UK Europe travel - Robert Scheer's Blog

There are more than 30 prehistoric sites and over 3,000 ancient standing stones near the city of Carnac in the northwest of France, and because Mother’s Day is May 14, now is an especially good time to think about sacred places devoted to the Great Goddess.

Many scholars agree that our ancestors worshipped the Great Goddess during the Neolithic Age, when grand temples such as Avebury and Stonehenge were built. The shift toward a male deity didn’t begin to take hold in Europe until around 4500 bce. In the tumulus of Gavrinis in Morbihan, France it is very likely that Goddess worship continued through at least 2500 bce. Although most guidebooks refer to Gavrinis as a tomb, barrow or passage-grave, experts including Marija Gimbutas and Dr. Terence Meaden say Gavrinis was designed not as a burial chamber but a site for sacred rituals.

Gavrinis is situated on an island in the Gulf of Morbihan in South Brittany, near Carnac. Once a peninsula, the island is now accessible by a 15-minute boat ride from Larmor-Baden. The massive Gavrinis tumulus is 20-feet high and 165-feet in circumference, with 29 upright stones lining an underground passageway that ends at a large chamber capped with a huge slab measuring 13-feet square. Gavrinis is one of the richest megalithic monuments in Europe because of its excellent stone murals. Carved into the black rocks is a lavish array of engraved patterns: waves, suns, chevrons, trees, lozenges, coils and concentric arcs. In The Civilization of the Goddess, UCLA archaeology professor Marija Gimbutas describes the concentric arc as the “vulva sign”, emblematic of the powers of the Goddess. The engravings of multiple wavy lines “seem to say that the generative force of the Goddess is inexhaustible, rising and flowing like waves,” Gimbutas said.

The eminent scholar Dr. Walter Y. Evans-Wentz noticed that there are two very prominent stone sills on the floor of the narrow passage leading toward the inner chamber. He identified the sills as – literally – stumbling blocks, used in initiation ceremonies in which neophytes must travel a symbolic journey across obstacles before reaching the inner chamber. Cut into the rock in one of the chambers are three strange holes that almost look like a prehistoric wine rack. Dr. Evans-Wentz observed that the outside edges of these holes have been worn smooth, as if they were used for on-going ceremonial purposes for hundreds of years – the chamber was not simply sealed up as a tomb. There are remarkable similarities between Gavrinis and the Neolithic Irish passage-tomb of Newgrange in the Boyne valley, County Meath. They both feature ornate geometric stone carvings and are aligned to face southeast, so the rays of the rising sun only enter the chamber during the Winter Solstice – the time when the sun dies and is born again.

Gavrinis is open from 10 am to Noon and 2 to 6 pm June through September, but only 2 to 6 pm in the spring and autumn. Adult admission is 56 Francs (about US$8.50 or CDN$12.40.) Reservations are strongly recommended in the summer. Phone: 02.97.54.62.97.

It is said that, if you can only visit one prehistoric site in Brittany, Gavrinis is the one to choose, but there are several other “must-see” sacred places close by. A staggering number of ancient stones can be found scattered across the moors and fields in a 15-mile stretch along the south coast of Brittany, with the resort city of Carnac in the center. A short distance north of Carnac are three sets of rows of standing stones, known as alignments. Two of these groupings, Ménec and Kermario have been fenced off, but you can still wander among the 579 menhirs (vertical standing stones) in the Kerlescan alignment. Ménec has 1,099 menhirs arranged in 12 rows, each over a quarter of a mile long, and with a cromlech (a circle or semicircle of menhirs) at each end. At Kermario, with 999 stones, there is a viewing platform at the west end.

When the Romans invaded Gaul they carved images of their deities on some of the stones. Centuries later, Christian crosses were added to the ancient site. Today, visitors to Carnac can still feel magical power in the mysterious stones. Although the original purpose of these megaliths has been lost in time, local traditions associate them with the moon and the seasons. Bonfires were lit nearby on Midsummer Eve, and sheep and cattle were herded among the stones for protection and to ensure fertility. Even today it is said that couples who are cannot have children are advised to dance among the stones.

