All language subtitles for BBC - Pagans - 2 - Magic Moments

I'm Richard Rudgley. I've made it my
business to delve into our past to try

find out what makes us who we are today.

And I've explored the Dark Ages and
found that our barbarian ancestors were

mindless savages.

Now I want to fill in one more critical
piece of the puzzle.

We think that our lives are shaped by 2
,000 years of Roman and Christian

tradition.

But I've never really bought into this.

For generations before the Romans came
along, we all lived in a very different

world. And I believe this world still
plays a major part in who we are today.

This is the world of the pagan.

Now, my name is Wally Gog, and I am the
wizard.

I'm going to wave my hand over the bag
and say, one, two, three, and you give a

mighty kiss.

We're all fascinated by magic, and its
appeal is timeless.

Its wonder is based on its power to
change things by apparently supernatural

means.

One, two, three!

Magic, luck, and the supernatural all
have a powerful hold over our

imaginations.

That's because for thousands of years
magic was not entertainment.

It was a matter of life and death.

So what was the purpose of this ancient
magic and who were the wizards who dealt

in it?

To find out I need to probe back deep
into our pagan past to a time when magic

was everywhere and the people who
controlled that magic were all powerful.

But where do I begin such an
extraordinary journey?

The sun was once the most important
thing in the lives of our ancestors.

The source of light and heat, the maker
of the seasons and the year, and for our

pagan ancestors, a source of wonder.

At 600 years older than Stonehenge,
Newgrange in Ireland is a monument that

sheds a remarkable shaft of light into a
dark and magical past.

It gives us, perhaps, the first clue to
the purpose of magic in the pagan world.

Well, directly behind me, Richard, we
have the mound of Newgrange, the largest

passage tomb, arguably, in the world,
from the Neolithic, 5 ,000 years old,

positioned on a hilltop.

and in terms of impact, it is dramatic.

Newgrange is the Stone Age equivalent of
our modern cathedral.

It was also a tomb for the special few.

But what is remarkable about this
passage tomb is its connection with the

This long tunnel is carefully aligned to
capture one magical event.

Sunrise on the shortest day of the year.
It is called the winter solstice and it

occurs at dawn on December the 21st.

To be here on the days of the winter
solstice is quite dramatic because it's

very special moment.

The sun will rise and as the upper limb
of the sun comes clear of the local

horizon, immediately you get a mounting
sense of excitement and drama.

And what we see on the floor of the
chamber is a beam of light which begins

creep gradually towards the end recess.

It will then sort of momentarily stall
there for a period of about 15 minutes

more, and then slowly retreat again.

For our pagan ancestors, this huge mound
was a fleeting link with their dead,

when at one special moment in the
year...

A shaft of sunlight connected the living
with the spirit world.

And when that phenomenon is occurring,
you are experiencing the same feelings

that the people 5 ,000 years back would
have experienced.

It would have been a very magical moment
indeed, and a very significant one, and

a very symbolic one.

This was precision engineering,
calibrated to capture the sun for a few

minutes every year. It still works
flawlessly after 5 ,000 years.

It's a huge monument, fantastic feat of
engineering, and it all comes down to 15

minutes in this tiny little space.

Absolutely.

Again, piece of the art, isn't it? Yeah,
very, very concentric circles

everywhere.

And in addition to that, you get... By
capturing the sun, our ancestors were

making a direct connection between their
past and their future.

But for the first farming communities,
it may also have had a very practical

purpose. A winter solstice event, in a
sense, is a turning point and is the

beginning of the time of year when the
days are lengthening and may well

in a sense, when the planting season is
going to start in several months' time.

So from that point of view, it's the
ending of the year, it's the beginning

the year.

The Midwinter Festival has been observed
and reinvented from the Stone Age until

now. Its importance is such that it is
now celebrated as the birth of Jesus. It

is our Christmas Day.

For the pagan farmers who built them,
these stone monuments became a way of

marking the agricultural year.

They were also places of worship to give
thanks for the bounty the sun bestowed

on their lives.

But they were undoubtedly places of
magic as well, where a connection was

between this world and the next.

The hours of darkness open yet another
gateway to the spirit world. From

werewolves to witches, we associate the
full moon with all things supernatural.

Aberdeenshire in Scotland is home to
hundreds of unusual stone monuments.

Their magical purpose only becomes
evident in the evening sky at midsummer.

When you look at all of them, you
discover there's a pattern of

the moon.

