In The Real Middle Earth, Brian Bates brings alive the spirit of what we nowadays call ‘paganism’, drawing us into the world of magic, mystery and destiny as it was truly experienced by the ancients. J R R Tolkien readily admitted that the concept of Middle Earth was not his own invention but was drawn from Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology. Behind the tales we know of Dark Age kings and queens, warriors and battles, lies the hidden history of the real Middle Earth, where wizards cast healing spells, wise trees gave blessings, and omens foretold the death of kings. The very landscape was experienced as being enchanted and the world imbued with life force. Repressed by a millennium of Christianity, this way of life all but disappeared, leaving only faint and often corrupted traces in folk memory and fairy tales. In this book, Brian Bates has drawn on the latest historical and archaeological findings to reconstruct the spiritual world of our past and provide insights that may help us find greater meaning and understanding in the present.
303pp, 128mm x 197mm, colour plates, softback, 2003
Spirituality 
