In 1953-54 a series of twelve talks was given on BBC Radio under the heading ‘Myth or Legend?’ They were organised by the leading archaeologist Glyn Daniel, and were gathered, pretty much verbatim, in an anthology which he edited under that title (1955), which now seems somewhat uncommon. The contributors included Leonard Woolley, T.C. Lethbridge and Stuart Piggott.
Daniel drew a distinction between myth, which is wholly invented, and legend, which may, though fanciful, have a kernel of historical truth. He claimed these definitions to be well-known in academic circles: I don’t know whether they still are, but in common use I would say they have since become somewhat elided.
Though the idea for the series began with Donald Boyd in the BBC Talks Department, as Daniel acknowledges in his preface, it fitted nicely with Daniel’s drive for public education in his fields of archaeology and ancient history. He was to become a familiar face and voice on the BBC both as a populariser of his fields of study and as a ‘personality’, presenting a series on archaeology, Buried Treasure, and hosting the genteel quiz show ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?’. Indeed, the title of Myth or Legend? has an air of the game show about it: ‘and now, over to our panel, what do you think? Avalon, myth or legend? What about you, Dr Snortleberry? Where do you plump on this one?’
The inquisitorial format also suited his robust sceptical approach. He was later notorious in earth mysteries circles for refusing a paid advertisement for The Ley Hunter in Antiquity, the academic journal he edited: he wasn’t having any truck with the more speculative aspects of amateur antiquarianism.
The twelve subjects of the talks in the book are: Lyonesse and other drowned lands; Troy; Glastonbury and the Holy Grail; The Flood; Theseus and the Minotaur; Tara; Tristan and Isolt; St George and the Dragon; The Isles of the Blessed; The Druids and Stonehenge; Atlantis; and The Golden Bough. This offers a a good mixture of classical and local themes. The most obvious omission from British myths or legends is Robin Hood. I suspect this was because the focus of the talks is archaeological and the medieval outlaw wasn’t considered ancient enough. Each talk is followed by suggestions for further reading, sometimes in obscure monographs or other languages: evidently the interested reader was trusted to be undaunted by these.
The talks are brisk, informal, friendly, inquisitive and provide an excellent primer for their subjects. They are clear in saying what is known, what is probable or possible, and what is unsupported by evidence. I think they provide a useful context for the public interest in myth and legend in the period immediately before publication of The Lord of the Rings (1954-55). I wonder whether this popular wireless series, discussing with enthusiasm magical realms, epic warfare, mystical talismans, fabulous beasts and ancient English and Celtic tales, might have prepared the ground with some readers for a sympathetic response to Tolkien’s work.
The talks have a strong focus on their individual subjects, but there is less attention to comparisons and contrasts between them. They do not discuss very much why certain legends seize the popular imagination and endure, and what further dimensions of thought they might evoke. For example, the idea of an earthly paradise is implicit in several of the themes here: Lyonesse, Tara, Avalon, Atlantis, the Blessed Isles. What does that tell us about human longings and aspirations, or about art and spirituality? This is not really part of their concern in these talks, and so sometimes we may feel that, in exploring the evidence for the existence of a myth or legend, they miss its essence.
In his King Arthur’s Avalon, The Story of Glastonbury (1957), Geoffrey Ashe used as the epigraph for his book a quotation from the historian E.A. Freeman: ‘We need not believe that the Glastonbury legends are records of facts; but the existence of those legends is a very great fact.’ While myths and legends might not directly represent history, they illuminate the imaginative and inspirational world of their weavers and hearers and readers, and they may still have rich and mysterious things to tell us.
(Mark Valentine)
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