I have had another one of those occasions when additional information about one of the stories I have covered appears suddenly, as if from nowhere. This time it is additional background information about Sarah Jacob, the tragic story which features in Volume One about the little girl who starved to death surrounded by nurses who were there to prove that she had not been kept alive by angels and fairies as she claimed. It was a notorious case in Victorian England – Charles Dickens himself wrote about her. In fact the case of Sarah Jacob is one of the first detailed studies of the condition anorexia nervosa.
One of the key figures in the case was Reverend Evan Jones the local vicar  who wrote  a letter to a Carmarthen based newspaper called The Welshman in February 1869. The story was picked up by The Times in London. You can imagine the reaction to a story of a girl on a farm near Llandyssul who was surviving apparently without eating or drinking. Such claims by a clergyman brought the whole weight of the medical establishment down to West Wales to prove him wrong, which they did of course, but at the cost of Sarah’s life.
Welsh Country Magazine passed on to me a message they had received from David Gorman a descendant of Evan Jones looking for further information, along with a copy of his work.  
His is an excellent and detailed biography of the Reverend Evan Jones, quoting at length from the  letter he sent to the paper  which set off the whole distressing chain of events.
Allow me to invite the attention of your readers to a most extraordinary case. Sarah Jacob, a little girl of 12 years of age, and daughter of Mr Evan Jacob, Lletherneuadd, in this parish, has not partaken of a single grain of any kind of food whatever during the last sixteen months. She did occasionally swallow a few drops of water during the first few months of this period; but now she does not even do that. She still looks pretty well in the face and continues in possession of all her mental faculties. She is in this, and several other respects, a wonderful little girl.
Medical men persist in saying that the thing is quite impossible, but all the nearest neighbours, who are thoroughly acquainted with the circumstances of the case, entertain no doubt whatever on the subject, and I am myself of the same opinion.
Would it not be worth their while for medical men to make an investigation into the nature of this strange case? Mr Evan Jacob (Sarah’s father) would readily admit into his house any respectable person, who might be anxious to watch it and to see for himself.
After this everything would go horribly wrong.
I have always felt very sorry for Evan Jones. Vulnerable after the death of his young wife, he was drawn to the story of Sarah and wrote about her in innocence and wonder -a girl who seemed to thrive without eating or drinking. The story however was seized upon and used by others.
David Gorman writes
...the events at Llanfihangel ar Arth leading up to the death of Sarah Jacob in December 1869, whilst not appearing to affect his career and standing within the Church of Wales, cast a shadow over him from which, it would appear, he never fully recovered...
I am sure that this is the case. His innocent trust and belief were cruelly destroyed by the medical establishment, anxious to prove the superiority of science over superstition. But to do so meant that a twelve year old girl had to starve to death.
I am very grateful that Dave Gorman has been able to share with us information which adds to the understanding that we have of such awful events.
You can find the story of Sarah Jacob on page 108 of Stories in Welsh Stone.

The word cemetery comes from Greek, meaning "sleeping place." But the history they contain should not be allowed to rest. It should be repected and restored, just like the cemeteries themselves.
The public cemetery was a Victorian invention.  Previously under common law, every parishioner and inhabitant of a parish had a right to be buried in their parish churchyard or burial ground. Naturally there were some exceptions.
Following the Act of 1823, the practice of burying suicides in some public highway with a stake driven through them was ended. They were buried as normal but only  between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight, and without rites of the Church. The compulsory dissection of murderers' bodies was not abolished until 1832, and hanging in chains still happened until 1834.
Burial Grounds (rather than parish churchyards) were started by non-conformists in the 17th century; many more were established over the next hundred years. The first public cemetery in London was established in 1827 in Kensal Green. Soon they were run as commercial ventures and after legislation in the 1850s municipal cemeteries began to replace urban churchyards.
These had posed a severe health risk to those working or living nearby. Thousands had been buried in shallow pits beneath the floorboards of chapels and schools which meant that people ran the risk of serious disease and were also forced to endure an awful stench. The Burial Act of 1852 (repealed in 1972) required the General Board of Health to establish cemeteries to deal with the problem.
The idea of landscaped public cemeteries came from Europe, especially Italy, France and Sweden. The elegant avenues of the landscaped cemetery at Pere-Lachaise in Paris were widely admired.

