I've often wondered whether the water filled ditches of ancient Bronze Age round barrows influenced our later myths and legends around Isles of the Dead, Isles of the Young, Summer Isles and such like. Were these stories born from the remembered tales and half truths of ancient ritual, practice and perceptions around death and the beyond, which had been passed down through the generations orally? Are other elements within our myths and legends also derived from the periods ritual, practice and perceptions? If so, what could we learn? We know that a barrow wasn't just a burial, and would have played an important part in community cohesion and reinforcing the shared narrative, amongst other things. As Timothy Darvill wrote, 'Individual barrows witnessed extended and complicated ceremonies and rituals. There were clearly many rules, precedents and taboos surrounding the ways barrows and their burials were created'. So, did these Bronze Age barrows symbolize the original Isles to which the the dead travelled? Was the builders intention for the ditches to fill with water symbolizing an island? Are the journeys which the dead often take in these stories symbolic or an echo of the burial ritual? Do the ancillary characters in these stories represent the main protagonists, after the deceased, in the burial rituals of the Bronze Age, members of the family/priests/shaman? Where's a Bronze Age person to ask when you need one!
All these questions whirred around my head as I lay atop this forest barrow, surrounded (all but for a causeway facing South East), by a water filled ditch. At which point, bathed in the Suns' promise of what's to come, I promptly fell asleep. I awoke none the wiser. Sadly, those in the mound were keeping schtum.
What got me thinking, was an article I recently read about fairy tales being much older than the 400 or so years we thought. In fact, dating as far back as the Bronze Age. Makes you think.
No comments:
Post a Comment