Jock Brocas is a spiritual author and teacher with books published internationally. Jock is also the president of the charity organization assmpi and works tirelessly to he others develop spiritually and live a more rewarding life. Join Jock Brocas on a spiritual journey.
http://jockbrocas.us
John Speed - Map of the Isle of Wight (1610) Wikimedia Commons
Isle of Wight continues to intrigue and bewitch visitors
The Isle of Wight is the largest (119 sq m) and second-most populous island (approximately 141,538 residents) in England, after Hampshire’s nearby Portsea Island (207,000 inhabitants), home to the maritime city of Portsmouth.
The island is an odd place in many ways, with the small towns invoking a slightly shabby, neglected England of the 1950s. People are generally insular in their habits and manners, as well as poorer, many being undernourished and consequently noticeably shorter in stature than those on the mainland.
H.P Lovecraft’s ‘The Innsmouth Look’, cruelly suggested by some as similar to IoW ‘Caulkheads’
A fair proportion of Isle of Wight inhabitants are pensioners, hoping to stretch their meagre incomes further in a slightly sunnier clime, where also house prices are generally lower.
High Street, Newport, Isle of Wight (Wikimedia Commons Ryde, Isle of Wight (Wikimedia Commons)
That being said, there are some nice stretches of rolling chalk hills, sandy beaches and places of interest to visit.
Godshill, Isle of Wight and surrounding countryside (Wikimedia Commons)
Such as picturesque Carisbrooke Castle, where Charles I was imprisoned for fourteen months before his execution in 1649. Evidence suggests Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon occupation as a fortified stronghold (with graves) before the Norman Conquest.
Carisbrooke Castle, 2011 (Wikimedia Commons)
But not so much Queen Victoria’s fussy Italianate Osborne House (designed in part by her husband Prince Albert), which her son Edward VII disliked so much (memories of being bossed around by his parents there perhaps) he gave it to the Nation.
Wight has a fascinating history, being settled in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages and conquered by Vespasian when the island was known as Vectis and became a popular spot to build villas.
A rather crude mosaic in Brading Roman Villa (Wikimedia Commons)
Isle of Wight Dark Ages
But our main interest is in the Isle of Wight during the Dark Ages, after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 410 AD.
From around AD 449, the next two centuries saw bands of Germanic-speaking peoples from Northern Europe (primarily Frisia, North-East Germany and Jutland) crossing into the English Channel and conquering/settling the region.
The island was colonised by Jutes from Denmark in 512 AD as the pagan kingdom of the ‘Wihtwara’ under joint kings Wihtgar and Stuf . In 685, it was invaded by King Cædwalla of Wessex, attempting with some success to replace the Jutes with his fellow West Saxons/Saxonised Britons. But the following year Arwald was defeated and killed, the island becoming the last part of English lands to be converted to Christianity, included in Wessex and became part of England under King Alfred the Great.
Note: Æthelberht of Kent was the first Anglo-Saxon king to accept baptism, circa 601.
King Arwald's unnamed brothers (or sons) fled to the mainland but were soon captured and forced under torture to become Christians, then swiftly executed by Cædwalla, the pair later being collectively canonised as saints and celebrated bizarrely on St Arwald's Day every 22nd April. Go figure, as they say.
Arwald's sister (also unnamed) apparently survived though became the wife of King Egbert Kent, mother of King Wihtred of Kent and grandmother of Æthelbert II of Kent. Æthelbert was the grandfather of Egbert of Wessex, who was, in turn, the paternal grandfather of King Alfred the Great.
But Arwald and the Last Pagan Kingdom of England have not been forgotten
Indeed 24 years before Cædwalla, the powerful Wulfhere of Mercia and his subservient godson, King Aethelwalh of Sussex and coerced the Islanders to convert to Christianity. But Wulfhere's departure the island returned to paganism, demonstrating their comitment to ‘The Old Gods’.
Each year a gathering happens on the evening of the first Monday after the 22nd of April at Sandown Library to commemorate the anniversary of Arwald’s death. Poetry, mime, dramatic readings and music and is often streamed live to people all around the world.
And in 2020, local Isle of Wight ‘druids’ held a ceremony at the Longstone near Brighstone on the island and transmitted as a podcast.
A speculative drawing of King Arwald (The last king of the Isle of Wight) inspired by the Early Medieval Anglo-Saxon art style (Wikimedia Commons)
But has King Arwald had the last laugh?
The 2021 UK government census revealed that the Isle of Wight is no longer ‘Christian’. 47.7% of Islanders defined themselves as Christian, down from 59.3% in 2011.
