Warriors of the Wasteland

This is one of those books that is so dense with rich detail one has to give either an exceptionally extensive review, or an inadequate, brief summary – there is no middle way. Unfortunately, time and page space dictate that this review will have to be of the latter kind. Essentially, Grigsby has identified a revolutionary way of interpreting the Grail legend and certain other elements of the "Matter of Britain". It is not a fanciful or lightweight play with symbolism either, for its starting point is the brute archaeological fact of "bog bodies", the hundreds of Iron Age corpses and body parts that over the years have been found relatively well-preserved in numerous peat moors and marshes in Britain and north-west Continental Europe. Among the more famous examples are "Tollund Man" from Denmark (so well preserved that he still had stubble on his chin and a noose around his neck) and the three bodies or parts thereof from Lindow Moss in Cheshire. The most complete set of these latter remains, "Lindow II", was a male who had worn only a fox-fur armband at the time of his death caused by an axe blow to his head, and also had been garrotted and had had an incision made in his jugular vein. Many such bog bodies show similar evidence of multiple violent causes of death, particularly this threefold form of execution. Many of them also had red hair, and in a few cases there is some surviving evidence they had been painted or dyed green or some other vivid colour, and where the remains were sufficient to allow examination of stomach contents, last meals had typically consisted of forms of cereals or nuts. In the case of Tollund Man the cereals had been tainted by the ergot fungus – a natural form of LSD. This was true of some other bog bodies too. Grigsby places these Iron Age bog bodies firmly in a sacrificial context, and with a dazzling display of detective work traces associations between them and major motifs in the Grail Legend – such as the cup of the grail, the dolorous stroke, the wounded Fisher King, the wasteland, the Green Knight, the questioning of the grail, the Salmon of Wisdom, and so forth – by comparing and analysing elements in ancient myths and rituals from pagan and Christian Celtic, Continental and even Egyptian and Indian sources. He convincingly teases out thematic threads involving the etymology of names, the pairing or "twinning" of certain mythic characters, wounded/castrated gods, events and animals (such as cattle, bulls, oxen, boars, wolves) that recur in different myths, "triple deaths" of kings and other mythic characters, associations with water, revolving castles, cauldrons of rebirth and healing, the importance of soma and other magical drinks, and much more. He ends up identifying what he feels to be the fragmented echoes of a shamanistic Neolithic religion involving a lunar god who died and was reborn in imitation of the agricultural cycle. This god is glimpsed in the Fisher King and in the Celtic Iron Age was transubstantiated by the agency of the sacrificial individuals who became the bog bodies. These associations are far from superficial, and their complexities can only be appreciated by reading the book, but as an example let's take just one of Grigsby's many threads, that involving the Salmon of Wisdom motif. In Celtic myth, the salmon lived in a well alongside which grew magical hazel trees whose nuts yielded wisdom when eaten. Some of these nuts fell into the well and were eaten by the Salmon which absorbed the wisdom. The fish was caught and cooked, during which process a mythic character (Fionn mac Cumhal) touches the salmon's juices with his thumb which he sucks, inadvertently gaining the Salmon's wisdom. Lindow III, the third bog body found at the Cheshire site, had eaten hazlenuts prior to death, and suffered from polydactylism – he had two thumbs on each hand. Grigsby then further cross-references these associations with others, producing a Celtic knotwork of meaning. Grigsby argues that the Iron Age bog bodies resulted from a sacrificial ritual involving oracular activities using the victim's head. That there was a pagan Celtic head cult is well known, and the story of Bran in the Mabinogion, whose decapitated head could speak and entertain his comrades, hints at an oracular basis for that cult. Grigsby believes that this ritual activity was an attempt by the Iron Age Celts to recapture a Neolithic religion which had been partially eclipsed by a solar-based religion brought into Europe from Aryan sources, a religion that did not erase the older beliefs but reversed some of their meanings. But again, the book itself has to be read to follow this argument properly. Warriors of the Wasteland is very strong in identifying Celtic themes that could explain the bog bodies in the context of the underlying motifs of the Grail legend. It gets weaker (though is not necessarily mistaken) as its case is pressed further and wider, and is perhaps slightly over-ambitious for a first book. Grigsby also introduces Jungian material along the way which even if possibly valid nevertheless muddies the water, a bit like a peat bog. In addition, Grigsby never properly sorts out how an actual natural disaster (now widely thought to have occurred during Europe's later prehistoric era) might have affected his arguments. Furthermore, for an author who has a degree in prehistoric archaeology, some elements of Grigsby's bibliography are rather secondary and tertiary, a few are disappointing, and he omits some pieces of evidence that could have strengthened his case. Also, it would have been good to have had a chart so that the reader could refer to it for periodic checks and cross-references to help keep oriented in the plethora of mythic detail the book contains. (This really should be done for any new edition.) But all these are relative criticisms, for this book opens a whole new chapter on understanding the Grail mystery, and as such is a notable achievement and well-worth reading.