Off your head.

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Off your head.

Postby spiral » 3:30 pm

ME makes some interesting points about St Denis AKA Dionysus, and the Green Man. see page 98.

But is there more?

Cavendish, Richard. “Lancelot and Gawain”, in Legends of the World. New York: Barnes & Noble Books 1994, 243

“At Camelot on New Year’s Day there rode into Arthur’s hall a gigantic green warrior on a towering horse, holding a holly branch in one hand and an immense battle-axe in the other. His skin was green, his hair was green, and even his horse was green. He had come to play what he called a game. Any champion who dared could strike him one blow with the axe, on condition that a year later the champion submit to a return blow from the green knight. Gawain took up the challenge and struck the green knight a blow that cut his head clean off his shoulders and sent it rolling to the floor. The green knight calmly picked up his head by the hair and turned the face towards Gawain. The eyelids opened and the mouth spoke, telling Gawain to meet him for the return blow a year later at the Green Chapel.”

Now according to Wiki

"According to Christian tradition, Saint Denis (also called Dionysius, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after 250 CE. After his head was chopped off, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way, making him one of many cephalophores in hagiology."

You see my point: they were both beheaded but kept going.....what's going on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saintdenis.gif
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Re: Off your head.

Postby spiral » 6:51 am

The mythical birth place of Arthur was of course Tintagel. Records show two extra chapels (to St Piran and St Denis) were licensed in Tintagel on 8th May 1457, although neither now exist, a festival to St Denis is still held.

Looking round the island you still have a Dennis Point with fantastic views ...... So we can be safe that the saint/dionysus was worshipped.

According to Wiki "The modern-day village of Tintagel was always known as Trevena (Cornish: Tre war Venydh) until the Post Office started using 'Tintagel' as the name in the mid 19th century (until then Tintagel had been restricted to the name of the headland and of the parish)."

Cornish placenames often hide saints names.....
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Re: Off your head.

Postby hvered » 9:07 am

Vaen is stone in Cornish (feminine form), Trevena sounds like 'stone place' or quarry. Dennis or whatever he called himself is associated with stone-masons, Saint-Denis is the first Gothic style church.

Holy heads are weird but interesting, a variety of water sources are supposed to have arisen from decapitated heads, the equivalent of blessing or purifying the water perhaps.

It sounds like the story of the green knight is a variation of winter solstice rituals, the insistence on re-enacting the battle in a year's time and the reference to New Year's Day both seem significant.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby Mick Harper » 10:26 am

I prefer simpler explanations. The tin in Tintagel refers to tin and t'agel refers to the angel as in St Michael and All Angels. Tintagel will feature briefly in my Bracknell/Wokingham/Glastonbury talk on the grounds

a) the Bristol Channel is the only place in the (ancient) world where tin (from north Cornwall) and copper (from South Wales) come together and is therefore a Megalithic hotspot

b) the 'ridge-causeway' between Tintagel island and the mainland is the same as that between Sark and Little Sark

c) Tintagel has various other Megalithic features, notably marine caves and blowholes. [Spiral, kindly provide others.]

Tintagel features mightily in The Secret Land, Paul Broadhurst's latest and which I recommend. Co-written with Robin Heath, he of the Lundy Island/Presceli/Stonehenge triangle theory.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby Chad » 11:49 am

All of this "life after decapitation" stuff... brings to mind the very Megalithic practice of coppicing.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby Chad » 3:52 pm

The tin in Tintagel refers to tin and t'agel refers to the angel...

Sorry Mick.

Tintagel (tint-a-gel) means: It isn't a colloid in which the disperse phase has combined with the dispersion medium to produce a semisolid material.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby spiral » 4:53 pm

hvered wrote: Dennis or whatever he called himself is associated with stone-masons, Saint-Denis is the first Gothic style church.


Really? Can you help me out ? From what I can see.

St. Denis of Paris is the patron saint of being against headaches, madness.

He is also in favour of Paris and the French.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby spiral » 6:40 pm

Chad wrote:All of this "life after decapitation" stuff... brings to mind the very Megalithic practice of coppicing.


Maybe.

Let's put it another way.

You have the limping, wounding, killing through the ankle, knee thigh heel etc. Achilles, Fisher King, Jesus and Arthur in some variants.

Then you have decapitation through beheading.

The Dionysian/Dennis Green man cult is the latter.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby hvered » 11:27 pm

spiral wrote: St. Denis of Paris is the patron saint of being against headaches, madness.

He is also in favour of Paris and the French.

Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis is supposed to have 'invented' the Gothic style of architecture which is almost certainly a fabrication but as the patron saint of Paris St Denis' church would be pre-eminent.

Mick Harper wrote:The tin in Tintagel refers to tin and t'agel refers to the angel as in St Michael and All Angels.

The local saint isn't St Michael but St Materiana, a Welsh saint apparently. Wiki says Materiana was also known as Madrun or Madryn and her name was sometimes written as "Mertheriana" or "Merthiana", resembling the Welsh merthyr - "martyr" but the chapel at Trevana celebrates the feast day of St Denis. Interestingly St Denis was beheaded on Montmartre, the martyr's mount.
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Re: Off your head.

Postby Mick Harper » 1:08 am

Somebody should look into the link between Montmartre in Paris and Ludgate Hill in London. (Or Tower Hill depending on what Conspiracy Theory works best.)
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