Strange And Unexpected Connections

There is a strange and unexpected connection between my first novel plot and my second.

It is one of those subtle connections that I only discovered recently when I was researching the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland in 1941.

This was partly because I was looking into the background of Lord Halifax, for a blog article.

What I discovered was that Rudolf Hess commissioned a survey of all Ley lines in Germany, when he was Hitler's deputy and perhaps more ‘respectable’ than he became after his flight to Scotland.

These lines were first explored in Britain by Alfred Watkins in 1924, when he published first a short pamphlet, followed a couple of years later by a more developed book on the subject.

The Wikipedia article about Nazi interest in the occult does not have a citation as yet, but in the article about Rudolf Hess information is provided about his commissioning of a survey of all such lines in Nazi Germany.

This is interesting to me, since my second novel, as yet not completed, is very much based upon these "lines of power".

In my story, the first four chapters of which are published in my collection of short stories which can be read online, the exploration of a particular ‘line of power’ called the Dragon Line, is central to my plot.

What is unusual about this line is that it can be drawn very accurately on for example Google maps and it connects a whole series of sacred sites in the South of England.

Including Glastonbury, Avebury, and numerous others that fall precisely on the dragon line, or on one of its subsidiary lines which travel either side of the main line in much less direct fashion.

These are called the Michael line and the Mary line, one represented as the female line, and the other as the male.

There is a wonderful story about the way in which all three lines intersect in the nave of Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, and it is said that those that are sensitive to such lines can detect the way in which these lines "kiss" in the nave of that cathedral.

To be honest, the truth or otherwise of the existence of these "lines of power" and their purpose is of less importance to me then the simple fact that they are given some credence particularly by "new age" thinkers.

My novel is planned to be a a kind of riposte to Dan Brown's best selling conspiracy theory thrillers, in that my story it is partly about the credence given to these lines, and the obsessiveness with which one person in particular explores them in the late 60s, but it falls to his son to complete the work of the father, who dies mysteriously young, leaving behind a body of research that he expects his son to complete.

Given that the library of the father, absent from the household because of his demise, contains so many works that capture the interest of the growing young man, he studies anthropology at university, and when his studies are completed his father's bequest and request that he continue and complete what he had begun all those years before sets in train my story.

I won't reveal any more of the plot, but suffice to say that it involves a practical exploration of the Dragon line, and is I suppose a quest story. There are some strange true facts which might be considered surprising coincidences, so for example where the Dragon Line leaves the land at the extreme east of England, is exactly at the point where North Sea gas is piped into the mainland, just south of great Yarmouth.

There is much opportunity for false trails and conspiracy theories, but ultimately it is a human story, and one that like in any quest story, is more about the person undertaking the quest than what is being sought.

Since it has taken me more than 20 years to complete my first novel, I don't expect this one to take less time. But then I do have the help of modern technology like Google maps, which is just as well since my severe disability means I would not be able to walk the line myself.

I have also linked it with an unusual antiquarian book that I am fortunate to have a copy of, published in 1676, and containing the first ever representation in pictorial form of what the Druids looked like.

It contains a number of interesting engravings of fine quality, and what is remarkable is the way in which all images of Druids after this date, such as those presented by Stukeley who attributed the site at Avebury which he first surveyed in the 18th century, resemble in substantial detail those first images or from 1676.

And that first image remarkably resembles Gandalf the Grey from the Lord Of The Rings, so perhaps that series of films also involved someone looking at this volume, which any university library would be proud to own.

It is famous for being the least accurate history of Britain that exists from this period, and it also includes genealogies of the English kings, tracing many of them back to Noah.

In the style of the day, it has one of those titles that is quite lengthy, so that it is Britannia Antiqua Illustrata, a history of Britain from the Phoenicians to the present day, and its inaccuracy gives me great latitude to extrapolate and explore such seemingly unrelated things as the trade routes for Cornish tin across Europe and the known world, tin of course being the essential ingredient added to copper to make Bronze.

It is another unusual fact that there are a very limited number of sources for tin across the world, and so I suppose I like to think of my second novel as being a novel about the way the earth itself has guided human development. Perhaps the first Gaia novel. Or perhaps not......