stone circle montage

Circle Line

Overview

Rings and circles in literature and legend

'Stone circles,' said Miranda.

'Like Stonehenge,' said Quintin.

'Like Stonehenge,' said Miranda. 'And like many other stone circles dating to between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age in Britain. If you could be transported backwards in time to around 2000 BC, you would find hundreds of them in use.'

'Sir Arthur Evans reconstructed whole rooms at Knossos from the fragments of plaster he found during his excavations of the Palace of Minos, near Iraklion on the island of Crete, dating to the Minoan Period,' said Quintin, 'and one in particular has a beautiful pattern of interconnecting spirals snaking around it.'

'And if you could fast-forward from there about fifteen hundred years to the British Iron Age,' he said, 'you would find beautiful metalwork with intricate designs of interlacing ribbons, circles and interconnecting spirals.'

'And Bronze Age round barrows still in use as territorial markers,' he added.

'So they were using designs in Britain similar to those found on Minoan Crete?' asked Miranda.

'And in Buddhist art,' said Quintin.

'Well then, this is the bedrock upon which all these legends and romances rest,' she said. 'All the fairytale and mythology, the strange stories and weird writings that have survived the centuries in the form of mediaval romance and Arthurian legend. All the wierdness that nobody seems to want to explain.'

'Like a ring that confers to its wearer an invulnerability to death,' said Quintin. 'Sir Perceval of Galles has acquired one when he travels into the Land of Maidens. Floris is given one by his mother before going off to find Blancheflour, whose tomb he has just been looking at. Cristabel gives one to Sir Eglamour of Artois before she is sent out to sea in a rudderless boat with her baby son, towards a beach in a land where she will quickly become the daughter of the King of Egypt.'

'Sir Gawain is given one,' said Miranda. 'Not a ring to wear on his finger but a girdle, like a belt, to be worn around his waist. The woman who gives it to him says it will protect him from all harm. He then survives an axe blow that must surely have been expected to kill him. The knights of the Round Table all adopt a similar garment as a sash when he returns, as though such a thing might have been significant.'

'There is circularity in plot as well,' said Quintin. 'In the medieval romances. Everything seems to go around in a big circle. The hero or heroine falls from grace and then recovers their lost wealth and esteem, and very often a lost wife, husband or sweetheart in the end.'

'That is the Wheel of Fortune,' said Miranda. 'King Arthur dreams about one in the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Sir Owain sees one in Purgatory. A great many of these medieval romances seem to be about a journey on this wheel, from the top to the very bottom and then back up again to the top. And it is strange how the hero or heroine often assumes a disguise or conceals their true identity at some point on their journey around this circle. But there is one other kind of circularity as well.'

'What is that?'

'Endless repetition,' said Miranda. 'Using the same motifs over and over again. You can see them in so many of these different strata: in Irish mythology, Norse mythology, Ancient Athenian drama, Ancient Greek mythology, medieval romance, Arthurian legend… giants: lakes and seas; snakes and dragons; apples…'

'…disguise,' said Quintin. 'The exchange of identity; hidden origins…'

'…the concealment of identity,' interrupted Miranda. 'There's so much of it, it's endemic.'

Take a quick tour

The Circle Line passes through a succession of places in time and location where rings or circles or the revolution of endless repetition is to be found in literature, legend or mythology. Click or tap on the circles and tunnel markers to dive deeper into the discoveries that Quintin and Miranda have made. Alternatively, click or tap on the large yellow button for a quick journey through the summaries. Click or tap on any summary to dive deeper.

Rings and circles

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Irish Mythology, Breton Lais and Medieval Romance

Tuatha de Danaan, Guigemar and Generydes

Ancient Irish legend | 12th century Old French | 14th century, Middle English: Trinity College, Cambridge.

'The deer has led you here, the one you have been chasing all day. He has guided you here.'

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Robert de Boron: Merlin

Early-thirteenth century, Old French.

King Pendragon then speaks to another well-dressed gentleman who admits to being Merlin, and who admits to having been the other gentleman as well.

Minoan, Iron Age and modern Buddhist decoration

Artistic Styles: Minoan Crete, Iron Age Britain and 17th century Tibet

Second millennium BC | First millennium BC | 17th century AD.

