1 00:00:02,920 --> 00:00:07,840 Britain is home to many of the most beautiful holy places in the world. 2 00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:11,160 Our religious heritage and architecture 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:15,480 is more varied than virtually anywhere else on earth. 4 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:21,240 My name is Ifor ap Glyn and I'm on a journey to explore the best of Britain's holy sites 5 00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:25,800 and to uncover the rich and diverse history of our spiritual landscape. 6 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:32,320 I want to know how these places came to be, 7 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:36,760 discover what they reveal about the people who worshipped at them 8 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:40,440 and explore why they continue to fascinate us today. 9 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:42,200 This place is incredible. 10 00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:46,080 My journey will take me to towering mountain hideaways. 11 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:50,440 It was here that Saint Twrog took on the pagan forces of evil. 12 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:52,640 Icy healing pools. 13 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:55,720 I'm not sure what effect this is having on me, 14 00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:57,960 but it is certainly having an effect. 15 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:01,160 And the graves of long-departed saints. 16 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,440 There's something quite unsettling about this relic. 17 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:08,880 I'll search out islands where the faithful seek refuge from the world. 18 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:12,800 I'll wander ruins steeped in history. 19 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:18,200 His congregation were roused to come here and rip down the rich trappings of this cathedral. 20 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:23,720 And descend into caves which have been sacred for thousands of years. 21 00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,040 Wow. Wow! 22 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:30,480 From the divine to the unexpected, join me on a journey 23 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,640 to the unforgettable corners of our country, 24 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:36,680 the landscapes that make the soul soar. 25 00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:55,200 When Danny Boyle chose an image to symbolise Britain in the Olympic opening ceremony, 26 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,080 he chose a tree on a hill. 27 00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:05,760 And it was an image based on this place, Glastonbury Tor in Somerset. 28 00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:10,920 This hill and the town around it are at the heart of a battle 29 00:02:10,920 --> 00:02:15,000 that has rumbled on for 2,000 years between Christianity 30 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,320 and the older beliefs that existed before its arrival. 31 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:28,360 I'm setting out on a journey to understand why trees and mountains 32 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:31,720 have been such important symbols at the heart of our country's 33 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:37,240 spiritual history spanning different beliefs and thousands of years. 34 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:55,240 I'm in Glastonbury. 35 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,760 It's a shop window for all kinds of new age beliefs offering alternative 36 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:04,680 spiritual paths that traditional Christianity has supposedly failed to provide. 37 00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:08,800 But it's also home to some of the most significant Christian sites in Britain. 38 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:14,720 There's a collision of beliefs here but there's nothing new in that, paganism and Christianity have been 39 00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:18,400 rubbing up against each other for the best part of 2,000 years. 40 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,360 This town is overflowing with symbols... 41 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:30,000 ..some centuries old... 42 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:37,880 ..some boasting a slightly less conventional spiritual pedigree. 43 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:43,480 Glastonbury is the site of a modern-day battle in a very ancient war. 44 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:49,640 As Christianity's appeal declines, these alternative belief systems 45 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:55,000 are reoccupying this most enigmatic of English towns. 46 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,800 At the heart of pagan belief is a deep-felt connection with the earth 47 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,880 and nothing symbolises that better than trees and mountains. 48 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:07,360 Glastonbury has its tor which ticks that box, but it's also home 49 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:11,560 to the Glastonbury Thorn, amongst the most sacred trees in Britain. 50 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:15,840 The story goes that soon after Christ's death 51 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,920 one of his followers named Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury. 52 00:04:20,920 --> 00:04:24,920 He's said to have brought with him the chalice used at the Last Supper, 53 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,280 thus sparking the legend of the Holy Grail, 54 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:32,360 but during his visit he's also reputed to have planted his walking stick in the ground 55 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:36,120 causing the first Glastonbury Thorn to take root. 56 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:41,880 What sets these thorn trees apart is that they flower twice a year, 57 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:46,600 once at Christmas and once at Easter. 58 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:49,600 The original Glastonbury Thorn reputedly survived 59 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:53,280 until the 1650s when it was cut down by a Puritan soldier 60 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:56,840 who saw it as a lingering symbol of pagan superstition. 61 00:04:56,840 --> 00:05:02,920 However, cuttings had been taken and here's one of them in the churchyard here at Glastonbury. 