Pagans (C4): PRESENTERS will do anything to prove a point. Even so, there was a moment, just before entering the cage of wolves, that anthropologist Richard Rudgley's expression plainly said, "What the hell have I agreed to do?".

He was trying to show that pagans have been treated unfairly and given a bad press by Romans and Christians.

This is where the wolves came in. The pagan ritual of dressing in wild animal skins was not a devilish practice. Warriors, he maintained, dressed as wolves to take on power and make them more feared fighters. It was a good thing, whereas today we don't identify with wolves in a positive way with our talk of wolfing down food and being a lone wolf.

He was persuaded into spending a weekend with the pack to prove wolves weren't the evil stereotype of Christian fairytales. Wolf behaviourist Shaun Ellis offered tips on facial expressions - "pull your lips over your front teeth and stick your tongue through". If he ever needs work, he can always be an extra in a werewolf horror movie.

Rudgley emerged unscathed after feeding a rabbit to a wolf. Fortunately he was less hands-on when seeking the truth behind 12th century claims of Christian propagandist Gerald of Wales that he'd witnessed a man have sex with a horse, kill it, bathe in its blood and serve it up in a stew. Reconstructing this would clearly contravene several laws, not to mention common decency.

His search took him to Sweden to see Bronze Age art panels of stories carved in pictures on flat rocks. Our old friend the horse and a man in an excited state emerged from a rock rubbing (which isn't a means of sexual gratification, but like brass rubbing only using rocks).

This led to a bizarre conversation between Rudgley and archaeologist Dr Asa Fredell about erections and strap-on penises that you don't expect to hear outside five's late night Real Sex. The outcome was Rudgley claiming that these carvings and big penises were "more power trip than sexual deviancy".

He concluded that Gerald of Wales's sex show was just that - a show, although an X-rated one. Today, horsepower of a different kind is used to symbolise strength and virility.

The behaviour of pagan women, according to the stories put about, was little better than animals as they spent "a lot of time with their kit off, flashed their genitals at cattle and weren't averse to pleasuring themselves with large stone dildos".

Sounds like a modern-day hen night, but Rudgley contended they were just girls who liked to have fun - females who believed that sex and flaunting it was a good thing.

Pagan life wasn't all sex, animals and wild abandon. They also liked ripping out the organs of living bodies, cooking and eating them. This was necessary to move on to the next world after death. Night of the living dead was a joyous occasion rather than our Hallowe'en horror.

More pleasant than entering the wolves' cage for Rudgley was having a sauna with Reet from Estonia Literary Museum and beating her with birch twigs.

This pagan activity may seem risque but was actually celebrating the power of fertility. Try telling that to the police when they raid the place.

Published: 20/07/2004