61,572 said they had no religion in 2021, up from 39,960 in 2011. The number of Satanists living on the island has however more than trebled, from 5 to 18. Hardly an avalanche then. The Isle of Wight’s Jedi Knights have disappeared though, their numbers decreasing from 766 in 2011 to 0 today.
In 2018, Arwald was part of a major exhibition at Quay Arts in Newport for IW Hidden Heroes. Nigel George from public artists, Ecclestone George, was commissioned to create a piece to celebrate the Last Pagan King of England.
Bearing (to my mind at least), a distinct resemblance to the later nasty God ‘Rapu’ in Taika Waititi’s 2022 motion picture Thor: Love & Thunder:
Grotesquely medieval ‘Sheela na Gig’
Appropriately enough, the Isle of Wight is also home to a rare-ish pagan symbol, the definitely in-your-face ‘Sheela na Gig’, agrotesque medieval carving of a nude crone clutching open her outsized labia/vulva. Similar figures are found throughout most of Europe on cathedrals, churches, castles, and other buildings; Ireland has the greatest number of surviving Sheela na Gig carvings; 124 in Ireland, followed by 60-odd in the UK.
‘They are generally referred to as protective talismans or good luck symbols, and more recently the suggestion that they were put on the churches as 'warnings against sin and lust' has found favour. But tradition does not support this view and all references to them indicate that they were highly regarded, revered images that evidently held an exalted position within the religious iconography of the earlier church.’ From Joanne McMahon & Jack Roberts, The Sheela-na-Gigs of Ireland and Britain: The Divine Hag of the Christian Celts – An Illustrated Guide (2000).
Georgia Rhoades, author of Decoding the Sheela-na-gig, the "nude and bald" women represent “pagan goddess figures, emblematic of the Earth Goddess who births us and takes us back into her at death."
Project Sheela is a street art project founded by two Irish artists to celebrate, commemorate and commiserate with the history of women's rights in Ireland. Project Sheela places handmade ceramic sheela na gigs at new locations each year for International Women’s Day in Ireland and a limited number of special international locations.
But where does the name ‘Sheela na Gig’ come from? there is no evidence that the term was ever a popular name for the figures when they were carved It began during the mid-19th century "where understanding of the characteristics of a ‘sheela’ were vague and people were wary of its apparent rudeness." (Jorgen Andersen, The Witch on the Wall, 1977)
Theories include:
1. An Irish term for a hag or old woman
2. Another Irish phrase, originally either Sighle na gCíoch, meaning "the old hag of the breasts", or alternatively Síle ina Giob, meaning "Sheila on her hunkers".
3. An 18th-century dance called the ‘Sheela na gig’
4. The Royal Navy ship HMS Shelanagig (1780), apparently referring to an "Irish female sprite"
5. Northern English slang word for a woman's genitals.
The oldest recorded name for one of the figures is "The Idol* or locally “The Saxon Idol”, which relates to the aforementioned figure at Holy Cross Church in Binstead on the Isle of Wight.
* R. Worsley in his The History of the Isle of Wight (1781) and noted also by J. Albin in A New, Correct, and Much-improved History of the Isle of Wight (1795)
Sheela na gig on the churchyard wall of Holy Cross Church, Binstead, Ryde, Isle of Wight (Wikimedia Commons)
Nicholas Dingley, known as Razzle, the drummer of Hanoi Rocks is buried in churchyard at Binstead.
Sheela Na Gig at Kilpeck church, Herefordshire (Wikimedia Commons)
And this in the Isle of Wight’s Sandown - surely no relation to ‘Dagon’ of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos?
Diagon Alley, Sandown (Wikimedia Commons)
Stuart Gordon’s Dagon (2001) - full movie
Sheela na Gig by PJ Harvey
East Cowes at night? no, The Shadow over Innsmouth (Wikimedia Commons)
More enlightening moments from a riveting Deadly Departed interview with host Jock Brocas and trailblazing psychologist Dr Lisa Miller. Bringing spirituality to the forefront of scientific inquiry with powerful evidence that validates how normal the paranormal really is and why humans are innately spiritual.
A bold new paradigm for health, healing and resilience
Dr Lisa Miller, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Columbia University Teachers College and the founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program in spiritual psychology. Her groundbreaking book The Awakened Brain gifts us with a comprehensive unveiling of spiritual neuroscience, the mysteries of consciousness and her illuminating personal story of awakening.
Aptly described as a bold new paradigm for health, healing and resilience, Dr Lisa Miller’s ‘hands-on’ book also shows us why the awakened decision is the better decision, the awakened brain is the healthier brain and the awakened life is the inspired life.
