Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon

Author:Sean Pidgeon [Pidgeon, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780393240153
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Archaeologists have found convincing evidence that an excavation of this sort did indeed take place at the end of the twelfth century. But the exhumation was shown to be a fraud, one of the more infamous monkish hoaxes in English history. A dramatic discovery such as this was well suited to the purposes of the presiding Abbot of Glastonbury, Henry of Sully, who was determined to revive the fortunes of the abbey after it burned down in 1184. It was therefore decided that his resourceful monks should by chance unearth a hollow log containing the bones of a woman and a very tall man. To provide a further layer of false authenticity, Henry also arranged for the cngeall man. discovery in the grave of a lead cross with an intriguing inscription. It said, Hic iacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius in insula Avalonia: Here lies buried the famous King Arthur in the isle of Avalon. The cross itself was lost long ago, though it was seen and described as late as the sixteenth century by John Leland, the celebrated antiquarian to Henry VIII.

Donald cannot help thinking of Paul Healey with his bones unearthed from the Wiltshire soil, his long-limbed king and his queen found clutching her mysterious blood-filled chalice. It is not precisely the same thing, perhaps. Healey did not go quite so far as to bury his skeletons first before digging them up again, though his instinct for publicity is at least as well tuned as was Abbot Henry’s in his day. A line comes back to him, something he wrote in the preface to his book. Every age has its plausible charlatans; and every age has its susceptible pilgrims and romantics, its seekers of the Holy Grail.

As he walks back towards the gate, Donald pulls his jacket more closely around him against the autumnal chill that has crept into the air. The gardener has quietly disappeared into the dusk. He is anxious now to be away from this place, with its long falling shadows and the jagged remnants of the abbey like giant gravestones silhouetted against the sky.

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