Here are a few snapshots of the fantastic adventures that car having has opened up for us: the Blowing Stone, the Uffington White Horse and Wayland’s Smithy.

From Wikipedia, The Blowing Stone is a giant piece of perforated sandstone, and the legend is as follows:

The stone is capable of producing a booming sound, when anyone with the required skill blows into one of the perforations in a particular way. This was, according to legend, the means whereby King Alfred summoned his Saxon troops, in readiness for the nearby Battle of Ashdown, against the Vikings. This legend reputedly gives rise to the village’s name, ‘King’s stone’, the Lisle suffix being a later addition.

Also, according to legend, a person who is capable of making the blowing stone sound a note that is audible atop Uffington White Horse Hill (where Victorian antiquarians thought King Alfred’s troops had camped) will be a future King of England.

In reality, it is a giant rock in a little fenced outcove directly behind someone’s front garden. It is hilariously anti-climactic to go see, and exactly the kind of small-town tourist trap thing you could possibly want to find in rural England. Matt was brave enough to try blowing into a few of the perforations, but I saw spiders and pretty much decided I didn’t need to defeat the Vikings that badly.

I’ve mentioned the Uffington White Horse on here before (it’s the prehistoric hill figure, carved out of the hilltop to reveal the white chalk that runs under the soil here), but I can now finally say I’ve seen it much closer and, much more spectacularly, the view from around it. The horse is carved very high up on a hill, surrounded by pasture land that overlooks the whole shire, or area we live, or whatever you want to call it. We took the dogs up to see it and walked through the surrounding sheep fields to admire the lovely views. The sheep were super not okay with the dogs, staring at us fervently and even slowly stalking us until we’d look back at them/or face them head on, while the dogs were absolutely thrilled to see the sheep, so that was entertaining to say the least.

Wayland’s Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow and chamber tomb. It is just off the Ridgeway (the oldest road in the world (, I think?) and is a really neat little surprise in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a lot to see, just some stones and some tiny rooms where the bodies used to be, but it does have a feeling history about it, it doesn’t look like anything else I’ve ever seen.

(Also from Wikipedia,) here’s the legend:

Wayland’s Smithy is one of many prehistoric sites associated with Wayland or Wolund, a Germanic smith-god. According to legend, a traveller whose horse has lost a shoe can leave the animal and a silver coin on the capstone at Wayland’s Smithy. When he returns next morning he will find that his horse has been re-shod and the money gone. It is conjectured that the invisible smith may have been linked to this site for many centuries before the Saxons recognized him as Wayland. 

Alright, more to come when I’ve got more time to type, but a break in the rain is calling us to venture out to the market now before we have to walk home in the rain…
Yeah, that’s right. We’re still being good and trying not to drive to run our in town errands unless we must, what’s the point of being within walking distance, if you don’t walk? Go us!