Spiritual Path Talking Points
How painful experiences serve as gateways to spiritual growth and awakening
Longing for a child and coming to terms with the haunting possibility of infertility
Deep despair leads to paying attention to the loving and guiding universe
Encountering an ultimate, sacred presence
Belief in the existence of spiritual beings called ‘trail angels’ sent by God
How significant challenges and moments of uncertainty shaped their understanding of parenthood and unconditional love
Recognition of synchronicities, guidance and love received from a divine force
How a Lakota healing ceremony marked a major turning point
An extraordinary blessing
Painful experiences are gateways to spiritual growth
Dr Lisa Miller: As a scientist… it was important to me that The Awakened Brain be about a personal journey, about the deep hard data of our lived inner experience, every bit as much as the outward science. And so, The Awakened Brain is really about my journey on a spiritual path, as we all have a spiritual path, and how some of the most painful times in our lives… are actually the gateway to a spiritual awakening.
Dr Lisa Miller: I, like many people in my thirties, wanted to start a family. And my husband and I, at that point, had done everything by the book that we had wanted, to set up our lives in a sort of outward way... He was working as a lawyer in New York. We had an apartment, and we had friends. And I had made my way through a PhD program and was now clinical psychologist…
I sort of pulled the cord…Now. Now is time. We will start our family. As if humans made life. Right? So, there we were, and we started to, so called try, as we understood it at that time. And after this went on for about 6, 8, 10 months, I started to get this haunting feeling, like, wait a minute, what if we can't conceive? You know? And it was so horrifying to me that I pushed it out of my mind…
I wondered in my heart if we were in the wrong place
Dr Lisa Miller: I went further down this path and further down this path, and we started to feel… not just disappointed, but after a while, a longing, depression…You just hit rock bottom. We said, okay, let's get help. So, we went to an excellent fertility doctor on the upper west side where we were living. No baby. We thought, let's search the northeast. I'm a clinical scientist. Let's find the highest rates of conception. We went to that office. No baby.
And as we went further down this path, IUI, IVF, second IVF, I started to get this haunting feeling that, you know, the message from doctors was, you're healthy you're healthy. We can get you pregnant. Again, the human control, implicit in all this. But I shared and wondered in my heart if we were in the wrong place. It just didn't feel that it was our path, if this is where we were being called.
But this hunger to have a child was so great that I kept going. And I said, let's go to the people who invented IVF... And there we were, pretty despairing, pretty depleted, but hopeful. My heart still knew it was inauthentic. Our path was inauthentic for us.
Recognizing spiritual interventions
So, sitting there post IVF…they put the fertilized eggs back in…My husband being very sweet, he sat beside me in solidarity on bed rest… We splurged for a very nice hotel in Rittenhouse Square. We click the remote…and on the TV there's only one channel…so we're clicking, clicking one channel… the only choice we might watch was an excruciating, 4 hour documentary on an orphan…
We're on our 7th in vitro, third team, trying to get pregnant. Human control. Pulling out the stops. And what comes back to us from the universe is the voice of a little orphan, through a translator, standing in a garbage dump. And he says, I don't care that I live in the trash. He's literally living in trash. I don't care that I can't go to school but it hurts so much to not be loved. I sniff glue to make the pain go away of not being loved. The orphan said all I want is love.
So, here we are on this really kind of, you know, solipsistic. Let's get that baby that has, you know, your looks and your humor and… my resilience and… let's get that baby that's us in a very material sense and a very human control sense, like air traffic control to control the variables.
And the universe says… This boy could have been your child. All he needed was love, and all you needed was a child. He could have not been living in a garbage jump in pain, and you could have not been on this, now, 3 and a half, 4 year journey. So, the message is pretty clear. And my husband, who is really the sort of gracious civilian in this journey, looks over at me and says, you know, there's a child out there for us. Wow... We knew. And once we got that picture, we started to see more and more helpers and healers showing up on our road of life.
Surrendering to the divine
Jock Brocas: More and more…. synchronicity started coming in tenfold from the other side.
Dr Lisa Miller: Absolutely. The most glorious, of course, is…my mother…she may not even know it. A plain clothes shaman… And she's the first to call. And she said… I just wanted you to know, our neighbor…has just adopted the most beautiful little boy. His name is Robert Paul, and he's so wonderful. And he's from Russia. And just so you know, here's the information. Wow. Love you. Bye.
Jock Brocas: You know what? It's crazy because…that in itself is a spiritual intervention…reading that in the book as well, I was like, you know what? They're meant to have it, but it's not meant to be in the material world. It's got to be surrendered to the divine.
Dr Lisa Miller: This gracious loving guidance, this sacred divine… held, guided, loved…at all times. And what were we doing? We were fighting. We were swimming upstream… One more in vitro. One more in vitro human control. Put the pieces together mechanistically. And who I call God…divine spirit or sacred force of life, was really ushering us down the road.
