Amesbury Carnival 2012

This time last year the Amesbury community did something extraordinary, and invited the Aes Dana Grove to process at the front of their Carnival and open the event. This was a generous show of support and welcome to a group of people that had until just a month earlier been a community apart.

This year the honour of leading the carnival was given to a member of the animal kingdom in the form of a rather beautiful Camel. The Druid contribution was to join the procession and take part in the Stone-age games which were our idea :-)

First we had to build two standing stones. We chose a construction of wood, chicken wire, plaster of paris and fibre glass. Seen below standing outside my front garden at home.

The plan was then to construct sleds and mount the stones upon the sleds so that they could be dragged by competing teams over rollers in a race that reflects upon the tasks involved in moving sarcen stones from the downs to Stonehenge 4500 years ago.

We had no opportunity to test the idea as our rollers only arrived on Friday evening. I’m waiting for video of the event to be posted up, but in the mean time here our some pictures taken before the games. The results...round one, Druids vs Fire Brigade it was close to the halfway point when the two teams clashed in the turn and fire Brigade came out winners. Round two, a friendly rematch in the main arena and we were beaten by a country mile by the emergency service. Their teamwork and almost supernatural communication won the day.

Still, even the mighty fire brigade were beaten by the Amesbury Scouts and Guides, who upon realising that they were falling behind simply added more team members until the whole troop were engaged, and having drawn level, they used their additional man power to lift the stones into the air and run with them.

This was completely fair as this year we had no rules for the games. Be prepared !

It works !!!

Above and Left,

4/6ths of team Druid

Right, the carnival procession gets underway

Also unveiled at the carnival was the very special jubilee crown and breast plate made for ‘The Ancestor’ statue by Andy and Michelle of ‘The Forge / AR Metalcraft’. This was simply stunning and shows the prowess of Stonehenge metalcraft is not only alive and well in the community, but growing ever more wonderful year on year.

And as if seeing the latest fine art to adorn the mighty Ancestor was not exiting enough, there was yet more revealed for the first time at Amesbury Carnival.

You might recall the Amesbury Civic Ceremony which took place last month in honour of Andy’s year of office as Mayor. During that ceremony, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Palmer of the 32nd regiment Royal Artillery offered to march 250 miles to the Presili Mountains in Wales to present our request to have a new bluestone for Amesbury.

I was present to give the gentlemen of 32nd regiment a Druidic blessing as they set off from their camp on this historic journey, in which they also raised funds to make the requisition possible.

Well, to complete the story, the two ton bluestone destined for Amesbury was presented to the people for the first time by Andy Rhind-Tutt and it created a considerable excitement in its own right as many of those with fey talents reported feeling its energy from 10 metres away whilst several pictures were taken of it in which it appeared to have a blue-violet aura and a bright white light above it!

The stone was originally intended to be cut into the form of a chair, but given it’s manifestly spiritual nature all are now agreed that it will be left as nature gave it to us and placed into a sacred outdoor space at the Amesbury Museum Gardens in due course. I have no doubt that a new legend is being born and that the stones arrival into the community will be significant for centuries to come.

Andy RT with the bluestone

Bex and Jill giving the Amesbury Bluestone their greetings

More Pictures and video to follow soon!

No this is too hard..