Who is the Green Knight?

Folk Horror - Interview with Tom Rowsell

This interview was first published on the Folk Horror Revival blog.

Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself – your background, how you ended up as a writer and involved with graphic novels? 

I come from a media background; used to be a writer for trendy magazines in London and wanted to be a film maker. I started out directing horror films and music videos with zombies in the English countryside and wrote my dissertation for my Media degree in 2007 on representation of rural communities in horror films of the seventies. In 2011 I quit my media job and went back to University to study paganism of the Germanic peoples and subsequently directed and presented a documentary film on the subject called From Runes to Ruins (2014). I grew up reading graphic novels; 2000 AD and Alan Moore etc. So when I was approached by Christopher Steininger, a Canadian artist asking to collaborate on a comic book project, I was delighted. I immediately suggested a folk horror story for Christmas.

Who are your influences/heroes? (as a writer and in general)

In film making I was very influenced by everyone from Ingmar Bergman to Piers Haggard. My presenting style is based on old pedagogical BBC TV; people like Kenneth Clarke and David Attenborough but mixed with Jonathan Meades’ cheeky humour. My writing for this particular work was deliberately based heavily on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but also on the old BBC ghost stories for Christmas.

Do you consider your work to fit into the Folk Horror genre and if so what is it about it that you feel fits that label? 

Absolutely. I have a personal connection to the genre; my grandfather’s farm was near Kirkcudbright where The Wicker Man was filmed, and I knew all the places from the film. By the time I went to university, I was obsessed with it, which is why I had to include it in my dissertation. It had previously influenced all the horror films I made as a teen, which depicted the English landscape as pregnant with the horror of history. That was over a decade ago and since then I have become more passionate about the genre, although I have not made any horror for a long time. This book was consciously written as a part of the Folk Horror genre, so the terror derives from the pagan roots of the land’s history.

Do you have a particular process (ritualistic or preparatory) when are working on a particular project? Any way in which you get yourself in `the zone’ or work up ideas? 

Sometimes I can’t write and sometimes I can. David Lynch says concepts of the sphere of pure ideas come to him from "the unified field" which is an ocean of pure consciousness from which he says "everything comes". I have similar views. I don’t feel like my ideas are my own, and I’m not interested in being original, just communicating ideas from that realm in different ways so they can be understood by different people.

Can you give an outline of the content of Spirit of Yule and how/why you ended up creating it? So the cartoon came out first (almost a year ago) and the book this year. Was that always the plan? 

In both the motion comic and the graphic novel, the reader, guided by The Green Knight, travels back through the centuries to learn the pagan roots of Yuletide; from the Dickensian, to the Arthurian and back to the Anglo-Saxons and Norse. The ghost story is set in Victorian England on Christmas Eve, but it teaches the reader all about how pagan people in England used to celebrate Yule 1300 years ago. I based all the pagan practices depicted in the story on contemporary accounts of Yule celebrations among Norse pagans, so this is not only entertainment, but also a kind of educational tool, suitable for all ages (provided they don’t mind a bit of horse blood!). Someone commented on the cartoons saying it ought to be a book, so Christopher grabbed that ball and ran with it. We struggled to get it all ready and self-publish in time for this Christmas though!



What is next? 

Christopher and I will work on another graphic novel in future, this time on comparative mythology of different Indo-European traditions; Celtic, Hindu, Greek etc. He is a versatile artist, so I am excited to see what he comes up with for the next project!

The Spirit of Yule is available to purchase here

Rise of Viking Art - The development of Germanic Material Culture

National Origin Myths and Narratives of Identity

< This talk was delivered in WA, USA in 2018.

