Evidence of a "massive" lightning strike has been found at the centre of a stone circle in the Western Isles. Much of this cairn, which is now about 11m in diameter, still survives but in recent years it has suffered a lot of disturbance due to people using stones from it to make modern cairns and wind breaks. Another smaller historic cairn lies further along the ridge at Old Pike and that has also lost some of its stones.” New archaeological and metallurgical research suggests that substantial amounts were exported to Ireland, with smaller quantities probably also going to France. It also suggests that the elites of Stonehenge almost certainly likewise obtained their gold from the south-west peninsula, as may the rulers of north-west Wales, who took to wearing capes made of solid gold.

For many years it was unclear where this standing stone might be, however when the local community association made plans to extend its building on the Aghalee Road, it was discovered that they were right beside the standing stone.Is it true you may ask yourself, well it was recorded, and though there is some dispute about Newgrange (according to Gordon), it is a fascinating fact. The book I found this information from goes on to speculate, that one of the 'gaills' Ivar might have been the son of Ragnar Lothbrok, who spent three days in Maes Knowe because of a storm raging violently outside, and left the following scrawled on the wall... The ditches had some water in them and reeds testified to their marshyness, but of course in these drought months we are experiencing the ditches are drying out.

Well to add to the story of the person in the 'boat coffin', Jacquetta Hawkes writing in her 'Prehistoric Monuments' tells a somewhat different story, perhaps I should say a more embroidered rendition, considering the only remains found in the coffin was part of a foot, with shoe/clothes, etc. But see Pastscape link below.. On the north side of the hill is a field, in which there is entry to a cavern which is said to run under the hill. It is called "Hobbe's Hole," after a personage of whom singular tales are told. Hobbe was evidently a poltergeist. It was his regular custom every week to visit a neighbouring tavern and do the churning for the inmates. All the necessary utensils were placed in readiness before the landlord retired to rest. Unhappily, one night the maid left a linen apron instead of the proper linsey-wolsey one. The nocturnal visitor took offence and never again favoured the inn with his services.Offended by linen instead of linen-wool mix aprons? I can't imagine what a modern hobgoblin would think of modern fibres. Told in the Leicester Daily Mercury, 4th May 1929. King Minos of Knossos clearly was a real person, but the treatments of Homer are difficult to discern, since the poet liked to toy with his readers in intermixing fact with embellishment. Factually Minos reigned at Knossos as the king of all Crete prior to the Trojan War (early to mid second millennium BC).The adjunct Mavrospelio Cemetary was developed with chambered tombs, from which conical cups and burial pithoi have been retrieved. Two meter tall pithoi with rope designs appear at Knossos in MMII. The first expansive plaster murals turn up, notably the partially extant "Saffron Gatherer" illustrating the gathering of crocuses. Increasingly elaborate pottery designs appear such as rosettes, stylistic palms and scroll patterns.