Deep Time in England

[H/T: Survive the Jive]

How England Lost Its Mythology

"Frith" is an Old English term denoting peace, security, and sanctuary, often linked to social stability and kinship. In a modern context, it refers to a Heathen concept of mutual, trust-based peace.

The ‘Frith Stool’ dates back to the beginnings of Hexham Abbey, and has played an important part in the Abbey’s history, as well as the turbulent history of Hexham itself.

It is possible that St Wilfrid had this stone seat made when he first founded the monastery there in 674. He had travelled through France on his way to Rome, and it is possible that he took his inspiration for the Frith Stool from examples on the continent.

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Ethelburga Street in Battersea (London SW11) is named after Saint Æthelburh (also spelled Ethelburga or Ethelburga), a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon saint.

She was the founder and first abbess of Barking Abbey (a double monastery in Essex, established around the late 660s or early 670s). She was the sister of Saint Earconwald (or Erkenwald), who became Bishop of London, founded Barking Abbey for her, and also established Chertsey Abbey in Surrey.

This connection to Earconwald (a significant figure in early London and Surrey religious history) likely explains the choice of her name for a street in Battersea, which was historically in Surrey before becoming part of London.

The street appears to have been laid out and named in the 1870s during Battersea's major Victorian-era suburban development (previously, the area was known as something like Marsh Lane in older records). It's part of a pattern in Battersea where some streets and estates draw on Anglo-Saxon or early Christian/saintly names, possibly reflecting local historical or ecclesiastical ties.

The name is also linked to other London sites dedicated to her, such as the small City of London church of St Ethelburga the Virgin (near Bishopsgate, with possible Saxon origins).

Today, Ethelburga Street is a residential road near Battersea Bridge Road, and the surrounding area includes the post-war Ethelburga Estate.

St Francis and the Wolf

[H/T: Of Werewolves and Bishops - Soothsayer]

Eighteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Dírigat corda nostra, quǽsumus, Dómine, tuæ miseratiónis operátio: quia tibi sine te placére non póssumus. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

O God, foraſmuch as without thee we are not able to pleaſe thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Taught of God

We are sometimes tempted to resent the fact that without Divine help we cannot rise to the spiritual heights. Perhaps if we had a better understanding of the processes that go on in a soul in a the course of its regeneration - if we had some understanding of spiritual psychology - we should be less inclined to dispute what, when all is said and done, is a bare statement of fact, well known to all who have had experience of the mystic path.

Let us look at the matter in this way. How could we expect a child, untrained, uneducated, to grow up into a cultured man? It is well known that children who are cut off from human intercourse, although of normal intelligence, never develop articulate speech. And so with ourselves, if no higher Light ever shone upon the soul could we, unaided, think out for ourselves the ideal and practice of the spiritual life.

Mortal man had to acquire ideas totally apart from those that come to him through the five physical senses if he is to get any realisation of the spiritual life. Without the divine influence from the Divine mind ever pouring out upon the world, we could form no conception of the nature of God. It is noteworthy that those who try to conceive of God without having had any experience of this Divine influence have met with little success in their self-imposed task. It is not the faculties of the human mind, its reason and its scholarship, that enable us to understand God, but the inner awareness of the Divine influence.

To understand God, we must be taught of God, and no other teacher can do more than help us to clarify the impression thus obtained and arrange our ideas.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

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Seventeenth Sunday after Whitsun

Da, quǽsumus, Dómine, pópulo tuo diabólica vitáre contágia: et te solum Deum pura mente sectári. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil, and with pure minds to follow Thee the only God. Through.

Keynote: The Saving Power of Grace

Anyone who has had to struggle, whether in himself or in others, with the powers of the three great instincts gone astray, knows the difficulty of finding any force to oppose the downwards drag of the animal nature that is reverting to type. The only argument that is of any avail is to plead the danger of the course and appeal to the instinct of self-preservation. But when we do this we are still moving in the vicious circle of the instincts and have not lifted the soul above its slough. The man who refrains from sin for fear of disease can hardly be said to have escaped from the bondage of sin. His impulse, restrained from manifesting in one form, will soon find an outlet in another. He will not seek to overcome sin, but to make it safe, and will soon succeed in doing so.

There is only one way to save ourselves from reversion to a lower type when once the undertow of nature sets in, and that is to bring ourselves into touch with a spiritual influence. Let us never forget that there is just as definite an uprush as there is an undertow, and that if we come within the sphere of a spiritual influence, we shall have to use force to resist it, just as much as if we came within the sphere of debasing influence.

How can we bring spiritual influences to bear on those we wish to help? By ourselves living the life of the spirit, in touch with God. Far more potent than words is the invisible force that emanates from the man or woman who is in touch with God.

