remains of an ancient 'Megalithic Complex' at Maesoglan, Ynys Môn

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Alban Elfed 2003

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Standing Stone at Maesoglan –

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August 20 2003

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Standing Stone at Maesoglan –

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August 20 2003

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Standing Stone at Bryn Ceinwen –

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August 3 2003

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Standing Stone at Cefn Mawr Uchaf –

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August 19 2003

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Standing Stone at Caeau Brychion –

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July 27 2003

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Standing Stone at Maesoglan –

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July 27 2003

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Standing Stone at Maesoglan –

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Alban Eilir 2003

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Standing Stone at Maesoglan –

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August 08 2003

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Standing Stone at Tre-ferwydd –

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September 21 2003

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Standing Stone at Llwyn Ceirios –

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September 21 2003

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Standing Stone at Tre Ifan –

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March 27 2002

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Standing Stone near Llanerchymedd –

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December 22 1998

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The Mabyn rising over
Mynydd Dinas, Rhondda –

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Alban Eilir 2003

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First Light at Bryn Celli Ddu –

Over the spring and summer of 2003, the Morien Institute engaged in

a series of expeditionary field trips to the southwest area of Ynys Môn

(Anglesey) to explore the remnants of the ancient stone science left by our distant ancestors.

Beginning on March 21st, the first place visited was the ancient stone chamber known as Bryn Celli Ddu, where the pre-dawn mist still hung around the local hollows, and the cows in adjacent fields watched as we waited to photgraph the Alban Eilir (Vernal Equinox)’ sunrise.

After sunrise, the researchers left to pay an early morning visit to the 12ft and 14 ft. standing stones at Bryn Gwyn Farm, and chanced upon the farmer, Mr Alun Roberts, who pointed out that, on the 14ft. stone there are three ‘grooves’ which appear to have been cut by those ancient people who erected them.

He also told that, in the recent past, some visitors to the stones arrived to witness an interaction between the largest stone and the sun, which, on a certain day or days of the year, when low in the sky and directly behind the largest stone, shone only through the three grooves, casting ‘three rays of light’ onto three smaller stones in the adjacent field.

Meandering on slowly through the narrow winding lanes that stretch between Brynsciencyn and Llangaffo, it wasn’t very long before the researchers found themselves being uncannily ‘drawn’ to the area that has been known to generations of local people as “Maesoglan”. And it was there, just as the road turns sharply towards Llangaffo, that the stones were first encountered, standing proud on the local horizon against the majestic backdrop of Eryri (Snowdonia).

Many more field trips to “Maesoglan” over the following six months were undertaken with the friendly support and advice of the landowner, the farmer Mr R. Cecil Hughes, who brought other standing stones in nearby fields to our attention. The pictures to the left are of some of the stones at “Maesoglan” and adjacent farms, which must at one time have been part of a substantial megalithic complex covering many square miles in area between Brynsciencyn and Llangaffo.

All the stones were photographed, they were also ‘marked’ at various times over the spring and summer on the GPS unit to get an average of many readings for a more accurate placement, and during several visits a large number of compass bearings were taken toward the feature-rich, distant horizon of the Snowdonia mountains, to determine the directions of solsticial and equinoctial sunrises.

One particular direction stood out immediately as something special, and compass bearings taken from one of the ancient standing stones in the field at “Maesoglan” indicated it was precisely in the direction of the Alban Arthan (Winter Solstice) sunrise – a picture of the midwinter event in 2003 is shown immediately below.

It is just above a poem which had been composed more than 25 years ago whilst the poet, Mr T. Llewelyn Williams, of Bangor, Gwynedd, had become ‘enchanted’ by the ancient ‘Awen’ (inspiration) following an earlier Alban Arthan sunrise visit on a crisp midwinter morning in 1977.

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Alban Arthan 2003

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A Standing Stone At Maesoglan …

“MIDWINTER SUN AND STONE”

Midwinter sun, you are full of rock

And the men who are dark to us.

But as I wait, westerly in the webbed

Crisped field of frost and night shapes

Of cattle and standing stone, for the solstice

To declare itself in the angle of rock

And along the winter edge of the maenhir

Of Maesoglan – are you dark to me,

My brother, who set time here with your

Eyes and your keen mind for truth?

Are you dark to me now, my brother?

No more, now that I know how and why

You placed this stone precisely here –

In just this way for you – and for me.

