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There are many legends, from different eras, about the head of a god, and an island to the west of Britain. This is the story of one such island |
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Lundy island stands in the mouth of the Severn Estuary, thirteen miles NNW of Hartland Point on the North Devon coast and thirty two miles SSE of St. Govan's Head on the Welsh coast.
Predominately granite, Lundy is 5km long and 1.25km at its widest.
The island is a plateau rising four hundred and seventy feet above the sea to its highest point, Beacon Hill. |
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Near North Light is the cave known as the 'Virgin's Well'. The cave is nearly three hundred feet deep and harbours a fresh water spring, the 'Virgin's Spring'. The pure spring water is only uncovered by the salt water of the sea at low tide. Local traditions link the spring water on Lundy with the springs on Dartmoor by means of underground, and indeed undersea, tunnels. Alfred Watkins and other researchers of ley lines have found that sites linked by ley lines, but not in line of sight, have legends of being connected by underground tunnels, tunnels which often pass under water as well as land. |
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To the pre-Christian Celts islands were sacred places. 'The Britons were thus not unlike the Greeks in placing the enchanted abodes of the gods in islands of the sea.' |
****'Beheld in the
glamour of distance, surrounded above and below
by an expanse of crimson and gold, brooded over
by cloudy flames, every island became in the
eyes of those on shore an unearthly paradise,
the home of their particular deity.'
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Islands were regarded as particularly sacred for their role as gateways to the Otherworld. |
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Two common themes in many of the ancient legends are the occupation of the sacred islands by priestesses; Arianrhod, Ygerne, Morgan, Elaine and the presence on the island of at least one tower. |
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The Otherworld was, and is, accessible from anywhere, and everywhere. But at certain places it is easier to feel it, or to go there. Even in the twenty first century islands remain insulated from the mainstream world. ('Insulate' is derived from the Latin word for island.) |
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*** "The fact which most clearly accounts for the transformation of the sacred islands of the gods into the dwellings of monastic communities is the actual occupation of these sacred islands off the British coast by Christian monks. Stories told about the divine inhabitants of these islands were naturally transferred to the human but still hallowed successors...In fact many a hermit, anchorite, and venerable figure in religious garb who crosses our path in Arthurian romance may be legitimately suspected of being a god or goddess in disguise." from 'Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance.' |
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"We have seen the Guardians of the Grail assuming more and more distinctly the forms of the Welsh gods, Manawyd, Myrddin, Bran, Avalloch, Gwair, Beli, and Llwch; and the castle of the Grail as distinctly rearing its crystal walls and phantom towers on .. Lundy." |
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**** Rhys has pointed out that the Isle of Lundy off the Devon coast probably owes its Welsh name Ynys Wair to the localization there of the imprisonment there of Gwair or Gwri. |
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***All these facts point to a powerful belief that the islands not far from the British coast were regarded as the homes of the various gods of the sun |
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Many classical writers stress the sanctity of islands and their inhabitation by priestesses with their strange rites and powers. |
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The pre-christian Celts believed islands were sacred places. The surviving evidence shows that islands were held to be major gateways to the Otherworld. |
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