The Grail Mysteries at the Winter Solstice

Listen to me reading an extract from my book, The Grail Mysteries, in which Merlin and the Company of the Grail are in a race against time and all the evil forces arrayed against them, to bury the Thirteen Treasures of Britain on the Winter Solstice. We join the action just after they have installed the eighth treasure, a maypole made of dragons reaching from the Underworld to the stars.

Just click on this picture and it will transport you there…like a magic flying dragon!

The Winter Solstice falls just before dawn breaks over the British Isles after the longest night of the year on 21^st December. To me, this is such a beautiful time when there are unique energies at play that heal the emotional despair and suffering accrued during the previous thirteen moons, and send rejuvenation and fresh hope and inspiration for the coming turn of the calendrical wheel.

In Earth alchemy and Arthurian legend, this longest night of midwinter is symbolised by the death of the Old Wounded Fisher King and the birth of the new King who is ‘risen with healing in his wings’ – otherwise known as the Radiant Child. This bursting forth into joyful and victorious rebirth is also known to alchemists, in their making of the Philosopher’s Stone, as the final glorious stage of the Peacock’s Tail.

One of the themes running through my book The Grail Mysteries follows Merlin and the Company of the Grail as they bury Thirteen Treasures around the Isle of Glass to protect the Sovereignty of Britain. The Isle of Glass (now called Glastonbury) is actually part of a huge ring of carved earthworks that is 30 miles round and 10 miles across which is known as the Glastonbury Zodiac because the giant sculpted effigies in the circle mirror the glittering constellations above.

In this extract of The Grail Mysteries, you will be able to breathe in something of the magic of this special solstice time of betwixt and between as you hear how Merlin and his crew bury the tenth treasure at the white, frozen Hart Lake under the stars of Capricorn twinkling through an Aurora Borealis that shimmers with irridescent hues, like a peacock’s tail.