Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The island of Avalon is not located at Glastonbury

In the Dark Ages, after the death of King Arthur, a monk known as Melkin, left for posterity a riddle or prophecy which exposed the burial site of Joseph of Arimathea. This location, known as the Island of Avalon, has long been thought to exist near Glastonbury abbey. Glastonbury is also thought to have been the place where King Arthur's tomb was found. However, in this exposé, we will show the location of the yet unearthed tomb of King Arthur. Arthur's resting place is also on the same island where Joseph of Arimathea's sepulchre still lies undiscovered.


The Island of Avalon has been associated with the tor at Glastonbury because the monks at the medieval abbey exaggerated the previous association with Joseph of Arimathea to attract pilgrims. The myth that Glastonbury tor is somehow connected or even synonymous with the Island of Avalon is probably down to a man called Henry Blois, better known as Master Blihis, who was an abbot at Glastonbury abbey.
The author has deciphered the meaning behind the riddle known as Melkin's prophecy, upon which the mythical status of Glastonbury is founded. It is due to the fragment of Melkin's prophecy that Glastonbury polemicists, recognizing its antiquity, desperately contrived an association with Joseph of Arimathea's burial site and that of King Arthur.
This was possible due to everyone's ignorance in the middle ages of the location of Avalon. The subtle translocation of the isle of Avalon can be witnessed in the evolving interpolation of the prophecy by Glastonbury chroniclers keen to promote the connection with the uncle of Jesus. The 'Vaus d'Avaron' of French Grail literature is described in the story line in some Grail romances as pertaining to a region of valleys south of Dartmoor and the island of Avalon fits the description of Burgh Island. The genuine historical Avalon had beaches; it was tidal and had ships that visited it...... unlike Glastonbury or its environs.

The monks riddle which he left for posterity, when deciphered, clearly indicates with pinpoint geometrical accuracy, the whereabouts of the resting place of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea in the Island of Avalon. This is evidently not at Glastonbury.
The strange thing is that the geometric puzzle left by Melkin describes directions that are derived from the Saint Michael line of churches which runs across southern England.


For the skeptic, the fact that a 'bifurcated line' mentioned in Melkin's prophecy (Joseph lies on a bifurcated line), is the Saint Michael line..... causes many to assume there could be no link between the two. Most researchers have assumed the directions are local and relative to the old church at Glastonbury Abbey. This is all part of the interpolation purposely propagated by the Glastonbury establishment's chroniclers, in an attempt to be accounted the resting place of such an illustrious person.
The churches and chapels, built upon an ancient line of earthworks that demarcate the St. Michael line has been put there by design. When interlinked with other St. Michael churches (not on the Michael line), these Michaeline chapels act as markers on a map, leading to the lost island of Avalon. They clearly show that the chapels have be built as a devise to coincide with the precise instructional data provided by the prophecy of Melkin.

This site will show how this huge display of geometrical precision across the British landscape was understood and known to exist as late as late the 1300’s.
The accuracy of the geometry confirms that in antiquity, the presence of the St. Michael line was known about by Melkin in the sixth century..... long before the churches and chapels dedicated to the prince of the heavenly host were built. The array of churches dedicated to the archangel were built upon this ancient line of earthworks to point out to posterity the location of the tomb of Jesus by the ‘illuminati’ of the Templar order with the dual intent...... to mark the spot where they buried their treasure.


This hitherto hidden location is called the Island of Avalon and Melkin visited this island nowadays is known as Burgh Island. It becomes apparent that Melkin was present at the death of Britain’s famous King Arthur and he states who and what he saw in the Tomb.
In the tomb, Melkin found arcane information from the Temple in Jerusalem which had been brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. This information, with an account of the Holy Family's arrival with Mary Magdalene, was written in a book composed by Melkin. This book gave account of the time from the arrival of these early Christians through a bloodline of 'Grail Keepers'...... up until the time of King Arthur.
The book became known as 'The Grail book', which found its way to France, Evidence points to Melkin who may well have established an early hermitage on Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy.
'The book of the Grail', through the troubadour family of the counts of Pitou and Aquitaine, gave rise to the wide array of Grail stories propagated through the medieval courts of France. A close family connection to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the person of Henry Blois (or as many knew him 'Monseigneur Blois'), became the 'Master Blohis' who was Abbot of Glastonbury. He was the first to expound from the French Grail literature by compiling the 'Perlesvaus', but he also was aware of the English traditions of the prophecy of Melkin which existed at Glastonbury and was aware of other manuscripts written by Melkin that became the source of Welsh Arthurian literature.
Henry of Blois however never knew the location of Avalon, but it was him who left the clue regarding Joseph of Arimathea being 'carefully hidden' at Montacute. This essential confirmational clue, not mentioned in the original prophecy, eventually came into the possession of Father William Good. It confirms Melkin's directions to the Island of Avalon and also endorses the proposition that the Michaeline chapels were constructed upon an older network of prominent earth mounds.
Unfortunately many researchers have denied the existence of alignment in the design of these ancient earthworks which became known as Ley lines. The mention of a Ley line for the majority of researchers has led to the refusal to accept the obvious parallels with the Michaeline structures and the denial of any association with the precision of Melkin's geometry. In fact some professed archaeologists refuse the existence of the ancient alignment of Avebury, Glastonbury tor, Burrow Mump and the Hurlers (to give but a few), simply because it is called a 'Ley line' and they don't understand the reasons behind the alignment.


‘And did those feet’, a book by Michael Goldsworthy, clearly shows that the body of Jesus is in fact buried with Joseph of Arimathea within this newly determined Avalon island in Devon. The Island used to be known as the fabled Island of Ictis by classical Greek and Latin chroniclers. However the Island contains within it an ancient tin vault. This hewn out tin storage deposit, which was used by the 'emporium' tin trading island of Ictis..... became the tomb for Jesus, Joseph and a collection of British nobles from antiquity . It had originally been used to store tin ingots when the Island of Ictis monopolised the trade of tin through the Phoenicians to the ancient world.

The confirmation of the whereabouts of this tomb is given by precise geometrical instructions upon the British landscape. These directions left in the obtuse Latin puzzle by the monk Melkin, (once deciphered), lead us to the grave site. The islands position is verified by the clue given to the Jesuit priest, Father Good, who lived in the sixteenth century. He deposited this vital corroborative clue concerning the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea in the English college in Rome.
Father Good however, was unaware of the significance of the clue he was given concerning how Joseph of Arimathea was 'Carefully hidden' in Montacute. However, someone else knew of the island's location and how its location was determined by these St. Michael dedicated sites. Since the time that the Templars visited the island with three treasure ships, to bury their treasure some one or some organisation has tried to hide the evidence that was rigourously guarded and passed to posterity by William Good. The reason for this seems to be that should we not have decoded Melkin's instructions..... the island might have been discovered sooner by the geometry which pertains to the Michaeline structures alone i.e both Burgh Island and Montecute both being prominent hill top features like the other St. Michael sites.
The three copies of 'Maihew's Trophea' have all had this information concerning Montacute removed. Were it not for a copy that existed in a private collection..... the chapel that existed atop St. Michael's hill would not have been known to act as a corroborative marker within the array of Michaeline chapels. These act as geometric points, that, when joined up in straight lines, confirm the angle and measurement that points to the Island and the tomb indicated by Melkin as the burial Island of Joseph of Arimathea.



The Templars in the middle ages were aware of the location of this tomb and deposited their treasure in the same sepulchre on Christmas day 1307. They were also aware of the instructional data within Melkin's prophecy. Thus the Templars were responsible for re-defining the line that Melkin had referred to by the re-dedication of church sites.
The line of St. Michael churches built upon an ancient alignment that includes Glastonbury was probably instigated by the Megalithic builders of Avebury. What function this line had is at the moment unanswered, but the fact that St. Michael's hill at Montacute is similar to both the prominent hilltop sites of Glastonbury and Burrow Mump would indicate by its subsequent dedication to St.Michael that it, (before Melkin's geometry was known), could have been part of this alignment from the early Megalith culture of Britain.

However, the Templars removed one item from the old hewn out vault within the island, which, because science has been unable to explain its formation..... has been classed as a fake. This artifact mentioned in the Gospels and throughout Grail literature has now become known as the Turin Shroud.

The Turin Shroud is described perfectly in Melkin's Latin puzzle once the solution is unravelled.
'Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta': Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.

It must not be forgotten by the pedant that Melkin had purposely constructed an obtuse riddle which needed to be unraveled. It is for this reason the Glastonbury establishment found it easy to convince the gullible that the old church at the abbey and some superfluous line (that was supposedly indicated by a bronze plaque on a pillar), was relevant to the resting place of Joseph.
This fairly precise description of the shroud was given six hundred years before the shroud supposedly first appeared at Lirey in France. This was just fifty years after the Templar's visit to Burgh Island....... so how could it be a fake?!!! This artifact, described to exist in the tomb with Joseph can be derived from Melkin’s description as 'duo fassula.' This was due to misinterpretation encouraged at Glastonbury and so the arbitrary understanding of two jugs, later became synonymous with the Holy Grail.
This misconception occurred mostly by ignorance of the intended meaning of the puzzle. Thus the two vessels which were misunderstood to contain the blood and sweat of Jesus, became synonymous with the object of the Holy Grail. This misleading interpretation has transpired by the subtle twists of the prophecy's interpretation at Glastonbury by polemicists and of course the intended subtlety of Melkin...... designing his prophecy as a riddle to be decoded.
The reader will learn on this site, that the Holy Grail is in fact something inestimably more valuable and these pages set out to explain what the Grail is and how the Grail stories came about.

The body of Jesus, around which the Turin Shroud was once wrapped, remained in the tin vault, steeped in Cedar oil. It is by being submerged in the oil that the image on the Turin Shroud was formed over a period of six hundred years. The image formation was caused by the interaction of Aneorobic detritus and Brownian motion within the oil as the shroud enveloped the body of Jesus.
Judging by Melkin’s description of the shroud and the fact that the whole cloth is covered with a yellow varnish like encrustation, left over from the evaporated oil, the shroud was most probably removed from the body around 5- 600AD by Melkin. The dried out cloth which had managed to transfer the faintest facial imprint to the back side image as it dried….. was then later removed from the Isle of Avalon by the Templars.
The Turin Shroud was essentially formed within what became known as the Grail Arc which is the tin lined coffin of Jesus. This is the box Joseph of Arimathea used to transport the body of Jesus to England that was filled with embalming fluid and from which it is said the ancient British kings were anointed. Both the shroud and the coffin are mentioned in the Grail Stories in numerous subliminal references with many references to the sweet smelling Cedar oil. This Grail ark or coffin brought to England by Joseph was not (for obvious reasons) mentioned specifically in the Grail romances, but is subliminally indicated as the tomb of an unidentified person. Eventually Joseph was laid to rest within the same Sepulchre.

The reason this Island which used to be called Ictis was chosen to house what is the holiest relic of all..... is because it was not widely known about in the ancient world and its location was kept secret from the Romans. It was rumoured to exist through a report by one of the first Greek explorers to Britain named Pytheas.
Devon and Cornwall have a history in the tin industry and it was from this island that tin was traded with Joseph of Arimathea.... who, Cornish tradition has always maintained, was a tin merchant and was accompanied on his trading missions by Jesus.
Diodorus Siculus gives us a clear description of this same island which Pytheas had named Ictis or 'Fish Island' due to the vast quantities of pilchards caught off the Island. Through Pytheas’ account of what he encountered at the tin trading island, Diodorus relates that ‘large quantities of tin’ were taken over to the island in carts across the sand bar at low tide.

The proposition that Joseph of Arimathea owned this island as 'Ictis' came under pressure from Roman hegemony, becomes plausible when we consider he was sometimes known as the Fisher king and could have recieved this name as owner of the island called Fish Island. Also when we consider the discrepancies of the Gospel accounts of a hewn out tomb owned by Joseph in which no one had been previously laid....... the Grail stories may in fact be giving a more precise rendition of accounts of a voyage related by Rabanus. The four Gospel writers are seen to be rationalising a virgin birth with a father called Joseph who disappears from the gopel accounts while at the same time relating that Joseph (of Arimathea) has taken possesion of the body of Jesus. The proposition that after the crucifixion a rumour started, that Jesus was to be buried in a hewed out tomb owned by Joseph might explain each gospel writers conflicting evidence. Nowhere in the Gospels is a singular event given account of with such variance by the four Gospel writers. the main conflicting points are about the discovery of the body. Our proposition is that it was brought back to England to an unused tin storage vault by Joseph of Arimathea (his real father).
These pages uncover an ancient Biblical link to the Devon and Cornish peninsula through a bloodline from the first born of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Israel, called Zarah. It is from Judah’s heritage a line of Kings emanated in the South West of England known as the kings of Sarras which culminated with the famous King Arthur.
This does seem fantastic, but when the reader views the evidence related on this web site, one will find that King Arthur, Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are waiting to be unearthed on the Island today called Burgh Island. If this is not enough for the conspiracy theorist or the skeptic...... there is also the Templar treasure secreted in the tomb.

'And Did those feet, ' a book which answers Blake’s question posited in his famous anthem 'Jerusalem', traces these events. The book pulls together a wide source of detail, linking the most powerful people in Europe such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, the earliest traceable owner of the ‘Book of the Grail’, written by Melkin.

Furthermore, which seems to stretch credulity even further, a sound position may be maintained that Leonardo Da Vinci visited this island in the last three years of his life. He left clues within four paintings, which show the geographical and geological features of the Island. He also let the world know by his picture puzzle (rebus) in the Windsor Library, that he was showing us a great mystery.
Da Vinci even went as far as to say he would show where it is, in his two paintings of the Yarnwinder. The two Yarnwinder paintings known to have been by Leonardo’s hand, when merged together, show the Island of Avalon at the mouth of the river Avon below Dartmoor in geographical perspective.
Finally if the Grail quester is in any doubt as to whether a tomb exists on this island, we can see compelling evidence in the story of the Perlesvaus.
The Perlesvaux is a compilation of an early oral tradition and is derived from some of the earliest troubadours. It is from these men that the romances emanated. We can still hear the topographical detail attached to the storylines in this Grail literature that show that the Island of Avalon is synonymous with Burgh Island and the Isle of Avalon is not located at Glastonbury.

The implication and ramifications of the unearthing of this tomb will have consequences across the world. In fact this is why this ancient extract known as Melkin's prophecy which is found replicated in John of Glastonbury’s Cronica is thought to be a prophecy. Not only does Melkin leave geometrical datum which leads us to the tomb, but he unequivocally and specifically states that the discovery of the tomb will have worldwide ramifications.

This King Arthur website is not specifically about King Arthur, but includes the role of the fraudulent unearthing at Glastonbury of King Arthur’s remains. This one act has played a significant role in distorting the historical truths related by the Grail literature and our understanding of these events. This faked dis-interment of King Arthur has warped the understanding of how these events originally transpired so that the Grail stories are considered to relate no historical fact. These pages that follow uncover the relationship between the unveiling of Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury and how it has prevented the discovery of the bodies of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea.
It is also a very strange irony that while the world looked on at the Olympic ceremony, the Island of Avalon ( as modern perception has understood) was imitated as Glastonbury tor. At the same time Blake's Anthem entitled 'Jerusalem’ was brought into popular consciousness as it was sung at the opening ceremony and seen by millions across the Globe. The Irony being that even today the question is still asked 'Did the feet of Jesus walk upon England's green and pleasant land'.

The reason the information on this site and the conclusions drawn, concerning the discovery of this tomb, have yet to be uncovered, are twofold. The first is that the proprietors of the hotel on the Island known as Burgh Island have refused any permission to uncover the entrance after many requests from various people. The conspiracy theorist would think back to the disappearance of the pages in Maihew’s Trophea and ponder....... that if someone in the sixteenth century was actively intent upon obscuring the unveiling of the tomb site…….. are there still those today who wish to prevent the tomb’s opening. However, sadly, the answer is probably a lot more mundane.
The second reason and more importantly is that scholars, researchers and archaeologists have all assumed Melkin and his prophecy to be a thirteenth century fraud and are unwilling to retract pronouncements made not only about Melkin, but a whole swathe of literature falsely rationalised upon propaganda initiated at Glastonbury in the Middle ages.
However, the prophecy, which specifically speaks of Joseph of Arimathea finding his rest in the Island of Avalon….. would have to be a very well thought out fraud which shoots in the foot the supposed promulgator who designed it to benefit Glastonbury. Especially since the instructions within it, accurately located an Island so well described in the Grail Stories at which the Fisher king (otherwise known as Joseph of Arimathea) was said to be buried.
It is these Romances that actually tell the story of Joseph of Arimathea’s arrival in Britain and were written by the same man who concerns himself with the same island and personages (Jesus and Joseph) in his British prophecy . One must then have to ask...... if the prophecy were invented for use to convince pilgrims of the presence of the gravesite of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury...... why then does every pertinent instructional detail, geometrically pin point an Island in Devon. Surely even the skeptics or the sedentary academic would see this as a coincidence too far especially when not one of the 104 knights or 144,000 saints have been unearthed to date.

Melkins directions are so clear once the riddle is decoded. The subject of Melkin’s puzzle is the Island of Avalon....... the object is the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and the consequences of it being found.

There are so few instructional directions within this short prophecy that if it were a thirteenth century invention it would be extraordinary that every one of the clues lend additional information which geometrically locates Burgh Island. Previously, not one commentator has given a valid reason for the essential clues: ‘bifurcated line’,’ 104 miles’, ‘13 degrees,’ and ‘sperula’ for Avebury.
If these numerical and objective clues such as a 'spherical' Avebury stone circle (circular) and 'line' (made up of St. Michael churches) did not match the 104 mile distance and the angle of 'bifurcation' was not 13 degrees...... we might be able to go along with convention and assume the Grail stories were misguided in their description of the location of Avalon. This of course would make little sense, as we have explained the reasons for Glastonbury usurping the name Avalon.

Melkin hints that we look for a line to bifurcate. The most obvious line is the Michael Line in southern England. He also intones, (once the riddle is understood as Melkin intended it), when the line is found…within a circle (sperula), which is Avebury......... one needs to measure 104 Nautical miles at 13 degrees to the (Michael) line and one has located Avalon.
This is where he indicates we will find Joseph and the Holy Grail and is the sole purpose of his riddle.


Many have pondered as to why or how Melkin is able to give distances in nautical miles, but he does refer to them as miles 'milibus'. The fact that he could understand this nautical mile measurement has prevented many researchers accepting the 104 as a precise measurement,(even since the riddle has been decoded) and have maintained that the number must be relevant only in the context of a 13th century fraud. How does this number of 104 or the number13 mentioned in the prophecy help a supposed fraudulent monk. Surely if the prophecy were indeed a fraud, he would have stated 'saints' not milibus. However, Melkin who was real and transferring a message to decode in the future says in a subtle way 13 degrees.
Melkin has set out his code and if the reader is not able to decode this part of the riddle, one is not going to obtain the direction of 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line through Montacute to Burgh Island along the Joseph line. Melkin plays on the original use of the word ‘sperulis’, from which we derived sphere, which at the beginning of the prophecy related to the stone circle of Avebury. Melkin then refers back to ‘sperulis’ by using the word “aforementioned” (the normal meaning of 'supradictis') trying to convince the reader that the two words ‘sperulis’ and ‘sperulatis’ have one and the same meaning. However his use of the word for the second time has not the same sense as in circle or sphere, but rather in its composition, being comprised of degrees. Melkin surely meant ‘sperulatis’ as a diminutive form and of the symbol for degrees i.e. 13°……. the symbol being a small circle °. Funnily enough the word supradictis is meant to be split in 'supra ad ictis' which confirms the tomb is 'up high in Ictis'
Many assume the ancients were ignorant of basic mapping and Navigational skills but this is obviously inaccurate and is attested to by the Phoenician voyages to Britain. Even Pytheas in 350 BC knew of the necessary breakdown of 60 nautical miles into 1 degree as an immutable and unchangeable law calibrated by the confines of the circumference of the globe.
This conclusion that the ancients recognised 60 nautical miles as 1 degree is easily drawn if we split the globe into the four quadrants of 90 degrees giving the 360 degrees encompassed in a circular line of Latitude or Longitude. By what other means could Pytheas measure the declination of the sun. Don’t forget there are chroniclers that attest that Melkin was not only a geometer, but an astronomer also, who was interested in Comets.


Island of Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world for their entombment there, it is before the circle(sperula) that predicts prophesy (Avebury) and in the future will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest. The father’s pearl, (Jesus) virtuous through the new wine, the noblest of pagans, sleeps 104 miles from it (Avebury), by whom he received interment by the sea from Joseph named from Arimathea, and has taken his eternal rest there, and he lies on a line that is two forked between that and a meridian, in an angle on a coastal Tor, in a crater, that was already prepared and above is where one prays which one can go at the extremity of the verge, high up in Ictis is the place they abide to the south at thirteen degrees.

Insula auallonis auida funere paganorum, pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium sperulis propheciae vaticinantibus decorata, & in futurum ornata erit altissimum laudantibus. Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus, cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit. Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum; Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratori, cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim. Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta. Cum reperietur ejus sarcofagum, integrum illibatum in futuris videbitur, & erit apertum toto orbi terrarium. Ex tunc aqua, nec ros coeli insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata.
How the prophecy has been variously translated in the past completely misunderstanding the geometric references

‘The Isle of Avalon, greedy for the death of pagans, more than all others in the world, for their entombment, decorated beyond all others by portentous spheres of prophecy, and in the future, adorned shall it be, by them that praise the most high. Abbadare, mighty in judgement, noblest of pagans, has fallen asleep there with 104,000 others (or 104 knights), among these, Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual sleep in a marble tomb, and he lies on a two forked line, next to the southern angle of an oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and in the place of the 13 spheres.
For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two white and silver vessels, filled with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus and when his sarcophagus is uncovered, it will be seen whole and undisturbed, and will be opened to the whole world.
Thenceforth those who dwell in that noble isle, will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven. For a long while before the day of judgment (ludioialem) in Josaphat, open shall these things be and declared to the living’.

If you do not wish to commit to reading the whole exposé you will find the breakdown of the instructional part of Melkin’s prophecy enlightening.......... confirming the geometry shown above.





'And Did those feet' a book written by Michael Goldsworthy, is an explanation of the rumours of Jesus in Britain. It explains the stories of Jesus's sojourn to England and  brings together the Grail story traditions with the Glastonbury legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea. 

In 1191 the bones of King Arthur were unearthed supposedly at Glastonbury Abbey. It was rumoured that a cross was found with him which convieniently stated that King Arthur i.e the bones just unearthed, were found in Avalon confirming to those that needed to be persuaded.... that Avalon was in fact Glastonbury. The reason the monks at Glastonbury committed such a fraud was because of the Grail legends that emanated from France associated King Arthur with Joseph of Arimathea and were becoming more prevalent. Also because of Melkin’s prophecy, Joseph had always been associated with Glastonbury because of his Church.

 Nobody was too sure where the island of Avalon was, but everybody knew that King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea, were buried in Avalon. Neither William of Malmesbury nor Geoffrey of Monmouth associated Glastonbury with the Island of Avalon at the time they wrote. This was a later corruption by monks and the sole purpose of producing the cross found with Arthur was to establish Glastonbury as Avalon. If Glastonbury  could only be established as Avalon by the unearthing of King Arthur, then it must follow the Joseph of Arimathea was also buried within the Abbey grounds. To unearth Joseph of Arimathea, however, would prove difficult as it was known that he was buried with the holy Grail. Since the monks were not apprised of what the holy Grail consisted of, it was easier to fabricate the unearthing of King Arthur with a cross attesting to the fact that where he was unearthed was indeed Glastonbury and therefore it must be the island of Avalon. The reason Joseph of Arimathea needed to be associated with Glastonbury is because the monks needed funding to rebuild their Abbey after the fire.

