Faces in Stone

We walked around the edge of the standing stones, and as I looked I saw a face.

"I know that face," I told my kids "I've seen him before, when he was a man," and they listened, wide eyed.



One midwinter’s day, as the sun was just struggling up over the horizon, I passed this way and saw something strange.

People had gathered amongst the standing stones. They raised their hands to the sky in rhythm with the pounding of their drums and the chanting of their voices, while the police, in their Day-Glo green, stood by.

As I watched another figure approached them across the heath. Tweed jacket and flat cap, his face blotched purple and red. This was a farmer who didn’t look pleased.

The police moved to block his path, but he pushed on through. At the time I thought it strange – they way he vanished into their midst, and the police shifted their gaze away from him, as if in an instant they had forgotten.

The chanting of the crowd and the beat of the drums never faltered. And after I’d watched for a while the sun rose higher and I headed on my way.

But the farmer? Well he learned the hard way – don’t mess with druids!