#paganism — Public Fediverse posts

Mabon: The Art of the Sacred Pause & The Descent of Persephone

There is a distinct moment in late September when the light shifts. The harsh, expansive glare of summer softens into a golden, cinematic glow, and the shadows grow just a little bit longer.

This is the Autumn Equinox, known in many Pagan traditions as Mabon.

Astronomically, it is a moment of perfect equilibrium—a fleeting day where light and dark hold equal space across the earth. Spiritually, it is a threshold. It is the time of the “Second Harvest.” While Lughnasadh in August celebrated the first grain, Mabon asks us to harvest the fruits of our internal labor. It is a time to look at what we planted in the spring and ask: What has come to fruition? And what needs to be composted?

To truly understand the energy of the Autumn Equinox, we have to look past the cozy sweaters and pumpkin patches, and look toward one of the most misunderstood archetypes of the ancient world: Persephone.

The Mythic Blueprint: Reframing the Descent

In the traditional Greek myth, Persephone is the maiden of spring, abducted by Hades and dragged into the Underworld. Because she eats the seeds of a pomegranate while there, she is bound to spend half the year in the dark, causing winter on Earth.

For centuries, this was taught as a story of victimhood. But esoteric traditions view myths not as historical events, but as psychological blueprints.

When we look at Persephone through the lens of inner alchemy, the story shifts. Persephone wasn’t just a captive; she became the Queen of the Underworld. Her descent represents the necessary journey we must all take into our own subconscious. You cannot have the limitless outward growth of summer forever without depleting the soil. True power requires us to go inward, face the dark, and integrate our shadow.

The Equinox & Shadow Work

Mabon is the doorway to this descent. As the wheel of the year turns toward winter, nature begins to pull its energy down into the roots. We are asked to do the same.

This is the season for Shadow Work. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” consists of the parts of ourselves we have repressed or hidden—our fears, our unhealed wounds, our societal conditioning. Mabon teaches us that the dark is not something to be feared. The dark is the womb. It is the fertile soil where transformation happens.

When we consciously step into the darker half of the year, we are taking back our power, just as Persephone did. We are choosing to pause, reflect, and sit with our whole selves—both the light and the dark.

3 Ways to Practice the Sacred Pause

If you want to honor the Equinox and lean into this transitional energy, try incorporating these simple practices:

1. The Pomegranate Meditation

Purchase a pomegranate and slice it open. Before eating the seeds, sit with them. In esoteric tradition, seeds represent potential locked in darkness. As you eat the seeds, set a clear intention for what you want to nurture in your own “underworld” (your subconscious or inner life) during the winter months.

2. The Light & Dark Audit (Journaling)

Grab your journal and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, list your “Sun” elements: what have you actively achieved, grown, or expressed outwardly this year? On the right side, list your “Shadow” elements: what feels heavy, unresolved, or in need of deep rest? Acknowledge both sides with equal gratitude.

3. Somatic Grounding

Your body feels the seasonal shift even if your conscious mind is distracted. Incorporate grounding movements into your routine. Slow, deliberate Pilates routines or Yin Yoga poses that focus on the root chakra and lower body are perfect right now. Breathe the crisp autumn air into your lungs, and as you exhale, visualize sending your roots deep into the earth.

Mabon is your invitation to stop producing and start integrating. The veil is beginning to thin, the nights are getting longer, and the earth is preparing to rest. Give yourself permission to do the same.

Mabon: The Art of the Sacred Pause & The Descent of Persephone

There is a distinct moment in late September when the light shifts. The harsh, expansive glare of summer softens into a golden, cinematic glow, and the shadows grow just a little bit longer.

This is the Autumn Equinox, known in many Pagan traditions as Mabon.

Astronomically, it is a moment of perfect equilibrium—a fleeting day where light and dark hold equal space across the earth. Spiritually, it is a threshold. It is the time of the “Second Harvest.” While Lughnasadh in August celebrated the first grain, Mabon asks us to harvest the fruits of our internal labor. It is a time to look at what we planted in the spring and ask: What has come to fruition? And what needs to be composted?

To truly understand the energy of the Autumn Equinox, we have to look past the cozy sweaters and pumpkin patches, and look toward one of the most misunderstood archetypes of the ancient world: Persephone.

The Mythic Blueprint: Reframing the Descent

In the traditional Greek myth, Persephone is the maiden of spring, abducted by Hades and dragged into the Underworld. Because she eats the seeds of a pomegranate while there, she is bound to spend half the year in the dark, causing winter on Earth.

For centuries, this was taught as a story of victimhood. But esoteric traditions view myths not as historical events, but as psychological blueprints.

When we look at Persephone through the lens of inner alchemy, the story shifts. Persephone wasn’t just a captive; she became the Queen of the Underworld. Her descent represents the necessary journey we must all take into our own subconscious. You cannot have the limitless outward growth of summer forever without depleting the soil. True power requires us to go inward, face the dark, and integrate our shadow.

The Equinox & Shadow Work

Mabon is the doorway to this descent. As the wheel of the year turns toward winter, nature begins to pull its energy down into the roots. We are asked to do the same.

This is the season for Shadow Work. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” consists of the parts of ourselves we have repressed or hidden—our fears, our unhealed wounds, our societal conditioning. Mabon teaches us that the dark is not something to be feared. The dark is the womb. It is the fertile soil where transformation happens.

When we consciously step into the darker half of the year, we are taking back our power, just as Persephone did. We are choosing to pause, reflect, and sit with our whole selves—both the light and the dark.

3 Ways to Practice the Sacred Pause

If you want to honor the Equinox and lean into this transitional energy, try incorporating these simple practices:

1. The Pomegranate Meditation

Purchase a pomegranate and slice it open. Before eating the seeds, sit with them. In esoteric tradition, seeds represent potential locked in darkness. As you eat the seeds, set a clear intention for what you want to nurture in your own “underworld” (your subconscious or inner life) during the winter months.

2. The Light & Dark Audit (Journaling)

Grab your journal and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, list your “Sun” elements: what have you actively achieved, grown, or expressed outwardly this year? On the right side, list your “Shadow” elements: what feels heavy, unresolved, or in need of deep rest? Acknowledge both sides with equal gratitude.

3. Somatic Grounding

Your body feels the seasonal shift even if your conscious mind is distracted. Incorporate grounding movements into your routine. Slow, deliberate Pilates routines or Yin Yoga poses that focus on the root chakra and lower body are perfect right now. Breathe the crisp autumn air into your lungs, and as you exhale, visualize sending your roots deep into the earth.

Mabon is your invitation to stop producing and start integrating. The veil is beginning to thin, the nights are getting longer, and the earth is preparing to rest. Give yourself permission to do the same.

Mabon: The Art of the Sacred Pause & The Descent of Persephone

There is a distinct moment in late September when the light shifts. The harsh, expansive glare of summer softens into a golden, cinematic glow, and the shadows grow just a little bit longer.

This is the Autumn Equinox, known in many Pagan traditions as Mabon.

Astronomically, it is a moment of perfect equilibrium—a fleeting day where light and dark hold equal space across the earth. Spiritually, it is a threshold. It is the time of the “Second Harvest.” While Lughnasadh in August celebrated the first grain, Mabon asks us to harvest the fruits of our internal labor. It is a time to look at what we planted in the spring and ask: What has come to fruition? And what needs to be composted?

To truly understand the energy of the Autumn Equinox, we have to look past the cozy sweaters and pumpkin patches, and look toward one of the most misunderstood archetypes of the ancient world: Persephone.

The Mythic Blueprint: Reframing the Descent

In the traditional Greek myth, Persephone is the maiden of spring, abducted by Hades and dragged into the Underworld. Because she eats the seeds of a pomegranate while there, she is bound to spend half the year in the dark, causing winter on Earth.

For centuries, this was taught as a story of victimhood. But esoteric traditions view myths not as historical events, but as psychological blueprints.

When we look at Persephone through the lens of inner alchemy, the story shifts. Persephone wasn’t just a captive; she became the Queen of the Underworld. Her descent represents the necessary journey we must all take into our own subconscious. You cannot have the limitless outward growth of summer forever without depleting the soil. True power requires us to go inward, face the dark, and integrate our shadow.

The Equinox & Shadow Work

Mabon is the doorway to this descent. As the wheel of the year turns toward winter, nature begins to pull its energy down into the roots. We are asked to do the same.

This is the season for Shadow Work. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” consists of the parts of ourselves we have repressed or hidden—our fears, our unhealed wounds, our societal conditioning. Mabon teaches us that the dark is not something to be feared. The dark is the womb. It is the fertile soil where transformation happens.

When we consciously step into the darker half of the year, we are taking back our power, just as Persephone did. We are choosing to pause, reflect, and sit with our whole selves—both the light and the dark.

3 Ways to Practice the Sacred Pause

If you want to honor the Equinox and lean into this transitional energy, try incorporating these simple practices:

1. The Pomegranate Meditation

Purchase a pomegranate and slice it open. Before eating the seeds, sit with them. In esoteric tradition, seeds represent potential locked in darkness. As you eat the seeds, set a clear intention for what you want to nurture in your own “underworld” (your subconscious or inner life) during the winter months.

2. The Light & Dark Audit (Journaling)

Grab your journal and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, list your “Sun” elements: what have you actively achieved, grown, or expressed outwardly this year? On the right side, list your “Shadow” elements: what feels heavy, unresolved, or in need of deep rest? Acknowledge both sides with equal gratitude.

3. Somatic Grounding

Your body feels the seasonal shift even if your conscious mind is distracted. Incorporate grounding movements into your routine. Slow, deliberate Pilates routines or Yin Yoga poses that focus on the root chakra and lower body are perfect right now. Breathe the crisp autumn air into your lungs, and as you exhale, visualize sending your roots deep into the earth.

Mabon is your invitation to stop producing and start integrating. The veil is beginning to thin, the nights are getting longer, and the earth is preparing to rest. Give yourself permission to do the same.

Mabon: The Art of the Sacred Pause & The Descent of Persephone

There is a distinct moment in late September when the light shifts. The harsh, expansive glare of summer softens into a golden, cinematic glow, and the shadows grow just a little bit longer.

This is the Autumn Equinox, known in many Pagan traditions as Mabon.

Astronomically, it is a moment of perfect equilibrium—a fleeting day where light and dark hold equal space across the earth. Spiritually, it is a threshold. It is the time of the “Second Harvest.” While Lughnasadh in August celebrated the first grain, Mabon asks us to harvest the fruits of our internal labor. It is a time to look at what we planted in the spring and ask: What has come to fruition? And what needs to be composted?

To truly understand the energy of the Autumn Equinox, we have to look past the cozy sweaters and pumpkin patches, and look toward one of the most misunderstood archetypes of the ancient world: Persephone.

The Mythic Blueprint: Reframing the Descent

In the traditional Greek myth, Persephone is the maiden of spring, abducted by Hades and dragged into the Underworld. Because she eats the seeds of a pomegranate while there, she is bound to spend half the year in the dark, causing winter on Earth.

For centuries, this was taught as a story of victimhood. But esoteric traditions view myths not as historical events, but as psychological blueprints.

When we look at Persephone through the lens of inner alchemy, the story shifts. Persephone wasn’t just a captive; she became the Queen of the Underworld. Her descent represents the necessary journey we must all take into our own subconscious. You cannot have the limitless outward growth of summer forever without depleting the soil. True power requires us to go inward, face the dark, and integrate our shadow.

The Equinox & Shadow Work

Mabon is the doorway to this descent. As the wheel of the year turns toward winter, nature begins to pull its energy down into the roots. We are asked to do the same.

This is the season for Shadow Work. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” consists of the parts of ourselves we have repressed or hidden—our fears, our unhealed wounds, our societal conditioning. Mabon teaches us that the dark is not something to be feared. The dark is the womb. It is the fertile soil where transformation happens.

When we consciously step into the darker half of the year, we are taking back our power, just as Persephone did. We are choosing to pause, reflect, and sit with our whole selves—both the light and the dark.

3 Ways to Practice the Sacred Pause

If you want to honor the Equinox and lean into this transitional energy, try incorporating these simple practices:

1. The Pomegranate Meditation

Purchase a pomegranate and slice it open. Before eating the seeds, sit with them. In esoteric tradition, seeds represent potential locked in darkness. As you eat the seeds, set a clear intention for what you want to nurture in your own “underworld” (your subconscious or inner life) during the winter months.

2. The Light & Dark Audit (Journaling)

Grab your journal and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, list your “Sun” elements: what have you actively achieved, grown, or expressed outwardly this year? On the right side, list your “Shadow” elements: what feels heavy, unresolved, or in need of deep rest? Acknowledge both sides with equal gratitude.

3. Somatic Grounding

Your body feels the seasonal shift even if your conscious mind is distracted. Incorporate grounding movements into your routine. Slow, deliberate Pilates routines or Yin Yoga poses that focus on the root chakra and lower body are perfect right now. Breathe the crisp autumn air into your lungs, and as you exhale, visualize sending your roots deep into the earth.