The spiral decoration on British Iron Age metalwork and on pottery and frescoes dating to the Minoan era is similar to a 17th century decoration surrounding the picture of a Tibetan deity.

Iron Age, Minoan and Bronze Age Decoration

Artistic Styles: Iron Age Britain, Scandinavia, Mycenaean Greece

4th century BC | 14th century BC.

Perhaps these interconnecting spirals give expression to some deeper-held belief, perhaps that discrete objects, or living people, might be formed from a single thread, or soul.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

The sword Excalibur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

An arm and a hand came above the water and caught the sword, and brandished it three times, and then vanished with the sword into the water.

Votive Offerings

Swords

Iron Age to Medieval, River Witham, Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, England.

Complete swords were thrown into the river as votive offerings as recently as the time that Geoffrey Chaucer was alive.

Iron Age Britain

Hoards: The Snettisham Treasure

1st century BC, British Iron Age, Snettisham, Norfolk, England.

'Everyone will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pyre, and with whatever he himself has buried in the earth.'

Bronze Age Mediterranean

Minoan Votive Offerings and Egyptian Scarab Beetles

19th–15th century BC, Minoan culture: Crete and the southern Aegean.

Votive offerings in sanctuaries on Minoan Crete included Scarab beetles – just as in Egypt where they were put into a coffin with a body; dung beetles able to bring new life out of crud.

Ancient Athens

The Eleusinian Mysteries: Demeter and her daughter Percephone

Classical Greece, Eleusis, near Athens, Greece.

The Mycenaean culture of Greece in 1500 BC , in further imitation of Crete, perhaps allowed their citizens to retain a Nature goddess at Eleusis.

Ancient Athens

The Eleusinian Mysteries: Demeter and her daughter Percephone

Classical Greece, Eleusis, near Athens, Greece.

Percephone has to spend eight months in the sunlight with her mother and four months in the subterranean depths with her husband Hades each year.

Ancient Athens

Plato

5th century BC, Ancient Greek, Athens.

I have heard it said that Dionysus was celebrated here in Greece over a thousand years ago, long before Zeus arrived. And the City Dionysia and the Eleusinian Mysteries keep alive the old ways.

Ancient Rome

Cicero: The Nature of the Gods

1st century BC, Latin, Rome.

The Eleusinian Mysteries acquaint us with the nature of the material universe rather that that of the gods.

Celtic Christianity

The Vision of Tundale

12th century, Latin, translations into 15th century Middle English: British Library, London; Bodleian Library, Oxford; National Library of Scotland.

Fiends were laying souls out upon the iron and these souls were consumed into the stinking heat and melted like wax in a pan then re-formed so that the process could begin all over again.

Medieval Hagiography: Lives of the Christian Saints

The South English Legendary, Sir Owain and Saint Patrick's Purgatory

14th century, Middle English: British Museum, Corpus Christi College Cambridge | National Library of Scotland.

The wheel was turning; it was huge and all ablaze like a revolving torch with hooks protruding from it everywhere.

Pagan Burials and Transport

The Poetic Edda and Ynglinga Saga

13th century, Old Norse, Iceland.

Brynhild drove the wagon down the rode that leads to Hel until she came to the house of a giantess.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English. Numerous printed copies.

The daughter dressed in white carries a golden chalice filled with wine and water in which a snake is curled. She is able, we are told, to kill and to raise again to life.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English deliberately looking back to Middle English forms. Numerous printed copies.

Knights ride from the court of the Faerie Qveene, the Elf Queen of popular Medieval English legend, out into a land where they often encounter Prince Arthur. King Arthur before he became king.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English. Numerous printed copies.

Never was a heart so ravished, nor a man graced by such words as she spoke to me all that night, and at her parting she told me that she was called the Queene of Faeries.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English. Numerous printed copies.

She asked if, when the life of her eldest son was taken, his soul might be allowed to pass into the second of the brothers, and so with the second into the third.

Prehistoric Britain

Seahenge

2050 BC, Norfolk, East Anglia, England.

Perhaps showing a child that, beneath the surface, usually hidden and unseen, a network of roots extends in all directions.