A book by  J.C. Loundon, On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries (1843) was widely influential and led to improvements in the design of churchyards, with the construction of lych-gates and the planting of specimen trees. Paths were laid and they became extremely popular as ordered places of peace and tranquility within busy cities. They brought ordinary people in direct contact with the great and the good and the notorious, where they could reflect upon death as the common human destination, the great leveller. Away from the confusion of the city, in the face of death and mortality, the urban cemetery became a place for contemplation.
The great Victorian cemeteries remain such a valuable window on the past. They provide a picture of another age. Plants trees and wildlife survive undisturbed amongst the tangle of undergrowth that slowly embraces the headstones. There are many notable examples.
The General Cemetery in Sheffield is a Conservation Area and includes monuments and buildings listed as Grade II structures. Like all cemeteries it contains fascinating graves – the sad grave of a baby found wrapped in newspaper in a drain in 1869, the grave of George Bassett who manufactured the liquorice sweets that were later to become Liquorice Allsorts. Highgate Cemetery in North London is perhaps the most famous of cemeteries. It has a Grade I Listed chapel and is a permanent home to Karl Marx, Christina Rossetti, Douglas Adams and Michael Faraday.
Groups work across the country for their preservation. They are truly irreplaceable parts of our history. In Cardiff the Friends of Cathays Cemetery respect and cherish their important space with a very informative Heritage trail which leads you to the notable graves.  It provides a planned route for the re-creation of those constitutional walks for Victorians. They have an excellent guide book too, published to recognize the cemetery’s 150th anniversary in 2009. Contact Michael O’Callaghan at maocall@live.co.uk and he can arrange one for you.
Sadly as they get older, the problems our cemeteries face are growing and as the memorials degrade, then a part of our heritage is lost. Rain slowly erodes the stone, causing salt movement within a headstone which eventually leads to cracking and fracture. Rising damp has a similar effect and the plant life that gives cemeteries such a rich ecology can also be destructive. Ivy can grow into a crack and over time continued growth can widen the gap until it separates. The restorative work that voluntary organisations carry out - and the awareness raising they do - is vital. People went to a great deal of trouble and expense to mark their brief moment in the world, and they tell us so much that we need to remember and preserve.
Did you know there was a Year 2000 problem with gravestones? The Millennium Bug? Forget it, this was far more expensive. Apparently in America perhaps half a million people had bought headstones with a pre-carved death date beginning 19… Obviously a bargain, but obviously useless once those champagne corks started to pop. And how do you respond to that? Relief at still being alive in 2000? Or grumpy at the money you have wasted? It would certainly make an interesting addition to your garden – but t hen what else are you going to do with it?
Interest in cemeteries is not a thing of the past. A recent article I found on the internet provided a peculiar image of what the future might hold. Gravestones with embedded microchips which would communicate with a distant server where personal information could be stored. This could then be displayed for the curious visitor to see on a screen on the stone or on some handheld device. So long as the servers are still operative. It sounds to me like an attempt to corner a huge and, as yet unexploited, market – dead people. This reflects the new digital world where people are not dead but “archived”. These really would be “stories in welsh stone”, all-singing and all-dancing, with personal messages and pictures. Perhaps even adverts and sponsorship. There are endless opportunities here.  Ideal for family history researchers everywhere I am sure. But I still think I prefer letters carved carefully and individually into the stone.

My grave this time is, oddly enough, a wooden drinking vessel which you can find in the National Museum in Cardiff, one of many such objects apparently, made from a great oak tree which blew down in a storm in 1813. The tree was called Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll – the Hollow Tree of the Demons - and it once stood on the old Nannau Estate near Dolgellau. And the legend will tell you that Owain Glyndwr once used the tree as a handy place in which to store the body of his cousin.

