Maze Names
Several English turf mazes were called "Troy", "Troy Town" or "The Walls of Troy". In Wales, where the patterns were cut into the turf of hilltops by shepherds, they were known as "Caerdroia" (unfortunately, no historic Welsh examples survive). "Caer" means wall, rampart, castle, fort, fortress, fastness or city, and the name has been translated as "City of Troy" (or possibly "castle of turns" ). In popular legend, the walls of the city of Troy were constructed in such a complex way that any enemy who entered them would be unable to find their way out. Other common maze names such as "Julian's Bower" and "St Julian's" (and corrupted versions of these) could be derived from Julius, son of Aeneas of Troy, and the word burgh, a place-name element which, like "caer", means a fortified place.
The Troy connection is also found in the names of Scandinavian stone-lined mazes of the classical labyrinth pattern: for instance, Trojaburg near Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland. In Denmark, which once had dozens of turf mazes, the name "Trojborg" or "Trelleborg" was commonly used: no historic examples survive but replicas have been made. At Grothornet, in Vartdal in the Sunnmore Province of Norway there is a stone-lined labyrinth called "Den Julianske Borg" ("Julian's castle").
Some German turf maze names suggest a link with Sweden: "Schwedenhieb" (Swede's cut), "Schwedenhugel" (Swede's hill), "Schwedenring" (Swede's ring), "Schwedengang" (Swede's path). Popular legend links them with the burial places of Swedish officers during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) but they are also widely believed to be much older.
At Stolp, in Pomerania, Poland, the "Windelbahn" ("coil-track"), a processional turf labyrinth, was used by the Shoemakers' Guild. The original was destroyed; a copy was made in 1935.
Read more about this topic: Turf Maze
Famous quotes containing the words maze and/or names:
“Now fades the lasts long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think. And so on for all the other things which made merry with my senses. Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)