Mabon is your invitation to stop producing and start integrating. The veil is beginning to thin, the nights are getting longer, and the earth is preparing to rest. Give yourself permission to do the same.

Mabon: The Art of the Sacred Pause & The Descent of Persephone

There is a distinct moment in late September when the light shifts. The harsh, expansive glare of summer softens into a golden, cinematic glow, and the shadows grow just a little bit longer.

This is the Autumn Equinox, known in many Pagan traditions as Mabon.

Astronomically, it is a moment of perfect equilibrium—a fleeting day where light and dark hold equal space across the earth. Spiritually, it is a threshold. It is the time of the “Second Harvest.” While Lughnasadh in August celebrated the first grain, Mabon asks us to harvest the fruits of our internal labor. It is a time to look at what we planted in the spring and ask: What has come to fruition? And what needs to be composted?

To truly understand the energy of the Autumn Equinox, we have to look past the cozy sweaters and pumpkin patches, and look toward one of the most misunderstood archetypes of the ancient world: Persephone.

The Mythic Blueprint: Reframing the Descent

In the traditional Greek myth, Persephone is the maiden of spring, abducted by Hades and dragged into the Underworld. Because she eats the seeds of a pomegranate while there, she is bound to spend half the year in the dark, causing winter on Earth.

For centuries, this was taught as a story of victimhood. But esoteric traditions view myths not as historical events, but as psychological blueprints.

When we look at Persephone through the lens of inner alchemy, the story shifts. Persephone wasn’t just a captive; she became the Queen of the Underworld. Her descent represents the necessary journey we must all take into our own subconscious. You cannot have the limitless outward growth of summer forever without depleting the soil. True power requires us to go inward, face the dark, and integrate our shadow.

The Equinox & Shadow Work

Mabon is the doorway to this descent. As the wheel of the year turns toward winter, nature begins to pull its energy down into the roots. We are asked to do the same.

This is the season for Shadow Work. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” consists of the parts of ourselves we have repressed or hidden—our fears, our unhealed wounds, our societal conditioning. Mabon teaches us that the dark is not something to be feared. The dark is the womb. It is the fertile soil where transformation happens.

When we consciously step into the darker half of the year, we are taking back our power, just as Persephone did. We are choosing to pause, reflect, and sit with our whole selves—both the light and the dark.

3 Ways to Practice the Sacred Pause

If you want to honor the Equinox and lean into this transitional energy, try incorporating these simple practices:

1. The Pomegranate Meditation

Purchase a pomegranate and slice it open. Before eating the seeds, sit with them. In esoteric tradition, seeds represent potential locked in darkness. As you eat the seeds, set a clear intention for what you want to nurture in your own “underworld” (your subconscious or inner life) during the winter months.

2. The Light & Dark Audit (Journaling)

Grab your journal and draw a line down the middle of the page. On the left side, list your “Sun” elements: what have you actively achieved, grown, or expressed outwardly this year? On the right side, list your “Shadow” elements: what feels heavy, unresolved, or in need of deep rest? Acknowledge both sides with equal gratitude.

3. Somatic Grounding

Your body feels the seasonal shift even if your conscious mind is distracted. Incorporate grounding movements into your routine. Slow, deliberate Pilates routines or Yin Yoga poses that focus on the root chakra and lower body are perfect right now. Breathe the crisp autumn air into your lungs, and as you exhale, visualize sending your roots deep into the earth.

Mabon is your invitation to stop producing and start integrating. The veil is beginning to thin, the nights are getting longer, and the earth is preparing to rest. Give yourself permission to do the same.

#FediCoven 2026 Q10: Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I love that saying! I'll be using that from now on, thank you. And I would *never* ask for harm to come to others... I'm just not that sort of person.

#Pagan #Paganism #Wicca #Witch #Wiccan #Heathen

#FediCoven 2026 Q10: Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I love that saying! I'll be using that from now on, thank you. And I would *never* ask for harm to come to others... I'm just not that sort of person.

#Pagan #Paganism #Wicca #Witch #Wiccan #Heathen

#FediCoven 2026 Q10: Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I love that saying! I'll be using that from now on, thank you. And I would *never* ask for harm to come to others... I'm just not that sort of person.

#Pagan #Paganism #Wicca #Witch #Wiccan #Heathen

#FediCoven 2026 Q10: Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I love that saying! I'll be using that from now on, thank you. And I would *never* ask for harm to come to others... I'm just not that sort of person.

#Pagan #Paganism #Wicca #Witch #Wiccan #Heathen

#FediCoven 2026 Q10: Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I love that saying! I'll be using that from now on, thank you. And I would *never* ask for harm to come to others... I'm just not that sort of person.

#Pagan #Paganism #Wicca #Witch #Wiccan #Heathen

#FediCoven Q10 Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I think it's a tricky credo. Just as the older "An ye harm none, do what ye wil" Wiccan Rede. It implies that you don't do any harm, but we're humans navigating a complex world, intentionally or not, you do harm.

It's like the "I'm a good person" argument. You can be a good person and do harm. So, such oversimplifications of your ethical decisions and boundaries leaves them unexamined, and hence you're more likely to do harm.

In general, that is a problem with having a written down, moral system. It often relinquishes you from the really rather crucial obligation to own and examine the decisions you make.

So, I'm not a pacifist, I'm vigilant of the harm I do, and will take a precisely measured, well-examined amount of sh*t, before deciding to use my magic to counter anything. And I will hex someone with itchy underpants.

#witch #pagan #paganism

#FediCoven Q10 Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I think it's a tricky credo. Just as the older "An ye harm none, do what ye wil" Wiccan Rede. It implies that you don't do any harm, but we're humans navigating a complex world, intentionally or not, you do harm.

It's like the "I'm a good person" argument. You can be a good person and do harm. So, such oversimplifications of your ethical decisions and boundaries leaves them unexamined, and hence you're more likely to do harm.

In general, that is a problem with having a written down, moral system. It often relinquishes you from the really rather crucial obligation to own and examine the decisions you make.

So, I'm not a pacifist, I'm vigilant of the harm I do, and will take a precisely measured, well-examined amount of sh*t, before deciding to use my magic to counter anything. And I will hex someone with itchy underpants.

#witch #pagan #paganism

#FediCoven Q10 Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I think it's a tricky credo. Just as the older "An ye harm none, do what ye wil" Wiccan Rede. It implies that you don't do any harm, but we're humans navigating a complex world, intentionally or not, you do harm.

It's like the "I'm a good person" argument. You can be a good person and do harm. So, such oversimplifications of your ethical decisions and boundaries leaves them unexamined, and hence you're more likely to do harm.

In general, that is a problem with having a written down, moral system. It often relinquishes you from the really rather crucial obligation to own and examine the decisions you make.

So, I'm not a pacifist, I'm vigilant of the harm I do, and will take a precisely measured, well-examined amount of sh*t, before deciding to use my magic to counter anything. And I will hex someone with itchy underpants.

#witch #pagan #paganism

#FediCoven Q10 Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I think it's a tricky credo. Just as the older "An ye harm none, do what ye wil" Wiccan Rede. It implies that you don't do any harm, but we're humans navigating a complex world, intentionally or not, you do harm.

It's like the "I'm a good person" argument. You can be a good person and do harm. So, such oversimplifications of your ethical decisions and boundaries leaves them unexamined, and hence you're more likely to do harm.

In general, that is a problem with having a written down, moral system. It often relinquishes you from the really rather crucial obligation to own and examine the decisions you make.

So, I'm not a pacifist, I'm vigilant of the harm I do, and will take a precisely measured, well-examined amount of sh*t, before deciding to use my magic to counter anything. And I will hex someone with itchy underpants.

#witch #pagan #paganism

#FediCoven Q10 Do no harm, but take no sh*t! How pacifistic is your magic?

I think it's a tricky credo. Just as the older "An ye harm none, do what ye wil" Wiccan Rede. It implies that you don't do any harm, but we're humans navigating a complex world, intentionally or not, you do harm.

It's like the "I'm a good person" argument. You can be a good person and do harm. So, such oversimplifications of your ethical decisions and boundaries leaves them unexamined, and hence you're more likely to do harm.

In general, that is a problem with having a written down, moral system. It often relinquishes you from the really rather crucial obligation to own and examine the decisions you make.

So, I'm not a pacifist, I'm vigilant of the harm I do, and will take a precisely measured, well-examined amount of sh*t, before deciding to use my magic to counter anything. And I will hex someone with itchy underpants.

#witch #pagan #paganism

#FediCoven

Just to make it clear: Pagan traditions are diverse, and I respect people’s right to practice their spirituality in different ways. But that respect does not extend to using tradition, ancestry, nature, biology, or personal belief to justify racism, ableism, misogyny, anti-feminism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or hostility toward my LGBTQ+ fedifriends. No one’s identity, body, disability, gender, sexuality, neurospicy cognition, or way of living makes them less worthy of dignity or belonging.

#witch #paganism #pagan

#FediCoven

Just to make it clear: Pagan traditions are diverse, and I respect people’s right to practice their spirituality in different ways. But that respect does not extend to using tradition, ancestry, nature, biology, or personal belief to justify racism, ableism, misogyny, anti-feminism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or hostility toward my LGBTQ+ fedifriends. No one’s identity, body, disability, gender, sexuality, neurospicy cognition, or way of living makes them less worthy of dignity or belonging.

#witch #paganism #pagan

#FediCoven

Just to make it clear: Pagan traditions are diverse, and I respect people’s right to practice their spirituality in different ways. But that respect does not extend to using tradition, ancestry, nature, biology, or personal belief to justify racism, ableism, misogyny, anti-feminism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or hostility toward my LGBTQ+ fedifriends. No one’s identity, body, disability, gender, sexuality, neurospicy cognition, or way of living makes them less worthy of dignity or belonging.

#witch #paganism #pagan

#FediCoven

Just to make it clear: Pagan traditions are diverse, and I respect people’s right to practice their spirituality in different ways. But that respect does not extend to using tradition, ancestry, nature, biology, or personal belief to justify racism, ableism, misogyny, anti-feminism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or hostility toward my LGBTQ+ fedifriends. No one’s identity, body, disability, gender, sexuality, neurospicy cognition, or way of living makes them less worthy of dignity or belonging.

#witch #paganism #pagan

#FediCoven

Just to make it clear: Pagan traditions are diverse, and I respect people’s right to practice their spirituality in different ways. But that respect does not extend to using tradition, ancestry, nature, biology, or personal belief to justify racism, ableism, misogyny, anti-feminism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or hostility toward my LGBTQ+ fedifriends. No one’s identity, body, disability, gender, sexuality, neurospicy cognition, or way of living makes them less worthy of dignity or belonging.

#witch #paganism #pagan

Ancient word of the day: Hedgehog

The ancient word for today is hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus. In the Middle Ages, writers didn’t make reference to hedgehogs, but to urchins. This term for the spiky diminuitive animal is still favoured in some English dialects. We still have the lingering remnants of this etymology in the form of sea urchin, which is literally a sea hedgehog.

The word urchin came to England with the Norman invasion and was derived from the Latin word ericius. Before the Norman conquest, the animal was known by the Anglo-Saxon name Igl.

Other names

Furze-pig – Devon

Hotchi-witchi – Romani

Hodmedods – Norfolk

Ouriço cacheiro – crafty pig
or porco espinho’ – spiky pig in Portuguese

”Thorns shall grow in their palaces, nettles & thistles in their strongholds … there shall the hedgehog build, dig, be there at home and bring forth his young ones.” Taverner’s Isiah 34, 1539.

The hedgehog was a symbol of Christian humility

The Speculum sapientiae, or Mirror of Wisdom is an ancient tale of beasts in Latin. In one tale, a passing goat sees its reflection in a pond and declares himself very handsome indeed. A hedgehog trundles along afterwards and reproaches the goat telling him that profound humility, not vain boasting are what makes animals truly noble.

Read more: The British Library Digitised Manusripts

Content Catnip

#TheHeirsLair #OneTakeMan #InOneTake #Review #BookReview #ARCReview #StarTrek #SidMeier #Pirates #Piracy #GoldenAgeOfPiracy #RepublicOfPirates #Gateway #GatewayEpisodes #AlternateHistory #History #RomanHistory #RomanEmpire #Christianity #Paganism #WorstToBest #Quiz #Politics

It's almost time for the Feast of Grapes! My muscadine vine is gearing up for harvest, and I'm getting ready for the Minoan celebration of Dionysus and his gift to humanity.

#pagan #paganism #Dionysus #AriadnesTribe #Minoan

Olivia and I were driving back from Trumansburg to celebrate summer bounty last week and I saw this flower universe in front of Indian Creek Farm

#photo #photography #Lughnasadh #lugh #flower #trumanburg #bloomscrolling #zinnia #indiancreek #paganism

Stone monument in dedication to Mithras (2nd-3rd century CE)

@historyartifacts

Archaeologisches Museum Frankfurt, Germany 🇩🇪. The museum has a lot of stone dedications to Mithras, whose cult was popular in the area.
Inscription and German translation in alttext.