I only know the shortest day because

Of your need – before there was the written

Lie – to fix the spinning of Earth

To the almightiness of the sun,

To the crescents of moons and a Pole Star

Stalking dragons in Arth Fawr for the tip

Of your outstretched finger in the green

Fields of your life and north to the sea.

Midwinter sun, you climb the bright

Sky behind Yr Wyddfa, flashing high

Thin scrawled clouds with daytime,

And I wonder why I have been drawn,

Middle-aged from my bed, to stand alone

Where I have never before been, knowing

That this stone rifles my sight across four

Millennia, and something that hurries the blood,

To the one sharp angle, tall and black

On the skylined back of Eryri.

Tell me, my small-boned brother, how

Do I have this conviction that our sun

Will rise like a bird of paradise

From the deep tangle of its winter nest

To stripe the sharp field with copper lustre,

Scribing there the steep toothed gap

Of Moel Eilio and Yr Aran?

When you set this stone, did you

Feel beyond your need for calendar

And of order for your crops and rites?

When you set this stone, did you

Imagine a world, beyond your sights,

Grown calloused old in mind and care?

When you set this maenhir in Maesoglan

And honed its sharp edge to the sky,

Did you think of me to come to Môn,

In the dark, to see the fire bird issue like

Paradise from the mountains of longing?

When I sighted along this stone,

I did greet more than the rising sun

Over the shoulder of a mountain –

For I saw you, prone at my feet,

With face to the living dawn

And as content as I was thrilled

To be together over time and tongue.

And I felt certain my words meant

Your words of haul for sun and

Effro for awakening, and maenhir

The long stone, and the longest

Stones standing on the shortest day –

Yr Wyddfa, Moel Eilio, Yr Aran.

And I knew of our life force spiralling

In your stone and light spinning

The sky and water divined underfoot;

And the gladness of it and meeting you

I heard come shouting from my throat

To stir the cattle in Maesoglan’s field.

It was Midwinter Day, AD 1977

And two thousand years to Bethlehem –

And a nova that called kings from afar

And the fire birds the shepherds from the hills.

T. Llewelyn Williams (1923 – eternity) …

On the eve of Alban Arthan, the Winter Solstice, December 20th each year, the druids of Morganwg observed the rising of the sun, and for that day only bestowed upon it the title/name of “Aran”. As the sun climbed to it’s lowest annual declination in the sky, they observed his annual slaughter by his brother, “Afagddu”, the personification of the “powers of darkness”.

Watching as the bleeding sun set (in the Rhondda over Gilfach Goch), they lamented the annual ‘death of the old year’, and for the next 40 hours awaited the resurrection and rebirth of the New Year in the rising of the new-born sun on December 22nd.

Throughout the day of December 21st, the Winter Solstice itself which they termed Alban Arthan, when the sun rises no higher, and sinks no lower, they regarded the ‘essence of the sun’ to be traversing the druidic underworld, ‘Annwn’, and engaged in empathetic rituals of initiation for the young candidates into the ‘mysteries of druidism’.

Then, at sunrise on December 22nd, as the sun began again it annual journey northwards to the instant of the Summer Solstice, which they termed Alban Hefyn, they celebrated the new-born sun, the son of the old sun – the “The Mabyn of the Mabynogion”.

As can be gleaned from the poem of T. Llewelyn Williams above, and as was witnessed by him in 1977, and again in 2003 along with R. Cecil Hughes and John Michael, the sun at the time of the shortest day rises over ‘Yr Aran’ when viewed from one particular standing stone at Maesoglan. This is no coincidence, and indicates without doubt that the ‘sacred landscapes’ of the druids of Ynys Môn (Anglesey) were as astronomically descriptive of the druidic solar drama as the ritual landscapes described by Morien in ancient Morganwg. And Maesoglan was just one of the many sacred places in North Wales where these observations were made, and ritual initiations undertaken.

Owen Morgan’s efforts at disentangling the ‘oral traditions’ of both Morganwg, and of Wales generally, have been ridiculed by orthodox historians who condemned him for his methodology in decoding the druidic library written in the landscape, and for his adoption of the druidic title, Morien, upon his succession as Archdruid of the Chair of Morganwg following the death of Myfyr Morganwg.

