Bryn Celli Ddu...

We wandered back three thousand years the other day, back to the late Neolithic times with its old gods, tribal chieftains, and giving thanks to the sun.

Anglesey, Ynys Mon, and the mound of Bryn Celli Ddu.

I was expecting a long and steep walk, but instead found a well signposted gravel path a half mile walk up a slight incline to the site. I was expecting a charge and attendants, but it was unmanned and free. I was expecting fences and barriers, but apart from iron railings to keep the sheep out, I was free to touch, walk on, and even go inside the mound surrounded by its standing stones.

Heaven.

The mound was originally a henge which are rare in Wales, it comprised of a ditch and rings of standing stones, but at some point the henge was replaced with a burial chamber and mound. The mound was excavated back in the twenties, and when they re-covered the chamber, they decided to reduce the mound by two thirds. It must have been huge, almost a mountain, extending much further out than it does today to the ring of pavement stones that would once have formed a perimeter wall.

A large standing stone stands at the dark entrance to the tomb, its surface carved with curves and snaking designs that, whilst worn by time and weather, is beautiful and intricate in its meandering detail. That artist was a genius. I wonder who he was and how he knew to make those marks in that way, that hypnotising, vertigo, drawing in, ‘I need to look away’ way.

Approaching the tomb along its gloomy, narrow entrance passage I entered the chamber to find another standing stone, slightly off-centre in the circular space, and in my mind I could see the rays of the rising summer solstice sun as it crept into the chamber, kissing the stone with a rosy light.

I touched the stone, slightly warm and glancing to the earthen floor I noticed three black feathers, the tail feathers of a crow scattered on the dusty floor beneath the stone. You can see them in the picture - a modern day offering, an ancient spell?

Back outside in the open air, massive black clouds were gathering - time to go before the heavens opened and drenched us. But just a hundred yards along the path away from the mound, as we beat our hasty retreat, the sun shone, the breeze died, and summer was all around once more. Looking over our shoulders, the black cloud hanging like a bad mood in the sky directly over the mound, a dark island surrounded by a pure blue sea of sky… how strange?

Turning away, we crossed our fingers and quickened our pace. Perhaps the feather spell had worked.