 
The story of Owain Glyndwr is far too complex to explore properly here. His celebrity is based in part upon the fact that he was the last Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales although his dates are vague, from 1354 or 1359 to perhaps 1416. In the centuries since his death, so many different legends have accumulated around him. He has become a notable figure in popular culture and a famous military hero, beating the English forces through intelligent strategy and cunning. Like King Arthur he merely sleeps, waiting apparently for the moment when he will rise as the saviour of his homeland.
He lived in turbulent times and his life was defined by conflict, leading a revolt against the rule of Henry IV. The rebellion ultimately failed and his last years were shrouded in mystery. He was neither betrayed nor captured and instead faded from view. Where he lived at the end of his life remained a mystery, although today it is generally believed that he lived with his daughter Alys at Monnington Straddel in Herefordshire, perhaps disguised as a friar.
The episode which concerns me here comes from the height of the rebellion, in 1402. His cousin Hywel Sele, Lord of Nannau , was a supporter of the English crown. He invited Owain to his estate for what he claimed was to be the cut and thrust of political debate, with a bit of hunting thrown in. However, it appears to have turned into an assassination attempt.
The two cousins went out hunting. Hywel Sele raised his bow to shoot a stag, but suddenly turned and fired directly at Owain. Clearly their relationship was not based upon trust on either side,  for beneath his clothes Owain had prudently selected a chain mail vest. Owain did not have a particularly forgiving nature...
At least that is one version. Another would suggest that as Hywel Sele aimed and turned to follow his target he suddenly discovered that he was aiming unexpectedly straight at Owain. He, well versed in the techniques of self preservation, immediately ran him through with his sword.
Either way Hywel Sele was dead.  Owain hid his body in the hollow oak tree and made off.
Another version has an enraged Glyndwr obviously surviving the assassination attempt and imprisoning Hywel Sele in the tree before burning down his house, which just goes to show you how cross they could be in those days.
But whichever version you prefer, they all come back to the idea of the body in the tree. And this legend certainly gave the tree its reputation as a haunted place of evil. Fire was said to hover above it; strange noises could be heard. It was “the terror of every peasant for miles around.”
The family searched for Hywel but could not find him. He remained on the missing list until his skeleton was found inside the tree trunk 40 years later. Hywel Sele might have drifted into obscurity but at least the tree’s reputation was assured.
Of course by the early nineteenth century Derwen Ceubren yr Ellyll was misshapen and ancient, in the last stages of decay. When the oak fell after being hit appropriately by lightning the wood was used to make commemorative items for the coming of age party of Robert Vaughan on 25 June 1824. He was a direct descendant of Hywel Sele and later became 3 Baronet of Nannau.  It was quite a party they say, for which the Great White Ox of Nannau was slaughtered and roasted, which is certainly more dramatic than sending out for a pizza.  The newspaper, the Salopian Journal said that the air was, “resounding with joyful acclamations” and that “a number of Welsh bards and harpers were in attendance.” It was definitely the place to be seen that special June day.
At least the ancient tree wasn’t just turned into firewood.  A nineteenth century text tells us that the items made from the oak were “valued by their fortunate possessors...as relics of so venerable and remarkable a parent. “ If you chose to believe the legends then those objects were made from a living coffin from long ago. It is one of these Ceubren cups that the museum holds.

On the A40 at halfway between Llandovery and Brecon there is a memorial to a stage coach disaster. If your speed is as unrestrained as that of the coach driver you could miss it. There is an obelisk enclosed by iron railings, next to a busy road.  At the bottom of a steep slope on the other side of the road the Afon Gwydderig rushes and roars just as it did in 1835. On some maps it is marked simply by the word “Memorial.” But that single word does not do justice to the surprising nature of this simple pillar that stands under the trees in a dark lay-by.
So what is it?
It is one of the earliest warnings against drink-driving, that’s what it is. It is called the “Coachman’s Cautionary.”
 It marks the spot where the Gloucester to Carmarthen coach plunged off the road and down a precipice on 19 December 1835. According to the inscription the driver, Edward Jenkins “was intoxicated at the time” and “drove the mail on the wrong side of the road ...at full speed or gallop.” The coach went “over the precipice 121 feet where at the bottom near the river it came against an ash tree when the coach was dashed into several pieces.” Obviously Jenkins was the single common ancestor of White Van Man.
The memorial was erected as a caution to mail coach drivers to keep from intoxication.” Quite right too in my view.  No one should ever be asked to entrust their life to a man in charge of a bottle, a whip and a number of horses.
The obelisk was designed by J. Bull, Inspector of Mail coaches. It is reassuring to know that he took his responsibilities seriously. He tells us that Colonel Gwynn of Glan Brian Park , Daniel Jones and a man called Edwards were sitting outside, up there with the driver. Didn’t they notice that Jenkins was over-refreshed? Or were they passing the bottle around? Not wise really when you consider that one of the three inside passengers was a solicitor from Llandovery called David Lloyd Harris. A solicitor can be very touchy in certain circumstances, I find.
Bull used the 13 pounds 16 shillings and sixpence he received from 41 subscribers to erect the obelisk in 1841. How very public spirited they were in those days. As an Inspector with both technical and human resource management responsibilities how he must have yearned for the breathalyser and the invention of traffic calming measures.
But I think it was money well spent. It might not have been as hard hitting or as effective as recent road safety campaigns but it has survived a great deal longer.

