Tauroctony (Wikimedia Commons)
Hello everyone,
I’d like to thank all of you for your patience and kind words over the last few weeks. It has indeed been a difficult time with the sudden loss of my father.
I’m soldiering on with my writing. The first draft of Thanatos (final part in The Carpathian Interlude series) is finished and promises to be a wild ride into darkness – something to match my mood of late.
I’m also thinking of trying out some new things involving video, so look for that in the coming weeks.
Today, I wanted to draw your attention to a guest post of mine on the English Historical Fiction Authors website (EHFA).
If you haven’t seen this site, you should check it out and sign-up for their e-mail updates. If you like history, you will get a daily dose of fascinating blog posts on a wide range of topics.
When the kind folks at EHFA contacted me to ask if I would be able to post on the site several weeks ago, I of course said yes!
With the subsequent loss of my father, however, I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it. But, writing is therapeutic for me, and so I put together a post called The Cult of Mithras – the British Connection in which I look at Mithraism and The Carpathian Interlude series and how the cult of Mithras was present in Britannia.
If you like ancient mystery religions, or The Carpathian Interlude series, I think you’ll enjoy reading this post.
I’ve also thrown myself into research for another Eagles and Dragons series novel and, as ever, history has been a wonderful distraction from the strange days in which I find myself.
So, thank you again for all your wishes, and I look forward to talking more history with all of you.
Oh, and by the way, from February 18th-22, Chariot of the Son is available for FREE DOWNLOAD from Amazon, so be sure to go and get your copy.
As ever, thank you for reading…
Great to have you back, Adam! My deepest condolences my friend, for the loss of your father. I can imagine writing is indeed very therapeutic, I know it has helped me too in difficult times in my life, albeit of a different nature. Thank you for sharing this lovely post 🙂
Thanks so much, Effrosyni! Good to be back. Thank you for your wishes and for all the retweets etc. all over the place. Writing has definitely helped me lately, as it always does. I’m glad you liked this post. I’m getting a lot of comments and e-mails about it – people really are fascinated by the ancient mystery religions! Hope you are well. Cheers to you! 🙂
Thanks for this. I did a bit of digging and it has put Mithras into place for with re. the echops. A common representation of Mithras shows him slaying a bull, this images the end of the age of Taurus (Moses threw down the Golden Calf around the same time) it is the gradual move from polytheism to monotheism, the move into the age of Aries (war, heroes, sun-worship)After the age of Aries comes, of course, the age of Pisces, the age of Christianity.
Thanks, Robin: that’s really irineesttng. I’m going to go and read Ben Best’s page now. It’s irineesttng how other pagan rituals or artefacts also got tacked onto Christmas in some countries. I think Celtic druids began independently of Mithraism, although the two probably merged as the Roman empire spread. But misteltoe the hibernal dwelling of the spirit of the oak-king for the druids has significance in other mythologies, too. I’ve read that it should always be hung out of reach because of the mischievous use to which it was put by Loki in bringing about the death of Baldur. I’m sure Norse & Teutonic myths have common roots with Celtic & Roman ones but it’s irineesttng to find something so apparently insignificant as misteltoe turning up in both branches.