Druid Ed Prynn did a sun dance yesterday, talked to an oak tree and invoked the spirit of the ancient British wizard, Merlin, in an effort to catch a glimpse of the eclipse.
It worked. The clouds parted at the last moment and he caught sight of the last solar eclipse before the millennium. "I have never been so excited in all my life," said the white-haired Prynn, his voice trembling with excitement.
"Merlin stepped into the breach for us," said the druid, whose windswept hilltop cottage is just down the coast from Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. Legend has it that Merlin used his magic to sweep Arthur to power.
Prynn, resplendent in his flowing white robes, spent two hours on E-day doing a sun dance with drums echoing across the hillside down to the sea. That - and a chat to an oak tree named Boris - seemed to do the trick.
The clouds parted long enough for Prynn and his fellow druids to glimpse the eclipse for 40 magical seconds. Druids are priests or soothsayers of a religion dating back to before Christianity that was followed among the Celts of ancient Gaul, Britain and Ireland.
"I was getting desperate. I had a last-ditch plan. The ancient druids talked to oak trees. We have one in the garden called Boris and I asked him to help us," he said.
Breathless with excitement, he said: "I have never, ever, ever felt like this in my whole life."
"This really is very special for us," said the druid, a former quarryman, whose cottage was besieged by well-wishers and television cameramen in the run-up to the eclipse.
Prynn confessed to a feeling of sheer terror when the sun was snuffed out by the moon. Many ancient religions and cultures feared the moon was being devoured by a giant monster.
"I felt like I was dying with the sun," he said. "It was just like a vision I had the night before. It happened like I expected."