But these condemnations, which continue today, are invariably made by so-called ‘experts’ and ‘scholars’ who fail miserably to grasp the very simple concept of the ‘landscape as narrative’, who have never even attempted to read it, and who have never experienced the rising of the new-born sun at the sacred places of the ancient Welsh druids.

May their eyes be opened, before the the last vestiges of the Druidic Heritage of ancient Cymru (Wales) is lost forever amidst the rantings of those who can only condemn what they fail to understand …

Alban Hefyn (Summer Solstice) 2003

Bryn Celli Ddu, Ynys Môn, North Wales

This is a photograph of the Alban Hefyn sunrise taken at Bryn Celli Ddu, Ynys Môn, North wales

books about the

‘natural philosophy’

of those ancient
Welsh druids

“A Rattleskull Genius: The Many Faces of
Iolo Morganwg”

Geraint H. Jenkins

(Editor)

EU English Edition

“Iolo Morganwg is arguably the most extraordinary figure in the entire cultural history of Wales. Since his long and turbulent career unfolded against a backdrop of improvement, industrialization, evangelicalism, enlightenment and romanticism, it is not surprising that myriad Iolos emerged – the multi-gifted stonemason, the druidic bard, the labouring poet, the romantic myth-maker, the consummate forger, the political radical, the agricultural commentator, the apostle of anti-trinitarianism, and many others.

His life was riddled with apparent ironies, paradoxes and contradictions, and the aim of this stimulating volume is to re-evaluate his diverse interests and to celebrate the multifaceted achievements of a flawed but endlessly fascinating self-styled ‘rattleskull genius’.”

“Light of Britannia”

Owen Morien Morgan

EU English Edition

“Owen Morien Morgan wrote from about 1870 until his death in 1921 about the traditions of Welsh druidism, the remnants of which he gathered from the oral traditions still then to be found in the valleys of South Wales.

Many of these druidic traditions centred on the safe haven, Dinas, Rhondda, the ancient druid city to where some now believe the surviving druids fled after their massacre by the Romans on Ynys Môn (Anglesey)“.

“The Mabyn of the

Mabynogion”

Owen Morien Morgan

EU English Edition Only

but available

worldwide

“Morien was facinated by the local folklore of his native Morganwg, and seeing that the English language would soon follow the rapid industrialisation of the South Wales valleys, he set out to gather and study them.

In due course, and after comparing the local Welsh traditions to similar traditions of what he termed the ‘annual solar drama’ from around the classical world, he wrote that, of all those traditions, the Welsh druidic system had remained in purer form than any other he had encountered.”

Morien’s books contain the essence of druidic astro-mythology, and is the first works ever to study the druidic library extant in the ancient enchanted landscape of Wales – a landscape library which Morien showed how ro read as sacred ‘narrative’.”

“Awen: Quest of the

Celtic Mysteries”

Mike Harris

EU English Edition

“Awen is a Welsh word often translated as ‘inspiration’. However, in its fullness it is untranslatable as a single word, comprising as it does a kind of irradiation of the soul from paradisal origins.

In the end, our descriptions and our definitions must be rendered in poetic terms. Hence the importance of the Bard.

It was the Celtic bards who laid the foundation of inner wisdom that has come down to us as the Arthurian Tradition. It was Celtic bards who, leaving Wales and Cornwall for Brittany, and thence seeking service with Frankish lords, provided the tales that informed the Arthurian romancers of twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Chrtien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and others, wove them into tales of Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot and Guenevere, the Lady of the Lake and the Questors of the Grail.”

“Sun, Moon & Earth”

Robin Heath

EU English Edition

“How do you encode ALL the Sun, Moon and Earth astronomical periodic constants in just TWO numbers? Interested? Try this beautiful new book by groundbreaking author Robin Heath. He also shows that the builders of Stonehenge may have known the answer too! Simple stuff once you are shown it. Amazing value. Recycled paper!”

“A Little History of

Astro-Archaeology”

John Michell

EU English Edition

a further selection of books about

Druids & Celtic Mythology

read Owen Morien Morgan’s classics

“The Mabin of the Mabinogion”

“Light of Britannia”

the key to the ancient druidic astro-mythology

please take a look at our Ancient Mysteries Bookshoppe for a wide selection of books

that challenge orthodox views of prehistory on every continent

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Marine Archaeology News 2015 |
Astro-Archaeology News 2015

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