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file:Malvern Hills in June 2005.JPG|thumb|250px|The Malvern Hills , Alfred Watkins believed a ley line passes along their ridge.

Ley lines are alleged alignments of a number of places of geography|geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monument s and megalith s, natural ridge-tops and water-fords. Their existence was suggested in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins , in his books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track , commenting "I knew nothing on June 30th last of what I now communicate, and had no theories".Alfred Watkins, Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps and Sites (1922).

Watkins later developed theories that these alignments were created for ease of overland trekking by line of sight navigation during neolithic times and had persisted in the landscape over millennia. In more recent times, the term ley lines has come to be associated with spiritual and mystical theories about land forms, including Chinese feng shui .

Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track

The concept of "ley lines" is generally thought of in relation to Alfred Watkins, although the stimulus and background for the concept is attributed to the English astronomer Norman Lockyer . On 30 June 1921, Alfred Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire , and had been driving along a road near the village (which has now virtually disappeared). Attracted by the nearby archaeological investigation of a Roman camp, he stopped his car to compare the landscape on either side of the road with the marked features on his much used map. While gazing at the scene around him and consulting the map, he saw, in the words of his son, 'like a chain of fairy lights' a series of straight alignments of various ancient features, such as standing stones, wayside crosses, causeways, hill forts and ancient churches on mounds. He realized immediately that the potential discovery had to be checked from higher ground when during a revelation he noticed that many of the footpaths there seemed to connect one hilltop to another in a straight line. He subsequently coined the term "ley" at least partly because the lines passed through places whose names contained the syllable ley Clive L. N. Ruggles, page 224.

It has been suggested that Watkins' speculation (he called it 'surmise') stemmed from reading an account in September 1870 by William Henry Black given to the British Archaeological Association in Hereford titled Boundaries and Landmarks , in which he speculated that "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe".

Watkins believed that, in ancient times, when Britain was far more densely forest ed, the country was criss-crossed by a network of straight-line travel routes, with prominent features of the landscape being used as navigation points. This observation was made public at a meeting of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club of Hereford in September 1921. His work referred to G. H. Piper's paper presented to the Woolhope Club in 1882, which noted that: "A line drawn from the Ysgyryd Fawr|Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone, Herefordshire|Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southern most point of Hatterall Hill , Oldcastle, Monmouthshire|Oldcastle , Longtown Castle , and Urishay and Snodhill castles."Piper, G.H. (1888). Arthur's Stone, Dorstone. ''Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1881-82: 175-180.

The ancient surveyors who supposedly made the lines were given the name " dodmen ". He believed that the lines themselves had been called "leys" because so many of them passed through locations whose names included the element "ley",Williamson, T. and Bellamy, L., Ley Lines in Question . World's Work Ltd. (1983) ISBN 0-437-19205-9 p.12 stating that philologists defined the word (spelled also as lay, lea, lee, or leigh) differently but had misinterpreted it.

Examples of ley lines in Britain

Alfred Watkins theorised St. Ann's Well, Malvern|St. Ann's Well in Worcestershire as the start of an alleged ley line that passes along the ridge of the Malvern Hills through several Spring (hydrosphere)|springs including the Holy Well, Malvern|Holy Well , Walms Well and St. Pewtress Well.Watkins, A. 1921 Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps, and Sites .

In ''The Ley Hunter's Companion'' (1979) Paul Devereux theorised that a 10 mile alignment he called the "Malvern Ley" passed through St Ann's Well, the Wyche, Worcestershire|Wyche Cutting , a section of the British_Camp#The_Shire_Ditch|Shire Ditch , Midsummer Hill , Whiteleaved Oak , Redmarley D'Abitot and Pauntley.Devereux, P. Thomson, I. 1979 ''The ley hunter's companion: aligned ancient sites : a new study with field guide and maps Thames and Hudson ISBN 0-500-01208-3

In City of Revelation (1973) British author John Michell (writer)|John Michell theorised that Whiteleaved Oak is the centre of a circular alignment he called the “Circle of Perpetual Choirs” and is equidistant from Glastonbury , Stonehenge , Goring-on-Thames and Llantwit Major . The theory was investigated by the British Society of Dowsers and used as background material by Phil Rickman in his novel The Remains of an Altar (2006).

Critical reception

Watkins' work met with early scepticism from archaeologists, one of whom, O. G. S. Crawford , refused to accept advertisements for The Old Straight Track in the journal Antiquity .Shoesmith, R. (1990). Alfred Watkins: a Herefordshire Man , p. 132. Woonton Almeley: Logaston Press. ISBN 0-9510242-7-2 In recent years, refutations of Watkins' ideas have been generally based on mathematical models.

Chance alignments

One criticism of Watkins' ley line theory states that given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Great Britain|Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that "connect" sites is trivial, and ascribable to coincidence . A statistical analysis of lines concluded that "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites."

Shape analysis

A study by David George Kendall used the techniques of Shape analysis (digital geometry)|shape analysis to examine the triangles formed by standing stones to deduce if these were often arranged in straight lines. The shape of a triangle can be represented as a point on the sphere, and the distribution of all shapes can be thought of as a distribution over the sphere. The sample distribution from the standing stones was compared with the theoretical distribution to show that the occurrence of straight lines was no more than average., by David G. Kendall, Statistical Science, Vol. 4, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 87-99

Archaeologist Richard J. C. Atkinson|Richard Atkinson once demonstrated this by taking the positions of telephone box es and pointing out the existence of "telephone box leys". This, he thus argued, showed that the mere existence of such lines in a set of points does not prove that the lines are deliberate artefacts, especially since it is known that telephone boxes were not laid out in any such manner, and without any such intention.

Attribution of spiritual significance to ley lines

In 1969, the British author John Michell (writer)|John Michell , who had previously written on the subject of UFOs , published The View Over Atlantis , in which he revived Watkins' ley line theories and linked them with the Chinese concept of feng shui .
The book, published by Sago Press, proved popular and was reprinted in Great Britain by Garnstone Press in 1972 and Abacus in 1973, and in the United States by Ballantine Books in 1972. Gary Valentine Lachman|Gary Lachman states that The View Over Atlantis "put Glastonbury on the countercultural map." Ronald Hutton describes it as "almost the founding document of the modern earth mysteries movement". #refHutton|Hutton, p 121

Michell's mingling Watkins' amateur archaeology with Chinese spiritual concepts of land-forms led in the 1972 to many new theories about the alignments of monuments and natural landscape features. Writers made use of Watkins' terminology in service of concepts related to dowsing and New Age beliefs, including the ideas that ley lines have spiritual power or resonate a special psychic or energy (esotericism)|mystical energy .John P. Newport, The New Age Movement and The Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue , page 304 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998). ISBN 0-8028-4430-8
Ascribing such characteristics to ley lines has led to the term being classified as pseudoscience .Brian Regal, Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia, ISBN 978-0-313-35507-3

In 2004, John Bruno Hare wrote:

Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines today".

Cultural references

Ley lines appear in various works (both novels and short stories) of fantasy (genre)|fantasy . In Thomas Pynchon 's Mason & Dixon , set in the 18th century, the Mason-Dixon line becomes increasingly confused with the idea of a ley line and with feng shui . In the The Darkness Series|Darkness series by Harry Turtledove , ley lines are used for transportation by ships and trains that harness the planet's magical force, and allow mages to cast more powerful magic. In the Vampire Diaries book series by L. J. Smith (author)|L. J. Smith , a large number of ley lines converge under the graveyard and the Old Wood of Fell's Church. The lines allow supernatural forces to become more powerful, and also attract magic.

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