Jerusalem.....

I know about the thorn tree Gaga. I've kissed it. ()

Thorn trees can grow to a very old age.

OH my gosh. Someone cut it down!

In the quad of St Mary's College of St Andrews University there's an ancient thorn tree said to have been planted by Mary Queen of Scots.

"And did those feet " - the tradition that Jesus spent some of the time before the events in the gospels with his Uncle Joseph of Arimethea (whose tomb he later borrowed briefly) in England, and that Joseph planted the thorn tree at Glastonbury.

"Dark Satanic mills " - the expanation I was told was that it was too early in 1808 for the the Industrial Revoulution mills (production was getting mechanised but still mostly in homes) and that it referred to the ancient stone circles. Coins are "milled" like the row of upright stones in a henge, when they have ridges all round the outside of them, to prevent anyone scraping off bits of silver.

Apparently he struck the ground with his staff and a thorn tree sprang up.

Have we got an emoticon for dubious amazement?

Hate to say it Elegran and all , but are you not all overthinking it and finding lots of explanations for a poem that's about as accurate/relevant as Jabberwocky and all the similar nonsense poems of that age? He would be written off as a junkie or hippy writing that stuff these days.

No!!! That is so not true. It's a beautiful song, and very inspiring. If you want to be inspired.

Not my thinking, Jane10 It was what I was told by someone many years ago - that it was the pagan temples that horrified him, more than the Industrial revolution. If he was ever at Glastonbury with its legends, he would also have seen Stonehenge and Avebury and heard the stories of human sacrifice and so on.

Elegran Mills were established in Manchester and Salford from the 1780s onwards. This is from Wikipedia
"The development of viable rotative steam engines by Boulton and Watt led from 1781 to the growth of larger, steam-powered mills and allowed them to be concentrated in urban mill towns, most notably Manchester, which with neighbouring Salford had more than 50 mills by 1802."

Jane I have just trawled the net to try to find any references to what I once heard. so far have only come up with two - this one where a poster says that "the references to 'dark Satanic mills' , actually refer to standing stones (Mills as in 'Millstones'). . .. this drawing next to another reference to 'Satan's Mills' make this particularly clear; . . ." (The drawing in this link to an image of one of Blake's poems is interesting)

and this one which has a bit on "Blake's Jerusalem: what does it all mean?" and in it he says he "vaguely remembers from studying Blake's work thirty years ago that Blake not only believed that Christ did visit England, with Joseph of Arimathea, he built a complex personal mythology around this fact and passionately believed that Albion (his name for England) was the second Promised Land, so the first verse means it scarcely seems true, but if Christ did visit England, then there is all the more reason why this country has a special claim to be the site of the New Jerusalem. As for the dark satanic mills, Blake makes it clear elsewhere in his writing that he was not thinking of textile mills in Lancashire but rather unthinking religious institutions, which Blake saw as encouraging the mindless mass production of meaningless prayers."

Gagagran contentious but it is also thought the "Jesus" who visited Glastonbury may have been Jesus's son, also called Jesus.

Jerusalem was my school song too. I wonder just how many schools used it. Very appealing to the Victorians I would think.

Janeainsworth it is interesting to hear the words of some of the hymns. I took DS and family - two DGs - to a crib service at Christmas. I had forgotten just how awful some of the words are - quite out of the dark ages.

What on earth did they sing at that Christmas service Gracesgran?

Great comments on this interesting thread. I love to sing Jerusalem and find Blake fascinating.

Not come across that Gracesgran but is it thought that the visiting son of Jesus (also called Jesus) was Mary Magdalene's son or am I opening a whole new Pandora's box with that one?

That's one theory Gagagran. I have no idea if there is any proof and I would suspect the political side part of the RC church would supress anything that seemed to prove that. I think there is little doubt that Mary Magdalene went to live in France but I am not even sure what proof there is for that although it seems to be thought (could be more) that she was buried there.

Sorry - lots of fence sitting there .

I can't remember I'm afraid Jinglebellsfrocks I wish I could then I could look at them in the cold light of day .

Gosh....this thread really did grow legs! It's been fascinating

All very interesting. Another theory is that the dark satanic mills were the universities of Oxford and Cambridge!!

I suppose we'll never really know - but I'm going with Industrialisation. The sign of a good poem is that it promotes discussion - in this case I think the music helps a lot.

Anyone know who composed it?

Hubert Parry I think.

Parry?

No! Cambridge is lovely! Oxford a possibility though.

When I visit Glastonbury I begin to believe it Jane10 !

The thorn tree was destroyed by some vandal but another one planted from a brach of the original
www.somerset-life.co.uk/people/the_glastonbury_holy_thorn_lives_on_1_2006531

Jerusalem, as with other hymns, was of its time and I thought it did not necessarily mean the city, it was an ideal - as opposed to the dreadful conditions many people endured working in industrial Britain.

Postd before I read p2 with interesting theories about the dark satanic mills.

I visited my mother in law last Monday, and one of the other residents started singing Jerusalem. She had a beautiful voice. Some of the others joined in. I tried to get my mother in law to join in, but she said her husband wouldn't like it. He's been dead for over twenty years.
I asked this woman if she knew Jerusalem the Golden, but she didn't.
I thought everyone knew that one, too.
Most people know the first verse of Blake's Jerusalem but then tale off.