Gelert is the name of a legendary dog which has become entwined with the village of Beddgelert in Gwynedd. And if you don’t already know it, the knowledge that the name of the village has been translated as “Gelert’s Grave” might give you some clue where this story is going.
The inscription on the tomb down by the river tells the story in both English and Welsh.

“In the 13 century Llewellyn, prince of Wales, had a place in Beddgelert.
One day he went hunting without Gelert, “The Faithful Hound”, who was unaccountably absent.
On Llewellyn’s return the truant, smeared in blood, sprang to meet his master.
The prince alarmed hastened to find his son, and saw the infant’s cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered in blood.
The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound’s side, thinking it had killed his heir.
The dogs dying yell was answered by a child’s cry.
Llewellyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed.
But nearby lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain.
The prince filled with remorse is said to have never smiled again.
He buried Gelert here.
The spot is called Beddgelert.

It is a touching story of course and an important Welsh Folk tales. However, things are never quite what they seem.  It is more likely to be an early  equivalent of a modern urban myth. The name of the village for example is probably a reference to Saint Kilart or Celert, rather than any faithful and vigilant dog.
Also the dog’s grave mound, which can be found just  south of the village, on  the footpath which follows the river Glaslyn is more likely to be the work of the landlord of the Goat Hotel in Beddgelert in the late eighteenth century. His name was David Pritchard and his motive was simply to boost the tourist trade by connecting an old folk tale with the village.
Of course this is not unusual. This is what happened in France in the village of Rennes le Chateau, where a hotel owner used rumours and speculation to boost his own business and in doing so created a conspiracy industry that lead directly to “The Da Vinci Code.”
The story of the faithful dog appears in many different cultures .We will never know whether they are all variants of the same story so we can never know which one came first. Was it the Welsh story? Or was it the native American version? Or perhaps it originated in the Alps where a shepherd kills his sheepdog which he finds covered in blood. Naturally it had been protecting the flock from a wolf, not indulging in a forbidden snack. In India the story involves a mongoose that kills a snake and is wrongly punished just like Gelert, and in Malaysia the story is about a tame bear that protects a child from a ravenous tiger and is killed for his efforts.
Did the stories evolve separately  in different cultures, bringing together grief, anger and guilt in a gripping plot designed for children? Who can tell? But certainly the story of Gelert is not unique.
It doesn’t matter. It has been a fruitful subject for artists, poets and other writers and if it attracts people to a beautiful part of North Wales then it really doesn’t matter much. And certainly as a story it will run and run...

Once again I was searching about in Robert Chamber's Book of the Days from 1869 when I came across this story. It has nothing to do with Wales at all but I liked the story and felt I wanted to bring it to wider attention. Perhaps it is a well-known story, but I have never come across it before.

Sir Robert de Shurland, Lord of Shurland, in the Isle of Sheppy, Kent, was attached to a lady who unhappily died unanointed and unaneled, and consequently the priest refused to bury her.
Sir Robert, roused to madness by the indignity, ordered his vassals to bury the priest alive. Perhaps he did not expect to be obeyed. But his obsequious vassals instantly executed his command to the letter.
Hereupon the impetuous knight, having somewhat cooled, became alarmed: and fearing the consequences of his sacrilegious murder, mounted his favourite charger, swam across the arm of the sea which separated Sheppy from the main land, galloped to court, and obtained the king's pardon for a crime which he had, he said, unwittingly committed in a fit of grief and indignation. '
He made the church a gift' to atone for his crime; but the Prior of a neighbouring convent predicted that the gallant steed which had now saved his life would hereafter be the cause of his death.
Like a prudent man, he ordered the poor horse to be stabbed, and thrown into the sea with a stone tied round his neck: and, in self-gratulation, assumed the motto, 'Fato prudentia major' (Prudence is superior to fate).
Twenty years afterwards the aged knight was hobbling on the sands, in all the 'dignity of gout,' when he saw a horse's skeleton with a stone fastened round the neck. Giving it a kick, 'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'this must be my poor old horse.'
The sharp points of the vertebrae pierced through his velvet shoe, and inflicted a wound in his toe which ended in mortification and death: thus fulfilling the prediction.
The tomb of Sir Robert Shurland is still to be seen in Minster Church, under a Gothic arch in the south wall. The effigy is cross-legged, and on the right side is sculptured a horse's head emerging from the waves of the sea, as if in the act of swimming. The vane of the tower of the church represented in a horse's head, and the church was called `The Horse Church.'

