HISTORICAL DRAGONS
Heritage Gallery

Enki - God of Wisdom

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King Arthur Pendragon

http://www.keithblayney.com/Blayney/KingArthur.html

http://www.keithblayney.com/Blayney/KingArthur.html#Discussion1

Myth, legend and outright fabrication have always been part of our search for our ancestors; originally, the recitation of lineage back to a founding god was an important part of the proof that a king or chieftain ruled by "divine" right and almost every royal genealogy contained this information. Today, the importance of one's ancestors is reflected in such organizations as the D.A.R. or the Descendants of the Mayflower Society because of the social cachet members of these organizations enjoy. There are also leaders of cults and minor religious movements who feel that tracing their lineage back to a god or a hereditary religious leader will enhance their own importance in the eyes of those followers who can be convinced such an association conveys its own power and adds weight to the pronouncements of these people.

Being a mythologist, I believe that myths and legends do convey information from the past, though it is not necessarily the literal truth. Instead, what they often reveal is the interconnectiveness, the social conditions and the beliefs of our ancestors. The legend that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene is this type of legend. It conveyed legitimacy on the line of the Merovingian kings and their descendants, on their right to rule not only in France but in the Holy Land, in Jerusalem. The resurgence of this myth with the recent publication of books by Laurence Gardiner, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln and Dan Brown not only reflects the uncertainty and dissatisfaction with established religion in our society, it is an echo of the same sort of elitism that was once common among our ancestors.

A second form of this myth is that of the Fisher Kings, the descendants of Joseph and Anna of Arimathea. This myth does not play on the disillusionment with the Catholic Church so much as with the entirety of Christianity. It draws on the neo-pagan movement to promote a connection between Jesus, the Tuatha de Danaan and the hereditary Arch-Druids of Gwynedd. According to this version, Arimathea signifies a title rather than a place of origin, an English corruption of the Greco-Hebrew Ha Rama Theo, meaning "of the Divine Highness", or "of the Royal Highness".

Joseph, being the younger, only, brother of the Virgin Mary, was the heir to the throne of David. It was through his adoption of his sister's eldest son that Jesus became the legitimate heir to that same throne. The argument goes that, since Mary's husband Joseph, was descended from the line of Jeconiah and all of his line were cursed from sitting upon the throne, Jesus would have been cut out of the royal inheritance unless he was adopted by Mary's brother. While there is disagreement about whether the curse of Jeconiah was lifted, if Joseph of Arimathea adopted Jesus, He would then be granted a place in the royal line of succession as the Heir of David. Supporters of this theory point to Luke 3:23, " And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was [the son] of Heli…" as indicating that Jesus, at the age of 30, was adopted by Mary's brother, Joseph of Arimathea, since Mary, mother of Jesus, was the daughter of Heli and descended from David.

Further, Mary of Bethany, called Magdalene to signify that she was the matrilineal heiress of the Tribe of Benjamin, was the wife of Joseph of Arimathea. Her father, Simon, who was cured of leprosy by Jesus and renamed Nicodemus "innocent of blood", was a known associate of Joseph of Arimathea. The Talmud and other sources reveal that both were wealthy men who traveled far from Jerusalem, to trade in metal and grain. Because they were not always available to vote on matters considered by the Sanhedrin, they gave the High Priest their proxies so he could vote in their stead. This explains why, when both Joseph and Nicodemus believed Jesus was innocent, the vote against him in the Sanhedrin was unanimous.

This is also the reason why Mary, a married woman, resided with her brother and sister in her father's house. Her husband was frequently away for months and even years. It also explains why the Sanhedrin brought "a woman who was caught in the very act of adultery" to Jesus and asked him to judge her. Only her husband, her father, and her eldest son had this right because only they had a legal stake in her dowry. If she was found guilty, a divorce would cause the dowry to revert to her father's house. Jesus was either the woman's husband or her eldest son by adoption; otherwise he had no legal right to judge her. When Jesus set her free, he not only saved her life, he saved her dowry for his adopted father. However, no children she bore after being caught in adultery would be considered legitimate nor could any of their descendants inherit the throne of David!

