Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

An excellent balance, 25 Dec 2008
I thought this might be just a picture book, but actually it's a surprisingly good combination of good illustrations ad useful, informative text. Great combination and a good book for experts and non-experts.

A Great Look at the Province of Britannia, 08 Aug 2008
Guy De La Bedoyere might be familiar to some for his infrequent appearances on Channel 4's Time Team. He is both a historian and an archaeologist, and therefore has some sound grounding in both fields, which is not to mention that he has already published thirteen books on this subject.

This title however is a New History of Roman Britain, making full use of some of the recent archaeological discoveries made in the field, as well as the most relevant discussions amongst historians and scholars.

The book is accessible and readable, and seems to be aimed at the layperson as well as the expert. The book is filled with up to 285 illustrations including photographs, maps and paintings.
It follows the history of Britain, from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tribes, to Caesar and later Claudius's invasions of the country. Along the way we learn about Suetonius Paulinius's conquest of Wales, Julius Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, Boudica's rebellion, Hadrian's Wall, the later campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus, the breakaway 'British' Empire of Allectus and Carausius, as well as Roman Britain before its fall.

Yet the book is much more than a chronological tour of the province. Bedoyere also describes life in Britain under the Romans. From the governing of the province, the army and the forts, the towns with their public baths, theatres and forums, industry and commerce, the countryside and the villas, as well as religion and the ordinary lives of the Romano-British citizens.

This book could be seen as the modern heir to the seminal 'A Companion to Roman Britain' by Peter Clayton. The only downside to this book is that, unlike Clayton's book, it does not contain an up-to-date gazetteer of Roman sites. Still, with that minor problem aside, this is probably the most readable and most up-to-date account of Roman Britain published. A good starting point for beginners, and a useful update for experts. Recommended!

Pretty Good overall, 25 Mar 2008
This is a good synopsis of the current (i must say one of many) view of the romans in britain, and unlike some of the others its well written and readable (despite what the increasingly right wing current archaeology says about it). He may be a bit annoying on the TV but Guy de la Bedoyere knows his onions. Im glad to see hes also taking more notice of the smaller less spectacular sites that made up most of the roman provinces rather than giving us a 300 page lecture on legionary bases or villas.


Rule Britannia, 14 Nov 2007
A well written and detailed account of Britain from the Iron Age,immediatly before the Roman Conquest to the end of Roman Britain, when it was a case of "Everyone to themselves".The book has many photographs both colour and black and white together with re-constructions of how it may have looked. The book covers a wide range of topics, Slavery, tombstones, coins, the army etc.The Boudiccan revolt even suggests that it is possible that Boudica was only a "bit player", more of a figurehead for the revolt. The book is a useful addition for student and armchair historian alike in this most interesting period of our nations history.

Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

An excellent balance, 25 Dec 2008
I thought this might be just a picture book, but actually it's a surprisingly good combination of good illustrations ad useful, informative text. Great combination and a good book for experts and non-experts.

A Great Look at the Province of Britannia, 08 Aug 2008
Guy De La Bedoyere might be familiar to some for his infrequent appearances on Channel 4's Time Team. He is both a historian and an archaeologist, and therefore has some sound grounding in both fields, which is not to mention that he has already published thirteen books on this subject.

This title however is a New History of Roman Britain, making full use of some of the recent archaeological discoveries made in the field, as well as the most relevant discussions amongst historians and scholars.

The book is accessible and readable, and seems to be aimed at the layperson as well as the expert. The book is filled with up to 285 illustrations including photographs, maps and paintings.
It follows the history of Britain, from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tribes, to Caesar and later Claudius's invasions of the country. Along the way we learn about Suetonius Paulinius's conquest of Wales, Julius Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, Boudica's rebellion, Hadrian's Wall, the later campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus, the breakaway 'British' Empire of Allectus and Carausius, as well as Roman Britain before its fall.

Yet the book is much more than a chronological tour of the province. Bedoyere also describes life in Britain under the Romans. From the governing of the province, the army and the forts, the towns with their public baths, theatres and forums, industry and commerce, the countryside and the villas, as well as religion and the ordinary lives of the Romano-British citizens.

This book could be seen as the modern heir to the seminal 'A Companion to Roman Britain' by Peter Clayton. The only downside to this book is that, unlike Clayton's book, it does not contain an up-to-date gazetteer of Roman sites. Still, with that minor problem aside, this is probably the most readable and most up-to-date account of Roman Britain published. A good starting point for beginners, and a useful update for experts. Recommended!

Pretty Good overall, 25 Mar 2008
This is a good synopsis of the current (i must say one of many) view of the romans in britain, and unlike some of the others its well written and readable (despite what the increasingly right wing current archaeology says about it). He may be a bit annoying on the TV but Guy de la Bedoyere knows his onions. Im glad to see hes also taking more notice of the smaller less spectacular sites that made up most of the roman provinces rather than giving us a 300 page lecture on legionary bases or villas.


Rule Britannia, 14 Nov 2007
A well written and detailed account of Britain from the Iron Age,immediatly before the Roman Conquest to the end of Roman Britain, when it was a case of "Everyone to themselves".The book has many photographs both colour and black and white together with re-constructions of how it may have looked. The book covers a wide range of topics, Slavery, tombstones, coins, the army etc.The Boudiccan revolt even suggests that it is possible that Boudica was only a "bit player", more of a figurehead for the revolt. The book is a useful addition for student and armchair historian alike in this most interesting period of our nations history.

This book truly gets you thinking or I love that oak tree am I wierd?, 03 Mar 2007
Into Mega/Meso/Neolithic stuff? Prehistory and Ancient monuments? and dare I say SACRED SITES? Then this is definitly for you. I struggled to put it down and probably managed to read it in two or three shifts!
It was the first time I had read any Francis Pryor stuff and I am now hooked as a fan. How sad can you get?

quote me -
"Archaeology is not rubbish really, you just have to analyse a lot of the stuff".


5 Stars are not enough!, 04 Jan 2006
If you only ever buy one book about 'old things in the ground', this should be it. Francis Pryor gives a fast-paced, highly readable account of his career as an archaeologist, and has a refreshingly dismissive approach to some of the traditionally presented facts of prehistory (e.g. pottery used as evidence of mass-movements of people in Europe.)

The story gives a very nice picture of the different interests that want a say in any significant new discovery, including New-Agers! But it was English Heritage who took a chain saw to the central tree of Seahenge, adding an interesting possible answer to the question "who's history is it, anyway?"

Brilliant, and it'll teach you 10 times more about prehistory than any textbook.

2007 update: I'm now biased; I met Francis when we invited 'Time Team' to dig a site on Anglesey last year. The man's as enthusiastic as his books.

Looking for liminals, 20 May 2004
Archaeology's a dirty business. For Francis Pryor it goes further - becoming muddy, peaty, mucky and worse. And that's ignoring the incoming tide filling excavations. Dusty, mucky or just plain wet, the business is rewarding. It tells us about the past and, hence, about ourselves. His focus is the British Isles, particularly eastern England, and how ancient societies there developed over time. In some cases the span of time is vast. Many of those developments have persisted to our day, while others were cast aside. Pryor neatly summarises the work of many years in this book. He describes the current thinking during his schooling, then demonstrates how new analysis techniques and data interpretation have overthrown old concepts.

Pryor is passionate about his field. He shares that passion expressively and it proves infectious. He doesn't hide disappointment or failure, because the successes reap rich rewards. He's found ancient pastures long hidden by modern farms. He's revealed tracks for livestock and humans alike. The pathways reveal indications of human value systems, the locations are sites of sacrifice and limits of family holdings. Burial sites, unlike our modern sterile cemetaries, are rich with artefacts hinting of social hierarchies. The distribution of the sites refute the notion that Western Europe was overrun by peoples invading from the east. War, he argues, never happened on the scale earlier writers described. Instead of closed villages, fortresses and stockades, Britain's early people were scattered widely, groupings based on family ties. The nearest thing to war was cattle rustling raids by young men expressing their prowess - perhaps even part of marriage rituals.

