Badbury Rings, by Yvonne Aburrow
Badbury Rings is an ancient Celtic hillfort with three ramparts. It is the possible site of the Battle of Mount Badon. It is also the site of a Roman temple, built after the hillfort had been abandoned. It is rich in flowers and butterflies. On a single afternoon I saw ragwort, selfheal, devil's-bit scabious, red deadnettle, clover, buttercups, harebells, thistles, horseshoe vetch, kidney vetch, silverweed, sorrel, orchids, herb-bennet, carline thistles, burdock, eyebright, bedstraw, mayweed, mugwort, thyme, coltsfoot, and sedge. There were birch, beech, oak, ash, hawthorn, wayfaring and apple trees. Burnet moths, bees, marbled white butterflies, and crickets buzzed, fluttered and chirped among the grass.
Sitting in the ditch where perhaps the defenders of Mount Badon lie, their bones among the white chalk, I listened to the crickets and the wind. The note of a songbird broke in on the chorus. A bee buzzed past, a deep note in the symphony. A hot drowsy summer afternoon. I watched the dragonfly and pondered its flight. There was no stillness, but a great peace. Approaching Lammas, the great transition, the wheel of the year moves slowly in the hot summer drowse. Far off in the distance the cliffs guard the sea approach, and can be seen from the top of Badbury Rings.
The cricket chorus
drowsing in the summer sun -
high cirrus drifting.
The yellowhammer
Sings to beg for his supper -
a lone traveller.
Spikes of herb-bennet
Among the whispering grass.
Butterflies passing.
Robin's pincushion:
Parasite on bramble stem.
The wind in my hair.
Horned brown cattle walk
Where ancient warriors' bones
Lie beneath the grass.
The ancient trackways
run though blue-distant forests -
ancestors' footsteps.
The Wayfaring Tree.
"It is ever on the road."
Friend of travellers.
Three green mounds dreaming:
silent and solitary.
Flock of birds wheeling.
Hut circle. Old hearth -
cold now but once the centre.
Smoke seeping through thatch.