Journal of Geomancy vol. 4 no. 2, January 1980
{5}
The section The Holy Grail of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King contains the following sad tale of Sir Bors:
“And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm,
And found a people there among their crags,
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left,
5Paynim amid their circles, and the stones
They pitch up straight to heaven; and their wise men
Were strong in that old magic which can trace
The wandering of the stars, and scoff’d at him
And this high quest as at a simple thing.
10Told him he follow’d – almost Arthur’s words –
A mocking fire: ‘what other fire than he
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows,
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm’d?’
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd,
15Hearing he had a difference with their priests,
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell
Of great piled stones; and lying bounded there
In darkness thro’ innumerable hours
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep
20Over him: till by miracle – what else? –
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell,
Such as no wind could move; and thro’ the gap
Glimmered the streaming scud. Then came a night
Still as the day was loud, and thro’ the gap
25The seven clear stars of Arthur’s Table Round
For, brother, so one night, because they roll
Thro’ such a round in heaven, we named the stars,
Rejoicing in ourselves and in your King
And these, the bright eyes of familiar friends,
30In on him shone: ‘And then to me, to me’,
Said good Sir Bors, ‘beyond all hopes of mine,
Who scarce had prayed or asked it for myself –
Across the seven clear stars – O grace to me! –
In colour like the fingers of a hand
35Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail
Glided and past, and close upon it peal’ d
A sharp quick thunder.’ Afterwards, a maid,
Who kept our holy faith among her kin
In secret entering, loosed and let him go.”
Here is a picture of a native pagan tradition (l. 4) including megaliths and astronomical knowledge (l. 5–8). Its followers are down-to-earth materialists who mock the knight’s transcendental quest (for the Holy Grail) as a futile search for the irreducible principle of vitality itself (1. 11–13). The Pleiades (l. 25) are known and adopted by Arthur’s knights, and magical help comes to Bors when the pagan spell is broken by a clap of thunder (l .37), allowing a fifth columnist to enter and release the knight. {6}
Malory’s Morte d’Arthur contains no passage of this kind. Malory’s Sir Bors is tempted, in traditional fashion, by a garden full of beautiful maidens. Perhaps another reader could report on the account in Geoffrey of Monmouth. These two are Tennyson’s prime sources. The works of Wace, Layamon and Manilius, plus the Mabinogion, were also familiar to Tennyson. It took Tennyson 26 years, from 1859, to compose the Idylls, and his research included days and weeks and months at a time on walking tours of Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. He visited the pagan sites at first hand and spoke to local inhabitants at a time when their culture was still relatively intact. Unpublished ballads from his Welsh visits are in the British Museum.
Is local tradition enough to explain Tennyson’s knowledge of astronomical megalithic lore? The Idylls were published 24 years before Sir Norman Lockyer’s work on the astronomical significance of Stonehenge. However, Michael Balfour’s new book on Stonehenge reveals that the first astronomical theory came in John Smith’s work of 1771, Choir Gaur. Was Tennyson familiar with this? We do not know. At any rate, the hypothesis of ancient pagan astronomical technology was a literary commonplace in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, although it died and had to be resurrected in our own time.
* My thanks are due to Alison Hennegan for information on Tennyson’s life and work.