I wonder if it is still called "The Horse Church." But perhaps there are more important issues to concern us here - such as always making sure you are wearing heavy duty boots whenever you decide to take a kick at a horse skeleton.

Halloween. It is one of the oldest festivals of all, and represents a curious mixture of many different traditions. The Celts called it Samhain, a festival that provided a boost for people as they entered the long dark winter months when the countryside seemed dead and the days seemed so short. Over time it became mixed in with All Saints Day, a day set aside for those poor saints who didn’t have a day of their own.
Originally it represented the end of the harvest season and the beginning of a new year. The Welsh term for the festival is Nos Calan Gaeaf - a reference to the beginning of winter. As we all know today it is regarded as a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead become blurred.
A door to another reality opened up briefly and all sorts of horrors spilled out.  So bonfires were lit to frighten away the spirits.  This was the time in the Welsh tradition when Hwch Ddu Cwta appeared – the Black Sow.
They would light bonfires and roast apples (and in later years potatoes) and leap through the flames to bring good luck. Then they would throw stones in the fire and run home to escape Hwch Ddu who would be on the prowl. On the first of November they would return to look for their stone. If they could find it then you were guaranteed good luck for the New Year. If you couldn’t then you were facing bad luck, or even death.
Apples played an important part in Samahin  because it came at the end of the apple harvest and there were plenty around.  Apple bobbing was common. The most successful technique, assuming they had no stalks, was to plunge into the barrel and trap the apple against the bottom. Boys have always been so competitive. In another apple game, one was tied to a stick suspended from the ceiling with a candle tied to the other. It was spun around and you had to catch the apple with your teeth. How they laughed when someone got a face full of wax.
There was also the “Puzzle Jug.” It had many spouts and you had to guess which one was correct. Get it wrong and you would be soaked by beer or cider. I bet they could hardly wait for the invention of television.
A lot of the traditions seem to centre upon finding a partner.
In Montgomeryshire villages they would make a large vegetable mash in which a ring would be hidden. The local girls would dig into it with wooden spoons. The one who found it would be the first to be married. In Carmarthenshire nine girls would gather together to make a pancake of nine ingredients. They would divide it up into nine pieces and eat it. As a result they would, before morning, have a vision of their future husband. Which may – or may not have been a good idea.
In Scotland, as you can see similar traditions outlined in Robert Burns’ poem Halloween. A girl could eat an apple in front of a mirror and she would see her future husband looking over her shoulder, presumably telling her that the porridge needed stirring.
Alternatively she could hang a wet shirt sleeve in front of the fire to dry and watch it closely. At midnight the spirit of her future partner would appear and turn it round.
Now I have to say that when our daughter Jennie was a baby we would often sit her in front of the tumble drier. She loved it. She would sit for hours watching the clothes spin round. You could get a lot done whilst she sat there. And yet I feel I should point out that  never once did her intended Dan appear in spirit form and turn her bibs around. I mean, I know it is a long way from Louth, even for a spirit, but it does suggest to me that as a way of predicting the future, drying clothes is at best unreliable.
Everywhere Halloween has been a time for “the universal walking abroad of spirits,” a time when the boundaries between our world and the spirit world are momentarily lowered. A time of inversion, when everything was turned upside down. In parts of Wales it became a bit of a cross-dressing festival. Boys and girls would swap clothes and go from home to home, chanting verses and spells and asking for gifts of fruit or nuts which were used to predict the future.
Other boys might dress up in sheepskins and rags and blacken their faces. They were the gwrachod (hags or witches) and they would look for gifts of apples or nuts or beer. Their job was to drive away evil spirits from the home. Clearly an early variation on the theme of “trick or treat.”
Of course, these days the role of the “Trick or Treaters” themselves has changed. It is those who arrive wearing witches hats and black bin bags who are  the evil spirits and who should be driven away.