62 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:07,200 From these trees a replacement was re-planted on the original spot 63 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:10,280 where Joseph's staff is said to have taken root. 64 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:15,120 But in December 2010, this legendary tree at the heart of the Glastonbury story 65 00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:20,480 was attacked again and all of its branches sawn off. 66 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:24,560 This sorry-looking specimen is now all that remains of the tree 67 00:05:24,560 --> 00:05:27,640 on the site of the original Glastonbury Thorn. 68 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:30,400 The identity of the attacker is a mystery. 69 00:05:32,840 --> 00:05:37,480 Although Christians and pagans both joined in mourning the loss of this tree, 70 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:43,960 the fact that somebody wanted to cut it down, shows how divisive these symbols can be. 71 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:47,520 Over there we see Glastonbury Tor, dominating the town. 72 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:51,920 For the Christians it's important because of the ruins of the church on the top of it, 73 00:05:51,920 --> 00:05:55,560 for the pagans that is the Island of Avalon, 74 00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:59,240 a mythical place that lies at the centre of their vision of Britain. 75 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:04,520 The relationship between pagans and Christians has always been an uneasy one. 76 00:06:08,720 --> 00:06:15,040 Leaving Glastonbury behind I want to dig deeper into these tensions between Christianity and paganism. 77 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:28,160 The next stop on my journey is home to some trees which have long been sacred to both faiths, 78 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:32,160 but also boasts a symbolism that is impossible to miss. 79 00:06:33,280 --> 00:06:37,120 This is Knowlton in Dorset, 80 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:43,600 a church set within an ancient earthen henge, which forms a huge circle around us. 81 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:47,200 This church building dates back to about the 12th century, 82 00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:51,640 the earthen henge however is at least 4,500 years old. 83 00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:55,960 It's a striking example of spiritual continuity in one place. 84 00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:07,720 Building a church slap bang in the middle of an ancient pagan site was a bold move. 85 00:07:07,720 --> 00:07:12,680 The Christians were making an empathic statement about their cultural dominance. 86 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:20,200 The siting of this church within a pagan henge was no accident, 87 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:22,760 but in fact part of a deliberate policy. 88 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:25,880 This is what Pope Gregory had to say on the matter. 89 00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:28,800 "Concerning the matter of the English people. 90 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:33,520 "The temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed, 91 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:36,280 "but let the idols that are in them be destroyed. 92 00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:39,600 "Let water be consecrated and sprinkled in the said temples. 93 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,600 "Let altars be erected and relics placed there. 94 00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:46,280 "For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be 95 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:50,080 "converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God, 96 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:54,120 "that that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, 97 00:07:54,120 --> 00:07:58,760 "may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, 98 00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:03,040 "may the more freely resort to the places to which they have been accustomed." 99 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,920 I've arranged to meet with Philip Carr-Gomm. 100 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:15,080 He's a druid who has also written about Britain's journey from paganism to Christianity. 101 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:18,200 So what kind of timescale would we be talking about? 102 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,800 We're really talking about from the 4th to the 7th century. 103 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:26,560 And by the 7th century the door was really closing and finally closed 104 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:30,720 between that pre-Christian culture and the Christian culture. 105 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:35,080 So, presumably, different areas were Christianised as it were at different times. 106 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:38,720 Yes, but interestingly enough not in the way that you'd expect. 107 00:08:38,720 --> 00:08:44,680 You'd expect that Christianity would spread from the Holy Land up, from south to the north. 108 00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:47,520 But, in fact, it worked in a completely different way, 109 00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:49,360 it came down from the north, 110 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:52,920 from the Celtic Christianity up in the north, from Scotland, Iona, 111 00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:55,960 coming down and then there was a sort of pincer movement 112 00:08:55,960 --> 00:09:00,040 coming from St Augustine in Kent coming in from the east. 113 00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:04,960 So that the last places to become Christian in Britain were Sussex and Hampshire. 114 00:09:04,960 --> 00:09:07,000 - Really? - Yes. - Why was that then? 115 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,640 Well, because there was a vast stretch of land called the Waste of Undred 116 00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:14,840 between the North Downs and the South Downs that was full of bears 117 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:21,000 and boars and brigands and pagans, forested and so on and it took a while to get through. 118 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,160 - Really? - Yeah. - Wow! 119 00:09:23,160 --> 00:09:29,040 We're walking along the lip of a henge. What exactly is a henge? How would it have been used? 120 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:31,320 A henge is a sacred enclosure. 