HISTORICAL CONTEXT
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   The Mycenaean Era is not the Greece of Homer, and has many of
its own unique differences that set it off from that Era. It is
sometimes known as the Golden Age or Heroic Age of the ancient
land we call Greece. Fledgling borne from migrants coming into
the area from Syria and Persia during the Empire of Crete, the
Mycenaeans were a willful folk, who accepted the rule of Crete
until the Minoans fell from power by a complex series of events
that caused them to abandon the Mainland and Isles of Greece
and vanish back into the mists of History. Neither The Minoans
nor the Mycenaeans were remembered, until our own 1840's (AD)
when the ruins were discovered and slowly excavated (a process
still uncompleted to this day).
   Egypt, it has been said, introduced goverment to the world
(and Bureaucracy and all that goes with it). Minos introduced the
concept of Laws governing all equally (which Homer's Greece would
rediscover in its own era) and the value of colonization & trade.
Each had its religions and cults, but it was in Mycenaean that did
rise truly human gods and goddesses - those who could weep or
laugh, who did not simply hold themselves aloof from the majority
of the population but who were close and intricately associated
with their people.
   In concept, and in Mycenaean Myth, we are all descended from
the gods. We are all their children, and we are all working
towards learning what we must to take our proper places beside
them one day in a future existance. We all have within us the
ability to perform feats of wonder, magic as we call it, thru our
own ability of will and perception.
   As children of the gods and goddesses, we are imperfect only
in that we have not yet learned the ways to best utilize our own
abilities and to work with nature thoroughly - as Neo-Pagans we
can work towards this goal, unlike those who refuse to open their
eyes to their own ability and instead falsely believe that nature
is a force to be battled and conquered instead of one that we are
part of and must work with in order to survive. We are not in
any way perfect, we do not have 'the one true path' or the 'one
way to enlightenment', we have simply chosen a path in this belief
system and religion that serves our personal growth (some may even
walk this path and then later chose another closer to their own
hearts in some way). We ask that others accept the fact that we
have chosen this path of our own free will, if they ask for any
information we shall give it freely, and that we ask that they be
tolerant of us in our every day lives and not show bigotry against
us for our belief path.
   The Mycenaean Era, historically lasted from aprox. 1700 BC, as
the Minoan Empire collapsed inward, and prospered thru till 1120
BC when the last shreds of it fell beneath the onslaught of the
invading Dorians, who were the ancestors of Homer's Greece. The
fall of Mycenaea brought with it a terrible 400 years of what has
been called the 'Greek Dark Age' for the invaders destroyed all
the knowledge of writing, and much of the culture and technology
of the people of the land that was then Greece. They had come down
out of the Northern parts of Central Europe, outnumbering the
Mycenaeans and being experts at large scale war, still it took
them from 1190 BCE to 1120 BCE to fully conquer the Mycenaeans.
   When the Dorians invaded and conquered the people, they
destroyed what was then the most advanced civilized people in
Europe. Mycenae had the benefits of the technology of the Minoans
and the advantages of a widespread sea-trade with Syria, Italy,
Sicily, Spain, Egypt, Rhodes, Persia and even possibly the Isles
of Britain. This widespread trade made them one of the richest
people, and their willingness to exchange knowledge and goods
made them welcome in many ports. Mycenae had colonized villages
in many lands, to serve as trading posts with native peoples.
Their only major war was, that which we know now as the Trojan
War, in 1200 BC (aprox), was a successful enterprise supposedly
based on principle instead of greed.
   Mycenae, like the native peoples of the Americas, were slowly
worn down and defeated by an enemy they had sought to not war
with but to trade with. The Dorians came first as raiders, then
in larger numbers as they fled south from either hostile weather
conditions or an unknown northern invader, and were not to be
appeased with simply the lands of the neighbors of the Mycenaeans,
such as the Hittites, but wanted the rich trade of the Black and
Mediterranean Seas. They did not have a written language, but
were evidently of similar stock of that which the Mycenaeans had
once come from centuries before and spoke a similar tongue. They
destroyed the citadels, palaces and shrines, burning many to the
ground in their fury. They slew the learned and enslaved the
poor and agricultural people to serve their own economy - they were
not the peaceful folk that Homer first tries to show them to
be, in Homer's day, after the ages, Mycenae was forgotten and
Minoan Empire a wispy memory of long ago.
   Parts of the culture and its gods and goddesses were still so
strongly enmeshed in the people that remained that the Dorians
adapted it into their own rather than try to fight its existance,
changing it to fit their own values and warlike natures. Thus the
Mycenaean Age faded away in history and memory until the 1840's AD
when the ruins of Mycenae were discovered and the Archaeological
Society of Greece began to recover its forgotten past.
   Much of what we have to work with in our beliefs are based on
the records of archaeological findings, the eventual decipherment
of the few tablets and inscriptions in the ancient language of
the people (Many of which were simply old accounting records)
and the myths that have survived even the purging and nature of
the Homeric era. Vocal records always change tales with the
telling, and thus it has been painstakingly difficult to produce
what these pages attempt to do. Much has had to been assumed in
my research as the information is not available, and some has been
modified to suit our modern times and needs. Thus this is not a
recreation,no more than Ar nDracht Fan can claim an absolute
reconstruction of Celtic Druidism, but a new view for the present
and hopefully the future.