Celtic Ways Tales

Our journey from Nairn to Aberdeen Airport allowed time for a stop at another carved Pict Stone. This was another sunny day and warmer, a pleasant 10C, 50F. Easy to find, this stone is the Picardy Stone, not far from Insch village, about 12 miles North of Inverurie and quite well signposted from Insch village. The Picts are a mystery and are mainly presented as a warrior race with painted faces and tattoos that lived in the forests and may have been hunter gatherers. The found items of their times seem to tell a different story. They tell of people of quite a sophisticated order who lived community lifestyles very similar to the monastic communities that thrived from the time of Columcille. It does seem that the Columcille template for monastic living, community farming, the monastic schools, and scribing industries was learned from the Picts It does seem that the Picts had two language forms that also appeared on papyrus and parchment as well as stone long before the Gaels applied the...

Vernal Equinox 2014 was on 20th March, at just before 5 pm, our GMT time. We were travelling between Aberdeen Airport and Nairn, and being a delightful sunny afternoon decided to visit some ancient stones on the way. First stop, the Brandbutt Stone at Inverurie a few miles from Aberdeen. I took a few pics to perhaps add to those I am using in Ogma's Tale Of The Trees art. From here along a country road to the vilage of Daviot and north of there are the Loanhead stone circles, and we got to those at the point of Vernal Equinox at 4:57 pm, GMT, so here's a few pics from there ... After pondering awhile here we left to see if we could get to one or two more nearby sites before it was dark .... Alas, Claire pointed out that the rear of the rented car was melting ... and it took a few hours to communicate this and sort out with the car rental company. Eventually, we did get on the road to Nairn to get to the hotel and prepare for upcoming adventures :-)    

Travelling back from Mayo for a brief bit of Carrowcrory time I thought I would check out How the damaged Attracta's well was doing. Not much change really ...   Some attempted tidy up but I suppose a mix of caution and gaining support would slow things here ... This well is outside of the village of Monasteraden beside Lough Gara on the way to Ballaghaderreen. It's is on the Co. Sligo and Co. Roscommon borders. This must have one of the most amazing holy well Ballaun stones though ... lets the imagination run wild.   The bathing and water collection area does not look too bad though.   Also someone has recently put together a wee container garden here, a local Airmid :)   St. Attracta is said to have been a teacher of Brighid of Kildare in her early teens in this area around what is now called Lough Gara. From here there is a River Brideog that goes to Lough Mask, which is close the the two tree blogs I have written recently.           ...