Isle of the Dead

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The Isle of the Dead is associated with pre-Christian Celtic mythology and occurs as a theme in a number of European countries. In Britain is it thought to be either a translation of the Welsh word "Annwn" for the underworld or an extant geographical feature of Britain.

Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin portrayed such a place in his painting "Die Toteninsel" ("Isle of the Dead"), a painting of which he made several versions. This work was the main inspiration for Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's work of the same name.

The author Bernard Cornwell, in his books The Warlord Chronicles of the 1990s, associates the Isle of Portland in Dorset with the Isle of the Dead. In the book he describes how the island was a place of internal exile and damnation. The causeway that almost links the island to the mainland was guarded to keep the "dead" - who included the criminally insane - from crossing the Fleet and escaping back into Britain. However, this is literary conjecture and not archaeological fact.

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