Customer Reviews

Warriors of the Wasteland: A Quest for the Pagan Sacrificial Cult behind the Grail Legends

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Many years ago, W.Y. Evans-Wentz theorized that the ancient Celts may have held mystery rites, similar to those of the Greek Eleusis, in which they made a visionary journey to the lands of the dead. John Grigsby's fascinating book, to me, is the fulfillment of that theory. With archaeological and mythological evidence in abundance, Grigsby puts together a theory of what such mysteries might have been like.

He begins by wondering why the Celts practiced occasional human sacrifice. This is often a divisive issue. There are two general ideas about Celtic human sacrifice. One is that the Celtic lands were drenched in sacrificial blood and lit constantly by the fires of burning wicker cages full of unwilling victims. The other is that the Celts were peaceful tree-huggers who wouldn't hurt a fly. It's most likely that the truth is in the middle, and it's this middle road that Grigsby takes. His theory is that *in general* Druidic rituals involved either metaphorical deaths a la Eleusis, or animal sacrifice, but occasionally when severe problems cropped up, a human being consented to be a "bridge" between the living and the dead. To die, basically, so that his people could call his spirit back and ask it questions about what it had seen on the other side.

He gathers evidence from anywhere he can get it. The victims were sometimes painted green--so he goes to the myths and looks at the Green Knight story. They often had traces of the poisonous, hallucinogenic fungus ergot in their stomachs--so he makes comparisons to the Greek mysteries, where ergot in small doses may have facilitated the visions seen by the initiates. He looks at the stoneworks of the earlier peoples of Britain, since they may have been related to an earlier form of the cult. What emerges is a tantalizing speculation about Celtic/Druidic religion. I couldn't put it down--Grigsby has enough hard evidence to appeal to my left brain but also has the gift of interesting prose, to satisfy the right half. If Robert Graves had made coherent sense, he might have written this book.

After I read John Grigsby's BEOWULF AND GRENDEL,which I thoroughly enjoyed, I thought I would check out his other book. As a person who loves the Arthurian legend and related topics, this book is a must for background material regarding the history and mythology which led to the "grail" stories. The universal themes played out in the search for the grail stories, whether it is Arthur and his knights, The Da Vinci Code, or Indiana Jones, are a source of fascination to me and John's book lends serious archeology and known or suspected reality to it. I highly recommend his books to folks interested in the Grail legend!