Pryor's best known find is the mis-named "Seahenge". At Holme-Next-the-Sea along the coast of The Wash, his team discovered an oak stockade. Within the circle of logs was an inverted oak stump. Pryor reluctantly accepts the media's designation for this site, although it by-passes the accepted definition of "henge". He wants to understand why such a structure was built is of greater importance to him. Unlike stone circles, the logs of Seahenge form a solid barrier. The stump, lacking evidence of being a burial site, remains an enigma, although Pryor offers a reasonable suggestion. Seahenge became of scene of conflict between science and New Age religionists. Pryor's account of the resolution of the issues makes wonderful reading. As does all the book.

Pryor offers insights into how the work of archaeology is done and what it reveals. Local conditions clearly set social systems. Seahenge, he asserts, was a local shrine of limited use and duration. It stands in sharp contrast to sites in use for millenia. He reminds us that most Neolithic communities, with their lifestyles and observances exceed the history of Christianity by a millennium or more. The wooden trackway at Flag Fen, he notes, was in use "from two centuries after the death of Tutankhamun to the lifetime of Christ". In other words, a wooden walkway was used and maintained for 1300 years. Such persistence, he argues, demonstrates that Neolithic Britons maintained a firm belief in a continuous state between the living and the dead. The walkway and other sites are described as liminals - transition zones where the living showed respect for the ancient dead.

With sets of photos displaying the working conditions and the finds, further enhanced by line drawing maps and diagrams, Pryor provides background and environment. His "Further Reading" list is brief and directed by chapter topics. Following many of his suggestions will lead you to academic libraries or expenditure for books rarely encountered in North America. Both are worth the effort and expenditure. A superb read with much new and exciting information, this book is a treasure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not what I expected, but good nonetheless!, 12 Jan 2004
I purchased this book, expecting to read quite a bit about the furore about the so-called 'desecration' of this site by archaeologists. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this aspect of the discovery of the monument was not the central theme of the book.

What we have here is an almost biographical account of Francis Pryor's life as an archaeologist. It starts in his early days as a post-grad student and describes his gradual acceptance of what has become his life 'quest' - investigation and interpretation of Neolithic landscapes on a wide scale. The book moves through his earlier work on Fengate and the Flag Fen area, and culminates in the Seahenge discovery, touching on the furore mentioned earlier, but using the discovery to pull together all the earlier threads in the book to put forward a coherent theory of what life was like in the Neolithic.

Because of this, I found the book to be an enjoyable, entertaining and educational read. Not so academic that it becomes difficult to follow, yet at the same time not pitched too low to become boring.

Recommended for anyone interested in the Neolithic.

Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

An excellent balance, 25 Dec 2008
I thought this might be just a picture book, but actually it's a surprisingly good combination of good illustrations ad useful, informative text. Great combination and a good book for experts and non-experts.

A Great Look at the Province of Britannia, 08 Aug 2008
Guy De La Bedoyere might be familiar to some for his infrequent appearances on Channel 4's Time Team. He is both a historian and an archaeologist, and therefore has some sound grounding in both fields, which is not to mention that he has already published thirteen books on this subject.

This title however is a New History of Roman Britain, making full use of some of the recent archaeological discoveries made in the field, as well as the most relevant discussions amongst historians and scholars.

The book is accessible and readable, and seems to be aimed at the layperson as well as the expert. The book is filled with up to 285 illustrations including photographs, maps and paintings.
It follows the history of Britain, from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tribes, to Caesar and later Claudius's invasions of the country. Along the way we learn about Suetonius Paulinius's conquest of Wales, Julius Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, Boudica's rebellion, Hadrian's Wall, the later campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus, the breakaway 'British' Empire of Allectus and Carausius, as well as Roman Britain before its fall.

Yet the book is much more than a chronological tour of the province. Bedoyere also describes life in Britain under the Romans. From the governing of the province, the army and the forts, the towns with their public baths, theatres and forums, industry and commerce, the countryside and the villas, as well as religion and the ordinary lives of the Romano-British citizens.

This book could be seen as the modern heir to the seminal 'A Companion to Roman Britain' by Peter Clayton. The only downside to this book is that, unlike Clayton's book, it does not contain an up-to-date gazetteer of Roman sites. Still, with that minor problem aside, this is probably the most readable and most up-to-date account of Roman Britain published. A good starting point for beginners, and a useful update for experts. Recommended!

Pretty Good overall, 25 Mar 2008
This is a good synopsis of the current (i must say one of many) view of the romans in britain, and unlike some of the others its well written and readable (despite what the increasingly right wing current archaeology says about it). He may be a bit annoying on the TV but Guy de la Bedoyere knows his onions. Im glad to see hes also taking more notice of the smaller less spectacular sites that made up most of the roman provinces rather than giving us a 300 page lecture on legionary bases or villas.


Rule Britannia, 14 Nov 2007
A well written and detailed account of Britain from the Iron Age,immediatly before the Roman Conquest to the end of Roman Britain, when it was a case of "Everyone to themselves".The book has many photographs both colour and black and white together with re-constructions of how it may have looked. The book covers a wide range of topics, Slavery, tombstones, coins, the army etc.The Boudiccan revolt even suggests that it is possible that Boudica was only a "bit player", more of a figurehead for the revolt. The book is a useful addition for student and armchair historian alike in this most interesting period of our nations history.

This book truly gets you thinking or I love that oak tree am I wierd?, 03 Mar 2007
Into Mega/Meso/Neolithic stuff? Prehistory and Ancient monuments? and dare I say SACRED SITES? Then this is definitly for you. I struggled to put it down and probably managed to read it in two or three shifts!
It was the first time I had read any Francis Pryor stuff and I am now hooked as a fan. How sad can you get?

quote me -
"Archaeology is not rubbish really, you just have to analyse a lot of the stuff".


5 Stars are not enough!, 04 Jan 2006
If you only ever buy one book about 'old things in the ground', this should be it. Francis Pryor gives a fast-paced, highly readable account of his career as an archaeologist, and has a refreshingly dismissive approach to some of the traditionally presented facts of prehistory (e.g. pottery used as evidence of mass-movements of people in Europe.)

The story gives a very nice picture of the different interests that want a say in any significant new discovery, including New-Agers! But it was English Heritage who took a chain saw to the central tree of Seahenge, adding an interesting possible answer to the question "who's history is it, anyway?"

Brilliant, and it'll teach you 10 times more about prehistory than any textbook.

2007 update: I'm now biased; I met Francis when we invited 'Time Team' to dig a site on Anglesey last year. The man's as enthusiastic as his books.

Looking for liminals, 20 May 2004
Archaeology's a dirty business. For Francis Pryor it goes further - becoming muddy, peaty, mucky and worse. And that's ignoring the incoming tide filling excavations. Dusty, mucky or just plain wet, the business is rewarding. It tells us about the past and, hence, about ourselves. His focus is the British Isles, particularly eastern England, and how ancient societies there developed over time. In some cases the span of time is vast. Many of those developments have persisted to our day, while others were cast aside. Pryor neatly summarises the work of many years in this book. He describes the current thinking during his schooling, then demonstrates how new analysis techniques and data interpretation have overthrown old concepts.

Pryor is passionate about his field. He shares that passion expressively and it proves infectious. He doesn't hide disappointment or failure, because the successes reap rich rewards. He's found ancient pastures long hidden by modern farms. He's revealed tracks for livestock and humans alike. The pathways reveal indications of human value systems, the locations are sites of sacrifice and limits of family holdings. Burial sites, unlike our modern sterile cemetaries, are rich with artefacts hinting of social hierarchies. The distribution of the sites refute the notion that Western Europe was overrun by peoples invading from the east. War, he argues, never happened on the scale earlier writers described. Instead of closed villages, fortresses and stockades, Britain's early people were scattered widely, groupings based on family ties. The nearest thing to war was cattle rustling raids by young men expressing their prowess - perhaps even part of marriage rituals.