There's the moon.

All of them have this recumbent stone
set where the full moon at midsummer

rise, go along and set over the
recumbent stone.

The sun was seen as male and the moon
female.

Moonlight was considered a special
source of energy.

These places were empowered when the
light of the full moon was coming into

circle.

So why was the moon important to them?

The phase cycle of the moon is about the
most obvious.

cycle in the sky 30 days 29 to 30 days
similar to the female menstrual cycle

people made sense of things by by seeing
harmonies between things that happened

in the sky things that happened around
them things that happened amongst people

our ancestors had a close relationship
with the night sky the moon marked time

with its 29 day phases of waxing and
waning this was the basis of the

calendars even our word month means moon
cycle So it had a practical function,

but it also had a ritual or a magical
function. Well, you see, that's our

categorisation. We say our practical,
our ritual.

Practical in our terms.

If you see someone else's mindset, it's
all practical. It's all what helps keep

the wheels turning.

From the earliest times, our pagan
ancestors used the magic of stone

keep the celestial clock ticking.

To them, the sun and the moon were also
the magical gateways to the spirit

world. But then Stone Age farmers made a
technological breakthrough.

Deep in the underworld, they discovered
a new source of power that would conjure

up a magical age of fire.

We've seen how the pagan world was
filled with magical power, but not all

came from the sun and the moon.

Another source of it... was underground
because this underworld was a dark and

sinister place and that's why i've come
here to the great orm copper mine in

north wales to find the source of this
ancient magical power

so is it dangerous it's not really
dangerous i mean we're going to be able

crawl on our hands and knees and um
through some of the tunnels and climb up

down some of the little shafts

In pagan times, the sinking of a mine
was a sacred operation, accompanied by

rituals to appease the spirits of the
underworld.

It's a little bit steep here, but also
down the bottom here, we're nearly in

chamber. Good job, I didn't have too
much for lunch.

Yeah, I can't actually, I'm totally
jammed.

OK, we're going to just scramble up this
little tunnel here now.

Recently, an amazing discovery was made
when cavers broke into an old mining

chamber that had been abandoned at the
end of the Bronze Age.

Two of the things that we can see on the
floor here, these are the tools that

the miners were using.

They used those to hammer the rock.

What exactly was it that they were
extracting?

Well, they were looking for malachite.

Malachite is copper ore, so this would
be taken outside and smelted into

So this was really the basis of the
whole, not the whole bronze age, really,

because without this, no bronze.

Copper is the main ingredient in bronze.
To make a good axe, you need 90 %

copper and 10 % tin. So this material
really would have been highly prized in

its time.

Even now, it's got a kind of eerie,
strange feeling down here, doesn't it?

I'm sure for them, there were more than
human beings down here.

More than 1 ,700 tonnes of copper came
out of this mine, enough to make 10

million axes.

But all that effort would have been
pointless without the conjuring skills

the metalsmith.

These are people who are taking green
pebbles and bringing back the chunks of

the sun.

These are people who can take...

brown, nondescript rock, and turn it
into the blood of the moon.

To perform this magical transformation,
the Bronze Age smith needed special

knowledge of the elements of the Earth.

When you're making bronze implements,
you're not just using copper.

You're using tin to make something which
is incredibly hard.

can be used as a tool.

The fusion of

copper and tin starts by heating the
crushed ore in the heart of a furnace.

We're going to need 1100 degrees C.

The melting ore will collect as liquid
bronze at the bottom of the crucible.

This magical process is called smelting,
and it was a highly prized skill.

Technology has an air of magic to it,
especially to the people who don't

actually know what it is.

Open it up at the bottom and go down
gently. Just go down.

Same sort of rhythm as I'm doing.

Our ancestors would have been amazed by
the Smith in much the same way that we

are amazed by the skills of computer
wizards and high -tech scientists today.

So how do you think the Smiths were
perceived by other people in Bronze Age

society? Madmen.

People who lived on the edge of the
village.

You don't have fires like this in the
middle of a thatched village.

So you're living on the edge. But
they're strange.

These are people who are magicians.
They're weird.

So really the Smiths was master of the
elements?

Master of the elements and keeper of
secrets.

The secrets of this magical art were
closely guarded.

After all, even magicians have to make a
living.

The copper and tin has finally
transformed into bronze.

It will be poured into here, a clay
mould of a simple Bronze Age knife

Ready?

Well, we're in.