If you should be fortunate enough to find yourself in South Brittany, wandering through lines of menhirs or marveling at the beautiful carved stones of Gavrinis, I hope you will take a moment to honor the Goddess. She remains alive today, identified as Mother Nature and Mother Earth. Her spirit is the endless cycle of birth, death and renewal, and she is a force as eternal as the changing seasons.

Note: This article was originally published in Power Trips magazine in 1997. For current information visit the Brittany Tourism website.

Photo credits:

Gavrinis entrance by Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons

Gavrinis engraved stones: The original uploader was Athinaios at English Wikipedia. / CC BY-SA

Carnac stones: Karsten Wentink / CC BY-SA

Kilclooney dolmen

Stone circles are enchanted places. Across the British Isles are numerous groups of ancient standing stones associated with colorful legends, many of which involve fairies and magic. At several circles it is said to be impossible to count the number of standing stones. For example, of the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, legend says: The man will never live who shall count the stones three times and find the number the same each time.

I recently tried to find out just how many stone circles there are in Ireland and had the same trouble. The easy answer is that there are too many to count. According to the database at megalithic.co.uk, there are well over 100 stone rings in the Republic of Ireland alone, and that does not include many more in Northern Ireland.

One reason why there are so many megalithic sites remaining in Ireland may be the belief that it is unlucky to disturb them. Will Millar, one of the founding members of the Irish Rovers folk music group, once told me stories about the sacred places of his homeland. He said it used to be common knowledge that ancient sites in Ireland had power that protected them from damage. Will recalled that, when a modern roadway was being built through the area near the ‘fairy fort’ in Ballymena, the highway planners carefully went around, rather than cutting straight through the mound. “If anybody disturbed what we used to call ‘fairy places,’ great harm was likely to come to them,” he said.

Will went on to tell me at least one recorded instance of a man who didn’t believe in the power of sacred places and died as a result. Mr. James McInerney, who owned land near Ballycastle, wanted to plow one of his fields on which a dolmen was standing. When he ordered his farmhands to tear down the ancient stone arrangement, they refused, so McInerney decided to do the deed himself. A few days later, when he was driving his cart on a cliff near to where the dolmen had been, his horses spooked. The cart tipped over the cliff and McInerney was killed on the rocks below.

When I asked him about the sacred places in Ireland he liked best, Will Millar confessed that he felt more connected to the lesser-known sites rather than those that have become popular stops for tourist buses.

The same idea was echoed by Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of Crossing to Avalon and Goddesses in Everywoman. She told me “When there is a lot of commercial stuff in the way, and crowds of people, it prevents you from being still in yourself and having an experience within yourself.” Perhaps that is why one of Dr. Bolen’s favorite sites is the Grange Stone Circle at Lough Gur in Ireland’s County Limerick.

“It has drawn me back to Ireland five or six times,” she said of the huge site. “You walk into the circle through the pillar stones, and you are in this timeless, beautiful place, aligned to the summer solstice.” Dr. Bolen said that she was taken by both its natural beauty and its energy. “It has the kind of heart energy that invites intuitive imagery,” she said. “The place lends itself to a kind of mystical experience for me.”

Grange Stone Circle (Rannach Croim Duibh) is the largest ring of stones in Ireland. Archaeologists tell us it was built around 2100 BC. Amantha Murphy, a Celtic shaman who often begins her Irish group tours with an opening ceremony at Grange Stone Circle, says it is dedicated to Ainé, the Sun Goddess and Fairy Queen. Ainé, according to legend, created the lake, Lough Gur, which is behind the circle. Amantha enjoys telling stories about a sacred tree that magically arises out of the lake every seven years. “It holds the fabric of Ireland together upon her branches,” she said.

Another local legend says there is a cave near Lough Gur that contains the secret entrance to Tir Na Nog, the land of eternal youth, where leaves never fall from trees and flowers bloom all year long.

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Photo Credit:
Kilclooney dolmen by RX-Guru licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Rediscover the Goddess in Brittany

Stone Circle Magic in Ireland