Strata Florida is such a lovely name and I was always keen to go there. It is 14 miles from Aberystwyth and has a beautiful position just outside the village of Pontrhydfendigaid near Tregaron. In Welsh it is Ystrad Fflur, which means the Vale of Flowers.
It is neat, well -tended and atmospheric. The arch which once framed the west door calls you in and inside there is a peace and a real sense of history. The hills behind have seen the Abbey rise and fall and they have seen it rediscovered.
It was the Victorians who began its restoration, once such remoter parts of Wales were opened up by the railways. Steven Williams, the engineer building the nearby railway line to Aberystwyth in the middle of the nineteenth century, began a huge excavation revealing most of what we see today.
There is little left now of the building that was once larger than St David’s Cathedral. The Cistercian Abbey was founded in 1184 and it became not only an important religious centre but also a place of political and cultural influence in medieval Wales. Welsh princes are buried here, like Gruffudd and Maelgwyn. In fact there are eleven of them apparently. Llywelyn Fawr summoned all the rulers of Wales there in 1238 to swear allegiance to his son Dafydd who was to succeed him.  It was regarded as the Westminster Abbey of Wales. It was badly damaged by a lightning strike in 1285 and a few years later it was burned on the orders of Edward 1. It was finally destroyed in 1539 and the stones eventually re-appeared in many local buildings.

For me there are three interesting graves within the walls.  The ancient yew in the centre is said to mark the grave of the great Welsh poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym.  He died in the middle of the fourteenth century, possibly from the Black Death. There is a commemorative plaque too, though there are those who suggest his real resting place is at Talley Abbey further south, near Llandeilo. One day soon I shall write a proper piece about him.

Close by there is a considerable oddity, a gravestone which commemorates the left leg of Henry Hughes. If you look closely you can see its outline cut into the top of the headstone. Th e inscription reads
The left leg and part of the thigh of Henry Hughes, cooper, cut off and interr’d here June 18th 1756.
The poor man lost his leg in a farming accident and emigrated to America where the rest of him was eventually buried.  Part of him of course was forever at home in Wales, where throughout  the rest of his life he had one foot in the grave.

A little further away where the ground is less even and little more unkempt there is an altogether sadder grave.  It is the grave of a tramp who had once, allegedly, been a soldier in the Afghan Wars in the 1880s. His frozen body was discovered in February 1929 by the side of the Teifi pools in the hills which overlook Strata Florida. His possessions were meagre – a copy of Old Moore’s Almanac, fourpence and a picture of a young girl. The local people buried him and paid for a headstone on which you can find this short verse -

He died upon the hillside drear
Alone, where snow was deep.
By strangers he was carried here
Where princes also sleep.

I think that is a very effective and moving piece of poetry. His identity remains unknown; the grave of an unknown soldier. It is some comfort to know that even then, 90 years ago, just as today, people did not ignore those who suffered in that dry and forbidding country

In Search of the Big One

To be honest if you are a grave hunter they don’t come much bigger than this. We were in the Corbieres and we had driven beyond the spectacular hilltop castle of Salvaterre, deep into the abandoned garrigue.
The castle lies above the quiet and prosperous  village of Opoul-Perillos  and beneath the striking Opoul plateau, also known as Terresalvaesche, the Land of the Saviour, which might give you a hint about the place to which the stories and the roads lead.

Salveterra is an abandoned ruin of a castle, high on a promontory above the Mediterranean. If you look back there are expansive views.   Fifteen miles away the beaches of the Cote Catalan might be full but up there all is desolation. There are rocks everywhere, poking up through the scrub.
We turned off the road beneath the castle and drove into the hills along a single track road below the plateau of Opoul. There are no signposts. Deeper and deeper we went, twisting and turning. This was a one way ticket. There was no turning round. You must trust the road. We drove for about 15 minutes, slowly, always doubting that this was really wise. There was no one in sight and the occasional enclosures of vines were untended.

