You Wonder How These Things Begin

You wonder how these things begin. This story begins with a problem. Some thirty years ago, when I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was building an arctic entryway onto my house. I decided that the new front door should have glass in it to let light in, especially in the winter. So I went to the lumber and supply yards and looked at doors with nice glass in them. They were extremely expensive, even by Alaska standards. So I decided to see what alternatives there might be. I had gotten interested in Celtic design and was perusing a book with black and white images of various designs. One design, labeled “A Celtic Revival Well Cover” caught my eye. It was a round piece of wood with wrought iron work attached to it, and the wrought iron had a magical look to it I asked my eldest daughter, Julie, who was developing her drawing skills, if she would draw out the image on paper for me. Once this was done I took it to Ginger’s Stained Glass Works and asked Ginger if she could convert this image into glass. She said that she would have to simplify some of the curves and filigree, but that, yes, she could. So I went through her glass boxes and picked out the colors I wanted for each portion of the design. A few weeks later Ginger called to say the window was ready for me to pick up. When I arrived at her shop she told me that she had gotten several offers from people wanting to buy it and upon finding out that she had made it as a special order, would she make one for them. She declined their offers, saying that some of the cuts were so tricky she’d never do it again. I had her triple-glaze the stained glass window so that it could be mounted in a storm door. I bought a windowless, foam-core Peachtree door and had the best window man in Fairbanks cut a hole in it and mount the stained glass window. The door was magnificent and when the sun shone through, it was dazzling.

When I was going to move from Alaska I went back to the window man and asked if he could remove the window for me to ship it. He demurred, saying that it would be far easier to build a wooden crate for the door than to take the glass out. So the door moved with me from Alaska to New York State, to Arizona, to Connecticut. Currently it is sitting, un-hung, in the basement of the Grace Church rectory.

While Jane and I were framing our trip we talked about making sure we stayed in the Bath/Wells area. One of the nearby towns is Glastonbury, which is (one of many such claimants) the site where King Arthur was buried. Looking through a travel book I saw a black and white photograph that was awfully familiar. It was a picture of the same well cover I had seen decades before and from which I had made the stained glass window. It is the cover of “The Chalice Well”. It is alleged that Joseph of Arimathea travelled to Glastonbury in 37 A. D. with the chalice from the Last Supper (the HOLY GRAIL) and that it resides at the bottom of this well.

So I have a stained glass window patterned after the Glastonbury Chalice Well Cover. One school of thought is that this is plausible, for there is strong evidence of trade between this part of England and the Levant. If this is plausible, then maybe Dan Brown wasn't pushing such a far-fetched idea that Mary Magdalene went to France . . . I'll leave that decision to others.