A HOLY HILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

A HOLY HILL.

BT NANCT WALKER.

THE STORY OF AVALON.

Legend, tradition and history ara so intertwined with the very stones of Britain that it is hard to determine where one ends and the other begins. A number of distinguished scholars are visiting Somerset and Cornwall this month in an endeavour to sift truth from fable in the story of King Arthur and his knights. In what guide-books call " The Arthurian country" tho figures of the Round Table take shape as something more tangible than poets' imaginings. But all tho romance that has been woven round " dark Tintagel by tho Cornish Sea " and " many-towered Camelot " is overshadowed by the sacred traditions that established the great Abbey of Glastonbury, which the professors will also discuss in the light of recent archaeological discoveries.

This crumbling pile of massive architecture covers the cradle of Christianity in Britain. Boyond where the sunlight falls through broken walls brushed by elm and yew on to roofless aisles carpeted with daisied turf is the site of the great altar where pilgrims from the ends of the earth brought their souls for healing. Glastonbury was the English Jerusalem, the Christian Mecca of a past age. The modern pilgrim who approaches this early stronghold of the faith sees first of all a round hill crowned with a high tower that slopes to a surrounding valley. The round hill is Glastonbury Tor, five hundred and twenty feet high, a landmark for sailors in the Bristol Channel. It has a surprising likeness to one of Auckland's vol;anie mounts. The high tower is all that s left of a chapel destroyed by an larthquake in tho thirteenth century. St. Patrick is reputed to havo built a christian church on this site, thus conlecrating a place onco devoted to Druidic •ites. But St. Patrick, who was the irst Abbot of Glastonbury, was a late:omor to a place that had already con-' ,ributed chapters to Christian history. This Tor with the green fields around its oot is that " Green Isle of Avalon, from )ld time a haunt of peace," which is 'arnous in song and story. King Arthur's GraveBefore the Severn Sea was prevented jy embankments from seeping up over lie low-lying marshes, Avalon was really in island, the earthly paradise which jeckoned tho dying King Arthur when 10 awaited the funeral barge: "The sland-vallcy of Avilion . deep-

shadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawn and bowery hollows crowned with summei sea." Although Celtic tradition maintains that no inan knows the grave of Arthur, Glastonbury claims that his bones lie beneath her high altar.

Bat how did Avalon come to be the most sacred spot in the northern world, the goal of all who sought the Holy Grail ? It was the site of the first Christian church in Britain, some say tho first place in the world in which Christ was worshipped openly above ground. Tradition, supported by much documentary evidence, says it was built by that good man and just, Joseph of Arimathea, who had laid the body of Christ in his own tomb. Many early historians narrate that after the Crucifixion the disciples were put into boats by the Jews and cast adrift in the Mediterranean. They are said to have landed in the south of France, a region rich in traditions of Martha and the Marys. From there Joseph of Arimathea went on with eleven followers to Britain, landing on the shores of Avalon, then an island washed by the sea. On the slopes of Weary-all Hill they rested and Joseph stuck his staff into the ground, where it rooted and became the Holy Thorn. The traditional spot is marked by a stone let into the earth inscribed " I.A. Anno. D.XXXI." Joseph is supposed to have brought with him the Holy Grail, the cup from which Christ drank at tho Last Supper, and, fearful that anything should happen to the sacred treasure, he buried it on the site where now issues the Blood Spring, a reddish-tinted chalybes.te wator credited with miraculous healing properties. The Holy Thorn.

Around these traditions grew up the Abbey at Glastonbury, the princely possession of a Church that had travelled far in wealth and power £rom its founding by the outcast followeis of Christ. The Holy Thorn, which bloom«d at Christmas, was the witness before all men of the Abbey's privileged founding. Tho Sacred Cup had become legendary, but tho thorn was a tangible possession. It became a great tree that flourished long after tho buildings had fallen victims to Reformation zeal, but it was hacked down by a fanatic in Puritan days. Buds were taken from the fallen tree and fresh bushes propagated. One of these is still in the Abbey grounds, where it perpotuates the parent characteristic of flowering twice a year, once in May and again at Christmas, when its blooms deck a neighbouring altar. Tho quest for the lost Sacred Cup became a symbol of man's spiritual strivings. Tennyson's " Holy Grail " pictures Sir Galahad setting out to seek:

The cup, the cup itself, from whioh our Lord Drank at the last ead supper with His own Arimathean Joseph, journeying brought To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn Blossoms at Christinas, mindful of our Lord. And the monk to whom he speaks replies: From our old books I know, That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, Gave him an islo of marsh whereon to build; And there he built with wattles from the marsh A little lonely church in days of yore. That little lonely church when it fell into decay was followed by another and another, the exact site and dimensions in each case being carefully preserved, right up to the building of tho beautiful St. Mary's Chapel, whoso four walls still stand in the Abbey grounds, its square tower and richly-carved Norman arches little marred by decay. Bought by the Church. Tho gift of the " heathen prince Arviragus" was twelve hides of land, and it is recorded in tho Doomsday Book that " tho church of Glastonbury has in its own villo twelve hides of land which have never paid tax." This is quoted in an interesting book published by the Rev. Lionel S. Lewis, vicar of Glastonbury, a warm supporter of the traditions which give the British Church its place in the apostolic succession, and the collector of much documentary evidence in their support. Centuries of neglect and disuse followed the sacking of the noble Abbey in tho Reformation. Tho neighbouring inhabitants used it as a free quarry when they wanted stone. In 1907 the ruins wero bought by tho Church of England for £30,000. Archaeologists have been excavating and oxpioring the site for some yeais past. Their work has already proved some supposed legends to be historical facts.

It is a coinmonplaco of everyday life in Glastonbury even yet that wafts of incense from the ruins mingle with the scent of the Holy Thorn. The results of the archaeologists' labours are reviving interost in its story. The hallowed ground of a past age is once more becoming the goal of pilgrims, drawn from a world grown old and cold and dreary to the spot where once men sought the Holy Grail.