Jane

After lunching in a comfy and quirky typically Dutch eetcafe called ‘t Hunebed in the centre of Borger village, we made our way to the edge of the village to the largest hunebed of the lot – what Julian calls the ‘Great Borger Hunebed’. The Rijkshunebed Informatiecentrum is here, too, and sold lots of lovely books and stuff – but not a damn thing in English. Easy to find – just get yourself to Borger (a very pretty town) and follow the signs. Tip: its in the north of the village.

Borger is a monster. Simply huge. Deeply impressive, its giant backbone of capstones all supported, it does feel like a sleeping dinosaur or huge segmented insect larvae. I challenge the most disinterested person not to go ‘Ooh!’ at this one. It feels slightly soulless to me; though this might be because it is undoubtedly the most visited and exploited.

Drive back into Emmen and out the other side past the railway station on the Boslaan into yet another forested area , the Emmer Dennen, and you will find D45, the great Emmen hunebed just a 10 minute walk from the city centre. I had seen a photo of it on Hans Meijer’s wonderful site, but it didn’t prepare me for the mammoth, in-yer-face gorgeousness of it!

Again surrounded by mature mixed woodland, this impressed me more than the biggest hunebed of them all that we had first seen at Borger, in fact I find it hard to believe that the one at Borger is bigger. The lime irredescent flash of a woodpecker as it swooped through the branches lead our way towards it. On a high raised area of what remains of the barrow, six whopping capstones are held aloft by at least 17 uprights. It has endstones, a porch and I counted 13 kerbstones which once would’ve marked the edge of the barrow’s gigantic footprint. Apparently there once were 38 kerbstones, but who cares? The 13 that remain are sufficient evidence of a very tall, grand structure indeed.

D14 at Eexterhalte, near Eext and Gieten villages, is one of the bigger hunebedden, with six giant capstones all still up, a line of entrance stones and seven big kerbstones marking out the original shape. In a tree-lined clearing with it own parking space this must be a magnet for summer picnickers.

A nice little hunebed, five stones long, in a very rural setting. Today, the shelter from the drizzle afforded by the holly trees all around was very welcome.

We’d spotted this on Hans Meijer’s hunebedden website (www.hunebedden.com) and despite having no real idea how to get to it, felt we just couldn’t miss it. We had only a crappy map, sporadic road signs and sheer determination to get us there. Balloo village straggled out in all directions but we finally picked up a sign and followed it. So you don’t have to struggle, here’s how to get there:

Go to Balloo and follow the ‘hunebed’ signs. As you leave the final buildings of the village, stay on the main track where a muddier track forks right. You’re on a track through a nature reserve. It says you’re not mean to take vehicles down here, but nobody was about so we did anyway. After ¾km a cycle path forks left, but continue on and go right at the next T-junction. Go along this muddy track which meanders from side-to-side, for around another ¾ km. Turn right at the next junction. (We nearly gave up at this point!) Go up to the end of that bit and turn left at that T-junction. You’ll probably see the monument 400ms to the left of the junction. With care, we drove it in thick mud in an ordinary family saloon car. You shouldn’t need a 4W drive.

This one is well worth the effort. Remotely sited on the edge of nowhere, it has a glorious sense of peace and is in very good shape indeed. It looked lean and slim and had an extraordinary grace to it. This one also has its portal stones and for all you rock art fans, look out for the cup marks!

Just out of the village of Loon, one field away from the railway line lies the remains of Loon hunebed. In the ploughed up parsnip field next to it they’d been muckspreading so the place stank, but the sweet sight of D15 soon filled our senses. Though reasonably small, this one still has lots of lovely kerbstones and the rise of its original barrow is still very apparent. It also has its original portal entrance, with capstone still up, like a tiny little dolmen. Tons of character here.

Ooh! In TME, Julian says he couldn’t find this one, but we found it with ease. I always smile when I visit monuments in urban settings and this one didn’t disappoint. With only two flat capstones balanced on five remaining uprights, it looks very like a mini-allee-couverte or a ‘My Little Hunebed’. Nestling between tidy, small 1950s detached houses, and opposite a bus shelter, someone had used the monument as a convenient bike park. It had a plot of land all to itself and looked very comfortable with its current position.

I think Julian calls this one Annen but it is in the village of Noordlo on the main drag north out of the village.

