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Robin Hood and Little John

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treaclechops T
treaclechops Jan 29, 2003 19:04:26
Replying to baza

I've got to chuck my ha'pennorth in at this point. But I'm thinking on the hoof, so forgive me if it gets a little garbled.

Baza, you say: "Most of the tales seem to follow certain patterns, e.g.

The devil / a giant / etc threw it at a church / his dog / etc and missed.

Dancers turned to stone.

At midnight, they all go down to the stream for a drink.

Someone took ten horses to drag a stone down a hill, he was plagued with misfortune until he used one horse to drag it back up again.


I just can`t see how such tales can add to our knowledge."


Well, this tells us a couple of important things. Firstly, much of the above stem from early Christian 'propganda', when they were fighting to wipe out the Old Religion. Stories like that sanitise/demonise practices they couldn't succeed in wiping out, or didn't like. So this reflects the existing power and control of these sites, in a form that although twisted by external forces, was still just about able to endorse that energy. (Yet not get you strung up too readily for believing it). The fact that these stories have carried on down through the centuries simply serve to underline the very essential power of these places for us today.

Rhiannon is right when she cites us not being able to get into a Neolithic mind-set. Neither can we access a tenth century mindset that easily. Remember we live in an enlightened society that allows us to form our own beliefs and reasoning - hence your lack of requirement for the folklore; you can go and appreciate the power openly, and worship it readily, if you so wish, without fear of reprisals. In the tenth century you couldn't, because you'd be burned alive as a heretic.

So strangely, the folklore has in some way served to preserve the sites you love, and let you come full circle (maybe, we're not Neolithic, how will we know), and enjoy/worship at them the way it was always intended to be.

Also, you know, these stories, whether you believe/like them or not, they're still in your subconscious; and they will continue to deliver symbolic images of the magnificence of these sites, whether you are aware of it or not. Bit like psychic adverts, really.

Lights blue touch paper, retires to safe distance . . . :-)

treaclechops xx

F FourWinds
FourWinds Jan 29, 2003 20:32:04
Replying to treaclechops

The Christian propoganda bit is very true and must be weedled out of the rest. Luckily it is easy to spot.

We have to be thankful for the folklore, no matter how sketchy it is. Without the oral traditions of the Irish 'peasants' that were transcribed by the early monks here noone would have been able to say that Newgrange was the Bru na Dagda, nor would any of the monuments upon Tara have their names, as these were only re-assigned after careful translations of 7th century manuscripts by the great John O'Donovan in 1836.

It is also to be noted that many of the clerics that wrote down the old sagas and histories were (at first) very sympathetic to the 'old ways' and the initial writings were very different from later ones that suffered from the censors hand.

The Irish tales of the Fir-Bolg and Da Danaans, being a pre-celtic super race of demi-gods, does tally with the now agreed invasion/settlement cycle in Ireland.

There is a root behind all these tales. Yes, many of them are distorted by thousands of years of Chinese Whispers, but there are echoes in there of the orders of events or a superceded mythos/religion that is lost forever.

My problem with all this is: I know 70% of it is clap-trap, but which 70%?