In 1549, there was injustice and unrest in the land. Wealthy landowners were enclosing common land for grazing, forcing ordinary people out of their homes and livelihoods. There were peasant demonstrations across East Anglia and the Midlands and the King was an inexperienced boy, whose decisions were taken for him by a ‘Protector’.

I have in this essay taken a rather different approach to the same material. I have used a thematic rather than a chronological approach and have asked myself what were the key elements of the Mysteries of Hekate and whether they are still of interest to pagans today.

University of East Anglia,
11^th March 2000

Feelings still run high over the timber ring removed from Holme last summer (1999). On 11^th March 2000, the University of East Anglia hosted a brave attempt to bring interested parties together.

Dr. Robin Skeates organised the day to discuss the issues raised by the debacle, and to search for ways forward. He felt that the archaeological establishment is arrogant and out of touch with public opinion and academic debate, but also that everyone involved in the "Seahenge" debate had some vested interest and was dogmatic.

Pictures by Rod and Rue Chapman

In late 1998, a ring of timber enclosing an upturned tree stump was revealed off the North-West Norfolk coast at Holme-next-the-Sea. Parts had apparently been visible for years, but recent stormy weather had exposed the entire structure.

The 7m-diameter ring of 54 posts and the up-turned oak stump were put in place about 4000 years ago, in the early Bronze Age. The structure was not a henge - there was no earthwork - and neither was it a wood circle like Woodhenge near Stonehenge or that which was contained in a henge earthwork near Arminghall, South of Norwich. The posts were too close together. Various theories have been put forward, including that it was an excarnation platform (where bodies were left to decay before the bones were interred) or a beacon. It was probably on the shore or inland when it was in use, and it may well have been one of several such structures in the area. Interestingly, it stood at the end of the Icknield Way (and the Peddar's Way Roman by-pass of the former).

This title is rather a simplification, really, for two reasons. Firstly because 'East Anglia' did not, of course, exist under that name in the Celtic heyday, which may broadly be thought of as 500 years before the start of the common era to 500 years afterwards. Secondly, because many of the deities that I intend to discuss are Romano-Celtic, or at least have a Romanised form.