Prior to the fire of 1184, there existed a prophecy written by a monk called Melkin about Insula Avallonis or the Isle of Avalon. In this prophecy, once it is decoded, Melkin supplies very pertinent information in geometric instructions that gives precise directions to an island in Devon. This island is Burgh island in Devon. Melkin states that the body of Joseph of Arimathea lies in the southern angle of a bifurcated line. Once Melkin's code is deciphered, it clearly portrays that Avebury stone Circle is the point on the St. Michael’s ley line which in his puzzle he refers to as a ‘sperula’ or sphere which confirms the point of bifurcation as the stone circle. This is the point within the Avebury stone circle complex which, at 13°.... if one scribe's  a line through Montacute to Burgh island (which Melkin calls the island of Avalon), it is exactly one hundred and Four nautical miles, the exact number that Melkin gives.  It was Father Good a jesuit priest born and raised and who sung in the Choir at Glastonbury who also confirms the Joseph line from Avebury to Avalon passes through Montacute.

 



 The location of Avalon has always been thought to exist at Glastonbury but with a recent study of some of the oldest text and the uncovering of the fraud concerning King Arthur carried out by the monks at Glastonbury, it is evident that Avalon is in Devon . The references that Melkin gives are part of a geometric riddle.... that once solved, points straight to the island in Devon which obviously fits Diodorus’s description as Ictis. Diodorus had described an Island to which Pytheas the Greek Explorer had visited that sold tin. We know that this island fits Pytheas' description once all the extraneas misinformation is excluded. This is the Island described by Pytheas as drying out at high tide to which large cart loads of tin were brought to be stored. Strange that Joseph of Arimathea was a tin Merchant and Melkin says he is buried on this Island. it is also a misunderstanding of the Greeks that Pytheas went to look for Amber. He infact asked directions to an Island that sold tin but the Amber he was rumoured to be looking for at that Island was in fact British Glass which is a natural by product of tin and bronze smelting.




This is in fact named in the Grail stories as the island of Sarra named after Judah’s eldest son Zarah, who broke the womb first. His name has the same pronunciation as Sarra in French and his descendants came to the south-west and were the primordial miners of tin on southern Dartmoor who brought their tin to this island to be sold. This is the reason that in the Grail stories the island is called Sarras and to which the holy Grail was brought. It is to this island that after the crucifixion of Jesus, when his body was taken down from the cross by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, it was then conveyed to a box filled with Cedar oil so that it might preserve his corpse. This box or coffin known as the Grail Ark was then conveyed with Joseph and several others from Jerusalem to the island of Sarras, which Joseph knew well, having visited many times previously on his mercantile trips with Jesus. This island had been known about in the Greek Chronicles because Pytheas a Greek explorer had visited the island on his expedition. The island was kept secret over many years since Pytheas’ visit, until Joseph of Arimathea visited the island with Jesus on one of his trips abroad gathering metals.
 

 It was here that he chose to convey the Grail and place Jesus in an old tin vault that had been shut down or made redundant due to the Roman invasion. For about 1000 years, the island called Burgh island been the place on the coast where all the tin miners up on southern Dartmoor had brought their tin to be stored in the vault. This transpired so that visiting traders could take away tin at any time and the island acted as a trading post. It is for this reason Diodorous refers to it as an ‘emporium’. It becomes clear now the reason that Joseph of Arimathea knew the island very well.

The gospels relate that Jesus was laid to rest in a hewed out tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea and the rumours still persisted as eyewitnesses had seen the doubled over white shroud that covered his body. One wonders if the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus are just the echoes of the truth of eyewitness accounts existed in Jerusalem just after the resurrection. In a book called ‘And did those feet’, a new theory as to how the Grail stories, the Arthurian legend at Glastonbury and the gospels interlink and provide evidence of the whereabouts of the body of Jesus.

 

Melkin, who actually wrote the original book of the Grail, which ended up over in France and gave rise to the many Arthurian Grail romances now interlinks with the same man who provided the rumours of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury. So now we have a tomb containing King Arthur, Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus that was last shut when Melkin moved to France in around 600 sometime after the Saxon invasion. Towever the Templars once they have been disbanded in the Middle Ages were also privy to this island location and they knew what was buried within. It was here on Christmas Day in 1307 that they decided after King Philip and the Pope had disbanded their organisation, to bury the treasure that they had managed to recuperate in three treasure ship that left La Rochelle on 13Tth October 1307.

While depositing their treasure in the tomb they removed the shroud of Jesus that had been submerged in the Cedar oil for 600 years while covering his body. It is here that the image of Jesus on the Turin Shroud was formed while draped over the body of Jesus in Cedar oil. The evaporated Cedar oil has left a caramel like substance all over the Turin Shroud, but the image itself was formed by the detritus left behind by anaerobic bacteria.

 Only 50 years later, one of the Templars that died with Jack de Molay near Notre Dame in Paris, had a granddaughter that produced the Turin Shroud. This is not coincidence and answers the many questions of why there is no provenance for the Shroud of Turin prior to 1354. The Shroud had existed within the tin vault until the Templars arrive and remove it. The song or Christmas Carol ‘I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day in the morning’ is really the Echo of the Templars bringing their treasure to the island of Avalon in Devon. However, this song had always been associated in Cornish tradition to the visit of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. It was the Templars, however, that marked out all the churches dedicated to St Michael that lie along the St Michael Ley line. Oddly enough, it is the other St. Michael churches that we used as markers, that confirm that the island of Avalon is indeed Burgh island in Devon.
 

 It is this line that Melkin refers to, which, when bifurcated within the Avebury stones and at 13° and a line is scribed for 104 nautical miles it lands on this same island. Unequivocably Melkin understands the connection between the island of Ictis used by Joseph of Arimathea and clearly calls it the island of Avalon. Firstly,  it is known by the Greeks as Ictis, secondly, by the island of Sarras by the French Grail writers and thirdly, by the island of Avalon named as such  by Melkin. It is even referred to as the island of Avaron by some of the Grail writers.
 The unofficial anthem written by William Blake called Jerusalem starts with the line ‘And did those feet’. This is the title of the book written by Michael  Goldsworthy , which conveys the same story that Jesus visited England while accompanying his father, Joseph of Arimathea to Britain. The book called ‘And did those feet’ clearly deciphers Melkin’s prophecy, so that it becomes apparent that Melkin knew where the island of Avalon was and what existed within it. To fully understand this extraordinary set of events, go to the links provided below and buy the ebook.


In a book entitled 'And did those feet' by Michael Goldsworthy, the explanations of how the Island of Avalon has been misinterpreted as existing at Glastonbury is fully elucidated. The Island of Sarras of the Grail Romances and the Island of Ictis from which Joseph of Arimathea traded tin, are one and the same as the Island of Avalon which is located at Burgh Island in Devon.




This book revolves around an island named the island of Avalon that used to be known as the island of ictis by the greek and latin chroniclers… and anybody familiar with the Grail stories would know that it is referred to as the island of Sarras. These three alternative names all refer to an island that is located off the coast of Devon in England. Today the island is known as Burgh island, but it is what is contained within that will interest you most. If you follow the evidence of what this book has  set out to account for the various traditions; it brings into the public arena, the location of the holy Grail deep within this Island accompanied with the bodies of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur.



Glastonbury tor supposed to be the Island of Avalon  from Melkin's Prophecy. This was never Melkin's intended location but Glastonbury Acolytes have used clever etymology to convince us that this is the place.




The island of Avalon has long been considered to exist at Glastonbury. The basis for this assumption is that long before the fire that ruined the church that was rumoured to have been built by Joseph of Arimathea, there was a prophecy known as Melkin’s prophecy. The prophecy of melkin, an ancient latin text, is what Glastonbury has used as its authority to support their claim that Joseph of Arimathea was buried within the Glastonbury Abbey grounds.  The prophecy of Melkin however once decoded gives precise directions to the island of Avalon and this Island is an Island called Burgh Island in Devon in southern England

A recently published book called ‘And did those feet’ explains in much more detail how this fraud has been perpetrated down through the centuries, but before we deal with this riddle that has been set for us to unravel let us deal with the synopsis of how this misunderstanding has transpired.
Glastonbury Abbey where King Arthur is supposedly buried. King Arthur is buried in Avalon in the same Island location as Joseph of Arimathea. Neither of them were buried within the Abbey grounds

Because experts have been unable to decode Melkin's prophecy, they have assumed that Melkin never existed and his prophecy was a 13th century fraud, but one has to ask why is it that the directions in this prophecy lead to an island known to have been used by Joseph of Arimathea on his mercantile trips to Britain with his nephew Jesus to buy tin. The island used to be known as the island of Ictis by the ancient Greeks and Pytheas, a Greek explorer, wrote about this island that supplied tin to the ancient world. This island was never discovered by the Romans but Diodorous an ancient chronicler,  describes exactly the features of this island from the writings of Pytheas.

Straight after the crucifixion of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea regained the body of Jesus from Pontius Pilate and put it in a box that was filled with cedar oil to preserve his body. This box later became known as the Grail Ark from Arthurian Grail literature and specifically from the account ‘Joseph de Arimathie’. Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus to the ancient island of Ictis to lay him to rest. He was, as the gospels relate, laid in the tomb ‘that never man had been laid in before’ which had been hewed out and he was also wrapped in white doubled over linen sheet Grave cloth. This grave cloth or duo fassula as Melken refers to it, gradually got imprinted with an image of Jesus over the period of 600 years.



Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta: Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.

It is hard to get more precise than this description by Melkin especially since he is the man who gives account of how these events unfolded. This by itself confirms that the ‘duo fassula’ is not the Grail of popular conception but now focuses our attention on the other things that the Grail has had associated with it.  In this same extract from the writings of milk in the person of Abba Dari mentioned in the prophecy refers to Jesus himself. This will be elucidated later in the deconstruction of Melkin’s prophecy

 The Templars who built a huge geometric alignment upon the British landscape through dedicated marker churches  all with the name of St Michael, specifically sited these churches to preserve for posterity where they had buried their treasure. This was the same place as Jesus had been transported from the holy land by Joseph of Arimathea, who was later buried alongside him.

 It is this amazing set of coincidences that Melkin the prophet relates in the prophecy of Melkin. Melkin gives precise details of the island and the entrance to the cave in this prophecy and attests to the fact that he was the last to see King Arthur when he was buried there in the island of Avalon. It is because Jesus was known to have been buried there that King Arthur after his fight with Mordred, was taken to the island of Avalon, in the hope of procuring a miracle. Sadly, King Arthur died at the island and was buried in the same tomb as the body of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea about 550 years after Jesus had been brought to the British coastline.

 Melkin even goes so far as to show us that he knows that this island used to be called Ictis by telling us that the tomb is to be found ‘up high in a Ictis’ or “Supra ad Ictis”, once decoded from the word ‘Supradictis’. It is Melkin who is responsible for the British tradition of Joseph of Arimathea coming to Britain in search of tin and also he is responsible for what became known as the matter of Britain or as the French refer to it ‘Le Matière de Brétagne’.







http://isleofavallon.blogspot.co.uk #3






Rendered below is probably a more accurate translation (Melkin’s intended meaning), with reference to an abridgment of Ainsworth's English and Latin dictionary, by Robert Ainsworth, Thomas Morell and John Carey and the Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis by Domino Du Cange.

The first part of the prophecy we shall cover as a whole so the sense is not lost before we dissect each phrase. This first half of the prophecy is the instructional part, where pertinent facts are relayed as to the confirmation of the tombs location and entrance. The second half of the prophecy is assuredly divinely inspired as it speaks in Time with biblical metaphorical language and will be elucidated in the following commentary when we disentangle the various layers of meaning.



Island of Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world for their entombment there, it is honoured by the circle of portentous prophesy (Avebury) and in the future will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest. The father’s pearl, (Jesus) mighty in judgement (or virtuous through new wine), the noblest of pagans, sleeps 104 miles from it (Avebury), by whom he recieved interment by the sea from Joseph named from Arimathea, and has taken his eternal rest there, and he lies on a line that is two forked between that and a meridian, in an  angle on a coastal Tor, in a crater, that was already prepared, (with powers from on high, as from an adorable maiden, up high in Ictis is the tomb and those dwelling there are at 13 degrees.) above which one can go at the extremity of the verge, high up in Ictis to the place they abide to the south at thirteen degrees.

Any commentator on this passage will find it impossible to transliterate, simply because Melkin is concealing information sub textually, word clues rendering the passage as a whole incapable of fluid translation. The puns and double meanings are carefully thought out, but obtuse by deflection. The only way to understand the difficulty he must have had, conveying his message in layers of meaning and grasp what he has achieved, is to evaluate his choice of words. What follows is some of the hidden sub text in meanings he was trying to convey. It is almost as if he was appealing through the layers to different ways of understanding. The task of elucidating becomes less muddled if we take each word separately or if inseparable from another, using the combination.

 Adjectives, adverbs, verbs and nouns seem to be intermingled without respect to tense, conjugation, case or declention and one may be lacking other scribal clues such as capitals or punctuation which are now missing.  There is evidence also within the text that words are split, which leads one to consider that these splits, may be interchangeable with other root words and thus a cipher could be disentangled if an original copy was extant.

So that we might discover the mind-set of Melkin, let us briefly transliterate what he was trying to convey in his riddle and manifest at the same time how his mind worked. Melkin formulates his prophecy in a combination of blurred Latin incorporating Teutonic and low Latin, purposely entangled double entendres, sometimes leaving little to be comprehended from the text that has survived. If one adds to this muddle any scribal changes made at Glastonbury, we are left with a collection of meaningless ‘word strings’, in effect rendering Melkin’s intended riddle as mute through the ages as it has remained.

The most powerful thing about this prophecy now we have understood, is the latent truth that it holds, and its ability to have survived down through the centuries while muted, to convey its intended message, a message of mystery and expectation that has entered the psyche of the British people and will be responsible for changing the outward expression of religion throughout the world.



Insula Aualonis avida funere paganorum:

·  island of Avalon, where both Arthur and Joseph are said to be buried, coveting (guarding preciously) pagans in death.

·  Avide; an adverb or avidus, an adjective-Greedy, Hungry or Covetous. The sense that Melkin portrays by use of this word is essentially, ‘not relinquishing’, nor ‘releasing’ (until the appointed time); The Island as a custodial guardian.

·  Funere; from funero, funera, etc, giving funeral, to bury or of a dead body.

·  Paganorum; from paganus, a man of the country or peasant.  ‘pagan,’ in classical Latin "villager, rustic, civilian, but in the medieval religious sense not Christian-of the old religion. The word Pagan has many connotations and could mean, not of Britain.  Overall a very difficult sentence to cobble together, possibly rendering the sense of a pagan island, rather than the bodies of pagans buried there.  The pagan island scenario would concur in conjunction with Ley Lines, and would indicate that Melkin was aware of the existence of the Ley Line system and the island's inter-relation with Avebury , Montacute  and the Lyonesse line.  This word string also could give a sense of pagan island that is guardian over those buried, and the ‘pre ceteris’ refers to their pre-eminence in all the world or alternatively it could be referring to the island, being covetous of the bodies in front of the rest of the world. Island of Avalon – hungering after (looking after, happy to be taking care of), being covetous of the buried occupants that are not from this island of Britain, before the entire world, (until the world is ready).  As the reader will understand shortly, Melkin’s use of the word ‘sperulatis or sperulis’, twice in this prophecy, is rendered with two completely different meanings, even though Melkin ostensibly refers back to its first meaning as being the same as its second use, by employing the word ‘supradictis’ (aforesaid).  So it is with the word ‘paganorum’ in the sense that it is used here as possibly being a pagan island (part of the old religion), yet the second use of the word after Abbadare, has a completely different sense. Remember that Melkin is directing our thoughts toward an Island in the true sense of the word (unlike Glastonbury) and this island is at the river Avon. Presumably this was the rivers name when Melkin was alive but the etymology of Avon is ‘river’, thus the explanation of so many ‘River Avons’ in Britain.  Another ruse that could have been employed by Melkin using the word paganorum, is in direct reference to the Pyramids at Glastonbury. These were step pyramids with writing on each step which most probably were of ancient antiquity but had been recently covered since the Saxon invasion and through centuries with the names of Saxons, as an attempt to denigrate a much older temple. Much like the British, the Saxons were hardly pyramid builders themselves and this could have been one of many misleading hints supplied by Melkin that Avalon was where the pagan pyramids were.

pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium:

·  pre ceteris; gives the sense, before others or before the rest,

·  in orbe ; in the globe, planet or world, giving the sense of pre-eminence.

·  ad sepulturam ; from sepultura, giving a burial site or sepulchre.

·  eorum ; of them, or their.

·  omnium ; of all.

The sentence has generally been translated as: ‘at the burial of them all will be decorated (from decorata), beyond the others in the world’, which of course makes difficult reading.  The most likely sentence would be, ‘ their burial site is honoured above all others in the world’, as one is honoured in receipt of a decoration. This in fact, is confirming what later directions indicate,  that the sepulchre is on the island and is accounted above all others (places) in the world or there is no greater tomb (of importance). Melkin refers to the sepulchre twice in conjunction with the word ‘orbe or orbi terrarum’ (around the world), thus indicating, what we expect to be a global event, having global ramifications on the tombs unveiling.

sperulis prophecie uaticinantibus decorate:

Sperulis: Firstly let us look at the etymology of the word ‘pearl’.  The Arabic language called it a ‘dar’, a term which was then translated by the Greeks as "Pinna's stone", thus identifying its origin from the Mediterranean pearl mollusks.  The pearl is also referred to as "pirula" or "perula" in Latin texts, probably because of its spherical (sphaerula, pronounced "sperula") or pear-like shape. Also ‘perla’ is formed from ‘perula’ for ‘sperula’ the diminutive of sphaera. A more probable origin is that the word is formed from the Latin pirum as suggested by Diez in allusion to the pear shaped form of the pearl. Du Cange in volume five says that the extremity of the nose was called ‘pirula nasi’ from its resemblance to the form of a pearl. But ‘pirus’ which surely was not unknown by Melkin was used to denote a “boundary stone made in a pyramidal shape”.  Du Cange says also, this seems to have been the origin of the singular expression ‘pirula nasi’ as being something at the extremity and probably Melkin’s allusion to Avalon acting as a marker in our Pyramidal shape.  From Du Cange ‘sperula’ is given as; ‘parva rotunditas volubilis, sicut solet, in sphæræ modum,’-- round compass, of a small volume, as is usually the manner of a sphere. The word is used twice, once as ‘sperulis’ as in this instance and once as ‘sperulatis’ secondarily, both of them having different meanings. The meaning here though is in direct reference to Avebury stone circle.



·  Prophecie; that which is foretold in the future by a prophet.

·  Vaticinantibus; giving prediction, soothsaying, prophecy or portent from vaticinari from ‘vates’ meaning a prophet + canere to foretell. However this could be Melkin’s way of saying what is located in this sepulchre will be against the Vatican i.e. anti-Vatican.  It should not be forgotten that Jesus knew exactly what his mission entailed and the suffering (proved by the Shroud) that he was about to endure and was not about to be dissuaded from it by Peter, and said to him "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." The Roman Church is built upon Peter and in no way is peter at fault but Jesus knew that the Popes would usurp his legacy for this world and not the heaven that Jesus spoke of . The Grail keepers would certainly have precedence before Papal pretensions passing from Josephes to Brons and could be considered another line of succession or Branch other than the self-proclaiming imposter of Jesus’ inheritance. The Roman Pontiff the first Bishop of Christendom deriving his claim by hypothesis from St. Peter, who only by Roman self-profession was ‘episcopus primus et Pontifex primordialis’. Melkin knew of what lay in this tomb and therefore was aware of the inaccuracies peddled by the Roman Church.  Melkin understood the Divine plan and of the true meaning of Jesus’ reference to the Temple being rebuilt upon the third day (or within three days) and hence the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus three times being equatable with the three Grades to enlightenement. These three days are the grades of the Grail but we will come to this in ‘Time’. Are the words of Jesus ‘And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it,’ similar to the promise given to David from which the Church and Gentiles inherited. Is Christendom  and Islam along with the Jewish faith now to become like the Davidic line, to be the precursor of a global inheritance set forth in a Divine Plan by the God of Israel?  What is certain is that, without the Roman church most of the Globe would not be aware of the God of Israel.

·  Decorate from ‘decorates’ translating as, set forth or adorned.

This sentence is generally translated as ‘soothsaying spheres of prophecy or portentous circles of prophecy’.  It is essential to remember that Melkin is actually directing us on this quest from a starting place that is a stone circle namely Avebury.  His description of the circles or spheres having been ‘set forth or adorned’, might indicate that Melkin is referring directly to a stone circle. Stone circles were important to the ancients who were preoccupied with discerning the future. Melkin refers to stone circles as if they have a connection with man’s ability to predict or as if it is the circles themselves that have some impact on leading us to the tomb of Joseph through Ley lines. The irony of disentangling Melkin’s prophecy through our initial investigation into the ‘Perpetual Choirs’ and scribing circles on the landscape, gives rise to even more perplexity. Could Melkin’s sense be that, Avebury adorning the British landscape, from which Ley line's interconnect or thread through the tomb of Joseph, have some attribute or function in the foretelling of its discovery. The reader should not be too sceptical here as the two words following ‘sperulatis’ both impart a sense of future knowledge presently unknown. We must not dismiss the fact that Melkin has knowledge of the St. Michael Ley line; so is he imparting to us through this statement that these stone circles have some effect on, or direct our thoughts for the future collective benefit. No one today has an idea of the stone circles proper function, but recognising that Melkin probably understood the use of stone circles; is he implying some sort of telepathic system ordering the thoughts of the collective?  Melkin knew of the existence of the St. Michael Ley line, yet we have only recently rediscovered it. We should not ignore the use of two words which essentially mean ‘looking into the future’. So are the circles physical attributes on the landscape for channelling thought from individual communities or interlinking them in some way as their prevalence and conformity of shape seems to indicate relative functionality?



et in futurum ornate erit altissimum laudantibus:

·    in futurum; although being an obvious reference to the future, it is also a reference to ‘Biblical Time’ and is reiterated as a reference to the same time as ‘ex tunc’ in the penultimate sentence of the prophecy, which is indicating the thousand years of time from the discovery of Joseph's tomb, the day of Jehosaphat.  This is a sure indication that Melkin has understood ‘Biblical Time’ i.e. time, Times and Half of that time (or the Times Halved). We shall explain this concept in a later chapter  as it appears in Daniel 7:12 , 12:7 and Revelation 12:14

·  Ornate; adorned, arrayed, crowned with or decreed, in reference to the island of Avalon.

·  altissimum laudantibus, rendering praise to the most high.  The sentence giving the impression that when Joseph's tomb is discovered, the Island of Avalon will be arrayed by the mass of new converts, giving praise to God.  This sense does concur with the final part of the prophecy that indicates that Joseph's sepulchre will be opened to the whole world, giving an impression that the island will become a pilgrimage and a new religious re-awakening will occur globally on the discovery of Jesus’s body.  There will be a new cognitive view of the world order and an elevated understanding amongst spiritual Jews that the living and the dead are bound by a Divine plan. Those pilgrims visiting the Island of Avalon, giving praise to the most high. This could also be a reference to Britain rather than Avalon specifically as the last sentence of the prophecy infers.



Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus:
 
·  Abbadare, has given rise to much speculation about the word’s provenance and meaning, but it would seem to be a reference to Jesus, meaning “The father's pearl”, (Abba- father, Dar- pearl from the Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew).  As is intonated in the Grail romances, added to Joseph's connection with the importation of the Holy Grail, this reference would seem to indicate the presence also of Jesus's body within the island of Avalon. Joseph leaves Jerusalem, and arrives at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, which is carried inside an ark or box. This refers metaphorically to Jesus, specifically with reference to a pearl being formed by the flesh just as it is grown in an oysters shell. It is formed in our body and its beautiful and precious substance remains long after the flesh that made it, has died. This is a profound reference to the spirit being a precious object born by something organic, yet remaining after the flesh has died. Not a metal, nor a gem but ‘a pearl of great price,’-a spiritual soul created through God’s divine plan as in Mathew 13:46.  As the reader will be aware the word ‘Abbadare’ would have been used by Melkin to avoid direct reference to Jesus's body to avoid adverse reaction from fundamentalist sensibilities.  The Holy Grail, having a direct connection with Jesus, but in no way a substitute for his body; the references to the Grail in the romances being of a different order involving a spiritual quest, the likes of which cannot be found by searching or by hastening its occurrence in a lifetime. The Holy Grail is a derivative of the Latin ‘gradus’ meaning by degree', 'by stages', applied to a dish from a transliteration by Helinand. This dish was brought to the table in different stages or services during a meal in the Chrétien de Troyes poem. Essentially the pearl of great price is Jesus through whom by the will of his Father spiritual enlightenement is attained, hence ‘the Father’s pearl’

·  Potens; powerful, mighty, of great virtue.

