Mên-an-Tol
Origin story.
oB came together whilst I was dwelling in St Ives on the Cornish North coast. It was here where I took a leap into the unknown as I dedicated some space and time to see if I could start growing a creative practice for myself. I would often go and visit a nearby collection of three ancient, thought to be Neolithic/Bronze age stones called Mên-an-Tol. It is here my thoughts would come to ponder.
The old stones lie within the grasses and bracken of barren field that sits just in the center of the Lands End peninsular. The hilltop position would catch the winds of it’s coastal edges. The sites main feature is a circular stone with a perfect hole in it’s center, just about large enough to awkwardly pass a body through. It is not known whether this hole was formed by natural erosion or was sculpted by someone hands. It’s thought these stones were once a part of a much larger stone circle and have since been rearranged probably numerous times by the generations of peoples that came after it’s prehistoric formation.
The folklore echoes that passing through the hole of the circular stone numerous times would cure the bodily ailments of farmers and children and on a full moon if a woman passed through they would become with child.
But it seemed whether people knew about this folklore or not the hole passing would naturally be attempted, it was as if the forms themselves drew on universal instinct to engage and play. Even now the stones continue to be bearers of individual and collective narratives.
Low to the ground, leaning this way and that way. in a clearing of shorter grass. Some folks would simply pause near them, some peered through the window of the hole, some circled the formation to observe from different perspectives, some used the spot to look around and out over the fields, some sat on the grass, some inspected the lichen, some left offerings of berries, some ran around wild with their children.
Over time the reflections of Men-an-Tol has influenced how I imagine and in turn make clothing and objects. It’s a spiral of thread I come back to time and time again, it gains ever more breadth, understanding and significance. Which has naturally instilled in me a sense of reverence and become a spot to take pilgrimage and refuge in whenever I am near.
