Cherringham--The Curse of Mabb's Farm Read Online Free PDF Page A

minutes they reached the crest, where the hilltop flattened. And at that crest, Sarah turned.
    To the east, she saw Cherringham, a postcard view from here.
    “Beautiful,” Jack said. “If I was a painter …”
    “Yes. It is, isn’t it? And down there you can see the farm at the end of the road.”
    Sarah pointed to the small farmhouse and barns. A herd of cows stood outside, while a field behind the farmhouse had irregular rows of what looked like wheat.
    She turned back to the hill.
    A tight bunch of trees blocked the view of any clearing ahead, but she saw a muddy trail leading into it. The wood was made up of tall oaks and birch — a dense dark space.
    She shivered.
    It seemed ancient. And ominous …
    “The stones must be through there.”
    “Right,” Jack said as if he couldn’t take his eyes off this bucolic view.
    She began to follow the trail, a two-feet wide path of muddy ground that was probably as old as the stones themselves.
    In the deeply shaded woods, the air turned cold, dark and silent.
    Sarah had expected birdsong — but there was nothing.
    Finally they emerged from the trees to see the circle of stones.
    Sarah’s first thought was how was it I never came here as a child?
    She wondered why her father, who loved history, hadn’t brought her here.
    Although, to be fair, he was more of a museum person, interested in the great events, important treaties and documents signed in massive rooms with towering ceilings.
    Not really one for hiking.
    And she could well imagine how as a child she’d have protested at such a jaunt.
    Though she did get dragged to all sorts of local World War Two memorials where her dad would become teary-eyed explaining the human story behind each memorial.
    That stuck with her.
    Now she looked at the stones, a perfect circle twenty, thirty meters in diameter. Dozens of stones marking the shape, most looking like jagged teeth.
    Were they merely sitting on the dirt, she wondered, or were they much larger than they looked, buried in the ground itself, their toothed edges pointing up?
    Either way — the place had an aura.
    “Amazing,” Jack said.
    “Not exactly Stonehenge, but still pretty amazing that it’s here, isn’t it?”
    “I know. To see something this old still standing … to think of who came here, and what they did …”
    She could see that Jack was lost to his reverie, filling in this spot with people, maybe Druid priests, villagers, the unlucky sod selected to be sacrificed.
    She didn’t know whether it was the wind or the fact that they were on a hill, but she felt a chill again. It wasn’t helped by the sun dipping below the trees to the west, throwing this ancient place into shadows.
    Jack walked towards the nearest stone, three feet tall. He bent down and touched it.
    “Guessing even the lichens on these stones are a thousand years old.”
    Shows what I don’t know , Sarah thought. Lichens can live that long? Then, as if he could guess what she was thinking:
    “They do live that long, you know.”
    He stood up. “There’s a plaque of some kind,” he said, pointing to a spot at the centre of the circle.
    And they walked into the very centre of Mabb’s ring of stones.
    Jack read: Though these stones date from the Neolithic era, from approximately 6000 BC, the name ‘Mabb’s’ was applied to them in relatively recently times, circa 1100 AD. The name may have originated in the ancient myth of the Fairy Queen Medb, though some suggest it was named in honour of Lady Mabel Repton in the thirteenth century. The Repton family owned much of what we now know as the village of Cherringham.
    Jack laughed. “‘ Relatively recently …’ You have to work real hard in this country to be called ‘old’ I guess.”
    Sarah skimmed the information on the plaque explaining the history of the stones.
    “Look here. Says that the stones most likely served many ceremonial purposes but primarily they must have been a place for human sacrifice, tied to the