121 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:34,680 And we know it's designed to mark out a sacred space 122 00:09:34,680 --> 00:09:37,920 - because the ditch is inside and not outside. - Right. 123 00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:40,480 And so you can't possibly defend a place like this, 124 00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:44,400 because your attackers would be higher than you were down there. 125 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:48,120 So what it's saying is "we come in peace" in a way. 126 00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:52,400 How much is recorded of the activities at sites like this? 127 00:09:52,400 --> 00:09:55,120 We don't know. It's too early for that 128 00:09:55,120 --> 00:10:01,120 - but what we do know is that in some of the henges there was a stone circle. - Right. 129 00:10:01,120 --> 00:10:04,400 In other ones there were ritual burials. 130 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:08,520 In other places there seems to have been nothing in the centre, 131 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:10,800 but they were probably observatories. 132 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:14,320 Who knows? We don't know, but perhaps they were like amphitheatres 133 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:16,600 and people could be sitting here watching. 134 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:21,280 Or great processions came and went through the various entrance ways, 135 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,280 forming in the centre some sort of ceremony. 136 00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:29,440 The fact that this church has been built in the centre is a way of saying, 137 00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:34,120 "Look, this is already a holy place. This is a sacred place. Let's build a church here." 138 00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:41,280 And you can view a site like this either as one culture or one religion imposing itself upon another, 139 00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:45,480 or you can look at it as a sort of evolution and development. 140 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:50,520 That is it starts off with a period of life with one type of spirituality and religion 141 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:53,240 and changes to another one. 142 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:59,040 One part of this site would be familiar to all the worshipers here, whether Christian or pagan, 143 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,480 this pair of yew trees on the perimeter of the henge. 144 00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:08,880 Some yew tress grow to an incredibly ripe age, 145 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:13,240 which means they will have seen the pre-Christian as well as the Christian era. 146 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:16,320 - Thousands of years. - Thousands of years. - Really? - Yes. 147 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:22,440 But these... Oh, actually, it's pretty old in there, isn't it? 148 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:26,760 When you get close up, it's older than you think. 149 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,880 - It's hard to tell. - Cos they regenerate sometimes. 150 00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:33,280 They regenerate and they can live... 151 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:39,520 - So it's just possible that this is a very, very old yew tree indeed. - Really? 152 00:11:39,520 --> 00:11:44,320 And that, of course, brings up the idea that this tree or perhaps its predecessors 153 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:48,520 were here before the coming of Christianity. 154 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:54,760 - Yeah. - And has lived through that as a living being and is still alive today in the Christian era. 155 00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:58,560 - Still very much alive? - Still very much alive. 156 00:11:58,560 --> 00:12:02,880 And now they're tying these beautiful clutties and they're prayer ties. 157 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:06,440 And they're tying these either because they're giving thanks 158 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:09,840 or they're tying them as a request, 159 00:12:09,840 --> 00:12:15,240 symbolic of their wish to be healed or to achieve a particular goal. 160 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:19,600 Just who is tying these clutties is unclear. 161 00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:24,240 This is one of the rituals which has grown out of the resurgence of pagan practises. 162 00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:32,120 Christianity may have come and gone on this site but I wasn't expecting to come across such direct evidence 163 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:35,160 that earth magic has never truly gone away. 164 00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:38,720 It gives the place an eerie feeling. 165 00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:43,920 What's so interesting about this particular site 166 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:49,240 is you have the pre-Christian sense of sacredness 167 00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:53,680 melded together with the Christian sense of the sacred 168 00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:57,920 and both deeply connected to the landscape here. 169 00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:03,040 And then people are coming here and here are these two guardian trees standing here 170 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:07,880 that people are intuitively or instinctively recognising as magical and sacred. 171 00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:11,800 And, of course, they represent a gateway, the gateway between life and death, 172 00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:14,200 the gateway between this world and the other world, 173 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:17,200 or between the material world and the spiritual world. 174 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:19,600 It's full of resonances as a symbol. 175 00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:24,280 So when two trees come together at a gateway, it's a very profound symbol. 176 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:34,600 It's strange to think that even in this place 177 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:38,720 which has a spiritual heritage stretching back thousands of years, 178 00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:42,120 one of the most enduring things are the yew trees. 179 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:48,120 But then these trees have always captivated our imaginations. 