In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people… the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing…

If you’ve seen the classic rock spoof This is Spinal Tap, you may remember the title of this blog entry as a quote from fictional heavy metal singer Nigel Tufnel. I know my pal Karen McGee remembers — like me, she’s a Christopher Guest mockumentary fan 🙂

All humor aside, we found out from our own little pilgrimage to the real Stonehenge that the Druids, despite Nigel’s proclamation, probably had nothing to do with this still-standing prehistoric treasure. 

What we did learn about this amazing configuration of very heavy stones was that it probably took 600 people one whole year to drag just one of the huge slabs all the way from Wales to England. Now that’s dedication! Archeologists and anthropologists estimate that a highly-organized people began construction on it in 3100 B.C.

Stonehenge sits on a wide grassy plain of sorts, and we’re told it’s always windy there. Our visit was particularly windy and chilly, but well worth the time spent in awe of this ancient relic.

The windy weather brings up another rock ‘n roll connection. The Beatles sang “The Night Before” in their movie Help on the same grassy knoll near Stonehenge, breezes blowing their moptops every which way.

We saw many more relics from Stonehenge and the entire Salisbury, England area later that day, which I’ll write about in a future post. For now, I’ll leave you with Spinal Tap’s great film parody, in which they perform their hit Stonehenge accompanied by an 18 inch high Stonehenge replica and some little leprechauns 🙂

Stonehenge, where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well
Stonehenge
Where a man’s a man and the children dance to
the pipes of pan