6th Century Britain – Questions without Answers

By Gareth Griffith

In the age of Google, at a time when physicists are unlocking the secrets of the universe, when there are answers to almost every question, it seems churlish of history to present us with what used to be called “The Dark Ages.” Yet, in respect to Britain at least, that description would still appear to be appropriate for the period between the departure of the Romans, in AD 410, and the 7th century.

Particularly sparse is our knowledge of the 6th century, when the native written evidence is confined to Gildas’ The Ruin of Britain. Gildas was a monk and, as it is often said, his purpose was not to write history but to present a moral and polemical tract addressed to the British kings of his time. It is not known exactly when he wrote, although it likely to have been in the mid-6th century. There is controversy over that issue and also about the interpretation of what he wrote, as discussed, for example, by Guy Halsall in Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages (OUP, 2013).

Statue of Gildas - Wiki Commons attribution

That is not to say that archaeologists and historians are completely in the dark about this period of British history, but it is to suggest that the speculative theories and histories of the age have the feel of a parlour game about them – where five archaeologists and five historians are sent out of the room and return with 11 theories of the Anglo-Saxon take-over of lowland Britain. Ideas about how certain Angles and Saxons arrived at and settled one area or another – the Hwicce for instance on the Welsh borders – can be amusingly reminiscent of the brilliant Monty Python sketch, Wrong Way Norris.

Relatively little is known, therefore, about 6th-century Britain and much of what is believed to be known is contested. In terms of literary evidence, according to Peter Heather:

“To supplement Gildas, there are a few more or less contemporary references to events in Britain in continental sources, and some very late, wildly episodic materials gathered together in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.” (Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe, Macmillan, 2009, p 272) 

There are more questions than answers, some large, others more specific: Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become British? What was the scale of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain? Was there a mass migration? Is that process best described in terms of conquest and invasion or more as a transfer of elites, with the indigenous population remaining more or less in place?

Possible 5th-century migration pattern Wiki attribution

In attempting to answer such questions, historians have tended to follow the prevailing fashions of historical analysis. The nineteenth century and beyond leaned heavily on the conquest and invasion model, in some cases as evidence of the superiority of Teutonic peoples over their Celtic counterparts. (B Ward-Perkins, “Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become British?” English Historical Review (2000), pp 513-533) As new aerial archaeological techniques revealed evidence that contradicted that model, the view fell into disfavour after 1945, to be replaced by versions of the elite-transfer theory.

From the view that the Anglo-Saxons basically wiped out or expelled the native British population, the pendulum swung towards the displacement of British landowning classes by an Anglo-Saxon warrior elite, led by those who had served as mercenaries in the Roman occupation of the island. It is a caricature admittedly, but we had replaced blood and iron with something approximating a hippy land-grab. It may be that DNA analysis supports that view, whereby the indigenous population remained in place, merely exchanging one ethnic ruling class for another.

A perennially vexing issue for that account relates to language: as Ronald Hutton writes: “If genetics and landscape studies indicate a basic continuity of population all over Britain…linguistic studies do not.” (Pagan Britain, Yale University Press, 2014, p 295). The contrast with the continent, with France in particular, is profound in this regard. To quote Hutton again:

“Old English replaced both the main languages of Roman Britain – the native Celtic one and the official Latin one – completely in the areas that later became England. It did so, moreover, while taking on virtually no loanwords from either tongue.” (p 295) 

In lowland areas at least, 6th century Britain appears to have witnessed “an absolute and abrupt discontinuity of language and culture,” events which, according to Hutton, are “commonly the hallmark of genocide…” (p 296)

The Aedui chief Dumnorix, Museum of Celtic Civilization, Bibracte
The British may have dressed similarly

Rather than deciding between contrasting viewpoints, Hutton’s main concern is to highlight the problems and discontinuities of evidence and interpretation. Calling it “an extreme state of affairs,” he points out that, in this instance, the material data drawn from archaeology and the textual and linguistic evidence do not fit: “In the case of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, the two are at present bewilderingly adrift…” (p 297) One is reminded of the comment made by Nicholas Higham in 1994, in reference to the issue of conflicting evidence, that “it has become obvious that archaeologists are capable of producing an almost infinite succession of models, each of which is more or less incapable of either proof or refutation.” (The English Conquest, Manchester University Press, p 2)

