Avalonian Quest

What evidence is there that Glastonbury was a great pagan sanctuary before Christianity? Over the past few decades, this town in Somerset - England's ancient Avalon' - has attracted ever increasing interest. Tourists pour in to visit its ruined Abbey, rich in Christian and Arthurian legend, and to climb the Tor, the strange hill above the town. Thousands assemble annually for church-sponsored pilgrimages, but many others come for mystical or occult reasons, seeing Glastonbury as a focus of spiritual power. Geoffrey Ashe looks at the real and surprising importance of Glastonbury in the religion, politics, culture and literature of England. He re-examines its best known legends - those of Joseph of Arimathea and the Grail, and King Arthur's burial - and gives the case for a remarkable possibility underlying all the mysteries: a huge ritual maze may once have surrounded the Tor.