Aontacht - Volume 7 Issue 3

By Sarah Fuhro ©take place onthe While we can argue overpossible ‘historical’ Arthurs, this is not wherehe dwells. When we look at him as teacher fromthe stars, we understand the stories on anotherlevel in which time does not exist.‘Idylls of the King—TennysonAs a practicing Druid, the Arthurian traditionof the British Isles has been one source of mytraining and study over the last twenty-fiveyears. These stories were told to me by myfather, long before I could read them. They areintertwined with the stars because Arthur isimmortal, fixed, like the patterns of theconstellations, yet always human. He movesthrough seasonal changes of the sky much likethe planets..wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Idylls_of_the_King_1.jpgThis is an illustration from Doré of Arthurand Merlin under the night sky. Merlin asDruid and astrologer is teaching Arthur thetales of the stars. Poetry and song storeknowledge for cultures all over the world,while the night sky holds ancestral memory ina visual rather than a verbal form. The skywith its starry maps remains a predictableplace even as it constantly changes during thenight and over the seasons. Stories, which tellof the tribe’s origin and history, are associated