Leaving Drenthe province, we briefly entered Groningen province by a few hundred metres to find G1 just outside the village of Noordlaren. It is signposted but you need to keep your eyes peeled to see it. Walk about 200ms on the path through the fields towards the trees and you’ll find what’s left of this once mighty beast. Judging by the size of the remaining stones, just two capstoned segments giving the impression of a double dolmen, it was up there with the largest. It has phenomenal interior width spanning 2½ metres.

D6 is also rather unattractively named ‘the Devils Cunt’ lies within spitting distance of a busy level crossing, in a clearing on the outskirts of the village with trains roaring past. It’s quite small – just three small capstones long. It feels quite complete though, rather than being a fragment of anything bigger, as it is nicely proportioned and still retains endstones.

Moth thought it was slightly disappointing, but I liked its neatness. As we could park on the road pretty much next to it, I sat in the car to make a sketch through the window out of the rain.

Julian doesn’t mention D5 in TME, but we saw it marked on the map and happened to be passing close by the village. We thought we’d have a go at finding it, despite the fact that we were beginning to lose the light. We did. And there it was. From the lane, it looked pretty disappointing, but as we approached we saw that actually it was sunken and still had plenty of barrow material around it, curvaceously moulded around the 3 smallish segments.

We drove to Zeijen and spotted a sign to the hunebed. We must have been one kilometre out of the village already so we turned back, thinking we might pick up another sign that we had missed. No luck. So I called in at the village bakkerij to ask directions. The woman behind the counter had been doing a roaring trade in oliebollen (a Dutch doughnut with sultanas in traditionally eaten on New Year’s Eve) and was surprised to hear me ask ‘Waar is het hunebed, alstublieft?’ She wasn’t fooled by my pathetic attempts in Dutch and gave me clear directions in English: ‘Keep going at least one kilometre, you’ll see the sign on your right.‘

On the way up to see D1 at Steenbergen and D2 at Westervelde (which we had to give up on) we passed through the village of Norg. The church, which is on the main drag next to the village centre car park has the remnants of a monument just outside the front door, sandwiched between it and the main road. These small stones don’t have an official D number, but they were clearly part of something. We spotted some other suspicious-looking stones in the car park which had been carefully tarmac’d around rather than moved or carted off, which we felt was quite significant.

There are two hunebedden at Drouwen, just about 50 metres apart and another one (D26) about a kilometer away. D20 is one of the twins. We were actually on our way to Bronneger to see the five there, but passing through Drouwen to get there, we suddenly glimpsed the twins of D19 and D20 no more than 10 metres apart.

They have there own big space in parkland on the edge of the village. People come here often – we could see the tracks in the snow – to exercise their dogs, play with their kids or just as a point to walk to and from. How splendid that this pair of lovelies are still enjoyed.

D19 has virtually no kerbstones left but five of its capstones survive and are still up. Both D19 and D20 are a good size, too, like D52 at Noordsleen and just as impressive.

There are two hunebedden at Drouwen, just about 50 metres apart and another one (D26) about a kilometer away. D20 is one of the twins. We were actually on our way to Bronneger to see the five there, but passing through Drouwen to get there, we suddenly glimpsed the twins of D19 and D20 no more than 10 metres apart.

They have there own big space in parkland on the edge of the village. People come here often – we could see the tracks in the snow – to exercise their dogs, play with their kids or just as a point to walk to and from. How splendid that this pair of lovelies are still enjoyed.

There are two hunebedden at Rolde, just about 50 metres apart. They lie at the edge of the village in parkland next to a magnificent medieval brick built church and graveyard.

D18 is in much better condition than its twin, D17, with all its capstones up. A large hunebed is a textbook example, but I found it strangely characterless.

D3 and D4 hunebedden are almost Siamese twins and locked toegther in a row. They are now both in such a sorry state, squeezed end-to-end between the garden of a run down cottage and a crumbling, disused farm building. Their massive stones have been knocked down and lie strewn about, hinting at what once was. They looked tired, almost dead, for practically all the capstones were knocked off their feet. But for all that, we found them curiously enchanting collapsed in their higgledy-piggledy semi-rural alleyway.

