Death magic
This time, at solstice, when the darkness brings the underworld, where ancestors dwell after death, closest to the living. When it is possible to commune with spirits and to call across the now thin veils between the planes of existence to the venerated ancestors.Shamen, in altered states of consciousness, summon the spirits of the ancestors, for guidance.

Death laws
The gods of death, enforce the common laws and the orderliness of society. They are gods of trickery, anger, blackness of night. Gods of destruction, evil, villainy, plague, war, thunder and bad fate.

Executions. Sacrifices. Trial by combat. Here, now, be death. A time and place to enter death’s realm, by choice, vote, or judgement.

Death crossings
The dead require our assistance, to cross into the otherworld. Without decent burial, they become ghosts, forever wandering, causing woes to their loved ones.

Stonehenge affords the dead with the highest of all levels in death, the burial of cremated remains and associated funereal rituals by the living. Their souls are collected and taken across the boundary of light into darkness by the spirit gatekeepers. Into the forever lands.

Forever or until
Rebirth of the sun, into the light of the new year, a repeating cycle of death and rebirth. The Sun God is immortal, as are we. At this solstice time, in the darkness, one soul enters, another is reborn. This robs death of all terrors, allows courage for all things and is the joy, dancing and merriment of the afterlife while awaiting passage to the next gig.

Undoubtedly the focus of The Avenue and the monument, the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, the turning point, when one hopes, the light starts to return. The death of the old and the rebirth of the new. Of all festival days, this is the big one. Though, the day lasts 7 hours and 50 minutes. The long night: 16 hours and 10 minutes.

Before the famine months, much of the livestock are slaughtered, the mead is ready for drinking, there’s to be feasting and merriment.

The sun’s path ever reduces, until it is ‘stand still.’ Impossible for us mortals to spot the change in azimuth or elevation of 1/60 of the angular diameter of the sun, a two-day period is easier, of 1/16. Best to use an astronomically aligned instrument that allows a ray of light to be cast on a certain point around that time, like, perhaps, maybe, two stones, with a gap : -)

The oldest cremated remains are from 3030 to 2880 BC, 300-500 years before the erection of our sarsen trilithons. As Merlin thought, these stones have the ability to do justice to the memory of the dead English noblemen, here, at this time, this ceremony, with the solar god.