Pryor's best known find is the mis-named "Seahenge". At Holme-Next-the-Sea along the coast of The Wash, his team discovered an oak stockade. Within the circle of logs was an inverted oak stump. Pryor reluctantly accepts the media's designation for this site, although it by-passes the accepted definition of "henge". He wants to understand why such a structure was built is of greater importance to him. Unlike stone circles, the logs of Seahenge form a solid barrier. The stump, lacking evidence of being a burial site, remains an enigma, although Pryor offers a reasonable suggestion. Seahenge became of scene of conflict between science and New Age religionists. Pryor's account of the resolution of the issues makes wonderful reading. As does all the book.

Pryor offers insights into how the work of archaeology is done and what it reveals. Local conditions clearly set social systems. Seahenge, he asserts, was a local shrine of limited use and duration. It stands in sharp contrast to sites in use for millenia. He reminds us that most Neolithic communities, with their lifestyles and observances exceed the history of Christianity by a millennium or more. The wooden trackway at Flag Fen, he notes, was in use "from two centuries after the death of Tutankhamun to the lifetime of Christ". In other words, a wooden walkway was used and maintained for 1300 years. Such persistence, he argues, demonstrates that Neolithic Britons maintained a firm belief in a continuous state between the living and the dead. The walkway and other sites are described as liminals - transition zones where the living showed respect for the ancient dead.

With sets of photos displaying the working conditions and the finds, further enhanced by line drawing maps and diagrams, Pryor provides background and environment. His "Further Reading" list is brief and directed by chapter topics. Following many of his suggestions will lead you to academic libraries or expenditure for books rarely encountered in North America. Both are worth the effort and expenditure. A superb read with much new and exciting information, this book is a treasure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not what I expected, but good nonetheless!, 12 Jan 2004
I purchased this book, expecting to read quite a bit about the furore about the so-called 'desecration' of this site by archaeologists. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this aspect of the discovery of the monument was not the central theme of the book.

What we have here is an almost biographical account of Francis Pryor's life as an archaeologist. It starts in his early days as a post-grad student and describes his gradual acceptance of what has become his life 'quest' - investigation and interpretation of Neolithic landscapes on a wide scale. The book moves through his earlier work on Fengate and the Flag Fen area, and culminates in the Seahenge discovery, touching on the furore mentioned earlier, but using the discovery to pull together all the earlier threads in the book to put forward a coherent theory of what life was like in the Neolithic.

Because of this, I found the book to be an enjoyable, entertaining and educational read. Not so academic that it becomes difficult to follow, yet at the same time not pitched too low to become boring.

Recommended for anyone interested in the Neolithic.

Essential, 11 Aug 2007
You might expect history written by the Master of the English language who also made some of it to be better placed than anyone, ever. He does not disappoint - it flows smoothly covering huge expanses of time and complex events in an engaging way.

He sticks absolutely to the point - power. The flow of political power. The actor's characters are deftly sketched to show their motivation and the so the whole thing comes alive and you read it like a novel, except you have to go slowly because so much is packed into each page.

Time and again the same themes emerge. Politics is inherently dirty. Good guys don't win (never give a sucker an even break) but neither do bad guys. Bad guys always fair worse if they break-the-code. In fact it seems that it is almost necessary for some extreme atrocity to occur before any period of stability.

This is how the book affected me. It made me think. Modern wars are not short-sighted, they are non-sighted. It took an amazing length of time and blood for the English government to so painfully, slowly, evolve.

I smiled at his dry comment on deteriorating behaviour during the wars of the roses "...followed by the now customary beheadings..."

You marvel with him on the courage of the chap who nailed the anti-Richard 111 doggerel on the door of the cathedral (and was presumably nailed to some other door by the king a year later - my words - Churchill avoids gruesome detail here but his allusion to it is the more menacing).

The prose is fantastic, so colourful, punchy and short and so original line after line. And I only needed the dictionary a few times! (to plash)

I am useless at Shakespeare but I understand Churchill's semantics/syntax first time, every time.

He playfully chides academic's "Bodicca" preferring "Boadicea". That's Churchill for you, a man of the people.

I picked up a copy of Simon Scharmer at the library (I quite enjoyed the TV series) read a paragraph, and then re-read some of it again and left it alone - too flowery and heavy a style. I don't have time to learn a new language.



As good as you would expect, 10 Jan 2003
Mr Churchill has taken on a huge subject and dealt with it fantastically. The speed of the book is just right and it is written with a feel and expression of ideas that I wasn't expecting.
The best point to note though is that he offers his own opinion on many occasions so you not only get a thoughtful perspective of history you also get an incite into a great man's view of other notable figures in English history.

Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

An excellent balance, 25 Dec 2008
I thought this might be just a picture book, but actually it's a surprisingly good combination of good illustrations ad useful, informative text. Great combination and a good book for experts and non-experts.

A Great Look at the Province of Britannia, 08 Aug 2008
Guy De La Bedoyere might be familiar to some for his infrequent appearances on Channel 4's Time Team. He is both a historian and an archaeologist, and therefore has some sound grounding in both fields, which is not to mention that he has already published thirteen books on this subject.

This title however is a New History of Roman Britain, making full use of some of the recent archaeological discoveries made in the field, as well as the most relevant discussions amongst historians and scholars.

The book is accessible and readable, and seems to be aimed at the layperson as well as the expert. The book is filled with up to 285 illustrations including photographs, maps and paintings.
It follows the history of Britain, from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tribes, to Caesar and later Claudius's invasions of the country. Along the way we learn about Suetonius Paulinius's conquest of Wales, Julius Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, Boudica's rebellion, Hadrian's Wall, the later campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus, the breakaway 'British' Empire of Allectus and Carausius, as well as Roman Britain before its fall.

Yet the book is much more than a chronological tour of the province. Bedoyere also describes life in Britain under the Romans. From the governing of the province, the army and the forts, the towns with their public baths, theatres and forums, industry and commerce, the countryside and the villas, as well as religion and the ordinary lives of the Romano-British citizens.

This book could be seen as the modern heir to the seminal 'A Companion to Roman Britain' by Peter Clayton. The only downside to this book is that, unlike Clayton's book, it does not contain an up-to-date gazetteer of Roman sites. Still, with that minor problem aside, this is probably the most readable and most up-to-date account of Roman Britain published. A good starting point for beginners, and a useful update for experts. Recommended!

Pretty Good overall, 25 Mar 2008
This is a good synopsis of the current (i must say one of many) view of the romans in britain, and unlike some of the others its well written and readable (despite what the increasingly right wing current archaeology says about it). He may be a bit annoying on the TV but Guy de la Bedoyere knows his onions. Im glad to see hes also taking more notice of the smaller less spectacular sites that made up most of the roman provinces rather than giving us a 300 page lecture on legionary bases or villas.


Rule Britannia, 14 Nov 2007
A well written and detailed account of Britain from the Iron Age,immediatly before the Roman Conquest to the end of Roman Britain, when it was a case of "Everyone to themselves".The book has many photographs both colour and black and white together with re-constructions of how it may have looked. The book covers a wide range of topics, Slavery, tombstones, coins, the army etc.The Boudiccan revolt even suggests that it is possible that Boudica was only a "bit player", more of a figurehead for the revolt. The book is a useful addition for student and armchair historian alike in this most interesting period of our nations history.

