Origin traced to a little
story-telling Wiltshire boy who had read or heard of the
white-robed priests of the ancient days at "The Stones," and
who just to astonish other little boys naughtily pretended
that he had seen it all himself!
Chapter Twenty-Three: Following a River
The stream invites us to follow: the impulse is so common that
it might be set down as an instinct; and certainly there is no
more fascinating pastime than to keep company with a river
from its source to the sea. Unfortunately this is not easy in
a country where running waters have been enclosed, which
should be as free as the rain and sunshine to all, and were
once free, when England was England still, before landowners
annexed them, even as they annexed or stole the commons and
shut up the footpaths and made it an offence for a man to go
aside from the road to feel God's grass under his feet. Well,
they have also got the road now, and cover and blind and choke
us with its dust and insolently hoot-hoot at us. Out of the
way, miserable crawlers, if you don't want to be smashed!
Sometimes the way is cut off by huge thorny hedges and fences
of barbed wire - man's devilish improvement on the bramble
- brought down to the water's edge.
