If you go down to the woods today

Not far from Wimborne, these are the "bluebell woods" at Pamphill in Dorset.






Not quite as dramatic as those at Badby in Northamptonshire shown below, but a source of pleasure nonethelesss,

especially when you can find a rare bunch of white bluebells - or should that be whitebells?

















But the joy and sometimes apprehension at walking in woods depends on what else you may come across - such as this arrangement of twigs and blubell flowers we discovered laid out on the remains of an old tree trunk.

Is it some secret rural symbol from Dorset rural life of years ago?
Or, is it a rough make-up of the old Anglo Saxon symbol AWEN, meaning truth, wisdom and inspiration used by druids and bards?  Wimborne was once a Saxon town.




Beautiful though Dorset is, sometimes you may find lost countryside in the middle of towns.
Here is an example of today adjacent to the old Walford Mill in Wimborne.


This is the Mill on the River Allen painted by Arthur Henry Davis in 1881.

Here is a description of Dorset contained in a book:
". . . a county full of sinister hauntings, decaying body parts,spellbinding witchcraft, malevolent fairies, gruesome murders, spectral black dogs, phantom armies, headless ghosts, flickering will o' wisps, strange phenomena, sea monsters, peculiar customs and superstitions, big cats, bewitching nymphets, the magical enchantment of conjurers and witches, uncanny events, death, destruction and the Devil himself, not to mention a horrific history few other counties can boast".
Just in case you think I am making this up

In a riverside meadow in the Dorset town of Weymouth, a witch is using a broom to sweep a sacred circle in the grass.

The rest of the coven stand, some in hooded gowns, in a circle around an iron cauldron where a fire is burning.

Good luck if you go down to to the woods today!