The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre
Stonehenge presents us with one of the greatest archaeological mysteries from prehistory. With each new breakthrough in field research and technological innovation, the full scale and significance of the ancient site only deepens. In this new magisterial study by Nikolai Tolstoy, an essentially historical approach is used to try and explain the human story behind the implacable stones, and to enliven our understanding of Stonehenge through the fragments of myth and ritual that survive through Britain’s oral tradition. With years of patient study and an acquired fluency with the island’s many ancient languages, Tolstoy excavates a new theory from the layers of cultural sediment.Whilst admitting the latest archaeological evidence and research, Tolstoy aims to reconstruct the significant aspects of British pagan ideology and thinking from the pre-Roman era. By exploring the myths and rituals passed down alongside the material remnants of this lost civilisation, Stonehenge becomes illumined as the ‘sacred centre’ of Britain, the holy site at which the ancient peoples’ most profound beliefs – in the birth, destruction and eventual rebirth of their island itself – were celebrated.
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The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre
Stonehenge presents us with one of the greatest archaeological mysteries from prehistory. With each new breakthrough in field research and technological innovation, the full scale and significance of the ancient site only deepens. In this new magisterial study by Nikolai Tolstoy, an essentially historical approach is used to try and explain the human story behind the implacable stones, and to enliven our understanding of Stonehenge through the fragments of myth and ritual that survive through Britain’s oral tradition. With years of patient study and an acquired fluency with the island’s many ancient languages, Tolstoy excavates a new theory from the layers of cultural sediment.Whilst admitting the latest archaeological evidence and research, Tolstoy aims to reconstruct the significant aspects of British pagan ideology and thinking from the pre-Roman era. By exploring the myths and rituals passed down alongside the material remnants of this lost civilisation, Stonehenge becomes illumined as the ‘sacred centre’ of Britain, the holy site at which the ancient peoples’ most profound beliefs – in the birth, destruction and eventual rebirth of their island itself – were celebrated.
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The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre

The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre

The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre

The Mysteries of Stonehenge: Myth and Ritual at the Sacred Centre

Overview

Stonehenge presents us with one of the greatest archaeological mysteries from prehistory. With each new breakthrough in field research and technological innovation, the full scale and significance of the ancient site only deepens. In this new magisterial study by Nikolai Tolstoy, an essentially historical approach is used to try and explain the human story behind the implacable stones, and to enliven our understanding of Stonehenge through the fragments of myth and ritual that survive through Britain’s oral tradition. With years of patient study and an acquired fluency with the island’s many ancient languages, Tolstoy excavates a new theory from the layers of cultural sediment.Whilst admitting the latest archaeological evidence and research, Tolstoy aims to reconstruct the significant aspects of British pagan ideology and thinking from the pre-Roman era. By exploring the myths and rituals passed down alongside the material remnants of this lost civilisation, Stonehenge becomes illumined as the ‘sacred centre’ of Britain, the holy site at which the ancient peoples’ most profound beliefs – in the birth, destruction and eventual rebirth of their island itself – were celebrated.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781445659534
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Publication date: 09/15/2016
Pages: 608
Product dimensions: 6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.40(d)

About the Author

Count Nikolai Tolstoy is the author of several books on Celtic mythology, including bestseller 'The Quest for Merlin' (Hamish Hamilton, 1985; Little, Brown, 1986). A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin in Modern History & Political Theory, he also pursued a course in Celtic languages & culture. His book, 'The Oldest British Prose Literature', was Wales Book of the Year runner-up 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Associate Member of St Anthony's College, Oxford.John Waddell is the former Professor of Archaeology and Head of the Department at NUI, Galway. He studied at the University of Glasgow and worked in the National Museum of Ireland before returning to Galway in 1970. Appointed Professor of Archaeology in 1998, he is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. His research interests lie mainly in the archaeology of prehistoric Ireland and in the prehistoric relationships between the island and Britain and Continental Europe.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 9

