Time Team recently investigated the fogou that nestles in the
undergrowth of my garden. They found over sixty pieces of Iron Age pottery
and a section of an Iron Age house.
Unfortunately they didn't come up with any fresh ideas about
what fogous are used for.Tony Robinson hinted at a spiritual function in the
last few minutes of the program, but for Time Team to have explored this angle
further would have been to step outside the realms of archaeology.
The Bronze Age peoples left evidence of their spiritual practices
in the form of stone circles. What did the Iron Age Celts leave? We know that
the 'underworld' featured in their religion, so what better place to symbolize
that realm than in a fogou?
A fogou is too elaborate a structure just for storing food.
Although the Celts may have used them for hiding in when attacked, this was
probably in the same way that we might today use a church as a sanctuary.
But that's not why churches are built.
I am trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist and have
lived with this particular fogou for seventeen years. The site is also home
to a centre, CAER, where for the last fifteen years, people have been coming
for workshops on personal and spiritual development and training. So I feel
reasonably placed to speculate on the fogou's original function.
People are often drawn to the fogou for meditation, vision
and healing. Many people have described extraordinary things that have happened
for them: answers to questions, visions of the future, feelings of peace.
Some rather odd things have happened too, like rings being 'pulled' off fingers,
cameras and tape recorders breaking down, feelings of heat and dizziness.
(Much of this is set out in my book - Fogou.)
I am convinced that for the Iron Age Celts, the fogou was their
equivalent of a church, or place for initiation, ceremony and healing.
My next door neighbour's grandchild, when asked on the program
what he thought fogous were for, probably gave the best answer. He said 'an
underground swimming pool'.
In a way, he was right. A fogou is a place to immerse the soul.
