Recent Comments
eternalidol on Original investigation into… Amanda on Original investigation into… michael richardson on “All Hail the Black Knig… newnanfrisbee on Stonehenge and Another Failing… Editor on Donald Trump, “Knight of…
Category Archives: Writing
Stonehenge and Another Failing of Science.
Back in 2004 or thereabouts, after I’d left Wessex Archaeology and before I started my Eternal Idol site, I wrote a book on Stonehenge provisionally entitled A Glimpse of the Great Beyond, a work based on my absolute conviction that one … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities, Dead Poets, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Stonehenge, Writing
Tagged Bluestones, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Stonehenge, The Magic of the Mind
3 Comments
Oliver Cromwell and September the Third
Of all the figures from previous ages that I admire, Oliver Cromwell must be the one that comes to my mind most regularly, almost certainly because of what is to me his unforgettable date of death. This man died on … Continue reading
Posted in Dead Poets, Magic & the Supernatural, Writing
Tagged Oliver Cromwell, September 3rd
Leave a comment
The Dark Magic of the Msoura Ring
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” Herman Melville, Moby-Dick In the north of Morocco, in the countryside south of Tangier, is an … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities, Magic & the Supernatural, Stonehenge, Writing
Tagged Andrew Gough, Antaeus, Garden of Hesperides, Giants, Morocco, Msoura Ring, Sertorius, Stonehenge, Tangier
2 Comments
The Choirboys
Last Sunday, my daughter Tanith presented me with a unique and unforgettable handmade card and a very welcome bottle of superior red wine for Father’s Day, while my son Jack bought me a book that had long been missing from … Continue reading
Scipio and Leonardo
Last Saturday, I was browsing through some books on sale at a stall at Exeter’s Respect Festival, when a historical novel dealing with Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus leapt out at me. I had previously read a trilogy of books dealing … Continue reading
The Stonehenge Tunnel – “This is the business we have chosen”.
Once this latest farce has run its full course, I would imagine that most observers would regard the saga of the Stonehenge Tunnel to be little more than another short-lived episode in the history of the ruins on the plain, … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities, Current Affairs, Stonehenge, Writing
Tagged ICOMOS, ICOMOS-UK, Omar Khayyam, Stonehenge, Stonehenge Landscape, Stonehenge tunnel, Tim Daw
Leave a comment
In Honour of William Peter Blatty
In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, I became fascinated by both the film and the novel of The Exorcist, while I remain so to this day. I could write at enormous length about why this should be, in … Continue reading
Real Books, Fake News
Yesterday, I picked up a second-hand copy of John Le Carre’s novel A Most Wanted Man, while I also received – as a belated birthday present – a pristine hardback copy of The Tarot, a non-fiction study of these mysterious, … Continue reading
A Tribute to Richard Cavendish, genius author of The Black Arts
I do not know of a single person who has not suffered in some way during 2016, not only on account of one or more of their cultural or childhood heroes dying, but also because of the way they perceive … Continue reading
Posted in Language, Magic & the Supernatural, Stonehenge, Writing
Tagged Alchemy, Astrology, English language, Eulogy, Magic, Richard Cavendish, Stonehenge, The Aeneid, The Black Arts, The Occult, The Odyssey, William Blake
4 Comments
Hazlitt on Coleridge; Lovecraft and Stonehenge
A few days ago, while I was attempting to get the piles of books here in my study into some kind of order, I was delighted to rediscover my aged, hardback copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. The … Continue reading