The gospels state that Joseph of Arimathea buried Jesus in his own unused tomb in Jerusalem. The tomb was a recent acquisition since no one in his family had died and ever been buried in it, indicating that he had obtained the site during his life and did not inherit it. The common way such a tomb would come into a family was as part of a dowry. But if Joseph married Mary of Bethany of the Mount of Olives, then the dowry tomb would have been on the Mount of Olives and the site of the Crucifixion must have been near Bethany at the summit of the Mount. This is in fact the case.

The summit of Olivet was one of the most prestigious locations for a tomb and one that only someone of the highest status could achieve. If Joseph were given this piece of land when he married Mary, it was part of her dowry and if he had divorced her, it would revert to Nicodemus.

Mary Magdalene was both the adulteress and the woman who anointed Jesus, for no ritually pure Pharisee would allow a "woman of the city who was a sinner" into his house and let her pour ointment all over Nicodemus' adopted grandson – unless she was a member of his family. It was his daughter who anointed Jesus with contraband royal ointment in his presence at a dinner in honor of his son Lazarus. As head of the House of Benjamin, Nicodemus had the right to keep the written genealogies of the priests and kings of Israel and Mary, by anointing Jesus, invested Him as king. She also, by making Jesus the heir of Benjamin by adoption through her husband Joseph, gave Him the legal right to officially appoint what He called "Scribes of the Kingdom" - the writers of a New Testament.

Joseph of Arimathea had a daughter, Anna, also called Arimathea. Anna is described as a "consobrina" or niece of the Virgin Mary, a Prophetess and Princess of Cornwall. Either Anna was born before the adultery or Joseph made a second marriage with the royal house of Cornwall after he divorced Mary Magdalene and left her in France with Sarah, her daughter.

Sarah's descendents became united by marriage to the Sicambrian Franks, and from them emerged a whole new 'reigning' dynasty, the Merovingian Kings of France. But even if Mary were the wife of Jesus as some claim, and Sarah His daughter, it would be of no inheritance value to her descendents. All Mary's subsequent offspring in the aftermath of adultery would be legally bastards with no claim on any inheritance or royal throne. Therefore, all those pretenders who are now claiming to be the heirs of David through Jesus and Mary Magdalene are claiming an inheritance that cannot exist. This was the secret the Knights Templar discovered beneath the Temple of Solomon, in the written records of the royal scribes and the genealogies of the priests and kings of Israel.

Joseph's descendants before the adultery or by a second wife would legitimately be able to claim the royal throne of David. His daughter, Anna, the Prophetess of Arimathea (the Royal and Divine Highness), Princess of Cornwall, married Bran the Blessed, Arch-Druid and King of Siluria, establishing the ancestral line of the Fisher-Kings of Arthurian legend. Bran was a descendant of the Tuatha de Danaan. The legend says he was given the Holy Grail by St. Joseph of Arimathea. When presented with a choice between the French and the English claimants at the confrontation at Gisors, the Knights Templar, knowing that the true line descended through Anna, broke with the Priory of Sion and threw their support to the English.

The first Roman Christian king of the Franks in the Merovingian line was Clovis I. Merovee, the founder of the line, was not a Christian. The legend of his birth, that he was born of the union of his mother with the "four horned" Quinotaur, a beast of the sea, is a link to a very ancient dragon cult associated with Danu. Some say Merovee was an "adherent to the cult of Diana", which, along with Inanna, is cognate with Danu. This cult was practiced along the length of the Atlantic Facade, from Scotland and Ireland to Iberia and Gaul and into Scandinavia. The belief in the Loch Ness Monster most likely stems from this practice. The most prominent dragon clan in the British Isles was the Ui Neill of Dalriada. It was upon the death of her first husband, that Ygerna, the mother of Artur, married Domangart of Dalraida, uniting the Dragon Kings of Dalraida with the Arimathean lineage of the Fisher Kings of the Grail legend. Not to be outdone, the Merovingians laid claim to the sacred kingship title through Mary Magdalene, the discarded wife of Joseph of Arimathea and adoptive mother of Jesus, by transforming her into his wife.