In his 2009 book, Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe, Peter Heather draws together the known and the probable facts of the matter. Like Hutton, he accepts that the key questions about the extent and nature of Anglo-Saxon immigration are not answered in any straightforward way by either the archaeological or historical evidence. (p 275) Nor does he think that DNA testing is likely to fill the gap. Decisively rejected by Heather is the “ethnic cleansing” model, which in his view was not remotely possible given the probable number of people involved, perhaps as many as three to four million. But then, there is the linguistic evidence to be considered, which leaves the argument “more than a little stuck.” (p 277 and p 297)

From this starting point, Heather proceeds to confront from what he calls “the intellectual impasse between mass migration and elite transfer originally generated by the limitation of the traditional historical and archaeological evidence.” (p 277) Taking a comparative perspective, he draws upon evidence from the migrations of the period on the continent, which leads him to several conclusions. One is that the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain was a long-term process, a “predatory population flow” that occurred over many generations. A related conclusion is that, notwithstanding the obvious transport difficulties, this gradual migration flow included women and children.

Still, by AD 600 the native British population was likely to have outnumbered the newcomers, possibly by a ratio of around 1:4. With the Frankish model before him, Heather’s argument is that an adequate interpretation of Anglo-Saxon migration must combine elements of mass migration, sufficient to establish linguistic and cultural change, with elements of the elite model, whereby land ownership shifted decisively in favour of the incomers and where the mass of the indigenous population, formerly landed or otherwise, were left to accommodate themselves to these new arrangements of subservience.

Of course, none of this is to maintain that the transformation of lowland Britain was peaceful. It is argued that, from the earliest times, the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons perceived themselves as races apart, with Bryan Ward-Perkins commenting:

“…when both peoples came to summarize their dealings with each other, the picture is straightforward and consistent. Two distinct and hostile peoples fight for the same territory; one of them comes by ship from overseas, and gradually expands its power by conquest; the other resists, with greater or lesser success, and awaits the moment when the invaders can be slaughtered and their defeated remnants driven to their boats and 'sent home' over the sea.” (“Why did the Anglo-Saxons not become British?”, p 516) 

To offer my own historical speculation, it seems likely that the Anglo-Saxon takeover was messy and that it varied from one local area to another, in particular as between what is now south-east and south-west England. Whereas a version of the elite-transfer model may apply to the south-east where the scale of armed resistance from the British may have been minimal in the aftermath of the Roman departure, the story in the south-west may have been quite different, with the Saxon advance being marked by a series of pitched battles until they reached what is now the Bristol Channel towards the end of the 6th century. Admittedly, that account may be disputed. On its behalf, it is at least broadly consistent with the account we find in the traditional interpretation of Gildas and with the admittedly sketchy and episodic entries for the period from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Replica of the Sutton Hoo helmet, from the earlier period of
Anglo-Saxon settlement. Wiki Commons attribution link

Clearly, not everything in those sources can be accepted at face value. But some things ring truer than others. For example, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records a major battle fought in AD 577 just north of modern day Bath. There is no other source for the battle which, if true, broke the land-bridge that existed between the Celtic people of modern day Wales and those of Devon and Cornwall. Possibly, the entry which says that three British kings were killed in the battle, those of Bath, Gloucester and Cirencester, can be discounted as a form of aggrandising propaganda on the part of the West Saxons. It is possible. On the other hand, as Heather acknowledges, it is also possible that these events were recalled with “outlined accuracy.” He writes:

Sometimes, too, the events even make sense against the landscape, notably the battle of Deorham in 577, which is said to have brought Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath under Anglo-Saxon control. A visit to the site, now the grounds of Dyrham Park just outside Bath, is enough to show you why. Set on high ground, it dominates the territory around.” (p 272) 

What is beyond question is that the Britons did not relinquish the western regions of the Island to the Anglo-Saxons without a long struggle. If the details are lost to us, the outline is clear enough. The reported Battle of Dyrham occurred over 150 years after the Romans left Britain, which, if true, suggests concerted resistance on a significant scale.

