I Will Not Reason And Compare

In creating this image I intended to bring together two elements. Firstly, the story of Los and his Spectre from William Blake’s Jerusalem, and secondly the story of Wayland the Smith, known in Norse as Volundr, who is lamed by the King and forced to work at forging rings until he escapes. The setting is one of the most iconic of all the burial mounds in the British Isles called Wayland’s Smithy. The picture is therefore an image of a sacred place in Albion – Blake’s name for these islands – and as such a reflection on the sleep of Albion and its foretold awakening in the prophetic works.

It is also a reflection on the nature of creation and sub-creation, to use Tolkien’s terms for his theory of the centrality of the creative imagination (influenced by Coleridge).

In the centre of the picture deep within the darkness of the barrow a light emanates  - this is a reference to the solstice alignment upon which so many British earthworks are orientated, but also to the birth of the Christ-Child at the dark of the year and the moment of his resurrection within the tomb.

In the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his companions become lost on the barrow-downs in the fog and become trapped in one of the burial mounds by a barrow-wight – a ghost of an ancient warrior. It takes Frodo to remember the song he was taught by Tom Bombadil if they got in trouble, and he comes to rescue them all, performing something very like an exorcism and casting out the wight from the barrow. This episode reflects Tolkien’s Catholic attitude to certain aspects of the pagan past which was evident in the landscape of Britain, and I wanted to do something similar with my own work in creating a consciously ambiguous picture, which has little overt Christian imagery. But through the combination of words and image, the idea of craft and creation, so fundamental to the Christian story, I hope to lead the viewer to the ‘Christ of the Imagination’ of Blake.