Gwyn Read online

  First published on Mid-Summer 2007

  by

  The Temple Publications Ltd.

  Somerset

  United Kingdom

  www.thetemplepublications.co.uk

  [email protected]

  Paperback ISBN 978-0-9555970-1-5

  Hardback ISBN 978-0-9555970-0-8

  This E-Edition published by Temple Publications

  September 2012

  ISBN 978-0-9572113-6-0

  © Yuri Leitch 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by Lee Yarlett.

  All illustrations by Yuri Leitch

  Dedication

  To the Faeries

  (One most always know where ones loyalties lie!)

  “The future is a fabric of interlacing possibilities”, he said. “Some of which gradually become probabilities, and a few of which become inevitabilities, but there are surprises sewn into the warp and the woof, which can tear it apart.”

  (Anne Rice, “The Witching Hour)

  Acknowledgements:

  Alphabetically: Stephen Andrews, PaulBroadhurst, Mary Caine, Andrew Collins, Jennifer Hurford, Andrew Johnson, Laura Johnson, Alex Langstone, Ian Leitch, Nicholas Mann, Lyn Morgan, Bahli Mans-Morris, Oddvar Olsen, Alan Royce, Paul Atlas-Sanders, Sophie ‘Ellyllon, Clive Turner” Richard Ward” and Paul Weston.

  “May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful May your song always be sung and may you stay Forever Young”.

  (Bob Dylan, Forever Young’)

  List of illustrations:

  A, Front cover and Title page

  B, Map of pre-Saxon Somerset

  C, Map of Ynys Witrin

  1, Pictish Boars p. 4

  2, Gwyn’s Family Tree p. 9

  3, Blodeuwedd p. 13

  4, Vesica p. 16

  5, Yule King p. 25

  6, Creurdylad p. 30

  7, Midwinter Sun Roll p. 34

  8, Glastonbury Zodiac p. 37

  9, Gwyn’s Wheel p. 42

  10, Girt Dog p. 43

  11, Young warrior p. 50

  12, First Century Tor p. 53

  13, Maidens p. 58

  14, Three Crowns Shield p. 61

  15, Dux Bellorum p. 67

  16, Lias Mael p. 76

  17, SaintNectan’s Glen p 77

  18, Ravens p. 78

  19, Hidden Tor p. 86

  20, Child p. 88

  21, The Tor p. 90

  22, Y Draig Goch p. 95

  23, Swan p. 100

  Contents:

  Foreword by Paul Broadhurst

  Introduction

  Chapter 1. First Among Legends1

  Chapter 2. The Children of Don

  Chapter 3. The Otherworld

  Chapter 4. Gwyn apNudd

  Chapter 5. Dormarth, guardian of the Zodiac

  Chapter 6. The Changing Isle

  Chapter 7. The Vale of Neath and SaintNectan’s Glen

  Chapter 8. The Gate is Shut

  Conclusion

  Chronology of Source Material

  Bibliography

  Index

  Anyone coming across Glastonbury for the first time cannot fail to be impressed by the towering and enigmatic shape of the Tor. It is such a distinctive feature that even though you may have seen a hundred photographs, the real thing can still take your breath away. Even those who may not like to think of themselves in any way as ‘mystically inclined’ often admit to strange feelings as they gaze upon it, or climb the steep path to the ruined church of St Michael whose tower dominates the scene.

  Why does this place exert such a powerful influence over the human imagination? Why do visitors feel they are setting foot on a special place, some sort of borderland between the mundane and the magical? One of the reasons must surely be that the Tor has been a focus for the mythology, legends and religious impulses of people for many thousands of years. Another, perhaps equally intangible reason is its powerfully energetic nature, which can induce all manner of strange visions and inner experiences.

  In this book Yuri Leitch draws us back beyond the more recent legends of the last two millennia to a time when the earth was considered a sacred temple reflecting the patterns of the cosmos, a vast living being responding to the light of the sun, moon and stars, just as we ourselves do. In those times, Glastonbury Tor was the otherworldly abode of Gwyn, a pre-Christian god of Light.

  Like a lost dream, we try to recapture the visions that dwell on the edge of our imaginations, attempting to grasp their once vivid meaning with ideas and images that are now half-hidden in our collective memory. This meaning may exist beyond our normal senses, but places like Gwyn’s abode can focus our higher vision on a view of the world that is of deep significance to many today.

  Behind the legends of Glastonbury, and especially the Tor, hides a primeval Lord of Light who has been banished by successive waves of incursions and the ever-changing fashions of religion. Yet the heavenly archangel Michael who now rules over the Tor is but a later incarnation of this same principle, who took over the high places once dedicated to former Druid sun gods. He represents, in the unfolding pattern of human evolution, the highest ideals and spiritual impulses of Mankind. Wellesley Tudor Pole, that great modern visionary who founded Chalice Well Gardens at the foot of the Tor where pilgrims could find peace and inspiration, was convinced that St Michael was destined to become the guiding spirit of a coming new age, when many of these mysteries will reveal themselves. It is perhaps not then surprising that Glastonbury Tor has become a worldwide symbol for this awakening consciousness. It is a truly timeless place where we can recognise that whatever names we may give them, ultimately these spiritual presences represent cosmic principles, the ineffable intelligence of nature, and our relationship with them.

