The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury is the stuff that legends are made of. Stories grow on it like fruit and wrap around it like creepers. It’s a shape-shifter. It’s been Catholic, Protestant, Pagan, universal. It’s succoured royalty, loyalty, defiance and subversion. It’s been condemned as patriarchal and revered as a feminine spirit. It’s been harnessed by imperialists and peacemakers and nationalists and universalists. It’s stood for better times and better days. For Christmas cheer and better nature, for all trees and all nature, for peace and for hope. This book is the biography of a symbol. “surely the definitive work on its beloved and important subject” Ronald Hutton "permanently changes our understanding of the mutable mythos without undermining our heart-felt connection to it" Paul Weston "a gem of historical writing" Maria Nita, Material Religion "a coherent and gripping narrative" Charles Watkins, Journal of Historical Geography "If you care about Glastonbury's history, and the origins of its legends, you need this book" Yuri Leitch "utterly accessible, written with flow and humour, zest and zeal" Johanna van Fessem, Glastonbury Oracle "a fusion of critical acumen and human sympathy" Jeremy Harte, Fortean Times "an amazing story unfolds from a hugely impressive mass of sources" Robert Dunning, The Local Historian Adam Stout is a writer and historian, and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Universities of Wales, Leicester, Exeter and Southampton. He has written and lectured widely on the idea of Glastonbury.

Holy Grail and Holy Thorn: Glastonbury in the English Imagination explores the legends of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury and how their influence has been felt from medieval to modern times. Joseph was said to have built at Glastonbury the first church in Christendom, which made it a centre of medieval pilgrimage, and gave Glastonbury an international profile in the fifteenth century. Through the winter-flowering holy thorn, said to have grown from Joseph’s staff, and later the Chalice Well, Glastonbury remained a focus of superstition in the Protestant centuries. In medieval romance Joseph of Arimathea had been the first keeper of the Holy Grail, a mystical past that was revived by Romantic writers and artists and ensured that Glastonbury retained a place in our national culture. In the twentieth century Glastonbury’s reputation was further elaborated by the belief that Joseph was the great-uncle of Jesus Christ, and that when he first came to Britain he brought the young Jesus with him, an idea suggested by William Blake’s Jerusalem. In the same mystical tradition, in the 1960s John Michell saw in Glastonbury the dimensions of New Jerusalem, which proved crucial in making Glastonbury the capital of New Age culture.