The Glass Island
Jun. 22nd, 2007 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloseraphimsigrist has interesting things to say about the Glastonbury legend of St Collen. Cue poem. But before I give you the poem let's noodle a bit. I first came across the story in a pamphlet written by a Victorian Prebendary of Wells - and how I came by the pamphlet I really don't remember. I guess I must have picked it up in one of those second hand bookshops I used to frequent, or maybe some friend or parishioner- knowing I was a Glastonbury nut- gave it me. One of things the pamphlet reveals is just how sparse the legendary history of Glastonbury was before the 20th century mythomanes- headed by Dion Fortune- moved in. No Chalice Well, no ritual mazes on the Tor, no zodiac, no sleeping dragons, no landscape shaped like the body of the Goddess- just the Arthur thing and the Collen thing. The Collen thing- in spite of being the only truly authentic piece of folklore attached to the place- tends not to feature in New Age books- probably because the Christian guy wins. Or does he?
The poem is a straight retelling. My version differs from Seraphim's in one or two points- his characters indulge in added banter and his uniforms are red and white, not red and blue- but otherwise we're in agreement. I was coming out of Christianity when I wrote it and (in my private opinions) rather furiously pagan but I'm pleased to find that my handling of the characters (in deference to my source) is remarkably even-handed. Collen's victory- the victory of the new faith- is inevitable and even to be desired- but a loss has been incurred. The link to the ancestors has been severed. The confrontation between Collen and Gwyn has about it all the sadness of civil war. Perhaps, as Seraphim suggests, there will be a reconciliation somewhere down the line.
In our own times, perhaps....
THE
Three times they banged at the door,
The messengers of Gwyn ab Nud.
"Gwyn, Chief of the
Summons Collen to speak with him."
So Christian Collen, the interloper,
Slipped the bottle into his blouse
And climbed above his cell to where
A strange new castle gleamed on the hill,
With pillars on it remembering
The watch dogs whinged, and young dancers
Drifted out of his path. He strode
The full length of the sunny hall
To stop before the dais where
The god drank from a great carved bowl.
Silencing the fiddlers, Gwyn
Fingered his red-gold beard and spoke
Like a kind uncle. "Collen, my boy,
You're here at last. You've pained us so,
Building that damn chapel of yours
Disrespectfully close to our gates.
Why? What have we done to you?
Can you not see these dancers are
The happy dead of your own house?
Are they not fine in their red and blue?"
And Gwyn, smiling, proffered his bowl.
"Fine of their kind," said Collen. "Still
This red of yours is eternal fire;
This blue of yours eternal ice."
And he flung the holy water in
A hissing arc. The summer sky
Broke through the walls. The god became
A great grey thistle rocked by the wind.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:23 am (UTC)I found Glastonbury to be rather Disneyfied and while we were up on the Tor all I could imagine was the execution and the spectacle of it all.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:36 am (UTC)I spent a night on the Tor in 1969- huddled inside the tower with a whole bunch of hippies. Now that was a memorable experience!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 10:37 am (UTC)Admittedly, to find out what it meant I had to use Altavista's Babelfish to translate the French Encarta webpage on it, but it was worth the effort.
I shall be using this word in anger, oh yes. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 11:09 am (UTC)glastonbury stuff
Date: 2007-06-22 02:22 pm (UTC)as you may likely know of being a basic
esoteric pair of colors...alchemy,
martinism etc
your poem is well done...
and at loose ends what to post yesterday
this is a reward for having settled on what
I did!
as to glastonbury to me the wonderful thing is
in the almost nothing of its substance, invented
legends(from the burial place of patrick etc on
to chalice well) and yet the almost nothing is
not quite nothing...
perhaps it is only the odd shape of the tor
but in the end one feels the boy who said the emperor
had no clothes would see through the place at once
and yet not be quite right...
the userpic is one I havent had much reason to use
but is the arch of st michaels above the gate of annwn
as it were.
Re: glastonbury stuff
Date: 2007-06-22 02:40 pm (UTC)I was watching a TV programme about the archaeology of Glastonbury the other day which concluded that it had been a place of no significance at all until the building of the abbey. And the "maze" around the Tor is- as we might have suspected- the remains of a medieval field system.
But, you're right, it is a magical place- even if the magic is of recent date.
colours
Date: 2007-06-22 02:47 pm (UTC)compared to the no doubt comparable cathedral at
wells up the road. which is not to advocate
cromwellan or leninist demolition of churches...
the sacred of the bread and wine in the standing
church is after all basis for all imagination in a
field...and yet this emptiness can serve as someone
said as our 'Tibet' and a deuce of a lot easier
to get too without having to hire yaks, perhaps Khamba
tribesmen to get one over the border etc in case of
visa problems etc
well thought on red and blue
in your userpic are the colours those of a football
team?
Re: colours
Date: 2007-06-22 03:13 pm (UTC)Ruins are beautiful- and moving- but I'm glad no-one smashed up Wells. It's my favourite of all the English cathedrals.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 04:02 pm (UTC)is in any case more evocative to me than
pictures of the imagined glastonbury abbey.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 06:46 pm (UTC)A hissing arc. The summer sky
Broke through the walls. The god became
A great grey thistle rocked by the wind.
I still love your poems.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 08:11 pm (UTC)This is one of my personal favourites...