Moon and Broken Arrow
Jun. 21st, 2022 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootOur first stop was near Rosemarkie, near Chanonry Point. We visited here: http://groamhouse.org.uk/project/pictish-stone-collection
Now Groam House is not exactly a museum of surfeit, but the star of the show is the dramatic Rosemarkie Cross Slab. While it is Christian era, some of the symbolism that appears, the z-rods, double discs, crescent moon plus broken arrow are very common Pictish motifs and may well have earlier origins. Some consider the crescent moon/broken arrow combo a tribal identifier, which of course makes sense - and also doesn't. After all, who identifies their group power with a broken weapon? Not exactly likely to inspire fear in Romans or even rival tribes from Dál Riata come to that. R's theory is that this symbol is some kind of compass/sextant design, which makes more sense to me given that the Picts were sea-farers.
What I noticed was how teeny tiny they carved feet. Maybe they didn't like them. I found it all very dinky.
Then we walked to the local fairy glen. On the way we saw kids engaged in something I thought no-one had done since the 70s; they were swinging on a rope branch hung from an old tree over the burn; not a tyre, not a mobile phone, not a piece of plastic in sight. It was all a bit Stand By Me, and I loved it. We left them behind, and walked on into bird song and sweetness at the gates of Faerie, which any may dream better than I can describe. I just wonder what the Picts who walked these tracks would have made of us, such extraordinary troubled wonderworkers, miraculous and yet determinedly unmagical. I don't doubt for a minute that any of them would swap lives with me... at first. Who wouldn't give up mud, cold, incurable toothache and wolves out there for this Brave New World with its central heating and antibiotics? Positive, brilliant life saving magics! But, as any practitioner in fairy bargains would tell you, careful what you wish for. We are the enchanters they would have gawped at in utter astonishment. and yet disenchantment is our tribal identifier. After all our dreaming and doing, we're the real moon-and-broken-arrow people.
Now Groam House is not exactly a museum of surfeit, but the star of the show is the dramatic Rosemarkie Cross Slab. While it is Christian era, some of the symbolism that appears, the z-rods, double discs, crescent moon plus broken arrow are very common Pictish motifs and may well have earlier origins. Some consider the crescent moon/broken arrow combo a tribal identifier, which of course makes sense - and also doesn't. After all, who identifies their group power with a broken weapon? Not exactly likely to inspire fear in Romans or even rival tribes from Dál Riata come to that. R's theory is that this symbol is some kind of compass/sextant design, which makes more sense to me given that the Picts were sea-farers.
What I noticed was how teeny tiny they carved feet. Maybe they didn't like them. I found it all very dinky.
Then we walked to the local fairy glen. On the way we saw kids engaged in something I thought no-one had done since the 70s; they were swinging on a rope branch hung from an old tree over the burn; not a tyre, not a mobile phone, not a piece of plastic in sight. It was all a bit Stand By Me, and I loved it. We left them behind, and walked on into bird song and sweetness at the gates of Faerie, which any may dream better than I can describe. I just wonder what the Picts who walked these tracks would have made of us, such extraordinary troubled wonderworkers, miraculous and yet determinedly unmagical. I don't doubt for a minute that any of them would swap lives with me... at first. Who wouldn't give up mud, cold, incurable toothache and wolves out there for this Brave New World with its central heating and antibiotics? Positive, brilliant life saving magics! But, as any practitioner in fairy bargains would tell you, careful what you wish for. We are the enchanters they would have gawped at in utter astonishment. and yet disenchantment is our tribal identifier. After all our dreaming and doing, we're the real moon-and-broken-arrow people.
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Date: 2022-06-21 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-22 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-22 02:20 pm (UTC)Yes, I think you would enjoy it.
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Date: 2022-06-23 10:41 am (UTC)