Thirty-odd years ago, a bored teenager trapped in an awful family holiday to Cornwall, I found a locally-published history book in a spinner at a shop in Land’s End. Most areas of Britain are infested with such things. I love them, personally, and wish I still had this one. I remember that it contained an unusual take on Arthurian legend. It posited that “Merlin,” who the author conflated with the local St. Mellion, was the top Jesus bloke at the church on St Michael’s Mount, the Cornish islet that’s only accessible at low tide. And Merlin’s “magic,” as it were, was in brokering peace and alliance between the local kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, at a round table in the St Michael’s Mount building. That Merlin was, in facr, the first political wizard.

It’s completely mad and untenable in any number of ways, but I love what it says about magic and myth. And, perhaps, our need to find something real at the base of myth, something to have caused the stories. Wanting there to be some magic in the dirt. Just a little bit. Just enough to justify the centuries of dreaming.

 

Reading: IN THE DUST OF THIS PLANET, Eugene Thacker (UK) (US)