CÉAD MÍLE FÁILTE: DISHONOURING THE ANCESTORS ©
by Tira Brandon-Evans
As you read this please bear in mind, I am a Faery Shaman—a Celtic Faery Shaman—and I have been travelling in the Shining Realms for around fifty-six years. Therefore, I don't think anyone ought to wonder if my mind is closed to any possibility at all in regards to the help we receive from those who dwell in Otherworlds.
I believe a great many very odd things and, like the White Queen, try to imagine at least six impossible things before breakfast each day.
Nevertheless, I do not believe Stonehenge or any of our ancient megalithic monuments were build by spacemen. I do believe Otherworldly citizens may have inspired our ancestors to build these monuments—just as they inspired our ancestors to tell their stories and create their amazing art and culture.
I do not believe spacemen popped round to Earth and raised the stones of the great henges with a Star Trek type tractor beam. Not only do I not believe that—I think it is an insult to my intelligence and the intelligence of my foremothers and forefathers to subscribe to nonsense of this sort. In fact, I feel very strongly, encouraging such beliefs dishonours our ancestors.
Encouraging such beliefs and ideas does not expand our minds in any way. When we carelessly ascribe supernatural invention to the creation of ancient monuments and artefacts we never learn anything about how such things actually came to be created. Believing our ancient monuments were constructed by spacemen does not elevate our spiritual awareness either. Choosing to believe what is patently untrue can only confuse us and cause us to be less enlightened.
For some reason I cannot fathom, many wish to believe what is wonderful rather than what is true. For example, the people of Easter Island know the great stone heads, for which their island is famous, were carved by their own ancestors and set in place by those same ancestors. They will gladly take any visitor who enquires to the quarry where the great heads were fashioned. They will also gladly describe how their ancestors prepared the sites for the great stones, moved them from the quarry, and raised them into place. The Easter Islanders even know why their ancestors did this and will share this information with anyone who asks. There is no mystery of the stone heads of Easter Island.
Nevertheless, seldom a year goes by without another television documentary popping up to investigate the "mysterious" heads of Easter Island. "Who carved these stone heads?" The narrators solemnly intone, "Why were they erected? How could the natives, using only stone age technology, raise these mysterious monuments when most modern engineers would find erecting even one of these heads to be nearly impossible."
We are told there is a mystery. We are then told there is a theory spacemen created and raised the Easter Island monuments. We are told the archaeologists who have studied the heads and the Easter Islanders who remember how their ancestors set the heads in place are part of a great conspiracy of silence. They are joined together to prevent the world knowing the truth. And so, this non-existent mystery is given an absurd solution.
This tendency to believe the wonderful is not peculiar to the 21st century. In the Middle Ages, many people believed the beautifully illuminated manuscripts, such as the Book of Lindisfarne and the Book of Kells, were penned and illustrated by angels. Their reasoning was that mere men could not have done such detailed and delicate work; therefore, the angels did it. It is quite possible scribes and illuminators encouraged the common man to believe in this myth to protect their trade secrets. If everyone understood mere mortals illuminated the books, some might pry into the mysteries of the illuminator's art and learn to create masterpieces themselves.
STONEHENGE
Stonehenge has collected myths and legends for hundreds of years. It was once called the Giant's Dance. Local folk believed giants had built it. Some said Merlin magically raised the great stones and set them in place. In the 1500's many believed Stonehenge was built by the Romans and in the 1700's its construction was credited to the Druids.
Today, when the modern traveller encounters Stonehenge she finds the ruin of a massive monument. It is hard to believe our ancestors, with their limited technology, could have constructed this great stone circle. It appears to have grown magically out of the Wiltshire Plain. We cannot imagine how it came to be there.
There must be some mystery here. It must have been created magically by ancient men or else raised by spacemen using a technology superior to our own. This is how we feel—this is what our intuition tells us. But feelings and intuitions are not always correct.
One of the reasons we feel Stonehenge was built by aliens is because it appears to stand alone. It appears to have sprung from the Earth. We cannot look back across time and see how henge after henge was constructed on this same site over a period of several thousand years. Most of us who gaze in awe at the great standing stones do not know Stonehenge was two thousand years in the making.