Listen carefully and pay deeper observance to synchronicities
Dr Lisa Miller: We were at a fork in the road. And I quiver to think if I hadn't listened, right? Although, we know if we don't, we do get another chance but the volume's turned up. We're in such a loving guiding universe. We do gather multiple chances. But that that was a major fork in the road, and we started listening more carefully and paying more deep observance to the synchronicities that really usher us along our path.
So, this continues. One night… I'm in bed, sleeping next to my husband, and I feel a presence coming. I can feel the presence coming closer and closer. And I sit up set up. And time and space opened up. This is at about… 3AM... time and space open up, and it's numinous... and a very sacred presence comes. And the message is, if you are pregnant, will you adopt?
It's …very sacred, very sacred. Very regal is not quite the word... It’s an ultimate presence… a profound presence... an ultimate sacred presence. And the message was clear, and the voice was deep and resonant…like an ohm…And I, in... the ultimate sacred presence, of course, was very honest. And I said, honestly, no, no… If we got pregnant at one of these IVFs, I'd go with that baby. And so, we continue further down the path…and I have more in vitro, more in vitro. And can you imagine what this does to the body? You know?
Jock Brocas: I know you mentioned that you were you were suffering physically from all of the injections and the holes in your system.
Dr Lisa Miller: They take out maybe 20 eggs at a time. I seem to respond quite prolifically to this medication. I thought, well, you know, for me and our path, this didn't seem fluid…after about our 9th in vitro, I just have this sinking feeling in my heart that we're still in the wrong place and that we've sort of strayed now. We're not sticking to our path.
And as I step up to our front door of our home in the country, a peaceful, quiet place that used to be a fishing cabin, a tiny…lovely place, on the front door there's something moist and wet, and I can't tell what it is. I haven't seen this before. I lean forward and it's a dead embryo. I'm walking back from an invitro, and there's a dead embryo on my doorstep. It’s irrefutable what this means, right? … It's clearly far too un-probabilistic to have happened by chance. In the years before and in the 20 years since, there's never been the dead embryo on my front step.
Jock Brocas: That's a sign. That's a sign and a half.
Dr Lisa Miller: And it's of guidance, right? And as excruciating as it is…completely depressing…I look closely, and it's a dead duck. A beautiful dead duck embryo. And I just, you know, it's too depressing. It’s the middle of the day, I go in... I lie down on the couch in my study and I go to sleep.
And then I hear… I'm woken by this tapping on… my sliding glass door looking out to the river. And I get up, and I'm like, who could that be. And it's a mama duck. And she's brought me something of great comfort, of great value to her. She's brought me a plump juicy worm... Never has a duck before, never has a duck since, come right out of the river up the stairs to the porch to my study to bring me a plump juicy worm. She lost her baby. Yeah. And she was comforting me for losing mine.
We are loved and held and guided by spirit who I call God, the great force of life, and we show up for one another. Whether it is my mother, the shaman…or a fellow living being – mother duck… And as painful as that was, I felt such love and I felt that… this is a buoyant path. We are not alone here. We are never alone.
Trail angels help us meet synchronicities
Jock Brocas: I know that you had a spiritual outlook before, but this seemed to be the moment.
Dr Lisa Miller: You know, Jock, in my path, it's almost like there's rounds, like there’s an upward helix... more and more, coming ever closer. And, so the presence came back. Again, in the night, I sat up. It was about 3 AM. Just woke up suddenly. There's almost a rhythm as the presence comes and asks, if you were pregnant, would you adopt? And I said, I am so much closer... But truthfully, if this instant I got pregnant, no.
But I could feel I was... getting what parenthood was. It's like not my schnoz and my husband's sense of humor… So this goes further and I get a call from another trail angel, as I call them, those who help as we meet synchronicities... emanations of of spirit. And this is my older cousin. My name is Lisa Jane. My big cousin is Jane. I'm little Jane. She's big Jane. It's always been that way, and she's sort of a guide who's extremely frank with me. You know? Told me unwanted things.
And she calls, and she says, hey, little cuz. I know you're having a struggle and you're having a hard time. And I'm wondering if you might come out here to a healing ceremony of the Lakota. And I said, well, I'd love to come, but I, you know, I have this appointment in Pittsburgh. She's like, well, the healing ceremony is in 3 days. And it worked out, Jock, that I went first to our appointment in Pittsburgh... and then to big Jane’s.
Jock Brocas: You were at the wrong place at one point, weren’t you. You had to actually redirect.
