This is a chapter from Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past, edited by Katja Ritari and Alexandra Bergholm. Although it has long been acknowledged that the early Irish literary corpus preserves both pre-Christian and Christian elements, the challenges involved in the understanding of these different strata have not been subjected to critical examination
Romantic rock-perched sea-girt Tintagel is a magical place that resonates with Arthurian associations - and the archaeological reality is no less intriguing than the legend. Investigation of the site began in the 1930s, when Dr Ralegh Radford uncovered remains of buildings with significant volumes of eastern Mediterranean and North African pottery of fifth- to seventh-century date, suggesting a…