King Arthur Pendragon .... Modern Druid. |
because they have raised the cost of parking at Stonehenge to £15 (about $18).
He believes that the charges make 'pagans too poor to pray'. Mr Pendragon has taken the case to Salisbury county court where he was granted a full court day to argue his case. He lost the case.
Mr Pendragon was born John Timothy Rothwell. Thirty years ago, he became convinced he was the reincarnation of the mythical King Arthur, and legally changed his name to King Arthur Uther Pendragon. Formerly he was a British Army soldier and a member of a biker gang. Now he is a pagan priest, along with another 4,000 people who identify themselves as druids in the U.K.
Druids Inciting the Britons to Oppose the Landing of the Romans ....... |
Modern Druidism is of course a a romantic made up version of what may have been believed by Celtic Druids wiped out by the Romans and has a number of different groups.
The new religion is based largely on the fictional ideas of some 17th and 18th-century writers, such as John Aubrey, a 17th-century writer and philosopher, who was the first to have claimed Stonehenge was a druid temple, but this has never been confirmed, they nonetheless revived and romanticised the concept. Due to his stance on wearing his own Druidic clothes while on remand for trespass (an offence he's been charged with a number of times), Neo-Druids on remand in H.M. Prisons are now allowed to wear their robes.
Arthur Pendragon is using the Christian tactic of victimisation to further his religion. Too bad it didn't stay dead after its decimation by the Romans, one less religion in the World is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteThe 'What If's' of history are one of my favourite genres of writings.
DeleteBut be careful what you ask for. For instance, no Roman Christianity, leaves the field to Mithraism, which was popular in the Army as well as elsewhere, and was one of a number of a group of religions known as the ‘mystery cults’.
There wouldn't have been one less religion, just at least one more religion, and very possibly several more. I am not including what Islam would have developed like with only Judaism as an example ...
Thanks for the comment Vroomfondel.
Yes, I too am a big fan of time travel stories but at the end of the day, "should'a could'a would'a" - as Judge Judy says.
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