We went past a stele to a mysterious air crash, past the church of Saint Barbara in the middle of no- where, apparently incorrectly orientated, to the deserted village of Perillos. The Stony Place.
There isn’t much there. We wandered around the hot rocks. It had a strange indefinable and unsettling atmosphere. A few piles of stone remain, old streets and the church.
The village had been finally abandoned during the Second World War, and when you looked around it was hard to understand why anyone would want to live here in the first place. It is dry and barren.  A small restoration project had begun in 2006 but that was not why we were here.
Perillos is a place which shelters mysteries.

This is where aircraft and space craft collide. UFO watchers and their friends keep very busy here. They believe in covert government underground activity and secret military manoeuvres. They believe in secret mines. They look at over-large electrical substations and see a conspiracy.  They visit a ruin called “The Seat of Death.” And how come when it is so dry and unforgiving out here was the village once known as Perillos les Bains?  Oh yes, Perillos is hot for mysteries.
Once again it is the fault of the peculiar priest Sauniere from Rennes le Chateau, on whom so much hinges. His activities across the region, frequently unexplained and unexplainable, have spawned an industry. The world is full of people who are desperate to find out what it was that he knew. And whatever it was, it is believed that it relates to a treasure or, more likely, a secret which might relate in some way to Jesus and Mary.
This website is not the place to explore the vast array theories and the speculations which surround Sauniere. But he is either a blank canvas upon which others project their frustrated imaginations. Or he was infuriatingly devious, scattering everywhere the enigmatic pieces of an elusive and incomplete jigsaw.
It is said that he commissioned a relief map to be made of the holy sites in Jerusalem, identifying the graves of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. Except it wasn’t a map of Jerusalem at all but one of Perillos. Or rather the mould of a map of Perillos, a negative with everything in reverse.  Appropriate I suppose.  And so, the story goes, out there amongst all the rocks you will find the The Big One, the grave of Jesus.  Waiting just for you.  A discovery about a death that could change a life – and certainly a life style if it is marketed properly.
But  that is why the castle and village were here. Suddenly it is no longer a place without a purpose, a village supporting a meagre, subsistence lifestyle. No. The Knights of Malta were actually protecting the site, which had upon it two places even they were not allowed to go.

Of course there are those who want to believe such things. It adds more detail and colour to The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code.  There are certainly many local legends in this part of France suggesting that Jesus survived the crucifixion and came to settle here in what was known then as Septimania.  And it is a secret that many have lived and died to preserve.
Of course we didn’t find anything, just stones glowing in the heat. A set of ruins at the end of a road which for some others marks the beginning of a new and unexpected journey.

There are those who do search the hills, looking for caves and tombs.  I would say that it is impossible to find anything out there.  Or perhaps it is possible to find everything out there. There is just enough uncertainty to allow the imagination to run wild.  And the night brings a profound darkness and a big big sky full of stars. A time for the imagination. It is no surprise to learn that Dali is involved in the myths that surround the place. He had visions apparently. This was where he believed the apocalypse would begin, with the “abduction of Europe.” It should not be a surprise that the area has a suitably portentous post code – 666000.
Apparently it is where enthusiasts come to greet time travellers from the future. Hmm. But who is to say they would be noble scientists on a mission of research and compassion. Knowing our luck they would be the bankers of the future (if you see what I mean), overpaid boys with a top of the range toy coming back to see us for a bit of havoc and confusion, stopping off at the Perillos services on their way back from drinking themselves senseless in a Dinosaur Theme Park in the Pleistocene Age.
This is all part of the Chronodrome Experiment and it is all to do with messages placed aboard an as yet unlaunched satellite called Keo that will circle the earth for 50,000 years. Once recovered on re entry, our descendants will discover an invitation to come back in their time machines and leave us a sign in the sky. They have, helpfully I think, been given a window of 50 years in which to make an appearance, between 2000 and 2050. People have now started to gather every year on the chosen date 1 May, and wait patiently for a sign.
I am not too inspired by the future though. The couple of cars we saw in Perillos were rather unimpressive. If these were indeed the choice of our descendants then I am afraid car transport has an uncertain future. I better look after the Espace more carefully if I need it to last. You never know.
Perhaps it happens all the time, this time travelling business. And perhaps our time travelling descendents continually take the chrononaut fans away and continually bring them back to the day before they departed. Everything is possible.
And yet, and yet...
The church in the village of Perillos is St Michaels, serving a community that no longer exists.  But misfortune is said to haunt those who approach it and are not pure at heart, just as if you were entering the place of the Holy Grail in Castle Perilous. There is an echo there isn’t there? As I approached the church, suddenly, and for no possible reason, our car alarm started to sound, an intrusive yell that cut across the cicadas and pulled me away from the church. Why did that happen? It has never happened before. It hasn’t happened since. There was no logical reason for it. But it happened and we thought it best to drive away down the track. I wasn’t wanted there.
I think I will stick to grave hunting.
You might feel better employed down in Tuchan or Durban, wine tasting. Just down the road there is of course Fitou, a heady fruity glass. One of those at lunchtime will convince you of any of the mysteries of Perillos by 3.00pm on a hot afternoon. Two glasses and you will start thermal imaging the Corbieres.

