Saturday, 16 August 2008

Uffington White Horse
















On my recent roadtrip I drove through Oxfordshire. He who maketh me many cups of coffee accompanied me on my travels as we were looking for somewhere new to live. We decided to make a slight detour to Uffington where there is a white chalk horse figure in the hillside. It is thought to be the most ancient of the hill figures in Britain, perhaps dating back to around 1000BC. When I was standing on the very high hill looking across the valley, I tried to imagine that I had travelled back in time. I felt I could almost imagine that I had stepped back in time, because countryside surrounded me and there was only small hints of modern civilisation. Currently I live somewhere very flat (sadly I can't give specific details over the internet) with barely any hills and the hills that are known as hills where I live are really nothing compared to the hills of the west country. It was great to be standing on the enormous hill in Uffington and being able to see for miles, right to the horizon. It has been a while since I have seen such stunning views.
As you can see I have labelled where the chalk horse is on the photo in big red letters, because unless I had an aerial photo it would be hard to see where the horse is as you can only see part of it on the photo. Just infront of the white horse is Dragon Hill. Legend has it that St. George fought the dragon on top of this hill and becasue the blood of the dragon spilled onto the hill, no grass can ever grow on it. I think Vraie Fiction might be as excited by that as I was. I love legends, particularly one's with dragons. Some people think that the horse figure is actually meant to represent the dragon.

3 pumpkin seeds:

Guillaume said...

Fascinating, this is my kind of environment, so beautifully eerie and mysterious. I hope we can visit you soon. I always thought Saint George fought his dragon somewhere in Africa, but legends can take major geographical inconsistencies/licences. I want to see that "horse" anyway. I saw it on many beer labels.

Frankofile said...

I think the West Country will suit you.

And the 'word verification' I've got to do now for google is 'pooxy' - lovely word - perhaps it's a WCountry dialect word..

Lindsey said...

Guillaume: There will be room for you to visit now and lots of nice things to go and see. I'm glad you liked the legend. I could just imagine a dragon sitting on that hill.

Frankofile: What did you discover a 'pooxy' means? What is a word verification for google?

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