Book Reviews - Two Books by Brian Bates About Anglo-Saxon England

And a game in which to play them!

This post collects two short book reviews about Anglo-Saxon mystical thought by University of Sussex professor of psychology and shamanic studies, Brian Bates, a respected authority in the field. 

More about Brian Bates from Wikipedia 

The Real Middle Earth: Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages 

by Brian Bates, 2003, 292 pages

This is a survey-level book about the mystical aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture and it is just loaded with interesting little bits of mythical Saxon lore. Here's a look at some of what it covers:

• Saxon cosmology
• The people of the dark ages (the author sees the Celts, Germanic tribes, and Norse as part of a pan-European culture)
• How they lived
• Their perception of forests
• Their reaction to what the Romans left behind
• Dragon and their lairs
• Treasure hoards
• Elf shot
• Herbalism
• Spirits
• Wells and waterways
• Corvids
• Omens
• Shape changers
• Voyaging to the spirit world
• Wyrd, and those who weave it and can read it.
• Giants
• Dwarven craftsmanship
• Magical bonds
• Shamanic initiation (and spiders)
• The journey of the dead.

That's a lot of ground, as you can see, but it's given to us in lively and pleasant prose and is quite accessible. It also appears to be well researched - there's an extensive bibliography at the end. The book takes the approach of trying to define Anglo-Saxon culture from all sides, looking at the writings of Romans (especially Tacitus), Christian monks, and later Scandinavian and Icelandic texts, and of course Anglo-Saxon texts, too. From this, we get a rather broad but impressionistic feel for the zeitgeist of the time. It takes some liberties with history, as many more knowledgeable reviewers than I have pointed out on Amazon and elsewhere - but if what your interested in is the stuff not captured by history - a peek into the mind of a Saxon shaman , there's a lot to chew on. 

If your a gamer looking to play, for example, Mythic Britain: Logres - you'll probably find this book to be a wonderful companion. If you're familiar with the Mythras game system, you'll find yourself nodding your head a lot as the author describes the ways of the Shaman, and you'll find some new things to think about too. I can also see it being useful to Ars Magica players interested in older magic traditions, perhaps for giving your Ex Miscellanea mage or a local hedge wizard a bit of flavour. 

If you're coming to this book because of a love of Tolkien, however, I should provide a few words of caution. The title is clearly a gimmick to tap in on the popularity of the movies, which were being released when this book was published. The author does mention Tolkien and how he was inspired by Saxon lore, but maybe only once every 2 chapters - just enough to make sense of the title. Tolkien is obviously not the thrust of the book, though Tolkien fans would still find it interesting, I think, as long as their expectations are properly set.

I recommend it as a starting point for anyone interested in reading up on the spiritual thinking of past people. Lastly, it strays from time to time into self-indulgence, enough to make me wince, but not enough to mar the overall book. As a companion to running a mythic role-playing game, it's just about perfect.


The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer 

by Brian Bates, 1983, 237 pages

This book was recommended to me by my friend Paul as a follow-up on The Real Middle Earth.

The Way of the Wyrd is a fiction that follows the fortunes of Wat Brand, a scribe in a Christian mission in Saxon-era Mercia, as he is sent into deepest, darkest Sussex to learn the ways of the pagan Saxons who live there. He's told that a guide will meet him, and that guide is Wulf, a Saxon sorcerer, who takes him under his wing and teaches him to open himself to the spirit world.

It's easy to see how this book influenced the later Real Middle Earth, which is much more like a concrete survey of Anglo-Saxon mystical thinking. In this book we encounter many of the same ideas, but here presented in a much more dreamlike story format. It is very much as if the teaching in this earlier book is intended to be from heart to heart, while that in the latter book is from mind to mind. Personally, I respond much more strongly to the latter, and TWoW had me often asking myself "why is this happening, exactly?", but Bates is an eloquent writer and the prose zips along so, despite confounding the rationalist in me, it was a pleasant read.

Recommended for anyone into spiritual customs. Prepare to be baffled if you run mostly on logic, though.

As an aside, this book has inspired several pieces of music, including the thrash metal album Dreamweaver by Sabbat and many much more mellow pieces. There's definitely something to be said for a book that can inspire so much creativity.

Mythic Britain: Logres

Since I mentioned this above as a sourcebook for playing a Saxons campaign, I thought I'd say a few more words about this product.

Mythic Britain: Logres is a supplement by Paul Mitchener for the Mythic Britain setting (itself written by Lawrence Whitaker) for the Mythras game system. It takes the setting of Mythic Britain, rolls it over, and gives it back to us from the viewpoint of the Saxons. Logres, by the way, is the Brythonic name for the "lost lands" that the Saxons now control.