@histodons
#paganism #mythology #MythologyMonday #religion #ReligiousStudies #Altertumswissenschaften #LinguaLatina #antiquité #AncientReligions #LateAntiquity #AncientHistory #antike #epigraphy #MuseumArchive #glam #AncientArt

An #introduction for me:
Hello! I am a Heathen (Germanic #Pagan) and am interested in discussions around #paganism , #religion , #prechristian #culture , and many other things! I will post #hávamál stanzas, though other things as well. Looking to find other #Heathen community!

I spent the drive up to Little York working on a lecture about the magic of blessings which primed me such that every time someone said "Enjoy the 4th of July" it exploded in my brain like a firework

#photo #photography #fireworks #paganism #religion #pagan #blessings #magic #july4 #littleyork #4thofjuly #independenceday #america250 #250th

I went to the Sacred Wild Gathering at Smith Woods in Trumansburg, NY which has lots of Red Elderberry which was used by Native Americans and you have to cook before you can eat

https://sacredwildgathering.org/

#photo #photography #smithwoods #trumanburg #sacredwildgathering #plants #bloomscrolling #elderberry #woods #fruits #paganism

When “Streamlining” Means Erasing: Pagans in Uniform Deserve Better

https://pagangrove.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/when-streamlining-means-erasing-pagans-in-uniform-deserve-better/

Hexing the Bomb

Hot on the heels of my little foray into the Battle of the Beanfield I decided to dig a little deeper into another important and largely forgotten nugget of social history. This one incorporates a couple of my favourite subjects, neither of which is politics. It does, however, have women standing up together and achieving the seemingly impossible and witches.

Pull up a chair… 🙂

There are moments in history when politics, folklore and belief collide in ways that seem almost impossible to imagine. One such moment unfolded on the windswept perimeter fences of Greenham Common during the final decades of the Cold War, when thousands of women gathered to oppose the presence of American nuclear missiles on British soil. Among the banners, songs and acts of civil disobedience was something few journalists expected to find at the heart of a major political protest. Witches.

For nearly two decades, Greenham Common became one of the most significant centres of peace activism in modern British history. It was a place of arrests, demonstrations, campfires and confrontation. It was also a place where ancient symbols found new life. Women danced in circles, wove webs across military fences, invoked goddesses, cast symbolic spells and drew upon centuries of folklore to challenge one of the most powerful military alliances in the world.

To understand why, we must first return to a Britain gripped by fear.

The early 1980s were shadowed by the threat of nuclear war. Relations between East and West had deteriorated. The Soviet Union and NATO were engaged in a dangerous arms race. Television viewers watched films such as Threads and The Day After, which depicted the horrific consequences of nuclear conflict. Schoolchildren grew up with the knowledge that a single political miscalculation could end civilisation in an afternoon.

Against this backdrop, the British government agreed to host American cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire. To supporters, the deployment was a necessary deterrent. To opponents, it made Britain a target and increased the likelihood of nuclear confrontation.

In September 1981, a small group of Welsh women marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common. Their intention was straightforward. They wanted a public debate about nuclear weapons. When their concerns were ignored, some chose to remain.

Few could have imagined that their decision would create one of the most influential protest movements in modern British history.

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp became a permanent presence outside the military base. Women arrived from every corner of Britain and beyond. Some stayed for days. Others remained for years. Grandmothers camped alongside students. Teachers shared fires with artists, nurses, activists and travellers. The camp developed its own culture, traditions and rituals.

Media coverage was often hostile. Newspapers portrayed the women as scruffy, eccentric or dangerous. Politicians dismissed them as naïve. Yet Greenham continued to grow. By December 1982, around 30,000 women joined hands around the nine-mile perimeter fence in one of the largest demonstrations Britain had ever seen.

As the movement evolved, some participants began drawing upon folklore, mythology and spiritual traditions to express their opposition to nuclear weapons.

For many women involved in the peace camp, the figure of the witch held profound significance.The witch has never been simply a character from fairy tales. Across European history she has represented independence, resistance and the refusal to conform. She is the village healer, the wise woman, the outsider and the scapegoat. She embodies knowledge that exists beyond accepted authority.

Many women at Greenham recognised parallels between historical witch hunts and contemporary attempts to dismiss or marginalise female voices. The image of the witch became a powerful symbol of protest.

Some protesters identified as pagans or practitioners of modern witchcraft. Others were not religious at all but embraced the symbolism. Together they transformed folklore into a political language.

At various demonstrations, women dressed as witches, carrying besoms and wearing pointed hats. They conducted symbolic rituals outside the base gates. Circles were formed. Chants were spoken. Songs echoed through the Berkshire countryside.

Perhaps most striking were the webs.Women frequently attached ribbons, wool, photographs, toys and personal objects to the military fences. These creations resembled enormous spider webs stretching across the perimeter. They symbolised connection, community and the fragile threads linking humanity together. Military planners saw security barriers. The women transformed them into canvases for storytelling.

One protest became known as the “Embrace the Base” demonstration, during which thousands of women encircled Greenham Common. The act itself echoed ancient traditions of protective circles and boundary rituals found throughout British folklore.In many folk traditions, circles create sacred space. They mark a distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Greenham’s protesters drew upon symbolism that would have been recognised by generations of cunning folk, ceremonial magicians and village communities.

There were also reports of symbolic spell-casting directed not at individuals but at the weapons themselves.

These actions were largely theatrical and symbolic. Yet symbolism has always been one of humanity’s most powerful tools. Flags, crowns, crosses and national monuments derive their power from collective belief. Greenham’s witches understood this. They recognised that ritual could attract attention, build solidarity and create memorable images capable of travelling far beyond the camp itself.Photographs from the period remain remarkable. Women dance beneath military floodlights. Costumed protesters stand before coils of razor wire. Sacred imagery appears alongside anti-nuclear slogans. Ancient archetypes confront modern technology.

The contrast could hardly have been more dramatic.

Behind the spectacle lay a serious philosophical question. How should ordinary people respond when faced with systems that appear too vast to challenge?

For some, the answer lay in petitions or political lobbying. For others, it involved direct action. At Greenham, many women chose creativity. They responded to missiles with songs, fences with artwork and military authority with myth.

It is tempting to dismiss such actions as eccentric. Yet history suggests otherwise.Throughout the centuries, folklore has often emerged during periods of uncertainty and upheaval. Communities create stories to explain fears, express hopes and challenge power structures. Ballads mocked landlords. legends criticised rulers. Folk customs strengthened communities during times of hardship.

Greenham Common followed the same pattern.The camp generated its own folklore almost immediately. Stories circulated among protesters. Songs were composed. Rituals evolved. Shared symbols developed meaning through repetition. What began as a political protest became something resembling a living folk tradition.

Even the landscape itself absorbed these stories.

Greenham Common is now remembered not only as a military site but as a place of resistance. The fences have gone. The missiles have long since been removed. Yet the stories remain. Visitors still encounter traces of the movement in memorials, artworks and local memory.

The protest ultimately achieved far more than many observers predicted. Cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1991 following the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The peace camp remained for several years afterwards before finally closing in 2000.

Whether Greenham alone changed government policy remains a matter of debate. Few historians would argue that it was the sole cause. Yet its influence on public discourse is undeniable. The movement helped shape conversations about nuclear weapons, gender, protest and citizenship. It inspired campaigns around the world and demonstrated the power of sustained grassroots activism.

The witches of Greenham Common occupy a particularly fascinating place within that story.

They remind us that folklore is not confined to dusty books or distant centuries. It remains a living force, capable of adapting to new circumstances and addressing modern concerns. Ancient symbols continue to resonate because they speak to enduring human experiences.

The women who danced around Greenham’s fences were not attempting to retreat into the past. They were using the past to imagine a different future.

In an age dominated by military technology, political rhetoric and the machinery of the Cold War, they answered with stories, songs, rituals and symbols that had survived for centuries.

Whether one believes in magic is ultimately beside the point.

The real magic of Greenham Common lay in its ability to transform fear into action, isolation into community and protest into legend.

More than forty years later, the image remains unforgettable. A line of women standing beneath winter skies, facing one of the most formidable military establishments on Earth armed with banners, determination and the enduring power of folklore.

History remembers the missiles.

Folklore remembers the witches.

Further Reading

Common Women, Uncommon Practices by Sasha RoseneilGreenham Women Everywhere by Rebecca Mordan

Peace Camps: A Study of Greenham Women by Lynne Jones

The archives of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace

CampRecords held by the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics

Imperial War Museum collections relating to Greenham Common

Oral history projects documenting former Greenham residents

Copyright Notice:

© 2026 Mysterious Times. All rights reserved.This article is published exclusively for Mysterious Times. No part may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without prior written permission, except for brief quotations used for review, commentary or educational purposes with appropriate attribution.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

Battle of The Beanfield

There are certain moments in modern British history that seem to sit just beyond the edge of official memory. Events that everybody vaguely remembers, yet somehow never quite make it into the comfortable national story we tell ourselves.

The Battle of Orgreave is one. The miners’ strike is another. The poll tax riots. Hillsborough. Brixton. They linger in photographs, old television footage and the memories of those who were there, carrying the uncomfortable reminder that Britain is not always as civilised, measured and orderly as it likes to imagine itself to be.

The Battle of the Beanfield belongs firmly in that category.

Forty years on, it remains one of the most controversial policing operations in modern British history. More than 1,300 police officers confronted a convoy of around 600 New Age Travellers attempting to reach Stonehenge on 1 June 1985. By the end of the day, dozens of people had been injured, hundreds had been arrested and an entire way of life had effectively been marked for destruction.

What happened in that Hampshire beanfield has never been the subject of a full public inquiry. Yet for many people who witnessed the decline of Britain’s traditional industries during the Thatcher years, the images remain painfully familiar.

I grew up in Yorkshire through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I watched pit villages hollow out. I watched steelworks close. I watched communities that had existed for generations suddenly find themselves described as obstacles to progress. There was a language that emerged during those years. Certain groups became “the problem”. Miners. Trade unionists. Travellers. Alternative communities. Anyone who stood outside the increasingly rigid idea of what Britain was supposed to become.

That is one reason the Battle of the Beanfield still matters.

To understand the confrontation itself, we first need to understand the strange, colourful and often misunderstood world that produced it.

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974. It emerged from the wider countercultural movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining music, environmentalism, spiritual exploration, political activism and communal living. Over the following decade it grew steadily, becoming one of the largest free gatherings in Britain. By the early 1980s thousands of people travelled to Stonehenge each summer to celebrate the solstice. The festival attracted an eclectic mix of punks, bikers, druids, musicians, environmental campaigners, anarchists, hippies and families living on the road.

The people who became known as the Peace Convoy were not a single organisation. They were a loose collection of travellers, festival-goers and alternative communities who spent much of the year moving between free festivals, protest camps and temporary settlements. Some were escaping unemployment. Some rejected consumer culture. Others simply wanted a different way of living. Many travelled in converted buses, coaches, ambulances and vans that doubled as homes.

To their supporters they represented freedom, creativity and resistance to conformity.

To their critics they represented disorder.

By 1984 tensions were reaching breaking point. The Stonehenge festival had become enormous. Estimates suggested attendance reached around 100,000 people. Concerns were raised about damage to the archaeological landscape, litter, unauthorised trading and open drug use. English Heritage, which had recently taken over management of the site, came under increasing pressure to act. Local authorities and police forces were equally determined that the gathering should not continue in its existing form. A High Court injunction was obtained to prevent the 1985 festival from taking place. The state had drawn a line.

On the morning of 1 June 1985, the Peace Convoy left Savernake Forest and began moving towards Stonehenge. Around 140 vehicles carried approximately 600 people. Many were families. Children were travelling alongside adults who had spent years living on the road. They knew there would be police opposition. Few appear to have anticipated what was waiting for them.

Police had prepared extensively.

The miners’ strike had ended only months earlier. During that bitter industrial conflict police forces had developed new methods of coordination, rapid deployment and large-scale public order operations. Senior officers later openly acknowledged that lessons learned during the strike had informed preparations for dealing with the travellers.

A four-mile exclusion zone had been established around Stonehenge. Roadblocks were prepared. Officers from multiple forces were assembled. Some estimates place police numbers at around 1,300. Others suggest even higher figures by the end of the operation.

The convoy encountered its first major roadblock near Shipton Bellinger, several miles from Stonehenge. According to police accounts, some traveller vehicles attempted to push through the blockade and rammed police vehicles. Travellers and independent witnesses tell a very different story. They describe a convoy seeking negotiation before finding itself trapped and surrounded.

Whatever happened during those first moments, the situation rapidly escalated.As vehicles attempted to leave the road and move into adjacent fields, police began smashing windows and making arrests. The convoy became scattered across farmland. Families were separated. Children became lost in the confusion. What followed would become one of the most infamous confrontations in modern British policing.

Television footage remains difficult to watch even now.