Dr Lisa Miller: Oh, oh, yes. You're good. So we're in Pittsburgh, and we're with a clergyman's daughter... who was recommended by my mother... And this beautiful woman has helped bring together... probably... 800 families. And her walls are lined with photos of beautiful radiant families, you know, a little baby and parents or children who are adopted.
I was feeling like I was starting to be in the right place. There was so much unconditional love. I was feeling like this feels right. She leans forward and she says, you've gotta be very honest with me. I've made hundreds of families, brought them together. You've gotta be honest. What do you want in a child?
And the nuance of what do you want can play either way... It can sound a little bit like trying to get pregnant... And I said, you know, I don't care if this child is a boy or a girl. I don't care what race this child is, but please, a child who can love. And my husband leans forward and kind of puts his shoulder in my space and says, yes, all that, but kind of a girl. And I say, but foremost, a child who can love.
And with that, I went from there to South Dakota to the call answer the call of Big Jane. And she said, I want you to know that I've gotten permission from the head of the Lakota community here in South Dakota that you might join us in a healing ceremony. I've done a lot of work with this tribe, and they have as a favor to me, have welcomed you. Wow. So I go to the healing ceremony...Each person in the Lakota community stood up in front of the entire community and spoke of why he or she had come.
We go around the circle, and it comes to big Jane... It felt so good to have Big Jane speak for me in this moment. She's come looking for her child... And they all look, and they get it... And big Jane says, I wonder if we can help her find her child sitting here in the sweat lodge. And and we go around, complete the circle...and we pray. And at the end, the fire’s put out and we send up the prayers... And in my mind, I could see the same numinousness.
An extraordinary blessing
So that night, that very night, a call came into my machine in New York. I picked it up early the next morning. But to this day, I feel so grateful to God, so grateful for the loving infinite guidance of God. The call comes in from Russia. We have found the Miller's child. We have wonderful girls. Mr Miller had asked for a girl, and we can give you a girl. But this is the Miller's child, and this is a son.
Wow. We had been praying for sons. And my son now, of course, is called Isaiah for one world... Lakota for the people who helped us find our child. It was an extraordinary blessing... And soon the video comes, and he's radiant. It's an angel come to earth.
And that night, after I've seen Isaiah, I've seen our boy, I feel the presence coming the third time. And I know now, of course, and it's coming closer, in the sacred rhythm of approach and the numinous opening in the night. And the presence says, and I feel I may know what they're going to ask, if you were pregnant now, would you adopt? Absolutely. This is my spiritual son.
And that night, we conceived naturally his sister, kind of a girl, his spiritual twin. That night, after 5 years of all the best infertility doctors, this was not a mechanistic control problem. This did not live in the province of human control. This was about a sacred path. This was a divine intervention.
Jock Brocas: Yes. And it exemplifies not a human condition, a spiritual condition. It exemplifies who we are as spirits having a human experience and not the other way around.
Believers, Skeptics, Inquisitive Fans, and Researchers descend upon the small town of Marion, North Carolina every year to celebrate Bigfoot. A small idea to bring Bigfoot enthusiasts together in Western North Carolina became the largest Bigfoot/Cryptid festival in North Carolina and one of the biggest Paranormal-themed festivals on the East Coast in 2018.
WNC Bigfoot Festival hits the streets of Marion on May 18th, 2024.
Bigfoot 911, a research group, has been searching for Bigfoot in the Mountains of Western North Carolina and beyond for many years. After several close encounters with Sasquatch, the non-profit team was inspired to host the first WNC Bigfoot Festival for believers, non-believers, skeptics, and everyone in-between. Taking place in the group’s hometown of Marion, North Carolina, the festival continues to draw an increasing number of attendees lured by all things squatchy and unusual in this Blue Ridge Mountain community.
With a growing resurgence of individuals celebrating Appalachian culture and folklore, it’s no wonder this festival exploded onto the scene with unprecedented response. Rural, mountainous regions like McDowell County, NC are steeped in a rich history of strange folklore and stories. Many of those stories speak of Bigfoot-like creatures interacting with indigenous tribes and early settlers. Stories and experiences that draw the listener in and spark the imagination of what lurks in the Blue Ridge Mountains. These traditional storytelling accounts, combined with new and recent experiences, created an intriguing environment for a Bigfoot Festival to take place.
2024’s WNC Bigfoot Festival will kick off in Downtown Marion, along the Main street thoroughfare. From 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. visitors can hear from a variety of Bigfoot researchers, take part in a Bigfoot-themed contest and enjoy live music from the event’s Main Stage, located in front of the McDowell County Courthouse.
Bigfoot - A Local Hero
The response to the Bigfoot Festival throughout the community has been overwhelming, with the Mayor of Marion, NC declaring Bigfoot the official City Mascot. Countless businesses and organizations decorate their street-facing windows and doors with depictions of Sasquatch, and the local educators created a fun-run focused on the furry, bipedal mystery.
