Long Meg And Her Daughters
Long Meg And Her Daughters
Long Meg and her daughters is a large stone circle that lies some miles outside Penrith in Cumbria near the village of Little Salkeld. It’s the sixth-largest stone circle in North-West Europe. It has never been formally excavated but what we see today probably dates from the late Stone Age and the early Bronze Age.
Long Meg sits close to the River Eden. There are many neolithic monuments nearby in the Eden Valley, and it seems to have been a cultural focus for Neolithic people.
The most impressive monuments like Long Meg, King Arthur’s Round Table at Eamont Bridge and Mayburgh Henge are very close to the River Eden, which is undoubtedly significant. There may have been a ritual approach to the river from each of them. Here at Long Meg, on the river’s edge, there is a cursus nearby.
A cursus is a racing track shape layout of an unknown purpose. There is one close by Stonehenge too.
Though Long Meg is impressive today, there was more to her and her family in earlier years.
The Circle
There are fifty-nine stones left, of which only twenty-seven stand upright. It is said that it is impossible to count them and come to the same number every time. But to be fair, they say that about lots of stone circles…