[This post is an Editor's Choice archive post, originally published on EHFA on 7th June 2018]

~~~~~~~~~~

Gareth Griffith was born in Penmaenmawr, North Wales, and now lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife Sue. His career has encompassed teaching, research and writing, including many years working as the manager of research for the parliament of New South Wales. These days, when Gareth isn’t writing, he enjoys reading, music, dark Scandi film and TV, and Dark Age Britain. Although Gareth left Wales at the age of twelve, Wales never left him, and its landscape and history loom large in his imagination and his storytelling.

Find Gareth on his website: https://garethgriffithauthor.com/

and on Twitter: @garethgriffith_

A Delightful Curse on a Lead Scroll

By Kim Rendfeld

Only a historical novelist would use the word “delightful” to describe a curse inscribed on a rolled thin sheet of lead. Well, maybe an archaeologist or historian might know what I mean.

In research for my short story “Betrothed to the Red Dragon,” I came across this tidbit. Followers of the Celtic deity Sulis would write their requests to her on a lead scroll or tablet and toss it in a sacred hot spring at Bath. When the Roman ruled over Britain, that spring did some double duty as a space for devotion to Sulis and the Roman goddess Minerva. In fact, she is often called Sulis Minerva.

To polytheistic Celts, it was not a big deal. They could still worship Sulis and let her know their wishes, a lot of them calls for justice. If the Romans wanted to call her Minerva and ask for her assistance, fine. The Romans cared little about the religion of the people they conquered except for one thing: acknowledge their emperor as a god. A lot of polytheistic religions likely greeted this with a shrug. What was one more god after all? They could even distance themselves and say that the Romans have their gods and we have ours.

Roman Baths of Bath Spa, England
(photo by David Iliff, license: CC-BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons)

The Jews were having none of it, but they were not proselytizing. So their belief was confined. Christians posed another problem. Like the Jews, they refused to accept any other deity, and they were trying to convert other people to see the world as they did. That was one reason Christians were persecuted, especially when a natural disaster like a drought hit. Pagans and Christians believed the cause was an angry deity, but they disagreed on who offended what supernatural being.

Christians got a break in 313, when Constantine the Great proclaimed they would be tolerated. Their faith became mainstream in 337, when the Roman emperor accepted baptism shortly before his death.

Yet religion among Britons in the fourth and fifth centuries was fluid. Seemingly disparate sets of beliefs could coexist not only in society, but within the same person. No one would fault a midwife who whispered a spell to an expectant mother to ease her labor. Nor did wearing an amulet alongside a cross draw much attention.

Some habits are just too hard to break. When your harvest or victory in battle depended on pleasing deities (or at least not angering them), it didn’t hurt to hedge your bets.

A request to Sulis Minerva on a small scroll of lead is more tangible evidence of Christianity and paganism existing side by side. About 130 such requests, or curse tablets, were excavated from Bath, and many more remain buried. Throughout Britain, there are about 500.

These tablets are thin pieces of lead or pewter inscribed in a somewhat formulaic way. In the case of theft, it’s a complaint, name of the thief or catch-all phraseology if the perpetrator is unknown, name of the victim, and the appeal to the goddess. The piece is then rolled and folded to be legible only to the goddess and pierced with a nail.

A folded curse, photo by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net),
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The reason I find delight in one from a guy named Annianus is that I am hearing the beliefs of an ordinary Christian in his own words (in translation).

Annianus, son of Matutina, signed his name, so it’s not like he’s hiding anything. Annianus is believed to be Christian because he used the word “pagan,” a term only an early medieval Christian would use to distinguish other religions. Apparently Annianus doesn’t know the thief, but on the back of his request, he provides Sulis Minerva with 18 names, probably people he suspects.

What Annianus asks for is anything but Christian: “Whether pagan or Christian, whosoever man or woman, boy or girl, slave or free has stolen from me, Annianus, six silver coins from my purse, you lady goddess are to extract ... the blood of him who has invoked this upon me.”

Apparently, Annianus set aside that part of no other gods for the moment, and that part about forgiving your enemies hadn’t gotten through to Annianus.

In Annianus’s defense, those lost coins might have been six days of wages. One of those coins would have bought enough wheat for 20 loaves of bread. If he were a soldier, six silver coins could buy him a pair of boots and a good cloak.

The fellow likely just wanted his coins back. Appealing to Sulis Minerva might have been his best chance at justice.

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published August 23, 2017.


Sources

Daily Life in Arthurian Britain by Deborah J. Shepherd

Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, edited by John G. Gager

Brigid: Goddess, Druidess and Saint by Brian Wright

Curse Tablets of Roman Britain

“What Were They Worth? The Purchasing Power of Ancient Coins,” CoinWeek