D3 and D4 hunebedden are almost Siamese twins and locked toegther in a row. They are now both in such a sorry state, squeezed end-to-end between the garden of a run down cottage and a crumbling, disused farm building. Their massive stones have been knocked down and lie strewn about, hinting at what once was. They looked tired, almost dead, for practically all the capstones were knocked off their feet. But for all that, we found them curiously enchanting collapsed in their higgledy-piggledy semi-rural alleyway.

Here at Bronneger, near Drouwen, you get five all at once in a glorious bucolic setting with fields and woodlands. And though badly trashed, they still have the power to enchant, both individually and as a group.

D21 is a small monument and has all three of its capstones still up and neat little endstones like full stops. It is very reminiscent of D6 at Tynaarlo. Nestling against it is a delightful mature tree. It is no more than 4ms away from its closest neighbour, D22.

Here at Bronneger, near Drouwen, you get five all at once in a glorious bucolic setting with fields and woodlands. And though badly trashed, they still have the power to enchant, both individually and as a group.

Just 4ms from its closest neighbour, D21, D22 is reduced to just two large flat capstones on the ground at the base of a tree.

Here at Bronneger, near Drouwen, you get five all at once in a glorious bucolic setting with fields and woodlands. And though badly trashed, they still have the power to enchant, both individually and as a group.

D23, D24 and D25 stand in a little copse about 50ms from D21 and D22.
D23 is just a dolmen now with a couple of other stones scattered around. Nevertheless, if this part alone was transported to a remote Yorkshire moor, I know many stones enthusiasts for who would traipse over rough ground to see it.

Just two kilometers out of Borger as you drive east towards Buinen, if you look to you right, in a sandy field, you will clearly see D28 and D29 in their own little state-owned space.

Indeed, all hunebedden except the ruinous one at Westernesch are nationally maintained. It gave me a little thrill of excitement that I had found this one so easily. It was quite discreetly signposted and might easily have been missed.

A short stroll of 50ms or so from the car and you approach to D29 first. D28 lies just 10 or 15ms beyond it. They are both very similarly sized, both having clearly originally having three capstones, but now both only have two. This two-for-the-price-of-one double whammy of hunebedden!

Bang! Start with a good ‘un if you can. D53 has nine capstones all up thanks to a post-war restoration and is the second biggest hunebed in the Netherlands. Amid sandy, heathery heathland away from the village this is a beast! With picnic tables and seats aplenty it’s clearly THE local beauty spot, though today we had it more or less to ourselves. The rain made the stones glisten and they looked so gorgeous I was immediately frustrated that I wouldn’t be able to sketch it with the drizzle coming down. D53 also has a capstoned portal, which is quite unusual. I felt so happy here! So happy that I ran the 50 metres or so up to D54, clearly visible on the rising dune further up the road. Another lovely site, this one with six capstones, all up. What a beautiful pair!

Julian calls this one Fokkinger Slag in TME, which is actually the name of the nearby road.

8 April 2006

It was raining hard and looked set in for the day as we approached Jelling, Denmark’s spiritual home.

Moth and had I been musing on the difference between British jam and American jelly, wondering about the (il)logic of American musicians jamming rather than jelling, when, quite randomly, Bob Marley’s ‘Jammin’’ started playing on the MP3 player.

Jelling was virtually deserted when we arrived. Ours was the only car in the car park and everything was closed, even the museum. And it was very, very cold.

Jelling is a small town centred on series of monuments from a number of different ages. First a bronze age barrow, then a Viking stone long ship, then runestones, then two gigantic mounds, then a church. Peel back the layers here and you begin to understand Denmark’s history and sense of national identity.

It is only 1,000 years since Christianity was adopted by Danish kings over the old religion and Jelling marks the place where this happened. Outside the church that now stands between the two mounds a Viking runestone is carved with the earliest known image of the crucified Jesus in Scandinavia.

Each monument has been acknowledged and built into the next phase of Jelling. I like that continuity even if it does mean the land close to the mounds around the church and the runestones is now filled with neat and tidy modern graves.

We wandered around trying to make sense of it but the place lacked atmosphere without any people around. Unusually this is set of monuments that needs people to make it live. A visit to the museum would help us understand but it wasn’t open for an hour and a half, so we drove around in the rain in a fruitless search for the carved tree on the Jelling pages of TME (page 167) before returning to Jelling Kro for some coffee and a plate of chips.

