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Well that's a politer reply than I probably merit, but I'd still take issue. It assumes some massive things, for example that the Mabinogion is a version of tales from the neolithic, that's like 4000+ years of oral transmission before it was written down. I think there's probably been a few stories involving spears in Britain, in times when we actually used spears. Why would it illustrate the only story about a spear thrower that we've got in this medieval welsh story? Where's the story about white horses to explain the Uffington horse, or the story for the Wilmington figure or the Cerne giant? Stories that explain ancient places (and I've read a few) seem to be short and sweet.

To appeal to the fact Bryn Walters is a Roman specialist (he's not "an academic" as such, he's not a PhD) doesn't cut much mustard when this figure (if it even exists) isn't from the Roman era. It's like when you see celebrities on adverts, just because someone's good at one thing doesn't mean we should assume they have expertise or credibility in another. False appeal to authority innit? (Lethbridge was honorary keeper of Anglo-Saxon antiquities at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, but that doesn't make his Gogmagog figures any more credible.)

It's interesting that his write-up on the ARA site itself says he's a maverick and he's proud to be called that.

Anyway I'll shut up now I've made my stance, and I'll have my owl service on standby with some ketchup if you like.

Rhiannon wrote:
... I'll have my owl service on standby with some ketchup if you like.
I'd like to think you'll be eating it off an actual owl service Rhiannon.

Well, before anyone jumps down my throat again (should be getting used to that by now) I did say the suggested figures were very "reminiscent" of Lleu and Blodeuwedd's saga, I'm not saying they *are* this story. But it wouldn't surprise me if they were. British folk culture is deep - we know how deep thanks to the incredible story of the Cheddar Gorge Man. What appeals to me so much about the imagery is the owl symbol because it reminds me a lot of this - it is the most convincing image for me at Foxhill, if indeed it is an owl?

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps140811.jpg&retpage=21257

I personally think the Cerne Abbas Giant is a folly; I think the Uffington White Horse is genuine but I wonder if it was always a horse? I do believe Celtic lore can stretch back into prehistory because the Iron Age culture came after the Bronze Age, the cultural continuity only disrupted by the Romans - which is tragic - but I think enough remained to piece together what was lost, some of it at any rate, one day. But a great deal is cultural amnesia: what was Wayland's Smithy called before Wayland - it surely had a name? Some things we may never know now.

Cerne is a Celtic place name, it means cairn. The fact that the Church planted an abbey there makes me wonder if Cerne was not a significant location in pre-Christian times, the archaeology there seems to suggest that it was?

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cairn

A cairn can be a sepulchral monument and there are plenty of barrows dotted around Cerne Abbas - and a holy well

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/a558/a312/gallery/England/Dorset/cernewell_pc101649.jpg