THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (5)

[Stanley]

THE EARLY HISTORY OF BARLICK (5)

16 October 2001

This week I’m going to look at Druids, Bards, magic with a bit of New Age thought and crystals thrown in. What I have to say might upset some people but I want to make it clear that all I’m trying to do is dig down to the truth, what we actually know or can make a good guess at based on logic and common sense. Over the last two months I’ve read a lot of the latest scholarship on these subjects and consulted with good friends that I trust. So whatever this article does for other people’s beliefs, it’s my version of the truth and I’m entitled to it because I've done my homework.
One of the biggest problems we encounter when trying to fathom out the history of Barlick prior to about 1100 is that very little has been written down. The further back we go, the less there is and what has survived is often heavily polluted monkish writing trying to make a point, or downright forgery, the Roman church had a monastic industry based in France searching old texts for anything that would reinforce their authority and evidence was often massaged to fit the church's 'truth', even the myths have been polluted. The only exception to this is that some of the Irish myth and legend seems to have a firmer base. As you know I’m a great believer in the oral tradition and a good myth passed on by word of mouth is very useful but once they have been altered and used as polemic we have to regard them with great suspicion. Unfortunately this covers most of the mainland Isles myths.
Right, let’s get down to what we know for sure. I have no doubt that 'druids' (whatever that means) did exist and were powerful people in the Bronze Age and pre-Christian era. The old Barlickers had a belief system supported by story, myth and the wisdom of elders passed down orally, the key word here is orally, by mouth. As far as we can tell, this was part of the belief system, that secret and sacred material should not be written down even when this became possible. The consequence is that we have no evidence at all as to what druids believed or what their rituals were.
I can hear you saying, “Hang on, I’ve seen them at Stonehenge and at Welsh Eisteddfods”. Unfortunately no, what you have seen is a complete and utter fake, here’s why I say that. The Reverend William Stukely (1687-1765) was rector of Stamford in Lincolnshire. He was noted locally as being slightly eccentric and made a visit to Stonehenge where he convinced himself that Druidism was the original religion of the Isles. He had an apple tree in his garden that had mistletoe on it and so he laid out a ‘pagan temple’ round it and recreated rituals. He published extensively on the subject and was one of the first advocates of a Celtic revival. The ‘Ancient Order of Druids’ was ‘revived’ in 1781 by a London carpenter named Henry Hurle who simply made up the rituals. From late in the 19th century until 1989, Hurle’s Order of Druids was allowed to perform rituals at Stonehenge but his branch was always an elite group.
Edward Williams (1747-1826) gave himself the name Iolo Morganwwg, in case you hadn’t realised he was a Welshman. He was a stone mason who had failed in business and was an amateur romantic poet. His poetry wasn’t getting noticed so he invented a 14th century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym and forged manuscripts which purported to be the original verse, this succeeded and the poetry sold like hot cakes. Encouraged by this he forged a further set of documents which he used to ‘revive’ the Order of Bards. He held his first Gorsedd on Primrose Hill in London in 1792 and it's recorded that he took a pocketful of stones with him to lay out the stone circle. William's Order of Bards was taken up by the Eisteddfod movement and later by Welsh Nationalism. It is now the official version and is supported by the royal family, they used it as a basis for the stage-managed ceremonies used at the installation of Prince Charles at Caernarfon in 1969 as Prince of Wales. (Lord Snowdon was the stage manager.)
Between 1760 and 1840 other writers set out to reconstruct Druidism. Rowland James, John Clelland, William Cooke, D James, Edward Davies and William Blake all participated. In 1922 Sir James George Frazer published 'The Golden Bough' which was an enormous study of magic, pagan rites and practices and comparative religion. At the time it had enormous credibility but scholars nowadays regard it as a very poor source. Frazer never left his chambers to research, he culled his material by correspondence and helpers and the result is an enormous stew of badly corroborated myth and story. However, it was eagerly taken up and trawled for anything that might support the Celtic revival movement.
A succession of oddballs and romantics, culminating in Lewis Spence (1874-1955. Journalist and founder of the Scottish Nationalist Movement.) further muddied the waters and eventually ‘Celtic Lore’ was held to be some sort of parallel with the Teutonic Knights and the myths that surrounded them. These were put to good use by Richard Wagner in his operas and Adolph Hitler in his attempt to build a new German national identity, he even dragged in the Templars and the myth of the Holy Grail. (Himmler in particular espoused this research and used it as the founding ethic of the SS. There is more than a hint of truth in the film 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'.)
In 1944 Robert Graves was writing historical novels and produced a book called 'The White Goddess'. This was taken as literal truth by the Celtic Revival and New Age movements even though Graves said publicly that it was entirely fictional. The position was made even worse when the cult of the Goddess was taken up as an icon by the feminist movement.
Another fertile field for the imagination has been Arthurian studies. King Arthur and his Court of the Round Table never existed. Historians agree that while there might have been an English warlord called Arthur round about 500 who fought the Saxons there is no evidence to say he was ever at Tintagel or Cadbury Hill or even fought at the battle at the unidentified Mount Badon. It seems that he was an amalgam of various myths and these were taken up in France where they were refined and by the time Sir Thomas Mallory wrote 'Morte d'Arthur' in the 14th century all he was doing was re-tell a French fairy tale about French knights.
In 1980 things had got to the state where two notable scholars went back to the original documents and effectively proved that Druidic and Celtic lore was a fake but it was too late to stop it. Those who wanted to believe ignored the critics and went even further out into fantasy by claiming that ‘lines of power’ existed, joining ancient monuments. If they are right, they must be elusive because nobody has ever been able to measure them or use them. In short, there is no proof they exist. Funnily enough, this exercise in fantasy is useful to us. It proves that the genuine Celtic material and the contributions by Greek and Roman writers do not contain enough evidence to reconstitute the religion. What truth there was must have been unpalatable because it has never been used.
I might surprise you now. As I have said, I’m satisfied that we have absolutely no reliable evidence for what the Druids did and I’m certain that however well it is presented, all the modern writing supporting the Celtic Revival in respect of Druids and Bards is romantic nonsense. However, here’s a funny thing, suppose that the primeval forces which drove modern man to re-invent a belief system are the same ones embedded deep in all of us that triggered Stone Age people and the Celts to start pagan worship in the first place. They could be expressing their need for a new belief system that can give them something that Christianity lacks. So, what I’m saying is that I don’t believe them but I will defend their right to believe in what they want.