How can we, if we ourselves are in danger of the spiritual undertow, bring ourselves into the sphere of spiritual influence? By putting ourselves into touch with those who themselves are in touch with God, the greatest of whom is our Lord. If we turn aside for the few moments each day from our obsessing problems to read His life and words, we shall find that we have insensibly been drawn in the sphere of spiritual influence where the current sets Godward.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

For an old Man that Travelled up and down the Country, and had some acquaintance at that house, calling in and asking the Man of the house how he did and his Wife; He told him that himself was well, but his Wife had been a long time in a languishing condition, and that she was haunted with a thing in the shape of a Bird that would flurr [sic] near to her face, and that she could not enjoy her natural rest well. The Old Man bid him and his Wife be of good courage. It was but a dead Spright, he said, and he would put him in a course to rid his Wife of this languishment and trouble, He therefore advised him to take a Bottle, and put his Wives Urine into it, together with Pins and Needles and Nails, and Cork them up and set the Bottle to the Fire well corkt, which when it had felt a while the heat of the Fire began to move and joggle a little, but he for sureness took the Fire shovel, and held it hard upon the Cork, And as he thought, he felt something one while on this side, another while on that, shove the Fire shovel off, which he still quickly put on Again, but at last at one shoving the Cork bounced out, and the Urine, Pins, Nails and Needles all flew up, and gave a report like a Pistol, and his Wife continued in the same trouble and languishment still.

Not long after, the Old Man came to the house again, and inquired of the Man of the house how his Wife did. Who answered, as ill as ever, if not worse. He askt him if he had followed his direction. Yes, says he, and told him the event as is above said. Ha, quoth he, it seems it was too nimble for you. But now I will put you in a way that will make the business sure. Take your Wive’s Urine as before, and Cork, it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat. The Man did accordingly. And his Wife began to mend sensibly and in a competent time was finely well recovered; But there came a Woman from a Town some miles off to their house, with a lamentable Out-cry, that they had killed her Husband. They askt her what she meant and thought her distracted, telling her they knew neither her nor her Husband. Yes, saith she, you have killed my Husband, he told me so on his Death-bed. But at last they understood by her, that her Husband was a Wizard, and had bewitched this Mans Wife and that this Counter-practice prescribed by the Old Man, which saved the Mans Wife from languishment, was the death of that Wizard that had bewitched her. 

[Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions, third edition (1700)]

Sixteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Tua nos, quǽsumus, Dómine, grátia semper et prævéniat et sequátur: ac bonis opéribus iúgiter præstet esse inténtos. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.*

LORD, we pray thee, that thy grace may always prevent and follow us; and make us continually to be given to all good works, through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: The Grace of God

When the grace of God illumines the soul, the whole life shines with an inner light. What do we mean by "the grace of God"? It means that we are conspicuously in touch with God, that we live our lives in His presence. We shall never understand this statement, however, if we think of God as a person in the sense in which we apply the word personality to ourselves. We may be said to be in the presence of God when consciousness apprehends some aspect of the Divine Nature, and when our characters show forth the God-qualities.

But how can we know what those God-qualities are when the personality of God is admittedly inapprehensible by the unaided human faculties? "No man has seen the Father at any time," but "whosoever has seen Me, has seen the Father," said our Lord, for He showed forth in their fullest human manifestation the God-qualities. It is, therefore, "through Jesus Christ our Lord" that we purify and uplift our natures till they meet the grace of God; and when the grace of God is with them, they flow out as spontaneously in good works as the sun gives light.

How different is the quality of the "good works" thus engendered! The God-qualities flowing through us to our fellow-men are life-giving, regenerating, for we are showing them God in our small way, even as our Lord showed us the Father." We are showing them God when we are loving, for God is Love; we are showing then God when we are true, for God is truth, the Light in whom there is no darkness. Human souls can only know God when He is thus shown to them by the manifesting of the God-qualities in human lives. It is this which distinguishes the good works done in the name of God; the God-qualities we have done in our own name are channels for the power of God to manifest itself to men, and good works undertaken under such a Divine impulse operate upon more planes than one, and when we feed the hungry because God loves His children through us, we feed not only the body, but the immortal soul. 

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

*Interestingly enough, this prayer does look very much as if it is modelled on, or at least inspired by, the very ancient Actiones Nostras prayer.