Officers in riot gear strike vehicle windows with truncheons. People are dragged from buses and vans. Terrified children can be seen inside shattered vehicles. Journalists and witnesses described police hitting men and women indiscriminately. Several accounts alleged pregnant women and individuals carrying babies were assaulted during the operation. Numerous vehicles that functioned as homes were systematically damaged.

The Earl of Cardigan, whose family owned Savernake Forest and who had followed the convoy on a motorcycle, later provided testimony that proved deeply damaging to official police narratives. He described officers rushing vehicles with drawn truncheons, shouting at occupants and creating scenes of intimidation and violence that contradicted many early police claims.

Journalists present that day reported similar concerns.

ITN footage captured scenes that shocked many viewers. Photographer Alan Lodge later described the event as an ambush rather than a battle. Others argued the very name “Battle of the Beanfield” created a misleading impression of two evenly matched sides. One side possessed riot shields, command structures, communications systems and overwhelming numerical superiority. The other consisted largely of civilians living in vehicles.

By the end of the operation, 537 people had been arrested. It remains one of the largest mass arrests of civilians in modern British history. Most of the charges eventually collapsed or were dismissed.

That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.

If hundreds of supposedly dangerous lawbreakers had been lawfully apprehended while carrying out serious criminal acts, one might expect hundreds of successful prosecutions to follow. Instead, much of the legal case simply evaporated.

Years later, travellers successfully pursued civil actions against Wiltshire Police. Damages were awarded for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and property damage. One police sergeant was convicted of actual bodily harm arising from the events of that day.

Yet despite these outcomes, there has never been a full public inquiry.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield was about more than Stonehenge.

Looking back now, it feels impossible to separate it from the wider atmosphere of Britain in the mid-1980s. This was a country being transformed at extraordinary speed. Traditional industries were disappearing. Unemployment was soaring in many regions. Entire communities were fighting for survival. Alternative lifestyles increasingly found themselves portrayed as threats to public order rather than expressions of individual freedom.

For many people in mining and industrial areas, there is a recognisable pattern.

First comes the language.

A group is described as troublesome, outdated or undesirable.

Then comes the media narrative.

Then comes the justification.

Then comes the force.

That does not mean every traveller was a saint, any more than every miner was. Human beings are messy. Large gatherings bring problems. Some attendees at the Stonehenge festivals undoubtedly caused damage. Some individuals within the traveller movement undoubtedly committed crimes. A serious historical assessment has to acknowledge that reality. The archaeological concerns surrounding Stonehenge were genuine. Local residents had legitimate complaints. Authorities were entitled to seek solutions.

But none of that explains the scale of what happened on 1 June 1985.

The images of smashed homes, frightened children and riot police advancing across fields continue to disturb because they seem wildly disproportionate. They suggest a state determined not merely to enforce an injunction but to send a message.

And the message was received.

The traveller movement never fully recovered.

Legislation introduced during the following years increasingly restricted nomadic lifestyles and unauthorised gatherings. The Public Order Act 1986 and later the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 created new powers that made life significantly harder for travellers, free festivals and eventually the emerging rave culture.

In many ways the Beanfield became a blueprint. The same language used against travellers would later be applied to ravers, squatters, protesters and environmental activists. Alternative communities were increasingly framed not as citizens exercising freedoms but as public order problems requiring management.

Yet the legacy of the Beanfield refuses to disappear.

Songs were written about it. The Levellers turned it into a folk-punk anthem that introduced a new generation to the story. Hawkwind referenced it. Writers, filmmakers and activists kept returning to it. Every summer solstice the memory resurfaces among those who remember what happened.

Perhaps that is because the Battle of the Beanfield sits at the crossroads of so many larger questions.

Who gets to occupy public space?

Who decides what constitutes a legitimate way of living?

How much power should the state possess when dealing with communities that reject mainstream norms?

And perhaps most importantly of all, what happens when governments begin to see certain groups not as citizens but as enemies?

Forty years later those questions feel remarkably current.

The travellers who set out for Stonehenge in 1985 were not trying to overthrow the government. They were trying to reach a festival. They were trying to celebrate a solstice. They were trying, in their own eccentric and imperfect way, to live differently.

Many paid a heavy price for that.

For those of us who grew up watching pits close, furnaces go cold and communities written off as inconvenient relics of the past, the Beanfield feels like part of the same story. Different people. Different landscape. Different politics perhaps. But the same underlying lesson.

When power decides a group no longer belongs, it rarely begins with dialogue.

It begins with exclusion.

Then comes the roadblock.

Further Reading

Andy Worthington, The Battle of the Beanfield

Christopher Chippindale, Stoned Henge: Events and Issues at the Summer Solstice, 1985

Emma Hallett, BBC News, Summer Solstice: How the Stonehenge Battles Faded

Tony Thompson, The Observer, Twenty Years After, Mystery Still Clouds Battle of the Beanfield

English Heritage, Stonehenge 1977–85: A Dig in Time and a Confrontation

Copyright © Mysterious Times 2026. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from Mysterious Times, except in the case of brief quotations used for review, criticism or scholarly reference.

It could be a game review

https://legends.house/it-could-be-a-game-review/

Tha an Bealltainn a' tighinn gu crìch — Beltane is reaching its end, the wheel leaning toward Midsummer. The bees keep a calendar older than empires. A carpenter bee on the wisteria does not care about the policy paper in another tab. This is what the Druids meant: the land prays without us. Today's full Gathering:
https://twp.ai/9OVuiw
#Beltane #Druid #Paganism #WheelOfTheYear #EarthBased #Gaelic #Midsummer #SeasonalLiving #Mysticism #Animism

Apologetics: Flippin’ Fatwa Friday – The Bible vs. The Quran: Surah al-Baqarah Verses 156-158.

Last time on Flippin’ Fatwa Friday, we covered three issues, talking about good works, the Ka’ba, and jihad. Today, we’re sort-of back to talking about the Ka’ba, though we’ll more specifically be looking at another big part of the Hajj. Let’s take a look at this:

156. Who, when a calamity befalls them, say, ‘Surely, we belong to Allah and to him, of course, we return (and in his will is our peace).’ 157. It is they upon whom descend the benedictions from their Lord and his mercy, and it is they who are guided aright. 158. The Safa and Marwah (- the two eminences near Ka’ba) are certainly (two) of the symbols of Allah, so he who is on Pilgrimage to the house or performs ‘Umrah (- a visit to Ka’ba), there is no blame on him to perform Tawaf (- to run between) the two (eminences), and he who remains thoroughly dutiful and chooses to do good deeds spontaneously, the surely (he will find) Allah is Appreciative and rewards ever good deed done. Surely, Allah is All-Knowing.

I’ve already talked about the pagan origins of the Ka’ba and the Black Stone, but one of the things I sadly forgot to mention was how the Hajj also includes running between two small hills, the Safa and Marwa, seven times. This verse is the only time where this practice is mentioned, and it isn’t really elaborated on in the Quran.

The pagan origins of this practice aren’t something that can only be found through spending hours flipping through history books or scrolling on Google. It’s readily admitted in the hadiths that this practice stems from Arabian pagans. For example, Sahih Bukhari 4496 says:

Narrated `Asim bin Sulaiman:
I asked Anas bin Malik about Safa and Marwa. Anas replied, “We used to consider (i.e. going around) them a custom of the Pre-islamic period of Ignorance, so when Islam came, we gave up going around them. Then Allah revealed: “Verily, Safa and Marwa (i.e. two mountains at Mecca) are among the Symbols of Allah. So it is not harmful of those who perform the Hajj of the House (of Allah) or perform the Umra to ambulate (Tawaf) between them.” 

Stange how pagan customs were never absorbed into Judaism or Christianity by God. Why would Allah make a pagan custom something that is mandatory in Islam?

The reason for this has much to do with what I’ve mentioned in previous posts about the Hajj. It was all to gain a following. Muhammad knew that these customs were important to the people groups he knew. It wasn’t something they would give up easily. Thus, he simply absorbed them into Islam to make it more palatable for them.

Until next time,

M.J.

MOLOCH APPROVES

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/2010231/moloch-approves

A Pagan Case Against Lawns: Rethinking the Tyranny of Turf

https://pagangrove.wordpress.com/2026/04/09/a-pagan-case-against-lawns-rethinking-the-tyranny-of-turf/

Blog: “Lord of the Rings is Pagan…” is One of the Dumbest Takes I’ve Ever Heard.

I know, I know…everybody is jumping on Jack Posobiec for this comment, but as a Tolkien fan and writing nerd, I’m jumping on the bandwagon of defending what is one of the greatest Christian works of fiction to have ever graced God’s green Earth.

But first, some backstory. On a recent episode of his podcast, Human Events Daily, Posobiec made the comment that LOTR is not overtly Christian, (which to some extent is true; I’ll get to that in a sec) and went so far as to say that it’s overtly pagan. He said: “There’s nothing overtly Christian about ‘Lord of the Rings.’ […] there’s no church in it, there’s no faith in it, there’s no Christ figure — there’s none of these things. And honestly, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ if it’s anything, […] is overtly pagan.” He also cited as further evidence of LOTR not being Christian that Tolkien notoriously didn’t like C.S. Lewis’ use of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

However, to begin our analysis of if Lord of the Rings (and the surrounding books such as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) is Christian or not, we must define what necessarily constitutes a “Christian” story. Is it the values of the story and the intent of the author that make it Christian, or is it the use of often painfully obvious allegory or messaging that makes it Christian?

Personally, I do believe that it’s a mix of both, but I lean more towards the intent of the Christian author to show Christ and the Gospel in some way, be it subtle or overt, and the values of the story that make it Christian. To quote Martin Luther: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” A similar thing goes for Christian storytelling. If you can find a way to put in Christianity without making so painfully obvious that Dora the Explorer could find it, and people can find the Christian themes, then you’ve done your job. But if you make it so obvious that the story eventually feels less like a story and more like Christian propaganda, then you’ve lost not only the point of the story, but you also lose the non-Christian readers who may have otherwise been interested.

In the case of Tolkien and Lewis, while Lewis leaned towards overt allegory for his books, Tolkien – who was not a fan of allegory – leaned towards weaving Christianity into the fabric of the story subtly. According to Tolkien himself in Letter 142, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” And while, yes, while The Lord of the Rings does take from Norse myths, and much of the subtlety of the Christian themes have been lost on people who wish to make it more pagan than it was intended to be (something that Tolkien worried about happening), Christ is still there.

Take, for instance, the characters of Gandalf and Aragorn. An argument can be made that these characters intentionally represent Jesus in different ways. Starting with Gandalf, according to The Silmarillion (which provides the background lore for The Lord of the Rings) he is of the Maiar, or the angelic beings that serve under the Valar (which you can think of as the archangels.) Because of Sauron’s following in the footsteps of Melkor, (Morgoth) Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to help the people fight against Sauron. While not a perfect representation of Christ, the image of a divine being living in the body of a mere mortal (very much like the hypostatic union) is stark. Even more like Christ is Gandalf’s death fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and resurrection as “Gandalf the White,” an image of Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Heck, one could even say that Gandalf the White is a sort of allegory for Christ’s second coming, when He will finally defeat Satan once and for all.

As for Aragorn, he is another Christ figure. At first, he’s a ranger, a seemingly random dude from the Dunedain (the descendants of the Numenorians who fled to Middle Earth after Numenor was destroyed). Bilbo’s description of him of, “All that is gold does not glitter,” is a parallel to Isaiah 53:2’s description of Jesus’ humble state. Further, his journey in the Path of the Dead and his dual role of healer and warrior is similar to Christ’s role of redeemer and conquering king that we see in Revelation, especially when he returns to the throne as a glorious king.

Further, one could also argue that Frodo and Sam are representative of Christ and the everyday Christian. As Frodo struggles on his mission to destroy the Ring, Sam is there helping him along the way. This is similar to how, as Christians we struggle to live godly lives, but Christ is there helping us through the Holy Spirit to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Thus, while Tolkien never overtly named these characters as Christ figures, it is still obvious if you are willing to look at it through a Christian lens.

Further, to say that there is no faith in The Lord of the Rings is untrue. While faith is never fully defined or developed in LOTR, within the larger context of Tolkien’s legendarium, there absolutely is a faith – especially amongst the elves – that is deeply reflective of Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Elves’ hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel. This isn’t a song about some random person. In the larger legendarium, Elbereth is essentially a Mary-like figure to the elves, making this hymn very much like “Ave Maria.” When Sam calls out to her in Shelob’s cave, it’s essentially like saying a Hail Mary.

https://youtu.be/UGT_ujNy3nA

Even more damning for Posobiec’s statement are the allusions to Eru Iluvatar, the God of Tolkien’s legendarium, within The Lord of the Rings. According to The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. Eru was seldom worshipped by the Elves because his name was considered to holy to utter. As Finrod says in “The Athrabeth” (which I will get to) in the book The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring, “For that name we do not utter ever in jest or without full intent.” However, despite this, both the elves and men understood that Eru was the only one deserving of praise and believed the worship of any other to be evil. In fact, the men of Numenor had the mountain of Meneltarma dedicated to the worship of Eru in the Three Prayers that were held around the year.

