Films like the original Wicker Man, Midsommar. Witch, Apostle, The Ritual. These films explore the idea that in places of the world the old ways connected to the land and the past may still exist. This has been a genre that’s always had a steady following in the U.K., as for centuries god fearing folk have found relics in the hills or ploughed up in fields of a time before Christianisation, we were something else. Not necessarily evil but different, and for much longer than the way things are now.
And as I grew up in a part of the world peppered with hill forts, stone circles and burial mounds, it’s always been easy to let my imagination drift.
I live in an area where finding ancient ruins, cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and geoglyphs is common and many that are seldom visited by humans. Many of them the presence of the ancients can still be felt and even heard at times.
@Ferric67 What surprises me are how many of them are out there, scattered around in hard to get to places. It's not uncommon for me to find corn cobs on the floors of the cliff dwellings that are 600-900 yrs old. You can still see fingerprints in the caliche they used to plaster the walls that could still be used in a forensics case. And the cliff faces and boulders covered in petroglyphs are jaw dropping.
the original wicker man largely disappeared from view, for many years after it was released but there were many secret, private showings, art house offers
it became for a generation of Pagan Coverts.. something of a celebration
I'm kinda torn on it as a topic. there are lots of interesting things out there, and a little bit of weirdness is always kinda cool to find, but I'm a little concerned about the 'unknown and/or weird is something that's after you and probably going to kill you'/fear of the unknown or unusual aspect.
I've ended up on your profile wondering if your username is a reference to a book I remember becoming very famous some time back... Mmm. Isn't the original "Wicker Man" absolutely terrifying? Did you ever watch the remake, and what did you think of it if so?
@ShellSeeker 😊 I mean Tolkien saw those sorts of things, and tales of little folk, etc., and thought, "What kind of peoples might have been which would leave these hints & marks on us?" and went off creating whole languages of peoples, their attendant cultures, their histories/stories...
As the solstice is coming soon, isn't it hard to believe the only Wicker Man (we don't talk about the shite Nic Cage remake 😆) will be 50 years old soon? 👏