180 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:54,480 And I'm heading to Nevern in Pembrokeshire to see another example of a very unusual yew tree. 181 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,960 You can walk into many churchyards all over the country 182 00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:06,760 and find these strange, ancient trees standing guard over the dead. 183 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:15,480 Not only do they live for hundreds, even thousands of years 184 00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:20,000 but their leaves and berries are so poisonous they can easily kill you. 185 00:14:26,520 --> 00:14:30,800 But this yew tree has a different characteristic, it appears to bleed. 186 00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:35,080 It's a relatively recent phenomenon, but what does it mean? 187 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:39,800 According to some, it bleeds for a man wrongly hanged many years ago. 188 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:43,920 According to others, it will bleed until the world is at peace. 189 00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:49,840 According to some Christians the red sap of this yew tree represents the blood of Christ. 190 00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:53,960 The tree itself suggests the cross on which he was crucified. 191 00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:56,600 But they can't all be right, or can they? 192 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,960 There's been some form of church on this site since the 6th century, 193 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,720 but the tree itself is around 600 years old. 194 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:11,880 No definitive scientific explanation for the bleeding has been established. 195 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,840 One theory is that it's caused by a fungal infection, 196 00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:21,200 another that trapped rainwater is being coloured by sap. 197 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:30,120 In earlier times, when Christianity was the dominant intellectual force 198 00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:32,640 this would have been described as a miracle. 199 00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:37,400 Yet this in itself was a new way of looking at the world, 200 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:43,840 Christianity having elbowed aside earlier pagan interpretations of sites just like this. 201 00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:50,200 The Book of Genesis, the earliest book in the Bible, contains numerous references to sacred trees. 202 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,200 In the middle of the Garden of Eden, we find the Tree of Life 203 00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,560 and the Tree of Knowledge with its forbidden fruit. 204 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:00,720 Abraham later on travels to the great tree of Morre 205 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:04,600 and encounters God, near the great trees of Mamre. 206 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:06,800 Is it too fanciful to see here, 207 00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:10,560 remnants of an earlier system of nature worship? 208 00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:13,880 When the Judeo-Christian scriptures were first written, 209 00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:20,360 they needed to acknowledge trees and nature because those were the dominant ideas in older religions. 210 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:26,720 They needed to find ways of acknowledging and then incorporating them. 211 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:32,640 As time has gone by mainstream Christianity 212 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:37,520 has moved away from the power of nature as a central part of its philosophy, 213 00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:40,840 but nature still appeals to many people emotionally. 214 00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:49,600 The church and graveyard here at Nevern are undoubtedly holy places in their own right, 215 00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:53,000 but what the bleeding yew does is it allow us 216 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:57,520 to witness the genesis and development of a new holy site, 217 00:16:57,520 --> 00:17:02,080 one that at the moment supports a multiplicity of interpretations, 218 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:06,560 some based on superstition, others based on religion. 219 00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:10,080 But perhaps at root they're not that different. 220 00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:14,960 Superstition and religion are both forms of belief, 221 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:18,720 it's just that religion enjoys a much higher status. 222 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,920 Many Christians find the bleeding yew tree at Nevern remarkable, 223 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:29,000 but to pagans all trees are important because of what they signify, 224 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:32,320 the link between the earth and the air. 225 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:35,920 Earth and air are two of the central elements in pagan beliefs 226 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:39,480 and trees represent a physical bridge between them. 227 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:47,040 And it is for this same reason that hills and mountains are also venerated. 228 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:57,680 As Christianity spread across Britain it had to confront paganism in its holy places. 229 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:06,680 Since pagans revered the highest peaks it was there that the Christians went to do battle. 230 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,640 And my next destination is the site of one such struggle, 231 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:23,200 a mountain in North Wales where a 6th century Christian missionary took on the devil himself. 232 00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:30,560 This winter sunshine really brings out the epic qualities of this Snowdonia landscape 233 00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:33,200 and it has an epic tale to tell. 234 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:38,280 It was here that St Twrog took on the forces of pagan evil. 235 00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:41,120 And here on the slopes of Moelwyn Bach 236 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:46,160 he came to seek divine intervention to enable him to cast the decisive blow. 237 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:59,960 I'm meeting Twm Elias, a lecturer and author who knows all about that fateful meeting. 