciful stories of their transportation to impress the locals and their peers of their sea-faring ability, strength and virility

The Louth "Gelyan Bower" is mentioned in a record

p. 78

of 1544, "To nych mason for making at gelyan bower a new crose, iijs." In an old hostelry in Mercer Row, Louth, stood for some centuries a boulder of dolerite called the "Blue Stone," which is stated to have formerly occupied the centre of the maze. Trees planted at the maze served as a landmark to ships out at sea.

BLUESTON FIELD (West Ravendale) Cameron (PN L 4: 154) observes that “bluestone is copper sulphate”, but surely this name recorded in 1630 enshrines the common local term for a glacial erratic or sarsen, for instance that on the former boundary between Grimsby and Clee (PN L 5: 20, 51) and those alluded to in Bluestone Lane and Inn (Immingham; not in PN L) and the Bluestone Heath Road on The Wolds (not in PN Lso far). Note the following remark in White’s Lincolnshire (1856: 570): “In a field near the church [of North Thoresby], called Bound Croft, is a blue stone, over which the manor court was formerly held.”

Originally posted by Matyas
reply to post by MischeviousElf

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There is a theory I am entertaining, regarding those elevenses, but no one knows how they found the measure of the Earth and Moon to arrive at the mile.

Formerly standing at the corner of Mercer Row the
principal street in Louth this boulder became a nuisance as a
rendezvous for loafers and idlers, on which account it was
removed, at a considerable expense, to the premises above-
mentioned. These premises were in old time a large county
inn, of which the c Blue Stone ' formed the material sign, and
there is still in Louth a publichouse, known as the c Blue Stone
Inn,' which has a rough representation of the boulder for its
sign ; there is also a tradition to the effect that it was once in
use as a Druidical altar stone on Julian Bower, a locality not
far distant from its present position.