I wouldn't usually get all ghostly and metaphysical, but I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was in the Vale of Llangollen, doing my last round of guided tours of Valle Crucis abbey for CADW. At lunch I went to look at the Pillar of Eliseg. This lies just a stone's throw from the abbey, an ancient Christian monument put up by Cyngen, a 9th century King of Powys in honour of his ancestor Elisedd or Eliseg.
Recent archaeology has found the mound is significantly older, probably Bronze Age, and was used as a burial site circa 2000 BC. It was a blustery day, with dramatic bruised skies overhead. After eating my diabetic-friendly nuts (some of which were scattered by a mysterious gust of wind...) I lay back on the mound and closed my eyes.
Quite unbidden, I started to visualise a battlefield, with shadowy warriors hacking at each other in the murk. One of them was a king; he stood out from the rest in a red cloak and a golden coronet on his head. He was flung onto his back by another warrior, who raised his spear to drive it down into the fallen king's face.The spear flashed down and pierced my eye - suddenly I was the king, lying helpless on my back in the mud. Then the images vanished.
Now, this was probably a symptom of my overactive imagination, combined with lack of sleep, too much caffeine and an overdose of researching the medieval history of Powys. But it was weird how the scene just flashed into my head, all the same.
God knows who the fallen king was supposed to be: Cyngen did not die a violent death (he died in Rome in 854) but his ancestor Eliseg is described on the pillar as a warrior who 'drove out the power of the Angles with fire and sword'. Perhaps his luck ran out and he eventually died fighting the English, or in a muddy skirmish with a rival Welsh king.
Anyway. There is your ghost story for Sunday evening.
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