| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I've been writing a new novel lately based on some Internet research on the 4000 year-old Rudston Monolith. Today I visited it. It's awesome. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
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| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
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| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
And just to provide context: I'm six foot!  | ||
| Steve Jensen (Stevej) Username: Stevej Registered: 07-2009 Posted From: 82.0.77.233 |
^A caption competition beckons...^  No wonder you wanted to write about the Monolith, Gary; this from Wikipedia: Sir William Strickland is reported to have conducted an experiment in the late 1700s determining that there was as much of the stone below ground as is visible above. Strickland found many skulls during his dig and suggests they might have been sacrificial. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Indeed . . . that's the nub of the tale. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Caption (before anyone gets there first): monstrous phallus. . . gets in way of decent shot of monolithic. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.118.49 |
That's a bit impressive, and with a 4000 year old lightning conductor too. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
They put the cap on to stop it eroding, I think. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Wow, I didn't realise there was anything as impressive as that up here in Yorkshire - and the stone looks pretty interesting too!  | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Almost like a giant fang jutting out of the earth- scary too and looming.That does get the imagination going- phallus aside. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.71 |
That's very inpressive. Hope the novel's working, Gary. Be done in - what, a month, the determinedly frenzied approach you take to getting it down!? I hope it's fun. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.229.139 |
They let you go right up to it...? I guess only the more famous pagan monuments - like Stonehenge - have fence around them, so no one can get near them.... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.118.49 |
Many years back you could go up to the stones at Stonehenge, but too many folk carved initials and nicked bits that they introduced the fence, which is a shame. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
Craig, 'the fence' at Stonehenge is actually a piece of coloured string around those DIY chainstore garden pikes. You can step over it quite easily. The site itself is now harder to get to, though. But it wasn't always. As a young girl, my girfriend would stop off there, early mrnings, on holiday trips to the southwest coast, and play on the henge in her night clothes (the family set off early for the holidays with the kids still in nightgear). She says they're great memories. Now it's a World Heritage site, of course... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
Anyway: caption competition: Gravestone of man with the longest name in the world ever is discovered. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
Or, to get literary: Lemuel Gulliver's final resting place discovered in Lilliput. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
Or: Bloke claiming to be six foot gets found out. Girlfriend very disappointed. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.87.132 |
That's too bad, Mark and Mick. People always gotta ruin things.... But there's like hundreds of "henges" in England, I've heard. I guess Stonehenge is the most amazing of them all?... | ||
| Michael_kelly (Michael_kelly) Username: Michael_kelly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 70.31.36.208 |
Impressive. Good luck with the tale, Mr. Fry. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Nice ones, Markus! The monument has dinosaur footprints on it, you know. The novel - three and a half weeks so far: 2/3rds done. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Many years back you could go up to the stones at Stonehenge, but too many folk carved initials and nicked bits that they introduced the fence, which is a shame. My Dad can remember a time in the 1950s when the only tourist thing at Stonehenge was a small shed where you could rent a hammer and chisel to chip a bit off to take home. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
And then someone invented eBay . . . | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I might take a chisel up to Rudston and knock off 26 pieces for the special lettered limited edition of my novel. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Can I question something here, Gary? Re the Wikipedia entry: "Sir William Strickland is reported to have conducted an experiment in the late 1700s determining that there was as much of the stone below ground as is visible above. Strickland found many skulls during his dig and suggests they might have been sacrificial." But the site is a graveyard so wouldn't you expect to find many skulls there? Or was the church built later? (I guess maybe I ought to go to Wikipedia myself and find out - but I'm lazy like that) | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.114 |
If the thing is 4,000 years old surely the church and adjoining graveyard came later? But it's not so unusual for a place of (Christian) worship to be built on the vestiges of a much more primitive and primordial cult. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Yes, the church came later. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I'm not sure many 4000 year-old churches remain in that condition. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh, I'm a dumbo - I never thought of that!  But doesn't it seem odd that they'd build a church (consecrated ground, and all that stuff) on a site which had possible "dodgy" previous uses? Or am I just getting confused? I'm trying to be helpful re your book - thinking you don't want some "clever-clogs" reader asking these questions - but I think I'm just confusing myself (and the issue, possibly)! | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
And now I've just re-read Hubert's comment: "But it's not so unusual for a place of (Christian) worship to be built on the vestiges of a much more primitive and primordial cult." I realise that probably answers my question/concern anyway. Just ignore me, folks - I do talk daft when the old brain isn't functioning properly sometimes.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Well, here's the punchline, C: I don't even have a church in my novel. The stone's free standing in a field. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Ah, sorted! I'm going to have to seek out this place BTW as I have a bit of a thing about standing stones, old monuments and so on. And I used to play around Stonehenge as a kid too! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.67 |
The stone's free standing in a field. Does it at some point in the course of the novel receive an award, Gary, for being a stone out standing in its field? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Caroline: it's near Bridlington so you can get some culture and its direct opposite in the same trip! Craig: put the apple on your head, that's it, now go and stand against that tree, yes, that's the way - BANG! - no, the apple was just there for decoration: I always planned to blow your head off. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.225.243 |
Very funny... did you stele that? |