·        Saphat; by most commentators is translated as ‘judgement’ derived from its reference to Jehosaphat in the last sentence of the prophecy rendering, ‘Mighty in judgement’ from Jehosaphat’s meaning as ‘judgement day’ or God’s judgement. Shaphat in Hebrew translating as judge or judgement . Melkin could possibly be giving us a double entendre in ‘Sapa’, translating as ’New wine’. ’potens in saphat’ could then give the sense of “virtuous through new wine”, deriving its sense from having been made perfect through the Holy Spirit.  The most obvious translation is from ‘potens’ meaning also ‘pre-eminent’ or as Du Cange has it, ‘having pre-eminence’ rendering ‘having pre-eminence in the new wine’ which of course would be a precise description of Jesus as the pre-cursor to the New wine as in Mark 2:22;  ‘no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined’.   No, Jesus pours new wine into new wineskins and thus the passage through the Grades. (Also in Mathew 9:17 & Luke 5:37).  Most attempts at translation have rendered this word string as, ’Abbadare, mighty in judgement, most noble of the pagans’. One possible sense would be, if we can assume that Melkin is aware of the Zerah connection and his reference to ‘paganorum’ is the old religion or even Jewish; ‘Jesus preeminent in the new wine, the noblest of the Jews’. The most poignant transliteration of ‘potentem in Saphat’ should be understood as ‘he who’s might is in spiritual awakening’ which we shall see in connection with Jehosaphat.



cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit:

·        cum centum et quatuor; translating as ‘with one hundred and four’.

·         Milibus; confusing most translators into thinking its meaning is derived from ‘Mille’, a thousand; but Melkin’s real intention is ‘mille passuum' which gives a thousand paces which equals one mile or miles even though he is referring to Nautical miles. The reader will remember the unit of nautical miles is used so that a unit of measurement correlates to a sixtieth of a degree; this same unit having been employed by the ancients.  The nautical knot only came into use in 1630 AD, but the ancients had sub divided the globe into degrees of a circle as was evident by Pytheas’s calculations.  Melkin was aware (being a geometer and astrologer) of this unit and probably named it after the Roman or statutory unit. The term was not commonly used but the Ancient Roman mile was 1,000 double paces, one-step with each foot, for about 4,860 feet, and there were many local variants, a modern statute mile measuring about 400 feet longer.

Most translations have used the word ‘Knight’s’ from the Latin word ‘Militus’ with the assumption that it refers to ‘the others’ that are said to be buried in Avalon. Other translators have opted for the word “saints” assuming a scribal error for 104. Some commentators, while not replacing the number, have assumed that a mistake has been made and that Melkin is referring to the 144 thousand saints that fall down, to give praise to God in Heaven in the Book of Revelation 7:4,14:1 & 14:3.  This misrepresentation has been highlighted by later interpolators as in the case of Capgraves ‘Nova Legenda Angliae’, which renders the sense of Melkin’s words to ‘milia dormientium accepit’ which has 104,000 sleeping with him, while some translators have added the word ‘Saints’.  In place of the common translation error rendering 104 thousand, Melkin is telling us that it is 104 nautical miles from Avebury to the Island of Avalon. This measurement is precisely 104 miles from a point just right of centre within the Avebury circle, to the ‘Huer’s hut’ on Burgh Island as seen in figure 25.  The Joseph line drawn from Avebury to the resting place of Joseph, confirmed by Father William Good as it passes directly over St. Michael’s Montacute.



Figure 24 Showing the Joseph line tangentially touching St. Michael’s hill Montacute. The Joseph line forming the acute angle of 13° at Avebury, between the St. Michael line and Mons Acutus (Montacute). This Is the clue that was left by Father william Good in the English college at Rome that says the Joseph of Arimathea is 'Carefully hidden' in Montacute.



·         domiicionem ibi accepit; conveying the sense ‘took his sleep there or received his rest there’.  This sentence is usually translated as ‘Abbadare’, powerful in judgement, the most noble of the pagans took his sleep there with 104,000’. Obviously Melkin deliberately sets out his sentence to obfuscate, inserting the word ‘cum’ meaning ‘with’, so that ‘Abbadare’ is appearing to be taking his rest with 104,000 others, especially when the first words of the next sentence are ‘inter quos’ which translates as ‘among whom’.  The real information which Melkin is trying to convey here is that Joseph and Jesus are taking their rest there; 104 miles from the circle of prophecy, which is Avebury as seen in figure 25.

Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum:

·         Inter quos; The usual translation of the sentence is: ’among these Joseph of Arimathea received eternal slumber in a marble tomb.  In the previous word string Melkin used ‘domiicionem ibi accepit’ and here he is using ‘cepit sompnum perpetuum’ immediately afterwards. Aware of Melkin’s cleverness and the fact that he is confounding normal thought processes, it would appear, as if he is clearly speaking of two different people. ‘Jesus received his rest there’ and ‘Joseph named from Arimathea took his perpetual sleep there’.  The word ‘Inter’ by most commentators is translated as ’among’ but Melkin has his derivative from ‘interrare’ "put in the earth, bury” or interr

·         amentum giving ‘to inter’.  ‘Inter quos’  most researchers have as ‘among whom’ but here Melkin is using a play on words and his meaning is ‘Interred’ or ‘Interred with whom’ also inferring two people.  The implication of this is; that it now establishes Abbadare as another separate subject and the translation becomes,’ interred with whom is Joseph, named from Arimathea taking his eternal slumber by the sea.

·         marmore  ‘Marmor’  translates as a marble stone or as ’the sea’; its derivative being the similarity of small wave motion in a calm water, giving the expression ‘a marbled sea’ and is also found in Ainsworth’s dictionary. It was said that King Arthur, when he was fictitiously found, was ‘not in a marble tomb’ to distinguish and confirm the monks find as ‘the other important body’  to be buried within the Glastonbury grounds.

·         cepit sompnum perpetuum: The repetition of ‘dormicionem’ as referring to Abbadare, then immediately followed by ‘sopnum perpetuum’, referring directly to Joseph of Arimathea, does clearly indicate that Abbadare and Joseph are two different entities especially since the mighty in Judgement is referring to Jesus. This example of Melkin’s direct obfuscation gives us an idea into the mind-set of the man.  He has set out to misdirect his readers with this pun on ‘inter’ while sub textually informing us that Jesus has received his rest there.  This he has done by not offending Christian sensibilities during the intervening years until the present, while at the same time in the same sentence, preparing his readers for the appointed time. It is strange to contemplate that Joseph has buried Jesus twice in a ‘hewn tomb’ that is owned by Joseph himself. Once with a ‘fasciola’ as related by the Gospel accounts and the second time with a ‘doubled fasciola’ which of course fits with the description of the Shroud of Turin which as we shall see shortly suddenly appeared on the world stage just after the Templars had visited the Isle of Avalon. As we have uncovered already, Melkin wrote the book of the Grail. The original source for Melkin’s book of the Grail was obviously Joseph. Joseph brought the Grail to Britain and so affirms that he was responsible for depositing Jesus’ relics in Avalon before being buried there himself.

Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratorii:

·         Et iacet in linea this is the sentence most frequently quoted in reference to Melkin’s prophecy, the usual translation being, ‘and he lies on a two forked line next to the southern corner of the oratory’. Et iacet in linea; renders ‘and he (or they) lie(s) in a line’.  As all commentators have previously suspected correctly, the line thus referred to is an indicator to where the tomb is located and the root cause of all misdirection has been the word ‘oratorii’.

·         Bifurcata; to bifurcate literally means ‘to divide into two branches or forks’. Melkin becomes remarkably un-obtuse when he gets to his specific instructions about the bifurcated line. All translators agree that ‘he lies on a bifurcated line’ but Melkin obviously felt confident that this information would be hard to unlock. Without a St. Michael ley line and a point at which the two lines cross inside Avebury, the information given quite clearly, would be irrelevant. Melkin also could be assured that Joseph would not be associated with Neolithic stone circles or Ley lines.

·         Juxta; translates as nearby, next to, close to, bordering upon or beside.

·         meridianum angulum; A ‘meridian’ is half of a great circle that passes through the centre of the earth at the North and South poles; as if half a vertical plane on the globe, giving constant longitude. It could also be described as an imaginary line of half of a great circle route from pole to pole. Melkin is clearly trying to show the reader that the Joseph line is ‘Imaginary’ or conceptual much like a true meridian line only becomes real when plotted.  It is interesting to note that Capgrave, Leland and Hardyng say that Melkin was an astrologer but it is John Bale that tells us that Melkin, wrote the book called ‘De Arturii mensa rotunda’ while at the same time informing us that he was a geometer also. It would seem then that the mention by Bale of these two topics (the book, then the observation about geometry) would indicate Bale saw either Grail table geometry or landscape geometry in the book he was referring to.  It seems probable that at some stage this book, copy or fragment, existed at Glastonbury. The information about Montacute as a geometrical marker for the Joseph line could only have reached Father Good by two sources; Henry of Blois as already discussed or out of this possible geometrical source that Bale refers to.

Melkin was well aware of what a ‘meridian’ was but was possibly hinting to the Lyonesse line as a Horizontal Meridian, like a line of latitude. Most probably though the reference is giving the clue to look for a line that is similar to those found on a Map. Although lines of longitude (the truest definition of a Meridian) were not easy to calculate on a map at this stage and were largely responsible for their distortion, it clearly shows Melkin’s great grasp of technical issues such as these, through his precise surveying Data. ‘Meridianus’, in Ainsworth, is described as ‘pertaining to noon or noontide’, referring to the Sun’s change in longitude at its daily zenith. Ainsworth also has another translation which gives ‘Southern Meridional’ which would only be an accurate description if viewed from the northern hemisphere, so it is technically not a definitive translation. This somewhat oblique definition would be derived from the declination of the sun to the horizon viewed and defined by observers north of the equator.  However, it is from this translation that most commentators have derived ‘Southern angle’ from Melkin's text.  It is also worth noting that ‘meridianum anglum’ could be translated as an ‘English Meridian’; surely a pun not unobserved by Melkin.  It would seem, however, that Melkin is referring to the angle created at Burgh Island between the Lyonesse line and the Joseph line that runs from Burgh Island to Avebury as shown in figure 25. Essentially the word ‘meridianum’ is conveying the sense to us, of an imaginary line and this was surely Melkin’s intent. It could however be a word that he used to substitute for another descriptive word, known in his day, which would convey a sense of a Ley Line. The recent nomenclature of ‘Ley or Ley line’ must have had an earlier appellation before the knowledge of the system was lost and it is apparent that Melkin knew of its existence.

Again this brings us back to the question; was Melkin aware of the functions of the Ley line system, or did he just construct the riddle from geometric information given in another text that he sourced; that may have been old Judaic, from Zerah’s descendents and the Hebraic supplied by Joseph.  This presents a confusing set of circumstances where a Megalithic site is referenced by a Monk who lived anywhere from the fifth to the eighth century AD, that draws on Kabbalistic material; who writes a Grail book about the steps or grades to the temple ,thereby manifesting his understanding of a divine plan. Not only does he have knowledge of historical fact relating to Jesus and Joseph, four to seven Hundred years after they were buried in Avalon but also is aware that Avalon exists within a network of Leys, part of which was built before Zerah’s offspring came to England and was built by early Megalithic Man. Did Melkin really have an angel deliver this information as Helinand says, if so, was it Michael the Archangel?

We arrive back at the same circuitous dilemma of whether Melkin was the actual surveyor and the reader will only be able to make his own judgement at the penultimate sentence of the prophecy, where Melkin is giving directions within the local vicinity of the island. From this it becomes clear that he visited the Island upon which probably stood a small monastic building (rumoured to have existed by locals) built before the St. Michael Chapel referred to by Camden (circa 1610). By 1680 there is no mention of a chapel and by 1752 it was recorded as a ruin and brings us back to the point that it appears to have been purposely dismantled. This leads to another puzzle, who did the dissembling of the St. Michael churches and who tried their hardest to hide Father Good’s message from Rome by eradicating Maihews reference and is this group, society or order still actively suppressing through the ages? The most intriguing puzzle (second only to Melkin and his riddle) is the Megalithic usage of sites and Ley’s and the surveying of such a construct being conveyed to Melkin. Was this knowledge through Neolithic Zerah down to Joseph then passed on to Melkin over a period of two thousand years or even longer? If the Saxons had not invaded Britain would this information about Ley lines and stone circles be widely known today.


·         Oratori; from ‘oratorium’ in late Latin meaning a small or private chapel of prayer which would fit the description of the wattle church or the later wooden clad building in Glastonbury.  The question of whether Melkin’s prophecy has had scribal changes will seem to be an unanswerable question. Melkin has most emphatically set us a riddle but did he write the word ‘oratori’, or was this a later interpolation. The reason we should ask such a question is because if he wanted to keep our attentions at Glastonbury why did he write about the Isle of Avalon and how could he be assured in the seventh century that the Monks would  eventually change Glastonbury into Avalon.  Although his manuscripts were read by several chroniclers at Glastonbury, we do not know if he was a Glastonbury acolyte and therefore would have wished to concentrate the gaze of the quester toward the grounds of Glastonbury, but it seems logically highly unlikely. However when dealing with Melkin logic is the last attribute to use, to peel back the layers on every level of understanding.  We do not know if he set out deliberately to misdirect enquirers from locating the island of Avalon by confining their search to Glastonbury,  but the convoluted arguments involved to elucidate such an answer cannot be followed through with logic, as we take into account such concepts associated with the Grail as ‘Appointed time’.  It would seem that following the word ‘oratori’ with ‘cratibus’, which all commentators have translated as ‘wattled’, as in the construction of the first church; is too much of a coincidence, for it not to have been part of Melkin’s original text however if we start on this investigation we will be none the wiser. Cratibus fits descriptive clues in the local vicinity of Burgh Island and so does ‘ora tor’.  It is as if Melkin would have us blindfolded and pointed in the wrong direction and begs the question; just how difficult should a riddle be, to be solvable?  However Melkin’s original text could have read ‘orari’ from Orarius –giving ‘sea shore’ and an addition of the letters ‘t’ and ‘o’ to the middle of the word by a Glastonbury scribe would have rendered the word ‘oratori’.  This is a possibility having already seen the interpolations and fabrications that Glastonbury perpetrated, to locate Joseph's burial place within the Abbey grounds.  The best solution would be that the Latin word ‘ora’ and ‘tor’ from ‘torus’ were split.  ‘Ora’ translates as ‘the border or coast of a country; particularly the sea coast or maritime district’, while the Latin word ‘oralis’ translates as ‘mouth, entrance or mouth of the River’.  The word  tor’ from the Latin ‘torus’ meaning ‘a knoll or high mound of earth’, or from Old English torr; a ‘tor’ being a high rock, lofty hill or tower, possibly from Celtic, or Old Welsh, meaning a hill or a craggy outcrop of rock on the summit of a hill.  If Melkin set out to combine these words which gives the real sense of where Joseph's body lay i.e. ‘a Tor by the coast’; then the word string ‘oratorii cratibus preparatis’ has rendered the sense of a ‘hill at the mouth of the river’ or ‘Tor by the sea’ which has been pre-readied (this could either refer to the tomb which used to be the tin depository or the island within the ley line network), and which is interwoven (Ley Lines tangentially passing nodal points) in the Ley Line system.  If Melkin’s intention was to give us the sense of a tower (dedicated to the Virgin Mary) by the sea, this would admit to a previous building (maybe part of a monastic building) before the other St. Michael chapel was constructed  that existed prior to 1307. ‘Oratorii cratibus preparatis’ does lead the inquirer to conclude it relates to the wattled oratory in Glastonbury yet the ‘prepared’ in that sense has little relevance.  As an ‘oratori’ is a religious hymn and an oratorium is a place of prayer, there appears an obvious association with choir, thus an association with the Perpetual Choirs, of which, as we have seen Glastonbury is undisputed.  The translations that have written ‘chanting spheres of prophecy’, when ‘vaticinantibus’ has little to do with chanting; is realistically just a case of the mind associating ‘oratori’ (religious hymn) with church (wattled) where monks chant; giving rise to an association with ‘Perpetual Choirs’ singing an ‘oratori’ (religious hymn).  However it was this association of spheres, chanting and perpetual choirs that initiated our geometric structure.  The association of a geometric design, namely a sphere, coupled with religious hymns that would be sung in an oratory, has led many researchers to associate the Glastonbury choir with ‘Perpetual Choirs’ of the Triads.  This all combining and adding credibility as to Joseph’s burial site being within the grounds of the Abbey and subsequently enforced by geometric information supplied on the bronze plaque. This plaque as we have covered was purportedly to save for posterity’s sake, directions to where the Choir of “Yeald Chirche” was once located, before it succumbed to fire.  These directions were made to seem relevant to the shapes that were inscribed on the floor in lead that were now lost. This again as we have seen, was a gambit by Monkish acolytes to establish a proximity to a holy relic that had never existed on the site but we must not forget it was William of Malmesbury who first mentions the business of wattle. What is the relationship of this man’s ‘ut ferunt’ in reference to Joseph on the one hand, then Joseph’s wattled church being described by him on the other and  the corruptions of association we have seen so much of in the intervening years between when Melkin wrote and the obvious associations made from Melkin’s prophecy regarding ‘cratibus’ and Joseph. ‘Oratorii cratibus preparatis’  would seem to be best translated as ‘a tor on the coast with a prepared crater’



Cratibus preparatis,

·         Cratibus:crates’ from which we derive the modern word ‘crate’ (originally from a wicker basket for transporting) gives the Latin form ‘cratibus’, which translates as ‘a bundle of rods wattled together’ literally, wicker-work or hurdle, wattled or interwoven. ‘Cratibus’ as an adjective, literally means wicker, but ‘cratitius’ translated means wattle and daubed’. It would translate as ‘Wicker,’ as in woven strands of straight poles giving ‘hurdle’. This could be a play on words from ‘Crater’, a cup or bowl, goblet … a platter for meat, with an obvious association to the Grail stories and the Grail's association with Joseph, both rumoured to be buried in the Isle of Avalon. ‘Cratis’ gives us a ‘grill’ as in rods or wood interwoven. The monks of Glastonbury could have been trying to perpetuate an association with ‘wattle’ just to tie in with Melkin’s prophecy or indeed this was the construction method and a small scribal change establishing a direct link to Glastonbury. Melkin on one level could be referring to the wicker like way that ley lines have been interwoven throughout the countryside, ‘serpentinely’ weaving and tangentially touching the nodal markers on the landscape. Because of the words proximity to ‘Supradictis’ it would look as if Melkin could on one plane, be using the word in the sense of Crater which of course is a major feature on the Island. The author is unable to elaborate further as this gives direct instruction as to the tunnel entrance.

·         Preparatis  from ‘parate’, set purpose, by design, giving ‘pre parate’ predesigned or Paratum ‘a thing made ready’ The literal interpretation on one level could refer to the power that has been interwoven and prepared ‘aforetime’ from on high (by God).This could have been Melkin’s understanding of the old Neolithic networks supernatural power in as much as we are still ignorant today of its effect; yet at least he knew of the existence of Ley lines and may have had complete or partial understanding of their function. Melkin could also be using the term ‘Crater’ to describe a cave or cavern that was pre prepared that refers to the Ictis Vault. In the Glastonbury scenario the ‘preparatis’ is hard to rationalise but assuredly the cave was pre-readied because without the cave Ictis’ function of an Emporium would be redundant and the Island would not be specifically pointed to as the place where the tin was taken to. Now we know that Melkin’s puzzle works on many planes and if we use the word ‘potenter’ as meaning ‘effectually or Judiciously’ from the next line in conjunction with cratibus preparatis and super potentem adorandam uirginem, we could contrive the meaning ‘The Tor by the sea with a pre-prepared crater over which effectually is the Adorable Virgin’. There is a long standing tradition on the Island that a monastery once existed, so when Melkin wrote his riddle, did he know of a previous building dedicated to the Virgin Mary, situated over the Crater before the dedication of a chapel to St. Michael after 1307 AD.  One could even get the sense of ’a crate containing a preparation’ from ‘praeparatio’ and  from ‘crateris’ a receptacle or trough with a preparation, referring to the embalming fluid contained within. This will become clear when we investigate the cedar embalming fluid surrounding Jesus’ body .There is however on another level a completely different meaning that can be extricated specifically relevant to the tunnels entrance.  This seems to be the real clue to the Tombs entrance with specific localised instructions assuming in Melkins day there was a monastery on Burgh Island which becomes clear in a later chapter.

super potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis:

·         super, rendering above, upward or on high,

·         potentem, translates as mighty, powerful or being able ,having power or being capable, but it also has the sense of potential i.e  reaching  or attaining

·         adorandam , meaning adorable or venerable. ‘ad’ by itself translating as; on, at, to  or towards is directional. If we look at splitting the word into ad orandam we could be looking at the word orandam, giving ‘to pray to’ or be pleaded with, and also means to pray as in this usage ‘ad orandum vero et communicandum’ which translates as ‘to communicate truth and to pray’.  Is Melkin  sending us toward where one prays ? ‘Ora’ as we have seen translates as ‘by the sea coast’, but also has another sense giving ‘extremity, brim or edge’, so with ‘virge’ is this Melkin’s meaning ‘extremity of the verge’.

·         Virginem derived from ‘Virga’ giving virginalis with an obvious reference to the Virgin Mary. ‘adorandam virginem’ means “The adorable virgin or maiden”. This sentence essentially is intonating precise local instructions to the entrance of the vault, giving its relation in the local vicinity to the crater and where an old church used to be situated.  Perhaps on another level altogether and in reference to Ley lines, Melkin has knowledge or might be suggesting that, whatever the ‘praeparatis, super potentem’, the ‘pre-pared power from on high’ consists of; it is either entrapped or emanates from Avebury the A and the V subliminally indicating Avebury but this is dependant upon Avebury having that appellation in the 600’s.  Diodorus Siculus who leads us to Ictis in the preceding chapters, bears witness that:  “Opposite to the coast of Celtic Gaul there is an island in the ocean, (Britain) not smaller than Sicily, lying to the north… tradition says that Latona was born there and for this reason, the inhabitants venerate Apollo (the Sun God) more than any other god. They are, in a manor, his priests (Druids), for they daily celebrate him with continual song (Perpetual Choirs) and pay him abundant honours… In this island, there is a magnificent grove of Apollo (St Michael Ley line), and a remarkable temple of the spherical form (Avebury), adorned with many consecrated gifts” (Ley lines).  Latona had to give birth to Apollo and Artemis the twins of Zeus on an Island not accounted as land and not attached to the sea floor; Procopius’s ‘Otherworld’ which existed in Britain.

However, it would seem as if Melkin is giving direct instructions as to where the entrance to the sepulchre is. If we split ‘adorandam’ into ‘ad orandam’ it renders ‘in prayer’ if we use the root ‘oran’ it gives again the coast or brim or extremity or edge as before. ‘Vergere’ gives slope or incline which is a multi-levelled instruction.  The English word ‘verge’ has the same derivative root of virga which gives virgin or verga.  If we attempt this word stringsuper potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis’  as a whole whilst splitting ‘supradictis’ into ‘supra ad ictis’, we get the sense ’upwards one is able at the edge of the verge up high in Ictis’.

supradictis : Normally translates as ‘aforementioned’. Melkin is clever here with the word ‘supradictis’ to make it look like he is relating to the ‘sperulatis’, as if ‘supradictis’ is referring to the ‘aforementioned sperulis’ in the early part of the prophecy. ‘supradictis’ translates as ‘spoken of, said before, mentioned above or aforesaid’, as most translators have it, and could even be word play on supra-dictis and could be rendered as  “foretold from above”.  As the reader will be aware, Melkin is not only naming the fabled island of Ictis, the very same island the prophecy is about; but ‘supra-ad-ictis’; informing us that Joseph and Jesus are ‘high up in Ictis’. ‘Supra’ rendering,above ,aloft or on high. This may be an indicator of Melkin’s confidence at having entangled the enquirer sufficiently or could even be a creeping anxiety that the intended purport of his message may never reach posterity with all its subtlety. However he was cognisant of the fact that Ictis was Avalon and is responsible for changing the name as well as obscuring both. We will investigate further in relation to Leonardo Da Vinci, the subliminal effects and the way that words are used to allude to concealed meanings. The most striking revelation about this obvious reference to Ictis is; how does Melkin know it was called Ictis? Had Melkin indeed read the Greek and Roman accounts of Ictis and deduced himself, that the place is synonymous with Joseph’s burial place or was the history explained in a manuscript that expressly gave an account of Joseph’s connection with Ictis. The latter seems most probable as even in Melkin’s era Ictis’ whereabouts was lost to classical chroniclers.  Even if Melkin did witness Arthur’s burial and saw Jesus’s remains, there would have to be some form of writing that related the islands historical name six hundred years after Joseph’s burial. It is this body of writing that would appear to be part of the source for Melkin’s Book of the Grail. It would also seem that the Templars that built the St. Michael church design returned the Book of the Grail to the sarcophagus; otherwise this information would have come to light. Melkin’s Book of the Grail was deposited in the sepulchre when the Turin Shroud was removed and shortly thereafter made public. The treasure and the Ark were also deposited at the same time which we will understand shortly.

