{"id":1169,"date":"2009-06-22T22:46:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2009-06-22T22:46:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T22:46:00","slug":"the-mists-of-avalon-and-its-antithesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1169","title":{"rendered":"The Mists of Avalon and Its Antithesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently re-read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon<\/a>\"\"<\/em> for the first time in years, in order to cite it in a paper.<\/p>\n

Now I am reading its antithesis, Simon Young’s A.D. 500: A Journey Through the Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Based on the fiction of a geographer in Constantinople writing a guide to the “Dark Isles” based on contemporary reports and present-day archaeology, Young’s sixth century agrees very little with Bradley’s except, perhaps, on the importance of Tintagel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If Tintagel is a work of Nature’s art, then man has, however, botched its decorations. The British Celts who live there are not great builders….The king’s court is a timber shack, something approximating in size and finish to one of our royal stables.<\/em><\/p>\n

You want all-wise Druids at the close of Pagan Ireland?<\/p>\n

But even in their reduced state, these old men–the young with spiritual gifts turn to the Church–have a certain notoriety. Instantly recognizable for their curious cloaks and their shaved heads–each has a short tuft over the forehead–they walk from place to place officiating over oaths and sacrifices (it is better not to ask of which sort).<\/em><\/p>\n

Young admits that the story of the last Temple of Bacchus in Britain is “necessarily speculative,” but does offer sources for it, as for all his information.<\/p>\n

Young’s book is a useful corrective to the “matter of Britain’s” multiple re-tellings–the last time I checked, library databases listed more than 900 works under the category of “King Arthur-Fiction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently re-read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon for the first time in years, in order to cite it in a paper. Now I am reading its antithesis, Simon Young’s A.D. 500: A Journey Through the Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland. Based on the fiction of a geographer in Constantinople writing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20,57,21,50],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-archaeology","tag-books","tag-england","tag-ireland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-iR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8917,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8917","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":0},"title":"The Dark Side of Avalon","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Two years ago I mentioned that author Moira Greyland, daughter of enormously influential((Especiallly to Pagans over 35, more or less)) fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen, was speaking out about sexual abuse she experienced in their household. Now you can read the book:The Last Closet: The Dark Side\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1176,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1176","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":1},"title":"My First-Draft Paper on the ‘Crisis of History’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My CESNUR paper, \"In the Mists of Avalon: How Contemporary Paganism Dodges the 'Crisis of History,'\" has been published on line at the organization's web site.It is sort of quick and lightweight, but I want to work more on those ideas in the future.In the immediate future, however, I need\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":736,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=736","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":2},"title":"Jane Austen in Woad","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a long and not terribly encouraging talk with my editor at Rowman & Littlefield last week about a book project involving SF\/fantasy and Paganism. Then I walked to another building on campus, where students from the English Club were selling used books and baked goods. A copy of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7348,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7348","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":3},"title":"Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Daughter Speaks Out","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The MZB\/Walter Breen scandal was bigger in the science fiction\/speculative fantasy world than in the Pagan world, but MZB has influenced Pagans through her Mists of Avalon books and her Pagan associates, as detailed by Sonja Sadvoksky in The Priestess and the Pen. If you ask someone under 35 about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":4},"title":"Paganism: A Reader","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 13, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"What I hope was the last paper work for Graham Harvey's and my new anthology, Paganism: A Reader went into the campus mailbag today on its way to Routledge, the publisher. The book is a collection of mostly primary sources, so in that way it's somewhat different from Graham's earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6538,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6538","url_meta":{"origin":1169,"position":5},"title":"Marion Zimmer Bradley, Greenpeace, and the Donatists","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the 4th century CE, Western Christianity had a problem. During the Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians, which began in 303 and was severe in some areas, some Christian clergy in the Berber communities of North Africa had surrendered copies of Scripture and otherwise complied with the emperor's edicts.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}