238 00:18:59,960 --> 00:19:04,080 Can you tell me just what happened when St Twrog took on the pagans? 239 00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:07,440 Well, when he arrived in this area as a Christian missionary 240 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,520 bringing Christianity to this particular district, 241 00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:13,840 he found that the people locally were worshipping the devil, 242 00:19:13,840 --> 00:19:16,800 that's according to the story at least, 243 00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:21,360 which would have undoubtedly been the horned god, Cernunnos, the god of fertility. 244 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:25,600 And there was a big fight between Twrog and the devil 245 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,120 and during the intermission, they were quite civilised about it, 246 00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:35,640 Twrog went for a walk up the top of the mountain at the top there and there he cheated. 247 00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:38,800 Cos he prayed for divine help now. 248 00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:43,520 And then an angel came and gave Twrog terrific strength. 249 00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:48,240 Well, Twrog became very, very strong suddenly and grabbed 250 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:53,400 hold of a mighty stone and threw the stone, hurled the stone through the air 251 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:57,920 and it came down and landed right in between the hoofs of the devil 252 00:19:57,920 --> 00:20:02,440 who then realised that his number was up, no point in fighting any longer. 253 00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:06,960 And as you would expect the devil then swore and cursed, 254 00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:11,880 as a devil would do, obviously, swished his tail, opened his wings 255 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:17,320 and flew away eastwards from here and he didn't land until he came to England. 256 00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,960 And that's where he is to this very day, apparently. 257 00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:26,240 - HE LAUGHS - Well, wherever the devil may be, his stone is still here. 258 00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,920 Twrog's stone is still here. And here it is. This is the evidence. 259 00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:35,480 This proves to you that tale is true because there we are, indisputable evidence. 260 00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:39,160 Whatever the truth or otherwise of the story, 261 00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:43,840 it certainly represents a real friction at one point 262 00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:47,840 between Christians and pagans, doesn't it? 263 00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:53,880 Yes, certainly. And the point was there would have been a holy site at this point, a pagan holy site, 264 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:57,920 because of course you're by the river here and this would have been a ford. 265 00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,720 And very often you find a stone marking a ford. 266 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:07,960 The river represented a boundary between not only this world and the next, the water and the land, 267 00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:13,440 but it was also a very important tribal boundary. And so a ford would have been a place to do battle. 268 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:15,960 And in this particular incidence it was a battle 269 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:21,680 between Twrog the Christian and the devil representing the old faith. 270 00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:25,960 Although Christianity won the day when St Twrog defeated the devil, 271 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:32,400 it could be argued that in other ways pagan traditions infiltrated the Christian ways of doing things. 272 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:39,120 Yeah. Well, they certainly influenced the siting of the Christian church at least. 273 00:21:39,120 --> 00:21:44,000 It would have had to be here, because if it was half a mile down the road, then of course people 274 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,560 would come there in the middle of the night to perform the pagan ceremonies. 275 00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:50,920 But here the best way to neutralise it was to put a church 276 00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,480 splat on top of the site, you know. 277 00:21:53,480 --> 00:22:00,880 And, therefore, that church then took on, I suppose, the value and sacred nature of the site itself 278 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:05,240 and then grafted Christianity onto it, 279 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:09,920 doing away with the old pagan branch, as it were. 280 00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:19,720 Once again we find Christianity setting up camp on top of earlier pagan sites 281 00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,280 to stop them being used by the old religion. 282 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:29,840 Across the country this led to churches being built on top of many hills and mountains, 283 00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:32,800 literally staking out the moral high ground. 284 00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:40,160 Such hilltop churches are commonly dedicated to the Archangel Michael. 285 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:46,560 The iconic church tower on Glastonbury Tor is dedicated to him, 286 00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:50,640 as is St Michael's Mount near the tip of Cornwall, 287 00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:53,640 a place where the fiery angel is said to have appeared 288 00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:56,760 to some frightened fishermen around the year 500. 289 00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:01,480 And then there's this place, in the middle of Cornwall, 290 00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:07,240 a rocky crag that a mediaeval hermit turned into a dramatic cliff-top chapel. 291 00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:12,680 It may seem an odd place to choose to withdraw from society because it's such an obvious landmark, 292 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,520 but he could live a holy and exemplary life here, 293 00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:20,680 dispensing wisdom from on high perhaps, just as Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount. 294 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,760 This cell stands in splendid isolation, 295 00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,880 like a spiritual fortress watching over the surrounding countryside. 