The Drustone

Chapter Six. Explanations

Chapter Six 

Explanations 

When Henry and P.C. arrived at the wood shed, Uncle Steve was already sitting in his dilapidated Queen Anne chair gently puffing his favourite pipe and scrutinizing Rev's map. The  latecomers slid on to the two remaining three legged stools and slipped into position facing him.  

"I'm impressed with this, Rev. Really impressed. Especially with the way you have seen that the stones are lined up with the points of the compass, but what do you make of it?" 

"I'm not completely sure. At first I thought it might be a compass, but it doesn't make any sense to have it stuck in one place. Henry thought it might be a calendar of some sort, but I'm not sure how that would work." 

"Why have you written a name of a village in brackets next to each stone?"  

"That was P.C.'s idea. He found out that when you look through the stones you see the villages." 

"Not villages, churches," interrupted P.C. 

"Did you notice the paths leading away from the stones?" 

"We did, but didn't have time to follow them," said Henry 

"You should. Me and my pal Molyneux went along them, and made quite an interesting discovery." 

"What was that?" queried Henry. 

"That's up to you to find out. I recommend you try to follow those paths. Not all of them mind you. If you trace two or three of them, and compare, you'll get the idea. Now how about the tunnels? Did you manage okay in there? Did you find all three exits?" 

"Three!" exclaimed P.C. "How about one? The only exit we found came out at Bardsea." 

"Ah! So you went down the steps and must have had trouble in the cavern. There's another passage leading off there that you missed." 

"It was like a maze, Mr.D; I began to think we would never find our way out." 

"I told you we should have taken breadcrumbs," said Henry. Everyone laughed. 

"You need to try again, because it leads to another interesting place." 

"What's so interesting about Bardsea?" asked Rev. 

"It's one of the few villages in the district that kept its Ancient British name. Most of the other villages have Anglo-Saxon or Viking names. Place names are often very revealing. What do you think Bardsea means?" 

Quick as a flash P.C. had an answer.

"It's obvious. Just say by the sea like a Cumbrian, bah de sea, and you've got it." 

Mr.D, conceded the possibility, but then pointed out there were many other villages by the sea and he knew of no other with this name.  

"So what do you think, Uncle Steve?" 

"As you all know, folks around here have a terrible habit of shortening words and I think that's what happened here. My guess is that it was once called Seat of the Bard or Bard's Seat." 

"What does that mean? That Shakespeare sat there?" 

"Quite a wit, aren't we Rev? No. I think in the time of the Ancient Britons the village was the headquarters of the Bards and Druids. Celtic people kept their history and traditions alive by telling stories. The Bards knew these stories by heart and travelled the countryside keeping the people informed of past and present events, Remember, there were no books then."