Most interestingly, however, when thinking about faith in the world of Middle-Earth is that, Tolkien, in writing “The Athrabeth,” a lengthy dialogue between Finrod Felagund (Galadriel’s brother) and the human woman, Andreth, incorporated the idea that Eru Illuvatar would one day enter the world to save the Edain (mankind.) Though it’s better if you read the entire dialogue, I’ll include this excerpt from The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring pages 318-323:

“This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers, but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the Marring of Arda [the world of Middle-Earth], already foreshadowed before their devising; and to do more, as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!

“For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same. I have conversed with the Valar who were present at the making of the Music ere the being of the World began. And now I wonder: Did they hear the end of the Music? Was there not something in or beyond the final chords of Eru which, being overwhelmed thereby, they did got perceive?

“Or again, since Eru is forever free, maybe he made no Music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point we cannot see or know, until by our own roads we come there, Valar or Eldar [Elves] or Men.

“As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the greatest moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!”

“What then would you say is the supreme moment that Eru has reserved?” Andreth asked.

“Ah, wise lady!” said Finrod. “I am an Elda [elf], and again I was thinking of my own people. But nay, of all the Children of Eru. I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending together of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda; the end when all the long lives of the Elves shall be wholly in the past.

“And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps.”

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: “And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. “I can only guess,” he said. “Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. ‘The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,’ ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.” And then he paused, for he saw that Andreth was weeping silently.

“Alas, lord!” she said. “What then is to be done now? For we speak as if these things are, or as if they will assuredly be. But Men have been diminished and their power is taken away. We look for no Arda Remade: darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain. If by our aid your everlasting mansions were to be prepared, they will not be builded now.“

“Have ye then no hope?” said Finrod.

“What is hope?” she said. “An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.”

“That is one thing that Men call ‘hope’,” said Finrod. “‘Amdir’ we call it, ‘looking up’. But there is another which is founded deeper. ‘Estel’ we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?“

“Maybe,” she said. “But no! Do you not perceive that it is part of our wound that Estel should falter and its foundations be shaken? Are we the Children of the One? Are we not cast off finally? Or were we ever so? Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World?“

“Say it not even in question!” said Finrod.

“It cannot be unsaid,” answered Andreth, “if you would understand the despair in which we walk. Or in which most Men walk. Among the Atani, as you call us, or the Seekers as we say: those who left the lands of despair and the Men of darkness and journeyed west in vain hope: it is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?“

“Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure. Are they asleep when they speak of escape and healing?”

“Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly,” answered Andreth. ‘How or when shall healing come? To what manner of being shall those who see that time be re-made? And what of us who before it go out into darkness unhealed? To such questions only those of the (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.”

“Those of the Old Hope?” said Finrod. “Who are they?”

“A few,” she said; “but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.“

“What then was this hope, if you know?” Finrod asked.

“They say,” answered Andreth: “they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumor that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.”

“They say, they feign?” said Finrod. “Are you then nor one of them?”

“How can I be, lord? All wisdom is against them. Who is the One, whom ye call Eru? If we put aside the Men who serve the Nameless, as do many in Middle-earth, still many Men perceive the world only as a war between Light and Dark equipotent. But you will say: nay, that is Manwe and Melkor; Eru is above them. Is then Eru only the greatest of the Valar, a great god among gods, as most Men will say, even among the Atani: a king who dwells far from his kingdom and leaves lesser princes to do here much as they will? Again you say: nay, Eru is One, alone without peer, and He made Ea, and is beyond it; and the Valar are greater than we, but yet no nearer to His majesty. Is this not so?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. “We say this, and the Valar we know, and they say the same, all save one. But which, think you, is more likely to lie: those who make themselves humble, or he that exalts himself?”

“I do not doubt,” said Andreth. “And for that reason the saying of Hope passes my understanding. How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?“

“He is already in it, as well as outside,” said Finrod. “But indeed the “in-dwelling” and the “out-living” are not in the same mode.”

“Truly,” said Andreth. “So may Eru in that mode be present in Ea that proceeded from Him. But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ea?”

“Ask me not,” said Finrod. “These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less.

“But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

“More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.“

“Then, lord,” said Andreth, and she looked up in wonder, “you believe in this Hope?“

“Ask me not yet,” he answered. “For it is still to me but strange news that comes from afar. No such hope was ever spoken to the Quendi. To you only it was sent. And yet through you we may hear it and lift up our hearts.” He paused a while, and then looking gravely at Andreth he said: “Yes, Wise-woman, maybe it was ordained that we Quendi, and ye Atani, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods in the North we should not be wholly afraid.”

This should be of interest to any who wish to say that The Lord of the Rings is pagan as Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mythology for Britian and some very devoted Tolkien fans have even tried to line up where the events of Tolkien’s lore would’ve lined up with our real-world history. As such, what Finrod says in this lengthy excerpt is – if we are to treat Tolkien’s work as a mythological history of Europe – a sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. It’s also interesting to note that in Tolkien’s idea of what the end of Middle Earth would look like, it was very much like what we see in Revelation. A battle called the Dagor Dagorath would happen, Melkor would be slain, and it would all culminate in the world being remade.

From this, we can see that by its own merits – without even taking into account what Tolkien himself said about the faith woven into his work – that The Lord of the Rings and the larger legendarium, as a mythology for Britian, is a Christian work, or, at the very least, a Catholic one. It has a faith that, even if it is not shown overtly, is shown throughout the story in various forms. Though it is true that Tolkien was influenced by the Greek and Norse myths when creating his secondary world, The Lord of the Rings and its history is still a fundamentally Christian work.

Until next time,

M.J.

Blog: “Lord of the Rings is Pagan…” is One of the Dumbest Takes I’ve Ever Heard.

I know, I know…everybody is jumping on Jack Posobiec for this comment, but as a Tolkien fan and writing nerd, I’m jumping on the bandwagon of defending what is one of the greatest Christian works of fiction to have ever graced God’s green Earth.

But first, some backstory. On a recent episode of his podcast, Human Events Daily, Posobiec made the comment that LOTR is not overtly Christian, (which to some extent is true; I’ll get to that in a sec) and went so far as to say that it’s overtly pagan. He said: “There’s nothing overtly Christian about ‘Lord of the Rings.’ […] there’s no church in it, there’s no faith in it, there’s no Christ figure — there’s none of these things. And honestly, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ if it’s anything, […] is overtly pagan.” He also cited as further evidence of LOTR not being Christian that Tolkien notoriously didn’t like C.S. Lewis’ use of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

However, to begin our analysis of if Lord of the Rings (and the surrounding books such as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) is Christian or not, we must define what necessarily constitutes a “Christian” story. Is it the values of the story and the intent of the author that make it Christian, or is it the use of often painfully obvious allegory or messaging that makes it Christian?

Personally, I do believe that it’s a mix of both, but I lean more towards the intent of the Christian author to show Christ and the Gospel in some way, be it subtle or overt, and the values of the story that make it Christian. To quote Martin Luther: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” A similar thing goes for Christian storytelling. If you can find a way to put in Christianity without making so painfully obvious that Dora the Explorer could find it, and people can find the Christian themes, then you’ve done your job. But if you make it so obvious that the story eventually feels less like a story and more like Christian propaganda, then you’ve lost not only the point of the story, but you also lose the non-Christian readers who may have otherwise been interested.

In the case of Tolkien and Lewis, while Lewis leaned towards overt allegory for his books, Tolkien – who was not a fan of allegory – leaned towards weaving Christianity into the fabric of the story subtly. According to Tolkien himself in Letter 142, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” And while, yes, while The Lord of the Rings does take from Norse myths, and much of the subtlety of the Christian themes have been lost on people who wish to make it more pagan than it was intended to be (something that Tolkien worried about happening), Christ is still there.

Take, for instance, the characters of Gandalf and Aragorn. An argument can be made that these characters intentionally represent Jesus in different ways. Starting with Gandalf, according to The Silmarillion (which provides the background lore for The Lord of the Rings) he is of the Maiar, or the angelic beings that serve under the Valar (which you can think of as the archangels.) Because of Sauron’s following in the footsteps of Melkor (Morgoth), Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to help the people fight against Sauron. While not a perfect representation of Christ, the image of a divine being living in the body of a mere mortal (very much like the hypostatic union) is stark. Even more like Christ is Gandalf’s death fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and resurrection as “Gandalf the White,” an image of Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Heck, one could even say that Gandalf the White is a sort of allegory for Christ’s second coming, when He will finally defeat Satan once and for all.

As for Aragorn, he is another Christ figure. At first, he’s a ranger, a seemingly random dude from the Dunedain (the descendants of the Numenorians who fled to Middle Earth after Numenor was destroyed). Bilbo’s description of him of, “All that is gold does not glitter,” is a parallel to Isaiah 53:2’s description of Jesus’ humble state. Further, his journey in the Path of the Dead and his dual role of healer and warrior is similar to Christ’s role of redeemer and conquering king that we see in Revelation, especially when he returns to the throne as a glorious king.

Further, one could also argue that Frodo and Sam are representative of Christ and the everyday Christian. As Frodo struggles on his mission to destroy the Ring, Sam is there helping him along the way. This is similar to how, as Christians we struggle to live godly lives, but Christ is there helping us through the Holy Spirit to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Thus, while Tolkien never overtly named these characters as Christ figures, it is still obvious if you are willing to look at it through a Christian lens.

Further, to say that there is no faith in The Lord of the Rings is untrue. While faith is never fully defined or developed in LOTR, within the larger context of Tolkien’s legendarium, there absolutely is a faith – especially amongst the elves – that is deeply reflective of Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Elves’ hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel. This isn’t a song about some random person. In the larger legendarium, Elbereth is essentially a Mary-like figure to the elves, making this hymn very much like “Ave Maria.” When Sam calls out to her in Shelob’s cave, it’s essentially like saying a Hail Mary.

https://youtu.be/UGT_ujNy3nA

Even more damning for Posobiec’s statement are the allusions to Eru Iluvatar, the God of Tolkien’s legendarium, within The Lord of the Rings. According to The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. Eru was seldom worshipped by the Elves because his name was considered to holy too utter. As Finrod says in “The Athrabeth” (which I will get to) in the book The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring, “For that name we do not utter ever in jest or without full intent.” However, despite this, both the elves and men understood that Eru was the only one deserving of praise and believed the worship of any other to be evil. In fact, the men of Numenor had the mountain of Meneltarma dedicated to the worship of Eru in the Three Prayers that were held around the year.

Most interestingly, however, when thinking about faith in the world of Middle-Earth is that, Tolkien, in writing “The Athrabeth,” a lengthy dialogue between Finrod Felagund (Galadriel’s brother) and the human woman, Andreth, incorporated the idea that Eru Illuvatar would one day enter the world to save the Edain (mankind.) Though it’s better if you read the entire dialogue, I’ll include this excerpt from The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring pages 318-323:

“This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers, but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the Marring of Arda [the world of Middle-Earth], already foreshadowed before their devising; and to do more, as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!

“For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same. I have conversed with the Valar who were present at the making of the Music ere the being of the World began. And now I wonder: Did they hear the end of the Music? Was there not something in or beyond the final chords of Eru which, being overwhelmed thereby, they did got perceive?

“Or again, since Eru is forever free, maybe he made no Music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point we cannot see or know, until by our own roads we come there, Valar or Eldar [Elves] or Men.

“As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the greatest moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!”

“What then would you say is the supreme moment that Eru has reserved?” Andreth asked.

“Ah, wise lady!” said Finrod. “I am an Elda [elf], and again I was thinking of my own people. But nay, of all the Children of Eru. I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending together of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda; the end when all the long lives of the Elves shall be wholly in the past.

“And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps.”

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: “And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. “I can only guess,” he said. “Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. ‘The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,’ ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.” And then he paused, for he saw that Andreth was weeping silently.

“Alas, lord!” she said. “What then is to be done now? For we speak as if these things are, or as if they will assuredly be. But Men have been diminished and their power is taken away. We look for no Arda Remade: darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain. If by our aid your everlasting mansions were to be prepared, they will not be builded now.“

“Have ye then no hope?” said Finrod.

“What is hope?” she said. “An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.”

“That is one thing that Men call ‘hope’,” said Finrod. “‘Amdir’ we call it, ‘looking up’. But there is another which is founded deeper. ‘Estel’ we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?“

“Maybe,” she said. “But no! Do you not perceive that it is part of our wound that Estel should falter and its foundations be shaken? Are we the Children of the One? Are we not cast off finally? Or were we ever so? Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World?“

“Say it not even in question!” said Finrod.

“It cannot be unsaid,” answered Andreth, “if you would understand the despair in which we walk. Or in which most Men walk. Among the Atani, as you call us, or the Seekers as we say: those who left the lands of despair and the Men of darkness and journeyed west in vain hope: it is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?“

“Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure. Are they asleep when they speak of escape and healing?”

“Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly,” answered Andreth. ‘How or when shall healing come? To what manner of being shall those who see that time be re-made? And what of us who before it go out into darkness unhealed? To such questions only those of the (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.”

“Those of the Old Hope?” said Finrod. “Who are they?”

“A few,” she said; “but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.“

“What then was this hope, if you know?” Finrod asked.

“They say,” answered Andreth: “they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumor that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.”

“They say, they feign?” said Finrod. “Are you then nor one of them?”

“How can I be, lord? All wisdom is against them. Who is the One, whom ye call Eru? If we put aside the Men who serve the Nameless, as do many in Middle-earth, still many Men perceive the world only as a war between Light and Dark equipotent. But you will say: nay, that is Manwe and Melkor; Eru is above them. Is then Eru only the greatest of the Valar, a great god among gods, as most Men will say, even among the Atani: a king who dwells far from his kingdom and leaves lesser princes to do here much as they will? Again you say: nay, Eru is One, alone without peer, and He made Ea, and is beyond it; and the Valar are greater than we, but yet no nearer to His majesty. Is this not so?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. “We say this, and the Valar we know, and they say the same, all save one. But which, think you, is more likely to lie: those who make themselves humble, or he that exalts himself?”

“I do not doubt,” said Andreth. “And for that reason the saying of Hope passes my understanding. How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?“

“He is already in it, as well as outside,” said Finrod. “But indeed the “in-dwelling” and the “out-living” are not in the same mode.”

“Truly,” said Andreth. “So may Eru in that mode be present in Ea that proceeded from Him. But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ea?”

“Ask me not,” said Finrod. “These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less.

“But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

“More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.“

“Then, lord,” said Andreth, and she looked up in wonder, “you believe in this Hope?“

“Ask me not yet,” he answered. “For it is still to me but strange news that comes from afar. No such hope was ever spoken to the Quendi. To you only it was sent. And yet through you we may hear it and lift up our hearts.” He paused a while, and then looking gravely at Andreth he said: “Yes, Wise-woman, maybe it was ordained that we Quendi, and ye Atani, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods in the North we should not be wholly afraid.”

This should be of interest to any who wish to say that The Lord of the Rings is pagan as Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mythology for Britian and some very devoted Tolkien fans have even tried to line up where the events of Tolkien’s lore would’ve lined up with our real-world history. As such, what Finrod says in this lengthy excerpt is – if we are to treat Tolkien’s work as a mythological history of Europe – a sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. It’s also interesting to note that in Tolkien’s idea of what the end of Middle Earth would look like, it was very much like what we see in Revelation. A battle called the Dagor Dagorath would happen, Melkor would be slain, and it would all culminate in the world being remade.

From this, we can see that by its own merits – without even taking into account what Tolkien himself said about the faith woven into his work – that The Lord of the Rings and the larger legendarium, as a mythology for Britian, is a Christian work, or, at the very least, a Catholic one. It has a faith that, even if it is not shown overtly, is shown throughout the story in various forms. Though it is true that Tolkien was influenced by the Greek and Norse myths when creating his secondary world, The Lord of the Rings and its history is still a fundamentally Christian work.

Until next time,

M.J.

Blog: “Lord of the Rings is Pagan…” is One of the Dumbest Takes I’ve Ever Heard.

I know, I know…everybody is jumping on Jack Posobiec for this comment, but as a Tolkien fan and writing nerd, I’m jumping on the bandwagon of defending what is one of the greatest Christian works of fiction to have ever graced God’s green Earth.

But first, some backstory. On a recent episode of his podcast, Human Events Daily, Posobiec made the comment that LOTR is not overtly Christian, (which to some extent is true; I’ll get to that in a sec) and went so far as to say that it’s overtly pagan. He said: “There’s nothing overtly Christian about ‘Lord of the Rings.’ […] there’s no church in it, there’s no faith in it, there’s no Christ figure — there’s none of these things. And honestly, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ if it’s anything, […] is overtly pagan.” He also cited as further evidence of LOTR not being Christian that Tolkien notoriously didn’t like C.S. Lewis’ use of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

However, to begin our analysis of if Lord of the Rings (and the surrounding books such as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) is Christian or not, we must define what necessarily constitutes a “Christian” story. Is it the values of the story and the intent of the author that make it Christian, or is it the use of often painfully obvious allegory or messaging that makes it Christian?

Personally, I do believe that it’s a mix of both, but I lean more towards the intent of the Christian author to show Christ and the Gospel in some way, be it subtle or overt, and the values of the story that make it Christian. To quote Martin Luther: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” A similar thing goes for Christian storytelling. If you can find a way to put in Christianity without making so painfully obvious that Dora the Explorer could find it, and people can find the Christian themes, then you’ve done your job. But if you make it so obvious that the story eventually feels less like a story and more like Christian propaganda, then you’ve lost not only the point of the story, but you also lose the non-Christian readers who may have otherwise been interested.

In the case of Tolkien and Lewis, while Lewis leaned towards overt allegory for his books, Tolkien – who was not a fan of allegory – leaned towards weaving Christianity into the fabric of the story subtly. According to Tolkien himself in Letter 142, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” And while, yes, while The Lord of the Rings does take from Norse myths, and much of the subtlety of the Christian themes have been lost on people who wish to make it more pagan than it was intended to be (something that Tolkien worried about happening), Christ is still there.

Take, for instance, the characters of Gandalf and Aragorn. An argument can be made that these characters intentionally represent Jesus in different ways. Starting with Gandalf, according to The Silmarillion (which provides the background lore for The Lord of the Rings) he is of the Maiar, or the angelic beings that serve under the Valar (which you can think of as the archangels.) Because of Sauron’s following in the footsteps of Melkor (Morgoth), Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to help the people fight against Sauron. While not a perfect representation of Christ, the image of a divine being living in the body of a mere mortal (very much like the hypostatic union) is stark. Even more like Christ is Gandalf’s death fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and resurrection as “Gandalf the White,” an image of Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Heck, one could even say that Gandalf the White is a sort of allegory for Christ’s second coming, when He will finally defeat Satan once and for all.

As for Aragorn, he is another Christ figure. At first, he’s a ranger, a seemingly random dude from the Dunedain (the descendants of the Numenorians who fled to Middle Earth after Numenor was destroyed). Bilbo’s description of him of, “All that is gold does not glitter,” is a parallel to Isaiah 53:2’s description of Jesus’ humble state. Further, his journey in the Path of the Dead and his dual role of healer and warrior is similar to Christ’s role of redeemer and conquering king that we see in Revelation, especially when he returns to the throne as a glorious king.

Further, one could also argue that Frodo and Sam are representative of Christ and the everyday Christian. As Frodo struggles on his mission to destroy the Ring, Sam is there helping him along the way. This is similar to how, as Christians we struggle to live godly lives, but Christ is there helping us through the Holy Spirit to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Thus, while Tolkien never overtly named these characters as Christ figures, it is still obvious if you are willing to look at it through a Christian lens.

Further, to say that there is no faith in The Lord of the Rings is untrue. While faith is never fully defined or developed in LOTR, within the larger context of Tolkien’s legendarium, there absolutely is a faith – especially amongst the elves – that is deeply reflective of Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Elves’ hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel. This isn’t a song about some random person. In the larger legendarium, Elbereth is essentially a Mary-like figure to the elves, making this hymn very much like “Ave Maria.” When Sam calls out to her in Shelob’s cave, it’s essentially like saying a Hail Mary.

https://youtu.be/UGT_ujNy3nA

Even more damning for Posobiec’s statement are the allusions to Eru Iluvatar, the God of Tolkien’s legendarium, within The Lord of the Rings. According to The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. Eru was seldom worshipped by the Elves because his name was considered to holy too utter. As Finrod says in “The Athrabeth” (which I will get to) in the book The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring, “For that name we do not utter ever in jest or without full intent.” However, despite this, both the elves and men understood that Eru was the only one deserving of praise and believed the worship of any other to be evil. In fact, the men of Numenor had the mountain of Meneltarma dedicated to the worship of Eru in the Three Prayers that were held around the year.

Most interestingly, however, when thinking about faith in the world of Middle-Earth is that, Tolkien, in writing “The Athrabeth,” a lengthy dialogue between Finrod Felagund (Galadriel’s brother) and the human woman, Andreth, incorporated the idea that Eru Illuvatar would one day enter the world to save the Edain (mankind.) Though it’s better if you read the entire dialogue, I’ll include this excerpt from The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring pages 318-323:

“This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers, but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the Marring of Arda [the world of Middle-Earth], already foreshadowed before their devising; and to do more, as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!

“For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same. I have conversed with the Valar who were present at the making of the Music ere the being of the World began. And now I wonder: Did they hear the end of the Music? Was there not something in or beyond the final chords of Eru which, being overwhelmed thereby, they did got perceive?

“Or again, since Eru is forever free, maybe he made no Music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point we cannot see or know, until by our own roads we come there, Valar or Eldar [Elves] or Men.

“As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the greatest moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!”

“What then would you say is the supreme moment that Eru has reserved?” Andreth asked.

“Ah, wise lady!” said Finrod. “I am an Elda [elf], and again I was thinking of my own people. But nay, of all the Children of Eru. I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending together of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda; the end when all the long lives of the Elves shall be wholly in the past.

“And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps.”

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: “And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. “I can only guess,” he said. “Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. ‘The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,’ ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.” And then he paused, for he saw that Andreth was weeping silently.

“Alas, lord!” she said. “What then is to be done now? For we speak as if these things are, or as if they will assuredly be. But Men have been diminished and their power is taken away. We look for no Arda Remade: darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain. If by our aid your everlasting mansions were to be prepared, they will not be builded now.“

“Have ye then no hope?” said Finrod.

“What is hope?” she said. “An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.”

“That is one thing that Men call ‘hope’,” said Finrod. “‘Amdir’ we call it, ‘looking up’. But there is another which is founded deeper. ‘Estel’ we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?“

“Maybe,” she said. “But no! Do you not perceive that it is part of our wound that Estel should falter and its foundations be shaken? Are we the Children of the One? Are we not cast off finally? Or were we ever so? Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World?“

“Say it not even in question!” said Finrod.

“It cannot be unsaid,” answered Andreth, “if you would understand the despair in which we walk. Or in which most Men walk. Among the Atani, as you call us, or the Seekers as we say: those who left the lands of despair and the Men of darkness and journeyed west in vain hope: it is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?“

“Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure. Are they asleep when they speak of escape and healing?”

“Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly,” answered Andreth. ‘How or when shall healing come? To what manner of being shall those who see that time be re-made? And what of us who before it go out into darkness unhealed? To such questions only those of the (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.”

“Those of the Old Hope?” said Finrod. “Who are they?”

“A few,” she said; “but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.“

“What then was this hope, if you know?” Finrod asked.

“They say,” answered Andreth: “they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumor that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.”

“They say, they feign?” said Finrod. “Are you then nor one of them?”

“How can I be, lord? All wisdom is against them. Who is the One, whom ye call Eru? If we put aside the Men who serve the Nameless, as do many in Middle-earth, still many Men perceive the world only as a war between Light and Dark equipotent. But you will say: nay, that is Manwe and Melkor; Eru is above them. Is then Eru only the greatest of the Valar, a great god among gods, as most Men will say, even among the Atani: a king who dwells far from his kingdom and leaves lesser princes to do here much as they will? Again you say: nay, Eru is One, alone without peer, and He made Ea, and is beyond it; and the Valar are greater than we, but yet no nearer to His majesty. Is this not so?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. “We say this, and the Valar we know, and they say the same, all save one. But which, think you, is more likely to lie: those who make themselves humble, or he that exalts himself?”

“I do not doubt,” said Andreth. “And for that reason the saying of Hope passes my understanding. How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?“

“He is already in it, as well as outside,” said Finrod. “But indeed the “in-dwelling” and the “out-living” are not in the same mode.”

“Truly,” said Andreth. “So may Eru in that mode be present in Ea that proceeded from Him. But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ea?”

“Ask me not,” said Finrod. “These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less.

“But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

“More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.“

“Then, lord,” said Andreth, and she looked up in wonder, “you believe in this Hope?“

“Ask me not yet,” he answered. “For it is still to me but strange news that comes from afar. No such hope was ever spoken to the Quendi. To you only it was sent. And yet through you we may hear it and lift up our hearts.” He paused a while, and then looking gravely at Andreth he said: “Yes, Wise-woman, maybe it was ordained that we Quendi, and ye Atani, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods in the North we should not be wholly afraid.”

This should be of interest to any who wish to say that The Lord of the Rings is pagan as Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mythology for Britian and some very devoted Tolkien fans have even tried to line up where the events of Tolkien’s lore would’ve lined up with our real-world history. As such, what Finrod says in this lengthy excerpt is – if we are to treat Tolkien’s work as a mythological history of Europe – a sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. It’s also interesting to note that in Tolkien’s idea of what the end of Middle Earth would look like, it was very much like what we see in Revelation. A battle called the Dagor Dagorath would happen, Melkor would be slain, and it would all culminate in the world being remade.