TWO THOUSAND YEARS IN THE MAKING
Construction at Stonehenge began around 3000 BCE, as a simple, circular earthwork—ditch and bank—with a ring of fifty-six wood posts inside. The earthwork was about one hundred metres in diameter, which is about 330 feet across. To the northeast of the circle, there was a break in the henge where the avenue entered the monument. In addition, there were four stones—today called the Station Stones—of which only two remain. The Slaughter Stone and Heel Stone may also date from this period.
The second phase of construction took place about 2000 BCE with the creation of a circle of stones about thirty-three metres, or one-hundred-eight feet, in diameter within the original ditch and bank. There are thirty stones in this circle. These are the famous sarsen stones. On average, they are each about two metres wide and three thick (6.5’ x 3’) and rise about four metres (13’) above the earth. These were capped by an unbroken ring of lintel stones. All of these sarsens were shaped and trimmed with stone tools. The marks made by these stone hammers are still clearly seen by any who will look. Soon after the circle was added a horseshoe of sarsens was arranged within it. This horseshoe is comprised of five pairs of uprights and each pair supported a lintel stone.
About five hundred years later, c. 1550 BCE, another circle was erected. Two concentric circles of empty holes—the ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ holes—were added at the same time as the bluestone circle.
(Here is a wonderful website, with pictures, showing the order of construction at Stonehenge. Here you will find a simplified and easily understood illustration of the timeline of construction.)
WE ARE NOT ALONE
If the great stones of the sarsen circle could speak, they might well say, “We are not alone.”
There are over nine hundred stone circles and megalithic constructions in Insular Celtica—more than nine hundred. Stonehenge is neither the oldest nor the largest.
AVEBURY
The largest of the stone circles is Avebury, only a few miles north of Stonehenge, with a diameter of 427 metres—1401 feet across. The great circle encloses twenty-eight acres or eleven and a half hectares. Avebury is the largest stone circle in the world. Avebury is older than the first stone circle of Stonehenge. (About Avebury.)
STANTON DREW
The second largest circle is Stanton Drew, followed by Long Meg and Her Daughters. There are so many megalithic monuments in Great Britain it is impossible for me to begin to tell of them all in the limited space of this article. To learn more about them, click here.
BEFORE THE STONES
Stonehenge does not stand alone, it was not built overnight, and we know circles of wood were being constructed long before circles of stone.
SEAHENGE
In 1998, near the hamlet of Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, an ancient woodhenge emerged from the low tide. The circle consists of an outer ring of fifty-five oaks, trunks split, arranged in a circular trench. Except for one of the trunks, the flat sides face outwards. There was a narrow entrance arranged so that no one outside the circle could see into it. In the centre was a large inverted oak, roots in the air. Dendochronology shows the trees were cut in the spring or summer of 2049 BCE. Careful study of the axe marks shows fifty-one different axes were used to cut and shape the trees, indicating the construction of Seahenge was a community effort.
Amid a storm of controversy, English Heritage transported Seahenge fifty miles, to Flag Fen, in 1999, to preserve it from destruction.
An even older circle of two concentric rings of wood was found about a hundred yards east of Seahenge. This circle, named Holme II, was constructed sometime between 2400-2030 BCE.
(Learn more about Seahenge and Holme II.)
THE SANCTUARY
The Sanctuary stands near Silbury Hill and was linked to Avebury by the Kennet Avenue. Like Stonehenge, The Sanctuary site was active for many centuries. Six concentric timber rings were built around 3000 BCE. Three larger woodhenges were built in the ensuing centuries. About 2100 BCE two concentric stone circles were added.
(Find out more about The Sanctuary. )
There are many other woodhenges built prior to or around the same time as Stonehenge. Among these are Durrington Walls and Woodhenge.
A FEW QUESTIONS
For those who insist Stonehenge was built by spacemen, I have a few questions.
- Why did it take them so long? Stonehenge was constructed over a period of two thousand years. Did the spacemen hang around waiting for time to pass between each sequence of building? Did they zoom off into space and return after a thousand years to complete the project? Isn’t it odd that it took these the highly evolved beings two thousand years to finish the job?
- Why did they use stone tools to quarry and shape the stones? Why didn’t they use a laser beam to cut the stones, or a photon beam, or even ordinary iron chisels?
- Why are none of the stones the same size and shape? Standardization is one of the technological advances that make space travel possible. Presumably, the spacemen had a technology that would allow them to quarry and shape stones of the same size.
- Did they also build the woodhenges? If not, why not?