Preface John Waddell 11

Introduction 15

1 The Riddle of Stonehenge 20

A millennium of mystery 20

Early scholarly explanations 28

2 Archaeology and Stonehenge 34

3 The Sacred Centre and the Ancient Roads of Britain 40

Stonehenge as Omphalos 40

Stonehenge and the prehistoric roads of Britain 41

Ancient road-systems as cosmic paradigms 48

The British Omphalos and the national roads 51

4 Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regurn Britanniæ 56

Geoffrey's life and work 56

Traditional Welsh lore in the Historia Regum Britanniæ 60

5 "The Giants' Dance 75

Geoffrey's account of Stonehenge 75

Origins of Geoffrey's account 77

Stonehenge and Uisneach 78

6 Avenues of Transmission in Archaic Tradition 88

Preservation and transmission of archaic lore 88

To what extent was ancient lore preserved in writing? 94

Literary transmission of ancient lore 109

Longevity of oral tradition in early Britain 117

Pagan revival and druidism in early mediaeval Britain 120

Pagan survivals in sixth-century Britain 126

7 Historical Tradition in Mediaeval Wales 134

Geoffrey's Welsh Informants 134

Bledri ap Cydifor 136

Royal records of early Dyfed 143

Geoffrey's access to local traditions of Stonehenge 145

The foundation legend of Milan 157

8 Celtic Tradition and the Transfer of the Preseli Bluestones 161

Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, and the Preseli sanctuary 161

Appropriation by the Centre 173

9 Maxen the Emperor and the Preseli Sanctuary 180

The British Emperor 180

Breuddwyd Maxen and the British History 185

When was Breuddwyd Maxen composed? 191

The mythic history 196

The hunt 196

The kings and their shields 198

The heat of the sun 203

The cosmic board game 210

The cosmic mountain 212

The river of life 215

The enchanted ship 217

The Faery palace 218

Inside the Faery Palace 223

The cosmic board game 223

The Old Man 226

The Hall Pillar 227

The Matchless Maiden 228

Maxen and Cadeir Faxen 229

The royal sanctuary of Dyfed 232

The Pillar at the Centre of the Earth 235

Lieu and Maxen 246

10 A Christianized Myth of the Sacred Centre: The Life of St Illtud 248

The British cosmogony 248

Welsh Saints' Lives 248

Illtud's birth and parentage 250

The birth of Taliesin 260

Saint ILLTLID 262

Tire feast at Medgarth 264

The pagan, cosmogony of Britain 273

The banishment of Trynihid 274

Illtud as cosmocrator 277

The divinity and the saint 287

The man in the cave 289

Illtud as harvest deity 297

The subterranean god 300

Saint's Life and pagan myth 302

Illtud the druid 302

Illtud the abbot 302

Illtud and Lieu 303

11 The Hyperborean Temple 304

An early Greek account of Stonehenge? 304

Hyperborean Apollo and Celtic Lug 311

Hecataeus of Abdera and the Northern shrine of Apollo 313

12 The Conversation of Lludd and Lleuelys 319

Cyfranc Lludd a Lleuelys 319

Welsh god and French king 324

The 'triple' scourges 329

The divine king and the druid 331

The Battle of Mag Tuired 335

Paired Celtic divine rulers: Núadu/Nudd and Lug/Lieu 341

The secret conference between Lludd and Lleuelys 347

The 'devil' in the horn 349

Purgation by wine 355

13 The Three Oppressions of the Island of Britain 357

The calendrical framework of the Three Oppressions 357

The 'first' gormes: the Coraniaid 359

The charged water 362

Kalan Mai in British folk tradition 367

The second gormes: the deadly scream 373

The baneful scream in mediaeval Welsh law 376

The fighting 'dragons' 380

The Gundestrup Cauldron 397

The paired 'dragons' at the British omphalos 400

Gwydion's 'swine' and the Centre of Gwynedd 404

The third gormes: the giant wizard 418

14 Pagan Survival in the Early Middle Ages 428

The wizard of the north and the conception of Saint Samson 428

Eltut the druid 439

A pagan realm in sixth-century Britain 442

The World Serpent 455

15 The Omphalos of Britain 460

The British Omphalos 460

The sacred hearth and the omphalos 462

The realm in the rock 471

Lleu, Illtud, and the world in the stone 474

The festival of Brigid 476

16 The Destruction and Renewal of the World 480

Cyclical renewal in Celtic mythology 480

The Salmon of Llyn Llyw 486

The pagan Celtic doctrine of Incarnation 490

17 The Collapsing Castle and the Sacred Centre 493

Geoffrey's adaptation of Nennius 493

Merlin Ambrosius 495

The child sacrifice and the fighting creatures 499

The youth without a name 511

Merlin-Ambrosius and the 'circle' 514

The survival of Eldol 521

The sanctuary of ancestral heroes 525

18 The Stones and the Seasons: Myths and Rituals of the Omphalos 527

Calendrical rites at the Centre of Britain 527

Lug and the Stone of Destiny 528

The pryfed in the rock 543

Bibliography 555

Primary sources 555

Secondary works 567

Index 601

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