From this, we can see that by its own merits – without even taking into account what Tolkien himself said about the faith woven into his work – that The Lord of the Rings and the larger legendarium, as a mythology for Britian, is a Christian work, or, at the very least, a Catholic one. It has a faith that, even if it is not shown overtly, is shown throughout the story in various forms. Though it is true that Tolkien was influenced by the Greek and Norse myths when creating his secondary world, The Lord of the Rings and its history is still a fundamentally Christian work.

Until next time,

M.J.

Blog: “Lord of the Rings is Pagan…” is One of the Dumbest Takes I’ve Ever Heard.

I know, I know…everybody is jumping on Jack Posobiec for this comment, but as a Tolkien fan and writing nerd, I’m jumping on the bandwagon of defending what is one of the greatest Christian works of fiction to have ever graced God’s green Earth.

But first, some backstory. On a recent episode of his podcast, Human Events Daily, Posobiec made the comment that LOTR is not overtly Christian, (which to some extent is true; I’ll get to that in a sec) and went so far as to say that it’s overtly pagan. He said: “There’s nothing overtly Christian about ‘Lord of the Rings.’ […] there’s no church in it, there’s no faith in it, there’s no Christ figure — there’s none of these things. And honestly, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ if it’s anything, […] is overtly pagan.” He also cited as further evidence of LOTR not being Christian that Tolkien notoriously didn’t like C.S. Lewis’ use of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

However, to begin our analysis of if Lord of the Rings (and the surrounding books such as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) is Christian or not, we must define what necessarily constitutes a “Christian” story. Is it the values of the story and the intent of the author that make it Christian, or is it the use of often painfully obvious allegory or messaging that makes it Christian?

Personally, I do believe that it’s a mix of both, but I lean more towards the intent of the Christian author to show Christ and the Gospel in some way, be it subtle or overt, and the values of the story that make it Christian. To quote Martin Luther: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” A similar thing goes for Christian storytelling. If you can find a way to put in Christianity without making so painfully obvious that Dora the Explorer could find it, and people can find the Christian themes, then you’ve done your job. But if you make it so obvious that the story eventually feels less like a story and more like Christian propaganda, then you’ve lost not only the point of the story, but you also lose the non-Christian readers who may have otherwise been interested.

In the case of Tolkien and Lewis, while Lewis leaned towards overt allegory for his books, Tolkien – who was not a fan of allegory – leaned towards weaving Christianity into the fabric of the story subtly. According to Tolkien himself in Letter 142, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” And while, yes, while The Lord of the Rings does take from Norse myths, and much of the subtlety of the Christian themes have been lost on people who wish to make it more pagan than it was intended to be (something that Tolkien worried about happening), Christ is still there.

Take, for instance, the characters of Gandalf and Aragorn. An argument can be made that these characters intentionally represent Jesus in different ways. Starting with Gandalf, according to The Silmarillion (which provides the background lore for The Lord of the Rings) he is of the Maiar, or the angelic beings that serve under the Valar (which you can think of as the archangels.) Because of Sauron’s following in the footsteps of Melkor (Morgoth), Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to help the people fight against Sauron. While not a perfect representation of Christ, the image of a divine being living in the body of a mere mortal (very much like the hypostatic union) is stark. Even more like Christ is Gandalf’s death fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and resurrection as “Gandalf the White,” an image of Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Heck, one could even say that Gandalf the White is a sort of allegory for Christ’s second coming, when He will finally defeat Satan once and for all.

As for Aragorn, he is another Christ figure. At first, he’s a ranger, a seemingly random dude from the Dunedain (the descendants of the Numenorians who fled to Middle Earth after Numenor was destroyed). Bilbo’s description of him of, “All that is gold does not glitter,” is a parallel to Isaiah 53:2’s description of Jesus’ humble state. Further, his journey in the Path of the Dead and his dual role of healer and warrior is similar to Christ’s role of redeemer and conquering king that we see in Revelation, especially when he returns to the throne as a glorious king.

Further, one could also argue that Frodo and Sam are representative of Christ and the everyday Christian. As Frodo struggles on his mission to destroy the Ring, Sam is there helping him along the way. This is similar to how, as Christians we struggle to live godly lives, but Christ is there helping us through the Holy Spirit to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Thus, while Tolkien never overtly named these characters as Christ figures, it is still obvious if you are willing to look at it through a Christian lens.

Further, to say that there is no faith in The Lord of the Rings is untrue. While faith is never fully defined or developed in LOTR, within the larger context of Tolkien’s legendarium, there absolutely is a faith – especially amongst the elves – that is deeply reflective of Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Elves’ hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel. This isn’t a song about some random person. In the larger legendarium, Elbereth is essentially a Mary-like figure to the elves, making this hymn very much like “Ave Maria.” When Sam calls out to her in Shelob’s cave, it’s essentially like saying a Hail Mary.

https://youtu.be/UGT_ujNy3nA

Even more damning for Posobiec’s statement are the allusions to Eru Iluvatar, the God of Tolkien’s legendarium, within The Lord of the Rings. According to The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. Eru was seldom worshipped by the Elves because his name was considered to holy too utter. As Finrod says in “The Athrabeth” (which I will get to) in the book The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring, “For that name we do not utter ever in jest or without full intent.” However, despite this, both the elves and men understood that Eru was the only one deserving of praise and believed the worship of any other to be evil. In fact, the men of Numenor had the mountain of Meneltarma dedicated to the worship of Eru in the Three Prayers that were held around the year.

Most interestingly, however, when thinking about faith in the world of Middle-Earth is that, Tolkien, in writing “The Athrabeth,” a lengthy dialogue between Finrod Felagund (Galadriel’s brother) and the human woman, Andreth, incorporated the idea that Eru Illuvatar would one day enter the world to save the Edain (mankind.) Though it’s better if you read the entire dialogue, I’ll include this excerpt from The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring pages 318-323:

“This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers, but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the Marring of Arda [the world of Middle-Earth], already foreshadowed before their devising; and to do more, as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!

“For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same. I have conversed with the Valar who were present at the making of the Music ere the being of the World began. And now I wonder: Did they hear the end of the Music? Was there not something in or beyond the final chords of Eru which, being overwhelmed thereby, they did got perceive?

“Or again, since Eru is forever free, maybe he made no Music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point we cannot see or know, until by our own roads we come there, Valar or Eldar [Elves] or Men.

“As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the greatest moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!”

“What then would you say is the supreme moment that Eru has reserved?” Andreth asked.

“Ah, wise lady!” said Finrod. “I am an Elda [elf], and again I was thinking of my own people. But nay, of all the Children of Eru. I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending together of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda; the end when all the long lives of the Elves shall be wholly in the past.

“And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps.”

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: “And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. “I can only guess,” he said. “Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. ‘The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,’ ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.” And then he paused, for he saw that Andreth was weeping silently.

“Alas, lord!” she said. “What then is to be done now? For we speak as if these things are, or as if they will assuredly be. But Men have been diminished and their power is taken away. We look for no Arda Remade: darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain. If by our aid your everlasting mansions were to be prepared, they will not be builded now.“

“Have ye then no hope?” said Finrod.

“What is hope?” she said. “An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.”

“That is one thing that Men call ‘hope’,” said Finrod. “‘Amdir’ we call it, ‘looking up’. But there is another which is founded deeper. ‘Estel’ we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?“

“Maybe,” she said. “But no! Do you not perceive that it is part of our wound that Estel should falter and its foundations be shaken? Are we the Children of the One? Are we not cast off finally? Or were we ever so? Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World?“

“Say it not even in question!” said Finrod.

“It cannot be unsaid,” answered Andreth, “if you would understand the despair in which we walk. Or in which most Men walk. Among the Atani, as you call us, or the Seekers as we say: those who left the lands of despair and the Men of darkness and journeyed west in vain hope: it is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?“

“Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure. Are they asleep when they speak of escape and healing?”

“Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly,” answered Andreth. ‘How or when shall healing come? To what manner of being shall those who see that time be re-made? And what of us who before it go out into darkness unhealed? To such questions only those of the (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.”

“Those of the Old Hope?” said Finrod. “Who are they?”

“A few,” she said; “but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.“

“What then was this hope, if you know?” Finrod asked.

“They say,” answered Andreth: “they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumor that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.”

“They say, they feign?” said Finrod. “Are you then nor one of them?”

“How can I be, lord? All wisdom is against them. Who is the One, whom ye call Eru? If we put aside the Men who serve the Nameless, as do many in Middle-earth, still many Men perceive the world only as a war between Light and Dark equipotent. But you will say: nay, that is Manwe and Melkor; Eru is above them. Is then Eru only the greatest of the Valar, a great god among gods, as most Men will say, even among the Atani: a king who dwells far from his kingdom and leaves lesser princes to do here much as they will? Again you say: nay, Eru is One, alone without peer, and He made Ea, and is beyond it; and the Valar are greater than we, but yet no nearer to His majesty. Is this not so?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. “We say this, and the Valar we know, and they say the same, all save one. But which, think you, is more likely to lie: those who make themselves humble, or he that exalts himself?”

“I do not doubt,” said Andreth. “And for that reason the saying of Hope passes my understanding. How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?“

“He is already in it, as well as outside,” said Finrod. “But indeed the “in-dwelling” and the “out-living” are not in the same mode.”

“Truly,” said Andreth. “So may Eru in that mode be present in Ea that proceeded from Him. But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ea?”

“Ask me not,” said Finrod. “These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less.

“But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

“More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.“

“Then, lord,” said Andreth, and she looked up in wonder, “you believe in this Hope?“

“Ask me not yet,” he answered. “For it is still to me but strange news that comes from afar. No such hope was ever spoken to the Quendi. To you only it was sent. And yet through you we may hear it and lift up our hearts.” He paused a while, and then looking gravely at Andreth he said: “Yes, Wise-woman, maybe it was ordained that we Quendi, and ye Atani, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods in the North we should not be wholly afraid.”

This should be of interest to any who wish to say that The Lord of the Rings is pagan as Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mythology for Britian and some very devoted Tolkien fans have even tried to line up where the events of Tolkien’s lore would’ve lined up with our real-world history. As such, what Finrod says in this lengthy excerpt is – if we are to treat Tolkien’s work as a mythological history of Europe – a sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. It’s also interesting to note that in Tolkien’s idea of what the end of Middle Earth would look like, it was very much like what we see in Revelation. A battle called the Dagor Dagorath would happen, Melkor would be slain, and it would all culminate in the world being remade.

From this, we can see that by its own merits – without even taking into account what Tolkien himself said about the faith woven into his work – that The Lord of the Rings and the larger legendarium, as a mythology for Britian, is a Christian work, or, at the very least, a Catholic one. It has a faith that, even if it is not shown overtly, is shown throughout the story in various forms. Though it is true that Tolkien was influenced by the Greek and Norse myths when creating his secondary world, The Lord of the Rings and its history is still a fundamentally Christian work.

Until next time,

M.J.

Blog: “Lord of the Rings is Pagan…” is One of the Dumbest Takes I’ve Ever Heard.

I know, I know…everybody is jumping on Jack Posobiec for this comment, but as a Tolkien fan and writing nerd, I’m jumping on the bandwagon of defending what is one of the greatest Christian works of fiction to have ever graced God’s green Earth.

But first, some backstory. On a recent episode of his podcast, Human Events Daily, Posobiec made the comment that LOTR is not overtly Christian, (which to some extent is true; I’ll get to that in a sec) and went so far as to say that it’s overtly pagan. He said: “There’s nothing overtly Christian about ‘Lord of the Rings.’ […] there’s no church in it, there’s no faith in it, there’s no Christ figure — there’s none of these things. And honestly, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ if it’s anything, […] is overtly pagan.” He also cited as further evidence of LOTR not being Christian that Tolkien notoriously didn’t like C.S. Lewis’ use of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

However, to begin our analysis of if Lord of the Rings (and the surrounding books such as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle Earth, etc.) is Christian or not, we must define what necessarily constitutes a “Christian” story. Is it the values of the story and the intent of the author that make it Christian, or is it the use of often painfully obvious allegory or messaging that makes it Christian?

Personally, I do believe that it’s a mix of both, but I lean more towards the intent of the Christian author to show Christ and the Gospel in some way, be it subtle or overt, and the values of the story that make it Christian. To quote Martin Luther: “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes.” A similar thing goes for Christian storytelling. If you can find a way to put in Christianity without making so painfully obvious that Dora the Explorer could find it, and people can find the Christian themes, then you’ve done your job. But if you make it so obvious that the story eventually feels less like a story and more like Christian propaganda, then you’ve lost not only the point of the story, but you also lose the non-Christian readers who may have otherwise been interested.

In the case of Tolkien and Lewis, while Lewis leaned towards overt allegory for his books, Tolkien – who was not a fan of allegory – leaned towards weaving Christianity into the fabric of the story subtly. According to Tolkien himself in Letter 142, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” And while, yes, while The Lord of the Rings does take from Norse myths, and much of the subtlety of the Christian themes have been lost on people who wish to make it more pagan than it was intended to be (something that Tolkien worried about happening), Christ is still there.