The book contains chapters on Saxon culture, spirits and magic, character creation, Saxon lands and settlements, and key personages acting in the Saxon lands. There're are also 4 scenarios that link together into a short campaign for 4-8 sessions of play (or, if your group is like mine, 12 sessions of play).

The Hbyt - A Campaign about Friendship and Greed

Today on his blog, Paul Mitchener was musing on how he might revisit his Hunters of Alexandria game. This gave me an idea.

I think there's a lot of scope for expanding with a sort of 'city breaks' book that gives adventurers a wide variety of places to visit on travels from Alexandria. There are a lot of very interesting but less famous Egyptian locales that would really lend that feeling of wonder and mystery to an adventure. And in this case I'd certainly include the Fayyum city of Arsinoe in Arcadia - aka Crocodilopolis. From Wikipedia: "The city worshiped a tamed sacred crocodile called in Koine Petsuchos, "the Son of Soukhos", that was adorned with gold and gem pendants. The Petsoukhos lived in a special temple pond and was fed by the priests with food provided by visitors. When Petsuchos died, it was replaced by another."

That's very cool on its own, but let's take this a step further and turn it into an RPG campaign.

Pataikos, or nmw

 
The Hbyt

A bunch of Egyptian nmw, or Pataikos, servants of the cult of Ptah, wish to reclaim the treasures of their ancestors, unjustly robbed from them by the cult of Petsoukhos generations ago. On the advice of a priest of Thoth, they arrive for an unexpected party at the house of an unlikely burglar in Alexandria, whose door the Priest of Thoth had marked with a hieroglyph. The burglar is surprised by the intrusion, but politely provides many festive offerings to his guests. Before he knows it, the burglar agrees to set off on adventures with them and leaves Alexandria for the first time.

On their journeys they are nearly eaten by sphinxes, then captured by Troglodytes from the Erythrean Sea or Upper Nile area, and while trapped in the troglodyte caves the burglar meets an ancient mummy and wins a treasure from him - the Ring of Gyges, which turns the wearer invisible.

Eventually they all get out of the caves, only to be hunted by jackals, and then rescued by griffins and deposited on an island in the river where they meet a man who can change into a hippopotamus. They next traverse the great reed beds and nearly run afoul of giant water striders.

Finally they make it to Crocodilopolis and discover the secret way into the lair of Petshoukhos by moonlight. He lies within, encrusted in gems. Using the Ring of Gyges, the burglar steals the Eye of Osiris, which angers the great reptile, who then goes on a rampage in the city of Arsinoe where he is eventually killed by a local archer - but not before the town is nearly destroyed. 

While the local residents deal with the great croc, the patraikos move into the lair and reclaim it and its treasure for themselves, as their heritage. The burglar finds he must mediate between the two groups that want the treasure in payment for past wrongs. And to complicate matters, the angry troglodytes, jackals, and some bird pals show up seeking revenge.

Now, what could you call this campaign? Maybe name it after the unexpected party that starts it all. Looking up the Egyptian word for festive offerings in the dictionary, that gives us Hbyt, so we'll call it The Hbyt. Sounds about right.

Links:
Crocodilopolis
Pataikos
Troglodytes
The Ring of Gyges
Ancient Egyptian Dictionary

History Book Reviews - Three City Books: Ur, Ugarit, and Erbil

This post collects three of the book reviews rescued from my G+ feed. Each of these books discusses the archaeology and known history of a single ancient city: Ur, in the land of Sumer, Ugarit, in the land of Canaan, and Erbil, in the land of Assyria.

1. Ur - The City of the Moon God
by Harriet Crawford, 2015, 146 pages

This book offers a capsule history of the ancient city of Ur, one of the oldest known cities in the world. Located on the lower Euphrates river near the head of the Persian Gulf, this city played an important role in the early history of the ancient near east and, for about 100 years at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, was arguably the most important city in the world.

The author, Harriet Crawford, is one of the most prolific writers on this period and definitely knows her stuff. As a survey, this book covers all the periods that saw people living and working on the site, from the Ubaid period c.5000 BC to its eventual decline sometime during the or after time the Persians ruled Babylon c.500BC. She also discusses the archaeological work of Sir Leonard Woolley in excavating the city in the '20s.

As a light survey, I think it does a fine job. It's accessible to the lay-person and relatively concise. For my money, though, I think I would have preferred something more complete - an encyclopedia of the city of Ur. As such this book is nowhere near complete. It lacks illustrations of many of the key finds discussed in the text, and is missing king lists and other historical data. It's also a little shy on synthesis, which is something I have found in other books by this author - she prefers to lay out facts and let the reader draw their own conclusions. This book mainly focuses on the architecture based on archaeological evidence. It adds little that is new to the discussion of Ur, so if you've already read something about this city or period in some depth, you won't find anything too exciting in here.