This book truly gets you thinking or I love that oak tree am I wierd?, 03 Mar 2007
Into Mega/Meso/Neolithic stuff? Prehistory and Ancient monuments? and dare I say SACRED SITES? Then this is definitly for you. I struggled to put it down and probably managed to read it in two or three shifts!
It was the first time I had read any Francis Pryor stuff and I am now hooked as a fan. How sad can you get?

quote me -
"Archaeology is not rubbish really, you just have to analyse a lot of the stuff".


5 Stars are not enough!, 04 Jan 2006
If you only ever buy one book about 'old things in the ground', this should be it. Francis Pryor gives a fast-paced, highly readable account of his career as an archaeologist, and has a refreshingly dismissive approach to some of the traditionally presented facts of prehistory (e.g. pottery used as evidence of mass-movements of people in Europe.)

The story gives a very nice picture of the different interests that want a say in any significant new discovery, including New-Agers! But it was English Heritage who took a chain saw to the central tree of Seahenge, adding an interesting possible answer to the question "who's history is it, anyway?"

Brilliant, and it'll teach you 10 times more about prehistory than any textbook.

2007 update: I'm now biased; I met Francis when we invited 'Time Team' to dig a site on Anglesey last year. The man's as enthusiastic as his books.

Looking for liminals, 20 May 2004
Archaeology's a dirty business. For Francis Pryor it goes further - becoming muddy, peaty, mucky and worse. And that's ignoring the incoming tide filling excavations. Dusty, mucky or just plain wet, the business is rewarding. It tells us about the past and, hence, about ourselves. His focus is the British Isles, particularly eastern England, and how ancient societies there developed over time. In some cases the span of time is vast. Many of those developments have persisted to our day, while others were cast aside. Pryor neatly summarises the work of many years in this book. He describes the current thinking during his schooling, then demonstrates how new analysis techniques and data interpretation have overthrown old concepts.

Pryor is passionate about his field. He shares that passion expressively and it proves infectious. He doesn't hide disappointment or failure, because the successes reap rich rewards. He's found ancient pastures long hidden by modern farms. He's revealed tracks for livestock and humans alike. The pathways reveal indications of human value systems, the locations are sites of sacrifice and limits of family holdings. Burial sites, unlike our modern sterile cemetaries, are rich with artefacts hinting of social hierarchies. The distribution of the sites refute the notion that Western Europe was overrun by peoples invading from the east. War, he argues, never happened on the scale earlier writers described. Instead of closed villages, fortresses and stockades, Britain's early people were scattered widely, groupings based on family ties. The nearest thing to war was cattle rustling raids by young men expressing their prowess - perhaps even part of marriage rituals.

Pryor's best known find is the mis-named "Seahenge". At Holme-Next-the-Sea along the coast of The Wash, his team discovered an oak stockade. Within the circle of logs was an inverted oak stump. Pryor reluctantly accepts the media's designation for this site, although it by-passes the accepted definition of "henge". He wants to understand why such a structure was built is of greater importance to him. Unlike stone circles, the logs of Seahenge form a solid barrier. The stump, lacking evidence of being a burial site, remains an enigma, although Pryor offers a reasonable suggestion. Seahenge became of scene of conflict between science and New Age religionists. Pryor's account of the resolution of the issues makes wonderful reading. As does all the book.

Pryor offers insights into how the work of archaeology is done and what it reveals. Local conditions clearly set social systems. Seahenge, he asserts, was a local shrine of limited use and duration. It stands in sharp contrast to sites in use for millenia. He reminds us that most Neolithic communities, with their lifestyles and observances exceed the history of Christianity by a millennium or more. The wooden trackway at Flag Fen, he notes, was in use "from two centuries after the death of Tutankhamun to the lifetime of Christ". In other words, a wooden walkway was used and maintained for 1300 years. Such persistence, he argues, demonstrates that Neolithic Britons maintained a firm belief in a continuous state between the living and the dead. The walkway and other sites are described as liminals - transition zones where the living showed respect for the ancient dead.

With sets of photos displaying the working conditions and the finds, further enhanced by line drawing maps and diagrams, Pryor provides background and environment. His "Further Reading" list is brief and directed by chapter topics. Following many of his suggestions will lead you to academic libraries or expenditure for books rarely encountered in North America. Both are worth the effort and expenditure. A superb read with much new and exciting information, this book is a treasure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not what I expected, but good nonetheless!, 12 Jan 2004
I purchased this book, expecting to read quite a bit about the furore about the so-called 'desecration' of this site by archaeologists. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this aspect of the discovery of the monument was not the central theme of the book.

What we have here is an almost biographical account of Francis Pryor's life as an archaeologist. It starts in his early days as a post-grad student and describes his gradual acceptance of what has become his life 'quest' - investigation and interpretation of Neolithic landscapes on a wide scale. The book moves through his earlier work on Fengate and the Flag Fen area, and culminates in the Seahenge discovery, touching on the furore mentioned earlier, but using the discovery to pull together all the earlier threads in the book to put forward a coherent theory of what life was like in the Neolithic.

Because of this, I found the book to be an enjoyable, entertaining and educational read. Not so academic that it becomes difficult to follow, yet at the same time not pitched too low to become boring.

Recommended for anyone interested in the Neolithic.

Essential, 11 Aug 2007
You might expect history written by the Master of the English language who also made some of it to be better placed than anyone, ever. He does not disappoint - it flows smoothly covering huge expanses of time and complex events in an engaging way.

He sticks absolutely to the point - power. The flow of political power. The actor's characters are deftly sketched to show their motivation and the so the whole thing comes alive and you read it like a novel, except you have to go slowly because so much is packed into each page.

Time and again the same themes emerge. Politics is inherently dirty. Good guys don't win (never give a sucker an even break) but neither do bad guys. Bad guys always fair worse if they break-the-code. In fact it seems that it is almost necessary for some extreme atrocity to occur before any period of stability.

This is how the book affected me. It made me think. Modern wars are not short-sighted, they are non-sighted. It took an amazing length of time and blood for the English government to so painfully, slowly, evolve.

I smiled at his dry comment on deteriorating behaviour during the wars of the roses "...followed by the now customary beheadings..."

You marvel with him on the courage of the chap who nailed the anti-Richard 111 doggerel on the door of the cathedral (and was presumably nailed to some other door by the king a year later - my words - Churchill avoids gruesome detail here but his allusion to it is the more menacing).

The prose is fantastic, so colourful, punchy and short and so original line after line. And I only needed the dictionary a few times! (to plash)

I am useless at Shakespeare but I understand Churchill's semantics/syntax first time, every time.

He playfully chides academic's "Bodicca" preferring "Boadicea". That's Churchill for you, a man of the people.

I picked up a copy of Simon Scharmer at the library (I quite enjoyed the TV series) read a paragraph, and then re-read some of it again and left it alone - too flowery and heavy a style. I don't have time to learn a new language.



As good as you would expect, 10 Jan 2003
Mr Churchill has taken on a huge subject and dealt with it fantastically. The speed of the book is just right and it is written with a feel and expression of ideas that I wasn't expecting.
The best point to note though is that he offers his own opinion on many occasions so you not only get a thoughtful perspective of history you also get an incite into a great man's view of other notable figures in English history.

Demolition job on new age paganism but little to say about our real pagan past, 01 Jul 2007
I bought this book hoping I would learn something about `the pagan religions of the ancient British Isles'. I did not, other than a few crumbs here or there because at Hutton states on page 341 (the last page) we cannot know anything about them as 'they perished along time ago and absolutely'. 'They are lost to us forever'. So there we are, 341 pages saying we cannot know anything - and we - or at least Hutton, does not.

I found this a very irritating book. Hutton appears to enjoy nothing more than demolishing the work of others. His principle target is the neo paganism that has sprung up in the last century, which in his view has no sound basis or lineage. He may be correct but the relish with which he goes about this task is not terribly attractive. He is a demolisher not a builder, which is the weakness of the book. Where he manages to provide content himself, it is mostly in the form of lists of things - like every ancient monument in the UK, or Roman gods. What he does not do is draw any insights from these lists that might shed some light on the answer the title of the book sets out to address. If Tescos can build a world class business by analysing customers shopping lists, I feel a decent scholar ought to be able to achieve a little more than Hutton does with the wealth of material available.