The museum is situated directly opposite the mounds, runestones and church. As you go round reading the excellent displays in Danish and English you can glance out of huge glass windows and actually see the monuments in front of you.

There is a feel of Avebury about this place – the monuments and history still being occupied, enjoyed, revered and used, even if the reasons ‘why here especially?’ are not addressed.

It is pretty remarkable that only a few years or so before William of Normandy invaded England, the Danes were still following their native ‘pagan’ religion.

Ristinge Klint sits on top of a tiny, narrow peninsula, jutting out the west of Langeland. The rain, hail and sleet had passed and the beach was bathed in warm sunshine, the first time I’d not been cold whilst outside all week. We walked along the path up through the dunes and along the sandy cliffs above the deserted and beautiful beach until we reached this glorious erection.

It was much bigger than we dared hope from the tiny line drawing in the pamphlet we had. We were all delighted with it. This is a textbook dolmen.

Between Hobro and Mariager on route 555 at Katbjerg, you find one of the most imposing Danish long barrows.

Moth couldn’t find any printed information about the monuments at Katbjerg at all which is almost criminal, because the long barrow is the finest long barrow we had ever seen. Yes, seriously!

This monument was untrashed and probably not much restored. It was long – perhaps 25 metres and rectangular with a continuous line of big kerbstones. And tall, too some up to 3ms high! The mound billowed upwards along the entire length of the monument, completely undenuded. Down one side are two low passageways, each leading to a large intact chamberof grand proportions, one of them has uprights of more than 2m high!

No fancy horned forecourts here though; instead just really whopping stones at each end. Oooh! Oooh! OOOOH! This place blew our minds.

It was partly excavated in 1960. The finds, fine pottery from the middle Neolithic period and flintstone knives, are in the National Museum.

At the north east tip of Fyn is a little promentary on which can be found Marhøj (TME page 158), a particularly thrilling giant barrow. In a landscape shared by other fat, high, humpy høj, Marhøj is Queen.

Wading through the dark earth of the field littered with flints, we reached the monument and found the entrance to the passageway leading in is half way up the mound, rather than at ground level. Stooping very low (if you’re tall this is almost a hands-and-knees-job) I squeezed down the 5 metre passage flanked with big flat stones to reach the main chamber which runs perpendicular to it.

The main passage was darker than dark. I got out the torch but it was unable to penetrate the blackness at all. I found a bit of candle and lit it. Then I found a tealight and lit that. And another and another and another until the whole chamber, 10ms long was illuminated by 26 tealights. It looked very hygge.

I sat down on the damp earth to inspect the chamber, smoke a cig and have a cuppa. It was vast: seven massive capstones formed the roof, all glistening in with wet in the candlelight making it as cosy as a fairy grotto. Moth scampered around with the tripod taking pictures and collecting more than 25 used tealights. It was cold in there – my breath was condensing – but it was out of the rain and the icy wind. It was fab.

Spanskhøj stands tall and proud at the other side of the field from Snibhøj.

Don’t be misled by what Julian calls Spanskhøj on page 159 of TME. What he calls Spanskhøj is in fact Snibhøj.

After spending quite some time investigating Snibhøj, we drove round to see if we could get into Spanskhøj. We couldn’t. It was quite tousled with vegetation and had no clear path to it. It certainly had two passages but there was no way we could get in. Shame.

What Julian calls Spanskhøj on page 159 of TME is in fact this lovely chambered mound: Snibhøj.

After reaching Hannerup we saw the sign to drive into a farm courtyard. Before we had even turned the engine off, a kind woman had scurried out with a huge torch for us to view inside the mound.

We dropped our 6kr kroner each in the honesty box, took an informative homemade leaflet and set off through the thick smell of pig poo to the field with the mounds. Spanskhøj, Snibhøj and one other flattened double-entranced mound stand in the same field, and the leaflet makes it clear which is which.

Snibhøj is very special. I’d never seen a monument like it! Two passageways, two FABULOUS chambers which you can get into and investigate, one of which housed a tiny, sleepy bat.

Immediately next to Snibhøj a flattened version of it. We couldn’t find its name.

Spanskhøj stands tall and proud at the other side of the field from Snibhøj.

As you drive north out of St Just, directly opposite a crazymadbonkers Christian grotto (which I had fun leaping around on rather disrespectfully) we spotted these three very tall, slender standing stones on the same side of the road as the cemetery.

