Monday, April 6, 2009

Flowers for the Gods

Earth laughs in flowers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"



I often stop in the forest to let my dog have a romp around whilst I take a few snaps. Last Thursday I had a little surprise. A large lorry stopped me from parking where I had intended and so I pulled up near to the Cordon des Druids.
The sun was shining through the trees onto the stones and it was just after midday. The stones are in a line which stretches for about 800 feet, the tallest is only about 6 feet high.



Midday Sun



But something was different, because the tallest stone was adorned with a garland of flowers, it was the right size for wearing on your head. The stones that I had visited the previous week have been given a macabre image with modern day sculptures of hands with claws and benches wearing devilish heads. The information boards told you about the Druids sacrificing people on the huge flat topped rocks.
The flowers made these stones feel like a happy place to be.

I found a website about a couple who travel around various parts of the world looking at these old stones, there is a lot of information in this link.

Garland for the Druids




The French word to adorn is paré.
The French word for romp is galopade.

Etymology for the word sacrifice.

8 comments:

Jude said...

Was it a celebration or something?

Blu said...

I can only assume it was to celebrate Spring!?

claire p said...

What a lovely thing to do. Round here we have lots of wells and people 'dress' them with ribbons and flowers and coloured stones.Lots of Pagans in Cornwall like there were in parts of France.

French Fancy... said...

What a fabulous idea. I wonder what happens there on Walpurgis Night?

LadyFi said...

How macabre - the sacrifices I mean. Not the flowers which are lovely!

Love the photo of the stones.

Diane said...

I can't imagine finding anything like that here. Sigh.

ArtPropelled said...

I love the french word for romp....and the Emerson quote is wonderful.
Beautiful photograph too!

bindu said...

"earth laughs in flowers" - that's such a nice quote! What a nice surprise to see the garland on the rocks. Some other bloggers whose blogs I visit did this thing of knitting a tubular piece that they'd put on a tree trunk in the park. I wonder if this is a similar venture.