We're in.

We're in.

That's it.

This is the moment of truth. This is the
moment of truth.

If we've got a good casting.

If the gods are with us, and if the goat
was the right flavour, well, we got

down the bottom.

The transformation of stone to metal is
a truly magical experience.

Well, it's certainly different to the
material when we started. I mean, you

see the transformation, can't you?

Shining through.

Shining through.

Now imagine something like that.

That's cast in a stone mould.

Yeah, a stone mould. Stone mould.

Stone actually makes a better blade than
clay.

Now imagine somebody who can pull
something like that from a stone.

King Arthur style.

Do you think that's the origin of the
legend?

Yeah.

It's the only place where they actually
pull a sword from a stone.

It's in the Bronze Age.

Could it be that the legend of King
Arthur's sword in the stone is inspired

the magical smiths of the Bronze Age?

Certainly the magic of the metal wizards
became the stuff of folklore and

legend.

One mythical blacksmith called Wayland
even became an Anglo -Saxon god.

Wayland Smithy, near the White Horse
Hill in Oxfordshire, is still a place of

mystery today.

Can you imagine Wayland working away?

Legend claims that a traveller could
leave silver coins with his horse

and find the money gone and the horse
shot the next day.

And I've actually heard the superstition
changed to the fact that whalens will

look after your car.

No, keeping it up to date. So it's
staying on.

See, look, people have left some money.

Oh, yeah.

I should leave a nice five feet.

Make sure you don't break down on the
way home.

So even today, the smith's magic brings
good fortune.

But the ancient metalsmith didn't only
cast swords and shoe horses.

They also created things of beauty as
well.

Jewellery and amulets which were highly
prized for their magical powers.

Because in pagan times, luck was taken
very seriously indeed.

This four and a half thousand year old
necklace was prized as much for its

magical properties as for its beauty.

It's magical because all of these
materials were special in some way.

they were rare, or in the case of the
amber, it's got electrostatic

All through prehistory and through
recent history, too, people have used

for amulets, for magical purposes to
give people good luck or to do away with

evil. This necklace is supercharged with
magic materials. The black stone is

shale, and the blue beads are a man
-made ceramic called faience.

Now, faience is particularly interesting
because its manufacture would have been

a fairly magical, transformative
process.

It's the combination of all these
materials that makes this necklace so

powerful. In the pagan world, the good
luck it promised could protect the

in this world.

or the next.

We know that people then had a belief in
the afterlife and that people saw this

journey as a very dangerous thing, so
therefore you need all the spiritual

that you can get to protect you on your
journey.

This is a really magical necklace.

It's kind of supernatural power
dressing, if you like.

We still believe in talismans and lucky
mascots.

Perhaps they are all echoes of our pagan
past.

Even today, these enchanted stones can
still work their magic charm.

So I've had something specially made
just for you, and I wonder what you

of it. There we go.

Wow! Goodness me!

Try it on.

My colours too.

Wow, so I think you've got the amber
here, a great big...

orange wax of the stuff, and then tin.
Yeah, tin next door to it. And then my

old friend Jet.

This is great, the real thing. Yeah, the
old black magic.

And then on to the faience, which looks
superb.

When you see something like this that's
brand new, it's easy to believe how

people felt that these were magical
things and very powerful things that

there just for the very special people,
not for everybody.

The Bronze Age transformed the pagan
world. The experts in the new technology

became the new magicians, masters of the
underworld.

And before long, the old magic of the
sun and moon was also harnessed by this

new elite, creating a new cast of
powerful wizard priests.

And it's here in the Mittelberg Forest
in Germany that the astronomical

knowledge of the Bronze Age priests...

was revealed by a truly magical
discovery.

In 1999, treasure hunters were scouring
the site of a Bronze Age hill fort near

the German town of Niebuhr when they dug
down and revealed a 3 ,500 -year -old

bronze disc.

The disc was buried with a pair of fine
swords and bronze

tools. This was the first evidence of a
new and powerful cast of wizard priests.

The disk was standing in an upright
position, more or less to the south, and

when they recovered it and cleaned it,
they found that there were some

remarkable objects, namely sun, moon and
stars.

The Nebra sky disk is embossed with gold
leaf images of the sun.

a crescent moon and 32 stars.

Tests have revealed that the bronze disk
was originally stained black, creating

a remarkable picture of the Bronze Age
night sky.

This is the earliest picture of the
cosmos.

This is the first cosmos made in bronze
and gold, so I think this is one of the

most important archaeological finds.

for the history of religion, and for the
history of astronomy.

In this picture of the night sky, one
distinctive star cluster may give a clue

to the real purpose of the disk.

One clear group of stars, and we think
it's the Pleiades, which have a star in

the sky.

In the northern hemisphere, the Pleiades
star cluster sets in the western sky at

dawn around the time of the spring
equinox and sets in the eastern sky at

close to the autumn equinox.

We think it was marking the beginning
and ending of the agricultural year,

namely 10th of March for the beginning
and 15th of October for the ending of

agricultural year.

It's a celestial sowing and harvesting
sign, still recognized by farmers today.

But the sky disk has more secrets to
reveal.

It may have been used in a horizontal
position and looking from this part

of the rim to this part in this way.

The gold strips placed on the edge of
the disk mark the position of sunrise on

the 21st of June and the 21st of
December.

Midsummer and midwinter's day.

Just like a modern calendar, the sky
disc marks four magical dates in the

And these are the main dates for the
farming people in ancient time.

So in a way, what you're really saying
is that this is like a miniature

megalith. It's a miniature Stonehenge or
Newgrounds. It's a lot lighter. In a

special way, it is a miniature
Stonehenge.

Tracking time played a crucial role in a
farming society dominated by the

changing seasons.

Now, new evidence reveals that our
ancestors were already doing that

of years even before the Nibra disk was
made.

Here on the outskirts of a small German
town named Goseck stood a wooden henge 7

,000 years ago.

And what was remarkable was that over
here there was a gate where the sun rose

on the winter solstice, and another gate
was over there where the sun rose on

the summer solstice.

And what's really amazing about this is
it was 2 ,500 years before Stonehenge.

Yet there's a striking connection
between this henge and the Nebra

The angle formed between the midsummer
and midwinter sunrise is 82 degrees,

exactly the same angle as the horizon
lines marked on the NEBRA disk.

But that's not surprising, because
although 3 ,500 years separate this

henge and the Bronze Age disk, both are
marking the same magical events of

midsummer's and midwinter's day.

But whoever used this disc had much more
than knowledge of the heavens in their

hands. The main point is not that it is
a practical instrument.

It's a symbol of knowledge and it's a
magic instrument.

People who knew everything about the
stars knew also everything about magic

religion.

So the Nibra Disc was also a sacred
magical tool for Bronze Age priests.

It seems to me that part of its power
was that it contained knowledge that

people could not have understood.

Just like today's scientists and
computer wizards, knowledge is magic.

It was definitely magic to the simple
farmer, but it might have been some kind

of science to the educated priest.

So both mixed, magic to the simple
people, science to the priest.

The same as today, really.

You're right.

Archaeologists can only guess at the
identity of the people who made this

,600 years ago.

But where can I find evidence of the
people who knew how to use this disc and

wield its power? The actual magicians of
this ancient world.

To do that, I've come to Denmark to see
the otherworldly goods of a real Bronze

Age magician.

The bogs of Denmark have preserved many
clues to the daily life and beliefs of

the Bronze Age.

Here, magic had a clear purpose. In an
uncertain world, magical rituals were

deemed necessary to honour the rising
sun every day.

The sun was the symbol of all essential
cosmic powers of the world. The sun was

simply everything.

If magic here was about controlling
natural forces, then who were the

The clues may lie in the contents of
this Bronze Age grave.

Here, there was no body.

But what had survived was a medical
pouch with an extraordinary range of

objects. They included tweezers, hawk's
claws and snake's tails.

It's a bit like, you know, Shakespeare's
Macbeth, you know, Eye of Newton. It's

very much like a witchcraft.

Yes, that's really things you would put
into a witch's brew.

Were they practical or symbolic?

We can only speculate as to the purpose
of these sacred objects.

The snake tail is related to the earth.

The claw of the hawk is related to the
sky.

The conch is related to the sea.

All these elements brought together
could be used to carry out magic

in relation to the notions of the voyage
of the sun, the sun cult, the spring,

the cyclical times of the year, all
that.

There was one more clue that would give
me a picture of this magician.

Along with the tools of his trade was a
fragment of his magical costume.

In the grave was found, reasonably
preserved, a little tongue of

woolen textiles. So like a loincloth?

Yes, something like that, but with a
little tongue covering your... Trident

heart. Yes.

What could be the purpose of this odd
-shaped piece of fabric?

All we do know is that the very same
costume appears on a set of miniature

Bronze Age figures.

There's this special dress with a tongue
here in front and the back, and then he

is wearing a horned helmet.

And here we have identical full -sized
versions of both those miniature horned

helmets and ceremonial axes.

We call them cult axes because they have
no practical use whatsoever.

They haven't even got an edge on it.

No, no.

So the tiny bronze figures represent
real people and real ceremonies.

Our magician in the grave was a priest
in the cult of the sun.

His job was to keep the sun rising in
the sky, because in the Bronze Age,

and religion were one and the same.

What was the source of his magical
power, do you think?

Well, the source was that he had an
essential knowledge of the voyage of the

sun, of the secrets of cosmos.

And as we all know, knowledge is power,
but secret knowledge is even more

power. Secret power.

Makes you even more powerful. Makes you
a magician.

Yes, exactly.

I wonder if this magic still works
today.

No, it still hasn't come out. A little
bit. It's clearing up a bit. A little

bit. Another ten minutes.

Secret knowledge was the source of power
for the wizard priests of Denmark.

Magicians dressed to impress.

Putting on a good show was part of pagan
magic, just like stage entertainers do

today. But what is a wizard without a
magic hat?

It was here in Germany in the late
Bronze Age that the knowledge of the sun

the moon and the power of the wizard
priests combined to produce one of the

remarkable objects of pagan time.

For over a century, this Bronze Age
treasure lay in museum vaults.

This is one of four similar objects.

All are over 3 ,000 years old.

It was skilfully made from a single
piece of gold.

But how this was achieved remains a
mystery.

Its original purpose has baffled
archaeologists for decades, until now.

But what exactly is it?

It's a hat, a wizard's hat you can say.

A hat for a priest, Bronze Age time,
about 3 ,000 years old.

This Bronze Age wizard's hat is embossed
with symbols of the sun, moon and

stars.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Dr Mengen is
convinced he has solved the

mystery of what these symbols mean.

There are 1 ,739 sun and moon symbols.

Dr. Mengen believes they are a kind of
secret code, something astronomers today

call the metonic cycle.

It's a 19 -year calendar that enables
the movements of the sun and moon to be

calculated years in advance.

count the sun years, the sun month, and
the moon month.

The Bronze Age wizards not only
controlled the sun with magical rituals.

With this hat, they could predict its
movements and therefore predict the

future. They were the time lords of
their society.

For he knew about the future and the
past, and he was a very mighty person in

the Bronze Age community.

For thousands of years, festivals have
been connected with the natural cycles

the sun and moon.

Fertility, death and rebirth were all
celebrated in the Earth's natural

calendar. The wizards who controlled
these festivals controlled people's

So is this why you call it a wizard's
hat? Because it contains all this

knowledge? Yes.

Well, you must have had a big head. Can
you put it on? Yes, I can do this. I can

try it.

I put it on my head.

It fits you perfectly.

So how does it feel to wear the hat?

Quite uncommon, but it's very
interesting that you have the feeling

strength of the stars or the sun is
coming through the point of the hat and

is concentrating in your brain.

Because in English we say to put your
thinking cap on, but this is a little

more than a cap.

You can try it. Do you want to crown me?

Was the influence of these Bronze Age
wizards so strong

that perhaps their strange conical hats
are still with us today as the pointed

magic hats of entertainers?

To our pagan ancestors, the mysteries of
the natural world that can now be

explained scientifically were pure
magic.

And the people who knew how to use this
knowledge were magicians.

The plant world offered curses, cures,
potions and poisons, and the experts in

this herbal magic were women.

An Anglo -Saxon graveyard here at
Bidford -upon -Avon offers a rare

this powerful profession.

What was particularly interesting was a
burial of a woman on the very edge of

the cemetery These

are the remains of that young woman at
first sight an unremarkable pagan burial

Yet something is not quite right

She seems to have been buried with some
strange objects, and some of the objects

have been put in rather peculiar
positions.

What is strange is the odd mixture of
amulets and possessions that appear both

symbolic and practical.

Firstly, there's the knife.

The blade's only just that long, and
this is really exceptional.

You could have used this for very, very
delicate work, maybe even surgical work.

Surgical work. So she actually was a
doctor?

She could have been.

We think that she probably would have
had some kind of medical knowledge

a lot of these women have bags which
don't appear to have anything in them.

So we think there's something there
that's disappeared, and that something

probably herbs, so it's probably in some
way medicinal.

Herbal remedies and potions were the
most powerful chemistry in pagan

But if she was a doctor, what was the
purpose of the tiny drinking horn and

strange pendants?

We only put out three of these bucket
pendants. There's a lot more. There were

12 of them found. And I don't know if
you can see, but they're like tiny

of buckets.

The Anglo -Saxon bucket was quite a big
tub, which could have held quite a lot

of alcoholic drinks.

This makes us think that perhaps...
Alcohol was used in a different way by

women, in a more medicinal way, but also
a more secret... Purely medicinal.

Yes.

The term that's being used for a woman
like this is a cunning woman, and that

brings up all that kind of strange,
otherworldly, special powers kind of

Like a witch.

Like a witch, more like a wise woman,
perhaps. A woman who knows. Cunning

literally means craft, knowledge, that
kind of thing.

Cunning women, who in later centuries
would be called witches and persecuted,

actually conducted rituals, healed the
sick and delivered babies.

They were wise and powerful and they
dealt with the mysteries of life and

with herbal magic.

She'd have been rather like a midwife, I
think.

Also, this kind of woman could have
helped people not just through birth,

also through death.

She would have been vicar, doctor,
lawyer, everybody all rolled into one,

one -stop shop for help.

Our modern equivalent of the cunning
woman's role is the midwife.

Most of her other skills and knowledge
died out with the coming of the church.

Now only fragments of her herbal
knowledge remain, written down by

Monk in the 11th century.

The spell we're actually looking at
here, this is the Nine Herbs charm.

The pagan element in this charm, if you
like, is this chap here.

This is Woden.

Woden was the Anglo -Saxon god of war
and poetry.

Essentially, this is about Woden killing
a snake. And this is an attempt to ward

off poison.

Poison is being represented by the
snake.

This combination of magical herbs and a
powerful pagan god made for a very

effective cure.

Essentially...

If it works, you use it.

That's what magic is all about.

It really worked because the pagan world
exploited the powerful chemistry of

plants.

Healing is a kind of magic. It's taking
a person from a poor existence into a

new reality.

There was no distinction between magic
and medicine in the pagan world.

So this is borage. Mm -hm.

And it's the flower which gives you
courage.

So you suck in the back there, the
little drop of sweetness, yes.

OK. It's an adrenal tonic, in actual
fact. Oh, OK.

And that should make you feel happier.

All right, Tug.

Very sweet.

Now, if you have enough of those, you
could watch your entire family flame

before your eyes and you wouldn't care.

That's what they said.

Herbal magic actually worked, even if
our ancestors didn't understand the

science of why.

And this is the colt's foot, and that
was for asthma and bronchitis, chesty

problems.

And this is betony, for the head and for
treating head injuries.

And the vervain is also good for the
liver.

Willow bark was an early form of
aspirin.

From painkillers to cough syrup, modern
medicine owes much to the herbal skills

of the pagan world.

And we can't talk about the old herb
without henbane, because this is,

in large doses, most certainly
poisonous. It's a very powerful plant,

find it used actually to put people to
sleep.

It's an early anesthetic.

But it's hallucinogenic as well, isn't
it? It is, yes, in the right dose.

I think the fact that they could use
these poisonous plants without killing

people or permanently damaging them is a
kind of proof of their knowledge.

Yes, yes, it most definitely is.

The cunning woman's knowledge was both
respected and feared.

Even the gathering of rare and precious
herbs was suffused with folklore and

danger.

Well, this is where magic comes from,
isn't it? It's knowledge that other

don't have, being able to make something
happen which they can't do.

Magic began in a world very different
from our own, where survival depended on

understanding natural forces.

The most ancient form of magic was used
by the special few to control this

dangerous world.

These magicians were called shamans.
They went where others feared to tread.

They invoked the powers of the animals
and the spirits of the ancestors.

Perhaps they were the greatest wizards
of all.

A lot of people today would like to
reject magic as some kind of fantasy

the past.

But history and anthropology teach us
something rather different.

Because we've seen medicine women and
metal workers, people charged with

power, but behind them all is the
shaman, and bottom line, it was all

survival.

The shaman figure has existed for tens
of thousands of years.

He is as old as magic itself.

He was metalsmith, medium, doctor and
priest.

He was all of these, but much more
besides.

The shaman went where others feared to
tread.

His wisdom was drawn from the animals
and spirits of the ancestors, and he did

this with the magic chemistry of the
forest.

Magic was a technique, a practical
technique to solve the problems of life.

It's a way of finding out where the game
was hidden, where healing plants grew,

maybe how to control the weather.

So it was very practical, really. Very
practical, otherwise it wouldn't have

survived for hundreds of thousands of
years.

Shamans were close to the natural world
at a time when losing touch with nature

could be fatal.

Yeah, this is another magical plant of
the forest.

Deadly nightshade.

And it is belladonna, right, and it
certainly is deadly. The Latin name

Atropa, and Atropa is one of the
goddesses of fate who cuts the string of

you know, and then life ends.

Ten such berries are enough for a normal
person to kill them.

But, of course, it could have sent you
into a magical trance as well. It

certainly can, but it's a very dangerous
gateway.

It was used to contact the spirits of
the night.

And if you are a shaman and want to
explore that, then this plant was used.

The shaman induced the trance through
fasting and drumming.

But in winter, the fly agaric mushroom
could serve that purpose.

You can use this plant to go into very
deep dimensions, and especially the

dimension of the departed, of the dead.

Light from the sun, light from the
heart.

The shaman's magic came from societies
that depended on hunting.

Its purpose, to find where prey could be
found.

And this is my mixture I use.

local herbs.

And this is mugwort, which is also
local. That's juniper.

By inducing a trance, the shaman entered
the spirit world of the animals and the

dead in search of magical insight and
wisdom.

They went beyond the everyday
consciousness in order to find out

things, like what the future brings, or
how are we going to deal with problems.

It smells good and it's just fresh.

Magic means being active on another
plane of consciousness.

If one does this long enough, one would
go easily into trance.

The shaman would travel alone to the
spirit world, but sometimes would share

experience.

The shaman would urinate into a bowl and
everybody would drink, kind of like a

communion, because the active ingredient
is not digested. So they'd be recycling

it. They'd recycle it and then the whole
tribe would have part of this ritual.

Just like the Neolithic farmers of
Newgrange, the shaman made a magical

connection between the world of the
living and the ancestors.

Instead of sunlight, he used magical
plants, and it is no coincidence that

mushrooms appear at the time of the
winter solstice.

It is this time of year that most
strongly connects us with our pagan

We still celebrate this winter festival.

The Christian church adopted this time
as Christmas in 300 AD. Now, 1

,700 years later, its pagan magic has
remained virtually intact.

There are some folklorists who say the
red coat of Father Christmas is really

the red coat of this, because during
this time of year, this was taken as the

mushroom of good luck.

I mean, that's a very ancient symbolism
that carries...

From the old stone age to the new times.

So Santa was a pagan, you're saying?

Yeah, he was a pagan in a Christian
dress.

Santa Claus on a reindeer with a
reindeer sled is a flying shaman.

Right. The Christian church did not
destroy the pagan magical world. They

reinvented it.

This medieval chapel is full of pagan
symbols.

The crown of thorns always has to be
made out of slow thorn, which bursts

white flower at spring equinox.

It looks like a witch's broomstick,
though.

Sacred places were swept with, not just
physically swept, but demons were swept

out. And right there by the door, you
see the mistletoe.

And that symbolizes that we're on a
threshold, and that when you pass it,

in a sacred realm.

It's very ancient stuff that's under the
guise of a Christian chapel.

So to me, it's not really such a radical
break, paganism and Christianity.

It's more a continuity.

It's a continuity.

To win hearts and minds, the early
church adopted the important pagan

The pagan gods had simply changed their
clothes.

I have now come full circle on a magical
5 ,000 -year journey from the Neolithic

to the dawn of the modern world.

We live in the same universe that our
pagan ancestors lived in. The sun and

moon follow the same route across the
sky, and the seasons all pass in the

way.

In the 21st century, we tend to take all
of this for granted.

We've lost that magical connection with
the universe.

the natural world, and with our
ancestors, and I think we are the poorer

that.

Magic comes from deep in our pagan past,
but it is still with us today, hidden

in folklore, rewritten in Christian
rites, and embedded in the calendar of

favourite festivals.

Some of the magician's knowledge of
nature has found its way into modern

and medicine, and the rest lives on in
horoscopes, lucky charms, children's

magic shows, and in the wonder of
Christmastime.

The world is still full of magic. We
just need to learn how to see it once