The first row you reach heading west is the northern row. It’s a long row of white, quartzy, sugar lumps.

Saint-Just, a very ordinary and comfortably pleasant French village, is the guardian to a wild and wacky ribbon of monuments which will have me scratching my head quizzically for the rest of my life. Nothing here makes any sense at all as the path to the west of the village leads you on a megalithic mystery tour.

Each monument on its own is intriguing … beguiling … but together, so close together they become a megalithic headf*ck.

We parked to the west of the village and followed the ample and informative signs which led us under the pines towards the Cojoux heathland glowing golden with gorse and ringing with birdsong. Apart from us, there was no one else around at all. The monuments – and the birds – just kept on coming.

Following the path west out of St Just as it snakes its way through the dense, tall gorse forest for a few hundred metres we reached the stones of Les Demoiselles Piquées – the ‘worm-eaten women’. Not a very nice name, but you can see why they are called this. These are big stones, too. I stood next to one and felt like a midget. A novel feeling for me.

Chateau Bû! What on earth is it??? Chateau Bû is caged up. Straight-jacketed. Probably for its own protection because it is insane. Without being able to get right up to it, walk round it, get into it, it’s hard to make any sense of it. It has a mound, perhaps two metres tall, with a chamber in it like a cairn. Then it has four uprights – a four-poster – plonked on top.

And then a bit of a cromlech at one end. I’ve seen a lot of old crumblies in my time, but this one I can’t fathom. You’ll have to see it for yourself.

For 200 metres westwards over the health from Chateau Bû lie a whole pile of monuments, some – quite literally – within spitting distance of each other.

La Croix de St Pierre are three nice-but-nothing-to-write-home-about burial chambers. Two are now little more than ground plans and the other is just a stone cist. However in the context of the St Just complex they simply add to the mystery.

We were about to leave Saint-Just and as I looked on the map, I noticed another monument marked very close by but not featured in any of the literature we had. We had to go and see if we could sniff it out. Without having a clue what it would be, we picked up a sign to a ‘dolmen’ and parked. Scrambling up a steep bank into some woodland punctuated with amazing natural rocks, we followed the path until … WOW! What a find! Treal allee couverte. An absolute beauty.

My first ever allee-couverte! And I wasn’t disappointed at all. Hidden away in the forest this was much longer than I expected and much squarer inside. On some of the stones in the terminal cell some little raised knobbly bits have been carved in lines. These are quite common around these parts. Someone somewhere considers these to represent pairs of breasts, but frankly I’m not convinced. Not a bit!

St Uzec menhir is just bizarre and thanks to the Christians, its ancient power now seems to glow more strongly. Some zealous twat in the 16th century decided to attempt to mute its pagan power by carving a crucifix on the top. All it does, however, is to make Christianity seem like a fly-by-night and pathetically bullying force. Still, the menhir is beautiful, striking and much larger than I had imagined at more than 8ms tall! I wonder how tall it was before the Christians got their dirty hands on it?

Over on the touristy island of Ile Grande, which you can drive over a causeway to, is this allée couverte which is rather pleasant being neither small or big, long nor short. Just yer average local allée couverte for local people. With it teeming with rain and completely free of any tourists, the best place to be was inside it. Me, allée couvertes, rats, drainpipes.

Just after you have driven over the causeway on the way back from Ile Grande is Prajou allée couverte which is much longer than Ile Grande allée couverte.

We were intrigued by the carvings on the inside of the end chamber which was cut off by a blocking stone. Moth crawled in for a better look. Two pairs of carved semi-hemispheres and a couple of long lines with dots running parallel have been interpreted as pairs of breasts by ‘experts’ – probably men – but I asked, could they not be testicles or even eyes? We were to keep seeing these odd carvings on stones all over Brittany…

We noticed this little chambered tomb at the roadside near Keryvon, we hadn’t been expecting it so it was nice little bonus site! Aubrey Burl calls it ‘unimpressive’ but I give it full marks for simply surviving, sandwiched as it is at the roadside before the land dips away onto the beach. The end of it is practically falling away onto the beach! Only one capstone remains up but I liked it a lot.

There are two monuments in the same field at Kerguntuil and they proved harder to find than I thought due to sh*tty, ambiguous roadsigns and an inadequately scaled map. I got very cross. Finally, as we located them, a pair of jays swooped down in front of us.

