The Stone Circles | Their History, and Importance Today

[Music] hello and welcome back to the wisdom of odin today i want to talk about old stones because while in scotland i got the fever the fever to talk about old rocks covered in moss and specifically the old rocks covered in moss that were used for pagan worship back in the day so in this video i'm going to talk about how old rocks have a connection to us but also specifically in scotland and england across the british isles how old stones have an important part to play in their pagan history really today is me a little unhinged because let me tell you these rocks were so cool so i'm going to talk about all the places i visited during the celtic paganism video as well and so then talk about the feelings and sensations so this really is a crazy type episode because it's been a while since something's excited me as much as these stones so buckle up and i hope you enjoy this conversation on old stones and celtic paganism now real quick before we get into the historical information here the reason i think you should watch this video is because stones like this i'm back in kentucky and yet stones like this are still very important and i guarantee you around your area there are stones similar to this in some regions or at the very least you could build something similar to this so i really think that the secrets of the old stones could be important to a modern pagan practice and not just a celtic pregnant practice because we have evidence of norse paganism having stone circles as well along with the rune stones and karen's and other small temples that have been made out of stone now they may not be as widespread across scandinavia but there are still plenty of examples of old stones being used as sacred monuments now i did say celtic pagan at the beginning of this but understand that if you've watched my celtic paganism video i go more in depth but the term celtic is really a horrible term you might as well say european paganism because it's so widespread of what the term celtic means and so stones like this have not just been discovered in england in the british isles but all across western europe and even into germany i've seen stones that were used for ritual purposes in germany while i was way in the east so the idea of old stones being used for religious practice is something that is really uh common all across europe for the most part now before we move too much further into this video i need to talk about the book that kind of inspired this and helped the work so this book right here is absolutely incredible so it's just the old stones by the neolithic portal so what i love about this book is it's made from a collective of individuals passionate about old stones the stone circles and neolithic monuments across the uk so it's got just over a thousand individual sites in here with information about them because what makes these sites really interesting is it seems like mass interest in them stopped in the 1800s and there hasn't been much research in the 1900s and especially not in contemporary studies in the 2000s so i really really recommend picking up this book i'll leave a link down below but this book is absolutely incredible now the history of these stones i can actually talk about in conjuncture with castle rig a stone circle that i saw at the very beginning of my trip across the uk so castle rig is actually in england in the lake district and it is one of the oldest stone circle sites across europe and i think it is the oldest stone circle site in england and what makes this site very unique is the fact that it is a large sewn circle all the way around this hill that overlooks one of the most beautiful valleys i have ever seen and so this is one of the things that makes it really unique while a lot of stone circles and stone monuments of this era did have impressive views this is the one that really has that that jaw-dropping view of the area around it now the history of this is it's around four thousand to five thousand years old and that's typically pretty normal of all the stones that we find as they're around that range of around 5000 years or newer but not by people that we actually may know so they're actually often called the stone builders or the people of the neolithic era and these monument builders stone builders that existed were kicked out by various different societies who were kicked out by other societies so by the time we got to the people we commonly know as the celts these stone builders were long dead or long assimilated into the modern societies so a lot of these stone circles are from a society of people we know almost nothing about outside of their stone building now we do have evidence of the picks building and carving stones very similar to this and i was able to see some of those within the scottish museum as well but at the same time the majority of these stones were actually taken and used by the societies that came after them even though the original builders were long removed from their creation so castle rig itself has very little information about it much like all the stone circles most of the research on these stone circles is very surface level they've taken their stone samples they've dug into the earth they've found if there's any offerings there but past that it's mostly speculation so the speculation about castle rig is that it could have been used as a ceremonial space because it is connected with the winter and summer solstices but there's also a theory that it was used as a market and a meeting place for the tribes that lived in that area and i think that's just because of the location it was very centralized to an area that would have involved a lot of different tribes and clans so they could have been meeting there but at the same time this doesn't i mean it most likely means that this there was a ceremonial aspect to this as well at least religious now when looking at it myself and studying these stones of course i'm looking at it from a pagan perspective i'm looking at for someone who is performing rituals to honor nature and whatever ideas we know roughly about the religious practices of the past that did honor you know the summer and winter solstices now the stone circle was not just a complete circle there actually was a chamber connected to it that was a ring of other circles that almost formed a little room and so that's why i really think this was used for religious practices myself is because you had this separate area this sacred space that i believe would have been used for a sacred thing you know something would have been kept there or the the procession or the speaker or the druid or whatever they had at that time would have spoken there and there was some form of ritual element there i can almost feel it and so the other thing that i noticed about this site which is the thing that really blew my mind is i was like okay why here and i started looking around and then i saw that the stones the majority of the stones matched the mountains behind them so i'll put up a couple pictures here and you can see them almost sliding