However now we get precise instructions as to the entrance of the old tin vault if we take the meaning of ‘cratibus praeparatis’ having a dual meaning in that it applies to the external crater dug by the original operators of Ictis so that they could get their cart to the tunnel entrance leading to the storage vault: ‘cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis’  meaning’ in a prepared crater at reaching the verge toward where one prays up high in Ictis.   

sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim:

·         sperulatis:  Most translators have rendered this word string ‘where the aforesaid 13 spheres rest’ but with the word ‘sperulatis’, Melkin has set out to baffle the reader. If the enquirer is unable to resolve this last clause of the directional part of the riddle, one is not going to obtain the direction of 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line through Montacute to Burgh Island along the Joseph line. Melkin plays on the original use of the word ‘sperulis’, from which we derived sphere, which at the beginning of the prophecy related to the stone circle of Avebury.  Melkin then refers back to ‘sperulis’ by using the word “aforementioned” trying to convince the reader that the two words ‘sperulis’ and ‘sperulatis’ have one and the same meaning. However his use of the word for the second time has not the same sense as in circle or sphere, but rather in its composition, being comprised of degrees. Melkin surely meant ‘sperulatis’ as a diminutive form and of the symbol for degrees i.e. 13°; the symbol being a small circle. By the association with a sphere or circle being comprised of degrees and the fact we are dealing with geometric instructions, it is possible Melkin imagined that one would associate the word with its composition or definition and derive from it the enumerated angle. It might appear that Melkin has used a play on words assuming that the reader would know that ‘speraulus’ means ‘to be looked for’.

·         The word locum is rendered as ‘where’ by most commentators but this same word also translates as ‘tomb or sepulchre’ in Ainsworth.  Locum generally understood by translators as locus, refers to a place such as the location or place being discussed.

·         The word habitantibus rendering to ‘dwell’ or ‘abide’, seems very out of place in this sentence and it would be no surprise if ‘habit’ and ‘antibus’ were split to give the sense of ‘dwelling opposite’ at 13 degrees or some such contortion. We could arrive at ‘antiboreus’ which translates as ‘looking towards the north’ or from ‘anticus’ translating as the fore part or southward.  It is only because habitantibus is unusual especially in this section of the directional part of the prophecy that it would seem that the word needs to be split; so we could have the ‘locum’ as a sepulchre abiding in the fore part or southward of the 13 degrees, or those that dwell in the tomb are looking toward the north to the 13 degree angle. The reader can see how accurate Melkin has been by carrying out a simple trigonometric example by drawing a line at right angles down from the point at which the Ley lines cross each side of Glastonbury tor and this gives the precise angle of 12.838568 degrees, which is only 9 ‘seconds’ out and considering the fact that Melkin is trying to conceal that he is referring to degrees, can be accounted as a rounded up 13 degrees.



·         Tredecim: translating as thirteen. Sperulatis may give the translation ‘degree’ by its relationship with a sphere. A sphere is made up of 360°, so Melkin is giving a visual  pun of the small circle that is the degree symbol because ‘Sperulatis’ is the diminutive form of Sperula. This is a novel yet apt description that the word conveys as long as the sense is understood, i.e. a tiny sphere or circle as the symbol used for degrees.  However the angle of 13° between the Joseph and St. Michael Ley Line is so precise that it could have no other meaning, but the 13 degrees as shown in figure 25. Without Google Earth this investigation into Melkin’s directions would be difficult in the extreme but it is oddly quaint that a crop circle nestles comfortably in the opposite angle to that indicating the 13 degrees just to the right of the Avebury circle as shown in figure 25.


Figure 25 Showing the 13° formed between the St. Michael Ley line and the Joseph line that ‘Bifurcate’ at Avebury.



Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta:

·         Habet enim secum, literally translates as ‘for he has with him’, ‘secus’ giving ‘nigh to’ or ‘with’. This sentence usually translates asJoseph has with him in the sarcophagus two vessels, white and silver, filled with the blood and sweat of the Prophet Jesus’. Melkin in this second-half of the prophecy seems to get less obtuse but his use of words indicates he is still supplying occult information. One assumes these days that the ‘duo fassula’ is synonymous with the Holy Grail, as indicated on the heraldic shield of Glastonbury.  But what was rendered as a singular ‘graal’ originally in the Grail stories was corrupted into two beer jug like vessels on the Glastonbury Arms.

·         Ioseph in sarcophago: in the sarcophagus or sepulchre or tomb, Joseph…. has with him.

·         Duo Fassula: two ‘fassula’, before the Grail stories were written, must have confused the monks when the singular Grail appeared around 1150AD. At least this might have prevented a falsified find of Joseph’s remains, being totally unable to produce something so sacred as the blood and sweat of their Lord.  It is not clear if there is an exact translation of ‘fassula’ and it seems a direct obfuscation. Commentators have assumed that the Grail is a receptacle and it would seem that even Helinand is trying to rationalise three threads; 1) two vessels that he must have heard about. 2) The degrees, steps or grades that the word Graal suggested with his Latin derivatives. 3) The processional taking place in the Grail story while sitting at meat. Thus he came up with the etymology of a platter as a serving dish for meat.

In the Glastonbury case, we are led to believe that it holds two liquids, blood and sweat. So from the Latin ‘vas’, a vase, commentators have assumed ‘vassula. This sounds like ‘vascula’ which, as the reader will know is a vessel and therefore would seem the obvious deduction.  As Melkin has proved to be accurate up to this point in the information that he is providing us, probably from a much older text, it would seem that the duality of the Grail as an object within the sarcophagus is more likely than the singularity of the Grail in the romances as the sense of Graal.  In the Romances as we have covered, it has been largely misunderstood.  As we have discussed, Melkin was the consolidator of that tradition in the Book of the Grail and, as a religious rite will have referred to it in the singular.  This will be elucidated later, when we will see that the Graal from Gradatim are the degrees or stages of spiritual enlightenment in ‘Biblical Time’, rather than the physical object or receptacles containing the blood and sweat. A ‘fasciola’ however, is a bandage and a ‘fasceola’ is a swaddling cloth or a cloth swathe.

·         alba translates as the word  ‘Pearl’ in Latin but also has its translation as the word ‘white’ by most translators. In fact it directly refers to a ‘white garment’. This of course would confirm the assumption of the white grave cloth otherwise known as the Turin Shroud.

·         argentea from ‘argenteus’ meaning ‘of silver’ also translating as ‘clear or bright’ but usually to do with silver, a mass of bullion, coin or money. It also has another meaning of plated or ‘overlaid’. ‘Argentatus’ giving silvered, over plated or again ‘overlaid’. Is this the heart of Melkin’s message that really shows who it is that Joseph brought to England and the proof?

·         cruore from ‘Cruor’, translating as blood from a wound or gore. ‘Cruentatus’  giving made bloody or died with blood. The Glastonbury cruets as vessels or as Father Good referred to them as golden ampullae, are purely derived from word association from that Latin word for blood, ‘cruore’  then led to ‘cruet’ and from blood to vessel. Many researchers have chosen to translate as ‘two cruets’, leaving out ‘fassula’ as the vessel and converting the blood supposedly contained in the vessel into the vessel itself, holding the blood. Thus we have the vessel holding the blood turning into a vessel that sounds like what the vessel is purported to contain.

·         Sudore, ‘sudor’ giving sweat, labour, travail or pains. Melkin has given us here the answer to this problem of the ‘duo fassula’ in that ‘fascla’ a swathe or breast cloth and ‘fasciola’ swathing cloth, is meant  as a ‘doubled’  white cloth covered in sweat and blood from Jesus, (overlaid, from ‘argentea’, as one would overlay an image with silver  i.e. following the outline of the image) . If Geoffrey de Charney who was the first to exhibit the Turin Shroud, had removed it from the tomb it would explain its sudden appearance in the 1350’s.

Perimpleta; has always provided the word for ‘full’, in the context of ‘filled with the blood and sweat’ by nearly every commentator on the prophecy. Perimpleta is not a word in its own right that has meaning

 but this is common with Melkin. It can be made up from ‘per – impleta’, coming from the verb 'impleo' which means 'I fill up/satiate'. The 'per-' on the front is a common latin prefix for emphasis i.e. 'completely full/satiated'.
'pleta' comes from 'pleo' which simply means 'I fill'. In the form 'pleta' it is acting as an adjective meaning 'filled'. This is obviously Melkin’s misdirectional intention.

However there is no evidence of the word existing as written here so one can conclude it must be part of the riddle to be solved. 'peri' is a Greek word meaning 'around' and is usual as a prefix meaning "about, enclosing," as in the word ‘perimeter’ -- a "line or outline around a figure or surface”.  ‘Pleta’, literally giving, ‘I plait’ in English, meaning to fold or as the definition gives, "to bend cloth back over itself”.  This seems to show that Melkin has a message to convey that Jesus is in an ‘enclosed fold’ or ‘enclosed in a fold’.  It appears to confirm and describe the Turin Shroud as the article that Melkin is describing; that is the white cloth that covered Jesus while he was in Joseph’s tomb in Jerusalem. The different accounts regarding the cloth after the tomb was found empty, can largely be regarded as stuffing for justification of a first-hand account, also adding credibility to the gospel account of the resurrection. There is no doubt that Melkin is letting the world know that a ‘doubled grave cloth, covered with blood (from wounds) and sweat from the prophet Jesus, who was enclosed in this folded cloth just as it is shown on the Turin Shroud. The explanation of how the outline was formed and when the shroud left the sepulcher will be elucidated shortly.

·         The prophete Jhesu is a poignant appellation, many researchers linking this expression with an eastern origin, as the Koran refers to Jesus in this way. Melkin as we shall see is fully aware that not only did the Prophets predict Jesus’s coming forth but also that he was the fulfilment on one level of understanding, of what they had predicted and thus, was one of their Genre and part of the Divine plan. We now have Melkin’s intended meaning of;  ‘Joseph has with him in the tomb a doubled white folded grave cloth that was laid over the prophet Jesus and outlined by his sweat and blood’.



Cum reperietur eius sarchofagum integrum illibatum, in futuris videbitur et erit apertum toto orbi terranum:

·         Cum reperietur eius sarchofagu; translates as ‘with the discovery of his sarcophagus’ .

·         Integrum; from  ‘integrates’ translating as ‘entire or whole’. This is in reference to the body of Jesus being preserved by cedar oil in the Grail Ark.

·         Illibatum; giving ‘untouched,  pure or undefiled’, from libatum ‘defiled’ as in ‘virginitas libata’

·         in futuris videbitur;  translating As ‘in the future, it will be seen’.

·         et erit apertum toto orbi terranum; gives ‘and will be opened to all, around the world’.

The translations of this sentence appear for the most part as; ‘once his sarcophagus is discovered, it will be seen whole and untouched and then open to the whole world’ or similarly, ‘with the discovery of his tomb, which will be whole and undefiled, from thenceforth it will be viewed and open to the entire world’.  As in the beginning part of the prophecy, where Melkin speaks of the future referring to a period when Joseph's body is uncovered, as a time when pilgrims would give praise to God at the island; so is this sentence referring to that same point in the future.  This does infer a religious change at the discovery of the tomb and Melkin twice, in this short prophecy, mentions the ‘whole world’ or ‘all around the world’, indicating that it will be a change in the religious system with global ramifications.  ‘Open to the whole world’; indicating, not a Christian world, but an all-inclusive world of Muslims and Jews of the Abrahamic traditions, but also including all faiths that are understanding the proofs of Divine intervention by prediction, convinced by that which is revealed, upon the opening of the tomb.

Melkin starts the sentence with ‘cum’ and with its various forms of transliteration, by inference, is indicating a point in time i.e. ‘with the unveiling of the sarcophagus’.  This is the commencement of a 1000 year period spoken of in Revelation 26:6 ‘Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years’.  Melkin’s understanding of ‘Time’ is what most qualifies him as a prophet and why such great importance should be attached to this prophecy because he is speaking in ‘The Times’ i.e. from the birth of Jesus to the uncovering of the tomb and speaking about the commencement of a new age, the 1000 years which are to follow . A fuller explanation of ‘time, times and half of time’ will come shortly.



Ex tunc nec aqua nec ros celi insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere.

Ex tunc;  gives, ‘from thenceforth’. This whole sentence is most commonly translated as, ‘from then on, those who dwell in that noble island will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven’.  Melkin starts the sentence ‘ex tunc’ or literally ‘from that time’, indicating again the expectation of change at the point of time when the tomb is unveiled.What Melkin understands is that religion in general with its multitudinous dead practices across the world (starting in Britain) will now accept the God of Israel as the only truth, in amongst the myriad of other gods by which men contrive their ‘modus operandi’

nec aqua nec ros celi; this is again confirming God-given blessings from that time forward.  Rain and dew are metaphorical for spiritual blessings sent from heaven and from thenceforth, never failing those who are converted in that island.  However, Melkin is imparting occult information here on one level, in that, he is using the word ‘nekros’ from the Greek, which gives us ‘dead, dead body, corpse’ or ‘nekrosis’ "a becoming dead, state of death. This is, Melkin’s reference to the ‘spiritually dead’ and shows that he is fully aware of the ‘degrees’ of spiritual progress of Man set within the finite parameters of ‘Biblical Time’. This expression ‘Spiritually dead’ is encapsulated throughout the prophets as those who come out of ‘spiritual Egypt’ and do not obey the Law engraved within them i.e. the denial of the testimony of Jesus. Those that do this are accounted ‘spiritually dead’ but those that accept his testimony are accounted as alive-or living. This is overcoming the first death spoken of in Revelation. However those that accept the testimony of Jesus by coming out of Egypt yet afterward with the pressures of life, and the innate qualities of corruptness that are the lot of the human condition, fall away into ‘non-compliance with conscience’ or disobedience to that engraved upon their heart.  These then undergo and experience the likened Fall of Jerusalem. This is referred to throughout the prophets and of course is followed by the seven years of compliance  (known spiritually as ‘the captivity’), a period to put away sin and of purification and acknowledgement that there is a God (The whole point of the divine plan to self-realisation or Gnosis).  After the acknowledgement and compliance, spiritual peace is found, and this is the overcoming of the second death also mentioned in Revelation. Failure to comply in the ‘spiritual captivity’ period, results in the second death i.e. spiritual death.  The three periods or degrees of Gnosis;  firstly the coming out of Egypt, secondly the return from the Captivity (in the Spiritual sense) and thirdly the heavenly state of spiritual peace, are synonymous with the three days that Jesus speaks of, when he refers to the rebuilding of the Temple. These three days are also synonymous as, the three periods of time i.e. Time, the Times and Half Time. ‘And when he cometh, he shall smite the land of Egypt, and deliver such as are for death to death; and such as are for captivity to captivity; and such as are for the sword to the sword’.  Jeremiah 43:10.

What Melkin is referring to here are those persons that in the seven years of captivity after the fall of spiritual Jerusalem, who do not acknowledge that there is a God; from that time forward there will be no more water from heaven. ‘Seven times will pass by for you, until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.’ Daniel 4:32.  Daniel 4:25.

The evidences for Melkin’s double meaning here rely on elucidation in a later chapter as a digression here is not opportune and the explanation involves the issue of ‘Biblical Time’.

It is here however that it becomes evident that one scribal change has been made for reasons to accord or marry with the word ‘insula’ the first word of the prophecy and the Island of Avalon we have been trying to locate.  This scribal alteration was most probably innocently changed before or by John of Glastonbury when transcribing Melkin’s prophecy. Melkin wrote originally the word ‘insalem’ as a pun because with this word the purport of his occult meaning is passed to the initiated but also the mundane sense is conveyed.  Melkin’s original would have read;  Ex tunc nec aqua nec ros celi insalem nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. If one were to split ’insalem’ as intended by Melkin to, ‘in salem’, then the sentence reads ‘from that time there is no water for the dead but those that live in (heavenly) peace, will not lack drink’. This is the peace of which comes to those who have come out of Egypt initially and then subsequently purified themselves during the seven year Captivity after the spiritual fall of Jerusalem. ‘In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people. Isaiah 11:11.

insulam nobilissimam;  ostensibly translating as ‘noble Island’ in the one sense as Melkin intended but as we have seen,  this originally would have been written as the non existant Latin word ‘insalem’, which when split gives ‘in peace’ the very objective of Gnosis and the understanding behind the essence of the Grail. ‘Mental rest’ in the landscape of the mind,  which allegorically has its similitude in the Holy land, is the key to the understanding of the vast body of knowledge incorporated in the prophets. A difficult concept to allow but the ‘rest and peace’, that the prophets speak of is spiritual and not historical. However like so many words in Melkin’s prophecy, the outward word suggests a mis-spelt meaning, yet when uncovered, the occult sense is revealed just as in Usher’s version giving Judioialem instead of the modern corrected or assumed  form of ‘Judicialem’ to conform with Saphat. ‘Judioialem’ was probably a corruption or conscious scribal correction and almost certainly the original word that Melkin would have written was ‘Judiosalem’. The reason that this assumption can be posited is because it is a certainty that Melkin understood the message of the Biblical prophets. This can be assumed by his understanding of Biblical time which can only be gleaned from the prophets of Israel.



habitantibus poterit deficere

·         habitantibus from a root of ‘habitatio’ ,  ‘habitator’ , ‘habitatus’ or ‘habito’   giving ‘to dwell, live in, or abide. Melkin’s choice of words is exact and precise to convey the sense of a spiritual place where one lives at peace, much as today the modern expression of describing someone as being ‘in a good place’ in reference to their state of mind or mental wellbeing. This concept of a spiritual location is vital to the understanding of the prophets, as what was essentially a landscape in historical time (set in Biblical time) by mental transformation, as Melkin comprehends, is a mental landscape of peace within which one can potentially live. This essentially is the Kingdom of Heaven that is referred to by Jesus as an earthly attainable state; of which he proclaimed to be at hand or attainable.  Unfortunately the opposite state being equally attainable. The subject requires an elucidation that is grounded in the prophets and the subject analysis is too broad to be dealt with within these pages excepting the subject of Biblical Time which we will cover only to show that Melkin was certain that what he prophesied would take place at a point in that time.

·         Poterit; from a root describing ‘drink or drinking’ which again has biblical connotations.  Drinking is synonymous with acceptance of the divine plan or God’s word and of what is revealed by the prophets of Israel. The real sense of spiritual drinking can by association be equated with the satiation of spiritual thirst as in Jeremiah 49:12 ‘This is what the LORD says: "If those who do not deserve to drink the cup;  must drink it, why should you go unpunished? ... You must drink this cup of judgment!’.  Or again in Obadiah 4:16 ‘Just as you drank on my holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been!’  Here again in Mark 10:38 ‘Can you drink the cup? But Jesus said to them, "You don't know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink from.

·         Deficere from ‘deficio’ meaning, to leave or fail one’ giving the word ‘lack’ as most translators have it.





Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata: Most translations of this passage differ only slightly; ‘for a long time before the day of judgement in Josaphat, these things will be openly declared to the living’.

·         Per multum tempus ante; translates as ‘a long time before’ and relates as we have already seen to  the 1000 year period from the time the tomb is unveiled before the day of Judgement i.e  from the time that Joseph’s and Jesus’ tomb is unveiled. This is the last period of the seven day period of 7,000 years that constitute the framework of ‘Biblical Time’.

·         diem Judioialem from Usher’s text, rather than the assumed or corrupted ‘diem Judicialem’ of the later transcriptions.  The scribal change and word association has come from the original which would have been ‘Judiosalem’ through Judioalem to the assumed ‘diem Judicialem’  which is purely conforming to the notion of its connection to judgement day. This has been due to its connection with Jehosaphat which the Abrahamic faiths believe refers to judgement day. Melkin again can only be understood with a grasp of the Prophets prophesying in time, as biblical spans of time are often misunderstood being dependant upon how the prophet is referencing the subject, this determining the unit time measure expressed.

Melkin here wrote ‘Judiosalem’ which obviously is word play on Jerusalem as well as being a subliminal joining of Judah and Salem, rendering exactly what Melkin intented; ‘The day of Judah’s peace’ or ‘peace of the Jews’ referring to the spiritual peace of those coming out of spiritual Babylon which takes place on the day of Jehosaphat,  as long as the thousand year period is understood as a day being the seventh day of the one week of Biblical time.  Melkin is using the word ‘Salem’ from which Jerusalem is derived from Urušalimum , ‘Foundation of Shalem’; Salem coming from the word shalem, shalom, shalim or salam meaning peace; the city of Jerusalem which dates back to the early bronze age, where Abraham and Melchizedek met.  ‘Judah’s peace’ is the goal of the Divine plan if one accepts that a ‘Jew’ is a spiritual Jew i.e. a person having come out of Egypt and returned from the Babylonian captivity, (Babylon the Great in the spiritual sense) and then found peace through adherence to the Law and acknowledgement of the existence of God. This view of the prophets being not only historical seems newly contrived but is the essential perception although not intellectually or theologically comprehended,that unites and is perceived by the Abrahamic faiths.  Not to complicate matters but just to show how many ways one can interpret Melkin, ‘salum’ also translates as near a coast or to the sea so if we take judiosalum as a word we get the sense  ‘along time before those days when the Jews near the coast (in the period of Iosahat) are opened up and declared to the living.

·         in iosaphat: Melkin has steered the reader into assuming a place, by prefixing ’Josaphat’ with ‘in’, when he is quite aware of Jehosaphat’s meaning as a period of biblical time (which is the 1000 years of ‘The Times’ halved) and accounted as a degree of spiritual awakening being the third day of the three time periods, time times, and halftime as these were referred to by Jesus as days. The reader will remember that ‘saphat’ was rendered as judgement in the earlier part of the prophecy.  ‘Judiosalem’,  became  Judioalem  and was then changed to ‘Judicialem’ because of its association with Jehosaphat being commonly associated with the last Judgement. The rendering of ‘Saphat’ as ‘judgement’ in the previous passage is incorrect, when ‘potens in Saphat’, should be understood as ‘he who’s might is in spiritual awakening’ in direct reference to spiritual Jews.

The Valley of Josaphat or Valley of Jehoshaphat is mentioned in only one passage of the Bible, in Joel 3.2 : "I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations".  It is from this passage that Christians derive Jehosaphat as the ‘last judgement’, which is exactly what Melkin is alluding to. Due to its attachment to a valley, theologians have assumed it has a geographical location, but like ‘mountain’ in biblical texts; it rarely, especially in prophetical literature, has the sense of geographical location. When the reader of prophetical literature becomes aware of the concept of a historical location( i.e the Holy land and its tribes) set in ‘Biblical Time’ that has become a blueprint for a spiritual landscape, this transliterable approach to the comprehension of the Prophets words becomes clearer. The prophets speak of the nations and their attributes dualistically applying to real time historical prophecy but also understandable within an individual mental landscape.   Josaphat incidentally is the name given to the forth king of Judah.  The essence of Jehosaphat’s meaning is captured with the passage in Matthew. 25, and bears witness that the voice of Jesus can be heard by everyone that spiritually came out of Egypt i.e. heard the Law; but then subsequently most of those who were initially blessed with this miraculous correcting toward gnosis, chose to ignore their conscience, eventually being sent to captivity in Spiritual Babylon at the destruction of Spiritual Jerusalem.  This does sound oversimplified and contrived but we will come to this when discussing ‘Biblical time’ but the point is that Jesus did not only come for the Gentiles but all the children of Israel.  Evidence of the Divine plan can be witnessed in Mathew 25 showing the relationship of choice with deed which as we have stated, takes place within the seven year period which is the defining time of purification through compliance or as it is Biblically known ‘the troublous times’ :  31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me’. 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, ‘when did we see you hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?’ 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’. 41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not .  44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?  45 Then shall he answer them, saying, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me’. 46  And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata; usually translated as ’openly shall these things be declared to the living’ but another interpretation could be that ‘these things will be openly accepted or made apparent by those having reached spiritual awareness’.  ‘Viventibus’, the living or alive, has the same connotation as in prophetical literature, as those not spiritually dead. Throughout the prophets this notion is held that man can be alive, not in the sense that humans are either dead or alive but spiritually alive, as opposed to those in whom their conscience no longer councils to do good but instead, acts conversely as a ‘fearful looking for of judgement’. It is from this understanding that we might grasp God not being a ‘respector of persons’ but only of those who are spiritually alive.