If you're interested in cities of the ancient near east (including Ur), then I would point you instead to Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City by Gwendolyn Leick, which tells the story of ancient Mesopotamia, from the first cities to the invasion of the Persians, one city at a time from Eridu to Babylon. It's one of the most remarkable books on ancient history I've ever read, and Ur gets its own chapter. 

2. Ugarit: Ras Shamra 

by Adrian Curtis, 1985, 125pp

Ancient cities fascinate me because they're puzzles. They can be excavated for years, but never fully discovered, so scholars and archaeologists take what they can find and try to create the most complete picture possible. Even the most complete picture still leaves a lot to the imagination, and there are always new places to dig, either sideways or down.

Ugarit is one of those cities. Chances are you haven't heard of it, but it's an interesting place. It lies on a headland on the Mediterranean shore of modern Syria, south of the Turkish border. It was settled and abandoned more than once between 6000 and 2000 BC, and finally reached its peak development in the middle and late bronze age between about 1800 and 1200 BC. It was destroyed and abandoned for good during the cataclysmic Bronze Age Collapse that took place around 1200-1100 BC - the same event that saw the fall of a great many cities in the area, including the Hittite empire of ancient Turkey and the Mycenaean civilization in what is now Greece.

During its heyday, Ugarit was an important nexus for trade, being at the northern edge of Egyptian influence, the eastern edge of Mycenaean influence, the southern edge of Hittite influence, and the western edge of Mittanian and Assyrian (and before them Akkadian) influence. Being always on the edge of great empires, it was both free to develop its own culture and yet close enough to be exposed to what was happening in larger and more influential centres. It was occupied by a mix of Semitic and Hurrian speaking people.

The most important discoveries from Ugarit are the written tablets containing what has become known as the Ugaritic Script - perhaps the earliest alphabetic script - which was used to write the Ugaritic language - a semitic language related to Hebrew. These ancient writing tablets contain records of financial transactions, correspondence, and most important, the most complete records of Canaanite myth so far discovered.

Ugarit by Adrian Curtis describes the early history of the city, life in its golden age (including a brief summary of some of the sordid affairs of its kings), a description of the city based on archaeology, a summary of the myths discovered, and two more in-depth essays on what the religion of the city might have looked like and why all of this is relevant to bible scholars.

I particularly enjoyed reading about King Ammistamru's troubles involving his brothers and what appear to be two divorces, all of which seemed to need the interference of the Hittite king to be settled. I also enjoyed reading the myths of the city god, Baal, and the discussion of how he relates to the Hebrew god, Yahweh.

This volume by Curtis is one of a few book length treatments of the city I'm aware of. Another, by Marguerite Yon, translated into English from the original french, is a little newer and probably probably more up-to-date, since a major find of 300 tablets was discovered in the years between when these two books were published. I haven't read that book, but would be inclined to suggest it instead of this one simply because it is more current. But if you happen to see the Curtis book on a used book shop shelf somewhere, by all means pick it up and give it a read.

And if you already know something about Ugarit and would like to learn more, then be sure to check out the historical novel by my friend, Richard Abbott: The Flame Before Us which is set in Ugarit during its final fall c.1200 BC. 

3. A City from the Dawn of History: 

Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources 

by John MacGinnis, 2014, 128 pages

My ideal book on an ancient city would include both original written texts and archaeological data, both of which are thin on the ground. Rather good books have been written about the cities of Ebla and Mari. I recently reviewed one on Ur and another on Ugarit. This book focuses on Erbil (anciently known as Irbilum, Urbilum, Urbel, and Arbail) which is located in Iraqi Kurdistan on the Lesser Zab river. It's not my ideal book, but it has enough to keep me interested.

Unlike Ebla, Mari, Ugarit, and Ur, the city of Erbil is still an inhabited city of about 1.5 million people. There is evidence for settlement here as far back as the Ubaid period (C.5000 BC), so Erbil is a contender for the title of the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. Being inhabited, Erbil hasn't been able to benefit from an extensive archaeological program, but with the help of UNESCO it is about to implement one as part of a revitalization program. This book, therefore, focuses on what was anciently written about Erbil in the cuneiform texts from the late 3rd millennium to the time of Alexander the Great - hence the subtitle.

Check out this Wikipedia article to see a picture of the ancient heart of Erbil, located under the citadel on what is obviously an ancient tell. A "tell" is a city mound, built up over centuries of continuous habitation in one spot. 

A City From the Dawn of History does a good job of describing the history of Erbil (such as is possible) through the ancient period. The author makes some educated guesses based on scant resources for the early periods, and those texts are provided in translation. Later texts, from the late Assyrian period, are only summarized, rather than translated, and in this I was a little disappointed - it would have been nice to have more of these written out in full.