New to the WNC Bigfoot Festival is the 1st Annual Bigfoot Jam at The Box Factory, NC (29 Logan Street), featuring live, local music kicking off the weekend celebration of all things Bigfoot. The 1st Annual Bigfoot Jam takes place the night before, on May 17th, with doors open at 4:30pm.
On the day of the WNC Bigfoot Festival, opening ceremonies will start at 10:15 a.m. on May 18th, 2024. During this portion of the event, Marion Mayor Steve Little will present event organizers, Bigfoot 911, with a proclamation naming Bigfoot the official animal of Marion, N.C.
Photographer John Sacco
Along with notable Bigfoot and Cryptid Researchers speaking throughout the day, new additions to the WNC Bigfoot Speaker roster include paranormal researchers and personalities, including Author
Margaret Langley (Haunted Broughton), and Paranormal Roadtripper Zach Bales. Regional Bigfoot and Sasquatch Researchers (NC Squatch Watchers) and B.F.R.O. (Bigfoot Field Research Organization) will also present at the festival.
The infamous Flavors on Main Bigfoot Calling Contest starts around 12 p.m., with randomly selected individuals competing for a chance to win. Names will be drawn prior to the calling contest to determine the competitors. Those wanting to be in the calling contest can enter the drawing at the Bigfoot 911 booth across from the stage on the courthouse lawn. You must get a ticket to be drawn up to call.
Marion’s nonprofit organizations, restaurants and businesses have created a variety of Sasquatch-themed activities, dishes, drinks and memorabilia that visitors can indulge in before, during and after the festival. McDowell Arts Council Association (MACA) will be hosting a local artist “Bigfoot Pop-Up” Market, along with limited edition WNC Bigfoot Festival glasses and swag available for purchase from select establishments (Refinery13, Flavors on Main).
Attendees can also explore more than 165 vendor booths featuring a variety of Bigfoot-themed products. To ensure a more comfortable festival experience, the city of Marion will now have two food vendor courts for festival goers to explore when appetites hit “squatchy” levels.
Visitors at Saturday’s portion of the event are encouraged to take advantage of satellite parking areas located at McDowell Technical Community College, Corpening Memorial YMCA, and McDowell High School. Parking shuttles will operate from 10 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 20. or a map of satellite parking areas and up-to-date information about the WNC Bigfoot Festival, visit MarionBigfootFestival.com.
Friday, May 17 - The Box Factory, NC Municipal Event Center (29 Logan Street)
6:00pm (doors open at 4:30pm) -1st Annual Bigfoot Jam
Saturday, May 18 – Downtown Marion
10:00am Festival Begins
10:15am Opening Ceremony – Mayor Steve Little
10:30am Blue Shades Band
11:00am Christian Macloud American Cryptid & Paranormal
11:30am Zach Bales Paranormal Roadtripper
12:00pm BIGFOOT CALLING CONTEST
12:30pm Blue Shades Band
1:00pm Margaret Langley - Haunted Broughton
1:30pm Terry Wendill Rock Hill Bigfoot
2:00pm Blue Shades Band
2:30pm Rick Reles & Lori Wade of BFRO
3:00pm NC Squatch Watchers
3:30pm Blue Shades Band
4:00pm Tim Dills
4:30pm Blue Shades Band
5:00 p.m. - Closing ceremony
Special Notes: Plan ahead for parking
These are the sites where satellite parking and shuttle services to and from the event will be offered on Saturday, May 18. Shuttle services run 10 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Once called ‘The Fairy Hills’, the ‘Pyramids’ of the Essex/Cambridge borders (in the East of England) are in fact Roman burial mounds of the second century AD, presumably of local British aristocrats, buried in what appears to be a syncretic combination of Celtic and Roman-Etruscan funeral monuments. The grave goods (apparently since lost) included expensive glass, decorated bronze, and enamel.
The mounds are striking, and after dark, very eerie, the silence broken only by the occasional hooting of an owl and rustling of foxes and badgers in the undergrowth. Folklore pertaining to the area includesthis recollection:
“An eighty year old woman of Linton in the 1930s said that in her youth the villagers of Linton and Hadstock used to skip on Good Friday to Bartlow Hills to join in the fun of the fairs held there.”
The Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was said by local legend to have buried treasure “in the barrows known as the Three Hills, or in pits near them.” For what earthly reason?
