You're telling me that a 9th century young monk didn't defeat the pegan god Crom Cruach, steal his eye and use it to write the Book of Kells?
-----
As a less sarcastic response: the movie is about the atmosphere / setting of dark-age Ireland, drawn in the style demonstrated by the Book of Kells (a book from those centuries).
One of the wonders of the book is that whoever wrote it seems to have had a magnifying glass, as many designs are enlarged objects. But magnifying glasses were not yet invented. Maybe they had a different technique involving water bubbles or something in the 9th century to see the incredibly intricate drawings of that book. Or maybe they independently discovered magnifying glasses and kept it secret somehow. Who knows?
But going ham by saying "Oh, they stole the eye of the pegan god and used that to help write the book" is quite epic and excellent storytelling. Its obviously ahistorical but a cool story nonetheless.
And its one cool way of acknowledging one cool mystery of that book.
-----
As a less sarcastic response: the movie is about the atmosphere / setting of dark-age Ireland, drawn in the style demonstrated by the Book of Kells (a book from those centuries).
One of the wonders of the book is that whoever wrote it seems to have had a magnifying glass, as many designs are enlarged objects. But magnifying glasses were not yet invented. Maybe they had a different technique involving water bubbles or something in the 9th century to see the incredibly intricate drawings of that book. Or maybe they independently discovered magnifying glasses and kept it secret somehow. Who knows?
But going ham by saying "Oh, they stole the eye of the pegan god and used that to help write the book" is quite epic and excellent storytelling. Its obviously ahistorical but a cool story nonetheless.
And its one cool way of acknowledging one cool mystery of that book.