One of the more interesting treatments in this book is the analysis of how the name for the city was written during different time periods. The various names are shown in cuneiform, transliterated, and translated, so we can see how not only the name changed, but how cuneiform writing itself changed - and that's a fascinating thing!

Around 3100 BC, during the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the name was written Ur bi lum followed by the sign KI. This last sign is written, but not pronounced. It's what's called a determinative and it's used to classify the word - in this case as a land or large city. The same signs, Ur-bi-lum, could be used to describe something else, if a different determinative was used.

By c.1700 BC the name was spelled Ur bi el , a phonetic spelling, followed by the KI sign. The actually cuneiform symbols look very different from those of 500 years earlier - they are simpler.

By the late second millennium, the name is written Ar ba il and now preceded by the determinative URU (meaning city). KI is no longer used.

By the middle of the 1st millennium, the name is written using the sign for the number 4 and the sign for god, DINGIR, preceeded by the URU determinative. This is because scribes were now using the signs for 4 (pronounced 'arba') and for God (pronounced 'il') to write the name. Using just those two signs one could approximate the sound of the name Arbil. And so the city earned the nickname "City of the Four Gods" - not because it had four gods, but because of a scribal spelling convention.

The actual city god of Erbil was called Ishtar of Arbail and she was one of the most important goddesses of the Assyrian Empire. Erbil was, at that time, one of the key cities of the Assyrian heartland. Her temple was called Egashankalamma ("House of the Lady of the Land") and King Esarhaddon of Assyria claimed to have covered it in electrum.

A prominent prophet lived here at that time, and a number of those prophecies appear, translated, in another book I reviewed: Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East by Martti Nissinen.

So, to conclude, this book isn't my ideal - it's missing the archaeological information I'd normally look for because the city is still thickly settled. But it really does give you everything else that's available, with some wonderful synthesis and great illustrations. Of the three books presented here, it's the one that presented me with the most pleasant surprises.

RPG Review - Hunters of Alexandria by Paul Mitchener

Hunters of Alexandria by Paul Mitchener, 2015, 111 pages.
A Swords and Sandals Roleplaying Game. D101 Games.

D101 Games: Hunters of Alexandria

This is a sweet little RPG by the incomparable incalculable Dr. Paul Mitchener with an added scenario by publisher Newt Newport.

The game is set in Roman Alexandria in the year 753 after the foundation of Rome. That's 1 AD to you and me...well, to me anyway; you might be more of a CE person. Anyway, the book is set in ancient Alexandria when it is a thriving city under Roman rule. The conceit is that all the players are part of an organization called The Venatores (or Hunters, if you're like me and have a North American education and didn't learn some cool words in Latin) and your job is to seek out and trouble-shoot supernatural threats to the city and empire.

And why not? Roman Alexandria is chock full of larvae lamiae, lares, and lycanthropes, not to mention more exotic things that have creeped in from nearby Aegyptus, like ghouls, sphinxes, and sha.

The book offers a capsule history of Alexandria, a gazetteer of places in the city, some sample characters, a who's who of the city, factions for the PCs to rub up against, some scenario outlines, a full adventure, and all the rules you need to play. Rules are a modified version of fate, but you don't need a copy of fate to play. The game is light enough that you can pick up and play with minimal preparation, and it can do this because you, yes you, can fill in all the blanks you need from your own imagination of what a Roman city is like. Setting the game in Roman Alexandria is actually a brilliant stoke, because it's just exotic enough to give a sense of wonder, and yet familiar enough to make playing there easy.

As good as it is, I do have a few small quibbles with the book. It really could use another pass through an editor or proofreader, though the errors are not significant enough to impede one's enjoyment. And the included scenario, although it does an excellent job of making use of the core text and bringing the setting alive, will need to be given some thought before running it to smooth out some structural inconsistencies – for example some scenes are connected by threads so silky I think the players will easily miss their connection, and the ending will need to be given some thought as none of the 4 possible resolutions presented actually deals with what I think the the most likely outcome. Lastly, there is some questionable advice in this scenario – it's a mystery and the text advises you not to give the players advice when they get stuck (even when the scenario writer doesn't provide enough clues). If you follow this, you may well end up in one of those embarrassing situations where the game grinds to a halt because nobody knows what to do next, and you'll be forced to write a Gumshoe system knock-off - and nobody wants that.

I'm happy to be able to recommend this game. It's short. It's sweet. It's fun. The hiccups in the scenario are easily overcome. And you all need more ancient history in your gaming life than you currently have – stop mumbling, you know it's true! Duo pollice!