Melkin specifically points to a period in time and this point in time is the uncovering of Jesus’ body. The reason for this is obvious in the proofs it will provide for the future not only of the veracity of his prophecy but substantiating the words of the Prophets of Israel and these confirmations and the realisation of a Divine plan will cause a paradigm shift in consciousness. Jesus and the Archangel Michael  mentioned in Revelation and Daniel seem to be both part of the raising of Human consciousness and are accounted as witnesses to the Divine Plan.


Insula auallonis auida funere paganorum, pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium sperulis propheciae vaticinantibus decorata, & in futurum ornata erit altissimum laudantibus. Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus, cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit. Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum; Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratori, cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis  sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim. Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta. Cum reperietur ejus sarcofagum, integrum illibatum in futuris videbitur, & erit apertum toto orbi terrarium. Ex tunc aqua, nec ros coeli insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata. 
  Hucusque melkinus.

In ancient times around 350 bc a Greek navigator who  visited Britain wrote a journal and in it he described an island where tin was produced and he called it fish island or in Greek Ichthys, Ichthus and Ikhthus i.e the island of Ictis. This Island was surrounded by Pilchards at certain times of the year hence its name.  The tin trade which had existed since the 1000bc  through Phoenician traders was Later commented upon by a Latin chronicler named Diodorus and his comments  on the British were that.

 The inhabitants who dwell near the promontory of Britain, known as Belerium, mine tin  and when they have melted it into tin ingots, they carry it to a certain island, which lies off Britain, and is called Ictis. For at the ebbing’s of the tide, the space between this island and the mainland is left dry and then they can convey the tin in large quantities over to the island on their wagons.

 This is the island of Burgh Island in S.Devon with its sand causeway that dries out a low tide upon which the carts of tin mentioned by Pytheas were brought down from southern Dartmoor through Loddiswell upon an ancient cart track. The only ‘linch pin’ from one of these wagons found in Devon and Cornwall from pytheas’ era was found on this same track from   Dartmoor to Ictis.  They travelled along a tidal road in Aveton Gifford to reach the Island of Ictis



As many are aware there is a legend in Cornwall that Joseph of Arimathea Jesus’ uncle was a Tin merchant and that he came to this coast to pick up tin with Jesus when he was still a boy. No one was quite sure why Ictis was called an Emporium which means market place, but it is now known that within this island is an old vault originally used for storing tin by the old miners but around the time the Romans invaded Britain this came increasingly difficult to keep secret so Joseph bought this island with the huge tin vault within it. The body of Jesus is yet to be discovered within the Island. This is why the gospels relate three pertinent facts, the tomb belonged to Joseph, it was a hewed out tomb that no other man had lain in before and in it was a white cloth. This is what the gospels concur upon but they do not let on that the tomb site is in England.

 In fact Strabo another chronicler states that a Captain ran his boat on the rocks rather than give away the islands position to the Romans and it just so happens that next to this island we have the only two maritime wrecks from the ancient tin industry. This is where the biggest cache of tin ingots was found just a couple of miles from ictis.

Melkin a prophet and monk who lived in about 450 to 650AD  wrote a very strange prophecy in Latin,  which up until now has remained an obscure piece of literature which gives directions to the burial place of Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph is supposed to have with him what is thought to be the Holy grail with him where he is buried in the island of Avalon.

For many years Grail hunters have assumed that the Grail and Joseph lie at Glastonbury but the prophecy was given in the form of a puzzle and recently this riddle has been unlocked and is now revealed in a book called ‘And Did Those Feet’.

 The book ‘And Did Those Feet’ is named after the poem written by William Blake which as most Britons know is the anthem of Jerusalem , which speaks of New Jerusalem existing in Britain  and asks the question ‘did Jesus’ feet walk upon England’s pleasant pastures green.  Well now we have the answer because Jesus is buried within this Island beside Joseph of Arimathea. 

The prophet melkin visited the gravesite after king Arthur was buried there and left these directions for posterity that we might uncover his grave site  and calls the island the island of Avalon.



Island of Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world because they have their entombment there and it is honoured by a circle that portends of a prophesy (and this circle is the stone circle of Avebury).  It then goes on to say that in the future the island will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest and ‘Abbadare’ (which translated means The father’s pearl, who is of course Jesus) mighty in judgement the noblest of those foreigners sleeps 104 nautical miles from Avebury, and by whom he recieved interment by the sea from Joseph who is named after Arimathea, and he has also taken his eternal rest there, and they lie on the southern fork of a ‘bifurcated meridional’ line in an  angle on a coastal Tor,  in a crater, above which one can go at the extremity of the verge as it was already prepared high up in Ictis.  this  tomb is now their  dwelling  and is located 13 degrees from the st. Michael ley line.

This is what melkin tells us and it is laid out word for word so that the prophecy can be fully understood in the book And did those feet . Click on the link above.

The Templars built an array of churches all dedicated to St Michael which comprise the St Michael ley line and like St Michael’s mount in Cornwall this small island had a St Michael church on it but it is father Good a fifteenth century Jesuit monk who confirms this position who tells us that Joseph of Arimathea is ‘carefully hidden’ in Montacute and you can see that the line passes through St.Michaels hill where there once also stood a church dedicated to him EXACTLY 104 MILES ON A LINE THAT IS BIFURCATED  AT THIRTEEN DEGREES AND RUNS THROUGH MONTECUTE.

 Many scholars and historians that have dealt with the Glastonbury material say the Melkin was an invention of the twelvth or thirteenth century. This is simply not true and this position is only arrived at because no one has been able to decipher  Melkin’s Prophecy before the current era. Ask yourself ,why would someone make a puzzle that no one could understand yet all the details in it are so precise and lead to the very island named in the prophecy.

 Not only did Melkin write the original of the Grail book which establishes the location of this Island, but Leonardo Da vinci was aware of where this island was and also told us that in his paintings of the Madonna and the yarnwinder he would show us where this island is.  He painted two Yarnwinder paintings which show exactly where the geographical location is . We can see if we merge the two paintings that we know to be painted by him, he gives every geographical detail that locates the island of Avalon as the present day Burgh island in Devon which we can also see this same perspective on google earth.

This is a complicated story but it is revealed in this new and enlightening book that gives evidence of how this island became known as the island of Sarras in the Grail stories and how the Turin shroud is in fact the real grave cloth of jesus seen by Melkin and  that he referred to it as the ‘Duo Fassula’.

In fact you can see Melkin’s latin description matches the shroud completely if we understand that his riddle of the Duo Fassula is really a Duplico fasciola or doubled over grave cloth because it says that….



Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta:

 Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.



The Templars who built the St.Michael churches to mark this grave site buried their treasure on this island on Christmas day in 1307 after arriving in three treasure ships. As they unloaded the treasure and before they closed up the tomb for the last time one of them, (probably Geoffrey de Charney) removed the Shroud of Jesus from the tomb that is presently on exibit in Turin.



King Arthur’s body was also buried within this island and it is here that he came to look for a miracle to cure his fatal wounds after the battle for his kingdom as he knew that Jesus was buried within it. Goeffrey of Monmouth also recounts that Arthur is buried in the island of Avalon but it is Melkin who confirms we have the right location by saying the word Supradictis meaning up high in Ictis

And Did Those feet by Michael Goldsworthy, is a revealing book with all the maps and evidence that explains how it is that, what was known as the Grail ark in the Grail romances contains Jesus body and confirms how the image on the Turin shroud was formulated in cedar oil. The mystery is now uncovered but what will the world learn from this unveiling of the tomb on this sacred island and what will be the effect of the discovery of this tomb and its contents on all the major religions today.


This is an exciting book released on ebook or in paperback and is full of excellent photographs and diagrams that provide evidences.















The following is an extract from a book which decodes an old Prophecy by a monk called Melkin.





When this Puzzle, (which is the main cause for Glastonbury’s association with the Holy Grail and Joseph of Arimathea) is fully understood, it shows that the two vessels that have been described as containing the blood and sweat of Jesus are in fact a misunderstood reference to the grave cloth of Jesus better known as the shroud of Turin.  

Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula(duplico Fasciola) alba & argentea,(covering) cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perim pleta: Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.

The monk Melkin has deliberately concealed the real meaning of the Grail which is explained in the Book.

Also the when the Prophecy or puzzle is fully understood, we can actually determine that Abbadare is in fact Jesus and his body is preserved in the Grail Ark which is also in the same Tomb  along with Joseph of Arimathea and both lay still undiscovered in the real Island of Avalon which Melkin leads us to with pinpoint geometrical Acurracy being less than 100 yards out over a measure of 104 nautical miles and less than 9 seconds of one degree in error in the 13 degrees that he gives as a direction from the Bifurcated line.



The saga of how this transpired is romanticised in the Grail stories but is clearly elucidated upon in a new book called ‘And did those feet’ by Michael Goldsworthy.

The sign displayed in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey marking the spot where some previously enearthed bones had been miraculously discovered with a fake cross stipulating that the bones were those of King Arthur. To convince the ignorant it was also marked on the cross that the location was Avalon; a fraud carried out by the monks at Glastonbury.



The relationship of Melkin’s prophecy to the French Grail material.



Father William Good, a Jesuit priest, born at Glastonbury, served mass in the Abbey at Glastonbury as a boy just before its dissolution. This was before Queen Elizabeth I changed the religion of the country to Protestantism. He also held a secret as to the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea’s burial place.  Father William was educated in Glastonbury, and later attended Corpus Christi College in 1546 where he became a fellow in 1548, and studied for his Master of Arts in 1552. Throughout all the early days of his life while he studied and before he came to the priesthood, he carried around with him the information that was passed on to him by Abbot Richard Whiting at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.

As was usual in those days, secret knowledge was handed down to chosen choirboys or likely candidates for the priesthood, by Bishops and Abbots rather than writing it down and running the risk of having it discovered by persons who were not privileged.  Just before Richard Whiting was about to be hanged on Glastonbury Tor at the start of the dissolution, he related to the young William Good, that Joseph of Arimathea was ‘carefully hidden in Montacute’,  most probably with the added instruction to say nothing to anybody.  Father Good, while Queen Mary reigned in the interim, obtained the benefice of Middle Chinnock in Somerset, the prebend of Comba Octava in the Church of Wells, and was given the head-mastership of a school in Wells.

When Elizabeth I came to the throne, he travelled to Tourni where in 1562 he was admitted into the Society of Jesus, thereafter travelling to Ireland to become a missionary for many years.  Afterwards he travelled to Belgium, where he met Robert Parsons, who persuaded him to become a member of the Jesuit order, while the rest of his days were passed as confessor to the English College in Rome.

It was during this time in Rome that he passed on the message to alleviate himself of the burden he had carried with him since he was a boy. He left to posterity at the English college in Rome the information conveyed to him by Richard Whiting with the added addition of his own précis of the last part of Melkin’s prophecy, indicating how important he felt it was; “The monks, never knew for certain the place of this saints burial (Joseph’s) or pointed it out.  They said the body was most “carefully hidden” on a hill near Montacute and that when his body would be found, the whole world would wend their way there, on account of the number and wondrous nature of the miracles worked there”.

In Archbishop Usher’s account describing the Arms of Glastonbury, he quotes from an account given by William Good, and refers to him as “a Jesuit born at Glastonbury in the reign of Henry VIII”:

"Antiqua arma Glastoniensis Monasterii sunt hujusmodi. Scutum album, in quo per longum erigitur stipes crucis viridis & nudosas, & de latere ad latus extenduntur brachia seu rami crucis stipiti consimilia. Sparguntur guttse sanguinis per oninem aream scuti. Utrinqwe ad latera stipitis, & sub alis crucis, ponitur ampulla inaurata. Et haec semper denominabantur insignia Sancti Josephi, qui ibi habitue pie credebatur, & fortasse sepultus esse.



Such are the ancient Arms of the monastery of Glastonbury. A white shield in which, for a long time, a green and gnarled stake of a cross sticks out, and from side to side stretch branches or boughs as if they were the beam of the cross. Drops of blood are spattered around the whole expanse of the shield. And at the sides of the stake, under the beam of the cross, is placed a gilded flask. And these were always referred to as the tokens of St Joseph, who is believed to have lived piously, and perhaps to have been buried there.’



 The Reverend Walter Skeat make his own remarks on Father Good’s passage; “The knotted cross evidently refers to the legend of St Joseph's thorny staff (from which a tree had sprouted at Glastonbury until recently cut down by vandals), the drops of blood denote his receiving the blood of Christ in the Holy Grail, and the two cruets are the "duo fassula" mentioned in the book of Melkin, which resulted from the duplication of the Grail of the original legend”.

We can conclude from this, that Father Good had read Melkin while in the British Isles and had been privately engaged investigating the whereabouts of the sepulchre of Joseph.  It would seem that Father William assumed that within the Heraldry depicted on the shield, there could have been a clue to where Joseph lay. It would also appear that he was probably taking this line of investigation, having previously read the Seint Graal, and its associations with Joseph, where "a white knight relates to Galahad the mystery of a certain wonderful shield." It is fairly evident that Father Good had tried to locate the burial place of Joseph having been motivated by the possession of a clue but unfortunately didn't piece together the relevance of Montacute.


Figure 22 Showing the Folly tower where there once stood a chapel dedicated to St.Michael on this hilltop ‘marker’ site.



Geoffrey of Monmouth writing in 1130 makes no allusion to the Graal, or to Lancelot or Gawain, or to the prophecy of Melkin and does not say one word about Joseph of Arimathea in his popular Historia Regum Britanniae. Geoffrey wrote many works, all in Latin, but in his History of the Kings of Britain, he writes about Arthur, Merlin and Vortigern at length, but draws nothing from Melkin’s genealogy of Arthur, yet includes the previously unknown prophecies of Merlin.  Geoffrey claims in his dedication that his book is a translation of an "ancient book in the British language that told in orderly fashion the deeds of all the kings of Britain", given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford.  Much of his material was invented, but the main body of manuscript text was supplied by the Archdeacon of Oxford, which mainly came from Welsh sources, most probably from the writings of Melkin that were embellished upon and subsequently places Arthur in a Welsh backdrop. Geoffrey's works seem to show acquaintance with the place names of the region and most commentators think Geoffrey was Welsh and spoke Welsh.  He seems to have come from the French-speaking Welsh border country and was probably educated in a Benedictine monastery.  There were probably many French speaking Bretons in this region from the monastic houses that were to influence the likes of Gerald of Wales (Gerald de Barri), who is half Welsh, half Norman and Walter Map. Maep or Mapes was born on the Marches of Wales and calls the Welsh his countrymen, and England ‘our mother.’  It is posited that the Bretons and the Welsh spoke a similar language and it was from this connection that the Grail stories were easily assimilated with a similar Arthurian tradition that existed in Wales.  William of Malmesbury the product of intermarriage between Norman and Saxon noticed but a slight difference in his time between Welsh and Breton:  ‘Lingua nonnihil a nostris Brittonibus Degeneres’  and Giraldus calls the Breton an old-fashioned Welsh. : ‘Magis antiquo linguae Britannicae idiomati appropriato’.

This tradition could have existed in Wales through copies of the works of Melkin that remained in Britain but as we have covered, it seems that the Book of the Grail went to France caused by the Saxon invasion and later returned to revitalise and mix with Welsh legend after having come from a French romanticisation of original, yet overlapping historical Material. The route of this information having probably travelled to Mont St. Michel near St. Malo and Avranche which of course would have had links with the tin traders since ancient times and as we will cover in a later chapter the probable landing point of Melkin which is why Helinand relates the account of the Graal and the supposed apparition to the Hermit (in Britain) taking place in 707 or as Walter map has it as 717AD. It becomes apparent later that Melkin probably took this book to France in his old age and thus an account of a British monk experiencing an angelic apparition was known in France.

Geoffrey’s omission of the Joseph material, despite his book's popular success, meant that the French tradition was not as widely known and did not appear until after Geoffrey’s death in 1154. If there was an early tradition that included the Nicodemus and Joseph stories at Glastonbury it was ignored by William and Geoffrey, but then proliferated at the advent of the French Grail material as if in response, to set the record straight and counter the more Welsh and strictly Arthurian material.  That's not to say that the legends had not persisted about Arthur and his connection with Joseph before then, this being evidenced by St. Augustin's argument with the Britons, "who preferred their own traditions before all the churches in the world", which of course is a referral to the Joseph tradition and possibly the bloodline ties of Arthur to Joseph.

Helinand, the Cistercian Abbot of Froidemont or in latin Frigidus Mons on the river Tera near Beauvais wrote a chronicle. The Abbey was founded in 1134 but found among manuscripts in the library including accounts of the lives of St. Bernard and St. Thomas of Cantorbery is ‘La Chronique d’Helinand’ written around 1215AD. Here in the diocese of Beauvais was a Cistercian monk who died circa 1220, but he wrote a chronicle of events in history which terminates with the year 1209 and seems to have heard an account of Melkin having had an apparition of an Angel and this account seems to relate to the Grail and matches the date when Melkin possibly visited Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy around 700AD.

John of Tynemouth, writing later quotes an extract from Helinand (below) referring to the Graal for the first time by its name at a date given in his chronicle as 707A.D. As the chronicle was laid out by date and it was at this point in time where the extract was inserted in the chronicle, it infers that the Graal was so named at this date. There has been much discussion about the early date of the insertion of this reference to the ‘Graal’ and due to preconceived ideas of the ‘Graal’ being an invention of the Grail writers, commentators have looked for reasons to show this date to be inaccurate and a fabrication of a later date.

The extract from Helinand:

De loseph centurione: Hoc tempore in britannia cuidam heremitae demonstrata fuit mirabilis quaedam visio per angelum de loseph decurione nobili, qui corpus domini deposuit de cruce, et de catino illo vel parapside in quo dominus cenavit cum discipulis suis; de quo ab eodem heremita descripta est historia que dicitur gradale.  Gradalis autem vel gradale gallice dicitur scutella lata et aliquantulum profunda, in qua preciose dapes divitibus a solent apponi gradatim, unus morsellus post alium in diversis ordinibus. Dicitur vulgari nomine greal, quia grata et acceptabilis est in ea comedenti, tum propter continens, quia forte argentea est vel de alia preciosa materia, tum propter contentum ordinem multiplicem dapium preciosarum.  Hanc historiam latine scriptam inuenire non potui sed tantum gallice scripta habetur a quibusdem proceribus, nec facile, ut aiunt, tota inueniri potest.

‘At this time a certain marvellous vision was revealed by an angel to a certain hermit in Britain concerning St. Joseph the decurion who deposed from the cross the body of our Lord, as well as concerning the paten or dish in which our Lord supped with his disciples, whereof the history was written out by the said hermit and is called ‘Of The Graal’ (De Gradali). Now a platter, broad and somewhat deep is called in French ‘gradalis’ or ‘gradale’, wherein costly meats (with their sauce) are want to be set before rich folk by degrees (gradatim), one morsel after another in divers orders, and in the vulgar speech it is called graalz, for that it is grateful and acceptable to him that eateth therein, as well.  For that which containeth the victual, for that haply it is of silver and other precious material, as for the contents thereof, to wit, the manifold courses of costly meats. I have not been able to find this history written in Latin, but it is in the possession of certain noble written in French only, nor, as they say, can it easily be found complete.  This however,  I have not hitherto been able to obtain from any person, so as to read it with attention.  As soon as I can do so, I will translate into Latin, such passages as are more useful and more likely to be true.’

The fact that Helinand could not find a copy of an early French source indicates contrarily as some commentators have proposed. The commentators have supposed that the reason that Helinand is unable to locate a French copy is because of its recent popularity and production. The opposite is true in that it is not widely copied and those bits that have been obtained from a copy in the original Latin are held by some un-named noble family. It is more likely, the reason for the books scarcity is that it had been in possession of a French noble family from a very early date and from which troubadours close to that family accessed and romanticised its material into the French. The fact that Helinand is not finding (but has heard of the Latin original) shows us that he has come across Grail extracts in French from which he understands are derived from a Latin source. The fact that it is purportedly only fragmentary or not easily found complete, adds to the veracity of this supposition as having been written by an early Grail writer . One explanation of the French book not being found complete is that troubadours were given extracts to embellish upon by the noble French Family.  Was the sense of the Graal as assumed by Helinand and elaborated upon as relating to a Dish, originally conveying the sense of a ‘container’ of the Graal and can this container be the Grail Ark or box that contained the Grail that Joseph of Arimathea conveyed to Britain. 

Let us assume that a French noble family possessed a manuscript of Melkin’s original compilation of ancient Joseph material written in Latin and later had it translated into French, to be called or referred to as the ‘Book of the Graal.’ The reason behind this assumption is, we know definitively that Melkin has knowledge of Joseph’s whereabouts around six hundred years after his death. He knows also of the place where Arthur is buried because it is the same location at which Joseph was buried. Melkin was said to have written a book about Arthur entitled ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa rotunda’, which means he lived contemporaneously or soon thereafter but given Melkin’s understanding of directions to the tomb and his accuracy in describing what will be found within it, we must conclude he entered it at Arthur’s death. It would also seem probable that Geoffrey sourced the location of Arthur’s burial as being in Avalon from Melkin’s work that remained in Britain and Geoffrey’s - 'Arthur's grave is nowhere seen, whence antiquity of fables still claims that he will return', is based upon Melkin’s knowledge that Joseph’s grave would be found thus uncovering Arthur.  The probable scenario might be that Melkin, witnessed Arthur’s interment in Avalon but it is still unfathomable how Melkin was able to give us such accurate co-ordinates, not only Geometrically but topographically describing the locale, in a clearly well-constructed puzzle, if he had not visited the site.

The inclusion of the Grail in French, Welsh, Irish and English variations of the romances, makes it virtually impossible to divine its substance, provenance, or essential meaning and most elucidations are fraught with supposition and contradiction so, digressing slightly, let us assume as we posited earlier, that the book of the Grail was written in Latin from a source that included Hebrew arcane terminology and material brought by Joseph and his associates to Britain. It was expanded upon, with information of a bloodline that existed from Joseph (or possibly Jesus through the Magdalene) down through Arthur inclusive of his exploits and that of the family from Roman to Saxon times. This book was originally written as a compilation of this body of knowledge, giving the origins of the religious nature of the Grail, (i.e. the gradual steps or degrees of enlightenment) that conveyed and gave meaning to the substance of the Grail and this book was compiled by Melkin.

Hardyng, Leland, Capgrave and Bale all cite Melkin as an ancient authority on Arthurian and British history and of the four titles he is supposed to have written that are referenced by these later chroniclers, let us assume a crossover of material between these manuscripts and the ‘Book of the Grail’. Melkin’s Grail book in France not only contained a historical account of Joseph’s journey to Britain but also occult temple knowledge having come directly from Jerusalem that explained or gave meaning to the original purport of the Grail. Let us also assume that this Gnostic material from the Temple contained an account of the Divine plan, the striving of man for spiritual enlightenment and its history through the Davidic heritage. Over time the Grail metamorphosed into an object and this transformation was partly due to Melkin who had written his riddle which included mention of the ‘duo fassula’. Now this misrepresentation of the ‘duo fassula’ were said to contain liquids of blood and sweat and thus the necessity for a receptacle to hold a liquid or two.  This puzzle or prophecy survived in one of his other four books or was duplicated in other manuscripts to be reproduced by John of Glastonbury and possibly from other sources. Melkin’s book ‘Arthurii mensa rotunda’ obviously supplying much of the early Arthurian material for Welsh manuscripts that would, of necessity be void of the specific Grail material that was to emanate from Melkin’s Book of the Grail that had wound up in the hands of a noble family in France.

The Welsh Greal material however, contains the adventures of Gwalchmei Peredur and Lancelot, and of the Knights of the Round Table; but these are not found in Malory’s "Morte d'Arthur". The Peniarth manuscript is dated to Henry VI, the earlier part of the fifteenth century. This is similar to that of the "Mabinogion of the Llyvr Coch Hergest", which is of that same date but it is probably transcribed from an earlier copy and it is not known when it was first translated into Welsh, some scholars  saying it was written around 1070 or in Henry I’s time, but this is debatable. Whatever the date of the Welsh version, the translator had no great mastery of the original French from the source and the Welsh scribe by his own volition chose not translate portions, because the French was difficult to translate and the story was itself erratic and for the most part misunderstood by the French collator. It can be seen that the Welsh versions have been assimilated from French sources and sometimes changed or interpolated or polemicized conferring a Welsh perspective to names places and events as can be witnessed in the early Welsh versions which gives a differing outlook from those in the French and can be so examplified. Perceval in the Welsh is called Peredur. Perceval's father, Alain li Gros, is in the Welsh Earl Evrawg, and his sister Dindrane becomes Danbrann. King Arthur becomes Emperor Arthur while Queen Guenievre becomes Gwenhwyvar and so on. This leads to a comparable lack of rigour with place names;  Cardoil becomes Caerlleon on Usk, Pannenoisance, Penvoisins; Tintagel translates into Tindagoyl and Avalon becomes Avallach.  These are examples of deliberate alterations, and it is probable that those capable of such practice would have been prepared to usurp Arthur’s Cornish heritage.

This passage in the History of Fulke Fitz-Warine, originally written around 1260 is the first to mention the Graal from Welsh sources:

‘And when Kahuz was awake, he put his hand to his side. There hath he found the knife that had smitten him through, so telleth us the Graal, The Book of the Holy Vessel. There the King Arthur recovered his bounty and his valour when he had lost all his chivalry and his virtue’

Thus it seems that "The Graal, the Book of the Holy Vessel" to which the Welsh biographer of Fulke refers is from a French source. It would seem that because he uses the definite article, it indicates that he thought this book to be the original authority on the subject either having heard about it from a different source or seeing this in his written source. Melkin’s works had been in amongst older books at Glastonbury now lost, burnt or dispersed which John of Glastonbury describes as “Vetustissimi”. The Vetustissimi were the books of very ancient scribes, copied before the Norman Conquest, so copies of Melkin’s original Arthurian material had plenty of time to be transformed to a Welsh arena.   In around 1280, the troubadour Sarrazin also refers to ‘The Graal’ as ‘li Graaus’ with the same definite article, when he was trying to assert a confirmation of established fact that King Arthur was at one time ‘Lord of Great Britain’. The references to ‘The Graal’ or ‘Book of the Graal’ as being the established authority or source for all the Grail literature even before Chrétien de Troyes, is further evidenced by Sarrazin’s following statement ‘the Romance that Chrestien telleth so fairly of Perceval the adventures of the Graal’. The statement tells us that Chrétien had used a source and had portrayed or conveyed the contents with clarity and it commends him for doing so.

 Let us assume the Grail is an account of a religious rite or process of which a written explanation came to Britain with Joseph. Because what he brought was connected with Jesus, what was originally an account of a spiritual nature became synonymous with the box, Grail ark or receptacle that Joseph was believed to have brought to Britain. This gets even more confused if the French Troubadours heard news of the British account of a ‘Vessel’ buried with Joseph, which  at least would have given them something physical to romanticise rather than what seems to be some kind of unexplainable processional religious quest an hence the very erratic nature of the early Grail stories.

If Helinand’s date is nearly correct it would explain the lack of continuity and provenance in the early French versions. It would also allow for Melkin’s Arthurian material to  be corrupted in Wales, but who could have been responsible for putting together the misinterpreted ‘duo fassula’ that became a ‘vessel’ from British sources and combining them with French sources that were a Processional and which was described as a plate. This was the turning point of the Grail when it became a physical object that singularly tried to encapsulate Jesus’s body, the Turin Shroud and an account of occult meaning and this will become clear shortly.

As we have just seen, the "Book of the Graal" is to be found as a reference also in the "Chronicle of Helinand", who was also a troubadour at one time in high favour at the court of Philip II. Philip Augustus had strong Templar connections, he was on the third crusade and it has been posited that the Arc of the Covenant was retrieved in this Crusade and kept by the Templars. If there was knowledge of the Ark’s whereabouts in Melkin’s ‘Book of the Graal’, coming directly via Joseph (a Sanhedrin member), there could be some substance in the rumour that the Templars possessed the Arc.  It could equally have been Eleanor of Aquitaine during the second crusade, who also could have possessed this knowledge as she was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe as well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189) but more importantly she was patron to Chrétien de Troyes. Eleanor of Aquitaine is the only woman to have been queen of both France and England and as Queen of France, she participated in the unsuccessful second crusade but may also have been the personal owner of Melkin’s Book of the Grail. Eleanor had two Daughters by Louis VII, Mary who in 1164, married Henry, the great Count of Champagne and  Alix, who became Countess of Chartres by marriage with Theobald who had made Eleanor avoid Blois in 1152 because of his eagerness to have Eleanor as wife, after her divorce from Louis. Henry and Theobald were brothers whose sister Alix had married Louis VII in 1160, eight years after Eleanor’s divorce. The family ties that were forged were fantastic, especially for Queen Eleanor, who, besides her two French daughters, had eight children as Queen of England. Her second son, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, born in 1157, was affianced in 1174 to a daughter of Louis VII and Alix, a child only six years old, who was sent to England to be brought up as future queen.  Eleanor’s son Richard the Lionheart could also have found opportunity to recoup the Arc on the third Crusade if anyone did in fact achieve this goal.

The name of the original author of the Book of the Grail is recorded nowhere but we know that Melkin had knowledge of Joseph having brought and been buried with a relic of Jesus. So the probability that Melkin wrote a tract specifically covering Grail material, that disappeared to France, yet left evidence and crossover material that existed in the meantime in other works in Britain, seems to be the only rationalisation.  The concurrence of two existing bodies of information that were to re-emerge and confirm their united theme at the advent of the gradual release of French material, through the Troubadour tradition, gives us an answer as to why British history was emanating from France.

Many have thought that the originator of the French material is referred to in the "Elucidation", prefixed to the rhymed version of "Percival le Gallois" under the name of "Master Blihis" and this pseudonym seems to refer to Henry de Blois who in French circles would have been known as Monseigneur Blois but in British circles as Henry of Blois (1101–1171). He was often known as Henry of Winchester and Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey from 1126, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to his death.

Henry de Blois was the nephew of King Henry I, and he was one of five sons of Stephen II, Count of Blois, by Adela of Normandy (daughter of William the Conqueror) and the younger brother of King Stephen.  Henry’s father died in the Crusade at Razes when Henry was only two years of age. After an exeptional education and at the young age of 23, Henry was appointed Prior of Montacute in Somerset which becomes relevant later in our investigation, where his uncle Henry I, was planning to create a royal abbey and it is for this reason we can be assured that the information which Father Good gave us about Montecute could only have come from Melkin’s book in France.
The poem of Chrétien de Troyes is the earliest surviving literary version that mentions the Grail and Chrétien, as he himself admits, was not inventing, but re-telling, an already popular tradition concerning the matière de Bretagne. The process of romanticising arcane knowledge contained in Melkin’s book had already begun with various degrees of interpretation and misunderstanding which had built layer upon layer of obfuscation from the core relevance of the original purport of the Gradatim as a spiritual pattern or divine plan laid out for mankind. If Henry of Blois is the author of the ‘High history of the Grail’ it would explain the reverence with which he treats the subject even if he had to uncomprehendingly interpret the depth of information revealed by Melkin’s original and certainly he would have been in a position to correlate this evidence with extant material at Glastonbury. It would appear that corruption of Melkin’s text into the French had taken place already. It would seem that it was probably Henry’s understanding of the ‘duo fassula’ as a vessel; understood certainly as a receptacle(s) in Britain, that might have transformed the religious rite, processional or quest of the French material into an eventual reliquary or Chalice.
 
Hear ye the history of the most holy vessel that is called Graal, wherein the precious blood of the Saviour was received on the day that He was put on rood and crucified in order that He might redeem His people from the pains of hell. Josephus set it in remembrance by annunciation of the voice of an angel, for that the truth might be known by his writing of good knights, and good worshipful men how they were willing to suffer pain and to travail for the setting forward of the Law of Jesus Christ, that He willed to make new by His death and by His crucifixion.

The High Book of the Graal beginneth in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. These three Persons are one substance, which is God, and of God moveth the High Story of the Graal. And all they that hear it ought to understand it, and to forget all the wickednesses that they have in their hearts. For right profitable shall it be to all them that shall hear it of the heart. For the sake of the worshipful men and good knights of whose deeds shall remembrance be made, doth Josephus recount this holy history, for the sake of the lineage of the Good Knight that was after the crucifixion of Our Lord. Good Knight was he without fail, for he was chaste and virgin of his body and hardy of heart and with courage, and so were his conditions without wickedness. Not boastful was he of speech, and it seemed not by his cheer that he had so great courage; Nonetheless, of one little word that he delayed to speak came to pass so sore mischances in Greater Britain, that all the islands and all the lands fell thereby into much sorrow, albeit thereafter he put them back into gladness by the authority of his good knighthood. Good knight was he of right, for he was of the lineage of Joseph of Abarimacie. And this Joseph was his mother's uncle, that had been a soldier of Pilate's seven years, nor asked he of him any other favour of his service but only to take down the body of Our Saviour from hanging on the cross. The delight to him seemed full great when it was granted him, and full little to Pilate seemed the favour; for right well had Joseph served him, and had he asked to have gold or land thereof, willingly would he have given it to him. And for this did Pilate make him a gift of the Saviour's body, for he supposed that Joseph should have dragged the same shamefully through the city of Jerusalem when it had been taken down from the cross, and should have left it without the city in some mean place. But the Good Soldier had no mind thereto, but rather honoured the body the most he might, rather laid it along in the Holy Sepulchre and kept safe the lance whereof He was smitten in the side and the most Holy Vessel wherein they that believed on Him received with awe the blood that ran down from His wounds when He was set upon the rood. Of this lineage was the Good Knight for whose sake is this High History treated.



Adela of Blois, wife of Stephen, Count of Blois, Henry’s father who had fled from the Siege of Antioch in 1098, was so ashamed of her husband that she would not permit him to stay at home. Henry's father died in 1102 while on crusade. He left, leaving an estate with more than 350 castles and large properties in France including Chartres which as many will know is a shrine of sacred geometry, which has Arthurian overtones mentioned in Lois Charpantier’s account of ‘The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral’. Coincidentally the town of Chartres was under the judicial and tax authority of the Counts of Blois. The current cathedral, mostly constructed between 1193 and 1250 just after Henry’s Death, is one of at least five that have occupied the site since the town became a bishopric in the 4th century.

Henry of Blois was educated at a monastery in Cluny in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. This was a Benedictine Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in AD 910 which adhered to the principles of Cluniac reform, including a sense of intellectual freedom and humanism, as well as adherence to a high standard of devotion and discipline. Here Henry studied in the seven liberal arts; trivium (rhetoric grammar, and logic), quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy) along with architecture and he was essentially renowned later in life, with all this schooling, as a sage. It was, probably while in France during his formative years, that he heard of these early tales and later while at Glastonbury he combined later material to comprise the High history of the Grail.  It is interesting to quote from Miss Jesse Laidlaw Weston’s revealing book  From Ritual to Romance’  as this gives a clear impression of the early Grail writers development.



While the poem of Chrétien de Troyes is our earliest surviving literary version, there is the strongest possible evidence that Chrétien, as he himself admits, was not inventing, but re-telling, an already popular tale.  The Grail Quest was a theme which had been treated not once nor twice, but of which numerous, and conflicting, versions were already current, and, when Wauchier de Denain undertook to complete Chrétien's unfinished work, he drew largely upon these already existing forms, regardless of the fact that they not only contradicted the version they were ostensibly completing, but were impossible to harmonize with each other.
 
It is of importance for our investigation, however, to note that where Wauchier does refer to a definite source, it is to an evidently important and already famous collection of tales, Le Grant Conte, comprising several 'Branches,' the hero of the collection being not Chrétien's hero, Perceval, but Gawain, who, both in pseudo-historic and romantic tradition, is far more closely connected with the Arthurian legend, occupying, as he does, the traditional position of nephew, Sister's Son, to the monarch who is the centre of the cycle; even as Cuchullinn is sister's son to Conchobar, Diarmid to Finn, Tristan to Mark, and Roland to Charlemagne.  In fact this relationship was so obviously required by tradition that we find Perceval figuring now as sister's son to Arthur, now to the Grail King, according as the Arthurian, or the Grail, tradition dominates the story. The actual existence of such a group of tales as those referred to by Wauchier derives confirmation from our surviving Gawain poems, as well as from the references in the Elucidation.
 
On a couple of occasions in the re-telling of these Gawain tales, Wauchier refers to what he thinks is the original author by name and calls him ‘Bleheris’ the first time. On the second occasion he states specifically that this Bleheris was of Welsh birth and origin, ‘né et engenuïs en Galles’.  He says this in connection with a tale being told to a certain, Comte de Poitiers, whose favourite story it was, saying ‘he loved it above all others’, which would infer that it was not the only tale the said ‘Bleheris’ had recounted to the Count.
Even though it is posited that Henry was born in Blois Castle in France, this cannot be substantiated but certainly Henry used much Arthurian material for the Elucidation which might have made others think he was Welsh. Henry could possibly be the Link that combined Arthurian Welsh and Glastonbury Joseph material with French Melkin, Joseph and Nicodemus material owned by Eleanor of Aquitaine. The ‘Elucidation’ prefaces its account of the Grail Quest by a solemn statement of the gravity of the subject to be treated as ‘God moveth the High Story of the Graal. And all they that hear it ought to understand it, and to forget all the wickednesses that they have in their hearts’. These stark warnings are said to have come from a certain Master Blihis, concerning whom we hear no more but the warning does seem to derive from a firm believer with an understanding of the Grail’s sanctity in connection with a divine plan.  A little further on in the poem we meet with a knight, Blihos or Bliheris, who, made prisoner by Gawain, reveals to Arthur and his court the identity of the maidens wandering in the woods, of the Fisher King and the Grail, and is so good a story-teller that none can weary of listening to his tales. This in a form, is autobiographical by Henry speaking of Blihis as other than himself and is confirmed by the Count of Poitiers’ commendation of Blihis’s storytelling.
Monseigneur is an honorific appellation in the French language and it would seem that it has been mistranslated or wrongly scribed for Monsieur or ‘master’ by later translators from the French. It has occasional English use as well, as it may be a title before the name of a French prelate, a member of a royal family or any dignitary; all of which might be applied to ‘Monseigneur Blois’. Also it is sometimes used as a name for a Frenchman who has a position on the court which would also apply to Henry. It would seem that having studied rhetoric and Grammar, Henry would qualify in some degree as a raconteur of Grail material to William X, Count of Poitiers between (1126 - 1137), Father of Eleanor of Aquitaine just as it was said that Master Blihis had done and not forgetting, Henry would have been abreast of the Glastonbury material since 1126.

William IX, known as the Troubadour, 1071 - 1126 was Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou between 1086 and 1126. He was the son of William VIII of Aquitaine by his third wife Hildegarde of Burgundy. He inherited the duchy at the age of fifteen. In 1088, at the age of sixteen, William married his first wife, Ermengarde of Anjou the daughter of Count Fulk. It is interesting to note that the biographer of Fulke in the History of Fulke Fitz-Warine the first to mention the Grail in Welsh literature and more importantly the book of the Holy vessel, is Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Grandmother’s family name (Fulke). William IX’s greatest legacy in history was his renown as a poet. He was the first known troubadour or trouvère, a lyric poet employing the Occitan or Langued’oc tongues. Eleven of his songs survive and they are attributed to him under his title as Count of Poitou. This seems to have become a family tradition as the first Romance poets of the Middle Ages emerged as founders of the troubadour tradition because like his father before him, William X, Eleanor’s father was a patron of troubadours, music and literature. He was an educated man and gave his two daughters an excellent education. Henry of Blois was obviously entirely fluent in French and had family ties to Eleanor (His cousin Theobald was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine´s daughter, Marie) who also was a patron to Chrétien de Troyes and thus makes the Aquitaine’s the most likely noble family to possess Melkin’s ‘Book of the Grail’ and to provide Henry with the French source material.  In the fragmentary remains of Thomas's Tristan we have a passage, in which the poet refers, as source, to a certain Bréri, who knew "all the feats, and all the tales, of all the kings, and all the counts who had lived in Britain." With Henry’s privileged education and fascination with books he would have found available at Glastonbury, in conjunction with his royal connections; he does appear to be the obvious person to correlate British and French sources that had been temporarily separated.  Blois became Bleheris which was mispronounced as Blihis which got Latinised into Bledhericus and far from the bounds of our enquiry at the moment one can trace Henry as Gawain in his own writings.

Briefly, Giraldus Cambrensis refers to the ‘famosus ille fabulator’, Bledhericus, who had lived "shortly before our time" and whose renown he evidently takes for granted and was familiar to his readers not necessarily for his personage, but rather for the material said to have been written by him. Now if Gerald of Wales was writing around 1210 this would be when the High History of the Grail was at its most Popular. Although Henry employed his own pseudonym in his work, it would seem that other appellations from other writers; the Bleheris who, according to Wauchier, had told tales concerning Gawain, and Arthur's court, one of the tales of which was certainly the Grail adventure; the Master Blihis, who knew the Grail mystery, and gave solemn counselling about its revelation; the Blihos-Bliheris, who knew the Grail, and many other tales; the Bréri, who knew all the legendary tales concerning the princes of Britain; and the famous story-teller Bledhericus, of whom Gerald of Wales speaks, are not separate people, or mere inventions of the separate writers. It would seem as if Henry, may well have deserved the titlefamosus ille fabulator,’ but he was only accounted as the originator of the Grail because people thought Monseigneur Blois, the consolidator of Melkin material, was the writer of the original book of the Grail. He was not but he understood the sanctity of the Material.  It was however the coincidence of his being privy to knowledge from British and French sources that was really responsible for his renown as master Blihis but it seems as if we can account Henry in some way responsible for the Grail’s evolution as an object.

In 1126 at the age of 29, Henry was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury and would certainly have come into contact with the works of Melkin which were extant at that date. He joined the Abbey in a state of decline when the monks lived in penury. Abbot Henry took immediate action, proving himself as an excellent leader and architect. He renovated and restored the monastery and it was through his efforts that by 1143, Glastonbury Abbey is noted in the Doomsday book as “the wealthiest in England”. Henry’s brother, King Stephen with Queen Matilda were two of the greatest benefactors to the Templars and it is through the Templar connection of Eleanor and her proximity to the Crusades that threads of Templar material got embedded in the romances and as we shall see became the main guardians of the truths behind the Grail. Henry might have obtained some of his other material from Templar sources across Europe as Henry’s brother gave the Templars land in London and other tracts of land where the Templars had their Manors. It would seem therefore that Henry can be accredited for having written one of the first compilations of Grail Romances called ‘The High History of the Holy Graal’.

 It appears to have been collated sourcing from Chrétien de Troye’s work and from sources which Eleanor’s family owned, not only evidenced by the author portraying in his writing, such good local knowledge of the environs of Glastonbury, but also becoming clearer because of his family connections and the likelihood of Henry and Chrétien’s paths crossing.

If our assumptions are correct, the ‘Book of the Grail’ was written by Melkin which approximately concurs with Helinands’ date. Henry of Blois was also aware of Melkin’s other writings at Glastonbury, adding to the fact that it is also credited in the Latin version of the ‘High History of the Holy Graal’ to have been written by a monk at Glastonbury who, incidentally must have been fluent in some dialects of the French.

 Melkin as we know through his prophesy appears to have associations with Glastonbury and appears to be single handedly responsible for coalescing the Joseph tradition. Melkin through the construction of his riddle kept alive a tradition from great antiquity through conjoining the Quest of the Grail with a search for Joseph and what was with him in his tomb. It would seem therefore that Henry de Blois was the ‘famous fabulator’ named ‘Master Blihis’ in the prologue called the Elucidation of Le Conte Del Graal where it says, "Master Blihis is ‘one who knew all the stories of the Graal’.

Chrétien de Troyes working for Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughters states that he had been given a Grail book by them, to be romanticised (inferring a more historical or factual account), so that it could be read out at court. It would appear therefore, that the French noble family in possession of Melkin’s work which contained the historical Joseph account including the gospel of Nicodemus (which Chrétien was aware of), was Melkin’s ‘Book of the Graal’ in the possession of Eleanor.  Henry of Blois was uncle to Theobald V, Count of Blois and Troyes who was married to Alix de France, daughter of Louis VII, King of France from his first wife Eleanor d’Aquitaine. Theobald’s  brother Henry was married to Marie, Eleanor’s other daughter, so through the Aquitaine’s possible ownership of Melkin’s book of the Grail, it is not difficult to see how Henry of Blois, appraised of the fact that Melkin was the originator of these truths, and being acquainted with the Glastonbury tradition could have been the one responsible in part for the British re-emergence. This helped through Crusader and Templar influences of the Joseph and Arthurian histories, couched and propagated as popular troubadour tales. In addition, the Count of Blois’ court in Troyes became a renowned literary troubadour centre. Walter Map was among those who found hospitality there along with Chrétien.

It would appear that the source in the ‘Conte du Graal’ came originally from Britain but it seems likely that Henry used other works of Melkin’s at Glastonbury to draw upon. We should not forget that Melkin was probably the hermit (pious monk) referred to by Helinand and that Melkin had of course, to have been aware of arcane Joseph material, to have portrayed the Joseph and Grail material as the base for his Prophecy. As we shall see further in our investigation, it is through Melkin’s thorough understanding of the essence of the Grail that he can link its discovery with the unveiling of the tomb with a specific point in time.  It is partly due to this prediction of the unveiling that subsequent commentators referred to his extract about Joseph’s tomb and the ‘duo fassula’, as a prophecy.

Henry was a highly intelligent person, probably not wishing to be associated with the more romanticised and plainly embellished Grail material proliferating at the time because he understood the Grail’s sanctity in that it was originally an expression of God’s work in man. He Knew that it was a subject (although not fully comprehended by him) that should not be treated irreverently and so for reasons regarding his ecclesiastical position, ‘The High History of the Grail’, was written and alluded to himself by a pseudonym or nickname.

 Henry was brought to England by King Henry I, to be Abbot of Glastonbury. On 4 October 1129, he was given the Bishopric of Winchester but allowed to keep his beloved Glastonbury Abbey. He was consecrated as bishop on 17 November 1129.  He had ambitions to become Archbishop of Canterbury but was thwarted. However he did not abandon his work and obligations to Glastonbury. Except for a few brief months in 1141 when he changed his alliance to Empress Matilda, when he thought he would be on the winning side, Henry supported and advised Stephen his brother and is credited as one of the clergy who helped convince William of Corbeil, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to crown Stephen.  Soon after his appointment to the See of Winchester, Henry came to resent his subservience to Canterbury. Henry was the patron of great writers one of whom was Archdeacon, Gerald of Wales who later unwittingly referred to him as Bledhericus and through his family connections, had links to the Templars and the Crusades and was well acquainted with William of Malmesbury. One of the finest buildings Henry had constructed, was the Hospital of St. Cross on the outskirts of Winchester. A few years after completion, Henry was to assign the guardianship over to the Knights Templar.  In William of Malmsbury’s work, ‘De Antiquitate Glasttonie Ecclesie’, which he dedicated to Henry, he tells us that “the monk he knew personally and in fact whom he “served” was shy, learned and a great writer”. Henry of Blois gave some sixty books to the great library at Glastonbury and had ancient books copied, such as Pliny’s Natural History, the book of Enoch, and several other books of Origen, St. Jerome and St. Augustine which probably would have been lost except for his efforts. Mostly he will be remembered for sponsoring the Winchester Bible, the largest illustrated Bible ever produced (which was still unfinished at his death).