~~~~~~~~~~

Kim Rendfeld has written three books set in 8th century Francia. In The Cross and the Dragon, a Frankish noblewoman must contend with a jilted suitor and the fear of losing her husband (available on Amazon). In The Ashes of Heaven's Pillar, a Saxon peasant will fight for her children after losing everything else (available on Amazon). In Queen of the Darkest Hour, Queen Fastrada must stop a conspiracy before it destroys everyone and everything she loves. The book is available on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.

Kim's short story “Betrothed to the Red Dragon,” about Guinevere’s decision to marry Arthur, is set in early medieval Britain and available on Amazon.

Connect with Kim at on her website kimrendfeld.com, her blog, Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld.

Grumpy Gildas, Saint of Rhuys

By L.A. Smith

Saint Gildas (AD 500-570), otherwise known as Gildas the Wise, or, the Venerable Gildas, was a 6th century monk who is best known for writing De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (The Ruin and Conquest of Britain). This work is a history of Britain which begins with a brief account of the Roman occupation, but is mainly concerned with Britain after the Romans left in the 5th century, and the coming of the Anglo-Saxons from the Continent. It's one of the few near-contemporary accounts we have of this era, and as such, Gildas is an important figure, indeed.

Statue of Gildas nr. the village of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhys, France
Image from Wikipedia

It is, of course, difficult to know much that is certain about Gildas. Other than his literary works, we have two two surviving hagiographies about him. One was written in the 9th century by a monk at a monastery in Rhuys in Brittany. This was a monastery that Gildas himself founded. The second was written much later, in the 12th century, by the Welsh cleric, Caradoc of Llanfaran. The two differ quite a bit, so much so that some scholars suggest there might be two Gildas', but likely the differences between them are in account of the long time between the writing of the two. The earlier Life of St. Gilda from the 9th century is considered to be the most accurate, seeing as it is closest to Gildas' time.

The chapel of Gildas in Brittany - Gildas and a fellow monk,
Bieuzy, were said to have lived in the cave at the base of
this rock. Image by Rhian on Flikr

Interestingly enough, one of the things we don't know for certain is his name. This name, Gildas, is very unusual. In fact, there is only one other person of the times that we know of who has this name, a 5th century Roman Berber hailing from North Africa, who rebelled against the Western Roman Empire. His name was Gildo, which is virtually the same name once translations between languages are accounted for. Gildas is not a Latin name, and although some historians have postulated that the origin of the name is Pictish or Gaelic, there is no consensus on this. This leads some to speculate that the name itself is a pseudonym. Given that he writes in extremely unflattering terms of five British kings, it is understandable that he might use a false name, in fear of reprisals.

From that earlier hagiography we learn that Gildas was one of four sons of the king of the Alt Clut, a kingdom of British Celts in the north (now part of Scotland). His brother Cuillum became king after the death of their father, Caunus. The rest of the brothers became monks. As a child, Gildas studied under Illtud at Cor Twsdws, the great centre of learning in what is now Glamorgan, Wales. Many illustrious Saints studied there, including Saint David of Wales. There is, in fact, a connection between David and Gildas, as Gildas is said to be one of David's tutors when he was young.

