The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

IntroductionI believe that myths and legends, while appearing to be pure fabrication hallowed by constant repetition, actually have their roots in a deep and abiding truth that can only be expressed through symbol and allegory. As a substratum of the main truth which is universal, there often lies a stratum of a more local and literal truth, an ancient event or belief that sparks off a chain of linked stories about a particular place. Many legends suggest that Glastonbury Tor in the sixth century was the scene of a confrontation between the old religion and the new. In an imaginative fusion of several crucial legends from Glastonbury’s past I hope to give some insight into the living truth that they, together, illuminate. The setting — Glastonbury, Somerset — has been described by Anthony Roberts in his book Glastonbury: Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem as ‘an enchanted area of land — that generates and guards a powerful magic... the symbol of a great and holy mystery’. Frances Howard-Gordon, after asking why so many myths and legends are associated with Glastonbury in her book Glastonbury: Maker of Myths, concludes: ‘there is a certain quality about the place, in the weird and wonderful landscape, in the peculiar shade of light, in the air we breathe...’ It is not for nothing that Glastonbury has continued to be a place of pilgrimage for so many centuries — that generation after generation have sought the secret meaning of their lives there — that today a visit to it is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in the dawning of a New Age in this troubled and crippled world...