NARRATIVE AROUND THE SHAMAN'S HOUSE (Hut No. 3)
Christopher Tilley
House No 3 is one of the two most isolated houses on Leskernick hill, the other being house 28 in the corridor. Situated far to the north of the western settlement area and highest up the hill it is the only house whose doorway is directly orientated so as to face the Rough Tor summit in the distance. Especially in misty or cloudy weather Rough Tor appears to float on the horizon line, sometimes visible, sometimes not. Its exact position is difficult to determine from here. Although forming the hill to the north-west of High Moor it sometimes appears to be a tor on the latter. Like house 28 it is located in the middle of a particularly dense area of clitter.
There is a particularly dense clitter mass with large grounders 10 m to the north and the Leskernick mini tor with its surrounding clitter masses is 10 m to the south. The back of the house is aligned due north with the back of the tor. House 3 is 35 m due west of the Quoit and closer to it than any other house on the hill. To its east and immediately above the house is an irregular shaped area enclosed by low walls linking grounders which is virtually free of stone with a maximum width of 20 m north-south and 15 m west-east. About 7 m south-west of the house there is a small cairn set in amongst the clitter on the edge of an oval shaped clearing in front of and to the west of the mini tor.
This clearing is up to 15 m wide and has a maximal length of 45 m to the edge of the dense clitter mass down-slope to the west. It forms a theatrical arena directly beneath the tor and to the south of the Shaman's hut. The tor consists of an exposed rock outcrop about 2 m high on top of which a large block has been placed and/or swivelled round to point towards the north-west. This block is 3 m long, 1.10 m wide and 0.9 m high. The mini tor appears to be set within a facade of large, thin slab-like stones which run up to it from below on the northern side and southern sides and around its back or eastern side.
Whether or not any of these stones have been placed, moved, wedged or propped up they create a facade-like effect serving to frame or emphasise the tor itself when seen from the cleared space below it. A low and indistinct wall, linking many grounders runs away to the south-west of the tor linking it to a shrine structure just to the north of the perimeter wall of the main western compound about 30 m distant. This consists of a large square shaped grounder about 3 m wide and 0.5 m high. On top of the eastern part of this grounder there are two large and irregular perched boulders. Beside it on the western side there are three large blocks resting against the edge of the grounder. It appears as if these have been displaced from their original positions propped up on top of the grounder with the two stones on top of it providing the necessary support to hold them upright.
There are a series of other clitter structures in the clitter below the mini tor and its cleared space. At the head of the clitter mass, up-slope at its eastern end there appears to be a facade of thin slab-like stones like those running up to the mini tor. Below these there are two or more indistinct circular structures in which grounders appear to be encircled or partly surrounded, in an arc, by other stones. One of these has been later re-worked as a millstone but no attempt has been made to remove it from the clitter mass.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leskernick/articles/narrative/text/shaman.htm
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