Against all sense fascinated, I turned my eyes to the space before them. They stood within a depressed circle several yards across, scorched black at the edges as if by a single massive stroke of lightning. Within, the earth had been scoured away to the depth of about a foot, revealing the yellow clay which underlies the topsoil in these parts. At the center was a perfectly round stone platform, inscribed at the perimeter with a sequence of rough-carved sigils the meaning of which I know not. At the center was an image only slightly less mysterious: an eye perhaps two feet across with an hourglass-shaped pupil, like that of a goat. A few inches above this eye, without apparent source, danced a wavering green flame.​