Shakin' Stevens as Odinic Archetype in "Merry Christmas Everyone" Music Video

In the music video for “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Welsh rock ‘n’ roll singer Shakin Stevens we see a clear example of the dormant Jungian Odinic archetype manifesting in popular culture. It begins with a towheaded Anglo-Saxon youth boarding an aeroplane and flying to Hyperborea aka Tomteland near Mora in Darlarna county, Sweden. Tomte land is translated by the “elves” who greet him as “Santa world” however this is only partly true. Jultomte is the Swedish translation of Santa Claus, but neither Santa Claus nor Father Christmas (yes, they were once separate things) were part of Nordic culture until recently. A Tomte or nisse is nowadays seen as a cute elf like thing, but, like elves themselves, are an echo of a forgotten cult of the ancestors. Tomte were associated with midwinter and with ancestors who first claimed and cleared the land, often ancient farmers. Another name for Tomte is the haugkall or haugebonde, from the Old Norse haugr meaning a barrow – so we see a clear Indo-European connection to the worship of ancestral spirits at mounds.

Tomteland aka Valhalla

After disembarking from a bus, the metaphorical vehicle to the Hyperborean land of the ancestors, we see that the youth is now accompanied by an Odinic figure in a grey coat, perhaps an echo of Odin’s other name Hárbarðr “grey beard”. After a shot panning across the frosted lakes and snowy pine forests of the Nordic landscape, the shot fades to the man himself, the Odinic spirit made flesh to communicate the divine poetry, Shakin Stevens. The English child is a symbol of the Nordic soul, and his journey to Hyperborea is that of the aristocratic soul to the afterlife, which is guided by the psychopomp, Odin, over the rainbow bridge, Bifröst. Shakin’ Stevens is clearly a psychopomp who is guiding the souls, hence his prefix “Shakin”, for Bifröst is consistently referred to in Norse poetry as a bridge which “trembles”, thus Shakin’ Stevens “shakes” or “trembles” with the path to the beyond.

Utterly Odinic

Next we see Shaky on a horse drawn sleigh, being pulled through the forest at night, like Odin who leads the wild hunt. At his side is a Nordic “elf” who drives the horses on through the darkness. The association of Odin and elves is attested in the skaldic poem Austrfararvísur, by the Norwegian skald Sigvatr Þórðarson who describes encountering a sacrifice to the elves in Sweden which one of the participants relates to their “fear of Odin” – thus Odin is appeased via a sacrifice to the elves, which was at that time a broad term, describing many supernatural entities, including the souls of noble ancestors.

The lyrics at this stage reveal Shaky’s desire to “find that girl underneath the mistletoe”. Those familiar with Norse mythology will be well aware that mistletoe is the one entity, living or dead, in the entire cosmos that did not swear to Frigg not to harm Baldr, son of Odin. This leads to a dart of mistletoe being used to kill Baldr and causing all of creation to weep with sorrow. Baldr’s death is described differently in Völuspá, Hákonarmál, Eriksmál, and in Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus, yet each hint at the resemblance between Baldr’s death and that of the noble souls of war dead, Einherjar, whose sacrifice on the field of war wins them a place in Valhalla. Loki does not weep for Baldr’s death because it would annul the sacrifice, for only Loki knows that Baldr’s death is a necessary sacrifice for the renewal of the world. The poet of Völuspá specifies that Baldr will return:

All horror will be mended, Baldr will come; The two of them Baldr and Hodr 

Will inhabit the victory settlements of Hroptr,

sanctuaries of choice-slaughter deities.

Thus the association of the death of Baldr with a human sacrifice “choice-slaughter” which is necessary for renewal can also be seen in the context of the midwinter sacrifice and appeasement of “slaughter deities” for renewal of the earth for the following year. Thus our Odinic guide’s lyrics refer to his desire for a human sacrifice, hinted at by reference to the mistletoe used in the sacrifice of Odin’s son Baldr.  

In the following verse he sings “Oh, I wish that Everyday was Christmas, What a nice way to spend the year” in a clear reference to the coming Fimbulvintr, a terrible winter which will last for three years and heralds the coming Ragnarök in which Odin will lead his army in battle against the forces of Chaos and trigger the death and renewal of the earth for the next cycle of time.

