the Star Tribune never prints my letters . . .
. . . and I don't know why I even bothered with this one. I really don't.
But I wrote this:
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As an Irish-Scottish-British American descended from Celts (who very much enjoyed my own visit to Avebury and Stonehenge), I read Linda Mack's story "The Power of Rock" in this Sunday's travel section first with bemusement, then frustration. Not only did she take what this self-styled "druid" said on its face, but the _Star Tribune_ did as well -- taking his grossly inaccurate statements and his completely baseless theories at face value in captions on photos describing Avebury as a site for "fertility rites in ancient times." There is no evidence for this. None.
She finished her story asking: "Why did our disheveled friend inspire confidence rather than disbelief?"
I'll answer that for you, Ms. Mack: because you clearly have not even a passing understanding of European history or prehistory.
Pretty much every thing your "druid" friend said was patently false and has been disproved in hundreds of places. The druids did not build Stonehenge, nor did they build Avebury, which is at least a thousand years older. The pre-Christian academic, spiritual and political class we now call "druids" were Celtic. And the Celts did not even exist as a people when these sites were built. There is no evidence that the druids worshipped "mother earth;" this is also a neopagan innovation.
Please don't just post a charlatan's bizarre and easily disproved assertions as fact -- especially in your photo cutlines. This makes the paper look absolutely ridiculous.
Anyone who has given Celtic or British history even a cursory glance knows to stand very far back from anyone who claims an ancestral connection to druidism -- especially one who spouts well-known (and _modern_) neopagan belief as ancient wisdom.
I know this was a light travel piece -- but is a brief Google fact-check too much to ask?
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In response to this incredibly horrifying pile of garbage:
http://www.startribune.com/1375/story/1217946.html
But I wrote this:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As an Irish-Scottish-British American descended from Celts (who very much enjoyed my own visit to Avebury and Stonehenge), I read Linda Mack's story "The Power of Rock" in this Sunday's travel section first with bemusement, then frustration. Not only did she take what this self-styled "druid" said on its face, but the _Star Tribune_ did as well -- taking his grossly inaccurate statements and his completely baseless theories at face value in captions on photos describing Avebury as a site for "fertility rites in ancient times." There is no evidence for this. None.
She finished her story asking: "Why did our disheveled friend inspire confidence rather than disbelief?"
I'll answer that for you, Ms. Mack: because you clearly have not even a passing understanding of European history or prehistory.
Pretty much every thing your "druid" friend said was patently false and has been disproved in hundreds of places. The druids did not build Stonehenge, nor did they build Avebury, which is at least a thousand years older. The pre-Christian academic, spiritual and political class we now call "druids" were Celtic. And the Celts did not even exist as a people when these sites were built. There is no evidence that the druids worshipped "mother earth;" this is also a neopagan innovation.
Please don't just post a charlatan's bizarre and easily disproved assertions as fact -- especially in your photo cutlines. This makes the paper look absolutely ridiculous.
Anyone who has given Celtic or British history even a cursory glance knows to stand very far back from anyone who claims an ancestral connection to druidism -- especially one who spouts well-known (and _modern_) neopagan belief as ancient wisdom.
I know this was a light travel piece -- but is a brief Google fact-check too much to ask?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In response to this incredibly horrifying pile of garbage:
http://www.startribune.com/1375/story/1217946.html