The Birthday Pilgrimage to the Rollrights

Visiting the Rollright Stones has been on my to do list for a while, so what better day to do it than on your birthday was my thinking. I was not disappointed.

I first went to the King Stone, the weather worn appearance was beautiful plus it did look like it was sticking its finger upto the world, whilst in the field there were biggest coltsfoot leaves I'd ever seen, they were about 75cm across, if it ever starts to rain in summer they would make an adequate umbrella. 

From there we moved onto the stone circle itself, half of the stones are difficult to see so counting them is difficult, apparently if you count the same number of stones twice you can make a wish, I didn't attempt it but can see how such a belief occurred. I got chatting to a woman who saw me shuffling a set of tarot cards which I had bought with me to charge them up as I lost my favourite deck at Birmingham Pride. The omens of them working were good & I gave her my first reading of them after the confirmation they would work for me & from what she told me I was accurate which is good to know I haven't lost my knack.

It was then onto the Whispering Knights & to my delight I saw 2 bullfinches which were stunning, along with skylarks, meadow pipits & a rather lovely cinnabar moth. I did stop along the way to look at a dog rose too as the rose is my birth flower. The Knights were awesome too with many people leaving offerings of coins on them. Don't expect to get rich gathering them as no one left anything of higher value than two pence.  

It was well worth a visit &would love to go again in the future. I will update this post in the near future with photos & a bit more of the folklore of the place

The Warstone at Night

So last night I did do something that was stereotypical for a Witch to do, I visited I graveyard at night, though not any graveyard but Warstone Cemetery in the Jewellery Quarter. I went to visit the Warstone, as a natural erratic with a complex structure, I felt right at home visiting it. It is a sizeable chunk of felsite which was deposited there in the Ice Age by glacial shifting, it is thought to have served as a boundary marker & there are claims, although rather spurious that it was used in rituals in years gone by, though I have not come by any evidence as such. If it is a monolith of such repute it seems a little on the small side. It does however have an odd feel about it, perhaps it was because it was cold but it felt like it was pulsating & tingling, what was also odd is the fact that it is right next to the roadside. The cemetery has a good feel about it, full of life for somewhere dedicated to death as nature is slowly taking over. The mausoleum was also interesting acoustically as you don't tend to hear the traffic much when you are on the bottom as you do on the middle tier. It has some what look like rather interesting features but feel like I need to visit it during the day, but most definitely worth a visit whichever time of day you go.

Wychbury Hill

So today I went on another jaunt to an ancient site, but for some reason my mind thought that it was closer to my house than it was, just because I can see it from my back window doesn't mean it isn't 2 miles away. The journey was quite interesting as I saw White bryony berries, dog rose hips & crab apples which give you the full on autumnal feel. Not remembering where the footpath started from I thought it was locked so went to find another path in. I did but it was awful boggy  & the entrance to the woods was a little on the steep side as it was a defensive ditch designed to keep livestock out of the wood, but it was on a desire line so I thought that it was where people usually enter if coming from that direction, on entering the wooded part was greeted by the signs that a fallow deer had recently been shedding the velvet off his antlers on a tree which was great start for my actual walk around the hill & woods. It seemed almost churlish not to visit the Wychbury Obelisk or Wychbury Monument as it is more often referred to locally. Even after the renovation of it in 2011 they have not removed the Who put Bella in the wych elm graffiti on it referring to the body found in Hagley Woods nearby in the 1940's. I saw a skylark there as well as a couple of fieldfares. I then went back into the woods up to Wychbury Ring, the main reason for my journey. It is an impressive  feet of prehistoric engineering, it is the first hillfort I have ever been too. I took the lower path from the obelisk around the hillfort just to get the scale of it. It is not the biggest hillfort in the world but it is still amazing, especially seeing the amount of yew trees growing in the area. Taking the path which was steeper than I would normally consider safe to get my clumsy backside down I carried on, surprisingly without falling over. I carried on out of the woods to the man made mound in one of the fields, you can't get to the mound without trespassing onto farmland to decided not to risk a visit. I'm not sure what the mound is but owing to it's asymmetry it is not an 18th Century lawn sculpture, it has been suggested that it maybe a spoil heap from an underground reservoir which is highly plausible as no archaeological remains were found in it. I went back into the woods where I saw in one of the slightly more immature yew trees a goldcrest, it  was a gnat's breath away from me which was quite an exciting moment for me, further along the path I disturbed a female roe deer, I was well & truly in my nature geek element. I decided to climb the hillfort from that end which meant  being a little bit on the flexible side as for me not to injure myself had to find the easiest part of the fallen tree to climb over. It was well worth it & I walked across the top until arriving back at the monument entrance, this time though having seen the relevant stiles knew vaguely where I was going though the desire lines from the stile are not conducive to the actual foot path which I realised when it looked like it was going into a recently planted/naturally seeded blackthorn thicket I cut diagonally across from where I was to the stiles as the other end of the field accompanied by the sound of stonechats & headed home where I had a rabbit dart out in front of me. The place does have a special feel to it though & I will most definitely go back in the spring.

St Kenelm's Well

So today I went on a pilgrimage with a Pagan friend I made through my paid job to St Kenelm's Well, which is just outside of Clent in Worcestershire. The weather held out despite it being the greyest part of the day, which is probably just as well as neither of us were wearing waterproofs. We walked the slightly longer less scenic route of going by the road (not recommended if you are going at a weekend if you are walking) which was less muddy & passes Uffmoor Wood as featured in a previous article. On the way we say a white feral pigeon (what most would call a dove) acting more like a bird of prey in it's circling & swooping flight, it landed near us on the roof of a shed. The reason why I posted such a detail is that in the legend of St Kenelm when he was beheaded a dove flew out of his severed corpse ascending to heaven & a light shone on where his body was hidden, it was a strange coincidence but cool none of the less. When arriving at the church of St Kenelm it took my breath away it is a beautiful little church from the medieval period made of sandstone with bat like gargoyles adorning it. If you take the path to the right of the church you are going through the main entrance there are some steps leading down to the well, the steps are quite wide & muddy so do be careful. The well has a sandstone rill to a collection point. I collect some water from there in a jar & left an offering of some home grown pea seeds which will hopefully provide a snack for some wild creature hopefully. But we are not the only Pagans to visit the site as many have left offerings tied to the tree some of which are most definitely Pagan some may have been Christian too. The well area is in a bit of a sorry state as some of the decking in the area is rotting & it has become a little overgrown although it doesn't seem wrong for the setting, though the next time I'll go there I will take a set of secateurs with me to cut back a bramble that snags the unwary. It is a peaceful place & you can see why people visit it. After finishing at the well site we went back up to the church & walked to the lost settlement of Kenelmstowe which is now no more than earthworks of where buildings, roads & a stew pond were, some buildings are easier to spot than others. Again we walked back into the churchyard & had a look round there are some really old yew trees in there as well as a small cross which must be it's oldest gravemarker, it certainly looks the earliest & is one of the smallest in the church yard. there is also what looks like a stone bowl to leave offerings in as well. I do heartily recommend this as a place to visit whether Pagan, Christian or just someone who likes quiet reflective time. I will most definitely be returning again.