Dragonlines
Dragon gargoyle - St John The Baptist Church Shedfield.
A friend gave me a copy of The Spine Of Albion by Gary Biltcliffe & Caroline Hoare. I love it! Simply adorable theory that the magical isles of the United Kingdom contains dragons hidden within our landscape along energy charged leylines.
‘Their earth energy snakes across leylines that, with a keen eye and patience, can be uncovered.’ The authors discuss the ‘enigma and true purpose of many of the places that mark the Belinus line and its accompany mysterious dragon force…this hidden corridor of power along the physical spine of Britain was once a cosmic axis aligned to the heavenly realms in the constellation of Cygnus.’
These books always fire up my imagination and the words appear like mad islands in a sea of wild connections. We leap here - here is the female line, we jump there - here is the male line, we set sail for the next ley in our sights. Thrilling monsters swim into view. Henri-de-Blois, bishop of Winchester, younger son of Stephen 11, built many Norman churches in South Hampshire. All of them, say our guides, on the old dragon leyline.
Henri-de-Blois, the book tells us breathlessly was called The Old Wizard of Winchester by his rivals. Because, the authors argue, the old magician knew about an ancient magic- secret energy lines of power that connected us all to a greater cosmic power.
Fabulous all and easy to scoff at. And yet and yet. The tail of the dragon is located on the Isle-of-Wight and leaps onward to mainland Titchfield, St Catherine’s Hill, Winchester, Beacon Hill and winds up country, northwards to the stars. It was this dragon that many protesters were so angry about when the M3 cut through the chalk hill landscape and damaged its spine. I would be sceptical if I had not experienced myself the same land calling me out of Southampton. I wrote about this as part of a longer essay for my MA at Winchester University.
The Common sang to me before I saw it. I put my old home on the market and sold it, and then I came looking for the house that kept calling to me in my dreams. I hunted my house in the long grasses of the common and found it, the place where I could be.
I have a vision of the Songlines stretching across the continents and ages; that wherever men have trodden they have left a trail of song (of which we may, now and then catch an echo); and that these trails must reach back, in time and space…where the First Man opening his mouth in defiance of the terrors that surrounded him, shouted the opening stanza of the World Song ‘I AM!
Is there a song-line for hunting that runs through this land murmuring warnings to the Stag who bounded for the safety of Prickett Hill?[2] Singing to Eleanor, singing even to Stepford through the oven, ideas rising with the cakes. Singing to me.
[1] Chatwin B., The Songlines (Penguin, 1988)
[2] Pryket, sb. a young buck, capriolus, Prompt.; pricket, a buck in his second year (named from his pricking horns), S3, HD, Cotg. (s. v. dagard).
A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF MIDDLE ENGLISH MAYHEW AND SKEAT
The Spine of Albion covers many churches local to me. One though - St John the Baptist Shedfield - was a surprise. Its relatively modern; a large Victorian listed millstone around the neck of the local Anglican parish. It is too large and built for a different age. But a wild serpent whirls around it. The authors have dowsed the dragon trail from Titchfield to Wickham and on through Shedfield to Bishops Waltham and Winchester. ‘ Were the Victorian architects were aware of the male serpent flowing through here? they ask, The bell tower is adorned with dragons.’
What rubbish, I thought to myself. St John The Baptist is full of angels - everywhere. Can’t move for them. Honestly. Still I walked over to have a look and opened my eyes and Lord! Here be dragons. Crawling with them. Next time I go I am taking binoculars to see what else is slithering across the church roof and walls.
Once I listened to my instinct and moved to this enchanting leyline, I shed my skin so to speak. I gave up my IT business, took a degree in creative and critical writing and my life changed completely and utterly for the better. If you find you are losing sense of direction in all the fear and frantic noise of our society, it may not be such a bad idea after all to find a leyline that is running near you. Either in a city, field or church. Spend some time with it. Listen to the energy of the earth on which you stand.
Read more here.