Caerdroia - the story of the labyrinth

The story of mazes and labyrinths is as long and tortuous as their plans suggest. Mention mazes and most people think of Hampton Court or some other famous hedge maze. Puzzle mazes in gardens, as children's toys or in theme parks are all multicursal - many paths - to entice and fool the visitor. Mention labyrinths and some people recall the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. Fewer still will know the labyrinth symbol which occurs in different cultures, at different points in time, in places as diverse as Peru, Arizona, Iceland, Crete, Egypt, India and Sumatra. The true labyrinth has no false pathways or dead ends to confuse the neophyte. Instead it consists of a single meandering pathway which leads inexorably from the entrance to the centre, and on occasions back out again. This symbol and its family of derivatives has been traced back over 3500 years; its origins are still mysterious.

At each of these incidents in time, the labyrinth symbol and the mythology that surrounds it has surfaced in a culture that has incorporated it into their lives for various purposes. Sometimes these episodes in labyrinth-time were short lived, often they flourished for hundreds of years and spread the concept far and wide. The mediums employed for its use have been many and varied - a simple symbol in a mythology, carved on wood or a rockface, woven into the design on a blanket or basket, laid out on the ground with water-worn stones in the desert or on shorelines, in coloured stone or tiles on the floors of villas, churches and cathedrals, or cut into the living turf - to name a few. Often the stories told of the labyrinth have been adapted to local use. Sometimes the design is altered or developed, but more often the symbol of the labyrinth is employed with no significant variation. The lines of contact between these widely spaced bursts of labyrinth consciousness are difficult to trace, much remains to be discovered, but each represents one turn on the tortuous pathway of the labyrinth as it has danced its way around the world.

What then is the fascination hidden in this design that has transported it around the world and through thousands of years, and to what purpose was it originally and subsequently put? The purpose and usage is relatively clear, for in many cultures the labyrinth has been used as a ceremonial pathway and as a dancing ground. The twisting, tortuous paths are often seen as guarding the central goal from direct penetration, for here the souls of the dead ancestors were often thought to reside, barred from escaping and causing trouble in everyday life, but contactable once the labyrinths coils had been traversed. Likewise young women would stand here as suitors would chase through the windings to seek out a potential bride, the expanding and contracting circuits mimicking the path of the sun in its travels across the sky, a recognition of the perpetual rebirth of the sun each morning and each year.

As many stories are told as mythologies exist, but in all the labyrinth seems to symbolise the path to be followed, in daily and seasonal cycles, in life and in death and in rebirth. Beyond all these may exist a cosmology, an ancient understanding of the cycles of time, all safely concealed within the labyrinth, locked up in numbers and movements.

Throughout the years the labyrinth has often been employed as a symbol for the omphalos or sacred city; the Romans enclosed their mosaic labyrinths within depictions of the walls that surrounded the fortified towns of the Roman Empire, the Pima of Arizona refer to the labyrinth as Siuku Ki, the design symbolising the pathway leading to the top of Baboquivari, their sacred mountain. Throughout Europe the ancient labyrinths are known as Troy Town, City of Troy or Walls of Troy, the legendary city of the ancient Pagan world, or as Jerusalem in a later Christian context. Ariadne's thread, the clew, was the means by which Theseus was able to enter into the legendary Labyrinth of Knossos, despatch the unfortunate Minotaur and retrace his steps unscathed, and indeed many clues remain to help unravel and understand the lure of the labyrinth design. One of the most important is the method of its construction - as simple as the design appears complex. It is as follows:

animation of drawing a classical labyrinth Click the seed pattern to start the animation.

A process which, once learnt, allows its faithful reproduction over and over again. And this provides a clew to the universal fascination - a simple test of skill which provides a path for the eye or the feet to follow, an exercise for mind or body. Learn this process and you will be provided with an insight, a map of the path ahead, into the labyrinth that is life itself. More importantly, some will argue, it provides a chance to partake in the unicursal ritual that has survived unchanged for thousands of years. A chance to feel the lure of the labyrinth for yourself. With a little practice, a perfect labyrinth can be drawn every time, and an appreciation of the motion inherent in the design acquired.

This process can be scaled up to produce a labyrinth of a size large enough to use for practical experiment, for the surest way to experience the labyrinth's intricate pathway and feel the cunning blend of concealment and revelation as the path - always seeming to take you to the centre, only then to swing back out again, suddenly finds you standing at the centre, unsure how you arrived - is to go and walk, or preferably run, one of the ancient labyrinths that still exist. Alternatively of course, construct one of your own! The traditional designs are by their very nature adaptable to fit the location and area available; the materials employable for their construction are limited only by your imagination.

But not all of this is concerned with the past. During the last fifteen years or so the labyrinth symbol and its attendant mythos has undergone a rapid evolution, becoming once again a vibrant concept which has infiltrated into many aspects of public consciousness. The recent upsurge of interest in its history and development has seen a sharing of ideas and information, a bringing together of practitioners and researchers, designers and creators, meeting together within the City of Troy - Caerdroia. At the same time the labyrinth has been appropriated by the media as a theme for computer games, financial chicanery, feature films and television alike. Alongside this is the current resurgence of the labyrinth in its many multicursal forms as a fundamental part of leisure development, with the construction of many hundreds of mazes, often large and complex, in parks and playgrounds throughout the world. And the simple, unicursal labyrinth continues to spread yet further afield, often alongside its complex muilticursal cousins.

This current revival of interest - itself just another incident in the long history of the labyrinth - has created a new recognition of the dual concepts of amusement and amazement. The need for chaos in an ordered, explainable world has arisen. The temporary suspension of time and direction, an isolation from two of the most important principles by which the world and our life upon it are ruled, has always been attainable within the concealing walls of the labyrinth, be they of tangled yew branches, or of the simple circuitous lines cut into hill-top turf or laid in stones upon the shoreline.

Jeff Saward, Editor, Caerdroia.