Prof. Howard M. R. Williams muses about the rather crap plaque by the third 'arrow'
There is a fourth stone beside the southermost of the Devil’s Arrows. This isn’t brand new, and I suspect it hails from the 1970s or thereabouts. Embedded within it is a light blue disc that might aim to inform the visitor regarding what they are looking at. This blue plaque simply states:
THE DEVIL’S ARROWS
Three pre-historic monolithis
of millstone grit,
probably transported here
from the area of Knaresborough
c. 2700 B.C.
So this is a plaque on a stone referencing stones. To be more precise still, the new stone commemorates the old ones but its really focus of commemoration is ignorance. Here’s why.
Of course this roadside monumental sign doesn’t indicate where the other two Arrows are; they are behind it and across the road behind a hedge and these have no signs. So the first point is that this stone breaks the southernmost away from the others, as much as it joins them together.
The plaque and its stone says next to nothing. No mention of the folklore, no mention of context, no mention of parallels, no comment on meaning or significance past or present. Instead the sign opts for simplisticity: noting where the Arrows might have come from and an extremely odd precise date. Implicitly, it articulates the Arrow’s protected status and physically blocks vehicular access to the stone from the road.
In doing so, the stones are physically protected but also shrouded in ignorance. More still, they are afforded an official stamp of authority that serves to celebrate, even commemorate that ignorance regarding the Devil’s Arrows.
More at
https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/devils-arrows-commemorating-ignorance/
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road