Where he does come across evidence of the persistence of pagan customs he typically rejects it as being unlikely to have survived so long and therefore assumes it to be a recent creation. My recollection is that the Iliad was supposedly passed down by oral tradition for a thousand years, and the Vedas for even longer. Why then is it implausible that we Brits cannot remember through our tales and traditions customs dating back 1500 years?

Hutton makes a distinction between magic - which he does agree has persisted, and religion, which in his view has not, however frankly the difference was lost on me, and comes across as about as useful a piece of academic hair splitting as debating how many angels you can get on a pin head. This does not of course mean that the particular example is not a pagan custom still in use, just that Hutton has not found anything in writing from the pagan past, complete with a date stamp to provide authentication. With such a high requirement of standard of evidence, nothing gets through his filters, and in fact he asserts that the Irish legends are little more than Christian stories as they were originally written down by Christian monks - with that conclusion there is clearly no need to study them further. In a similar vein, all British myths and customs are written off as little more than Greco-roman remnants - therefore again no value no further study. The Norse legends or similarly dispatched. My own recollection of the ancient stories that I have read is that this is not such an obvious conclusion. Nowhere does he provide any detailed arguments for these sweeping generalizations, nor does he go in for the kind of deep forensic analysis and cross referencing from multiple sources that is needed to start to unravel our Pagan past. We are, I assume, supposed to agree with his conclusions because as he frequently points out he is an `academic' as opposed to the mere amateurs that have dominated the field to date. One is therefore left unsatisfied by this rather shallow book. He does a successful demolition job on a lot of new age nonsense, but does not come up with anything better to replace it. Regrettably I bought two books by him from Amazon - I hope the second is better.

Staunch skepticism delightfully delivered, 13 Jun 2005
It's easy to envision Hutton tucked away in his Bristol University office wondering if anyone is still reading this book. Published just as the Internet was gaining wide-spread acceptance, it might have forestalled rash of neo-Druidism, Wiccan and other "pagan" cults the Web has fostered. For example, a search in these pages on "wicca", "pagan" and "druid" returns over 1 400 hits. The "wicca" books may be discounted immediately. Assessing reliable material on "pagan" and "druid" requires close investigation of references - which is the motivation for this book. Hutton insists on reliance on good sources and firm evidence. Modern "pagan" cults have no basis in historical or archaeological data. This work thus becomes a fine discourse on evidence from valid sources and what it can tell us about the people living in ancient Britain. Hutton carefully presents the evidence available from many millennia, declaring, among other things, that local customs far outweighed commonalty of customs.

Hutton's effort can only be called "sweeping" in scope. Using a chronological structure, he takes us from post-glacial British Isles through the invasion and conquest of the archipelago by Christianity. Early evidence lies in graves and their contents. Hutton shows the diversity of structures, body placement, location and other elements indicates that each community followed its own rules. Most, but not all, were adult males. Body orientation and "grave goods" varied with time and place. Even after Christianization local practices were retained for centuries. How far these practices reached into the past remains unproved in Hutton's view. Many "traditional" or "ancient" habits of recent decades likely originated in the 17th or 18th Centuries.

While building his picture of data reliability, he's scathingly critical of those "reading in" the evidence to create false images. The most flagrant of these is the recent "Mother-" or "Earth-Goddess" contrived by Marija Gimbutas and her adherents. Gimbutas finds "divinity" in nearly every artefact - "Venus" statuettes, painted images, carvings on bone. Hutton is more discerning, arguing that we might view the Venus figurines as dolls or invocation to household spirits. They are not, he contends, justifiably viewed as representing a single deity, nor even necessarily a deity at all. He applies this skeptical view to a number of other widely-held suppositions, asserting that what is claimed must be proven. That Gimbutas' unfounded claims for divinities have spread widely, even into university curricula, is sad testimony to the lack of attention Hutton's work has received.

Hutton is, in one sense, far too gentle in his approach in discounting the works of those misreading or inventing evidence. He asks for validation of claims where he could be directly contending with claimants. He has far too much respect for those who don't deserve it. He acknowledges, for example, that Robert Graves' "Triple Goddess" was an invention - as did Graves - but neither has quelled the ensuing adoration of the idea by a credulous public. Hutton also suffers from production cost woes. The illustrations in this book are nearly all line drawings of carvings, implements and figurines. While they illustrate his points, they are devoid of environment, leaving you wondering what else might be brought into the interpretation. There are some reproductions of paintings which strive for accuracy, but they are mostly indistinct. These illustrations are designed to convey the most likely cultural scenarios, but don't contribute to Hutton's presentation significantly. They can all be generally ignored, leaving the reader to concentrate on Hutton's presentation, which is admirable. If his efforts produce more excavations and research where these are lacking, then perhaps this book will have accomplished its aim. His writing is clear even where the evidence is not. Perhaps some of those taking this up will carry on the work to clarify what is missing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The twilight deepens, 09 Aug 2003
Hutton readdresses the evidence of pagan religious worship in the British Isles in a generally objective and rigorous manner that comes as a breath of fresh air in the incestuous, incense-fumed world of modern pagan scholarship. In particular, he convincingly dispels many of the romantic inventions that have grown up about the 'Celtic' era in the C20th regarding the triple-goddess, the 8-spoked wheel of the Celtic year, matrilinear kingships etc.

However, Hutton takes the same approach to the writings of Julius Caesar as many of the Celtic pseudo-scholars that he rightly criticises, namely to go along with his account as long as it accords with his own theory only to disregard him out of hand whenever he diverges from it. For instance, why would Caesar portray the Druids as believers in re-incarnation if that were not the case? He personally knew the druid Divitiacus so was in a good position to know what he was talking about. And if he wanted to convince his Roman audience of the need to conquer them, why portray them as high-minded natural philosophers? Would it not have made more sense for him to describe them as Tacitus did 150 years later as a bunch of barbarian shamans wallowing in human entrails?

However in his zeal to demolish many of the myths that have grown up around Celtic Iron Age culture he has created one or two of his own. For instance he claims that the stories of the Irish Tuatha de Danann and the Welsh Mabiniogion are fabrications of the Christian scribes that recorded them based on the Greek myths. But why would Christian scribes invent stories based on the lives of pagan Greek deities rather than tales that promote a Christian ethos? The Celtic 'pantheon' that they write of is entirely different to that of the Greeks in terms of the characters themselves, their relationship to each other and the stories of their deeds. None of these stories to my knowledge bears any resemblance to any Greek myth and many of them contain numerous excisions and amendments clearly designed to make them more palatable to a Christian audience. Eg, Arianrhod gives birth to Lleu and Dylan through the magic of her uncle Math. Later she refuses to acknowledge Lleu as her son, seeing him as a reminder of her 'shame'. This clearly indicates that the child was conceived by her uncle, but had been cleaned-up by a censorious scribe. There are many incongruities such as this which makes it impossible that the stories themselves were the inventions of Christian monks that wrote them down. Also no story teller worth his salt would invent tales as garbled and dramatically confusing as the stories of the Mabiniogion! Furthermore Arianrhod is the same character as Eithne daughter of Balor from the Tuatha who are clearly survivals from a pre-christian sensibility.

He suggests the White Horse of Uffington chalk figure as being Saxon in origin whereas it has recently been dated to the Bronze Age. This is a reminder that being over skeptical can be just as misleading as being over credulous when examining the evidence. Also his examination of the grail legend makes it clear that he writes from a subjectively Christian viewpoint.

