British myth and folk tales and the 'law of the land'
Changing the cultural mythology
A couple of years ago, I was asked to give a talk about whether the native myths and folklore of the British Isles can be seen as offering a kind of ‘law’ for living well: whether, as is clearly the case in some other indigenous traditions, there are ‘sacred instructions’ – rules for living in balance and harmony with the natural world. The short answer is yes, for sure: although we don’t have a clear set of defined written or oral guidelines, the principles are there to see in so many of the stories that have survived the passing of time and have been handed down to us. Although I wanted to share my ideas on this with you all, to write about this in detail would take forever, so what follows is a brief rather than an intensive discussion of some relevant themes. There’s more evidence of how the land was respected in the many law tracts that have been written down over the past fifteen hundred years or so – and so, for example, in Ireland’s Brehon laws there are instructions for valuing certain trees – but again, for the sake of simplicity, I’m focusing on stories.
I’d love it if you know of any other examples that I’ve missed, and could share them in the comments below – bearing in mind that I am always very focused on British and European traditions, not the traditions of other people whose complex and often very different cultures I wouldn’t be qualified to comment on.
Image: Jean-Léon Gérome: ‘Truth coming out of her well’, 1896.
Wastelands and inundations
The first examples that spring to mind are those covered in my 2016 book If Women Rose Rooted. These are examples of punishment for not living in balance and harmony with the natural world – and with the Otherworld which is entangled with it (more on that below). And so we find, after King Amangon’s rape of the Otherworldly well maidens, disrespecting both the feminine and the lifegiving gifts of the Otherworld, and so breaking the contract between people and the Otherworld, then the fertile land becomes a Wasteland.
The Wasteland is a common myth in medieval literature, and is especially prevalent in the Arthurian legends – especially the French romances. In French, the Wasteland is called ‘La Terre Gaste’ (‘gaste’ means ‘destroyed’); the old texts are also filled with Waste Cities, Waste Castles, and even Waste Chapels. The Arthurian Wasteland is always geographically situated; it is a defined landscape. It also relates to the relationship of humans to their environment. It is characterised by depopulation, often accompanied by a scattering of people from urban areas into the outlying regions of the countryside. It is defined by the infertility of nature, failure of agriculture, and a crisis of kingship and political order. In ‘The Elucidation’ (the medieval document from which the story of the rape of the well-maidens came) it’s also a profound disruption of the natural order: nothing green would grow, and the fields have become sterile. A Wasteland normally occurs as a consequence of an act of profound violence, or similar wrongdoing.
In other early Celtic literature and folklore (from Ireland, Wales and Brittany) the motif of flooding also occurs. Sometimes an inundation can be an alternative to the Wasteland, as a punishment for misdeeds. It’s a sweeping away, or a sweeping clean. On other occasions, an inundation can happen through carelessness and lack of attention to the tasks that are given to you; a typical such story is founded on the motif of a woman forgetting to put the lid back on a powerful well which consequently overflows and drowns a portion of the land.
What these stories clearly tell us is that the following must be respected: the land, and its abundance; the Otherworld and all of its messengers; the feminine. If they are disrespected, there will be consequences: the gifts of the Otherworld will be withdrawn – and see how you like that!