Next, in a workshop, the children (souls) are put to work creating toys, a clear metaphor for the einherjar training in Valhalla for the great battle of Ragnarök. They are guided now by Santa Claus, or as we say in Britain, Father Christmas, which is interesting because Jölföðr “Yule father” is one of the names of Odin, as is Jölnir “Yule figure”. Much has been written about the grey-bearded god’s resemblance to Santa Claus, but even if there is no direct historical link between them, the similarities can still be read from an esoteric perspective as a manifestation of the Odinic spirit, which Jung called an archetype, and which resides within the unconscious of all Northern Europeans. The metaphor of training for the final war is made explicit three minutes in to the video when Shaky and the children engage in a snowball fight. Shaky even throws a snowball at a snowman, which clearly represents Hrym who shall lead the opposing forces of the frost giants at Ragnarök This is followed by a tragic foreshadowing of Odin’s death at Ragnarök - Shaky is struck by a snowball and falls, representing Odin’s defeat by the wolf Fenrir who shall consume him.

Press F

After the training session, the souls of the dead return to the great hall to feast with Odin. Shaky is shown accompanied in his sleigh now by the Yule father himself, as it draws him to the great feasting hall. We are to assume it is as this point that the “girl beneath the mistletoe” is offered to Shaky but, sadly, this is not shown. 

Any arguments that this video merely depicts a pop star taking some children on a festive holiday are rendered totally invalid by the final sequence. Shaky, Yule father, his elves and the Nordic looking souls of the noble dead all leave the hall and brandish flaming torches as Shaky mounts the sleigh once more, and an elf drives it away into the dark forests of the Nordic night. The children and the Yule Father wave him goodbye and remain at the hall, for Shaky must return to Middle Earth to obtain more einherjar for the fateful war when he shall be no more, but the earth will be renewed by his son Vali the avenger, just as the earth is renewed each year with the cycle of the seasons and the coming of Spring.

looks like Xmas in 1930s Germany tbh

Hail the Yule Father! Hail Shakin’ Stevens! Very Indo-European!

The Wild Hunt and Wistman's Wood

Ottery Tar Barrel Burning 2018 - Video

Haunted Burial Mounds - 5 Barrows and Brockenbarrow Urn of Exmoor

The Spirit of Yule - Graphic Novel

Last Yuletide I collaborated with the talented artist Christopher Steininger of Smile Titans to create an eerie animated Christmas ghost story in a Dickensian folk horror style. This Xmas it will be available worldwide as a hard cover graphic novel that we are self-publishing.

The new books have arrived and they are high quality! Perfect for yule presents this winter! The books are available from THIS LINK from December.

Debunking Cheddar Man

Genetic affinity with Cheddar man is strongest in the North

(This is a response I wrote in February 2018)

Fake news alert: there are a few fake science articles going around with a new reconstruction of a WHG (Western European Hunter Gatherer) skull from England known as Cheddar man.It was already known that WHG had darker skin than modern Europeans (genes for light skin are absent) and that they also all had blue eyes. We cannot tell exact pigmentation but to call them “black” is incredibly dishonest because it not only describes a complexion we cannot confirm but also a specific genetic racial category (negroid aka Sub-Saharan African) which WHG did NOT fall into. The closest living relatives to WHG are modern Northern Europeans such as Estonians who have a lot of European Hunter Gatherer DNA and are not African! (see map above for modern genetic affinities with Cheddar man - the further south you go, the lower it is.) 

PCA shows Cheddar Man in relation to modern Europeans (not near African clusters)

The reconstruction below not only makes the man very dark, but also beardless like many Africans and lacking the distinct brow ridges that those with significant Neanderthal admixture have (Africans do not have this and WHG did). Facial reconstruction leaves a lot of room for the “imagination” of the reconstructor as you can see from these diverse examples of WHG reconstruction.

