Tony Robinson's Gods and Monsters

by **Kitkat** Sat 03 Dec 2011, 20:32

Kitkat

Post n°1

Tony Robinson's Gods and Monsters

Post by Kitkat Sat 03 Dec 2011, 20:32

Episode 1 - The Undead

Watch HERE

Featuring dramatic reconstructions, the opening programme examines our fascination with and terror of dead bodies.

People in the past believed that even in death a body retained some vital force, and that the dead could rise from the grave to cause havoc among the living. Why did they believe this? What powers did they believe the dead had? And what did they do about it?

Tony's journey takes him on a fascinating and sometimes humorous tour of some of the darkest recesses of the ancient mind, and brings him face to face with a plague-breathing zombie, a dead body that seems alive three weeks after it died, and the English monarchs who ate the bodies of their subjects.
SERIES SYNOPSIS

Tony Robinson explores the weird and wonderful history of belief, superstition and religious experience in Britain.

For 2000 years, Britain has been a Christian country. Or has it? In fact, our ancestors actually kept many other dark, fantastical beliefs alive.

It was a world underpinned by outlandish, dangerous and plain weird beliefs. Ideas that today seem unbelievable, but were seen as uncontroversial and hugely influential, with some having shaped our history as much as mainstream religion.

by **Kitkat** Sat 03 Dec 2011, 20:33

Kitkat

Kitkat

Post n°2

Evil Spirits

Post by Kitkat Sat 03 Dec 2011, 20:33

Episode 2 - Evil Spirits

Watch HERE

Imagine a world full of demons who could enter your body and take control of it. A world populated by invisible spirits that would steal humans - and especially babies, leaving 'changelings' in their place. A world where inappropriate behaviour or mental illness was taken as evidence of possession by a devil, and a sign that your soul was damned to hell.

For thousands of years this was the world our ancestors believed they lived in, and it was utterly terrifying. But why did they believe this? What did they think spirits were? And what did they do to try and defend themselves against them?

With the aid of dramatic reconstructions Tony tries to answer these questions. He travels from Roman Britain to 19th-century Ireland; on the way he reveals the story of a woman who became possessed when she was enveloped in a white cloud, he learns how to perform an exorcism, summons up demons using mediaeval black magic, and reveals the horrifying story of a 19th-century woman who was killed by her husband because he thought she'd been replaced by a fairy.