On the Numinous Qualities of Scilly’s Labyrinths

Teän Roberts





On the tiny island of St Agnes - the most rugged and remote of the Isles of Scilly and the most southwesterly inhabited land in Britain - there exists, against all probability, a small pebble labyrinth, which has endured on this spot for at least three centuries. Troy Town Maze (all Scilly’s labyrinths are known locally as “mazes”) faces West, looking out towards the Western Rocks - the most treacherous of Scilly’s notorious waterways - and then onwards out over the sea. This site marks the last point of safe land before the perilous yet enthralling wilds of open ocean.

Troy Town Maze is Scilly’s oldest labyrinth, and it is unique in that it is the only pre-20th century pebble maze in the UK. But since its construction, many more labyrinths have appeared across the islands. These mazes - sprouting, fading, reemerging, sometimes vanishing, like fairy ring mushrooms constellated around this mysterious original - make the Isles of Scilly home to the largest collection of stone labyrinths in Britain. The purposes of these labyrinths are unclear, but it seems evident that there is something dwelling in the landscape of this mysterious and numinous archipelago, which compels folk to create and recreate these poignant magical symbols time and again.

The labyrinth symbol has countless supernatural meanings and uses across cultures, many of which would be applicable to Scilly. Similar pebbles mazes in Scandinavia were known sites of magical rites to aid fishing, where piskie-like “little-people” - known as the smågubbar - would be lured into the labyrinth’s coils to prevent them from causing bad luck on the boats. Labyrinths were used by seafarers in weather magic to raise favourable winds and to improve mental health. They were also thought to assist in pilotage and nautical navigation, particularly during the Medieval period.

Closer by in Cornwall, images of labyrinths also proliferate, though these are small labyrinths carved into stone, rather than the walkable pebble mazes of Scilly and Scandinavia. Two of these labyrinths, carved into a rock face at Rocky Valley near Boscastle, are rumoured to be relics of a 17th century witch-cult and share similarities with the carved Troy Stones (one of which resides in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic) which are used by Cornish witches to access trance states and to “enter and return from the world of spirit.”
When writing about Troy Stones, Cecil Williamson (founder of MWM) described the proximity to Rocky Valley’s carved Labyrinths as a reason for locating his Museum in this area, claiming that here “one is standing on the edge of the beyond.” This is the same feeling experienced when standing at Troy Town Maze. Situated at the edge of the vast ocean, skirting the cusp of the known, the maze seems to offer an extension into the unseen, a reaching forward - through the labyrinth’s coils - towards something else glimpsed over the land’s edge or through the unearthly veil.

 

Troy Town Maze, St Agnes 2025. Photo Teän Roberts 2025.
 

The accepted origin story of Troy Town Maze seems at first glance to be far more terrestrial and mundane than Viking sailors working weather-spells or witches creating magical portals. It was reportedly built by the son of the St Agnes lighthouse keeper named Amor Clarke in 1729. Nothing more is known of Amor Clarke (most of the Trinity House archive was destroyed by bombing during WWII and St Agnes parish records of the time were lost in a fire) and we are left wondering why the son of a lighthouse keeper on St Agnes would have made such a thing? But Scilly is an extraordinary place, and attracts a curious breed of people, so I resist the temptation to categorise: “lighthouse keeper’s son on remote, rural, 18th Century island” equals “unimaginative, parochial and incapable of working magic, be that intentionally or intuitively.” The truth is we know nothing at all about Amor Clarke, and as such the maze’s origin is ripe for projection from all sides.

One thing we do know for certain is that there are no smooth, round sea pebbles like those used in the maze’s construction adjacent to its location, and so Clarke must have carried these across the headland from nearby White Par. From our own experience restoring another of Scilly’s mazes this summer, we can speak with assuredness that moving these pebbles around is heavy, arduous work, and they are not something you would want to transport further than necessary without a very good reason. There are perfectly good, flat stretches of land adjacent to White Par where Clarke might have made his maze, but chose not to, so we know that the maze’s placement, facing West towards the most hazardous rocks and reefs in Scilly, must have been of some importance.

Perhaps Clarke was rebuilding an older maze on the site, left by medieval explorers or marooned Viking raiders? Perhaps he was a sailor himself who had travelled to distant Scandinavia, seen the labyrinths and their uses there, and brought this custom back home? Perhaps he was an initiate into the same 17th Century witch cult responsible for the Rocky Valley labyrinths - as we know that “the inhabitants of the Scilly Isles came over in crowds for the purpose of consulting the white witches of Cornwall, and that they might obtain their protection charms, spells and counter-spells”? Perhaps he was also gripped by the archetype in the land that expresses itself through these eternally surfacing labyrinths? For me, it is this last idea of archetypal possession that I am proposing to project onto our unknowable lighthouse keeper’s son:

“Archetypes were, and still are, living psychic forces that demand to be taken seriously, and they have a strange way of making sure of their effect. Always they were the bringers of protection and salvation.” - Carl Jung

This idea - that the universal labyrinthine archetype, with all its associated magical implications, is bubbling up on the islands - felt increasingly likely after the discovery of this alchemical image of a pilgrim walking a labyrinth beside a lighthouse, while ships scud across a windy sea behind (see picture). This prophetic image is utterly uncanny in its resemblance to the real site of Troy Town Maze and St Agnes Lighthouse, as it dates from 1622, predating the construction of the lighthouse by 58 years and the maze by 107. Jung argued that alchemical images were manifestations of the collective unconscious with an archetypal root, and this seems to be the case for this picture representing the same archetypal emanation as is evident on St Agnes, from 600 miles and 107 years distant.

