Gwaith 10: Sites and Drama (9 Oct 2016)

Helo Pawb (Everyone)

As hinted at in my last post, my instincts told me to look to the land southwards of Bryn Celli Ddu for the setting of my protagonist’s village. The Explorer Map showed something called Caer Lêb, situated not far from Afon Braint. I decided to check it out.

After locating the site and its parking, I chatted for a few minutes with two men loading a trench digger onto a trailer. I told them I was exploring ancient sites and one of them noted how you could throw a stone anywhere on Anglesey and hit one. He also told me of a nearby farm that had a standing stone and the remains of two stone huts in its fields.

But first, Caer Lêb, which means Leaven Castle. The site is a low-lying enclosure defined by double banks and marshy ditches. Excavations revealed three stone-built circular huts, one of them having a flagged floor and a fireplace.

Display board at the site

View of ditch and embankment

View of the enclosure itself

The pentagon nature of the enclosure reminded me of Din Lligwy’s shape, though on a bigger scale, and confirmed, for me at least, the likely sacred nature of the number five for the builders of both sites. However, the location is a little too boggy for what I had in mind for my story, so I went looking for the stone huts I was told about.

The official trail signs were a little vague, but I eventually found the remains, in a field in which a herd of Welsh Blacks was grazing. Disappointingly, much of the stone from the huts must have been used for local fences or houses, as there wasn’t much left. After taking a photo of the nearest of the two, I started towards the other one, when the herd moved en mass towards me. Thus began one of the scariest moments of my life as I wondered if they were going to trample me for invading their space.

The first stone hut fragments, with the second one in the distance to the left

The herd of Welsh Blacks noticing me

The Welsh Blacks crowding me as I sat in the stone hut circle. The nearest own to the camera, yellow tag number 34, seemed to be the ringleader. The one in the lower left corner, half out of shot, was snuffling my backpack

I edged back to the first stone hut and sat down in the middle, thinking that the rocky terrain would make it difficult for the cattle to maintain their footing if they decided to rush me. For ten minutes or more, I watched them crowd around me, snorting, bellowing, and pushing at each other to get to the front. I talked to them quietly and made sure I didn’t make any sudden movements.

Eventually, I knew I should try to leave and see what happens. I stood up slowly and gently and strolled as nonchalantly as I could towards the gate. I could feel them following me, but resisted the impulse to see how many were there and what their mood was like. After I made it through the gate, with the whole herd gathered around it, relief flooded me and I was surprised at how calm I had been throughout the whole ordeal. Were they annoyed at me or just inquisitive? I don’t know. Still, the presence of so much horned muscle isn’t something I wish to experience again.

The Welsh Blacks milling around the gate after I went through

Ten Minutes

Hemmed in by 20 or more snuffling, bellowing Welsh Blacks

Bullocking each other to sniff my foodless backpack and me,

I sit on the stone hut fragments I had come to explore…

Talk softly. Don’t shake. Wait. Don’t run. Don’t look back.

After my pulse settled down, I wandered the farm tracks until I found the standing stone. Luckily, no Welsh Blacks grazed in that field.

Interesting shape, with one side flat and facing north

The interesting shape and texture of the stone

The upshot of this particular location scouting is that I will place my protagonist’s village near the site of the old stone huts, which is close to Afon Braint and only a short distance from Bryn Celli Ddu. I may even use the standing stone, though I’m not sure how as yet. As for Welsh Blacks, even though they are descended from pre-Roman cattle, if I feature any cattle in my story it will likely be the Celtic Shorthorn, which is now extinct.

As always, I welcome your comments and I wish you adventurous days, though hopefully not as drama-filled as this one was for me.

Cofion Cynnes (Warm Regards)

Earl

Gwaith 9: Bryn Celli Ddu (9 Oct 2016)

Helo Pawb (Everyone)

I have visited Bryn Celli Ddu twice before and written about the second one here. That blog explained my reasons for exploring it, and also Moel-y-don on the Menai Strait, so I won’t rehash them now. With this new visit, I wanted to check out the site for any seasonal changes I might be able to use in my novel and for anything else that might come up, as I’m sure will happen, given the synchronicities at other sites.

As I walked to the tomb, I took particular note of the trees and bird life and tracked the stream that ran nearby. The hedge along the track comprised hawthorn, blackthorn, guelder rose and rowan, while plenty of magpies, jackdaws and crows flew about and rasped, cawed and croaked their usual commentaries on the weather, winged life in general, and the interruptions by tourists. Near the tomb itself there were big Scots Pines and plenty of gorse, with a large outcrop of basalt rocks on a nearby hill.

Trees and bushes along the path to the tomb

Afon Braint, from a bridge between two sections of the path

First view of Bryn Celli Ddu, showing the back of the tomb with the reproduction 'Pattern Stone'.

Scots Pines at the nearby farm

Entrance to Bryn Celli Ddu

On the ledges inside the tomb, as I discovered last time, people had left offerings of shells, coins, sweets, crystals and feathers. After I also paid homage to the spirits of the place, I sat on the hard, uneven floor made of stone packed dirt, sketched the walls, the ceiling, and the ceremonial stone pillar, and noted the small pebbles and windblown tufts of grass lying around and the spider webs in the crevices of the walls. Brown dirt stained the bottoms of the massive slabs of rock forming the walls, while green lichen spread further up the slabs.