  Paul Broadhurst

  Cornwall, England

  21st April 2007

  www.mythospress.co.uk

  Introduction

  “The account of Gwyn’s Tor abode is in a sixteenth-century Welsh text. It shows no influence from Glastonbury’s literary legends and undoubtedly preserves much older tradition.”

  (Geoffrey Ashe, ‘Mythology of the British Isles’)

  I moved to Glastonbury at the very beginning of 2001, drawn here by odd circumstances and a love of the myths and legends of this place. For thirteen years or more I had been visiting the entrancing Tor, drawn like a moth to a flame. When I finally found myself living here I walked up the Tor and made a quiet oath to myself to learn all I could about this place. Now, six years later, I am still learning and every day feels like I am still at the beginning of that journey. This book is a collection of the discoveries that I have so far been lucky enough to find. A collection of ‘Otherworldly’ treasures surrounding a specific theme, a theme that can be embodied as part of ‘Gwyn’s’ story.

  Over the centuries Glastonbury has attracted many legends to its sacred soil. Most famously those of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, but these are not the oldest insights into this misty island. At their very best, if these legends were ‘true’ then they would still only take us back to the 1st century. This island was a sacred sanctuary for thousands of years before then. So, how do we unearth the oldest spirit of this sanctuary? That’s what has interested me. To get beyond the shimmering heraldry of Arthur and pass by the shining glamour of the Grail, to go further back to the source: to the root and the beginning of things.

  There are many mists in Avalon and the further you
go back in time the thicker and denser those shifting mists become but it is a path that has to be explored none-the-less, and as with all journeys into the ‘Otherworld’ realms there are treasures to be found.

  The Holy Grail legends, if true, take us back to the first century when Rome was beginning its four hundred year occupation of the British Isles. What was so special about this place, this ‘Celtic’ island surrounded by bog and marsh? Why did it draw Joseph of Arimathea here and why was this place the location of the very first Christian church in Britain? The only way to answer these questions is to study and understand what the so-called ‘Celtic’ or ‘Iron Age’ native Britons were doing here. By understanding the importance of their sacred island and by looking at their folk tales and archaeology we can perceive (through thickening mists) what they knew and how they used this place. To these native Britons this island was a sacred place, an entrance to other realms, thousands of years before the Roman Empire and the Holy Grail even set foot here.

  When I first started studying these legends often the only way to progress through the mists was to follow my instincts, to find the right path. In my initial reading of ‘Gwyn ap Nudd’ he was presented as a quaint and amusing pantomime character, ‘the King of the Fairies’ who lived on the Tor. My first instinct was NO! - he is far more than that patronizing and diminutive explanation might lead us to think. This great spirit was actually the Hunter God and psychopompos of the native Britons, their Lord of the Golden Realms, whose very name ‘Gwyn’ means ‘blessed, white’ and when extended to ‘Gwynfa’ - ‘Paradise’.

  So here is my book about Gwyn. I am sure as the years go by there will be a lot more to say. I hope that others can expand upon these ideas and that Gwyn is encouraged to shine brighter. Only then will the mists concealing his gateway to paradise become thinner.

  Yuri Leitch

  Ynys Witrin

  Beltane, 2007

  www.yurileitch.co.uk

  Chapter One

  First Among Legends

  “All myths and sagas are like a shimmering veil of many colours, stirred now and then by the wind of our desires, but still hiding from most of us that Council of the Wise seated at the Round Table of the Stars, who once painted on the moving veil the bright pictures of fairy-tale and myth with the breath of their immortal Words. But between us and them lies the gulf of our arrogance and the mists of our unbelief.”

  (Eleanor C. Merry, ‘The Flaming Door’)

  Upon the journey of this book there are two types of mist that will cross our path. There is the mist of history and the mist of legend. The difference between history and legend is that history is believed to be ‘true’ and that there is documentary evidence to prove it so. Legend has no documentary evidence and cannot therefore be proved. With that said, it doesn’t mean that legend is necessarily ‘untrue’, as evidence can be lost, destroyed, burnt, or may never have been written down.

  The misty truth, most probably, is that within history and legend there are grains of truth and lots of embellishments, in legend to create a sense of magical awe, in history to support a political agenda.

  I came to Glastonbury with a deep love of all its history and legends and I personally believe that there are at least half-truths to all of them. That said, one has to keep ones feet upon the ground and be aware that over the past two thousand years there have been human beings here creating all sorts of stories about this place, sometimes for love and sometimes for ploy.

