This stone looks square from every other angle but looks like this if you turn your back to the sea! Very nice, even on a grey day :)
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Old "Bourtree" ey? Hmmmm...intriguing. Any folklore of offerings ever being left here by any chance? The bour, or elder was deemed one of the most sacred of trees in pre-xtian lore and many offerings were hung upon them. D' y' know of owt like that near here? We had offerings hung at some megaliths in Yorkshire by standing stones and ash trees (and many elder trees & holy wells), and I know there were offerings at sites in western Scotland. Anything like that here?
I have no idea. Its on the ancient Causey Mounth trackway from Stonehaven to Aberdeen and then up to the highlands. Maybe it was used for offerings for a safe journey? And any trees that were here have been thinned out to hedgerows. I wonder if any of them are Elder trees... "Drewbhoy we need you to run an errand for us" :)
An ancient trackway ey...? Stone offerings nearby? Cairns placed as guide-markers, as we have across the entirity of upland Britain? Offerings such as those date way back. We have accounts in the Pennines written from the growing xtian fruits in the 16th C who told of locals carrying stones to the stones and laying them upon cairns - much as the Buddhists have done, the Hindus, the jews, the aborigines, etc, etc. Intriguing stuff!
Fire away Faerygirl, I'll be hunting in the area south of Stonehaven during (in a gap between football matches), so I can easily drop in past that place for you. Tell me want you want me to do. Ah look for Elder trees, will do!
Paulus thinks thats why its called Bourtreebush. I would check myself but its quite a journey from Wolves and I cant tell what they are from any of my snapshots. Oh and do you have some kind of sixth sense? How did you know I had called you? Are you like Batfink?
Your first comment in reply to Paulus was a bit of a give away. But with my extra special powers I can predict that I will go and have a look.
YES but do you read EVERYONES comments on everything??? I dont. Maybe I should.
No I don't, but I'd been to Bourtreebush that afternoon.
AH! What a coincidence!