Message #113623

[Janna Britton]

One way or another, the nursery tales which emanated from the "underground stream" were stories of lost brides and usurped kingship - based upon the subjugation of the Grail Bloodline by the Church of Rome and, in later times, by the sectarian Puritans of the Protestant movement. The Catholics had their Dominican Grand Inquisitor, Tomâs de Torquemada, and the Puritans had their equivalent in Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder-General. Favoured executions, in each case, were hanging, drowning or burning at the stake, and the common command was: "Kill them all - God will know his own!"
The fairy tale concept was essentially geared to stories relating to these persecutions: allegorical accounts of the predicament of the true Royal Family - the Ring Lords of the Sangréal, whose fairies and elves (having been manoeuvred from the mortal plane of orthodoxy and status quo) were confined to a seemingly Otherworld existence.
They were tales of Grail Princes who were turned into frogs, of Swan Knights who roamed the wasteland, and of Dragon Princesses locked in towers or put to sleep for hundreds of years. In the course of their persecution, the Elf Maidens were pricked with bodkins, fed with poisoned apples or condemned to servitude - while their champions swam great lakes, battled through thickets and scaled mighty towers to secure and protect the matrilinear heritage of the Albi-gens. They include such well-known stories as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel.
In all cases, the underlying theme is the same, with the Bloodline Princess kept (through drugging, imprisonment or some form of restraint) out of reach of the Grail Prince who has to find and release her in order to preserve the dynasty and perpetuate the line. For the most part, the establishment of the "Mother Church" was symbolised by a malevolent stepmother, an evil witch or some other jealous female with an opposing vested interest. Always, the stories are reminiscent of the Lost Bride of the King in the Old Testament's Song of Solomon. Their content also embodies the forlorn aspect of Mary Magdalene, the bride of Jesus, whose royal heritage and maternal legacy were so thoroughly undermined by the Christian bishops.
An interesting feature of many classic fairy tales is that they truly are very old stories. Take Cinderella, for example. If asked who wrote Cinderella, many people would answer that it was the Brothers Grimm, while others would say it was Charles Perrault. However, these men were not actually writers of fairy tales, as is commonly thought. They were collectors, compilers and interpreters of the tales. The story of Cinderella can be traced back to the Carolingian era, with its first known version appearing in the year 850. Perrault published his well-known edition in 1697 in France, while Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm produced their German version in 1812.
Over the years, many people have likened Tolkien's wizard, Gandalf, to Merlin of the Arthurian tales. At the same time, Tolkien's Aragorn has been likened to King Arthur but, as Tolkien himself pointed out, there is really a closer similarity between Aragorn and the historical Charlemagne.
The challenge which faced Charlemagne, who had been charged by the Church to establish a viable Empire from various disunited kingdoms, was not unlike that which confronted Aragorn, who reunited the divided kingdoms of Middle Earth. But there was a marked difference in practice, for Aragorn was far more like Arthur in having an advisory wizard, whereas Charlemagne did not because the Church would not consent to counsellors outside its own appointees.
Aragorn's was therefore more of a Celtic-style environment, with the enemy being the evil Sauron. Charlemagne, on the other hand, was a champion of the Roman Church whose adversaries were the supporters of the unlawfully ousted Merovingian establishment - an establishment to which Aragorn would personally have been well suited.
In the event, it became essential for the Church to settle some form of Ring entitlement upon Charlemagne so that he was perceived to conform to the Dragon tradition. And so a suitable tale was invented to the effect that a serpent appeared at his court with a golden ring in its mouth - an enchanted ring that compelled him to love whoever's finger it was on.
At this stage, it is of interest to note that a newly proposed three-film series of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is currently in its early stages of development. After some 18 months of negotiation with the American film company Newline Cinema, the $260-million contract has been acquired by New Zealand film-maker Peter Jackson.
Various parts of New Zealand will apparently make ideal Middle Earth locations for the project, and it is hoped that the first film (based upon Book I of Tolkien's 1950s trilogy) will be released within the next couple of years. This film, The Fellowship of the Ring, will subsequently be followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
With a speaking cast of about sixty and many thousands of extras, it has recently been rumoured that one of the key roles, that of Gandalf, is hotly tipped for Sean Connery. Given that The Lord of the Rings has been voted "the most popular book of the century", and with stars of this calibre, we could well be looking at one of the first mammoth box-office attractions of the new millennium.