In spite of these reservations I would recommend this book to anybody studying ancient Celtic culture as an invaluable reality check.

required reading for pagans everywhere, 13 Aug 2002
Whether you have read Triumph of the Moon or not this book is truly a must.
In true Hutton style he continues to explode myths, blast bogus theories, and sifts through the archeological evidence to produce as true a possible picture of paganism in the British Isles, and its conversion to christianity.
From the neolithic, running through briton, celt, roman, saxon, christianity and viking to neo-paganism he charts the course of belief and practice with his usual acerbic style, presenting fact before fiction, and debating such things as fugu's, hillforts, henges ,ley lines, rituals and sacrifice. Declining to proffer his own personal theories, he manages to make it readable, interesting to pagans and historians alike, with a plethora of sources, but dont take my word for it, like triumph of the Moon it is required reading for neo-pagans looking for their real roots and not a quaint myth to follow.

Excellent synopsis of ancient religions, 12 Jun 2000
Ronald Hutton's book is a masterly a survey of what we know, and more importantly what we don't know, and perhaps never will know about the pre-Christian religions of the British Isles. Standing as the book does at the beginning of Hutton's series on religion and ritual from antiquity to the present day, it is by the very nature of its subject (prehistory for the most part) the most generalised. Hutton, however, steadfastly resists the errors made by many populist writings on paganism and limits himself to what we know. Unfortunately we know very little indeed about what our pagan ancestors got up to. We can make some guesses, but as Hutton scrupulously points out -- guesswork is all it is for the most part. Yet as he says, he would never want that to stop any modern pagans from doing the guesswork and reconstructing a working pagan religion. Well worth reading first, and then going on to the others in the series -- 'Merrie England', 'Stations of the Sun' and his latest 'The Triumph of the Moon'.

Unique and interesting read, 31 Aug 2008
In terms of reliability as a historical source Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain ranges from just plausible to down right nonsensical but you can't take away the sheer brilliance of literary construct on the part of Geoffrey of Monmouth. The farther of Arthurian romance does not fail to entertain.

Only two criticisms which makes it a 4 instead of a 5 star read, Monmouth crams around 2000 years of history into about 250 pages, as such sometimes the book moves at such a pace he just lists kings without passing any comment on them making them instantly forgettable. The only chapter I didn't enjoy was the one on Merlin, I just find it too far out there, maybe it is because I'm a philistine but it just reads like the ramblings of a lunatic.

Must read for those interested in Arthur, 31 Jul 2008
This is the source of so many of the Arthur stories written later that it is an absolute Must Read for anyone interested in the topic. Fortunately for an old text, it's also easy reading as Monmouth has a good eye for a story (which is all history meant at the time).

As history, it's not at all reliable with the kind of distant relationship with anything that may have occured that the Iliad has to Mycenae. Do not treat as anything remotely resembling gospel as he's clearly made up chunks all over the place.

On the other hand, it is believed that he had access to welsh sources other than the Mabinogion, now lost and that alone would be reason to read him.

Not the easiest read but improtant if you are interested in the past, 13 Nov 2007
This needs reviewing on two levels. The easiest is the translation which is very clear on its sources from the various versions of Geoffrey which exist. It does not give too many footnotes in the text - I would have preferred more as I have little other background on the myth. As a first encounter with the text though this version is very accessible, within limits.

The actual tale as far as I can tell is written to condemn the Saxons (called Angles only once) and paint the real Britons as being of great stock, apparently descended from the Trojans and related to the Romans. The Britons have a long history full of strange names and detail - for example the source of King Lear! All very well until we hit Merlin and Uther Pendragon. There is the story of the conception of Arthur and a massive prophecy from Merlin who then mostly vanishes. The Arthur story has the sword Caliburn and Guinevere, noble knights and great battles. Unknown to me Arthur also conquers Iceland, France and Rome! In fact the book is riddled with attacks on Gaul or by Gaul, and Brittany is of course Amorica and really settled by the Britons. Arthur is betray by Mordred and vanishes of allowing the text to quickly pass through to the ultimate demise of the Britons (apart from a few scattered in the places now recognised as Celtic - Wales, Cornwall and so forth).

So the English are the baddies and thankfully the Normans sorted them out in 1066, but one day the Britons will rise with their King Arthur - what will we English do I wonder?

All in all an amusing read, and shows the power of politics and the seeds of the more modern legends.

Thrilling and exciting, 25 Apr 2002
For an twelfth century story-book writer, Monmouth does a very good job. His writing style is both entertaining and informative. He does tend to exaggerate quite a bit regarding accurate information, but the book makes a very good read, and there is a whole section devoted to the first fully developed legend of King Arthur.

An excellent balance, 25 Dec 2008
I thought this might be just a picture book, but actually it's a surprisingly good combination of good illustrations ad useful, informative text. Great combination and a good book for experts and non-experts.

A Great Look at the Province of Britannia, 08 Aug 2008
Guy De La Bedoyere might be familiar to some for his infrequent appearances on Channel 4's Time Team. He is both a historian and an archaeologist, and therefore has some sound grounding in both fields, which is not to mention that he has already published thirteen books on this subject.

This title however is a New History of Roman Britain, making full use of some of the recent archaeological discoveries made in the field, as well as the most relevant discussions amongst historians and scholars.

The book is accessible and readable, and seems to be aimed at the layperson as well as the expert. The book is filled with up to 285 illustrations including photographs, maps and paintings.
It follows the history of Britain, from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tribes, to Caesar and later Claudius's invasions of the country. Along the way we learn about Suetonius Paulinius's conquest of Wales, Julius Agricola's campaigns in Scotland, Boudica's rebellion, Hadrian's Wall, the later campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus, the breakaway 'British' Empire of Allectus and Carausius, as well as Roman Britain before its fall.

Yet the book is much more than a chronological tour of the province. Bedoyere also describes life in Britain under the Romans. From the governing of the province, the army and the forts, the towns with their public baths, theatres and forums, industry and commerce, the countryside and the villas, as well as religion and the ordinary lives of the Romano-British citizens.

This book could be seen as the modern heir to the seminal 'A Companion to Roman Britain' by Peter Clayton. The only downside to this book is that, unlike Clayton's book, it does not contain an up-to-date gazetteer of Roman sites. Still, with that minor problem aside, this is probably the most readable and most up-to-date account of Roman Britain published. A good starting point for beginners, and a useful update for experts. Recommended!

Pretty Good overall, 25 Mar 2008
This is a good synopsis of the current (i must say one of many) view of the romans in britain, and unlike some of the others its well written and readable (despite what the increasingly right wing current archaeology says about it). He may be a bit annoying on the TV but Guy de la Bedoyere knows his onions. Im glad to see hes also taking more notice of the smaller less spectacular sites that made up most of the roman provinces rather than giving us a 300 page lecture on legionary bases or villas.


Rule Britannia, 14 Nov 2007
A well written and detailed account of Britain from the Iron Age,immediatly before the Roman Conquest to the end of Roman Britain, when it was a case of "Everyone to themselves".The book has many photographs both colour and black and white together with re-constructions of how it may have looked. The book covers a wide range of topics, Slavery, tombstones, coins, the army etc.The Boudiccan revolt even suggests that it is possible that Boudica was only a "bit player", more of a figurehead for the revolt. The book is a useful addition for student and armchair historian alike in this most interesting period of our nations history.

This book truly gets you thinking or I love that oak tree am I wierd?, 03 Mar 2007
Into Mega/Meso/Neolithic stuff? Prehistory and Ancient monuments? and dare I say SACRED SITES? Then this is definitly for you. I struggled to put it down and probably managed to read it in two or three shifts!
It was the first time I had read any Francis Pryor stuff and I am now hooked as a fan. How sad can you get?

quote me -
"Archaeology is not rubbish really, you just have to analyse a lot of the stuff".


