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An American in Britain: Glastonbury

An American in Britain: Glastonbury

Last updated on: September 3, 2016 at 9:49 am by Jason Mankey

An American in Britain: Glastonbury 2016-09-03T09:49:24-06:00 Jason Mankey

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After Bath and Tintagel our next stop was Glastonbury. Ari and I actually visited Glastonbury on our last trip two years ago, but only got to spend a few hours in town. This time around we booked two nights at a local B&B and allowed ourselves an entire day to just wander about.

(This is just a quick recap of my current trip to the UK. It’s not meant to be an extensive look at anything, it’s mostly about the pictures. For a more complete look at Glastonbury, click here.)

We began our time in Glastonbury with a visit to the White Spring. The Chalice Well is the far more famous spring when it comes to Glastonbury, but my wife and I greatly prefer the White Spring. That’s probably because the White Spring is unabashedly Pagan. There’s a shrine to both a goddess and a horned god at the White Spring, and I love it. Ari and I got to spend some private time at the White Spring: just us and the gods.

There’s a “no picture” policy at the White Spring so I can’t share what it looks like on the inside. It reminds us a lot of a cave, with a large central pool and water pouring out of the walls and onto the floors. It’s entirely lit by candlelight and feels primal in a way that I can’t quite describe. Love it.

After the White Spring we hiked up the Tor to catch the setting sun. Views from the Tor are absolutely stunning, and unlike our last time visiting nearly everyone there was appreciative of its power and energy. (Last time it seemed like most people were using it because it had good cell reception.) Getting up to the top of the Tor is quite a hike, but not painfully so. On a clear day you can see Wales from the top!

That was about all we had planned for our first day, and ended the evening with some pub food. The next day we were out of our B&B by 11:30 to go do some shopping. (Breakfast at a B&B can take awhile, especially when I’m busy chatting with the other guests.) Glastonbury has a lot of Witch Shops, but not a whole lot of stuff I’ve never seen before. Ari picked up some jewelry and I found some nice shirts from India along with an old Patricia Crowther book and a far older Eric Maple paperback.

There’s a lot of art outside some of the shops, and much of its beautiful. There were a few spots where I would have gladly payed a pound just to gawk at the Green Men on the walls. Some of the most most amazing store art was hidden in little back alleys which made coming across it even more fun. We also found a copy of “The Witch’s Athame” which is cool because it’s the book I wrote!

During the middle of our shopping trip it started to rain, but after a quick change of clothes we headed back towards the Tor and The Chalice Well. I’ve been spending a lot of time with the works of Dion Fortune over the last year so I was excited to see the Chalice Well again since it was such an important place to her. The rain added an extra layer of magick to our Chalice Well experience, and it just feels English to us too.

Perhaps it was the 24 hours worth of distance between our White Spring experience and the Chalice Well this time around (two years we visited both back to back), but I think we enjoyed ourselves more this time around. We sat near “the” well for about twenty minutes just feeling its power radiate up and onto us. Ari feels these things much more strongly than I do, but I certainly could pick up on it.

The Chalice Well experience is about more than just the well, it’s a magickal garden with lots of surprises hidden within it. I probably find the flowing water to be the highlight (there’s a “stream” from the Chalice Well that runs through the entire garden) but there are also beautiful spaces for quiet reflection, a majestic oak tree, and thousands of flowers. The Chalice Well is a magickal place, but it’s not a Pagan place in the strict sense of the term. People from a variety of faiths come to the Chalice Well for spiritual purposes, but there is a goddess statue hidden amongst the flowers.

After the Chalice Well we started walking up the Tor again when my phone rang. It was Sorita d’Este wanting to catch up with us and show us around Glastonbury. We had a long rambling conversation as we walked up the Tor and I felt like a giddy school boy getting to talk to one of my favorite contemporary authors. Sorita gave us a guided tour of the Tor that went far beyond what I could have hoped for.

In addition to the Tor we got to see her nearby ritual space and tour the Avalon Apple Orchard at the base of the Tor. While the clouds limited our view when we got to the top, we could also look in every direction without worrying about being blinded by the sun. It also provided a different perspective versus our earlier one from the day before.

After the Tor Sorita introduced me to the joys of Lilley’s Crazy Goat Cider, a still cider made from local apples. It was served at room temperature (my favorite) and was absolutely delicious, also filled with alcohol. I probably could have had two or three, but we had one more stop to make before dark-the grave of Dion Fortune.

Fortune’s grave is rather nondescript and I’m not sure I would have found it without a bit of help. I forgot to bring an offering so I left Fortune one of my Patheos business cards. It was a ridiculous thing to leave, but I wanted to acknowledge my debt to Fortune. While she wasn’t a Witch, she helped light the way.

Post-grave we walked back into town and had dinner (and more cider and/or gin & tonics). We then proceeded to close our local pub down before heading off to bed. This morning we began our long journey to Edinburgh Scotland.

Next: Whiskey

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