It seems that Illtud was fond of Gildas, and thought him to be a good student. Gildas eventually decided to give up the privileges of his noble birth and become a monk. He went to Ireland where he was ordained as a priest, and then returned to northern Britain as a missionary, preaching the Gospel to his former countrymen. It seems, however, that the Irish church had fallen into disarray, and the High King of Ireland, Ainmericus, asked him to come back to get it back in order, so to speak. Gildas obliged, and spent some years travelling over the island, building churches, establishing monasteries, and in general re-establishing the faith, which was in danger of foundering.

He took a pilgrimage to Rome, where his hagiographer says he killed a dragon (as one does, I suppose), and then instead of returning to Britain, settled in Brittany instead, where he lived out the rest of his days. It was at this point that he preached the Gospel to Nonita, the mother of St. David, which she was pregnant with him. He lived an austere and solitary life for a time, but many wished to study under him, and so he eventually established a monastery in Rhuys, in what is now north-west France.

Approximately ten years after leaving Britain he wrote De Excidio. We can't be certain as to when it was written. Dates range from AD 490-AD 540. As to why he wrote it, well, let's hear his own words:
"...let him [the reader] think of me as a man that will speak out of a feeling of condolence with my country's losses and its miseries, and sharing in the joy of remedies. It is not so much my purpose to narrate the dangers of savage warfare incurred by brave soldiers, as to tell of the dangers caused by indolent men."

Those dangers, of course, are spiritual, rather than physical, although in Gildas' mind, the spiritual dangers will also be accompanied by physical ones. God's wrath against the faithless Christian leaders and people of Britain will bring not only spiritual damnation but physical consequences in the form of invasion and destruction.

Gildas is, above all, a teacher, a monk, and a servant of Christ. He muses in the opening section about his distress at hearing of the trials of his native land, and of the waywardness of its leaders, but is not sure if he is the one who should speak. After all, he acknowledges that there are surely some in Britain who would be better placed to speak the truth to power.  But he feels that, because there are so few, they are "bent down and pressed beneath so heavy a burden" and so "have not time allowed them to take breath." Nor, we infer, to fulfill their duties as priests of God and show the wayward leaders the error of their ways.

So Gildas, after a decade of wrestling with the question of whether to write or not, finally decides that he cannot keep silent any longer, and Of the Ruin and Conquest of Britain is born. As a man of God, he felt it was his duty to point out the moral lesson he sees in the downfall of his native land. As we recall that he spent quite a few years in Ireland, strengthening the church there and turning it away from the moral degradation into which it had fallen, it is not surprising that Gildas feels this need to speak.

Britain in the time of Gildas - Wikipedia

Gildas starts his history with the Roman occupation, describing the coming of the Christian faith to Britain's shores along with the legions, and the terrible state of the island after the Romans left. They call for help from Rome but no help comes. The British leader, Vortigern, extends an offer to the Saxons (in Gildas' words, the "fierce and impious Saxons, a race hateful to both God and man.") The offer was to come to Britain and fight as mercenaries on behalf of the British against the Picts and Scots from the north who were overrunning the cultivated and settled Roman British villas and cities in the south. But alas, the promised wages are not enough to keep them happy, and soon they turn on the Britons, ravaging the land and sending more soldiers over to conquer it for themselves.

The next section details the struggles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Roman-British population, as they try to repel the invaders. It is in this section that we get the intriguing mention of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a "man of unassuming character" (i.e. humble), who led the Britons in battle against the Saxons. Ambrosius, is of course, the figure that many associate with King Arthur.

After mentioning the victory of the Britons at Mount Badon, and a time of peace afterwards, Gildas gets into the next section, which is a thundering denunciation of five British kings: Constantine of Damnonia, Aurielus Conanus, Votipore of Demetia, Cuneglas of southern Gwynedd, and Magloclune of Anglesey.

