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Fieldnotes
| There are some places that are just humbling, that evaporate the musty, strangling cobwebs of cynicism and arrogance in a barely noticeable instant, unregistered until you’re back home and reflective, all the while they’re working their silent magic, lending you something you only barely realise you needed. This is one of those places. It seems that the accepted, received wisdom is that this place was once a ‘temple of the druids’ (whatever that means), visited by that most famous Welshman on his full-on conversion therapy trip/tour of our small island, powering through a major enough set for the local denizens to be convinced to re-name the place in his honour. Nobody ever completely bought it though, temporary temporality so to speak – but that’s to say that those who came before the saint might have known more, or different, which I don’t believe they did. And not because I feel the need to justify the site or not – no, the place is the place before I say anything about it, fine with or without me and my beliefs, or anyone else’s for that matter. There’s a car-park east of the site at Altdaven Road with a couple of ‘explanatory’ boards. The map is crude but handy. You descend into Altdaven Woods to the west and then down deeper to the north. There’s no rush but anticipation quickens the step. Straight ahead at the bottom and up along the stairs and path through the trees and along the thin south/north ridge. Good fortune had it that the sun was out, penetrating the tree cover in places, the dappled light adding to the sense of mystery. It’s always a bonus when you have a place to yourself, imagination unleashed. Not quite at the summit is the chair, it’s back to you behind a pair of trees, standing proud and tall and spooky amongst many other outcrops and boulders. It’s not very deep into the woods and the road is visible from the perch, but we could have been on another planet as far as we noticed. Swiftly we were lost in the wonder of the place, clambering here and there and down to the well. It’s quite steep and vertiginous but no matter, the rag tree adds to the magic. The flat stone of the ‘well’ has more that just the bullaun in its south-west corner – there’s another large cup-mark towards its centre. There are offerings everywhere – little fern covered niches in the side of the ridge with photos of loved ones and mass cards, the rag tree (ignore the covid face-coverings), coins beside the bullaun and the ubiquitous tea-lights. But none of it matters – the place is a delight, an almost semi-tropical, dripping green wonderland. Spellbound we marvelled, for a while anyway before we let ‘reality’ intrude. We could have stayed all day and not met anybody, but we decided not to. |
Posted by ryaner1st February 2022ce Edited 1st February 2022ce
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