A game-changing exploration of the 'small gods' of nature and everyday life in Britain from the Iron Age to the late Middle Ages. It addresses fauns and satyrs, fairies and elves, nymphs and forest sprites - shadowy deities of fate and chance - who dance their elusive way through Britain's history.
This Element examines hierarchical and clerical understandings of witchcraft within the contemporary Roman Catholic church. It explores whether it is possible to adopt any kind of coherent approach to a phenomenon appraised so differently across different cultures that the church's responses in one context are likely to seem irrelevant in another.
The book presents a compelling argument that magic has played a crucial role in Britain's cultural and political landscape, rivaling the influence of religion throughout history. It explores how magical practices and beliefs have shaped societal norms and power dynamics, offering insights into their significance in various historical contexts. Through detailed analysis, the author reveals the intricate relationship between magic and the evolution of British identity.
What buried secret lies beneath the stones of one of England's greatest former churches and shrines, the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds? As Edmund: In Search of England's Lost King suggests, present obscurity may conceal a find as significant as the emergence from beneath a Leicester car-park of the remains of Richard III. For Bury, Francis Young now reveals, is the probable site of the body - placed in an `iron chest' but lost during the Dissolution of the Monasteries - of Edmund: martyred monarch of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia and, well before St George, England's first patron saint. After the king was slain by marauding Vikings in the 9th century, the legend which grew up around his murder led to the foundation in Bury of one of the pre-eminent shrines of Christendom. In showing how Edmund became the pivotal figure around whom Saxons, Danes and Normans all rallied, this fascinating book points to the imminent rediscovery of the ruler who created England.