If my writing can be said to have a theme, it is the search for mythologies of various kinds, world views that interpret in some way the position of homo sapiens on planet Earth. It occurred to me once that if early humans saw something truly remarkable then they would have absorbed it into the stories that they told; the key question then would be how long it might survive in any recognisable form. Similar stories in different locations might point to a common origin. This seems as true of trips to stone circles or menhirs, as to visiting the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.
My fictional writing reflects this search for mythologies. I will record here a few of the extraordinary places this search has encompassed, from stone circles and chambered tombs to the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.
In the picturesque French town of Châtillon-sur-Seine, I found the Vix krater.
In her novel Realms of Gold, Terry Stanfill observes that Chrétien de Troyes, the late-12th-century French poet and trouvère who is credited with originating the character of Lancelot in the Arthurian saga was born and spent his early years in Troyes, only thirty miles from Vix. It does not seem outside the bounds of possibility that Chrétien had grown up with folk memories of the mysterious Greek krater (also, perhaps, the Celtic Cauldron of Plenty), transported up the local river systems to Vix and buried somewhere in the local countryside, and there found the inspiration for his version of the Grail legend.