Actiones nostras, quaesumus Domine, aspirando praeveni et adiuvando prosequere: ut cuncta nostra oratio et operatioa te semper incipiat, et per te coepta finiatur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

A thread for 'Latter Lady Day in harvest' - a festival which in medieval art centres on the tender love between Mary and her parents, a joyous birth after years of infertility. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this date is a seasonal sign that harvest is passing into autumn. https://t.co/aY37KwZ8cr

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) September 8, 2026

Fifteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Ecclésiam tuam, Dómine, miserátio continuáta mundet et múniat: et quia sine te non potest salva consístere; tuo semper múnere gubernétur. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

O Lord, we beſeech thee, let thy continual pity cleanſe and defend thy Church; and becauſe it cannot continue in ſafety without thy ſuccour, preſerve it evermore by thy help and goodneſs; through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: "Cleanse and Defend Thy Church"

This collect is a prayer for the helping of the Church, and it indicates clearly in what manner this help must be sought. The Church must be "cleansed and defended", and in the wording of the collect we see that the cleansing must precede the defending. It is the enemies within our gates that are to be feared, not the enemies without, and those enemies are not persons, but conditions.

If the Church were as perfect as her Lord, she could safely "answer not a word" to her attackers. The cleansing of the Church is her defence from her enemies. By heart-searching let her rid herself of her vulnerable points.

The collect goes on to remind us that the Church cannot continue without God's succour. Unless the power of God uses the Church as its channel of manifestation, the Church has no reason for existence of manifestation, the Church has no reason for existence, and her buildings would be as the temples of Greece from who altars the gods have departed. Do not, however, let us make the mistake of thinking that the Church is its organisation, its parishes and bishoprics; it does not have its habitation on the physical plane, but is built not with hands, eternal in the heavens. [This is slightly odd. The Church transcends the physical world, of course, but it has members not just in heaven (and purgatory) but also on earth.] The Church is the company of souls, living, unborn [Again, no! A soul enters the Church with baptism. Unborn children are not baptised and so are not members of the Church.], or born into the life beyond the grave, who acknowledge its discipline. [The Church's members are subject to her discipline whether they acknowledge it or not.] It is through these that the power of God works, not through the mundane organisation, necessary as that is. [The power of God works through the sacraments, which are effected "mundanely" (i.e. on earth) by members of the Church's "mundane" organisation.] An oak wood is composed of oak trees, and a living Church is composed of living souls. If we want to defend the Church from her enemies, let us purify our own souls and lift them up to God that His power may be seen and draw all men unto us.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

"Conquest Man"

Stocky and muscular, just over five foot, 50 – 60 years old and with evidence of multiple healed fractures, Conquest Man was buried in the private church of one of William the Conqueror’s knights, at St Peter’s in Barton on Humber, now in the care of charity English Heritage. He was laid to rest in a coffin made from an oak tree felled in c.1079, his arms folded, head supported on a grass pillow and kept from falling sideways by two lumps of local chalk. Three apple wood staffs – grave goods in the Scandinavian tradition - were by his side. 

[Facial reconstruction reveals Conquest Man | English Heritage]

Spoiler Alert: He was almost certainly Norman, though the "Scandinavian" element is interesting, and gives a clue that the conquerors' Viking antecedents weren't buried so very deeply after all.

Fourteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Custódi, Dómine, quǽsumus, Ecclésiam tuam propitiatióne perpétua: et quia sine te lábitur humána mortálitas; tuis semper auxíliis et abstrahátur a nóxiis et ad salutária dirigátur. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. R. Amen.

Keep, we beſeech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and becauſe the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable for our ſalvation; through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Divine Guidance

Unless God keeps the city, the watchman wakes in vain. Like water, human consciousness forever seeks its own level. It  can never transcend its limitations or rise above its imperfections. It is only the pressure of divine life which can bring human life to higher levels.

We will infallibly be self-deluded unless we have an external standard of rightness. We will unconsciously justify that which we desire and condone that into which we have lapsed. Our judgement of ourselves soon becomes vitiated if we have no example by which to measure ourselves.

Man can no more rise higher than himself than water can rise higher than its source. It is only when we make contact with the Divine that we are lifted above the endless circle of the humans. God's love, manifested to us by His Son and His saints, shows us the way out of this vicious circle; in humility we open our hearts to that ever-flowing love, and it pours into us with newness of life and we rise up out of our finite human concepts to the heights when love comes.

God's love is an active, not a passive thing. It is the great reconciler. Jesus Christ was the expression of that love, and ever it goes forth, like a shepherd seeking that which is lost. It presses into human consciousness wherever the door stands ajar. None who hunger and thirst after righteousness need go empty away. If we allow the human qualities of kindliness and gentleness to find expression through us, they will open the door to divine love, and our Lord will come in and sup with us.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

The Fairies' Lost Command

Actually, this follows on quite nicely from last week's post.