I suppose some of you will think I was getting a bit academic and high flown there. I can’t say that I blame you but I happen to be against dumbing down. I believe that my readers have enough oil in their can to follow an argument and come to a conclusion. This isn’t Emmerdale, it’s Barlick! Come to think, aren’t some of the soap operas almost a form of religion? I’ve listened to people talking about them and I could swear that Coronation Street and Emmerdale are more real to them than their everyday lives.
How about the bits of magic and ritual that lots of us use in everyday life that are directly connected to pagan worship? You can’t think of any? How about throwing some salt over your left shoulder when you’ve spilt some? Ever looked into a pool or fountain in a public place? People still make votive offerings, they throw coins in the fountain. How about well-dressing ceremonies in Derbyshire? Morris dancing is a pagan throwback. The practice of decorating the house with greenery like holly and mistletoe at Christmas is taken directly from pagan ritual, we have written evidence for it. If you go to a cattle market you will still see farmers strike a bargain by spitting on their hands and shaking hands, this is an exchange of bodily fluids and in the old days would be blood. It was a very powerful way of sealing a bargain, you literally shared the same blood and became brothers.
I’ll have a lot more to say about this when we get on to early Christianity. For the time being though, just sit back and have a think about the Old Barlickers and what we still have in common with them. Try to think of things that you have been told are ‘unlucky’, why shouldn’t you put shoes or your hat on the table? Why take offerings to church for harvest festival? Why is it unlucky to walk under a ladder? Why do we have a tradition that if someone gives you a knife or a cutting edge you have to give them a coin? My mother always told me that you should only cut your nails on a Sunday, she never told me why but pagans were very careful about what happened to hair that was cut off or nail parings because they could be used for sympathetic magic. Archaeologists still find ‘urine bottles’ concealed in old buildings, the theory was that if you got hold of a person’s urine, put a thorn in it and buried it they would die of stabbing pains when they made water. It’s no use, I’ll have to stop. Believe me, there is something deep inside us that still believes in charms and magic, ever crossed your fingers?

SCG/16 October 2001