'The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive'by John Britton and others (1801) declares, ‘In the parish of ASHDON, separated from Bartlow, in Cambridgeshire, only by a small rivulet, are four large contiguous Barrows, called the BARTLOW HILLS, from their situation being not very distant from Bartlow Chuch. These are vulgarly regarded as the tumuli raised over the slain in the battle fought between Edmund Ironside, and the Danish King, Canute, in the year 1016; but as this tradition is not supported by any historical authority, it cannot be considered as deserving of credit.’
Earlier, Camden reports in his 'Britannia' of 1610 that:
"Dane-wort which with bloud-red berries, commeth up heere plenteously, they still call by no other name than Danes-bloud, of the number of Danes that there were slaine, verily beleeving that it blometh from their bloud."
Similar to to poppies growing on the WW1 battlefields. Danewort is believed to be dwarf elder (Sambucus ebulus).
Witchy England - Bartlow village
There is also the rather prosaic tale of a local crone in nearby Bartlow village:
‘There was always a 'village witch' in Bartlow, with each one passing on her magical paraphernalia (broomstick, black pussycat, cauldron?) to the next. Before the First World War, the incumbent witch was buried at the crossroads, with the 'bump' of her grave still being visible in grass years later. This would probably be at the junction of Dean Road and Camps Road, where the village sign now stands.
The tale is told of a farmer who wanted to move house, possibly because the then-current witch had put a hex on him, and he needed to get away - but when the moving van carrying his furniture reached the grave at the crossroads, the vehicle broke down.’
My favourite supernatural story associated with the Bartlow Hills in England is that, like Silbury, ‘Fairies, Elementals and Nature Spirits’ were believed to inhabit these ancient manmade mounds. In the dead of night, sounds of revels can be heard coming from within them. Twinkling, sparkling, lights have seen on the summits of the three hills. But unlike Old Rip Van Winkle, you must resist being drawn into a fairy mound. Although you will be warmly welcomed and invited to eat, drink and be merry by these seemingly friendly beings, as you party, their wicked enchantment will have dealt you a nasty blow, one hundred years will have elapsed and all those you loved will be long dead.
Rip Van Winkle - tricked by Dutch sprites
A supposedly paranormal exploration of the site:
Silbury Hill in Winter (Wikimedia Commons)
Silbury Hill legends and supernatural stories
Silbury Hill, England is the largest prehistoric man made mound in Europe and, as one would expect, has many legends and supernatural stories associated with it.
1. The burial site for King 'Sil'. A solid gold statue of the dead king sat astride a golden horse was thought to be buried with him. His ghost is said to ride around the foot of Silbury when there is a full moon.
2. An ancient fertility symbol (of a pregnant tummy?) dedicated to the earth goddess. Swallowhead Spring, which rises 450m (492yrds) south of the hill and source of the River Kennet, is still thought to have health and fertility properties, yay, even unto 2024.
4. The Devil, who, on his way (for some reason best known to His Excellency) to bury the town of Marlborough under a huge sack of earth, encountered the priests of Avebury. After a heated debate, in a fit of pique, The Horned One dumped his sack on the spot, thereby creating Silbury Hill.
4. A massive solar observatory or giant sun dial used to measure the seasons of the year. Silbury casts a shadow across the level plain north to Avebury.
Plate in Itinerarium Curiosum written by William Stukeley illustrating Marlborough Mound as part of the garden of the Seymour family's country estate (Wikimedia Commons)
Marlborough Mound - the burial place of the wizard Merlin?
Dating from around 2400 BC, the Marlborough Mound at Marlborough College in England is the second tallest prehistoric monument in Europe after Silbury Hill. Long thought to be the remains of a Norman motte, it was only in 2011 that scientists discovered the hillock was 4,400 years old. The Mound is said to be the burial place of the wizard Merlin, and the town of Marlborough's motto is 'Ubi nunc sapientis ossa Merlini' ('Where now lie the bones of wise Merlin'). No evidence of the wizard’s mortal remains and effects (pointy hat, wand, starry cape, crystal ball, etc) have yet been discovered.
The name Marlborough itself is supposed to be a corruption of 'Maerle beorg' - ‘Maerla's barrow’ - ‘Merleberge' - then Marlborough.
On a more prosaic note, in John Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica there’s a passage concerning the ‘marl’ element in the place-name that was told to him by a local man called Edward Leigh, which said, “Marga, marle, we use instead of dung to manure our ground. It (Marlborough) lieth near a chalky hill, which our ancestors knew. They borrowed this name ‘chaulk’ of the Latin, calx, named marle.”