A reconstruction of a WHG from Spain

Dark Cheddar man reconstruction and older reconstruction

Another misleading headline describes the Cheddar man as a “first Briton” which makes no sense because, as I have explained, a 2017 study showed that over 90% of the DNA of the British isles was replaced in the late Neolithic by an invasion of Bell-Beaker people from Holland who were themselves descended in part from Indo-European steppe peoples. All Celtic and Germanic people in Britain are descended from these people, so 10,000 years ago, when Cheddar man's people were roaming about, most of our (British people's) ancestors were living in Eastern Europe and were not in any way black! Those people are the ancient Britons since they are the progenitors of our people and the ancestors of the first people to be known as Britons (Roman era).

Mainstream media twist scientific facts for an obvious agenda. Please be aware that all science is heavily politicised these days. The team behind the study, which includes Tom Booth, a man who is committed to preventing British people from feeling a sense of rootedness from understanding the genetic history of the islands, overplayed their hand and claimed they knew the complexion of Cheddar man when it was not confirmed. The absence of genes associated with light skin in modern Europeans does not mean the presence of a Sub-Saharan African complexion. Booth's team came up with a range of potential complexions and the guys behind the reconstruction then chose to go with the very darkest of these. Then the media photographed the reconstruction and made it look even darker, and finally the journalists used headlines saying he was "black". A descent into deeper and deeper dishonesty that many have come to expect from the media these days.

The whole situation was exasperated by professional race baiter and grievance monger Afua Hirsch, of Ghanian and Jewish descent, who used the misreporting as an opportunity to promote population replacement. She appeared on Channel 4 and even had an article published in National Geographic, despite having absolutely no knowledge on the subject.

We do not have a sense of being an immigrant nation even though that is essentially what we are, and I think this is very useful in reminding people that we are an immigrant nation, everybody came here from somewhere and actually they're saying that only 10% of the current British population is descended from Cheddar Man. So most British people are more recent immigrants than him and I think that that is really helpful in changing our narrative about what immigration means - there would be no British population if it weren't for immigration and it's hard to understand that you could be so hostile to immigration as an intrinsic principle, I think there are people in Britain who feel like that, if you understand that everyone's ancestors were immigrants at some point. To see Cheddar Man with his dark skin it definitely provoked quite an emotional response in me, and I think that's the power of this. It's one thing to know that there were black people here thousands of years ago and to know that White people weren't always White. We know there were Africans here before there were English people here, for example, and so through that that gives you a sense of the idea that there's this indigenous British person who is White and essentially British is a fiction, it's a narrative that was created over time, it's not based on scientific facts so this is another feature of that really. -Afua Hirsch

In her ignorance she referred to WHG first as black people, and then as Africans! I politely corrected her on Twitter in April, but in her arrogance she refused to admit her mistake.

The following video also shows that due to missing loci in Cheddar man's genome, an accurate prediction of pigmentation is not possible, and what loci were available showed that Cheddar man had an intermediate to dark black complexion but not a dark complexion. The prediction model is not reliable.


For a more balanced and informed view of Cheddar Man, see this blog post by geneticist Razib Khan.

You can also learn more about Mesolithic hunter gatherers in general from my video below.

And in the documentary below, you can find out how the WHG were replaced by, but also mixed with the Neolithic immigrants who founded the Megalith culture of Britain and Ireland. 

Galatian DNA - Evidence of Celtic expansion

This map show's Greek geographer Strabo's account of the migration of the Tectosages, one of three Celtic (Gaulish) tribes, descended from the Volcae tribe which originates in Germany, that migrated East to Phrygia to form the Galatian Celtic group. Even Saint Paul wrote that there were Celts there in his Epistle to the Galatians ("you Celtic goyim don't need to get circumcised") so their presence is well attested. But now we have their DNA! (one sample at least)

The Iron Age sample called Anatolia_IA_MA2197 can be modelled as 57% Bell Beaker derived (signifiant because although Beaker folk didn't speak Celtic, we know the Celts were Beaker descended), it also shows a strong affinity with a sample from the Halstatt Proto-Celtic culture of Austria.