Prehistoric Britain

Avebury in Wiltshire

Neolithic stone circle, Wiltshire, England.

The late-Neolithic outer stone circle at Avebury is the largest of its kind in England.

Prehistoric Britain

Invasions, migrations and continuity in pre-Christian Britain

Late Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Britain.

Bronze Age round barrows respect ancient land holdings that remained in place throughout the Bronze Age, into the Iron Age and even up to Romano-British times.

Prehistoric Britain

Stone Circles in Cornwall

Second millennium BC, Cornwall, England.

The circle in late-Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain may have had a religious significance.

The Isles of Scilly

Passage Graves, causeways and isles in the west

Second millennium BC | 13th century AD, Cornwall, England.

The Isles of Scilly are littered with old Bronze Age passage graves and cairns, far more than anywhere else in Britain, and the islands may once have been linked by causeways that medieval legend remembered.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Old French pre-Vulgate Lancelot

13th century, Old French.

Sir Lancelot takes on thirteen different disguises between his initial presentation at King Arthur’s court and the disclosure of his name to the King near the end of this romance.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Stanzaic Le Morte Arthur

14th century, Middle English, British Library.

At the last moment, a knight arrives to defend the Queen. But nobody knows who he is. Sir Lancelot speaks to King Arthur as though he is a stranger.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

'Sir,' said a knight to Balin. 'Your shield is too small. I will lend you a bigger one.' And so Balin took the unfamiliar shield, leaving his own behind.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

King Arthur watched Sir Tristram perform such marvellous deeds of arms and wondered who this knight could be, for it wasn’t Sir Lancelot and neither, as far as he knew, could it be Sir Tristram.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur

15th century, late-Medieval English.

Sir Palamedes had all the comfort that he could have expected that night. But Sir Tristram did or said nothing that might give away his true identity.

Medieval Arthurian Legend

The Middle English Tale of Sir Perceval of Galles

14th century, Middle English, Lincoln Cathedral Library.

'The ring that was stolen from me has a stone that is unique. Whoever wears it cannot be hurt or killed by any blow in battle.'

Medieval Arthurian Legend

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

14th century, Middle English, British Museum, London.

Whoever wears this green circular waistband cannot be wounded by any man in battle, for there is no man on Earth who can kill him.

Medieval Romance

The Tale of Sir Eglamour of Artois

14th century, Middle English: 15th and 16th century manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Lincoln Cathedral Library, British Library, Bodleian Library.

'Whether you are on water or on land, if this ring is on one of your fingers, you cannot be killed.'

Medieval Romance

The Story of Floris and Blancheflour

12th century, Old French | 13th century Middle English retelling in manuscript copies at Cambridge University Library, British Library, National Library of Scotland.

'Take this ring, son. While you are wearing it, you need fear nothing. Fire will not burn you, the sea will not drown you and iron and steel will not be able to cut you.'

Medieval Romance

A Good Tale of Ipomadon

12th century, Anglo-Norman French, Hue de Rotelande | 15th century Middle English verse translation at Chetham's Library Manchester.

'Sir, how do you know my name!'
'We were once friends,' replied Ipomadon. 'Yesterday I jousted here in white and today I am in red.'

Middle English Breton Lais

The Middle English (Arthurian) Breton Lai of Sir Cleges

15th century, Middle English: National Library of Scotland, Bodleian Library Oxford.

'This can’t be dear Sir Cleges, he died a long time ago.'

Old French Tales from Brittany

Marie de France: The Story of Guigemar

12th century, Old French: British Library, Bibliothèque Nationale Paris.

A bed was draped with silk and at the boat's prow were two candelabra with lighted candles. The lady climbed aboard, telling herself that it was in this place that Guigemar had drowned.

Elizabethan English Poetry

Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene

16th century, Elizabethan English. Numerous printed copies.

And now, once again, the maiden Britomatis will be taken for a knight and will be forced to give a good account of herself with her sword and with her lance.

Middle English Breton Lais

The Tale of Emaré

14th century, Middle English: British Library.

Now this lady drifted in the boat for seven nights and more. She lay still in the bottom of the boat and was taken by the tides and the currents to the city of Rome.