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The mysteries of Stonehenge : myth and ritual at the Sacred Centre / Nikolai Tolstoy.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Tolstoy, Nikolai, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Megalithic monuments--England--Wiltshire.
- Megalithic monuments.
- Rites and ceremonies.
- History.
- England--Wiltshire.
- Stonehenge (England).
- Rites and ceremonies--England--History.
- England--Stonehenge.
- England.
- Physical Description:
- 607 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Stroud, Gloucestersire : Amberley Publishing, 2016.
- Contents:
- 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.
- Notes:
- Inbludes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9781445659534
- 1445659530
- OCLC:
- 947814558
- Publisher Number:
- 99970039089
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