 Interestingly, if we assume the Hallstatt and Urnfield people to be genetically similar to the Celts who expanded East and West in the 3rd century BC and to the ones who brought Celtic languages to Britain in 6th BC we can see that in all the modern day "Celtic" regions, their genetic influence is small (UK, Brittany and Ireland) to negligible (Galicia - where there are greater amounts of medieval Arabic admixture than Iron Age Hallstatt).

The paper
Eurogenes blog post on the modelling

Hinduism in Bali - Temples and Dances

Balinese Hindu temples, puras, are different from those in India. They are enclosures with open air areas for worship. The compounds are connected with beautifully decorated gates, and each contains thatched shrines. Learn more in my latest video..

Interactive Survive the Jive video map

The Living Wooden Idol that Speaks - Tremann

The word Trémann (tree man) appears several times in Norse sources, referring to some kind of living wooden idol. In Flateyjarbók, Ogmundr the Dane goes ashore at Samsey and finds a "trémann fornan" (ancient tree man) 140ft high and covered in moss and he wondered who worshipped this enormous god. In other cases the tremann is alive, such as in one story one is sent by pagan Hakon Jarl to kill Thorleifr Jarlaskald. This one was made from driftwood and dressed in human clothes with a human heart placed inside it and it was named Þorgarðr. The fact that Þorgarðr is referred to in a kenning as the Gautr of the battlefire, associates him with Odin, since Gautr is a name for Odin. In Havamal 49 a verse describes how Odin clothes two wooden men with the armour of noblemen, and in so doing turns them to demons of battle, presumably for his army in Valhöll.

There are other sources that associate Odin with the creation of idols that he makes live, such as The Old English gnomic poem Maxims I phrase 'Woden worhte weos' ('Woden made idols'’) and the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, who pretended that Odin was only a man, still admitted that he had the power to make inanimate statues speak.

All this was brought to my mind when I witnessed the funerary puppet dancing of the Batak people in Sumatra. Batak pagan priests made human-sized puppets which were dressed like those who had died and were manipulated by the Datu to dance, weep, gnash their teeth, and speak in the voice of the deceased. The puppets were used to revive souls of the dead and communicate with them. An extraordinarily Odinic form of necromancy. There is no historic link between Indonesia and the Odin cult of course, but the similarity is testament to the perennial nature of pagan truth. You can see it in my new video here.

Where Did Celts Come From?

While Germanic language is widely agreed to have emerged around 3000 years ago in Northern Denmark, amongst a people who were genetically like modern Danes, and then to have spread from 750BC as neighbouring peoples adopted the language for some reason, it is harder to pin point who the first Celtic speakers were or explain how their languages got to Britain.

As I have said in videos, the modern British genetic profile emerged 4500 years ago with the arrival of the beaker folk from Holland, but these people did NOT speak a Celtic language, as linguists agree Proto-Celtic isn't that old (maybe 3000 or 3500 years old). This means that either: 

a) The peoples of the British Isles adopted a Celtic language due to trade with continental Celts
b) A small Celtic elite took over Britain and Ireland and somehow changed the culture and language but not the genetics
c) A continental population of Celts took over Britain and Ireland and did change the genetics, but this change is only very slight because they were already closely related to the people of the British Isles.

Archeologically, the Hallstatt culture of the 8th to 6th centuries BC, is seen as the first proper Celtic material culture. The two black stars on the PCA chart above, made by Eurogenes, represent two skeletons from the Hallstatt culture, and it can clearly be seen that one plots among the Dutch and one among the Northern French, but neither among modern "Celtic" areas. However, the purple Iron Age Celts on the chart are between the older Bronze age British samples and the Halstatt samples indicating there WAS an invasion of continental Celts to Britain who were related to these Halstatt samples and that they changed the DNA of Britain and Ireland.