Kerguntuil dolmen is less of a dolmen and more of a large stone room at the roadside.

It was so tall inside that I could only just reach up and touch the *whopping* capstone. It has been shored up with walling on one side for stability. You get the impression it has been used for centuries as an animal shelter. Well, wouldn’t you? On the other side of the field, crouching now as part of a field wall is the Kerguntuil allée couverte.

On the other side of the field from Kerguntuil dolmen crouching now as part of a field wall is the Kerguntuil allée couverte. It’s an average sized allée couverte and like so many round here has strange carved semi hemispheres on one of its wall slabs. Here, there are six pairs of them, on this occasion each pair has a smiley curve below them. Moth read them as pairs of breasts with pregnant bellies below. We read somewhere that they were pairs of breasts with necklaces. But, I ask you, have you ever seen a woman wear a necklace below her cherry-muffins? No. Me neither. Perhaps they did all those years ago and I’m being terribly naive. Anyway, this is a cracker over 9ms long and well worth seeking out.

I noticed another ‘ancient monument’ symbol on the map, not far from where we were at Treguier, but I had no instructions as to how to get there or indeed what was there. But we took the chance and went anyway. Happily, we picked up a signpost. As we parked, the heavens opened, but after the deluge we had suffered for most of the day this failed to move us; our shoes and trousers were already soaked to the thigh.

After walking through the dunes and the gorse out towards the sea we finally stumble across this allée couverte. It’s a bit trashed but its location is simply lovely overlooking the wide expanse of the estuary. Had it not been so wet, I could sat here for the rest of the day.

It had bigger, thicker stones than all the other allée couvertes we’d seen today further to the west.

This one

In the very beautiful mediaeval town of Treguier, just by where the bridge crosses the Jaudy river estuary you’ll find this cromlech opposite a hotel.

It now has its own little parkland to inhabit, but it wasn’t always so. This entire cromlech (or stone circle/horseshoe thingy) was relocated to its current position in 1963 for a reason I failed to discover. It used to have carved stones within it but these have been moved to protect them.

The Dolmen de Kergavat has a large chamber and some sizeable stones, but like so much stuff hereabouts is unceremoniously ignored. But here it is – a huge and beautiful dolmen – virtually playing chicken with passing traffic, parked at the roadside.

I do like urban monuments, so the Dolmens de Rondossec were always likely to appeal to me. Whoosh in the middle of the village of Plouharnel are a lovely pair of funnel-type passage tombs, still quite buried under their mounds. They both have low passages which widen to a larger end. In a garden just opposite we noticed a menhir which looked suspiciously original to us.

Julian calls it the Roh-an-Aod dolmen in TME, but the roadsigns point you to dolmen du Roch.

This very large dolmen occupies an entire plot in a small village setting, tightly squeezed on all sides by cottages and houses. We liked this one a lot as it so clearly refuses to be taken over by the human development around it. Defiant and wonderful.

Blimey! There’re some big buggers here. And according to the books, it’s not very long ago since the fields at St Barbe were littered with some pretty complete alignments. But 19th and 20th century activities felled many of them. Despite the driving rain, I had to get out of the car and walk right up to these stones. And I’m glad I did, because sometimes it’s not until you actually stand next to something you realise just how massive it is. The biggest stone of St Barbe is seriously whopping – have a look at TME and see just how teeny weeny Spaceship Mark* looks standing next to it.

*and he’s no short-arse!

I was looking forward to the sites in and around the village of Crucuno. The Crucuno dolmen is bang slap in the middle of the village, now looking more like an extension to a farm building these days, but no less impressive for it.

I made a little sketch of it while I sat in the car out of the rain while Moth went off exploring.

Julian’s instructions in TME to find this lovely horseshoe cromlech are unnecessarily complicated! Simply follow the path at the back of the Moulin de St Pierre alignments past the tennis court and turn left at the top. About 50 metres in front of you, under the massive pine trees is the monument.

Thirty seven stones form an incredibly graceful arc maybe 50 metres wide, which cannot be photographed adequately. The arc now embraces a nice middle class tennis court. Fortunately, the land immediately in front of the cromlech is clear of development, so you can stand well back and contemplate the whole thing. I loved this. I loved that there were so many stones still up and that this quiet part of town had grown up around it without encroaching on it.