5 Stars are not enough!, 04 Jan 2006
If you only ever buy one book about 'old things in the ground', this should be it. Francis Pryor gives a fast-paced, highly readable account of his career as an archaeologist, and has a refreshingly dismissive approach to some of the traditionally presented facts of prehistory (e.g. pottery used as evidence of mass-movements of people in Europe.)

The story gives a very nice picture of the different interests that want a say in any significant new discovery, including New-Agers! But it was English Heritage who took a chain saw to the central tree of Seahenge, adding an interesting possible answer to the question "who's history is it, anyway?"

Brilliant, and it'll teach you 10 times more about prehistory than any textbook.

2007 update: I'm now biased; I met Francis when we invited 'Time Team' to dig a site on Anglesey last year. The man's as enthusiastic as his books.

Looking for liminals, 20 May 2004
Archaeology's a dirty business. For Francis Pryor it goes further - becoming muddy, peaty, mucky and worse. And that's ignoring the incoming tide filling excavations. Dusty, mucky or just plain wet, the business is rewarding. It tells us about the past and, hence, about ourselves. His focus is the British Isles, particularly eastern England, and how ancient societies there developed over time. In some cases the span of time is vast. Many of those developments have persisted to our day, while others were cast aside. Pryor neatly summarises the work of many years in this book. He describes the current thinking during his schooling, then demonstrates how new analysis techniques and data interpretation have overthrown old concepts.

Pryor is passionate about his field. He shares that passion expressively and it proves infectious. He doesn't hide disappointment or failure, because the successes reap rich rewards. He's found ancient pastures long hidden by modern farms. He's revealed tracks for livestock and humans alike. The pathways reveal indications of human value systems, the locations are sites of sacrifice and limits of family holdings. Burial sites, unlike our modern sterile cemetaries, are rich with artefacts hinting of social hierarchies. The distribution of the sites refute the notion that Western Europe was overrun by peoples invading from the east. War, he argues, never happened on the scale earlier writers described. Instead of closed villages, fortresses and stockades, Britain's early people were scattered widely, groupings based on family ties. The nearest thing to war was cattle rustling raids by young men expressing their prowess - perhaps even part of marriage rituals.

Pryor's best known find is the mis-named "Seahenge". At Holme-Next-the-Sea along the coast of The Wash, his team discovered an oak stockade. Within the circle of logs was an inverted oak stump. Pryor reluctantly accepts the media's designation for this site, although it by-passes the accepted definition of "henge". He wants to understand why such a structure was built is of greater importance to him. Unlike stone circles, the logs of Seahenge form a solid barrier. The stump, lacking evidence of being a burial site, remains an enigma, although Pryor offers a reasonable suggestion. Seahenge became of scene of conflict between science and New Age religionists. Pryor's account of the resolution of the issues makes wonderful reading. As does all the book.

Pryor offers insights into how the work of archaeology is done and what it reveals. Local conditions clearly set social systems. Seahenge, he asserts, was a local shrine of limited use and duration. It stands in sharp contrast to sites in use for millenia. He reminds us that most Neolithic communities, with their lifestyles and observances exceed the history of Christianity by a millennium or more. The wooden trackway at Flag Fen, he notes, was in use "from two centuries after the death of Tutankhamun to the lifetime of Christ". In other words, a wooden walkway was used and maintained for 1300 years. Such persistence, he argues, demonstrates that Neolithic Britons maintained a firm belief in a continuous state between the living and the dead. The walkway and other sites are described as liminals - transition zones where the living showed respect for the ancient dead.

With sets of photos displaying the working conditions and the finds, further enhanced by line drawing maps and diagrams, Pryor provides background and environment. His "Further Reading" list is brief and directed by chapter topics. Following many of his suggestions will lead you to academic libraries or expenditure for books rarely encountered in North America. Both are worth the effort and expenditure. A superb read with much new and exciting information, this book is a treasure. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not what I expected, but good nonetheless!, 12 Jan 2004
I purchased this book, expecting to read quite a bit about the furore about the so-called 'desecration' of this site by archaeologists. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this aspect of the discovery of the monument was not the central theme of the book.

What we have here is an almost biographical account of Francis Pryor's life as an archaeologist. It starts in his early days as a post-grad student and describes his gradual acceptance of what has become his life 'quest' - investigation and interpretation of Neolithic landscapes on a wide scale. The book moves through his earlier work on Fengate and the Flag Fen area, and culminates in the Seahenge discovery, touching on the furore mentioned earlier, but using the discovery to pull together all the earlier threads in the book to put forward a coherent theory of what life was like in the Neolithic.

Because of this, I found the book to be an enjoyable, entertaining and educational read. Not so academic that it becomes difficult to follow, yet at the same time not pitched too low to become boring.

Recommended for anyone interested in the Neolithic.

Essential, 11 Aug 2007
You might expect history written by the Master of the English language who also made some of it to be better placed than anyone, ever. He does not disappoint - it flows smoothly covering huge expanses of time and complex events in an engaging way.

He sticks absolutely to the point - power. The flow of political power. The actor's characters are deftly sketched to show their motivation and the so the whole thing comes alive and you read it like a novel, except you have to go slowly because so much is packed into each page.

Time and again the same themes emerge. Politics is inherently dirty. Good guys don't win (never give a sucker an even break) but neither do bad guys. Bad guys always fair worse if they break-the-code. In fact it seems that it is almost necessary for some extreme atrocity to occur before any period of stability.

This is how the book affected me. It made me think. Modern wars are not short-sighted, they are non-sighted. It took an amazing length of time and blood for the English government to so painfully, slowly, evolve.

I smiled at his dry comment on deteriorating behaviour during the wars of the roses "...followed by the now customary beheadings..."

You marvel with him on the courage of the chap who nailed the anti-Richard 111 doggerel on the door of the cathedral (and was presumably nailed to some other door by the king a year later - my words - Churchill avoids gruesome detail here but his allusion to it is the more menacing).

The prose is fantastic, so colourful, punchy and short and so original line after line. And I only needed the dictionary a few times! (to plash)

I am useless at Shakespeare but I understand Churchill's semantics/syntax first time, every time.

He playfully chides academic's "Bodicca" preferring "Boadicea". That's Churchill for you, a man of the people.

I picked up a copy of Simon Scharmer at the library (I quite enjoyed the TV series) read a paragraph, and then re-read some of it again and left it alone - too flowery and heavy a style. I don't have time to learn a new language.



As good as you would expect, 10 Jan 2003
Mr Churchill has taken on a huge subject and dealt with it fantastically. The speed of the book is just right and it is written with a feel and expression of ideas that I wasn't expecting.
The best point to note though is that he offers his own opinion on many occasions so you not only get a thoughtful perspective of history you also get an incite into a great man's view of other notable figures in English history.

Demolition job on new age paganism but little to say about our real pagan past, 01 Jul 2007
I bought this book hoping I would learn something about `the pagan religions of the ancient British Isles'. I did not, other than a few crumbs here or there because at Hutton states on page 341 (the last page) we cannot know anything about them as 'they perished along time ago and absolutely'. 'They are lost to us forever'. So there we are, 341 pages saying we cannot know anything - and we - or at least Hutton, does not.

I found this a very irritating book. Hutton appears to enjoy nothing more than demolishing the work of others. His principle target is the neo paganism that has sprung up in the last century, which in his view has no sound basis or lineage. He may be correct but the relish with which he goes about this task is not terribly attractive. He is a demolisher not a builder, which is the weakness of the book. Where he manages to provide content himself, it is mostly in the form of lists of things - like every ancient monument in the UK, or Roman gods. What he does not do is draw any insights from these lists that might shed some light on the answer the title of the book sets out to address. If Tescos can build a world class business by analysing customers shopping lists, I feel a decent scholar ought to be able to achieve a little more than Hutton does with the wealth of material available.