296 00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:36,000 This tiny chapel clinging to the top of a rocky outcrop 297 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,960 near Bodmin in Cornwall dates back to 1409. 298 00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:45,160 Precise details of the medieval hermits who dwelt here are now lost, 299 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,640 but it does provide one of the most striking views of all of the sites I have visited. 300 00:23:55,280 --> 00:24:01,920 In fact, it is such an arresting site it was used as a location in the Omen horror films. 301 00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:08,640 This is actually quite apt. In the Book of Revelations, St Michael is depicted 302 00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:13,840 as leader of God's army during the titanic battle with the anti-Christ. 303 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:19,120 He is supposed to have beaten the devil's forces and driven them from the heavens. 304 00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:24,320 Our ancestors prayed that in their hour of need St Michael would flutter down from the clouds 305 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:29,680 like a butterfly to find a convenient high point on which to land. 306 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,880 But there was nothing butterfly-like about St Michael. 307 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:39,760 He's always portrayed as a warrior angel, leading the forces of light against the forces of darkness. 308 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:46,240 And once again in Christian tradition we find it's tinged with a sense of conflicting belief. 309 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,960 Were the mountains the last refuges of the old pagan gods, 310 00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:54,600 who needed St Michael to come with has sword in order to put them to flight? 311 00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,320 It seems that we can never truly embrace the natural landscape 312 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,240 without bumping up against earlier belief systems. 313 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,200 It's no surprise that later Christians 314 00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:11,280 felt that the country's conversion from paganism was unfinished business. 315 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:17,080 In the 17th century, many decided it was time to finish the job once and for all. 316 00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,920 We saw in Glastonbury how the Puritans destroyed the thorn tree 317 00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,920 because of a whiff of pagan idolatry, 318 00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:31,000 but the Puritans were not alone in this obsession. This is Pendle Hill in Lancashire 319 00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,800 There's one man who more than anyone tried to rid his religion 320 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,000 of any lingering traces of ancient superstitions, 321 00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:45,400 and in the process founded perhaps the most stripped down Christian movement of all time. 322 00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,920 We know them as the Society of Friends or the Quakers 323 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:55,000 and they did away with all the rituals and sacraments that mark out other churches. 324 00:25:55,000 --> 00:26:01,360 Their founder's name was George Fox and in 1652, he came here to Pendle Hill. 325 00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,480 On a much sunnier afternoon than today, in early summer, 326 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:31,040 George Fox was "moved by the Lord" as he put it, to come up here. 327 00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:35,480 From the top of the hill, he had a vision of human souls ripe for harvest, 328 00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,280 as real to him as the patchwork of fields behind us there. 329 00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,720 As he recorded in his diary, 330 00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:47,960 "From the top of the hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered". 331 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,880 Now, it's ironic that even George Fox, 332 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:56,720 a man who put such emphasis on inner transformation and the avoidance of all outward rituals, 333 00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:02,600 should be impelled to come up a mountain, as many others have before him, in order to receive a vision. 334 00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:13,000 George Fox and his followers rejected virtually all the trappings of religion. 335 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:17,680 Quakers have no ceremonies of baptism, their meeting houses have no altars, 336 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,480 and their services are not conducted by priests. 337 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:27,920 Fox himself even refused to use the names of the days of the week or the months of the year 338 00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:29,960 that derived from pagan gods. 339 00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:37,480 Quakers set out to rid themselves of anything which could be construed as pagan idolatry 340 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:42,600 and yet the very place that inspired their leader to develop the Quaker movement 341 00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:47,560 is one that would be equally powerful to a pagan or a Christian. 342 00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:57,040 The landscape has been a battleground between pagans and Christians in our early history, 343 00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:03,560 and indeed nature features in many faiths, but its greatness lies in the fact that it belongs to no one. 344 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:09,120 Nature is non-denominational, trees and mountains are beyond dogma, 345 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:14,960 they inspire within us feelings that are mystical and difficult to explain. 346 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:20,720 But maybe then that's the point, because nature is so much greater than we are 347 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:26,520 and it's in places like this that many of us feel that we come closest to the divine. 348 00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,960 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd