DOCTORS’ LOUNGE
(continued from page 31)
six inches from the ground rested a small
plaque that read, “Boscawen-Un Quoits.”
Jackpot!
Thank God there are no chiggers in Cornwall, or we’d still be itching. We felt that the
Druids had hidden their sacred circle from
heathen eyes. We pushed our way through
chest high ferns, corn, weeds, and then thornbushes for about a quarter-mile, following a
faint track. It was humid, misty, and dank,
and I had visions of snakes ancestrally set to
guard the stones. Finally G. rounded the edge
of the field, and shouted, and there they were,
over the next wall, nineteen blocky, bulky
stones, shaped like mallet-heads, with one
giant slanted stone in the center.
the village and asked a lady picking blackberries. She said, in the manner of helpful
natives who have a vague idea, “Go straight
and then right.”
We retraced our steps. I drove, and G. tried
to get an overlay on his I-pad from Google
Earth and the county map. No dice. But on
Google Earth, when we coned way down,
we could clearly see a circle, at the intersection of several long hedgerows. We guessed,
and took a likely lane, and found a young
curly-headed farmer up to his ankles in pigs.
He said, “You”ve gone too far. Go back, left,
look for the wooden gate, the path is there.”
We went back. We saw a metal gate but
with wooden posts and a tiny sign that
said, “Boscawen” and we hooted in delight,
squeezed the car off the road but not quite
into the ditch, and took to the fields. We saw
no bulls, but there stood a single ten foot
tall stone with no runes. There were many
cowpats, many magpies, but no circle. Goetz
climbed the hedgerow and took my binoculars and scanned the horizon: no circle.
There came two very nice cows who sorely
needed to be milked, and started toward us,
bleating. We retreated.
But we felt closer. We had eliminated one
lane and searched for the next, tiny, unmarked farm track, and finally saw a gate
made entirely of wood. We parked illegally
downhill from it (“Downhill – a good sign,”
I said). Next to the gate, hidden by the gorse,
32
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
for beer (a Greenwich Ale aged all of four
months in bourbon barrels – hah!), and then
home, to cook the fish that our family had
caught the day before. We thanked the Druids for our dinner, and our safe passage, and
checked our I-devices several times, from
superstition. But they were back to normal,
though the cell reception was not.
We hope one day to go back to Cornwall;
so many places remain to be explored. On
the London train we had “Disruptions,”
and unruly passengers who crowded on at
Plymouth, and “late-running,” inspiring a
conductor who rivaled John Cleese in his
epic apologies, and two sisters who sparred
over the last carrots. It was practically proper
in every way.
The circle was eerie. It lay at the top of the
hill, the coast a few miles below us, overlook- Note: Dr. Barry practices Internal Medicine
ing a great sweep of green fields and dark with Norton Community Medical Associhedgerows. If fires were lit on the coast path ates-Barret. She is a clinical associate profesnear the Merry Maidens circle, it was said, sor at the University of Louisville School of
they could be seen from this circle. The two Medicine, Department of Medicine.
were perfectly aligned, although we knew not
to what – the patterns of certain stars, or the
solstice, or to math we could not ken. Yet our
circle was hidden from all eyes by tall trees,
overgrown walls, and guardians of thorn. I
walked around its outts
er perimeter, touching
po
fs
o
each stone and saying
er le
mb ailab
a private incantat [ۋ