into place like a puzzle piece now i will say this wasn't true of all the stones some of the stones overlooked a longer valley with no mountains in the way but then another set of stones seemed to disappear when the mountains disappeared and so once again this is a theory in my personal theory that i've not read from anybody else but again looking at it from a modern pagan lens you know i see it's like well they would have tried to represent the mountains around them and then sure enough look down and look you know maybe i was you know i've seen it because i wanted to see it but truly i think there's something there so let me know down below what you think after i showed you these couple pictures uh to see if you think that this could have been a connection uh and really just being in the center there the center of all those mountains and those valleys was just such a powerful experience so i have no doubt in my mind that there was a religious reason of why the site was used now since i just mentioned that book i really want to you know make sure you understand that the history of these stones is so unspoken of so the area of kill martin glenn which is an area i went to which had the fort done add which is actually a very new and modern thing compared we're actually closer to fort donahd than fort dodge is the castle rig so fort dynad was used within the modern era where at least within after zero ce it was used in around zero ce to 500 ce around the time of the picks and so it's you know and it could have had a purpose before then but that's the most recent history we know of that site because it does have a picturesque boar carved onto it and it's supposedly the place the king came and put their foot in that slot and uh declared themselves king over the land and so it was a really beautiful sight but the area around it is called kilmartin glen and kilmartin glenn has over 200 different stone monuments burial mounds stone circles neolithic things and almost all of them don't have significant information about them i visited several including the serpent mound which i've talked about on my instagram account if you want to follow me there i talk about stuff there too but the serpent mound had nothing about it and even when i looked on that neolithic portal there was some information about it and a comparative note made in like the 1860s that it was similar to the serpent mound of ohio which is nearby to me here currently in kentucky and so i was able to see it from afar and it did appear to be a serpent mound but that was it there was hardly any information about it and apparently there was a burial mound nearby and no one has done any research on this thing it seems like since the 1850s or 60s so that's just a perfect example to me of the fact that this is almost a forgotten study is the study of old stones and their importance to the neolithic people and beyond now on that note i did hint to the fact that these stone circles and and stone monuments were actually used by future civilizations and so the monument builders may have built the clavicharans another site that i've visited so they actually built the burial mounds and built the ring circle that was there as well and used it for their religious practices but the people that came after them actually use it for their own ceremonial reasons which i think is really fascinating that you know these people kicked this other people group out they saw their stone monuments they're like we're gonna use those too and so these sites were used for various rituals of various groups of people for hundreds if not thousands of years and so what i think the lesson there is is the fact that you know we could practice this religion now in those sites uh and for the most part it seems like it would be allowed maybe not something so big i mean we see celebrations that stonehenge take place every single year and now i think that is heavily regulated from my understand it's really only one group that gets to do that but for the most part these sites are you know just there out in the open so you could go there and perform small little rituals and so if you're in the uk i see no reason for you not to go here and perform respectful rituals that respect the spaces but really these sites were meant to be used spiritually and have been used spiritually by different people groups for hundreds if not thousands of years now on that note for people that aren't in the uk or aren't near stone circles all across europe uh you can come to places like this so this is actually in red river gorge one of my favorite places in kentucky and i've been here several times once with a group of people from the fellowship of northern traditions the community built around this channel and so we came here on a community hike and we gave several offerings throughout this area including a natural waterfall and a natural cave that had lots of huge stones now i haven't given a ritual and performed a ritual right here between these two stones but still these could be considered sacred ritual sites from what we know of the celtic and even the germanic to some extent is that they had sacred groves and even the scandinavians we know sacred groves existed and so there was far more without a doubt there was far more sacred groves than physical built temple locations while there is evidence of some being built across scandinavia most notably upsala for the most part most people would have celebrated their gods and ritual spaces like this that were natural buildings if not built by other people so i really want to encourage you like if you're a pagan today use old stones for your ritual practices build stone circles if you have the land and that's something that i really want to see done with the fellowship of northern traditions is once we get land yes we still want to build a hall but let's build some stone circles too because that would be so cool and just to unlock that spiritual potential in these places now i will also say we did perform a little ritual at the cloth of cairns inside one of the burial mounds and so that was pretty cool so we actually had a moment in there and we gave little offerings here and there and uh yeah that was uh pretty powerful and we all three were just like yeah we're this this was pretty cool now as far as the clavicharans themselves um i think my experience there obviously performing a ritual there was really cool but the thing i found most fascinating about that site was the fact that there was one stone circle there that was built specifically for what we can only assume historically and even the scholars believe that this was used for ritual practices because it doesn't seem to have been any burial uh usage and they found evidence of fires being there so we know that in celtic paganism in the historic past you know maybe not with the original builders but they had massive fire festivals now this could have been something that was passed down from the people that built this originally and so i can imagine this is basically a massive ritual fire and that is really freaking cool it could have not been but i can't help but look at something like that and think that they had these massive ritual fires there and had these huge celebrations around this uh really amazing stuff and so yeah that site was incredible and i really i just can't wait to see more and more people maybe start using these sites once again or even you know building their own sites elsewhere to use for ritual practices okay seriously i really want to make this point clear like look at this stone right here big old stone big old stone i'm standing on here and then behind me here as well is another stone tell me you can't see some cool rituals being performed here and i guarantee you i'm going to come back here and do it because i think this is really cool so definitely get out there in your local nature and see if there's anything like this perform a ritual you don't need to have it built by the neolithic people come here and build something cool come here and have a cool ritual honor your gods using the stone circles naturally given to us by the beauty of nature now i saved the best for last because this is something i can't really attach to history besides the fact that people were buried here so i went to the cory momi karen which was near loch ness and this was the coolest place i've visited by far on this trip and so this place was a burial mound a woman was buried there one woman from what they can tell but there was no remains there was absolutely no remains of this woman besides a grease spot in the ground and that should really show you so 4 000 years old and there's nothing remaining of us after 4 000 years there is almost no memory of what we used to be if we weren't even buried in a burial mound if you're just buried out in nature you're gone and so while there's certain evidence across the world of people lasting longer than that like like the oldest skull in the world i believe comes from africa and that's just because i think the environment is different and more humid and wet environments decay things faster than dry environments and so you know human history is so much longer than i think we even recognize because after a certain point we have no evidence of what existed in the past so i think the old neolithic stones really serve as that because these things existed earlier than most of the pyramids the most of the like ancient egyptian society while yes it was still there but these things existed and that's really cool and really fascinating uh and so really like the cory momi stone to me represents how much we don't know about history and how much magic is stored within something four thousand years old actually no more than four thousand years old because this karen had a presence to it and you have to take my word for it you know this is clearly a personal experience that i had the cory momy karen and it was incredible that place had such soul to it when you crawled inside and were inside the burial chamber where someone was once buried there was red quartz rock all the way around you and i laid down into the stone and looked up where someone was once buried it was amazing and then almost like the feeling the presence of the person that was there i could feel it and kevin who i was with could feel it there was something so magical about this spot and something that i've thought about since i left and so these places while they could just be stones it's just a collection of stones just like these it's us who gives them that magic it's us who performs the rituals at places like this and so you don't need the cory momi stone here in kentucky or indiana or wherever you come from go to the old stones and start performing those rituals i haven't gotten that point across to you go to the old stones give them stories to tell because these stones have been around for thousands upon thousands of years and that is incredible think of the stories that the stones have around you who crawled on these stones in the past when did it come from the cliffside up there and roll down here these things are incredible and you know and that's part of the you know the animistic idea you know technically these stones have souls they might be a lot quieter and a lot slower than the souls that we have that live so shortly comparatively but there's still something here so what i really hope i've done in this video is show you that there is mystery to these things and everyone i've talked to non-pagans included and i talk about these places most people only know about stonehenge and so to know that and tell them that there are thousands upon thousands of these sites across europe not just in the uk and the british isles all the way across the western coast of france all the way to germany even up into denmark into scandinavia it's incredible and i think they're just not talked about enough so that's why this video existed this is why it exists to talk about these old stones that are so cool and i i hope you get interested in it as well again that book is a wonderful resource you know i'm not promoting it other than any other reason than the fact that i think it's a wonderful resource and i really hope you're able to travel to europe and see these old stones for yourself because they are incredible but otherwise i hope you also go out to the nature near you find some old stones and perform some rituals and with that all these people now coming down here these people are incredible they're the patreon supporters that make sure i can continue to make this content so to every single one of you thank you and i love you and to all the people that support me on patreon to ensure this channel continues to keep running thank you so very much and if you want to become one of those amazing people i do have the information down below and of course i also have down below the information for the community the fellowship of northern traditions build around this channel and we will be having events here very soon most likely anytime you're watching this video there's events going on and yeah we'll be building stone circles someday with that thank you so very much for watching this video and if you have any experiences with stone circles or have any thoughts about this video please put them down below i'd love to hear your comments i read every single one of them so thank you very much and until the hall until the stone circles skull do you all see what he does for you oh i'm a little scared for context this is what he does for you guys i did it [Applause] [Music] bye [Music]

Channel: Jacob Toddson

Views: 8,857

Keywords: pagan, Paganism, Norse Paganism, Norse, Norse myth, Norse mythology, asatru, Viking, Vikings, heathen, heathenry, books, list, Odin, Thor, Freya, gods, old gods, religion, wicca, Wiccan, shaman, shamanism, Nordic, yule, pagan holidays, yuletide, winter, pagan christmas, holidays, yggrasil, offering, sacrifice, heilung, ritual, Asatru for beginners, Asatru ritual, Asatru explained, Asatru religion, Norse paganism for beginners, norse pagan ritual, Norse Pagan Religion, norse pagan, the wisdom of odin

Id: qd2IOedoCVo

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2022