Where he does come across evidence of the persistence of pagan customs he typically rejects it as being unlikely to have survived so long and therefore assumes it to be a recent creation. My recollection is that the Iliad was supposedly passed down by oral tradition for a thousand years, and the Vedas for even longer. Why then is it implausible that we Brits cannot remember through our tales and traditions customs dating back 1500 years?

Hutton makes a distinction between magic - which he does agree has persisted, and religion, which in his view has not, however frankly the difference was lost on me, and comes across as about as useful a piece of academic hair splitting as debating how many angels you can get on a pin head. This does not of course mean that the particular example is not a pagan custom still in use, just that Hutton has not found anything in writing from the pagan past, complete with a date stamp to provide authentication. With such a high requirement of standard of evidence, nothing gets through his filters, and in fact he asserts that the Irish legends are little more than Christian stories as they were originally written down by Christian monks - with that conclusion there is clearly no need to study them further. In a similar vein, all British myths and customs are written off as little more than Greco-roman remnants - therefore again no value no further study. The Norse legends or similarly dispatched. My own recollection of the ancient stories that I have read is that this is not such an obvious conclusion. Nowhere does he provide any detailed arguments for these sweeping generalizations, nor does he go in for the kind of deep forensic analysis and cross referencing from multiple sources that is needed to start to unravel our Pagan past. We are, I assume, supposed to agree with his conclusions because as he frequently points out he is an `academic' as opposed to the mere amateurs that have dominated the field to date. One is therefore left unsatisfied by this rather shallow book. He does a successful demolition job on a lot of new age nonsense, but does not come up with anything better to replace it. Regrettably I bought two books by him from Amazon - I hope the second is better.

Staunch skepticism delightfully delivered, 13 Jun 2005
It's easy to envision Hutton tucked away in his Bristol University office wondering if anyone is still reading this book. Published just as the Internet was gaining wide-spread acceptance, it might have forestalled rash of neo-Druidism, Wiccan and other "pagan" cults the Web has fostered. For example, a search in these pages on "wicca", "pagan" and "druid" returns over 1 400 hits. The "wicca" books may be discounted immediately. Assessing reliable material on "pagan" and "druid" requires close investigation of references - which is the motivation for this book. Hutton insists on reliance on good sources and firm evidence. Modern "pagan" cults have no basis in historical or archaeological data. This work thus becomes a fine discourse on evidence from valid sources and what it can tell us about the people living in ancient Britain. Hutton carefully presents the evidence available from many millennia, declaring, among other things, that local customs far outweighed commonalty of customs.

Hutton's effort can only be called "sweeping" in scope. Using a chronological structure, he takes us from post-glacial British Isles through the invasion and conquest of the archipelago by Christianity. Early evidence lies in graves and their contents. Hutton shows the diversity of structures, body placement, location and other elements indicates that each community followed its own rules. Most, but not all, were adult males. Body orientation and "grave goods" varied with time and place. Even after Christianization local practices were retained for centuries. How far these practices reached into the past remains unproved in Hutton's view. Many "traditional" or "ancient" habits of recent decades likely originated in the 17th or 18th Centuries.

While building his picture of data reliability, he's scathingly critical of those "reading in" the evidence to create false images. The most flagrant of these is the recent "Mother-" or "Earth-Goddess" contrived by Marija Gimbutas and her adherents. Gimbutas finds "divinity" in nearly every artefact - "Venus" statuettes, painted images, carvings on bone. Hutton is more discerning, arguing that we might view the Venus figurines as dolls or invocation to household spirits. They are not, he contends, justifiably viewed as representing a single deity, nor even necessarily a deity at all. He applies this skeptical view to a number of other widely-held suppositions, asserting that what is claimed must be proven. That Gimbutas' unfounded claims for divinities have spread widely, even into university curricula, is sad testimony to the lack of attention Hutton's work has received.

Hutton is, in one sense, far too gentle in his approach in discounting the works of those misreading or inventing evidence. He asks for validation of claims where he could be directly contending with claimants. He has far too much respect for those who don't deserve it. He acknowledges, for example, that Robert Graves' "Triple Goddess" was an invention - as did Graves - but neither has quelled the ensuing adoration of the idea by a credulous public. Hutton also suffers from production cost woes. The illustrations in this book are nearly all line drawings of carvings, implements and figurines. While they illustrate his points, they are devoid of environment, leaving you wondering what else might be brought into the interpretation. There are some reproductions of paintings which strive for accuracy, but they are mostly indistinct. These illustrations are designed to convey the most likely cultural scenarios, but don't contribute to Hutton's presentation significantly. They can all be generally ignored, leaving the reader to concentrate on Hutton's presentation, which is admirable. If his efforts produce more excavations and research where these are lacking, then perhaps this book will have accomplished its aim. His writing is clear even where the evidence is not. Perhaps some of those taking this up will carry on the work to clarify what is missing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The twilight deepens, 09 Aug 2003
Hutton readdresses the evidence of pagan religious worship in the British Isles in a generally objective and rigorous manner that comes as a breath of fresh air in the incestuous, incense-fumed world of modern pagan scholarship. In particular, he convincingly dispels many of the romantic inventions that have grown up about the 'Celtic' era in the C20th regarding the triple-goddess, the 8-spoked wheel of the Celtic year, matrilinear kingships etc.

However, Hutton takes the same approach to the writings of Julius Caesar as many of the Celtic pseudo-scholars that he rightly criticises, namely to go along with his account as long as it accords with his own theory only to disregard him out of hand whenever he diverges from it. For instance, why would Caesar portray the Druids as believers in re-incarnation if that were not the case? He personally knew the druid Divitiacus so was in a good position to know what he was talking about. And if he wanted to convince his Roman audience of the need to conquer them, why portray them as high-minded natural philosophers? Would it not have made more sense for him to describe them as Tacitus did 150 years later as a bunch of barbarian shamans wallowing in human entrails?

However in his zeal to demolish many of the myths that have grown up around Celtic Iron Age culture he has created one or two of his own. For instance he claims that the stories of the Irish Tuatha de Danann and the Welsh Mabiniogion are fabrications of the Christian scribes that recorded them based on the Greek myths. But why would Christian scribes invent stories based on the lives of pagan Greek deities rather than tales that promote a Christian ethos? The Celtic 'pantheon' that they write of is entirely different to that of the Greeks in terms of the characters themselves, their relationship to each other and the stories of their deeds. None of these stories to my knowledge bears any resemblance to any Greek myth and many of them contain numerous excisions and amendments clearly designed to make them more palatable to a Christian audience. Eg, Arianrhod gives birth to Lleu and Dylan through the magic of her uncle Math. Later she refuses to acknowledge Lleu as her son, seeing him as a reminder of her 'shame'. This clearly indicates that the child was conceived by her uncle, but had been cleaned-up by a censorious scribe. There are many incongruities such as this which makes it impossible that the stories themselves were the inventions of Christian monks that wrote them down. Also no story teller worth his salt would invent tales as garbled and dramatically confusing as the stories of the Mabiniogion! Furthermore Arianrhod is the same character as Eithne daughter of Balor from the Tuatha who are clearly survivals from a pre-christian sensibility.

He suggests the White Horse of Uffington chalk figure as being Saxon in origin whereas it has recently been dated to the Bronze Age. This is a reminder that being over skeptical can be just as misleading as being over credulous when examining the evidence. Also his examination of the grail legend makes it clear that he writes from a subjectively Christian viewpoint.

In spite of these reservations I would recommend this book to anybody studying ancient Celtic culture as an invaluable reality check.

required reading for pagans everywhere, 13 Aug 2002
Whether you have read Triumph of the Moon or not this book is truly a must.
In true Hutton style he continues to explode myths, blast bogus theories, and sifts through the archeological evidence to produce as true a possible picture of paganism in the British Isles, and its conversion to christianity.
From the neolithic, running through briton, celt, roman, saxon, christianity and viking to neo-paganism he charts the course of belief and practic