Since the Neolithic, people have come on Pilgrimage to the sites and stones of Orkney. Today’s believers are still drawn here – sometimes to get married in an extra-ordinary place.
‘Heksmoar’ in Stenness https://www.orkney.com/listings/heksmoar
…provides all things Pagan, including hand-made handfasting cords. The shop is the brain-child of Ann Moar, who also intends to set up a small lending library of spiritual/mystical literature.
Ann’s shop is a new venture for Orkney, though what’s to say that there weren’t similar outlets at the Ness of Brodgar, providing what folks needed to make their Pilgrimage complete? Maybe even souvenirs to take home with them?
I’ve wondered if maybe the tiny ‘thumb pots’ found at the Ness were made as some kind of souvenir?
People are people – and we haven’t changed all that much over the millennia
We’re Watching
They’re closing down the Ness again
It’s easier now, than then
We did it all with soil and midden
This stuff’s beyond our ken.
They’re closing down the Ness again
They do it every year
We thought we’d done it for all time
Or something very near.
They’re closing down Ness again
They come from far and near
They’re not that different from us
That much is very clear.
They’re closing down the Ness again
Strange folk, strange clothes, strange speech
And yet what was once known to us
Is not beyond their reach
They’re closing down the Ness again
We watch them working hard
The man in charge, is one of us
A knowing–man named Card
They’ve sealed it off
That is the end
At least for one more year.
We watch, we wait, we hope, we know
Their time to learn, is near.
BB 28th August 2018
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16429