# Carvings riddle stumps villagers



## Rae Jean (Sep 23, 2007)

Carvings Riddlle Stumps Villagers

*Puzzled residents across Yorkshire are turning detective after mysterious stone heads were left outside their properties in the dead of night.* 

The sculptures feature the same carved symbol and come with a riddle attached.

Despite CCTV film showing a man leaving three heads outside a post office, their origin remains unknown.

So far, 12 have appeared in Goathland and Kilburn, North Yorkshire; four in Arthington, West Yorkshire and three in Braithwell in South Yorkshire.

Each of the heads, which are up to a foot tall, looks different but all feature the same carving - which appears to spell out the word "paradox" - and a note bearing the riddle: "Twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?"

The villages they have been found in are up to 50 miles from each other.

Mike and Valerie Hoyes, who run a post office in Braithwell, found three heads outside their business on the morning of 23 August.


We would love to meet or find out who it is, whoever it is is extremely talented
Fiona Gould, owner of the Forresters Arms Hotel, Kilburn

Checking their CCTV footage, they discovered a man they did not know dropping off the stones in a small car at around 0400 BST. They have since given the tape to the police.

Mrs Hoyes said: "It's very weird.

"They're a bit like gargoyles really, obviously somebody has taken a lot of trouble if they have been carved.

"On the back it looks like an occult thing, it does actually spell paradox, but we don't know what any of it means."

Stone head
The heads have been found in villages 50 miles apart
George Griffiths, an artist from Arthington, near Leeds, also received one of the heads on 23 August and then found another outside his house two weeks later.

After speaking to friends and neighbours he became aware of two more of the sculptures being left in the village.

Stonemasons quizzed 

He contacted stonemasons at York Minster in an effort to trace what appeared to be a mason's mark on his heads but said nobody had ever seen anything like it before.

He also turned to the internet and dictionaries to try to find out details about the rhyme but again drew a blank.

Mr Griffiths said: "I think it's a publicity stunt - I can't see anything else.

"They're not sinister or anything like that, it's just a puzzle. We're all just waiting and wondering to find out more."

Fiona Gould, the owner of the Forresters Arms Hotel in Kilburn, received her head last month.

She said: "He turned up a week last Monday between 1.30am and 7.30am. I opened the door and there he was, as large as life, sat on the patio."

She discovered that five more heads had appeared in Kilburn and another six in nearby Goathland.

Miss Gould's head now has pride of place on the bar in her pub.

"We would love to meet or find out who it is, whoever it is is extremely talented," she added. 

Carvings mystery appears solved
*The puzzle of mysterious stone heads that were left outside homes across Yorkshire in the dead of night appears to have been solved.* 

The sculptures are estimated to be worth between Â£200 and Â£500 each.

A dozen appeared in North Yorks, four in Arthington, West Yorks and three in Braithwell in South Yorks.

Now it has emerged sculptor Billy Johnstone from South Elmsall, near Pontefract, West Yorks, left them as a gift to whoever found the works.

Each of the heads, which are up to a foot tall, looks different but all feature the same carving - which appears to spell out the word "paradox" - and a note bearing the riddle: "Twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?"

The villages they have been found in are up to 50 miles from each other.

But a search of a website called One to One Productions showed the works are the output of artist Billy Johnstone.


They're gifts for the people who find them
Liz White, The Art House

A spokesman for the website said Mr Johnstone was out of the country, could not be contacted and was staying in a tent.

However, Liz White, who is a director of the Art House, an organisation he is connected to, told BBC News she had asked him about the carvings.

"I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago when the heads first started appearing and people got in touch with us to find out about them," she said.

"He says that he wants people to do what they want with them, take them in, leave them there, give them away, whatever they want to do with them."

'Limited galleries' 

"Work is only worth something firstly if there's somebody out there who wants to buy it, and secondly for a lot of artists what they want to do is donate their work

"There are only so many galleries and only so much work that can go in.

"But if you think about the people that have seen the work over the last two or three weeks, the sort of people who are seeing it are the sort of people often perhaps who wouldn't go into galleries."

She said he contacted the Art House last weekend and told her 57 heads had been left across the north of England.

"They're gifts for the people who find them, part of an on-going art project and not a publicity stunt," Ms White said he told her. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7022091.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_yorkshire/7024964.stm

Wish I'd find one of these guys on my lawn. :angel: 
I know artists go nuts and do this kind of thing once and a while. It'd be a fun 
little mystery to spread around :baby04:


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## Wisconsin Ann (Feb 27, 2007)

Now that's cool.


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