It is in 1155 though, that Master Robert Wace completes his "Roman de Brut," a version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s "History" in French. Wace dedicated his work to Eleanor of Aquitaine his patron, and is remembered as being the first writer to introduce the concept of the "Round Table" to the Arthurian cycle.  Presumably it was Eleanor who had provided him with a source containing arcane geomatria supplied by Melkin’s book mixed with the information from British sources found at Glastonbury supplied by Henry of Blois that were to be included in the Architecture of Chartres then under the jurisdiction of the Counts of Blois. Of Arthur, Robert Wace says,

"I know not if you have heard tell the marvellous gestes and errant deeds related so often of King Arthur. They have been noised about this mighty realm for so great a space that the truth has turned to fable and an idle song. Such rhymes are neither sheer bare lies, nor gospel truths. They should not be considered either an idiot's tale, or given by inspiration. The minstrel has sung his ballad, the storyteller told over his tale so frequently; little by little he has decked and painted, till by reason of his embellishment the truth stands hid in the trappings of a tale. Thus to make a delectable tune to your ear, history goes masking as fable.



Melkin was a geometer, which was not only borne out by his Prophesy, but also if we take into account information regarding Montacute as a marker.  This Information would have been derived from the Grail book originally and passed on by Henry of Blois the first Abbot to pass on this clue that seems to have come down through the ages to Father Good. It was generally understood that Joseph was hidden within some geometric puzzle, all the clues of which seem to emanate from Melkin, the one man who knew the whereabouts of Joseph. Henry of Blois, being Abbot of Glastonbury, presumably would have passed on the information that Father Good was to possess at a later date regarding Montacute (that he could have only gleaned from Eleanor’s Book of the Grail) and the clue it gave to Joseph’s burial site.

 It also seems a little suspect that he chose to be appointed at the young age of 23, as Prior of Montacute. The one person we suspect of having read Melkin’s Grail book and who most likely discovered that there was a connection between Montacute and finding Joseph, just happens to be prior there.  If we assume that the studious Henry had come across the Joseph material from a source that Melkin had written i.e. the Book of the Grail, then one can understand how the detail of Montacute was probably obtained by Henry and this information acted as a motivation for Henry’s first post as a mature man recently arrived from his education in France.



Strangely enough, it was Eleanor who married King Henry II, the same King Henry who was supposedly told by a sage the exact place to start digging at Glastonbury Abbey to find King Arthur’s bones there between two pyramids. As we have covered Henry II was already dead when Arthur was unearthed but the story could have a grain of truth, if indeed Henry had learnt of Arthur’s burial in Avalon from Eleanor or her material. If it was widely accepted that Joseph was buried in Avalon and because of Joseph’s Glastonbury connection to the church there; it is possible that the King, learning Arthur was also buried in Avalon also from the French source, may indeed have put this very idea of Avalon being equated with Glastonbury into the monks heads. It is possible that subsequently after the kings death they eventually, having lost their patron, decided to carry out the bogus unearthing of Arthur citing him as a witness.



Although John Leland, in 1534 says that the book he saw of Melkin’s, he dated to 450AD and this passage from Helinand’s chronicle relates the angels appearance to Melkin in 717, it seems safe to assume that the 500 year difference until Helinand actually wrote would allow for an error of a century or two.

One can only deduce that Helinand is referring to Melkin, as Melkin deals with the same two subjects, that of Joseph and the Grail in his Prophesy. It will become apparent to the reader, as we progress, that Melkin’s ‘Book of the Graal’ or ‘Of the Grades or by Degrees’ had express knowledge of what the Gradatim was, as a series of ‘grades’ toward spiritual enlightenment and this revelation of the Grail was known and understood by Melkin. He knew that it would be marked by an event in time, i.e. the unveiling of the tomb at a predestined point in time, but we will deal with this explanation of ‘Time’ later.

One cannot be certain if Helinand’s extract is the first passage which refers to the Grail directly at this early date, but the same date was quoted by Walter Map, an early Grail writer in reference as a source. If it is genuine, it is the closest we get to the original source of Melkin the consolidator of material found in the tomb. This is the point at which it becomes a question of faith for those who believe in Angels or for the pragmatic to answer  ‘from where did Melkin receive instruction’?  If we consider the Grail as arcane knowledge linked to a Divine Plan then divine intervention by apparition should not be excluded especially when we consider Melkin’s link to an apparition by St. Michael that is attributed to St. Aubert at Mont –St- Michel discussed in a later chapter.



Who imparted the knowledge for the original source if it was not an angel that indeed gave Melkin his insight? More importantly, how were they or he able to leave behind such exact geometrical and geographic instructions with surveying pin point accuracy?  One must remember that if Melkin did live around 450 to 650AD then where was this source and in what language, before Melkin transcribed all its information into Latin? This source and the Grail book will be found at the unveiling of the tomb. The arcane source material will have remained in the tomb but certainly the Grail book was returned to the tomb by the Templars. There must be a source book for Melkin to have transcribed from Hebrew to render Shirei ha Ma'a lot’ but to understand and relate in the Grail book about the Grades of Enlightenement would indicate some exterior inspiration.



In Helinand’s chronicle, he derives ‘graal’ from ‘gradalis’ and sets the date for the British hermit's vision of the Grail at 707 or 717 A.D, but we are told that Melkin was ‘before’ Arthur and Merlin. This proposition now seems inaccurate if we take this date and the fact that Melkin knows where Arthur is buried.  It is still not certain how this transition of the ‘Grades’ evolved into an object except from obvious misinterpretation, but Helinand's ‘gradalis’ did not resemble a chalice but rather a dish on which meats were served. This semantically fits with the other descriptions of the Holy Grail as a receptacle, since Joseph of Arimathea uses the Grail to catch blood and sweat alluded to by Melkin and implies that it is a vessel that holds liquid.  Helinand states that Gradalis or Gradale means a dish, wide and somewhat deep by definition, in which rich meats are served to the rich in degrees- gradatim. One wonders again if this is not a misunderstanding of the spiritually rich as opposed to the wasteland or dearth which is cured on attainment of the Grail in the romances. The singular Chalice is often thought of as the receptacle used at the Last Supper or is a relic of the Passion in which both blood and sweat were contained. Some scholars posit that the concept of the Grail as a platter preceded the notion of the Grail as the "Kiddush Cup" from the Last Supper positing that primarily it was a Paschal Dish and not the Eucharistic vessel used by the twelve disciples. The Grail is none of these because Melkin describes it so accurately, he leaves no doubt as to its composition.



 When Chrétien de Troyes refers to the ‘Graal’ in ‘le Conte du Graal, Chrétien refers to his object not as “the Grail”, but as “un graal”, “a grail”, implying that in the source document it was used in context as a common noun and that there were more than one as implied by Melkin’s book of the Grail about Grades or Degrees to enlightenment which is the whole essence of what the Grail is; an objective description of the ‘Divine Plan’ and the romances have in a way achieved a heightened awareness or preparation in readying the world as a form of pre-cognition.



It is difficult to ascertain whether Melkin, did survey the angles and distances that we will be elucidating when we investigate Melkin’s prophecy, because this art was supposedly lost in the sixth century Dark Ages, when European mapping techniques were still very crude.  Melkin, however, passes on precise and accurate information given in his riddle so where did he get it from?  If it was not Melkin who surveyed the British landscape by his own skill, which points to where Joseph and Jesus were buried in the Island of Ictis, then how was it that he could leave us such precise directions? Was it truly by divine intervention as Helinand posits, or was there original ancient mapping instructions which indicated and marked Ley lines from which Melkin compiled his prophecy? If one considers that an entire body of knowledge may have existed since very early days from the offspring of Zerah through a line of Kings that ended with Arthur, then Melkin could have had access to this when he buried King Arthur.  Was he, like Father Good, just the messenger, perpetuating a tradition and preserving directions to Joseph’s resting place to be found in a future generation?  The hardest question to answer is; “who did the original surveying and at what stage in history were the coordinates of these Ley Lines recorded and surveyed as pertaining to what was hidden in Ictis”? If we assume that the French Templars possessed knowledge of this Ley line system (which will become apparent), then this geometry was also contained in the French Book of the Grail. If this assumption is correct then it might explain where Henry of Blois got the information about Montacute that was passed on to Father Good down through the ages by the Abbots. The argument against it being divine intervention leaves only two options, one being Melkin did survey the lines but how is this then linked to the Geometry of the pyramid. The other option would be that the Island was surveyed long ago as part of the pyramid construct but to what purpose and what part does the island play in relation to the original St.Michael Ley line before the Templars put their stamp on it and named it as such.

If the extract account of the Grail from Helinand was written in Latin around 707AD, it indicates that, before the five main romance writers, Guiot le Provencal, Chrétien de Troyes, Walter Map, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Albrecht von Scharfenberg, began their works, there was a Latin original which would explain how Henry of Blois might have made the Montacute connection that was passed to Father Good. But then one has to question whether Henry actually saw the French original translation of the Grail book or the original Latin from Melkin.

 As regards to when the original was written given the Saxon connection to Arthur, it would seem soon after Arthur’s demise and possibly even written in France although Helinand’s source seems to indicate an Apparition as taking place in Britain.  The original Latin version written by Melkin we should guess at around 650 AD to be followed by a French translation (the one Helinand is referring to) and this is what Eleanor’s father and Grandfather were captivated by.  It is with this family that the troubadour tradition concerning the Grail commenced to evolve into the various forms of romances. Before any of the early named Grail writers mentioned above came on the scene there was most probably a more oral court tradition and it would seem these early troubadours recognised at this early date that the Grail book contained sacred information. The Grail books appearance was either then ascribed the date by Helinand or more probably given the date of when his source wrote of the Latin originals first appearance at court.  Because of the book’s profundity, knowledge and the nature of its material, it was assumed it could only have been delivered by an angel who duly relayed it to the hermit better known as Melkin. In a later chapter we will cover the possibility that Burgh Island’s association as a Tomb in connection with St. Michael preceded even the Templars and if indeed it is the cause for the naming of Mont- Saint-Michel as Mons Tomba and its association with an angelic apparition by St. Michael to a monk.  



It was Robert de Boron circa 1170 who relates the story of the shield that was later to become the Arms of Glastonbury that Father Good investigated to find a clue to Joseph’s burial site. The shield given to Evalak by Josaphes, Joseph of Arimathea’s son, had a red cross on it that was also to become the symbol of the Rosicrucians and the Templars.  Robert tells us that, following Evalak's victory over Tholomer, the red cross upon it disappeared, then Josaphes, just before his death, asked Mordrains to bring the shield to him.  Continuing the story he then recounts that Josaphes with his own blood inscribed another cross on the shield and gave it back to Mordrains, and afterward it was placed upon the grave of Duke Nasciens, until Galahad would come and retrieve it. Galahad then possesses a sword which had belonged to King David, the hilt of which was covered by King Solomon with precious stones and the story ensues with an adventure with the holy bleeding lance, and Galahad’s eventual achievement of the Saint Graal, followed by his death at Sarras.

Thomas Malory's Morte D’Arthur has very much the same story with his own additions, the early French tradition keeping links with the Holy Land threaded throughout the narrative. Is Solomon’s sword’s iconic appearance in the original sources hinting at the inter-relationship of the two twins Pharez and Zerah’s separate bloodlines, as far back as King David, Solomon’s father, but somehow imputing the transference of kingship to Britain. The shield obviously being transformed in the tale with blood marks on it, to a Rosicrucian emblem and an association with the Templars, who not only were probably at this stage in possession of the Latin source in France after Eleanor but were now releasing their source material in response to the new interest shown in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s widely read history of the kings of Britain.

  Evalak’s shield then by close association with Joseph was adopted as the Arms of Glastonbury. Glastonbury substituted the knotted wooden cross from the staff planted by Joseph at Glastonbury and then added the two vessels each side to coincide with the ‘duo fassula’ while the blood inscribed cross of Evalak also become the Templar emblem.

The subject matter of our investigation seems so wide, and interrelated from Ictis to Avalon via Glastonbury and the Grail stories.  Evalak king of Sarras, Knights looking for the Graal in the East, Egypt, Jerusalem, the Templars’ cross, stories of Jesus in England, Joseph of Arimathea being buried with the Grail, Arthur, the oil with which Josaphes was consecrated, being kept in the Grail-ark. This oil with which a line of Kings are consecrated, while being kept at Sarras, swords and ships from Solomon, pyramids at Glastonbury, and prophecies in riddle form, but all of these having a link to Jesus.



Man from the dawn of consciousness, has advanced and gained a large amount of knowledge from stories recounted by previous generations that sometimes lived millennia before him and the individual has to learn and judge the validity of this corpus of knowledge in his short 70 years of life.  The relevance of the stories in this enquiry are for mankind as a whole, as if we are being prepared for a revelation, occult information couched within the Grail stories, and bardic prophecies without which, we would not comprehend a coming of heightened consciousness, and the proof that mankind needs. A proof that aligns with scriptures held as sacred by the Abrahamic religions i.e. the Prophets. The proof that is necessary for Mankind to progress in consciousness is the knowledge that there is some form of divine intervention which directs events. If Man were to have a more intellectual knowledge of God rather than wholly Faith based, there would be a shift in the consciousness of Mankind. There is understanding of this expectation even outside the arena of our investigation in the prophecy of Paracelcus, and the reformation of the whole world order.

Quod utilius Deus patefieri sinet, quod autem majoris momenti est, vulgo adhuc latet usque ad Eliæ Artistæ adventum, quando is venerit.

"God will permit a discovery of the highest importance to be made, it must be hidden till the advent of the artist Elias." He also states;

Hoc item verum est nihil est absconditum quod non sit retegendum; ideo, post me veniet cujus magnale nundum vivit qui multa revelabit.

"And it is true, there is nothing concealed which shall not be discovered; for which cause a marvellous being shall come after me, who as yet lives not, and who shall reveal many things."

In Malachi 4:5 See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. This passage comes straight after an admonishment to obey the Law of Moses the very subject the Archangel is supposed to dispute with the Dragon. Jehosaphat mentioned in Melkin’s prophecy, is the same day to which Malachi refers; so is St. Michael synonymous with Elijah? It would seem that the different religions would need a proof of provenance of some sort to reunite them, especially those of the Abrahamic tradition, as all have been derived from one heritage and been guided by one divine plan.  Of course, in Jewish, Moslem and Christian traditions this unifier is Michael the Archangel, attested by Enoch first and then confirmed later by the Biblical prophets.  The very purpose of prophecy is realisation or gnosis and if St. Michael is to bring together these three Abrahamic faiths there will be a need to eradicate religion in all its divisive forms of theological dogma and creed.  The very reality of what was foretold by these prophets needs to actually transpire and then there will be the proof needed by mankind. The problem is that gnosis of an omnipotent God needs be re-cognised . The Grail stories with what they reveal, when aligned with the prophets are just the vehicle to bring about this paradigm shift of consciousness. After all, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and has been for 2000 years but it is only a heightened consciousness that recognises this fact until the time comes when this shift in consciousness occurs and this is at the discovery of the Tomb and what it reveals to mankind.



Chrétien de Troyes poem tells of the passages through life of a young knight called Percival, but it is written in an uneasy form and suddenly goes from a story about Percival into the adventures he has on the way to being a knight.  Percival is the first of the three Grail stories to be published and in the narrative it describes the vessel of the Holy Grail as a golden dish and also speaks of a Lance dripping with blood that appears with the Grail conveyed ceremoniously at times throughout a meal he is having. The Grail romances cover too many variations to be discussed here, but as we focused on the essential information provided by Pytheas that led us to the Island of Ictis, so, too, must we look at the essential core of what the Grail romances have in common, to understand their meaning. It is evident that the Grail writers were not really concerned with historical time as they interwove their various versions from a core body of material.

 The essential threads of information that align themselves even semantically and allegorically seem to consist of Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail, Knightly pursuits and a quest, but essentially it was a British matter.  Joseph has a connection to Jesus and most of the Grail heroes have a connection to Joseph and so it would seem a bloodline or inheritance is inferred.  The Grail seems to be an object with direct connections to Jesus having been brought to Britain by Joseph.  The quest appears to be, to find the Grail but the Grail seems hard to define and thus looking for it makes it all the more difficult. The Grail although greatly connected to Jesus (who was the one responsible for a major part of Man’s enlightenment) is also synonymous with the developmental stages of enlightenment in the individual, referred to as grades in the Book of the Grail and allegorised as knightly pursuits.
 Melkin having prior knowledge of this process or divine plan would in effect equate him as having equal standing with Biblical prophets, informing us of future events in ’Time’ but also having knowledge that his prophecy relates in part to degrees of Spiritual enlightenment which are set in a finite timespan.


Glastonbury is not the Island of Avalon when one takes into account also that Burgh Island used to be Ictis, but this entire story is clearly laid out in the Book And Did Those Feet by Michael Goldsworthy.






Bigbury, aptly named, after the immense importance of what is buried there, is a small village situated one and a half miles from Bigbury on Sea, the small seaside Hamlet that derives its name from that which is buried on the island opposite, across the sand causeway.  For years, the wagons related by Pytheas would have passed through Bigbury, having come along the tidal road from Aveton Gifford, conveying their tin ingots down to the fabled island of Ictis.  The small village just along the road called St Anne's Chapel, named after Jesus's grandmother, most probably commemorating the arrival with the Magdalene while Kingston, the next village was named after the arrival of Jesus himself or one of Joseph’s descendants such as Arthur. Loddiswell (the Lords well) is on the route that the Tin was carried down to Ictis from Southern Dartmoor .  Challaborough opposite the Island would seem to derive its name from after the Templar visit when the Grail was deemed to be a Chalice.

Aveton Gifford situated at the tidal limit of the River Avon, received its name from being situated on the River Avon, Aune or Aven on the oldest maps, and also from Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville, who was appointed a commissioner by William the Conqueror to compile the Domesday Book. Strangely enough it was a descendant of his a one Walter Giffard that built the St.Michael church at Brent Tor around 1155, before many of the Templar churches.

Kingsbridge the largest market town in the South Hams at the Head of the Salcombe Estuary, most probably derived its name from the northern most limit of the Southern promontory kingdom described by Pytheas as Belerion which defined the southernmost limit of the Saxon named county of Wessex at a later date. Bolt head and Bolt tail received their name from the God Bel from Zerah’s arrival.  It is very probable that since early times Devon and Cornwall survived as a small kingdom since the arrival of Zerah, financed by the tin trade through to the time of King Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account bestowed on Arthur a Welsh backdrop but as explained earlier, that tradition is most likely derived from Celtic association rather than from purely Welsh historical fact.  It is more likely that Arthur defended the South West, not going further than Dorset yet his fame became national when he defeated the encroaching Saxons.

The earliest writer to describe the Battle of Mons Badonicus, King Arthur's greatest victory, is in the ‘De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, written by the monk, Gildas in the mid-6th century. In these writings, Gildas states that the battle was a major victory for the Britons after a period of continual encroachment by the Saxon invaders.  Gildas went onto relate that this halted the Saxon advancement and brought a short period of peace.  Gildas related that this siege took place 44 years before the writing of his book.  Although not named by Gildas (but nor is anyone else), it seems that Arthur is accredited with this victory. So this puts King Arthur in the right location at the right time in history, as the siege is supposed to have taken place at Badbury hillfort in Dorset.



Figure 59 Showing the tidal road up to Aveton Gifford with the Serpentine river flowing down to Burgh Island as it is depicted in Leonardo’s ‘Yarnwinder’ painting

                                 

Aveton Gifford's history and connection with the tin trade since the earliest times, is now completely forgotten due to the secrecy maintained around the island that it once served as a probable provender of the gatekeeper community that existed on Folly hill. Domesday much later, records Jewish roots in the area, a certain ‘Judhael holds Loddiswell’ that includes a fishery that pays 30 salmon.  The island of Ictis would have been decommissioned, just prior to Jesus having been buried there, during the gradual southern advancement after the Roman invasion.  It is incredible that Pliny the Elder referred to this island of Ictis long after the island had been made redundant and Jesus had found his rest within.  The southern British tin trade would have experienced decreases in demand as the Romans captured the tin deposits in northern Spain and Portugal after the defeat of the Carthaginians in 206 BC.  Due to the overall increase in demand worldwide at that time, the lull would have been shortlived.  The Veneti, cousins of the Devonians made up a large tribe which inhabited western Gaul and who were in the business of conveying the tin over to France as Diodorous related for its 30 day journey south to Marseille.  It is probably at this point in 56 BC after Julius Caesar had destroyed all the ships of the Veniti that Ictis’s prominence started to dwindle.

The ancestry of the Dumnonni, the ‘Devon People,’ who in part were derived from Zerah, constituted the main part of a legendry kingdom with such progeny as Utherpendragon, King Arthur and Galahad, which evaded as long as possible the Roman encroachment and kept secret, the contents of the Island of Avalon.  After the Roman conquest, came the running down of stock and eventual closure of Ictis, as it would have acted as a focal point for pillage and until the time of King Arthur there was a move westwards of the tin trade into Cornwall with the advancements of mining methods.  With the arrival of the Saxons, there was a migration across the channel of some of the Dumnonian population, into western France to Amorica, where many of the Celtic race of Dumnonni had close ties to the Veniti, which eventually became known as Little Britain or Brittany.  However, the Devon and Cornwall kingdom that once existed before the Roman invasion, got squeezed further west into Cornwall as the Romans occupied Exeter and Plymouth.  Hence, for the first four or five centuries after the Roman invasion, the illustrious line of Kings descended from Judah and Joseph stayed south probably moving west of the Tamar toward Tintagel and eventually, after Rome's demise, re-emerged further north to keep the Saxons at bay. The Location of Avalon was still known as it is here that Arthur was transported in the hope that a miracle might be wrought upon his wounded body.

In ancient times, from the melting of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, there was a gradual separation of the landmass between France and Britain as rivers poured across the lowland plain of Lyonesse. Eventually this gave rise to a coastline that extended out as far as Eddystone rock around 6000 years ago as the English channel flooded.  As all these rivers ran off the Moors, cutting through the granite, the cassiterite was separated for the early ‘Tinners’ to gather and this marked the beginning of the Bronze Age in Britain.

Not only is this Bronze Age activity, evident throughout Dartmoor, but we can see its early beginnings less than 8 miles distant from Ictis, on the escarpment between the Erm and the Avon Rivers, and in the valleys on either side. Here, an early establishment fanned out, towards Plymouth and northward, centred around the obvious advantage offered by Ictis as a tin depot, which eventually came to serve the whole of Dartmoor.





Figure 60 Showing the remains of three round ’Tinners’ huts in the foreground which have nearly been submerged by the Avon dam. The picture is taken from the dam wall looking up the valley toward the river’s source on Dartmoor where a Bronze age burial Cairn is visible



Evidence of scars upon the landscape, with deep gullies and large indentations into the hillsides, contours scoured into the land by the Tinners industry, are a record of the immense mining activity carried out from the discovery of tin until the beginning of the Roman era.  The longest stone row anywhere in Britain and the abundance of standing stones and cairns above Ivybridge and South Brent, all bear witness to a hive of industry by the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age Tinners. In fact this area gives the largest density of these stone works anywhere in Britain. The early days of the Tinners after gravitating from the riverbed's themselves, evolved to the process of tin streaming, much as one would look for gold, which in turn evolved into later processes of ‘costeaning and shamelling’, leaving scars of shallow pits which followed the veins or lodes. This evolution eventually gravitated westward toward Plymouth, as aboveground sources dwindled and then to mining further north on the moors at a later date.  The smelting process from the early Tinners was fairly basic and consisted of heating the black tin and converting it into white tin at source, by simply lighting a fire in a hole in the ground or rock pool and retrieving the smelted ore from the ashes in the ground.  This process was obviously very inefficient and over a period of 1,500 years accompanied by the later evolution of bellows and furnaces, ‘blowing houses’ evolved which came to be known as ‘Jews houses’.

