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Lundy, Isle of Avalon
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The Dragon Line
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Trans- England St. Michael Line
A list of old churches within a band 550 yards wide either side of the
main alignment prepared by Robert Forrest showed sixty- three between Lands End
and the North Sea. Ten are or were dedicated to St. Michael or
St. George and
twenty- three. a third, were or are dedicated to St. Mary. They are remarkably similar to
the sites on the trans- European alignment.
Legends of
beacons
and of
St. Michael
overthrowing the devil are connected with many of these sites.
The
alignment of the line is that of the rising sun at the Celtic fire festival of
Beltaine
( 1st May) when bonfires were lit to
welcome in the Summer and encourage the Sun's warmth
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St. Michael's Carn Brea.
St. Michael's Carn Brea, Penwith. The first, or last, in the Dragon
line of sacred sites. Until the late nineteenth century a chapel to
St. Michael
stood on this prominent hilltop, surmounting a prehistoric chambered burial
mound.
"Carn Brea [203:385280] a clump of barrows, on top
of the largest, which was once a Neolithic tomb of some splendour, a chapel was
built in 1300 AD and dedicated to St.Michael. It was connected with the priory
at St.Michael's Mount, which decreed that a hermit should live on this western
hill and keep a beacon alight to guide travellers by land and by sea."
toulson, shirley----moors of the south - west
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solitary hill - St. Michael chapel -
iron age fortification / settlement.- beacon - giant legend
A legend tells how
St. Michael
appeared to local fisherman in a vision in 495. Giant's Well on the Mount
commemorates the Cornish legend of the giant Cormoran who apparently piled the
rocks to form the original mount.
Beacon fires were lit in an iron basket set
on top of an angle turret. On a rock beside the causeway there was a chapel
dedicated to St. Katherine.
To the Celts
St. Michael's Mount was 'Din
Sul' which
translates as to Latin as 'Mons Solis' - (translation Sun?).
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Helston
Helston, in Cornwall,
has as its patron saint the Archangel
Michael. Local legend tells how when St
Michael was carrying a stone to block the doorway to hell he was attacked by the
devil and dropped the stone. Hence the name Helston. The stone was apparently
incorporated into the wall of a church.
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Chapel on Carn Brae, Camborne
/ Redruth
solitary hill - St. Michael
chapel - iron age fortification / settlement.- beacon
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St. Michael's Chapel, Roche
Rock, nr. Bodmin
St. Michael's Chapel, Roche Rock, nr.
Bodmin. Rising from Bodmin Moor,
the rock on which the chapel / hermitage stands dominates the landscape. There
is a holy well at the foot of the rock.
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The Cheesewring, Bodmin Moor
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St. Michael's, Brentor, Dartmoor
solitary
hill - St. Michael chapel - iron age fortification / settlement.- beacon -
moving legend
St. Michael's, Brentor, Dartmoor. ' A high rocky place on the top whereof
stands a church, full bleak and weather beaten, all alone, as it were forsaken.'
Written in the early sixteenth century, by Risdon in his 'Survey of Devon,' this
description could equally be applied to all the hilltop sites dedicated to the
Archangel Michael. From earliest times this site has been used as a beacon, serving to guide mariners into Plymouth. Local traditions tell how the
foundations of the church were originally laid at the foot of the mount, but the
devil moved the stones to the summit. When the church was dedicated to
St.
Michael, the Archangel himself appeared and hurled such a tremendous mass of
rock upon the devil that he never reappeared there again. An inscription on the
South wall of the church, referred to in the nineteenth century, read -'On this
rock I will built my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
.' There are the remains of prehistoric, or iron age, walls surrounding the tor
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St. Michael's, Burrowbridge
solitary
hill - St. Michael chapel - iron age fortification / settlement.- beacon - giant
legend
The church stands atop a conical hill
which has traces of fortification round
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St. Michael's, Othery
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St. Michael's, Glastonbury Tor
solitary
hill - St. Michael chapel - iron age fortification / settlement.- beacon
St.
Michael's, Glastonbury Tor; One of the best known of
St.
Michael's chapels
atop a solitary hill. The remains of surrounding fortifications, possibly iron
age, were claimed to have been discovered by Phillip Rahtz after his excavations
in 1964- 6.
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Stoke St. Michael.
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Avebury
Aerial View of Avebury, Unesco World Heritage Site,
Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom
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St. George's, Ogbourne St.
George.
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Royston Cave.
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Abbey, Bury St. Edmunds.
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