  There are two main ‘super-legends’ of Glastonbury. Firstly that of King Arthur being buried here, giving rise to Glastonbury being the true location of Avalon. Secondly, the legend that Jesus’ kinsman, Joseph of Arimathea, brought the Holy Grail here in the 1st century. Both are labelled by critics as being the inventions of the monks of Glastonbury Abbey; invented to increase this abbey’s fame and to encourage Christian pilgrims to visit and spend their money. I have read a lot of the source material and remain undecided. For sure, establishments become corrupt and desire money, but the original accounts seem quite genuine and one must remember that Glastonbury Abbey always had the support of the Crown and was never in any financial stress, ever. Take for instance, Abbot Henry de Blois, a royal prince and nephew of King Henry I. Abbot Henry was the brother of King Stephen who came to the throne after Henry I. If Stephen had died this abbot of Glastonbury could have become king of England. This place was no humble country chapel. Glastonbury Abbey was always prominent within the minds of British Christianity, as it was believed to have been the very first house of god in the British Isles.

  But is there no smoke without fire? The legend of Joseph of Arimathea coming to Glastonbury wasn’t written down until 1129 A.D. When Abbot Henry de Blois hired William of Malmesbury to study the abbey’s extensive library and write a definitive history about this sacred island (‘The Antiquities of Glastonbury’) William was writing about Joseph of Arimathea over a thousand years after the man was said to have lived. We cannot confirm William’s research because in 1185 A.D., a ‘great fire’ destroyed much of Glastonbury Abbey. It totally destroyed its extensive library; a great library, intensively collected and gathered by Henry de Blois, who even as a young man was known as ‘The Sage’ because of his fine intellect and desire for knowledge. Many ancient writings and manuscripts, histories and legends were lost to us on that one day.

  It was after the ‘great fire’ and during the repair work in 1191 A.D., that the monks discovered a tomb. They claimed it to be King Arthur’s, establishing forever, Glastonbury as the ‘true’ location of the mythical isle of Avalon. Whether the monks genuinely believed it to be Arthur’s tomb or not, is still hotly debated. Like the Joseph of Arimathea tradition, Arthur’s Grave served both as a pilgrim attraction and as a powerful political ‘chess piece’ -the threat of Welsh rebellion against the English throne was still very real. The Welsh had long been awaiting the ‘return of Arthur’, but there could be no miraculous return once it was proved he was dead and buried. In this light, it is much more likely that there was some political motivation, for the discovery itself was requested by the king, Henry II. Curiously, the bones of Arthur (and Guenivere) were placed in a black marble sarcophagus and kept beside the high altar for hundreds of years. This seems a very strange thing to do, for a Catholic abbey, to venerate Celtic Christian non-saints in such a way as this.

  Whatever the truth of these two ‘super-legends’, they were promoted and publicized in the 12th century as a declaration of Glastonbury’s uniqueness in the land and to emphasise the importance of this place at that time. Today, we may be forgiven for thinking that there was a great element of ‘self-interest’ in the promotion of these legends.

  But these are the abbey legends, what about the mystique of the Tor itself? How much of this ‘self interest’ can be considered as being truly representative of this sacred island? Where is the majesty of the Tor in these medieval stories? It’s not there. The Tor is just a misty backdrop to these Arthurian Grail romances; in these tales we learn nothing of this place, nor why it is so special.

  The legend of Gwyn ap Nudd, ‘King of the Fairies’, is completely different. It was not created by self interest or publicized by the people of Glastonbury. It came from far away, across the Sabrina Sea (the Bristol Channel), from the so-called land of ‘Wales’. It was the Welsh and their folklore that placed Gwyn ap Nudd upon Glastonbury Tor. Why should they do so? What had Wales to gain from ‘promoting’ Glastonbury as a ‘Faerie Realm’? This fascinated me greatly.

  Because the legend of Gwyn had no promotional ‘self interest’ it really appealed to me as being somehow ‘pure’ and un-tainted; that it was in itself somehow simple and honest, a piece of folklore and folk-memory.

  Who was this character, ‘Gwyn’? At a quick glance there seemed to be much more to this King of the Fairies than first met the eye.

  I had known about the ‘Beltane Line’ (more popularly known as the ‘Michael Line alignment’) for many years. A so-called ‘Ley-line’, the Bel
tane Line is the longest in England, running from St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall to the east coast of Norfolk. It crosses many churches of St. Michael often on hilltops and predominantly all upon a line. It is an amazing thing that still begs to be explained. Glastonbury Tor with its ruined church of St. Michael is right upon the middle of this ‘line’, half way between the Cornish coast and the Norfolk coast.

  The magical thing is this. The Michael line has a deliberate angle and direction situated specifically upon the May Day or Beltane sunrise, hence the ‘Beltane Line’. Many sites including the Hurlers stone circle on Bodmin Moor, the huge standing stones of Avebury: and other more ‘pagan’ sites have no ‘Michael’ that have no place names; but all these sites share the same Beltaine alignment. There was a certain point that stood out and particularly grabbed my attention. The Welsh folklore about Gwyn being at Glaston-bury Tor also tells of how he has a ritual battle every year, a battle that always takes place at Beltane!