101 Things To Do With a Stone Circle (John Billingsley – Editor, Northern Earth 120, Winter 2009-10)

This is the kind of book which most of us wish we could have written; a useful little round-up of megalithic ephemera of how people understood and interpreted ancient sites, used them, talked about them, abused them and so on. Holder’s remit is international, so he either has excellent language skills, or shares such with a collaborator, or is a veritable Dyson of data, spinning it back out cyclonically in a barrage of fascinating facts and dry witticisms. Sometimes the process seems to interfere with the material, and gentle mockery seems for the sake of a good line rather than being deserved. Maybe this is an inevitable tendency in someone who immerses themselves in fringe archaeology – there’s only so much you can take before a certain weariness sets in, as I know only too well myself after nearly 40 years in e.m.

Holder is a powerhouse of e.m.-relevant material at the moment, with several “Guide to Mysterious…” books out, and now this. This is easy to read and contains gems, like the way Estonia’s e.m. scene in the 1970s developed as a radical riposte to Soviet occupation, or a very even-handed but cutting appraisal of e.m. dowsing. Just one thing I felt odd about – he describes “outrage” in some of the woollier earth mysteries magazines recently over Paul Devereux’s treatment of leys. Recently? Woolly? I’d like to think that NE has had a rather sheared-down approach for the last 15 years, and Cherly of Meyn Mamvro and Rowan of White Dragon similarly have a longstanding proto-vegan approach to woolly thinking, and we’re pretty much e.m. literature today. So who is Holder confusing us with? Come on Geoff, give us a clue! Good book, though, and recommended.

[NB e.m. = earth mysteries]