Ancient Mysteries no. 18, January 1981  (continuation of Journal of Geomancy)

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INSECTS AND MEGALITHS

by PAUL SCREETON.

Mankind’s feelings towards insects seem to be largely ambivalent.  There are few more irritating aspects of life than the pestering fly in the sunshine, but one must admire the insect’s energy and persistence.  Also if studied to any extent, it will be noted that insects of the higher orders present an awareness to situations which indicate vague mental processes able to exercise an element of learning, judgement, and control.  They also exhibit untiring labour, care for offspring, foresight and even communal fidelity and individual self-sacrifice for the common good. 

However, this is not an examination of analogous behaviour between ourselves and insects, but a few observations I have made on bugs and sacred sites.  Earth mysteries researchers before me have looked to the genus hexapoda previously and Alfred Watkins, no less, was a keen beekeeper and made lantern slides of their activities in the hive.  John Michell noted how when released away from their hives, Watkins noted how they circle and then make a “bee-line” for home.  Watkins also took an interest in patterns of ant hills. (1)

As for flies, when first visiting Castlerigg stone circle on August 24, 1979, I was surprised to find these showing a distinct preference for the largest of all the stones. 

Later that year, on October 28, medium-sized spiders did not seem to be hostile to the hundreds of ladybirds I observed hibernating in the fluting of the central monolith of the trio known as the Devil’s Arrows.  Were these fertilised females ensconced in the crevices dormant until April?  No doubt this was home for the whole winter and recalls the nursery rhyme:

“Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
Thy house is on fire, thy children will roam …”

and so on in varied and ubiquitous forms. 

The entomologist Geoffrey Taylor stated it is … “prehistoric, in fact.  And learned folklorists and students of comparative religion have traced our humble ladybird back to the august company not only of Icarus, but also the Egyptian Gods.” (2)

I am not qualified to connect this sun myth with the ladybirds at the Devil’s Arrows and any possible solar alignment, but note that it is sometimes called Barnaby bug and that in past centuries a St. Barnatus Fair was held in a field between the monument and Boroughbridge. 

That celebrated dowser, the late Guy Underwood, who took an interest in the behaviour of wildlife associated with his spectrum of earth energies he detected, mentioned goats and ants, but not spiders or ladybirds.  However, I believe I have in a small way validated one of his claims.  The first living creature he noted making use of what he termed geodetic lines was the gnat (related to what we in Hartlepool call midges or midgies).  He recorded that all their dances occurred over blind springs or nodes, and if dispersed temporarily by a gust of wind would reassemble for their circular dance over the original spot.  Sometimes swarms could appear smokelike and that the fire alarm would be sounded when insects danced over the spire (over a blind spring) of Salisbury Cathedral. (3)

My dwelling is humbler but I once dug below the single point in my back garden where I frequently observed the midges’ gyrations and struck water within about nine inches, which immediately filled the hole.  I recently dowsed the garden and found this to be the only place where I received a reaction.{12}

Another writer to take a great interest in insects is American scientist philosopher Philip S. Callahan.  There is not space here to detail his fascinating discoveries into awesome mysteries of insect behaviour, but only mention a possibly apposite incident.  Lying on his back in the summer heat one day on Dartmoor, Callahan noted thousands of small insects hovering over the rocky tor where he lay contemplating.  He followed this up, finding entomologists were aware of the phenomenon but neither of its full extent nor cause.  He developed a theory that they were attracted by infra-red radiation developed in huge quantities and creating “a sort of invisible fleeting-floating energy-world” with glows like “invisible St Elmo’s fire”. (4)

At this point I would hesitantly argue that certain megaliths may emit energy of a special sort attractive and conducive to insects.  Obviously research such as The Ley Hunter’s Dragon Project would be necessary to correlate. 

Curiously, Callahan feels many so-called UFO sightings at night “are mass swarms of lighted insects migrating and caught in just such a voltage field between the sky and earth.” An example my family and I witnessed at Berwick-upon-Tweed a few years ago may well have been such.  And to follow the spiral further, Terry Cox, who lives on Dartmoor, has tried photographing UFOs with infra-red film with some success. (5)

Inconclusive as this article must be, I hope it might spark someone to look further into this.  Insects are one matter, and I also ponder the relationship between megalithic sites and mammals often encountered there.  Why two stones called the Mare and the Foal, why do the Goatstones resemble in actuality crouched frogs?  But that’s another tale.  As usual, more questions than answers. 
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