Alby Stone
One image of the cosmic axis that is of great interest and cosmological significance is that of the World Mill, an image that occurs particularly in Scandinavian and Finnish myth. This image is based ultimately upon the structure of a hand-mill, consisting of a flat, stationary stone with another on top, turned by a handle fixed at the centre. This arrangement was a technological improvement upon grinding grain in a bowl or against a concave stone with a pestle or with a smaller, hand-held stone, a simple method that was still used during the early European Bronze Age. Its successor, the rotary quern, remained in use up to the Middle Ages in Europe, although it was eventually superseded by the water-mill and later the windmill, developments that led to the production of flour on a larger scale and dictated that milling became increasingly specialised work.
Witch's Well 