Modern English people plot between these purple Iron Age Celts and the red Anglo-Saxon samples, but there is always the possibility that other 5th century Anglo-Saxon invaders from Frisia, Holland etc would have plotted like modern Dutch people just as the much older Halstatt sample does - thus making the job of distinguishing "Celtic and Germanic DNA" very complicated! Especially when you also see that the Anglo-Saxon samples are closer to the Bronze Age Britons than the Halstatt Celts are.

EDIT: Eurogenes actually said there may have been as much as 10% admixture from a Celtic source in the iron age.

Read more

The Hero in the Mountain - An Archetype

"In this country the most noted example is that of King Arthur, who may fitly give his name to the type. King Arthur, according to the romances, is, like Olger, in the Island of Avalon, where indeed the romance of Olger declares that the two heroes met. Sir Thomas Malory tells us: “Some men yet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesus Christ into another place; and men say that hee will come againe, and he shall winne the holy crosse. I will not say that it shall bee so, but rather I will say that heere in this world hee changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tombe this verse: Hic jacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus.” This is a belief dear to the heart of many an oppressed people. It was told of Harold that he was not slain at Senlac, and that he would yet come back to lead his countrymen against the hated Normans. Even of Roderick, the Last of the Goths, deeply stained as he was with crime, men were loth to believe that he was dead. In the latter part of the[Pg 206] sixteenth century, after Don Sebastian had fallen in the ill-fated expedition to Morocco, Philip the Second of Spain took advantage of the failure of the male line on the death of the cardinal-king, Henry, to add Portugal to his dominions, already too large. His tyranny roused a popular party whose faith was that Don Sebastian was not really dead: he was reigning in the Island of the Seven Cities, and he would return by and by to drive out the Spaniards and their justly execrated king. Even in the year 1761 a monk was condemned by the Inquisition as a Sebastianist, a believer and a disseminator of false prophecies,—so long did the tradition linger. In the Spanish peninsula, indeed, the superstition has been by no means confined to Christians. The Moors who were left in the mountains of Valentia looked for the return of their hero Alfatimi upon a green horse, from his place of concealment in the Sierra de Aguar, to defend them and to put their Catholic tyrants to the sword.

Oppression nourishes beliefs of this kind. It was under the Roman dominion that the Jewish expectation of a Messiah grew to its utmost strength; and the manifestation of the Messiah was to be preceded by the reappearance of Elijah, a prophet who was not dead but translated to heaven. And strange sometimes are the gods from whom salvation is to come. Only a few years ago, if we may trust Bishop Melchisedech of Roumania, there was a Slavonic sect, the object of whose worship was Napoleon the First. He, said his worshippers, had not really died; he was only at Irkousk, in Siberia, where, at the head of a powerful, an invincible, army, he was ready once more to overrun the world.

But, however the belief in a deity, or hero, who is to[Pg 207] return some day, may be strengthened by political causes, it is not dependent upon them. Many races having traditions of a Culture God—that is, of a superior being who has taught them agriculture and the arts of life, and led them to victory over their enemies—add that he has gone away from them for awhile, and that he will some day come back again. Quetzalcoatl and Viracocha, the culture gods of Mexico and Peru, are familiar instances of this. In the later Brahminism of India, Vishnu, having already accomplished nine avatars, or incarnations, for special emergencies in the past, was yet to have one more avatar for the final destruction of the wicked and the restoration of goodness at the end of the present age; he would then be revealed in the sky seated on a white horse and wielding a blazing sword. I need not specify others: it will be manifest that the traditions of modern Europe we have been considering contain the same thought. Nor is it unlikely that they have been influenced by the Christian doctrine of the Second Advent. Many of them have received the polish of literature. The stories of Olger and Arthur, for example, have descended to us as romances written by cultivated men. Don Sebastian was the plaything of a political party, if not the symbol of religious heresy, for nearly two centuries. In all these stories we encounter the belief that the god or hero is in heaven, or in some remote land. Such a belief is the sign of a civilization comparatively advanced. The cruder and more archaic belief is that he sleeps within the hills.

