A practical guide that can
help visitors locate a long list of sacred sites in Cornwall: caves,
rock carvings, stone circles, fogous, dolmens and holy wells
Pagan Cornwall, Land of the
Goddess
by Cheryl Straffon
Prior to the last 2,000
years of human history, the Goddess was celebrated throughout the
world for at least 20,000 years, says Cheryl Straffon, editor of
Meyn Mamvro, a Cornish Earth mysteries magazine. This book helps
rectify the problem that most Earth mysteries researchers fail to
acknowledge, that the Neolithic era was not dominated by men.
Priests, kings and patriarchal societies developed later, after most
of the sacred sites we revere were already established.
Straffon finds evidence of
the Goddess still visible in Celtic areas of France and the British
Isles, but her area of specialization is Cornwall, where Goddess
sites are plentiful. In fogous, those unique Cornish subterranean
chambers, women seem more likely than men to have psychic or altered
states experiences. Straffon wonders whether fogous were used by
women at "turning points" such as conception, birth, menstruation,
initiation, bonding, sickness or death. A faintly visible lozenge
carved on Boleigh fogou may be a Goddess symbol.
Pagan Cornwall is a
practical guide that can help visitors locate a long list of sacred
sites in Cornwall: caves, rock carvings, stone circles, fogous,
dolmens and holy wells. Wells are especially near to the Goddess,
through their association with fertility and healing.
Cornwall is rich with
legends of dragons and serpents, often being slain by Christian
saints, a metaphor for the new church's attempts to drive out the
old Earth spirits of the Goddess. The Cornish word for dragon,
druic, is a feminine noun.
Cheryl Straffon has been
closely studying Cornish Earth mysteries for six years, and three
years of research went into writing this book. "Although," she
admits, "some of the suggestions in this book are tentative and
speculative, nevertheless they are all founded on a matrix of
material research and evidence."
Pagan Cornwall, Land of the Goddess, by Cheryl Straffon, Meyn
Mamvro Publications, 1993, 120 pp., softcover, UK £9.95.
For more information
visit the
Meyn Mamvro
web site.
Review by
Robert Scheer
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