The Apple and the Thorn: A Timeless Tale for the Ages [Paperback]

This story is not true in the sense that most people use that word. It emerges out of the mists of time, rooted deep in the heritage of Britain and western spirituality. It is a weave of mythologies, theologies, traditions, and histories. It is the story of two people, and a story of our peoples. It has no beginning, and it has no ending.

The story stands upon the traditions of two mythical characters: the Lady of Avalon, and Joseph of Arimathea. But the land is itself a living character in the tale, as is the surrounding marsh, the invading Roman legion, and a very special cup of blue glass that unites them all.

The legend of the Lady emerges from the Arthurian literature, but predates and underlies the story of Arthur by some four hundred years. Vivian is a Lady who is already the stuff of myth by the time Arthur meets the Lady of the Lake. She is the sovereignty of the land itself, the spirit of the mud and dark water of the marshes, seer of an ancient people, priestess of the Isle of Mist, and keeper of the apples. She clings to the ancient earth for her people at a time when the old Druids are finding new connections to a Roman culture they are no longer able to defeat.

At the time of the tale, which we would today name as 45 CE, the Roman invasion under Emperor Claudius is two years old. Vespasian is leading the II Augusta Legion across the southwest of Britain, fast approaching the great inland sea, which is the realm of Avalon. Ancient Britain will soon be Roman.

Into this ferment comes Joseph of Arimathea, great-uncle of Jesus of Nazareth. Traditions of Joseph abound in the Cornwall and Somerset regions of England. Joseph, the Cornish tin and lead merchant, mine owner and supplier of metals to the Roman military across the Empire. In this tale we make use of one particular tradition that says Joseph was indeed born in Cornwall, a Jew of the Diaspora, and only later went to Palestine in his capacity of trader in tin. There he became Minister of Mines for the Roman army, a worldly-wise merchant who knew the Mediterranean world, and much of the Roman leadership. In this tale, he is known by a Cornish name, Eosaidh of Cornualle.

According to tradition, Eosaidh made many trips from Palestine to the mines of Cornwall and the Mendip hills north of Avalon, and on some occasion brought his nephew with him. Eosaidh, Vivian, and "the Lad" have all met before, years before this tale begins. And Vivian has already had profound, but different, influence upon them both.

The underlying images in the tale are the Cup of Life, later to become known as the "Holy Grail," the Apple trees of sacred and fertile Avalon, and the Hawthorn staff of Eosaidh's tradition. It is a tale of the coming of the Jesus tradition to the ancient world of Avalon, and what happens when these worlds collide. But there is unexpected conflict, too, when Eosaidh is confronted with the new "church," bringing a cult of Jesus that even he cannot accept. In the end, Eosaidh must chose between Avalon and Jerusalem, between two loves.

And this is truly a love story. For the worldviews that meet, and clash, and dance and clash again do not do so in the abstract. Eosaidh and Vivian are flesh and blood. Their struggle to understand one another, and indeed themselves, takes them out of the realm of theological debate into the whirlwind of human emotion.

As the tale unfolds, Vivian and Eosaidh discuss the story of the Lad, and explore together questions of the nature of God, humanity, gender, honor, hope, history, ethics, spirituality, and, always, the underlying presence and meaning of the land. They alternately succeed and fail in understanding each other. They fall deeply in love, are separated by the tides of circumstance, find each other, and are separated again. The growing depth of their intellectual connection is matched by the growing depth of their heart longing. What would be a work of theology becomes instead the most powerful of love stories. And this is as it should be.

The work is a collaboration between a British Druid leader, Emma Restall Orr, and an (admittedly unconventional) American Episcopal Priest, Walter William Melnyk. We chose this format in order to allow the characters of Vivian and Eosaidh to be as genuine as possible. We both wrote our own characters in the first person, present, and alternated narrator responsibility chapter by chapter. There is much autobiography in the characters. Indeed, so powerful was the experience that, as the tale was concluded, Melnyk resigned from his ordination in the Church to follow Eosaidh into the marshes of Avalon.

An epilogue brings the ancient tale into the reader's present day, because the tale indeed has no end. The theological debate, the human struggle, and the longing of the human heart are all as real and meaningful in our own time as they were for Vivian and Eosaidh. The Lady of Avalon and the Tinner of Cornwall are all of us, and we are they.
Emma Restall Orr
Walter William Melnyk
© 11 April 2005