This cruder belief is more familiar in the folklore of Europe than the other. King Arthur was believed to lie with his warriors beneath the Craig-y-Ddinas (Castle Rock) in the Vale of Neath. Iolo Morganwg, a well-known Welsh antiquary, used to relate a curious tradition concerning this rock. A Welshman, it was said, walking over London Bridge with a hazel staff in his hand, was met by an Englishman, who told him that the[Pg 208] stick he carried grew on a spot under which were hidden vast treasures, and if the Welshman remembered the place and would show it to him he would put him in possession of those treasures. After some demur the Welshman consented, and took the Englishman (who was in fact a wizard) to the Craig-y-Ddinas and showed him the spot. They dug up the hazel tree on which the staff grew and found under it a broad flat stone. This covered the entrance to a cavern in which thousands of warriors lay in a circle sleeping on their arms. In the centre of the entrance hung a bell which the conjurer begged the Welshman to beware of touching. But if at any time he did touch it and any of the warriors should ask if it were day, he was to answer without hesitation: “No; sleep thou on.” The warriors' arms were so brightly polished that they illumined the whole cavern; and one of them had arms that outshone the rest, and a crown of gold lay by his side. This was Arthur; and when the Welshman had taken as much as he could carry of the gold which lay in a heap amid the warriors, both men passed out; not, however, without the Welshman's accidentally touching the bell. It rang; but when the inquiry: “Is it day?” came from one of the warriors, he was prompt with the reply: “No; sleep thou on.” The conjurer afterwards told him that the company he had seen lay asleep ready for the dawn of the day when the Black Eagle and the Golden Eagle should go to war, the clamour of which would make the earth tremble so much that the bell would ring loudly and the warriors would start up, seize their arms, and destroy the enemies of the Cymry, who should then repossess the island of Britain and be governed from Caerlleon with justice and peace so long as the world endured. When the Welshman's treasure was all spent he went back to the cavern and helped himself still more liberally than before. On his way out he touched the bell again: again it rang. But this time he was not so ready with his answer, and[Pg 209] some of the warriors rose up, took the gold from him, beat him and cast him out of the cave. He never recovered the effects of that beating, but remained a cripple and a pauper to the end of his days; and he never could find the entrance to the cavern again. Merlin and the charm

“Of woven paces and of waving hands”

I need not do more than mention. A recess in the rock three miles eastward of Carmarthen, called Merlin's Cave, is generally accredited as the place where Vivien perpetrated her treachery. Merlin's county is possessed of another enchanted hero. On the northern side of Mynydd Mawr (the Great Mountain) near Llandilo, is a cave where Owen Lawgoch (Owen of the Red Hand), one of the last chieftains who fought against the English, lies with his men asleep. And there they will lie until awakened by the sound of a trumpet and the clang of arms on Rhywgoch, when they will arise and conquer their Saxon foes, driving them from the land. A more famous chieftain is the subject of a similar belief in the Vale of Gwent. Considerable obscurity overhangs the fate of Owen Glendower. What is certain about him is that he disappeared from history in the year 1415. What is believed in the Vale of Gwent is that he and his men still live and lie asleep on their arms in a cave there, called “Gogov y Ddinas,” or Castle Cave, where they will continue until England become self-debased; but that then they will sally forth to reconquer their country, privileges, and crown for the Welsh, who shall be dispossessed of them no more until the Day of Judgment."

The Science of Fairy Tales

Picture: Barbarossa awakens, 19th-century painting by Hermann Wislicenus

King Arthur's Britain: The Truth Unearthed

Survive the Jive "Very Indo-European" T-shirts / hoodies / Merch store

You can now purchase STJ hoodies, t-shirts, mugs and phone cases from two different stores selling official STJ Merch. Teespring sell STJ shirts, vests and hoodies as well as mugs, beanies and phone cases - Click here! - FYI Some of these items can be sent from Europe or USA while others are only sent from USA.

Click images below to purchase the garment modelled.

This vest says "Very Indo-European" on the back too