THE RAZOR’S EDGE
In layman’s terms, the scientific principle of Occam’s Razor states: "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one." Another way to express this is, "...the fewer assumptions an explanation of a phenomenon depends on, the better it is."
Simply put, this means, “When we need to explain something we don’t make things up.” Instead, we examine the evidence and come up with a simple explanation that includes all the facts but does not complicate the explanation by including things not in evidence.
Our “phenomenon”—the thing we have to explain—is the construction of Stonehenge. This is our evidence.
- Megalithic stone and wood monuments were constructed over a period of two thousand years on Salisbury plain, and elsewhere in Great Britain.
- The great stones were quarried and/or shaped using stone tools, consistent with the Neolithic culture of that time.
The simplest explanation of how these stone and wood circles were built is that the men and women living in Great Britain during the Neolithic age built them.
Inserting extraterrestrials into the explanation complicates the solution. There is no evidence these spacemen existed then or now. We have to make them up to include them in the explanation.
The one argument in favour of the spacemen built Stonehenge solution is that we can’t prove they did't. That is true. We can’t prove the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth, either. The reason we can't prove these things is because they are not true. We can never prove a falsehood is true because there is no evidence it is true.
It is impossible to prove a double negative.
The double negative is most easily illustrated in this argument: “If Stonehenge were built by spacemen you would not be able to disprove it.” “Your cannot disprove spacemen built Stonehenge.” “Therefore, spacemen did build Stonehenge.”
RECLAIMING OUR PAST
When we are engaged in investigation of our ancient heritage and culture we need to always remember that what we believe is just that—what we believe. Belief is about faith. Faith and fact are two different things. I may believe with all my heart my ancestors were inspired by the Shining Ones to erect Stonehenge while at the same time understanding the objective facts of how these monuments were actually constructed.
Understanding the difference between subjective reality—what I believe based on faith—and objective reality—what I believe based on material evidence—is essential to all shamans. Let me repeat that, it is important.
Understanding the difference between subjective and objective reality is very important to all shamans.
All shamans must be able to easily separate their own subjective Inworld experiences—based on faith or belief—from our shared objective reality—based on the material evidence we share in common with those around us.
If we can't separate these two, if we insist our subjective reality is or should be real for everyone, we are treading on dangerous ground.
Modern Celtic shamans are re-membering—reassembling the parts—of our ancient shamanic traditions lost for centuries. We are putting together a puzzle. In this puzzle there are two main kinds of pieces:
- Subjective pieces based on our journeys and intuition and
- Objective pieces based on objective evidence.
Some of the objective pieces are the actual archaeological artefacts—henges, barrows, mounds, ring forts, and other monuments our ancestors constructed thousands of years ago. This is the only hard objective evidence we have and this evidence is interpreted subjectively by each succeeding generation of archaeologists who examines it.
It is very difficult to put together a puzzle composed of so many objective and subjective pieces. To add more subjective pieces to this puzzle—such as modern stories of spacemen building the henges—is not going to help us see the picture in the long run. Therefore, I think we should leave these modern subjective pieces out of the puzzle entirely. If anyone wishes to complicate their own puzzle in this way, that is there prerogative and privilege.
HONOURING THE ANCESTORS
Nothing my ancestors passed down to me is alien. It is all quite human. The belief that our ancestors were primitive savages who could not have figured out how to draw a circle aligned to a particular star or build a pyramid is just wrong, and it insults our ancestors.
Visit Stonehenge in Britain or Newgrange in Ireland, and see what I mean. The reality is much more wonderful than any space alien story could ever be.
This is the heritage our ancestors have passed down to us. When we deny their intelligence, ingenuity, and creativity, we deny our own. When we belittle their great accomplishments, we make ourselves small.
This Samhain let us pause, recognize the amazing monuments our ancestors left us, and be a little humble before them.
Tira Brandon-Evans is the Founder and Moderator of the
Society of Celtic Shamans, editor of Earthsongs: Journal of the Society of Celtic Shamans, and is, herself, a Faery Shaman. Her books, The Green and Burning Tree: A Faery Shaman's Handbook, Portals of the Seasons: A Celtic Wheel of the Year, Through the Unremembered Gate: Journeys of Initiation, The Labyrinthine Way: Walking Ancient Paths in a Modern World, and Healing Waters, are all published by Elder Grove Press. She is presently writing a book about the Ogham. You may contact Tira by email at info@faeryshaman.org.
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