Stones in the mist

The next place we stayed was Penzance. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a single singing—or dancing—pirate. In any event, we stayed at this place.

Tuesday was our first day without sun, and it turned out to be a typical Cornish winter day. The thick fog sat right on top of the stark landscape (landscape described in some of the literature we had as “wind-swept heath,” which is a fair description) all day long.

We went out looking for piles of rocks in fields.

The first site we came to was Lanyon Quoit, thought to be a neolithic burial site. The top stone weighs approximately 20 tons:


We drove as close as we could get to the next site, called Men-An-Tol, which was believed to have healing powers (or, according to some sources, was a site for ritual sacrifice). The site itself is over a half-mile from the road through a cow field (which was, at least on that day, pretty muddy):


Before this next series of pictures, I want to say that these sites are really amazing and quite powerful to see. I’m afraid these next photos are a little cartoonish:

People have crawled through this stone for thousands of years for its healing powers. Dad decided that he would do the same. So he took off his coat, suspended himself over the mud, and did it.

We then went to Zennor (population 20, although there are 200 in the parish) and found a little pub called the Tinner’s Arms (there are a number of tin mines in the area). There, we talked with Graham, the proprieter—who lived in London for years—and Ben:

The pub itself was built in the 13th century, in order to house the workers who were building the church next door.

We talked about our trip, and said we’d just come from Men-An-Tol. Graham asked if we’d crawled through the stone, and dad proudly said that he had. “It’s for infertility,” Graham said. “You’ll find yourself pregnant.”

I suppose time will tell.

Finally, we went to Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. The proprieter of the B&B in Penzance told us before we left that it really wasn’t where King Arthur was born at all:


He can believe what he wants, and I’ll believe what I want.

Admittedly more verifiable is that the Romans were here, that this was the site of a Celtic monastery around the 6th century, and that Earl Richard of Cornwall, younger brother of Henry III, built his castle here in the 13th century.