The passageway, looking out

Offerings on one of the ledges. Note the brown stain from the dirt floor.

The free standing pillar. Note also the green lichen and more offerings

When other visitors arrived, I stayed outside and sketched the tomb’s orientation to the stream and the nearby rock outcrops. I also spent time figuring out where I would place my main protagonist’s village so that he might stumble on the tomb after suffering a beating at the hands of other villages boys.

The lie of the land near the tomb.
(I had taken a video, which should more landscape, but the upload feature isn't working.)

 The entrance of the tomb is aligned to the summer solstice, so I considered having the village to the north. However, the lie of the land didn’t feel right, so the other option was to have the village to the south, on the other side of Afon Braint (Privilege River—What a great name!). This felt more appropriate for the story, even though the character’s discovery of the tomb would be more difficult to explain. Still, I have learnt to trust my instincts in poetic and story matters, and when I looked at my Explorer map, I noticed some intriguing sites downstream. As the next post will show, my investigations showed I had good reason to trust my instincts, though there was also some drama.

Another cloud shot (and you thought I was only obsessed with jackdaws)

As always, thanks for reading my ramblings and I welcome any comments.

Cofion Cynnes (Warm Regards)

Earl

Gwaith 8: Din Lligwy (8 Oct 2016)

Helo Pawb (Everyone)

Given my early arrival at Ty Dderw, I decided to go for a walk. As I was leaving Corris three before, one of the villagers had said that Ynys Môn (Anglesey) had its own microclimate, which certainly proved to be the case. In Corris, the blackberries had vanished, but as I walked down the long pathway from the hotel to the road, the hedge on both sides was filled with blackberries. I gorged myself on them as I turned up the road towards by destination.

Blackberries, ripe and ripening, in the hedge near Ty Dderw

One of the reasons I chose Ty Dderw for my stay, apart from the evocative name (which means Oak House), was its close proximity to Din Lligwy, the Roman-British farmstead I intend to use as a model for a village in my novel and which I wrote about last year. My intention this time, as with other sites I am revisiting during this trip to Britain, was to check out how the place looked and felt in a different season.

Part of the farmstead ruins, with late winter trees (taken in 2015)

Similar shot of the ruins, showing early autumn sycamore, ash and beech (2016)

When I was last at the site, I discovered that one of the buildings was used as a smithy. I found this discovery exciting, because my main character was the son of a blacksmith and I have come to feel blessed by such synchronicities. When I checked out the hut, I liked the fact that you stepped into it as if stepping into the Otherworld, a place of the gods. This discovery also felt appropriate to the world of my story. (Further research revealed that two of the rectangular dwellings on the site had evidence of smelting. It seems that, in imitation of Roman architecture, the rectangular buildings were used for workshops and animals, while the roundhouses were dwellings, a Celtic preference.)

Plan of Din Lligwy (source)

The entrance into the main smithy (top right hand corner of the above diagram)

The remains of a possible forge near the entrance

However, when I arrived at the site this time, I looked closely at some of the display boards nearby and became somewhat confused. The artist’s impression of the smithy itself shows it as a half-open building, with the forge itself in the open air, though other diagrams show fully enclosed buildings.

Display board at the site

Artist impression of Din Lligwy (source) 

Another artist impression, from a different direction--same as diagram above (source) 

From my experiences with The Blacksmith’s Barn at the Cooper’s Settlement and the Celtic Forge (which I wrote about here), I know which version is the more likely. The forge would be in a building with very little light, so the blacksmith can see the colours of the flames and the metal. The error in the artist impression isn’t really much of a problem, but it does highlight that even cultural preservation organisations can get it wrong occasionally. Either that, or the artwork was the equivalent of a ‘cut-away’ drawing, but this had not been made obvious enough.

What the artist got right was the depiction of bloomeries, which are used in the smelting of iron. It appears that archaeologists had found evidence of bloom—porous masses of iron and slag—and the artist had worked this into the painting. One bloomery is in operation (note the bellows at the bottom), while the other one is being 'harvested'. I had known about their part in Iron Age blacksmithing, but had not thought they would have been used in a small settlement on Ynys Môn. The realisation that this was not the case should help me enrich the setting and characterisation in the early part of the novel.

Detail, showing the bloomeries

A bloomery in operation. The bloom will eventually be drawn out of the bottom hole. (Source)    

After I had spent time wandering around the farmstead taking photos, measuring the width of stone walls, and making notes of trees and plants, I started back to Ty Dderw, but not before stopping off at the Neolithic Lligwy Burial Chamber to pay my respects to the ancestors of those who founded the farmstead. I sat inside the tomb for a long while to reflect on my intentions for the novel and to absorb the silence, which, unlike last year, no RAF fighter jets disturbed.

Robin singing as night approaches 

Artist impression of original tomb and mound

The massive capstone over the tomb

Sunset over Moelfre, the coastal village near Ty Dderw

That’s it for now. As always, I welcome any comments.

Cofion Cynnes (Warm Regards)

Earl