Take, for instance, the characters of Gandalf and Aragorn. An argument can be made that these characters intentionally represent Jesus in different ways. Starting with Gandalf, according to The Silmarillion (which provides the background lore for The Lord of the Rings) he is of the Maiar, or the angelic beings that serve under the Valar (which you can think of as the archangels.) Because of Sauron’s following in the footsteps of Melkor, (Morgoth) Gandalf was sent to Middle Earth to help the people fight against Sauron. While not a perfect representation of Christ, the image of a divine being living in the body of a mere mortal (very much like the hypostatic union) is stark. Even more like Christ is Gandalf’s death fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and resurrection as “Gandalf the White,” an image of Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorification. Heck, one could even say that Gandalf the White is a sort of allegory for Christ’s second coming, when He will finally defeat Satan once and for all.

As for Aragorn, he is another Christ figure. At first, he’s a ranger, a seemingly random dude from the Dunedain (the descendants of the Numenorians who fled to Middle Earth after Numenor was destroyed). Bilbo’s description of him of, “All that is gold does not glitter,” is a parallel to Isaiah 53:2’s description of Jesus’ humble state. Further, his journey in the Path of the Dead and his dual role of healer and warrior is similar to Christ’s role of redeemer and conquering king that we see in Revelation, especially when he returns to the throne as a glorious king.

Further, one could also argue that Frodo and Sam are representative of Christ and the everyday Christian. As Frodo struggles on his mission to destroy the Ring, Sam is there helping him along the way. This is similar to how, as Christians we struggle to live godly lives, but Christ is there helping us through the Holy Spirit to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Thus, while Tolkien never overtly named these characters as Christ figures, it is still obvious if you are willing to look at it through a Christian lens.

Further, to say that there is no faith in The Lord of the Rings is untrue. While faith is never fully defined or developed in LOTR, within the larger context of Tolkien’s legendarium, there absolutely is a faith – especially amongst the elves – that is deeply reflective of Tolkien’s belief in Catholicism.

The best example of this that I can think of is the Elves’ hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel. This isn’t a song about some random person. In the larger legendarium, Elbereth is essentially a Mary-like figure to the elves, making this hymn very much like “Ave Maria.” When Sam calls out to her in Shelob’s cave, it’s essentially like saying a Hail Mary.

https://youtu.be/UGT_ujNy3nA

Even more damning for Posobiec’s statement are the allusions to Eru Iluvatar, the God of Tolkien’s legendarium, within The Lord of the Rings. According to The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, etc. Eru was seldom worshipped by the Elves because his name was considered to holy to utter. As Finrod says in “The Athrabeth” (which I will get to) in the book The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring, “For that name we do not utter ever in jest or without full intent.” However, despite this, both the elves and men understood that Eru was the only one deserving of praise and believed the worship of any other to be evil. In fact, the men of Numenor had the mountain of Meneltarma dedicated to the worship of Eru in the Three Prayers that were held around the year.

Most interestingly, however, when thinking about faith in the world of Middle-Earth is that, Tolkien, in writing “The Athrabeth,” a lengthy dialogue between Finrod Felagund (Galadriel’s brother) and the human woman, Andreth, incorporated the idea that Eru Illuvatar would one day enter the world to save the Edain (mankind.) Though it’s better if you read the entire dialogue, I’ll include this excerpt from The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth’s Ring pages 318-323:

“This then, I propound, was the errand of Men, not the followers, but the heirs and fulfillers of all: to heal the Marring of Arda [the world of Middle-Earth], already foreshadowed before their devising; and to do more, as agents of the magnificence of Eru: to enlarge the Music and surpass the Vision of the World!

“For that Arda Healed shall not be Arda Unmarred, but a third thing and a greater, and yet the same. I have conversed with the Valar who were present at the making of the Music ere the being of the World began. And now I wonder: Did they hear the end of the Music? Was there not something in or beyond the final chords of Eru which, being overwhelmed thereby, they did got perceive?

“Or again, since Eru is forever free, maybe he made no Music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point we cannot see or know, until by our own roads we come there, Valar or Eldar [Elves] or Men.

“As may a master in the telling of tales keep hidden the greatest moment until it comes in due course. It may be guessed at indeed, in some measure, by those of us who have listened with full heart and mind; but so the teller would wish. In no wise is the surprise and wonder of his art thus diminished, for thus we share, as it were, in his authorship. But not so, if all were told us in a preface before we entered in!”

“What then would you say is the supreme moment that Eru has reserved?” Andreth asked.

“Ah, wise lady!” said Finrod. “I am an Elda [elf], and again I was thinking of my own people. But nay, of all the Children of Eru. I was thinking that by the Second Children we might have been delivered from death. For ever as we spoke of death being a division of the united, I thought in my heart of a death that is not so: but the ending together of both. For that is what lies before us, so far as our reason could see: the completion of Arda and its end, and therefore also of us children of Arda; the end when all the long lives of the Elves shall be wholly in the past.

“And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps.”

Then Andreth looked under her brows at Finrod: “And what, when ye were not singing, would ye say to us?’ she asked.

Finrod laughed. “I can only guess,” he said. “Why, wise lady, I think that we should tell you tales of the Past and of Arda that was Before, of the perils and great deeds and the making of the Silmarils! We were the lordly ones then! But ye, ye would then be at home, looking at all things intently, as your own. Ye would be the lordly ones. ‘The eyes of Elves are always thinking of something else,’ ye would say. But ye would know then of what we were reminded: of the days when we first met, and our hands touched in the dark. Beyond the End of the World we shall not change; for in memory is our great talent, as shall be seen ever more clearly as the ages of this Arda pass: a heavy burden to be, I fear; but in the Days of which we now speak a great wealth.” And then he paused, for he saw that Andreth was weeping silently.

“Alas, lord!” she said. “What then is to be done now? For we speak as if these things are, or as if they will assuredly be. But Men have been diminished and their power is taken away. We look for no Arda Remade: darkness lies before us, into which we stare in vain. If by our aid your everlasting mansions were to be prepared, they will not be builded now.“

“Have ye then no hope?” said Finrod.

“What is hope?” she said. “An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.”

“That is one thing that Men call ‘hope’,” said Finrod. “‘Amdir’ we call it, ‘looking up’. But there is another which is founded deeper. ‘Estel’ we call it, that is ‘trust’. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?“

“Maybe,” she said. “But no! Do you not perceive that it is part of our wound that Estel should falter and its foundations be shaken? Are we the Children of the One? Are we not cast off finally? Or were we ever so? Is not the Nameless the Lord of the World?“

“Say it not even in question!” said Finrod.

“It cannot be unsaid,” answered Andreth, “if you would understand the despair in which we walk. Or in which most Men walk. Among the Atani, as you call us, or the Seekers as we say: those who left the lands of despair and the Men of darkness and journeyed west in vain hope: it is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?“

“Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure. Are they asleep when they speak of escape and healing?”

“Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly,” answered Andreth. ‘How or when shall healing come? To what manner of being shall those who see that time be re-made? And what of us who before it go out into darkness unhealed? To such questions only those of the (as they call themselves) have any guess of an answer.”

“Those of the Old Hope?” said Finrod. “Who are they?”

“A few,” she said; “but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.“

“What then was this hope, if you know?” Finrod asked.

“They say,” answered Andreth: “they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say also, or they feign, is a rumor that has come down through years uncounted, even from the days of our undoing.”

“They say, they feign?” said Finrod. “Are you then nor one of them?”

“How can I be, lord? All wisdom is against them. Who is the One, whom ye call Eru? If we put aside the Men who serve the Nameless, as do many in Middle-earth, still many Men perceive the world only as a war between Light and Dark equipotent. But you will say: nay, that is Manwe and Melkor; Eru is above them. Is then Eru only the greatest of the Valar, a great god among gods, as most Men will say, even among the Atani: a king who dwells far from his kingdom and leaves lesser princes to do here much as they will? Again you say: nay, Eru is One, alone without peer, and He made Ea, and is beyond it; and the Valar are greater than we, but yet no nearer to His majesty. Is this not so?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. “We say this, and the Valar we know, and they say the same, all save one. But which, think you, is more likely to lie: those who make themselves humble, or he that exalts himself?”

“I do not doubt,” said Andreth. “And for that reason the saying of Hope passes my understanding. How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?“

“He is already in it, as well as outside,” said Finrod. “But indeed the “in-dwelling” and the “out-living” are not in the same mode.”

“Truly,” said Andreth. “So may Eru in that mode be present in Ea that proceeded from Him. But they speak of Eru Himself entering into Arda, and that is a thing wholly different. How could He the greater do this? Would it not shatter Arda, or indeed all Ea?”

“Ask me not,” said Finrod. “These things are beyond the compass of the wisdom of the Eldar, or of the Valar maybe. But I doubt that our words may mislead us, and that when you say ‘greater’ you think of the dimensions of Arda, in which the greater vessel may not be contained in the less.

“But such words may not be used of the Measureless. If Eru wished to do this, I do not doubt that He would find a way, though I cannot foresee it. For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

“More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrought and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.“

“Then, lord,” said Andreth, and she looked up in wonder, “you believe in this Hope?“

“Ask me not yet,” he answered. “For it is still to me but strange news that comes from afar. No such hope was ever spoken to the Quendi. To you only it was sent. And yet through you we may hear it and lift up our hearts.” He paused a while, and then looking gravely at Andreth he said: “Yes, Wise-woman, maybe it was ordained that we Quendi, and ye Atani, ere the world grows old, should meet and bring news one to another, and so we should learn of the Hope from you: ordained, indeed, that thou and I, Andreth, should sit here and speak together, across the gulf that divides our kindreds, so that while the Shadow still broods in the North we should not be wholly afraid.”

This should be of interest to any who wish to say that The Lord of the Rings is pagan as Tolkien wrote LOTR as a mythology for Britian and some very devoted Tolkien fans have even tried to line up where the events of Tolkien’s lore would’ve lined up with our real-world history. As such, what Finrod says in this lengthy excerpt is – if we are to treat Tolkien’s work as a mythological history of Europe – a sort of prophecy about the coming of Jesus. It’s also interesting to note that in Tolkien’s idea of what the end of Middle Earth would look like, it was very much like what we see in Revelation. A battle called the Dagor Dagorath would happen, Melkor would be slain, and it would all culminate in the world being remade.

From this, we can see that by its own merits – without even taking into account what Tolkien himself said about the faith woven into his work – that The Lord of the Rings and the larger legendarium, as a mythology for Britian, is a Christian work, or, at the very least, a Catholic one. It has a faith that, even if it is not shown overtly, is shown throughout the story in various forms. Though it is true that Tolkien was influenced by the Greek and Norse myths when creating his secondary world, The Lord of the Rings and its history is still a fundamentally Christian work.

Until next time,

M.J.

... general strike. Following the video-recorded deaths of two white American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents ...

Although Operation Metro Surge has drawn down, its affects on the Twin Cities continues. Two prominent Heathen organizations have issued statements supporting the people of Minnesota.#News #Paganism #Politics #US #CustomsandBorderProtection #Heathen #Heathenry #HeathensAgainstHate #ImmigrationandCustomsEnforcement #inclusiveHeathenry
Heathen organizations respond to ICE operations

... general strike. Following the video-recorded deaths of two white American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents ...

Although Operation Metro Surge has drawn down, its affects on the Twin Cities continues. Two prominent Heathen organizations have issued statements supporting the people of Minnesota.#News #Paganism #Politics #US #CustomsandBorderProtection #Heathen #Heathenry #HeathensAgainstHate #ImmigrationandCustomsEnforcement #inclusiveHeathenry
Heathen organizations respond to ICE operations

... general strike. Following the video-recorded deaths of two white American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents ...

Although Operation Metro Surge has drawn down, its affects on the Twin Cities continues. Two prominent Heathen organizations have issued statements supporting the people of Minnesota.#News #Paganism #Politics #US #CustomsandBorderProtection #Heathen #Heathenry #HeathensAgainstHate #ImmigrationandCustomsEnforcement #inclusiveHeathenry
Heathen organizations respond to ICE operations

... general strike. Following the video-recorded deaths of two white American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents ...

Although Operation Metro Surge has drawn down, its affects on the Twin Cities continues. Two prominent Heathen organizations have issued statements supporting the people of Minnesota.#News #Paganism #Politics #US #CustomsandBorderProtection #Heathen #Heathenry #HeathensAgainstHate #ImmigrationandCustomsEnforcement #inclusiveHeathenry
Heathen organizations respond to ICE operations

Please see the post above, and support this project to produce a modern, inclusive interpretation of the Elder #Futhark in a deck of 24 cards plus booklet

NOW LIVE ON KICKSTARTER!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/angelaraincatcher/the-well-of-mimir-rune-cards

#heathenry #druidry #adf #norse #mythology #paganism #heathens #witches #spirituality
@polytheismtoday @[email protected] @[email protected] @pagan @witchcraft @spirituality @occult @inclusiveWicca