Solstice at the Stones
Over the Summer Solstice 2003, i was in Orkney so on the longest night i hoofed it out to the Ring of Brodgar, which is a stone age circle of standing stones between the two lochs in Stenness, and while there i took a few photos. On the way i took a photo of the Standing Stones of Stenness too, which is another stone age circle of stones which is much smaller.
I have no idea, really, why it is that people go to these sorts of places at the summer solstice. If pressed i couldn't say why i went. Just after i took the photo at the Stones of Stenness, about half a dozen hippies arrived with carrier bags full of alcohol and sat down in the centre of the stone ring to drink it. To me this doesn't seem very spiritual but who knows, perhaps that's just their way of celebrating or whatever you might call it. There were quite a few people in the area of the Ring of Brodgar too, but most of them were cooped up inside their camper vans.
Since these pictures were taken I have heard that the Ring of Brodgar (which is in the first four photographs) was the temple of the sun (a masculine temple) and the Stones of Stenness (in the fifth picture) was the feminine temple of the moon. The distance between the two stone circles is over a very narrow stretch of land. On one side of the land is a freshwater loch, and on the other is a seawater loch. I am told that halfway between the two circles was an "Odin stone", a standing stone with a hole in it. Handfasting ceremonies were held there until the 1800s when the "owner" of the land on which it stood removed it. The couple would hold hands through the hole in the stone and water would be mixed from the freshwater and seawater lochs. The couple would be married until the waters could be separated from each other. This much is all from memory. Much more information about Orkney is being provided now by Orkney Images who provide visitors to Orkney with a genuine Orkney islands experience, including storytelling, countryside walking and traditional dancing. Also for more good photographs of the Orkney stone circles, try here and here. It goes without saying however that we cannot be certain if these traditional ceremonies date all the way back to the time that these stone circles were built in, which would have been several thousand years ago.
Anyway, here are the photos, click on each one if you want to see the full size pictures and right click on the picture if you want to save it to your hard drive. Also, if anybody has any thoughts on why people make their way to the stone circles at summer solstice, do feel free to discuss it on the discussion board or send me an email.
"Opened Can Of Words" by Chris Frofy
Christmas - Its Place in Modern Society