Another Roman mound, but with a very different purpose from Bartlow, Mount Testaccio (‘Broken Pot Mountain’) in Rome:
During my recent trip to Rome I also saw the restoration work on the Etruscan Tumuli-inspired Mausoleum of Augustus:
1851 reconstruction of the original architecture of the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome (Wikimedia Commons)
Video courtesy of my friends at the American Institute for Roman Culture
And what the present-day Castel Sant’Angelo (also in Rome) may have looked like when originally built as the Mausoleum of the emperor Hadrian:
The former Mausoleum of Hadrian (Wikimedia Commons)
Video courtesy of my friends at the American Institute for Roman Culture
Back to England, with the dread Haunted Manton Barrow near Marlborough:
Manton Long Barrow (Wilts)
Haunted Wiltshire - many believed that barrows were the threshold to the underworld
Altogether more scary than the Marlborough Mound in England, is Manton Long Barrow, which has a tale that rivals the ghost stories of M.R. James; this from HAUNTED WILTSHIRE:
It was during the 1906 excavation that several of the village folk warned of disturbing the grave and that no good would come of such a desecration by so-called 'hill-diggers'. Folklore was prevalent about these parts and many believed that barrows were the threshold to the underworld, a mythical realm where the living could walk with the dead. To open and pillage such places would surely release the wrath of whoever lies within.
A friend of a Mr Bucknell (who had lent a hand with the excavation and stored some skeletal remains in his shed at Barrow Cottage) arrived from America and was keen to view the relic before he returned. As a macabre souvenir, Bucknell decided to give his friend a rather grisly going away present. He had removed one of the skeleton's fingers and pressed the digit into his friend’s hand, who happily accepted it. It was some weeks later that Bucknell noticed that one of his hands had become rather painful and his fingers tips were tingling. The pain grew in its intensity, especially his little finger, which to his horror started to turn an angry black. He finally went to see his doctor in Marlborough, who on seeing the finger immediately packed him off to hospital where he was given the news that the offending digit was badly infected and would have to be amputated. He agreed but with the proviso that he should be allowed to keep the digit. It was agreed and Bucknell underwent the operation eventually returning to Manton with his finger.
Shortly after arriving home, he received instructions from the Cunningtons’ to reinter the woman’s remains. Bucknell wasted no time and went to the barrow where he carefully placed her remains exactly as they had been found with one inclusion, he placed his amputated finger next to the one that was missing. He piled earth back over the body then made his way back to Barrow Cottage.
It would seem that Bucknell’s recompense was not sufficient to pacify the restless barrow spirit, for some days later a ghostly figure was seen peering in through a window at a cottage close by. Another doctor from Marlborough, a Mr J.B. Maurice was called by the distraught woman who‘s window it was. She told the doctor of the ‘old creature’ that had appeared nightly at her window scratching at the pane ever since ‘that woman from Devizes (Maud) had dug up the grave‘. She asked of the good doctor for ‘summat to make it be gone’. The doctor, well acquainted with this particular patients' eccentricities, smiled inwardly as he rummaged in his bag for a bottle. ‘Take this’ he said holding a bottle aloft, ‘with a tall glass of wine then off to bed with you and make sure all the lights are off, if she comes again, she will think you're out’.
After the doctor departed, the woman did as she had been told, drinking the contents of the bottle with a tall glass of wine. She made her way to her bed extinguishing the lights as she went. Climbing into bed she pulled the covers up to her chin and waited. Sure enough after a little while, there came the chilling sound of someone scratching at her window. The woman held her breath, her heart pounding in her chest, then, suddenly the scratching ceased just as the good doctor foretold. She never heard or saw the ’old creature’ again.
Was it spirit revenge that caused Bucknell to lose a finger, and was the barrow spirit scratching at that cottage window looking for its treasures,or was it just aggrieved for having been disturbed from its eternal slumber? Her remains still lay buried at Manton Barrow behind Manton Farm which is on private land. As for sightings of the ‘old creature’, there have been none since that I'm aware of. I can only surmise she now sleeps peacefully once more.
In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the Barrow-downs north of The Shire are haunted by evil spirits animated the bones of deceased Dúnedain and Edain, the Wights:
This time, a natural geographical feature in Glastonbury Tor, England, also associated with myths & legend; primarily Celtic/Christian/Arthurian - and a mash-up of all three.
Glastonbury Tor from Walton Hill, Somerset (Wikimedia Commons)
The Tor became associated with Gwyn ap Nudd, the "blackened face" Lord of the Otherworld (‘Annwn’) and later King of the Fairies. The Tor is supposedly a gateway into "The Land of the Dead (Avalon)". Or the Realm of Faerie.
In the modern-day Goddess movement, the flow from nearby Chalice Well (on Chalice Hill) seen as representing menstrual flow and the Tor being either a breast or the figure of the Goddess. This is celebrated with an annual procession up the Tor carrying an effigy of the Goddess.
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle
