A review of “Atlantis och andra myter” by Dick Harrison.
Dick
Harrison is a history professor. In this book, unfortunately only available in
Swedish, he takes on “Atlantis and other myths”. The book is widely available
in Sweden. Somewhat ironically, I bought it from the same bookstore where I
also picked up “The Occult Book” by John Michael Greer.
I expected Harrison´s
little book (167 pages) to be basic bitch debunking, but it´s actually quite
interesting. I learned a lot from it in the day it took me to read it. Topics
covered include the Old Testament, Greek myths such as Atlantis or the travails
of Herakles, Roman propaganda (often against the very emperors of Rome),
various popular fairytales, and the inevitable Middle Ages. Only a few chapters
deal with modern urban legends, or supposed urban legends, such as the Bermuda
Triangle, the Loch Ness monster, Roswell, and so on. While Harrison is,
surprise, a skeptic, he does dare to say “we really don´t know” more often than
the more militantly cock sure type often found in cyberspace. But then,
Harrison is notorious for saying “we don´t know” even when commenting standard
history, and he doesn´t seem to believe in Grand Narratives or Theories about
The Course of History. I admit that I sometimes find this annoying, but perhaps
not as annoying as I did 15 years ago or so, when I residually believed in a
certain Grand Narrative myself.
In other
words, everything is BAU in Harrisonland. :-)
I was
surprised to learn that “chastity belts” in most cases are fakes and taken from
early modern cabinets of curiosities, and so are the Iron Maidens, although an
ancient Spartan king supposedly had a broadly similar device. Apparently, we
can also say goodbye to “le droit du seigneur”. Nor is William Tell a real
person – I always assumed that he was. I think the Swiss still do! The
poppycock about Joseph of Arimathea visiting Glastonbury, which I thought was
modern, is actually invented by medieval Christian monks. The story of Jesus visiting
England´s mountains´ green is somewhat later, though. (But still not entirely
new-new, after all, it´s mentioned by William Blake!) The fairytale of Aladdin
and the magic lamp isn´t really from “One Thousand and One Nights” but was
added later by an enterprising French translator. In his version, Aladdin was
Chinese! Another surprise was that D´Artagnan and the three musketeers are
based on real people…well, at least their *names* are. There is very little
connection between the real life D´Artagnan and his literary double.
In a book
like this, there is going to be some debunking that´s weaker than the rest.
Harrison denies that the Phoenicians sacrificed live children to their gods,
claiming this is Roman propaganda. If so, it´s curious that a related Semitic
people, the land-lubbing Canaanites, were accused of *exactly the same thing* by
the Israelites. Why is it so hard to accept child sacrifice as a historical
fact? The Aztecs sacrificed people like crazy, and probably ate them, too. But
sure, they probably didn´t kill their own children… Harrison´s debunking of
Bigfoot doesn´t even mention the Patterson-Gimlin film. He does a good job
arguing against Minoan Crete being Atlantis, but seems oblivious to the debate
about huge floods at the end of the so-called last Ice Age, not to mention the
Younger Dryas impact event. He is brave enough to admit that huge local floods
might explain the Deluge myths found all around the worlds, such as the disappearance
of Doggerland in the North Sea, or massive flooding in the Black Sea region. Of
course, as a good history professor, he doesn´t believe in Plato´s Atlantis.
One thing
that struck me when reading the book is that many of our myths about the Middle
Ages emerged as a kind of “debunking” of the supposedly superstitious and
barking mad medieval society, written by Protestant and Enlightenment
propagandists. I found this…ironic, especially since I happen to support the
Reformation and the Enlightenment (as far as they went). All the lurid tales
about Pope Joan, medieval witch-burnings, crazy people who think the Earth is
flat, nobles demanding to sleep with their female serfs on their wedding
nights, and so on, are really modern concoctions by supposedly “rational” people.
It´s also ironic that witch-burnings were more prevalent during the post-medieval
early modern period than during the actual Middle Ages. Harrison wryly points
out that the present period has the record in bizarre tales, and that they can
spread much faster than ever before thanks to modern mass media and the
Internet.
It´s interesting
to note which topics Harrison avoids. Of course, it´s a small book, but it *is*
intriguing that he doesn´t mention Jesus, since he does debunk the
historicity of the Old Testament (or simply say “we don´t know”). There is an
entire discourse according to which Jesus probably wasn´t real either. Too hot?
And if you *really* don´t like the Middle Ages (or stupid peasants in general),
don´t worry, the author has included an entire chapter on folk beliefs in
vampires, which is just as blood-curling and bizarre as you would have expected…
Four stars
out of five.
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