{"id":4862,"date":"2012-12-25T18:17:31","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T01:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4862"},"modified":"2012-12-25T18:18:11","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T01:18:11","slug":"secret-doings-in-glastonbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4862","title":{"rendered":"Secret Doings in Glastonbury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa showed up with a bottle of Glenlivet<\/a> and Phil Rickman’s<\/a> novel The Bones of Avalon<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s a sort of typical Rickman-ish set-up \u2014 there are places on the land where certain hidden earth-forces are concentrated and influence the inhabitants in not necessarily good ways, especially when they are awakened by those who know not what they do.<\/p>\n

Only this time the place is 16th-century Glastonbury, when Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries <\/a>has killed the pilgrim trade and sent the town into an economic slump.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey (Wikipedia).<\/p><\/div>\n

The protagonist, on a mission for Queen Elizabeth I<\/a>, is Dr. John Dee<\/a>, the famous mystic and astrologer and maybe spy as well.<\/p>\n

I liked this paragraph, which comes at a point when a former monk has been pointing out to Dee some of the local scryers, fortune-tellers, cunning folk and what not:<\/p>\n

I learned that many of these seekers . . . . had journeyed here from the ends of the country, and some from abroad. When the abbey flourished, this had gone, if not unnoticed, at least uncommented on. The town was growing and always full of pilgrims. It was only after the fall of the abbey and the exodus of the wealthy and the pious that people began to notice the nature of the incomers who did not leave . . . who, in fact, began to increase their numbers, some arriving like poor travellers, living in camps and abandoned houses. Attending church only as much as was necessary to avoid prosecution, for their own religious obediences clearly belonged . . . . elsewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing about a music festival, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Santa showed up with a bottle of Glenlivet and Phil Rickman’s novel The Bones of Avalon. It’s a sort of typical Rickman-ish set-up \u2014 there are places on the land where certain hidden earth-forces are concentrated and influence the inhabitants in not necessarily good ways, especially when they are awakened by those who know not […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1gq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10707,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10707","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":0},"title":"All the Books Set in Glastonbury","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"From\u00a0 Vicki Steward's\u00a0 blog Normal For Glastonbury: Life in the Oddest Town in England, a list of all the novels set in Glastonbury. There some Phil Rickman titles there that I had missed, possibly because they were categorized as YA and published under a different name. Marion Zimmer Bradley, of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, destroyed at the orders of Henry VIII ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13693,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13693","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":1},"title":"20 Years of British Paganism: Free Zoom Lecture with Glastonbury-based Writer Liz Williams","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: This event has been postponed. I do not know why -- I just got the email from \"The Zoom Team.\" I will post when it is re-scheduled. Sad. Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/liz-williams.webp?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8041,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8041","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":2},"title":"Normal for Glastonbury, Normal for Boulder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love snarky local blogs. Unfortunately, the one for my little mountain county seems mostly devoted these days to attacking one county commissioner candidate, so I will spare you that. But thanks to a Facebook friend, I was introduced to Normal for Glastonbury, which contains such nuggets as these about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6377,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6377","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":3},"title":"There, That’s Done, Almost. Also John Cowper Powys","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Where did the week go? It seems like setting up the AAR sessions \u2014 two solo for Contemporary Pagan Studies, two co-sponsored, and one \"quad\" (four sponsors) \u2014 that plus a little snow, some fire department maintenance work, and some chainsaw issues that don't belong here totally exhausted all my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/db\/Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/db\/Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg 1x, https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/db\/Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg\/640px-Glastonbury_Abbey_ruins_c1900.jpg 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1093,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1093","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":4},"title":"Learning on the Ground","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is what online \"learning\" cannot do.A writer from the Guardian accompanies some British secondary students on a field trip to Glastonbury. (I happen to know the teacher.)The object, for Jamison, is not to deconstruct the stories and myths of Glastonbury. \"The point is for them to experience the story,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6205,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6205","url_meta":{"origin":4862,"position":5},"title":"UK Druids Restore Damaged Ley Lines","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A major effort is underway: The council of British Druids have been working through the night to restore ley lines which have been damaged by recent storms. Many households have been without spiritual energy throughout the Yuletide holiday which has affected psychic connections in many parts of the country. A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druidry\"","block_context":{"text":"Druidry","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druidry"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862","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=4862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4865,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions\/4865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}