Shamania - The Festival: nr Pendle, Lancashire - Fri 27 July - Mon 30 July
Nowt to do next weekend? Check out the heathen event of the summer under the great shadow of Pendle Hill, Barrowford, Lancashire - Shamania: a gathering of pagan ways, workshops, transpersonal psychologies and wall-to-wall musics of the highest qualities. Old stones, shamanism, ritual magick, Buddhism, Sufism, ancient ways in modern days... continues...
In 1652 George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement climbed Pendle Hill because he was 'moved of the Lord' to do so. On its summit he saw a vision and had a mystical experience which inspired him in his religious mission.
This is generally understood to mean coeval with the creation, or at least, with the flood; although, if it be, as some have supposed, the effect of a volcano, its first existence may have a later date.
From the Lancashire section of: A provincial glossary: with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions. Francis Grose (1790). Online at Google Books.
Start at the Nick of Pendle and walk up the footpath towards the denuded Apronful of Stones' cairn. Keep going up the hill for another 300 yards or so, just past where there's a path that turns-off towards the ritual Deer Stones. As you walk upwards, in front of you you'll see the tell-tale sign of many small stones scattered in their tell-tale manner, rising up at the edge of the footpath. This is it!
And it's bloody huge! Although covered over with much soil and grasses, all round the edges are hundreds of small stones and rocks, of the same type andsize as those which comprise the cairns further down the hill and our Skirtful of Stones on Ilkley and elsewhere. It stands about ten-feet tall from the lower western edge and measures approximately 28 yards (north-south) by 20 yards (east-west).
Upon asking a couple of passers-by (they were local regular walkers up this great hill) about this and the other giant overgrown cairns upon this hill, they didn't have a clue - although they did suggest we contact the Lord of Downham on the north side of the hill. And so there we ventured, in search of the Great Stone - and guess who we bumped into...?
Park up at the Nick of Pendle and follow directions to the Apronful of Stones, but about halfway along the path, bear to the right along a swerving footpath which eventually takes you to another guiding cairn. On the maps there's the Chartist's Well right to at the side of this old overgrown tomb.
With the modern crown of a small cairn on top, this large cairn is about four feet tall at the highest. It's bigger than the Apronful a few hundred yards further uphill, and is nicely overgrown with grasses. It measures at least 31 yards (east-west) by 29 yards (north-south) and is just like an overgrown Little Skirtful of Stones on Ilkley Moor. Parts of its eastern side have been dislodged and the main rock structure is plainly visible. A ringed embankment is also clear mainly on the north and eastern sides, but on the whole it is overgrown and ruinous. A brilliant spot though!
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