Thirteenth Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, da nobis fídei, spei et caritátis augméntum: et, ut mereámur asséqui quod promíttis, fac nos amáre quod prǽcipis. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

Almighty and everlaſting God, give unto us the increaſe of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou do ſt promiſe, make us to love that which thou doſt command, through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: The Love of God's Law

It is not enough that we should obey God's law from fear of the consequences of disobedience. Unless we realise the beauty of its harmony we do not obey it with the inward man. Only when we realise that God's law is the music of the spheres, that it sweetly rules and governs all things, bringing forth the Mazzaroth in his season and guiding Arcturus with his sons — only when we realise that harmony is its basis and perfection its design can we joyfully give ourselves up with perfect security to its governing. Then do we know why the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

It is our finite separateness and selfishness which keeps us from this realisation. Because we wish to keep back part of the price, to retain something for our private use, we fear to leap into the ocean of the cosmic life where we can swim freely and where there is an abundant sufficiency for all our needs.

It is only as we develop the vision of the higher self — the faith which perceives the substance of things unseen, the hope which in confidence awaits the manifestation of the hidden laws, and the love which fails not is kind to all things, which seeks not its own, and therefore possesses all things — that we can rise into realisation of the oneness of all existence and love God's law because it maintains infinite unity in eternal harmony.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

Bury St Edmunds

Where the rude buttress totters to its fall,
And ivy mantles o'er the crumbling wall;
Where e'en the skilful eve can scarcely trace
The once high altar's lowly resting place -
Let patriotic fancy muse awhile
Amid the ruins of this ancient pile.
Six weary centuries have past away;
Palace and abbey moulder in decay -
Cold death enshrouds the learned and the brave -
Langton - Fitz Walter - slumber in the grave.
But still we read in deathless records how
The high-soul'd priest confirm'd the barons vow;
And Freedom, unforgetful still recites
This second birth-place of our native rights.

Twelfth Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens et miséricors Deus, de cuius múnere venit, ut tibi a fidélibus tuis digne et laudabíliter serviátur: tríbue, quǽsumus, nobis; ut ad promissiónes tuas sine offensióne currámus. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

ALMIGHTY, and merciful God, of whoſe only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable ſervice: Grant, we beſeech thee, that we may ſo faithfully ſerve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promiſes, through the merits of Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Fidelity and Understanding

Two things are needed for God's service: one is an unfaltering fidelity, and the other is a right understanding of what is required of us.

If we look back through history, we see many examples of an unfaltering fidelity to God's service which to us seem to go hand in hand with a misunderstanding of God's requirements of us. We cannot now believe that God would require us to massacre the little children of those who believed wrongly, yet men have been found, not once but many times, to do this in a spirit of unfaltering fidelity.

How are we to avoid making like errors? How are we to judge righteous judgement? We cannot do it by the light of human reason and expediency; we must be able to stand outside our mundane problems if we are to see in them their spiritual significance and judge them accordingly.

It is only by God's grace that we can hope to do this. And what is that grace? It is the uplifting of heart that comes when we lift up our eyes to the highest ideal we can conceive - the life of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the friend of the heart Whose influence changes our outlook. When we have been alone with Him for a little while, we find that we are judging very differently to the way we judged when we were in the midst of our problems. Guided by the divine counsellor, we shall know how to do God true and laudable service, and shall not be misled by our human errors, fears, and prejudices.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]

The Odda Stone

Eleventh Sunday after Whitsun

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui, abundántia pietátis tuæ, et mérita súpplicum excédis et vota: effúnde super nos misericórdiam tuam; ut dimíttas quæ consciéntia métuit, et adícias quod orátio non præsúmit. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

ALMIGHTY and everlaſting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we deſire, or deſerve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us thoſe things whereof our conſcience is afraid, and giving us thoſe good things which we are not worthy to aſk, but through the merits and mediation of Jeſus Chriſt thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Keynote: Beyond Our Grasp

If our aspirations were limited by our apprehensions we should be "of all men the most miserable", but our hearts reach out beyond our minds, and God hears the unspoken desire and answers it.

Our lower selves, clinging desperately to their material security and their personal desires, are not able to formulate the bold and noble prayers that call down the power of God. It is our higher selves, silent and hidden in the deepest recesses of our nature, which pray for spiritual things and are answered, often to the confusion and distress of the lower self.

And all the time the life and the love and the might and the wisdom of the Logos consciousness are around us like the air we breathe, pressing for admission to our self-limited natures, and we are afraid to open ourselves to them lest our small securities be swept away in the great tides of cosmic life.

Then it is the higher self rises up and prays, "Give us more than we dare to ask." We open ourselves freely to the great tides of spirit, come what may. And God "who is ever more ready to hear than we are to pray", pours down upon us "more than we can ask or think", and the problems, which appeared insuperable to our darkened eyes, are swept away in the great rushing tides of life and love, and the memory of then is not kept in mind.

Let us, therefore, dare to trust ourselves into God's hands, for He is indeed the creator and sustainer of life, and will not suffer us to be lost, and bring us, by His mercy, into the fullness of life.

[Dion Fortune, Mystical Meditations on the Christian Collects]