If you want more details then go to www.perillos.com
And if you want to go wine tasting then I can thoroughly recommend www.chateau-wiala.com in Tuchan who produce a fantastic Fitou. Just avoid the early afternoon. Go there after 4.00pm. Madame likes a siesta.

It was as remote as you can imagine. We were in the foothills of the Canigou, the most important mountain in the Pyrenees if you are a Catalan. We were there for the Romanesque architecture. Well ,it is the sort of thing you do on a Sunday when you are on holiday.
We had left a quiet sun-baked road and driven along the twisty turny narrow road. On the rare occasion that a car had come  in the opposite direction we had driven into the rocky undergrowth to let them pass. On their side there was quite a drop into the gorge, at the bottom of which the river Boulès dawdled. The countryside was steep, wooded and green and completely deserted. After all who would live here?
We climbed steadily. Then the signpost told us to turn off further into the hills. So we climbed further, into  bright sunshine, with glorious views of the route we had taken, with the Corbieres in the background. After 10 minutes of hairpin bends, with the manic chatter of cicadas from the dry vegetation around us, we arrived at the Priory of Serrabone, or Serrabona as it is called in Catalan.
We were only about 30 km from Perpignan in the Aspres mountain range but we could have entered another world.  It felt as if we had slipped further away from the things that anchor us to our time.
Sainte-Marie de Serrabona (serra bona : the good mountain) is situated in the valley of the Boulès in the heart of a densely green oak forest. The Priory had once largely collapsed and was used for many years only as a shelter for shepherds and their flocks during bad weather, of which I am sure they had plenty. It was clearly once very important, then lost and abandoned, before it was restored. Today it is a beautiful place to visit.
The place is famous for its unusual design. It is very unorthodox, with beautiful pink marble and a curious inner cloister with a window-less nave.

A dry and rather dusty botanical garden has been developed on the site to display the area's plants.

It was certainly worth a visit. The carvings are beautiful and the setting is spectacular. Once you have paid to go in and passed the defibrillator, helpfully provided  for vulnerable visitors, you can pick up details about the priory and its history.
They tell you that one of the priors was dismissed for doing something unspeakable in the fifteenth century. That was good enough for me. After all, it requires very little imagination to link him to that other local attraction, the mysteries of Rennes le Chateau. It could be a new dimension to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code. And of course in these circumstances no one needs to be troubled too much by evidence.
It was hard to drive up to Serrabone and then down again, but it must have been much harder to walk. In fact the Priory is on one of the walking routes through to Spain for pilgrims going to St John de Compostella. It must have been very very difficult.
There is a cemetery there and of course I couldn’t resist it.

It is old and neglected, rather overgrown in parts. I am sure it receives few visitors. There are mounds of earth and forgotten headstones that mark the end of forgotten lives. What a hard life it must have been up here in the mountains. How isolated, how introverted, how intense.
However, the tentacles of war even reached these remote parts of the Pyrenees. There was the grave of  a French soldier, Sebestien Tixador.  who died on 6 April 1918.

The battlefields of Northern France must have seemed completely alien. Next to him was a broken headstone, eroded by the weather into a strange and dramatic shape, adding to the sense of mystery that surrounded the priory.

We looked for a while at the graves of Alphonsine and Yvonne Moragas, the former originally also a Tixador. There were probably not many surnames in use up here.  We looked at a past and a family history slipping away. They are now merely names on a headstone, small secrets in a landscape that holds many secrets.