With the SCA, I've slept in a few castles and other structures, going back to the mid-1200s.
I've cat-napped in some very old churches, mostly during dull services, but that probably neither counts nor beats the castles. I HAVE had a brief snooze under a dolmen during my hitch-hiking years - it was raining, the dolmen was dry, and I was knackered. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I've been in Newgrange-era structures all over Ireland, which might or might not be older than the dolmen.
]]>Between them, these are illustrating a few things for me, the main one of which is that an awful lot of significant history happened in the mid-19th century. It seems to be the first time that the world changed enough that people from one end of the century couldn't readily get a grasp on life at the other end. And then, while the pace of technological change may have increased since, the rate of social change, nation-forming, and so on slowed right down again.
It's also becoming clear from both pursuits that people will argue about anything - with no particular aim beyond hearing their own voices. That's not news, but it's useful to remind myself of it once in a while.
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