After the death of Constantine, the Roman Empire and the Christian Church both split between the east and the west. The Eastern Orthodox Church grew in power and influence, while the Roman church faltered. In 496 CE, the Bishop of Rome made a pact with Clovis, the grandson of Merovee, giving him authority to preside over a "Christianized" Roman empire. The so-called offspring of Mary Magdalene were thus established as leaders of the empire.

By the 11th century, many who claimed a connection to the Merovingian bloodline were involved in the Crusades. Among them was Pope Stephen IX, who encouraged the drive to liberate the Holy Land from the Moslems. By 1061 CE, the Christian Crusaders had conquered the city of Jerusalem and established Godfroi de Bouillon, a Merovingian, on the throne of Jerusalem. In 1099, Godfroi de Bouillon organized a secret society called the Ordre de Sion, or Priory of Sion. In 1118 CE, Hugues de Payen organized the Knights Templar and made Baudouin, the brother of Godfroi de Bouillon, its first Grand Master.

The stated purpose of the Knights Templar was to guard the highways around Jerusalem to protect the pilgrims coming for worship. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, they were given living quarters in the palace of Baudouin on the Temple site. Though there is no historical proof, it is believed that they spent the next nine years digging up the buried treasure of the ancient Jewish Temple. In 1953 a copper scroll was found in a cave near the Dead Sea which told of a fabulous Temple treasure, estimated at more than 138 tons of gold and silver which had been buried by the Jewish priesthood in 64 locations before the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE. 24 of those hordes of gold were buried under the Temple mountain. It is believed that the Knights Templar plundered the treasure of the Temple and took it back to Europe. After nine years in Jerusalem, the Templars returned to Europe wealthy beyond belief.

In the following years, they built castles all over Europe and became famous as the guardians of the Holy Grail. It is believed that the Priory of Sion organized the Knights Templar to excavate the Temple site in hopes of finding the fabulous treasure of the Temple. Evidently they were successful, for they instituted an international banking system across Europe and had the resources to loan gold to kings and governments. The secret purpose for the Knights Templar, however, was to preserve the Merovingian bloodline in hopes of one day establishing a world government and putting their king upon the throne, a king who could claim to be the offspring of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The real treasure of the Temple was the written genealogies of the priests and kings of Israel.

If such records were found, they obviously did not support the Merovingian claim. In 1188, 70 years after the founding of the Templars, they split from the Ordre de Sion and threw their support to the Dukes of Aquitaine, specifically, Richard the Lion Heart, son of Henry of England. Ostensibly, the Templars exchanged a French Merovingian for an English Merovingian. In reality, this was the first in a series of moves to support the Earls of Orkney, who descended from Joseph of Arimathea. Sigurd, the seventh Earl of Orkney, married for his second wife Olith or Thora, daughter of Malcolm II, king of Scotland, and his grandson married as his second wife, Felicia, daughter of Robert, Duke of Normandy. Her brother was William the Conqueror. Their second son was named Brusi, or Robert de Brusee who attached himself to the service of his maternal grandfather, and settled in Normandy.

In 1314, the Templars rode in defense of another Robert the Bruce, at the Battle of Bannockburn.
merlin arthur http://codexceltica.blogspot.com/2009/06/north-to-maccamelot.html

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Queen Boudica

Queen_Boudica_by_John_Opie

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St. Columba - Irish Royalty / Celtic Catholic

Iona--Isle of the Druids. Like the bards of old, St. Columba had trained for seven years in darkness. The archangel Michael fought by his side in a battle in which none of his soldiers were killed. On Iona each day as he sat upon a hill, angels would visit him. And in the end, he found what he sought--he saw God's face. And at night, his disciples saw that there was no need of candle light--St. Columba's hut was radiant with the light of his presence.

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Robert the Bruce

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