newsEngland’s largest megalith reminds us that men worshipped the unknown thousands of years before the arrival of Christianity in Britain
A myth says that the Devil created the stone while in a raging fury that a Christian church had been built on Pagan lands belonging to him. (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
By TREVOR GRUNDY
Beverley, East Riding, England – – – It’s 25 feet high and it’s an awkward-looking boat shaped lump of stone that has turned tiny Rudston in East Riding, Yorkshire, into a curiosity shop for archaeologists, historians and tourists from all over the world.
It’s the biggest megalith in Britain and stands in front of a Christian church which, or so the legend goes, mightily angered the Devil.
Archaeologists say that around 2200 BC it was hauled about 40 miles from where it was found – where no-one is certain – to where it stands today.
When Christianity spread throughout England in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, priests tried to remove all signs of the stone’s pagan origin by putting a metal Christian cross to the top of the structure.
That fooled a few for a while but scientists want facts, not pagan myths and unsubstantiated Christian legends.
Just how this huge stone got to where it is today remains a mystery.
One ancient myth says that the Devil created the stone because he was so furious that a Christian Church had been constructed on pagan lands. His lands. But that’s absurd because Christianity had not been invented in 2200 BC.
The fact that so little is known about life at that time, or the religious beliefs of Neolithic people, remains part of the challenge when you get to Rudston and stand awestruck by this ancient and amazing megalith.
Tourists, including Yorkshire-based Druids, touch and sometimes kiss the giant megalith at Rudston (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
Megaliths, or large stones that have been used to construct a pre-historic structure or monument, are dotted throughout the world.
There are 35,000 of them in Europe and they are e located from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean Sea.
The people who built these amazing structures were Neolithic and they were only beginners when it came to using metals.
What were they used for, is the question?
No-one is quite certain, is the answer.
But probably for religious reasons. Either that or dominating a burial site for a rich and famous warrior king.
As I said, how they were raised and how they were moved remains a mystery.
We know so little for certain but one thing is for sure and that is megaliths are the earliest surviving man-made structures that archaeologist know about.