Sarah Baxter - Mystical Places

MYSTICAL PLACES

SARAH BAXTER

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
AMY GRIMES

ONCE UPON a time, in a land not so very far away, there was a person not so very unlike you looking for a way in which to understand and interpret the world.

Humans need stories. Always have. And most likely always will. Back in the day, before science and Netflix, these stories were everything. They acted as a form of entertainment, a method of education, a means of explanation. Aurally, pictorially and etched into parchment or stone, all types of tales religious, mythological, folkloric have been passed on through the ages. These diverse narratives are variously woven into tree trunks, drawn across night skies, entwined about body parts, boiled up with the changing seasons, inscribed into the rock of castles, cowsheds and caves. Some are parables to provide helpful warnings keep your fingers out of there or your nose out of here, or else the bogeyman will come and get you. Then there are the legends on which whole cities, countries or even empires rise, often becoming so twisted, blurred or misremembered over time that no one can quite recall what the real roots of the saga even were.

Yes, there are so many stories, adding substance, significance, interest and intrigue to the way the world works. Some of these stories were borne from an ancient kernel of truth, others seem pure flights of fancy that we just love to retell. Some are embedded in fact, though ripe for reinterpretation and rewriting as technology and knowledge advance. But all offer an air of the magical. A sense that something bigger than ourselves might just be at play even if that something is the scope of the human imagination.

This book dances with some of these fabulous, fable-lous, fairytale places. In these pages we meet mythical kings, sacred summits and enchanted architecture, plus a cast of elves, giants, ghosts, golems and sea creatures without which our planet might be a more logical and well-reasoned place, but also less colourful and compelling. With the aid of beautifully bewitching illustrations, this guide aims to transport you, in the comfort of your own armchair, to these mystical spots, digging into their legends, evoking their supernatural essence on the page.

For instance, we take a trip to Tintagel Castle (), the ruined keep on Englands wild North Cornwall coast, where fact and fiction are almost impossible to disentangle. Whether the folk hero King Arthur and his other Camelot cohorts ever came here, whether they ever stood on this fine crag-top and gazed out across the furious ocean, is almost irrelevant. Its rumoured association with these legendary figures bestowed upon Tintagel a real-life power and continues to add to its considerable romance to this day.

Likewise, a visit to Germanys Harz Mountains () is made extra atmospheric thanks to centuries of associated sorcery. The Hexentanzplatz plateau or Witches Dance Floor was a Saxon place of worship, and the rituals performed here to keep evil spirits at bay have endured, albeit now with a more commercialised edge. Time your visit, though, and the broomstick-selling souvenir shops dont dint the mountains spooky air; come when the mists are low and the crowds are thin, and its not too hard to conjure the spectres of ghouls and goblins swirling in the breeze.

Sometimes natural creations are imbued with such inherent presence, energy and magnetic attraction that whole belief systems have become centred on them. For instance, across the Atlantic, in the USAs Pacific Northwest, Mount Shastas physical heft, striking appearance and violent pyrotechnics have inspired a multitude of stories for successive visitors (). For the Native American peoples, known to have inhabited the environs of this active volcano for at least 11,000 years, Shasta is key to their creation, its smoking and bellowing explained by the god in its belly. Later comers have also been drawn to the mountains flanks some seeking religious enlightenment, some chasing far-out fantasies of lost kingdoms and beings from outer space, some simply finding something spiritual in the surrounding lakes, forests and cascades.

Of course, our planet has plenty more mystical places that are not covered here. We have space for only 25, but a further journey might have transported us even deeper into the creative, meaning-seeking mind. Perhaps to Sintra, Portugal, where the gardens at the elaborate and eccentric Quinta da Regaleira estate are said to incorporate a range of mystical symbols and secret codes related to the Knights Templar, alchemy and Free Masonry not least its downward-spiralling well, reminiscent of Dantes nine circles of Hell. We could have taken a dive into the miraculous Hinatuan Enchanted River, an ethereally blue stream in the Philippines said to be coloured by fairies and inhabited by uncatchable fish. Or we could have made a (careful) voyage to the infamous Bermuda Triangle, to wonder whether there really is any cause for concern about this allegedly ship-sucking portion of the Atlantic Ocean.

The options are too many to list. Where humankind is involved, there are always more mysteries to account for, and more stories to tell

THIS JAGGED headland, thrust out into the blue-green sea, looks fit for a king either actual or imagined. It is geological drama incarnate, a wave-thumped hump of rock with views stretching far and wide, along the craggy coast and out to the fathomless horizon. Atop this spot lie scattered ruins: a crumbled gatehouse, a tiny chapel, broken battlements that drop straight off precipices. And around this scatter of old stone, gulls and choughs patrol like wise old guardsmen, while golden gorse glows like piles of royal treasure. Its not hard to conceive of magic happening here, on this wild almost-island a touch removed from the real world. It is the perfect place for tales of wizardry and chivalry to cross over from the storybooks and into history

Tintagel Castle straddles a chunk of mainland and a striking promontory on the North Cornwall coast. It may have been occupied during Iron Age and Roman times, but the site really flourished during the so-called Dark Ages, from around the fifth century. This was a Cornish golden era, when the Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia ruled much of the southwest and Tintagel was one of its biggest settlements. Tintagels precise purpose isnt known, but its scale, and the many high-status goods unearthed here such as fine Merovingian glass and Phocaean red-slip pottery suggest it may have been a royal centre. Which is perhaps why the 12th-century bishop and chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth was inspired to incorporate it into one of the greatest fables of the Middle Ages: that of King Arthur.