The immense, mountain-sized rock called Uluru, some 1,300 feet in height and with an enormously broad base, occupies a prominent place in the central Australian landscape. Visible from far away, Uluru (or Ayers Rock) dominates the surrounding territory and is the most sacred site of many Aboriginal peoples. At this holy place, potent crossing point of countless dreaming tracks and song lines (the paths connecting sacred sites), legends say that two snake peoples once fought for supremacy during the Dreamtime (the age of the world’s dawn) and the rock itself still bears witness to their epic struggle. The area around the formation is home to an abundance of springs, waterholes, rock caves and ancient paintings. Uluru is sacred to the Aboriginal people who live in this varied landscape, the Pitjantjatjara Anangu. According to the Anangu, the world was once a featureless place. None of the places we know existed until creator beings, in the forms of people, plants and animals, traveled widely across the land. Then, in a process of creation and destruction, they formed the landscape as we know it today. Aṉangu land is still inhabited by the spirits of dozens of these ancestral creator beings which are referred to as Tjukuritja or Waparitja.
The Battle of Uluru
19 Aug
- Comments Leave a Comment
- Categories Folklore, Legend, Mythology, Unexplained Mystery
Welcome message
Thanks for stopping by!
I'm a writer and on this site you'll find samples of my work (which spans lots of genres including horror, comedy, mystery, thriller and fantasy) as well as book/film/music reviews, true stories, tall tales, urban legends and news of forthcoming publications. To follow me on Twitter or Facebook click on one of the links below.
Blog Stats
- 846,795 hits
Twitter Timeline
My TweetsLiddell’s Ghost
First Date
Ghost Walk
M R James
-
Ghosts of Christmas Past
‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
-
M R James’s Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll […]
-
A Warning to the Curious
Here’s a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
-
Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn’t much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
-
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here’s a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I’ve been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
Recent Posts
- The Haunted and the Haunters
- The Myth of London Stone
- Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected
- The Most Haunted Places in Dorset
- The doppelgänger effect
- The Highgate Vampire
- Mystery of the Mothman
- T G Jackson – Architect of the Gothic
- The Hollow Earth Theory
- The Black Reaper
- Kraken, Demon of the Abyss
- In Ghostly Company
- Ghosts of Christmas Past
- Shakespeare’s Dark Lady
- The Legend of Stingy Jack
- A Plague on Both Your Houses
- The Enid Blyton Affair
- The Mozart of the English Ghost Story
- The Three Investigators
- The Case of Gervase Fen
- The Travelling Grave
- The Demon Barber
- Lupercalia
- The Curse of La Llorona
Pages
Archives
Categories
M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |