Welcome to Litsy!

Plas Newydd is a stately home on the Anglesey shore of the Menai Strait, established in the 15th C, its current form being late 18th. The 1st Marquis distinguished himself at Waterloo, earning the title, despite being out of favour with Wellington as he'd had an affair with the Duke's sister-in-law, who, to be fair, the Marquis went on to marry.
I feel conflicted in stately homes: I love the history and art, while deploring the elitist privilege.

I'm reading Weird Walk #5 while in Anglesey, & although the island doesn't feature, it has made me come over all Neolithicy, so I took the opportunity to visit Bryn Celli Ddu burial mound. It's the only solar-oriented monument on the island, & in fine fettle for c.4000 years.
Amongst the butterflies on the walk up, I spotted this pretty speckled wood ? It was nice, too, to meet another "henge-whore" for a few minutes pleasant talk about stones.

Weird Walk 6 is the Winter 2022/23 edition, so slightly weird to be reading it in summer, and also poignantly weird that the intro heading is a Black Sabbath lyric and Ozzy is referenced 🤘
Stuff about a bouncy castle Stonehenge touring art installation, 90s rave/traveller culture, doom metal reviews, trespass as protest, rivers, trees and stones 🏞️🌳🪨😌

Weird Walk #3 features an interview with author Andrew Michael Hurley and the use of walking through the British landscape in his novels, a dolmen "review" and the Uffington White Horse, and a really interesting piece on the history and folklore of beer and ale. ⬇️

Sitting in the spring sunshine, listening to the Bill Evans Evans Trio play the relaxing 🌷Spring is Here🌷, drinking coffee, cat minding (which is easier now we've had a broken fence panel replaced) and reading Weird Walk No. 2, which includes articles on the Third Doctor's folk horror storyline, The Dæmons, progressive Morris dancing, Stonehenge-inspired rock & foraging.
#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
https://youtu.be/zhvA0P_qQms?si=RfvjbevsTaPFhP4z

"The message of the English landscape is one of embrace - is one of humankind's ability to find our individual narratives among the pathways and allow those narratives to coexist harmoniously. My ghosts and your ghosts each take up zero space while coexisting in the same location; my myths and your myths have equal footing and, in fact, combine to form new, better, stronger myths."

Justin Hopper, Weird Walk zine #1

The Weird Walk zine is greater than the sum of its parts, though its parts are very good.
At 40 pages, there is, of necessity, a brevity to the articles, but the atmosphere created is cohesive, a folkiness with strands woven of calmness and unease, groundedness and ethereality, and a modernity steeped in a deep antiquity. It's a hauntological love letter to the English landscape 💚💛💚

We're in the Lakes for a few days, and I picked up another couple of issues of the Weird Walk zine: nos. one and seven.
Topics in 1 include folklore, music, poetry, medieval graffiti and standing stones. Topics in 7 include forests (a bit of an accidental theme for me so far this year), the Northumbrian Holy Island, cheese lore (!), and old stones.

I wanted to visit one of the sites described in the book while reading it, & I've driven 2½ hours to Castlerigg by Keswick, Lake District. Even with tourists here (of which I'm one) it's a special place. A natural amphitheatre on a colossal scale which my photos can't do justice to. Sounds of crows, tweety birds, lambs and the occasional car, engine struggling up hill. The people are quiet and respectful, as befits the setting 😌
#WednesdayWalks

"At the close of the last Ice Age, over 12,000 years ago, people walked to a place that would one day become known as great Britain."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Reading about neolithic monuments, folk traditions and the re-enchanting of the British landscape, & Julian Cope appears in the Avebury chapter, so I'm listening to his albums Jehovahkill & 20 Mothers, which have a high quotient of lyrical & musical relevance to these topics. Julian was well into his Modern Antiquarian phase with these recordings, including songs and poems about stone circles, henges and paganism. It's a mood! 🪨🛸
#BooksAndMusic

I like reading about other people getting their exercise. You keep walking weird, I'll keep reading weird!
I might've expected the hardcover to be a collection of articles from the zines of this collective of ramblers through the British pagan countryside, but I didn't think of it, so now I'm less sure about collecting all the zine issues, but that petty quibble aside, this is a lovely book in the tradition of Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian.

I read a review for this album last week in Weird Walk #4 zine, and listened to it on Bandcamp. It captures the artist's (Charles Vaughan) impressions of walking through the British countryside near or in sight of electricity pylons.
The listener may either find this a pleasantly relaxing and atmospheric experience (me) or "about as musically interesting as listening to the compressor pump on the fridge" (my wife).
#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude

“Who owns the British countryside?“

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

My daughter bought me this zine, Weird Walk: A Journal of Wanderings and Wonderings from the British Isles, which focuses on “walking [as] an active engagement with the British landscape and its lore“. This is issue 4, dated Imbolc, 2021.
There are essays about the intersection of British Afro-Carribean culture and British folk traditions by broadcaster Zakia Sewell, ⬇️