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22 May 2020 13:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
haptalaonThere's an important parallel between Robin of Sherwood and Penda's Fen, in that...in both, we see the old gods return, and they are hella political. Their narrative role is to reassert ownership over the people. As Mark Fisher says of capitalism, "there is a sense that something has been got away with".They return to guide us rightly, replacing a false system with a true one - in Robin it's the machinery of incompetent Norman overlords, whereas in Penda it's the English establishment: Church of England, army, public morality, all-boys schools, heterosexuality.
The old gods don't return for power or even for worship, but to re-awaken the anarchic, pagan spirit of the people
I suppose this taps into to something more broad about how The Land has been deployed in British fiction, as a stand in for our cultural consciousness; and similarly, "the pagan" is used as a stand in for a "pagan spirit" which is, as Penda says, the act of becoming "ungovernable", of challenging power.
And I suppose you can see another variant of this in the myth of Arthur, the once-and-future king who will return in England's time of need. But - and this is important - how often do you actually see the Arthur myth used like this? I don't think the English see themselves as the court of King Arthur, waiting to be saved by a divinely-chosen monarch - they see themselves as the Merry Men. For Arthur's return is just another form of control, whereas Robin stands for underdog self-governance.
(Robin is Solar-Lunar/Land, whereas Penda is Solar-Lunar/Horizon. Arthur is Solar/no element)
(Edited to add:
in Robin of Sherwood, the mysticism is clearly important to the writer. In Penda's Fen, poor old David Rudkin has actually said in interviews that he doesn't like being grouped in with folk horror and land-paganism - sorry Dave - because he views his film as exclusively political. Which it is that as well. But not exclusively, right? As any afficianado of folk horror will know, you cannot call on the power of the land without accepting that something will come that is not of your making or control....)
The old gods don't return for power or even for worship, but to re-awaken the anarchic, pagan spirit of the people
I suppose this taps into to something more broad about how The Land has been deployed in British fiction, as a stand in for our cultural consciousness; and similarly, "the pagan" is used as a stand in for a "pagan spirit" which is, as Penda says, the act of becoming "ungovernable", of challenging power.
And I suppose you can see another variant of this in the myth of Arthur, the once-and-future king who will return in England's time of need. But - and this is important - how often do you actually see the Arthur myth used like this? I don't think the English see themselves as the court of King Arthur, waiting to be saved by a divinely-chosen monarch - they see themselves as the Merry Men. For Arthur's return is just another form of control, whereas Robin stands for underdog self-governance.
(Robin is Solar-Lunar/Land, whereas Penda is Solar-Lunar/Horizon. Arthur is Solar/no element)
(Edited to add:
in Robin of Sherwood, the mysticism is clearly important to the writer. In Penda's Fen, poor old David Rudkin has actually said in interviews that he doesn't like being grouped in with folk horror and land-paganism - sorry Dave - because he views his film as exclusively political. Which it is that as well. But not exclusively, right? As any afficianado of folk horror will know, you cannot call on the power of the land without accepting that something will come that is not of your making or control....)