 

A Labyrinth near a lighthouse by Hermann Huge (1622)

I have felt a similar archetypal unconscious force at work on me in connection to a different labyrinth on nearby St Mary’s. This turf and stone labyrinth named Giant’s Castle Maze sits beside the eponymous Iron Age Cliff Castle on St Mary’s and was a predominant part of the imaginative landscape of my childhood growing up nearby, as my family told me it was made by the fairies. It had become near-terminally overgrown by the time I moved back to Scilly in 2024, so my partner Layan and I conceived a community engaged public art project (funded by the Arts Council with the support of the Isles of Scilly Museum) to restore this ruined maze to a usable labyrinth again.

Little was known about its origin, but during our research we discovered that it was constructed by two children - aged 11 and 13 - in the summer of 1952 when they were living nearby. Whether they were fairy-led or possessed by the archetype of the labyrinth we do not know. Nevertheless, we invented a new mythic ritual to celebrate the ceremonial re-opening of this maze post restoration for although it is a relatively recent site, we wanted to reimagine some of Scilly’s lost mazey folklore and reenchant this nearly-lost piece of folk art at the same time.

Compared to nearby Cornwall, Scilly has very little surviving folklore, due to the loss of the oral history tradition which accompanied the huge depopulation of the islands when Augustus Smith became “Lord Proprietor of the Isles” in the early 19th Century. Before this loss, we presume that this island landscape, so rich with ancient monuments and curiosities like the mazes, must have had accompanying folk stories. So we looked at labyrinth myths from elsewhere - predominantly the most famous labyrinth myth of Theseus and the Minotaur from Crete - and considered how this might have applied to Scilly.
 

Giant’s Castle Maze (post restoration) 2025. Photo Teän Roberts.

 

The location of Giant’s Castle Maze, in the shadow of a defensive Iron Age Cliff Castle, and our choice to hold our mazey celebration at Lammastide (when historically the islands would be most vulnerable to pirates and raiders, due to favourable seafaring weather) highlighted the need for the magical protection of a localised Wild Man myth: a Minotaur for the islands. In this way we would invite in the dangerous unknown, making it solid and knowable, in order to defeat or transmute its power. But instead of a beast half-man-half-bull we decided to make the Scillonian Minotaur a snail, as the Cornish word for “snail” is “bullhorn” and snails’ spiral shells are often associated with labyrinths, not least via the Cornish “Snail Creep” dance, which we also danced at our maze reopening celebration.

We knew we did not want to slay our Minotaur, but for it to be soothed and tamed by mischief and tenderness. So instead of the warrior Theseus, our counterpoint to the Bullhorn is a jester character called the Biggal Fool (“biggal” is a Cornish term meaning “shepherd” or “keeper”) as jesters and clowns are often considered creatures of the liminal in folklore. In our mummers play the Biggal Fool approaches the fierce Bullhorn, prances around it until it is tamed and then leads it out of the maze via a red thread (a homage to the Cretan Ariadne). It then bestows blessings on the audience members, because we knew that snails are considered good luck in Cornwall.

When designing this pageant of new myth, we believed that it was our conscious imaginative choices alone that were determining the practices we devised. But since recently being introduced to the work of traditional Cornish witchcraft expert Gemma Gary, and coming face to face - in the pages of her books - with so many of the practices we believed we had made up, I am now sure that it was the magic present in the island - latent under the land and beneath the labyrinth lore - that was influencing our work and guiding our hands unseen.

Firstly, the similarity between the Bullhorn and the Biggal Fool with the Obby Oss and their “Teazer” - a mischievous prancing figure that accompanies the Oss as it stalks the streets at the major Cornish Festivals, now revived in nearby Penzance. Secondly, the snail’s “ability to bestow blessings upon places and people,” mirroring our Bullhorn blessing the audience. Thirdly, the snail’s association with “power - sexual force, fertility, fecundity and creation” in Cornish folklore - all potent attributes also applicable to bulls in ancient Crete, where the Minotaur myth originates. And fourthly, the existence of a “Lammas feast tradition” that is celebrated “with maze walking and feasting in the moors and fields near Morvah, showing that mazes have been involved in existing Lammas festivals as nearby as West Penwith. All these elements, previously unknown to us, were so synchronous with our invented maze celebration, that we were reminded - yet again - that magic is well and truly real.

It seems that the labyrinthine energies that exist on the islands were enthusiastically exerting their influence; dredging up forgotten local folk customs via their otherworldly portal-paths and syphoning them into our creative outputs. And the results were surprisingly meaningful and moving - with audience members brought to tears and full of praise and gratitude for this opportunity to reconnect to the storied landscape.

But to what purpose? If - as Jung says - archetypes are the bringers of protection and salvation - what is Scilly’s labyrinthine archetype trying to instill in us, for our own growth and evolution?

Through this work it has been made evident to us that people are hungry for folklore and a lived relationship with myth. Our human world has been separate from the magic in the land for too long, and we need to take a turn towards that which is unseen yet rooted again. Rising as a counterpoint to this, the energies within the earth want to be remembered and worked with and they are keenly making their presence felt.

The Biggal Fool leads the Bullhorn 2025. Photo Inga Drazniece.


 

The entrance into other worlds, including the land of the mythic, is never straightforward and labyrinths (as well as other symbols) can act as an entryway into this mystery. Travelling these paths this year - this brush with the numinous and the archetypal - has been a convoluted route deeper into mystery, and is something we want to bring with us as we turn and make our way out of our Scilly labyrinth project and head into future things. We haven’t travelled far, but through this work with this symbol on these islands, we are ever changed.


 

If you would like to learn more about the Scilly Labyrinths Project please take a look at our website: www.scillylabyrinths.com or follow us on Instagram: @teanroberts and @aeonlung