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1-7 of 7
- From Runes to Ruins is the first ever documentary film about Anglo-Saxon paganism. All over Britain there are people whose lives are influenced by the largely forgotten culture of the Anglo-Saxon barbarians who founded England. There are landmarks, place names and aspects of our language which are remnants of Anglo-Saxon paganism. It is from Woden, the god of war, that we take the name for the third day of the week, Wednesday (Wodens day). There are many places around England named after Woden, like the ancient earthwork of Wansdyke which was probably a cult-centre of the god. In this film, Tom Rowsell, an expert in the paganism of early medieval England, travels around the country looking at places like Wansdyke and talking to people whose lives are influenced by the Anglo-Saxons and their pagan religion. The film features all kinds of peculiar characters; like neo-pagans worshipping Thor in Oxfordshire, the leader of the London Longsword Academy and historical re-enactors who like nothing more than to get dressed up in armour and swing axes at each other. Thomas Rowsell reveals a forgotten aspect of English history that many are oblivious to, by uncovering paganism in runes and ruins.
- India is the only country left with a living Indo-European religious tradition. In this documentary Rowsell looks at some ancient Hindu temples around Mysore, Chamundeshwari and others at Talakadu, all associated with the cursed Wodeyar dynasty. He heads to the Nilgiri hills where his family used to live in the days of the British Raj. He visit the Ooty club in Udagamandalam of which his relative Cecil Ralph Townsend Congreve was once a member. He interviews a member of the Toda tribe who practices a Dravidian form of buffalo worship. Finally Rowsell takes a train to the tea planters' town of Coonoor where his ancestor Norman Rowsell died. This is a sequel to "A British History of Ceylon Tea" and again Rowsell looks both at the native cultures and also the legacy of the British Empire.
- This documentary shows how the famous megalithic monuments of Britain and Ireland, such as Stonehenge, derive from much earlier ones in Brittany. Who were the first farmers in France? Why did they start building the megalithic tombs?
- A history documentary about the prominence of an Earth Mother goddess cult among the Lycians in ancient Anatolia.
- Tom Rowsell interviews Venezuelan girls about why they had breast surgery. Seeing the popularity of breast surgery as an example of the class divide in Venezuela, he also speaks with a Professor of Sociology about President Hugo Chavez .
- A personal journey into the history of tea and the British Empire's involvement with Sri Lanka. Tom Rowsell traces his own ancestry to the days of the British Empire, when his family were planters in Ceylon. The British Empire is viewed in the context of civilizational cycles and author John Still's theory of the Jungle Tide and the jungle gods that are still worshiped in Sri Lanka.
- Passing through rituals involving holes in stones and trees are widespread in Europe and beyond and are related to rituals that involve looking through a hole to see spirits. Rowsell examines the tradition in this film.