Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Myth – Daliy Object Writing- Aug 25th

Loch Ness, Arthur and the knights, Babylon’s hanging gardens, Jack the Ripper. Facts or fiction? Somehow there must be a truth hidden in all myths or fables or they would not have been telegraphed down the wire of time. Some myths have been scientifically proven to be false, a whole program is devoted to it – Mythbusters. The modern equivalent is the urban legend I guess.

Years ago I believe they scanned every foot of Loch Ness and found no signs of a giant swimming aquatic mammal – unless it was hiding in an underwater cave somewhere. The famous photogpaph has been discredited as a fake so what is it that people see? Is it something they want to believe in when hope has evaporated? Arthur and the knights of the round table Robin Hood, these stories were they or were they not true. Certainly The ideal of someone who was interested in a more real redistribution of wealth is a fine socialist ideal, roll into that story the ‘nasty’ king and you’ve got a winning myth. But how do we test the validity of such?

We’d have to be transported back in time, to a time before sewerage, where streets stank of the human waste, where a shower meant a dip in a hand beaten metal pot, probably cold- Have you ever had to have a cold shower on a cold morning? Torture Even the castle would stink. The smell of a fatted pig being slowly turned over open coals by a serf while the King prances down the stairs in his dinner regalia, freshly beaten and washed with river stones the day before. Dried in front of another smoky fire. Sitting in an empty echoing hall with pewter mugs and cobbled forks and rough knives- that’s the reality of living in Robin Hood’s day – not the romantic neat orderly myth we see on television shows and movies. Always such a jolly fellow he and his band, but I reckon they’d actually be a bunch of rough vagabonds – have to be to go around killing the kings guards and henchmen so mercilessly.

Once again I’ll start a rant about the propaganda myth plagued on us by televisions and advertising banners that leach and leach into our unconscious until we believe the myth they weave…….