In an area called Shipley Bridge, just below the Avon dam there is early evidence of wooden pegs been used along fault lines within the granite outcrops, which upon expansion would separate the granite along the lode line exposing the tin ore, which could then be scraped away from the granite block.  There is also another strange feature at Shipley Bridge the like, of which is not evident elsewhere around the moors; and that is the abundance of Lebanese Barouk cedars, of the same variety as those found in Lebanon today from the Chouf Region.  It is possible that these have self-perpetuated since the days of the arrival of Zerah, as it was not uncommon practice to carry the seeds of useful trees from one's own homeland, especially as these trees were ideal for construction with the minimum amount of cuts.  It is clear from archaeological evidence, that these straight poles, were used abundantly in the settlements surrounding the reservoir, such as ‘Riders Rings’ and those on Hickaton Hill, where findings showed that conical roofs of the huts were supported by a central pole and then again by an interior ring of posts a meter inside the external wall.



Figure 60a Showing ‘Riders Rings’ a Bronze age hut enclosure with the remains of several huts and the tin producing Valley in the background.



Archaeological evidence is prolific, with signs of small communities living and herding on the edge of southern Dartmoor, until the boom arrived and the tin export bonanza was born. These Tinners were in the business of supplying the Mediterranean cultures in exchange for their sophisticated wares and delicacies such as wines, pottery and jewellery.  Diodorous commenting on the Celtic thirst, related that the Mediterranean traders got a good price for each amphora of wine, being exchanged for a slave by the Dumnonian.

 Geologically the vertical nature of what used to be a horizontally formed sedimentary slate found throughout the rock at Burgh Island, gives a perfect environment in which to construct a storage cave. Just as a hump back bridge maintains its structure, so too this island will have not moved and the keystones comprising the vault ceiling will have been locked in place since the cave was hewed.






Burgh Island, ‘where the Aven's waters with the sea are mixed; Saint Michael firmly on a rock is fixed’, so aptly described by Camden, is one of the most beautiful sights to behold as one descends down the old tin route from Bigbury. Today, there stands a large Art Deco hotel where the chapel dedicated to St. Michael once stood.  The island was referred to in 1411 as St. Michael de la burgh or the island of St. Milburga later and as an iceberg translates as an island or rock of ice, so a ‘burgh’ meant rock or island, giving the appellation in this book, ‘St. Michael’s Rock’. Early maps show that the chapel stood on the top of the island where the ‘Huers hut’ now stands.  It is even rumoured that there once stood a monastery on this island, but this will be covered in a later chapter as it appears the rumour of this Island  caused much confusion for the early community of Mont-saint-Michel. There are records of Monks from Buckfastleigh maintaining a Light house on the Island which does seem a little odd given the Islands remoteness and Lack of prominence within the bay of Bigbury. The reason for their interest in keeping a light might just have been a cover, taking over guardianship from a now disbanded monastic presence. It would appear however that the Norman Benedictines of Mont-saint-Michel had heard of an Island called ‘St. Michael by the sea’ and that Island at Burgh Island was worth faking a charter to get ownership,  but they occupied St.Michael’s mount in Cornwall by mistake thinking they were in fact taking ownership of a rumoured island that was a tomb of great importance.

 If we are correct about the directions given by Melkin in his riddle refering to a place of Prayer ‘ad orandam’ at the verge, there must have been something that resembled a religious building in the  six or seven hundreds before Melkin left for Mont-saint-Michel. One must not forget that Melkin was not aware of what would transpire in the interim concerning any community at Burgh Island. The ’duo fassula’ has been taken from the vault and possibly an older place of prayer has been destroyed since the time he wrote, until the replacement St. Michael church was built. One translation of Melkin’s directions could be rendered, Ora tor cratibus preparatis super potentem adorandam uirginem supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim:

At a coastal tor, prepared there above a crater, (the mermaid pool) toward (or after) where one prays, at the verge high up in Ictis is where they dwell in the Sepulchre at thirteen degrees. As we have learned earlier, this could also be seen as ‘at the brim of the verge’.

It seems that local lore places the original Chapel where the hotel stands now. For any prospector wishing to find the entrance to the Sepulchre, it is made very clear how to find it within these pages, because the St. Michael Chapel was surely built on a different site than the original building that is referred to by Melkin.




Figure 62 Showing the Huer’s hut on the top of Burgh Island. When the first hotel was built, the hut had been a tea room so that walkers could rest there.

The ‘Huer’s hut’ so named, apparently because of the fact that lookouts from this vantage point, used to give a ‘hue and cry’ to the Pilchard fleets situated out in the Bay, to direct them to the shoals. It is very unlikely that there was ever a job or activity that involved a ‘hue and cry’ as the Bigbury Bay is vast and more often than not the wind would be in a contrary direction to carry voices.  It's more probable that the name echoes from the past and has its roots from those who ‘hewed’ out the vault.  It seems highly unlikely that this is where the St. Michael chapel once stood, but it is quite remarkable that from approximately 100 yards to the right of dead centre in the middle of the Avebury stone circle, is 104 nautical miles to the ‘Huer’s Hut’, the precise number of miles given by Melkin in his riddle, directing us to where Joseph and Jesus lay.  The map shown in figure 49 marks the ‘Huer’s hut’ as the site of the old St. Michael tower and this seems to concur with what Camden had remarked as ‘firmly on a rock is fixed’ which does tend to indicate its dominant position. The island also lies in a ‘Southern Angle’ on a line that is precisely 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line which it bifurcates inside the Avebury circle, exactly as Melkin had told us.





Figure 63 Shows the protected landfall at Ictis for visiting foreign trading vessels to beach in safety, on the eastern side of the causeway.

As one crosses the sand causeway, the Pilchard Inn built in 1336, (around the same time as the Templar chapel to St. Michael), sits just below the present Art Deco hotel and is rich in history. It is said to be patrolled by its own friendly ghost Tom Crocker a master smuggler, who was shot to death by a customs officer but this seems unlikely with the remains of such illustrious personages taking their rest close by.  Outwardly, the island in no way reveals its inner contents or its past history, and much has happened since the two hotels have been built upon the site of the old chapel, possibly prompting us to think that it could be the site of the entrance to the underground chamber. The building of the second hotel was completed in 1929 and there had been no use of any original stonework from the chapel.  The original hotel built by George Chirgwin the musical entertainer, was constructed entirely of wood while Archie Nettlefold, the builder of the ‘Great White Palace’ had brought all his building materials across the sand causeway. On 31 May 1942 the hotel was bombed and lost the top two floors of the of the Art Deco structure. Seven months later the church in Aveton Gifford from which Leonardo had painted his Lansdowne perspective, was also destroyed by a Focke-Wulf 190 thinking it was Loddiswell church.

There had of course been rumours, since the discovery in 1991 of the tin ingots at the mouth of the River Erm, that Burgh Island could have been the Island of Ictis, but tradition and modern research had placed it in St. Michael’s Mount, Marazion.



Figure 64 showing the impracticality of arriving to pick up tin on a rocky foreshore on the tidal causeway of St. Michael’s Mount near Marazion in Cornwall. The picture is taken looking toward Marazion in the fog.

High up on Bolt tail the old iron age encampment on the headland from Inner Hope Cove looks down across Bigbury Bay and would have been a perfect look out and signalling station for alerting the tin Agency of approaching Roman ships trying to interfere with the trade; a local trade that had existed for more than a thousand years before their arrival. The entrance to the Hillfort is oddly aligned to look directly over Ictis as seen in figure 65 and probably worked in conjunction with the hill enclosure of Folly Hill just above Bigbury on Sea as look out stations for approaching vessels.


Figure 65 Showing the entrance to the Iron age hill fort on Bolt tail with the Island of Ictis in the foreground. The Burgh Island hotel is to the right of the Island and the distant hill on the right of the picture is the tin producing area of Southern Dartmoor.

The Folly Hill site which is being archeologically excavated shows evidence of a large community living along the hillside from the present  Bigbury Golf course to the other side of what used to be the cart route down from the tin deposits on the moors. Bronze Age pits were uncovered underneath the Iron Age surfaces and have been dated by ceramics. Only a small area along this ridge at Folly hill has been archeologically surveyed but there is evidence through high resolution magnetic gradiometry and from surface evidence that a large community lived along the ridge. This was probably the gate community that controlled Ictis and through which the cart traffic carrying tin had to pass.

Presently the archaeological excavation carried out by Dr Eileen Wilkes has dated the site to around 300BC through to approximately 300 AD and shows evidence of extensive trade with the continent. Around 800 shards have been found, dated to this era including examples of ‘South West Decorative Ware’ usually found in Cornwall, local ‘Coarse Ware’, ‘Black Burnished Ware’ from the Poole area and Exeter ‘Fortress Ware’.  Amongst these shards were red ‘Samian Roman pottery’, Romano British Ware and pieces of pottery from Brittany and Germany. This does show early evidence of trade but what is most interesting is the find of some locally made granite clays and these are surely evidence of the earlier culture that initially set up Ictis as the Agency and are probably commensurate with the earlier dwellings. Other Iron Age sites are all within sight of each other , one just east of the mouth of the Erm, were obviously strategically placed as communities engaged in commerce and the support of Ictis.



Figure 66 Showing a view from the Folly hill community down over Bantham harbour. Also showing the ‘Long Stone’ to the right.

In the great storm of 1703, apart from destroying the Eddystone lighthouse, it uncovered a Roman camp on the beach at Bantham ham. At the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, Ictis had ceased to exist as the tin agency, but the Romans had obviously eventually made use of the little port of Bantham.  With the recent building of the lifeguard hut on Bantham beach, archaeologists have noticed signs of settlement from a very early time through the iron age with the discovery of later artefacts confirming trade with the Mediterranean and Phoenicians.

The translation of the word Emporium is now more plainly understood as Ictis acts as a trading post with a safe haven harbour that serves both coastal traffic bringing tin to market and tin transported by cart on an ancient trackway from the southern edge of Dartmoor.

 In 2003 a component of an Iron-age ‘Linch-pin’ was found south west of the iron-age hill fort of ‘Blackdown Rings’. No other iron-age finds have been found in the area, which indicates that the cart pin was lost ‘en route’ down from Shipley Bridge to Ictis. The Pin is of the Kirkburn type and dated to around 300BC. Where this pin was found is right next to the oldest road down from the alluvial tin deposits on Southern Dartmoor which leads to the tidal road in Aveton Gifford, the same track that the wagons took to get to Ictis.  Just as Pytheas had said, carts brought the tin to the beach. The use of carts is rare in the hilly terrain of Devon, compared with the rest of the country and for the most part, pack horses were used. So this really is a singular link to the usage of carts in a prehistoric period because the tin ingots would have been too cumbersome for the back of a pack horse. The Devon Archaeological Society goes on to say in their report:

‘The Loddiswell find is the only example known so far in Devon of a piece of equipment which can with reasonable confidence be attributed to the prehistoric chariot or cart. It therefore provides the earliest evidence in the county for the use of a wheeled vehicle. Such vehicles seem not to have been common in many parts of rural Devon even in the 17th and 18th centuries, when pack horses were preferred’.

The most amazing evidence which confirms this as the old trackway where the linch pin was found, is the trackway’s continued use into Roman times where Mr Terence Hockin has found many Roman artifacts such as coin dated to Claudius and a small Roman statue. It should not be forgotten that the tinners of old in Pytheas’ day would have only comparatively light trade goods in effect to take back up to the southern hills of Dartmoor by cart. It seems probable that the transport facility would have been organised by the Ictis Agency and may well have gone along the shoreline of the river when the carts were too full to go uphill Folly Hill from the end of the tidal road. These heavy loads not stored at Ictis would have been transferred onto boats having come further upstream. The main route that Pytheas would have witnessed being carted down through Bigbury having come along the tidal road portrayed by Leonardo.




Figure 66a Showing the view from the spot where the Linch Pin was found leading down to Hatch Bridge and the Aveton Gifford tidal road that leads out to Ictis.


Figure 66b Showing signs of wear from ancient cart tracks running along the shore a few meters further on from the end of the present tidal road

There have been other finds beneath the shifting dunes of Bantham Ham, but it is the remarkable find of some 40 tin ingots by divers of the South West Maritime Archaeological Group that really goes a long way to concur with the story related by Strabo over 2000 years ago that a sea captain deliberately ran his boat on the rocks to keep Ictis secret.

Figure 67 Shows the perfect landfall of Ictis for any foreign trading vessel at all states of the tide by comparison with the rocky foreshore of St. Michael’s Mount.

The entrance to the Erme mouth is partly obstructed by West Mary's Rock and East Mary's Rock and the chain of small rocks lurking beneath the water that join them.  There is evidence of a small harbour at Oldaport but this with a hazardous entrance was probably not as well used by foreign vessels as Bantham was.  East and West Mary's rocks are uncovered only slightly at low tide and on a floodtide the entrance looks navigable and the reef is unseen. This is obviously what fooled the Roman ship following our brave Phoenician captain that we related earlier.

Most of the ingots found just to the north of West Mary’s Rock, were spread out and worn by the tidal flow while also being encrusted with marine life and the ingots had eroded and become oxidised.  Most were plano–convex (bun shaped), all of them different shapes and sizes having been probably cast in many different locations upon Dartmoor. The shaped ingots described by Diodorous as ‘astragali’ (some commentators Astralagi Astragalus) seems obtuse as a reference to shape as most examples found were once bun shaped before oxidation due to rock moulds caused by eddies at the sides of the rivers where the cassiterite was collected. The most probable explanation of the etymology of this term in reference to an ingot is some reference to its metallic brightness  and provenance as it could have been termed a Gallic star or Astro-Gallus.

 It seems Pytheas, if indeed this word is his was originally commenting on the uniformity of shape, caused by similar rock pool indentations, but size differs greatly amongst all the existing examples,  as the Tinners used different moulds along the river edges. From the earliest time, a collection of cassiterite would have been placed in an indent in the rock and a fire lit above it, as tin melts at the low temperature of about 230°C.

  However, the heaviest example found at the mouth of the Erm was rectangular and flat with a slightly thickened rim, indicating that it was cast in a fabricated mould of stone and could be of a more modern date. It could be the case that Ictis was releasing a stockpile of ancient tin ingots along with more later and larger moulded ones in the Roman era which is the era Strabo relates. The reason for change of shape could be the result of stronger vessel design from wood and fastenings. Certainly at this late period in Ictis’ history the Ingots shape would not have been wholly dependent upon fitting them within a vessel fabricated from animal skin nor would the tin have only been collected next to water. After all, just before the invasion, the ingots would have been sold by weight with no regard to inventory date.  The most famous tin ingot found in 1812 just off the sand at St. Mawes Falmouth (another account makes it Carrick or 1823), weighed 72 kg and is obviously of a much later date and could as some say be a hoax of 18th century fabrication to support the Ictis theory in Cornwall.   The variation in the Tinners ingot sizes and shapes indicates that Ictis was in business over a long period of time and would not have been concerened with how long it kept its stock. Strabo was writing around 40 BC and this is the precise time that Ictis would have been under a lot of Roman pressure causing the operators to liquidate their stock. This could be the reason found for the differing sises and shapes found at the Erm site. One would assume that it was during this 70 to 80 year period before Jesus was entombed in Ictis around 36AD, that the Island went through its decline and closure.


Figure 67a Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary looking west at mid tide in a southerly wind, where the Phonecian captain’s cargo of tin ingots were found just north of West Mary’s rocks just inshore of the breaking reef.

 The fact that if indeed these are the very ingots of our brave Phonecian captain at the mouth of the Erm, it would indicate by the vast array of ingots from old ‘Astragali’ to the more recent moulding, that Ictis was running down its long held stock. The fact that these Ingots are found so close to Ictis and there is a story to account for what otherwise would have been nigh on impossible to account for (given that a trader would hardly exit a port full of cargo which he had successfully navigated into it), the tin in this place can only be explained reasonably by two explanations. The fact that the most part of the Ingots were found to the north and west of West Mary’s reef definitely indicates the boat was on its way entering rather than exiting when it hit the rock’s. The location further adds credibility to the find being the product of the same account that Strabo had related considering a boat with Devonian cargo should be exiting a port not entering and Ictis is only a stone’s throw away. The only other alternative explanation is that a local boat was trying to exit with cargo from the tinners based on the Erm for a delivery to Ictis, but he would hardly founder inshore of a reef he was perfectly aware of.



Figure 67b Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary at Low tide where the tin ingots were found from the Phoenician trading ship, just inshore from where the swell is seen, caused by the two rocks.

As one can see in figure 67b with the sand showing, the Phonecian trader must have worked out to lure his Roman pursuer at half or full tide when the estuary appears navigable with a favourable entrance in fair weather. In these conditions there is little to warn any navigator of the reef that lurks beneath.

Just to the east of the Avon dam above Shipley Bridge where there are several settlements, recent excavations have found in the hut encampments, tin slag and a pebble of cassiterite confirming that these were, in fact, the living quarters of the Bronze Age tinners.  By the time Pytheas wrote of his exploits in the fourth century BC, the small craft which were once used, were being changed to more solidly built craft from wood, and the reason for Astragali shaped ingots became redundant. It does logical that the local traders that worked down stream on the other rivers apart from the Avon brought their ingots to Ictis by sea in their coracles as Pytheas relates just for small coastal distances ranging each side of Ictis from the Dart to Plymouth. The Tinners up on the moors however used the route down through Loddiswell as Pytheas had witnessed.
One wonders if it was Joseph who, through his exploits as a tin merchant, discovered that the people of the kingdom of Belerion were the descendants of Zerah. How did he first establish that these people were related to Calcol? It seems sure that Joseph is bringing Jesus’s body to Sarras to where Jacob’s Prophecy on Judah was to be fulfilled. What was it that established this common ancestry from Judah when Joseph of Arimathea and Zerah’s offspring on the Belerion promontory first spoke, or was it known for a long time previously? Melkin is certainly the derivative for the Grail writers reference to Zerah as having a descendant king of Sarras but this connection must have been made by Joseph and it must have been him who purchased the island in which to Lay Jesus’ body.
 Professor Rhys thinks, tracing the etymological roots that the Celts who spoke the language of the Celtic Epitaphs in the 5th and 6th centuries were "in part the ancestors of the Welsh and Cornish people," He thinks that they subsequently changed their language from a Gaelic or "Goidelic" form to a Gallo-British or "Brythonic" form. Certainly there are no evident signs of a Hebraic heritage except that witnessed by the population of the South’s preponderance to adherence to the Law and the evidence of an understanding since Neolithic times of a ley and circle system, the use and knowledge of which has now become lost.
 Diodorus, when commenting on British dress says that the British had learned the art of using alternate colours for their weave so as to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares ‘the cloth  was woven of divers colours, and making a gaudy show. It was covered with an infinite number of little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with flowers. They seem to have been fond of every kind of ornament and they wore collars and "torques" of gold, necklaces and bracelets, and strings of brightly-coloured beads, made of glass or of a material like the Egyptian porcelain.’  Archeologists have thought that the glass was brought by traders from Alexandrian factories.  But glass-making is often the by product and manufactured by smelting metal and often the residue from bronze-furnaces produces a kind of glass, a silicate of soda, coloured blue or green by the silicate of copper mixing with melted sand particles and this will have been the reason why beads are recorded long before the art of glass making. It is possibly the reason that Pytheas initially set out to look for ‘Amber’ confusing this with British glass, that he might have seen coming from the Phoenician traders as they passed by Marseilles on their way to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Why does the Genesis account of Solomon’s precedence over Zerah’s offspring even occur, if there was no threat of one of Zerah’s descendants being the inheritor of Jacob’s blessing?  Did the offspring of Zerah have some object as proof that they were of Judah’s line and will this object or proof be found in the tomb along with all the other artefacts establishing the Kings of Sarras?  Was Blake being prophetical and is ‘Jerusalem builded here’ in England, fulfilling the prophecy of Jacob upon Judah?



Figure 68 Showing the mouth of the river Avon flowing out toward Avalon as seen from Folly hill.





In the Dark Ages a monk called Melkin left a riddle that purported to expose the burial site of Joseph of Arimathea. This Location has long been thought to exist within the Glastonbury grounds but the author has meticulously studied some of the oldest Latin texts from Glastonbury Abbey and has uncovered not only deliberate obfuscation of the facts surrounding King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea but has solved the monks riddle which spells out with pinpoint accuracy the whereabouts of the resting place of these illustrious men in the Island of Avalon. The geometric puzzle describes directions that are derived from the Ley line system built by Neolithic man and the book describes how this huge display of geometrical precision across the British landscape was understood and known to exist as late as late the 1300’s. An array of churches was built upon this ancient system to point out to posterity the location of the tomb.

 This secret location is called the Island of Avalon and the same monk visited this island at the death of Britain’s famous King Arthur. Here he found arcane information from the Temple in Jerusalem that was brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. This information with an account of the first Christians arrival with Mary Magdalene was written in a book called The Grail that found its way to France and gave rise to the wide array of Grail stories.

‘And did those feet’ proves that the body of Jesus is in fact buried with Joseph of Arimathea and the whereabouts of this island is in Devon. It used to be known as the ancient Island of Ictis and contains within it an ancient tin vault that became their tomb which had originally been used to store tin ingots. The confirmation of the whereabouts of this tomb is given by precise geometry upon the British landscape left in the complex Latin puzzle by the monk Melkin but its position is also verified by a Jesuit priest who lived in the sixteenth century who was unaware of the significance of the clue he was given.

 The Templars in the middle ages were aware of the location of this tomb and deposited their treasure in the same tomb on Christmas day 1307. However they removed one item from the sepulchre within the island. This was what has now become known as the Turin Shroud. The Turin Shroud in the monk’s Latin puzzle has the same description once the Latin puzzle is deciphered. This artefact due to Melkin’s description, later became known as the Holy Grail by an inordinate amount of misunderstanding and direct obfuscation, but the Holy Grail is in fact something inestimably more valuable and this book sets out and explains what the Grail is and how the Grail stories came about. The body of Jesus, around which the Turin Shroud was once wrapped, is still within the tomb, steeped in Cedar oil and this is what formed the image on the Shroud over a period of six hundred years as it was formed within what became known as the Grail Arc.

 The reason this Island was chosen to house what is the holiest relic of all, is because it was not widely known in the ancient world except through a report by one of the first Greek explorers to Britain. Devon and Cornwall have a history in the tin industry and it was from this island that tin was traded with Joseph of Arimathea who, Cornish tradition has always maintained, was a tin merchant and was accompanied on his trading missions by Jesus. The book uncovers an ancient Biblical link to the Devon and Cornish peninsula through a bloodline from the first born of Judah one of the twelve sons of Israel, called Zerah. It is from his heritage a Line of Kings was born in the South west of England known as the kings of Sarras which culminated with the famous King Arthur.

 King Arthur, Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are known to be buried on the Island today called Burgh Island but there is also with them the Arc of the Covenant and the Templar treasure. The book traces these events pulling together a wide source of detail linking the most powerful people in Europe like Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings with these events.

Leonardo Da Vinci visited this Island in the last three years of his life and left clues within four paintings, that show the geographical features of the Island and he let the world know by his picture puzzle (rebus) in the Windsor Library, that he was showing us a great mystery and went as far as saying he would show where it is, in his two paintings of the Yarnwinder.

 

 The amazing coincidences that have brought this knowledge into the modern era can only be viewed as having been determined by supernatural forces as this whole drama is played out to specific times that are spoken of by the biblical prophets. The implication and ramifications of the discovery of this tomb will have ramifications across the world as the book uncovers the relationship between this tomb’s unveiling and how it was predicted by the Prophets.


la légende du roi arthur, la littérature arthurienne romans Graal, le Graal à Glastonbury, l'île d'Avalon de l'île de ictis, la formation de l'image sur le Suaire de Turin, Turin images linceul, le Saint-Graal dans avalon, le vaus d'avarone , glostonbury abbaye légendes et les mythes de la tombe de joseph Arimathie, le tombeau de Jésus-Christ.


You can find the whole story of how Glastonbury has misrepresented itself as King Arthur’s burial site and the Glastonbury tor as being synonymous with the Isle of Avalon by Clicking on the following links



http://templartreasure.blogspot.co.uk






1 comment:

  1. Great stuff Mike!
    I am absolutely enthralled!
    And happy to recommend your book, you have made Dan Brown look like a complete amateur.

    I will really enjoy watch how this story unfolds and hope the Burgh Island hoteliers give you a share of the profit you will generate for them. That hotel is going to be booked solid.
    Bru

    ReplyDelete