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Forum: Stones Forum
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
Respond to: Julian Cope and reclining women.
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bawn79
Joined:
01-12-2005
Messages: 8
from Naas, Kildare/ Nenagh, Tipperary
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|  New Message Posted!2006-10-26 16:48
There is a lesser know part of Ireland in Tipperary near where I live where there is an acutual mothers mountain, it is literally called Mahurslieve or Mothers Moutain. http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/7751
There is a nipple on top and about 10-15 megalithic tombs built around it all in site and some aligned on the mountain itself.
Also in limerick there are two hills named after the sun-goddess grainne, Cnoc Aine and Knocgraine.
This is not including all the tombs in Ireland that are associated with the hag as some of the previous posts mention.
None of this proves any theories but I think it does show that idea of a mother goddess being important in ancient religions and monuments being aligned to them is fairly plausible.
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Aluta
Joined:
06-04-2002
Messages: 1534
from PA, USA
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| New Message Posted!2006-09-15 02:34
This is an interesting topic even over here on the wrong side of the Atlantic. One of the people investigating the native stonework sites found one significant site when he noticed what looked like a reclining figure on the horizon, while looking from another site. Whether or not the cairn with a hole in the middle that he found when he visited the hill that made up the head of the figure was really supposed to be an eyeball as he suggested (tentatively), I'll never know, but I see those hills frequently when I use certain roads, and they never fail to amaze me with their uncanny likeness to a human figure. I was pleased to find a mention of the landscape-as-body-of-the-goddess idea mentioned by Paul Devereux in his book The Sacred Place.
There's a certain fairly common mystical experience in which the world briefly seems to the receiver like a benign being. That kind of experience might make these female landscapes especially arresting to those of a poetic mindset.
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AngieLake
Joined:
12-03-2004
Messages: 550
from Newton Abbot, Devon
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|  New Message Posted!2006-09-15 01:34
[quote]
On 2006-08-20 23:27, Laughing_Ball wrote:
In Julian Cope's book, The Modern Antiquarian, he say's that many sites are situated within view of hills and that sites are often positioned in such a way that when viewed from a site, the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
Hi Ben
Reading this brought to mind the information board near Loughcrew during a visit to Ireland in 2001.
I couldn't help thinking that, in the diagram, the hills represented two large breasts and must have been a focus for lower-level ceremonial sites. When I googled 'Loughcrew' I noticed that such sites had been found using Lidar. (Carnbane East was also known as the Hill of the Hag).
Also googled 'the Paps of Anu', another fine 'pair' in Kerry/Cork area, where there are loads of sacred sites.
While we're on 'paps' ...  .. how about the Paps of Jura? Aren't there stones framing them?
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TimPrevett
Joined:
02-10-2012
Messages: 1193
from Cheshire / Manchester
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| New Message Posted!2006-09-12 13:33
Just noticed this thread whilst searching for some info.
Having spent some time around Radnor a few weeks ago, this site & pic here:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/32704
is about the most convincing I have personally seen in my limited experience of these.
Some folk also see sleeping dragons / serpents in the landscape - one around Guildford, and another around the Roaches in Staffs, some have claimed, IIRC.
Cheers
Tim
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Salopian
Joined:
12-06-2006
Messages: 241
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 12:12
"Would cairns and barrows have been used as navigational aids in prehistoric times?"
I reckon well-worn tracks would be the earliest artefacts ever created by Man and if most of the land was scary forest they'd have tended to hug the high unforested ridges. They say the Ridgway is 6,000 years old but i bet its been a route for far longer than that. Its the mother of all leylines (in the Alfred Watkins sense, which is the only permissable one in this part of the forum!)
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Salopian
Joined:
12-06-2006
Messages: 241
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 11:55
IMO hills and mountains have a female character but maybe that's just my flight of fancy.
Not at all. This has also been my experience of women....
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jasonvaughn
Joined:
23-01-2006
Messages: 144
from north wales
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 11:49
The highest hill in the Clwydian range is called Moel Famau which means "Mother Hill". It is an area rich with iron age hillforts and numerous bronze age burial mounds. Would cairns and barrows have been used as navigational aids in prehistoric times? Standing stones would have marked boundaries between kingdoms? IMO hills and mountains have a female character but maybe that's just my flight of fancy.
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rbatham
Joined:
04-04-2006
Messages: 679
from Western Australia
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 09:42
Quote:
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On 2006-08-22 00:04, Kieren wrote:
I've seen many examples of this myself, the most notible one for me is not in this country but Tenerife (Canary Island) where you see two lying down rock giants either side of the gorge that approachs mount Teide, the sacred place of the native Guanches.
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take a look at the water course 'Swan River" Perth W.A> Looks like a woman diving. Then it depends on how much water you have mixed with whatever you are drinking.Roy
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mishkin
Joined:
11-09-2005
Messages: 213
from Chelmsford
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 06:23
"I find it deeply satisfying to think we may be using words for places that were first adopted by neolithic people."
I suppose because prehistoric people had to tell how to get from one place to another that language started to evolve, I've often wondered how they communicated in this country - map drawing in the dirt, the hill that looks like a female, the river that curves to the great sea, the great ridge that takes you to other tribes. They would have woken in the morning, taken their bearings from the sun, using it through the day to keep to their journey.
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Salopian
Joined:
12-06-2006
Messages: 241
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| New Message Posted!2006-08-22 01:01
Personally I find it hard to go along with some of the things Cope says but I find the way he writes about sites absolutely enthralling. He must have converted huge numbers of people into being fans of these places.
I find no difficulty in thinking there were such things as mother hills, judging by the placing of many sites, nor maybe that some of them were thought of as reclining women. After all, if a hill has retained a female name for say ten centuries and its origins are lost in the mists of time, why shouldn't it have rolled down from millennia ago. Place names seem one of the most enduring parts of culture - mainly because, once given, they have no reason to be changed I suppose. I find it deeply satisfying to think we may be using words for places that were first adopted by neolithic people.
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