It is not exactly clear who all these kings were, although most can be identified from other records of the time. Gildas writes of them in metaphorical language, echoing the prophetical language of the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. He describes them as a lion, a lion's whelp, a dragon, a bear, and a leopard. It's also not clear why these five kings were mentioned, and other kings who reigned at the same time in other British kingdoms were not.

It is very clear, however, that Gildas is not impressed by these kings. He starts off the section on the kings with this introductory sentence:

Kings Britain has, but they are as her tyrants: she has judges, but they are ungodly men: engaged in frequent plunder and disturbance, but of harmless men: avenging and defending, yea for the benefit of criminals and robbers.

He accuses them of fornication, adultery, robbery, murder, and betrayal. He pleads with them to turn away from their evil deeds, but also warns them in no uncertain terms what will happen to them if they do not repent:

That dark flood of hell shall roll round thee with its deadly whirl and fierce waves; it shall always torture and never consume thee.

Hence, grumpy Gildas, as I have named him in this article. He is stringent and uncompromising in his role as a prophetic voice of doom to those who are in charge of both the church (he has some things to say to wayward church leaders, too) and the kingdoms of Britain. The polemical nature of the writing does get a little tiresome, to be sure, but one has to keep in mind his purpose: to show how immoral behaviour and leadership will lead to disaster, invasion, and death to those under that leadership. Agree or disagree with his premise, you have to admire his passion.

Maelgyn Gwynedd, one of the kings Gildas railed
against, from a 15thC Welsh translation of Geoffrey
of Monmouth's Historia Regum . Image from Wikipedia

Later historians such as Bede and Alcuin draw on Gildas' work when they write their own histories of England. His work was thus very influential for many years after he wrote it, and indeed, is still very important today. Gildas gave us a picture of what happened in England between the fall of Rome and the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, one that we would not have had if he hadn't written his account.

Grumpy or not, we owe him a great debt.

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L.A. Smith was born in Alberta, Canada, where she has lived all her life. She honed her writing skills with short stories and found publication for many of them in various online and print magazines. After many years of research and writing, The Traveller's Path was born, an adult historical fantasy series set in 7th century Northumbria. Wilding is the first book in the trilogy, and was published in May 2019. The second book, Bound, will be published in spring of 2020.

Besides writing, L.A. Smith loves reading, knitting, drinking tea, and walking her dog. Most days, not all at once.

You can connect with L.A. Smith on Facebook, Twitter @las_writer and at lasmithwriter.com.

Wilding can be purchased at all the online retailers, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo.

The Foundation of Britain’s Feudal System

By Eifion Wyn Williams

It was believed during my schooldays, that the first wave of so-called ‘Celtic’ settlers to Britain arrived in the Late Bronze Age, roughly between 1500 BC and 1000 BC. These early arrivals were thought to be the precursor for what became a long-established tradition of feudal and tribal Kingship, and which then spread across the country. Recent archeological findings, and the latest DNA analysis of Britain’s inhabitants have overturned these ‘invasion’ or ‘influx’ theories. It seems we aboriginal people of Britain have little connection to the Continental ‘Celts’, and that we have been here since the end of the last ice-age, tens of thousands of years ago!

In recent years chainmail armour was found to be a British invention, and even the iconic, curving and leaf-shaped swords attributed to the Celts, have since been proved to be a British creation. These were subsequently exported to Gaul and elsewhere around the world, along with so much more. Druidry is thought to have followed the same course, and we can only guess at what other concepts, theories and inventions from this period were British/Brythonic, and then mislabeled over following generations as Celtic.

The most obvious and most recent confirmation of this ‘aboriginal’ theory came from DNA analysis of ‘Cheddar Man’, and whose remains date back to the corresponding Mesolithic period, roughly 11,000 years ago. Mitochondrial DNA samples of this stone-age hunter have found to be a close match to a man, currently living in a village not far from the cave in the Cheddar Gorge, and where this ‘oldest-of-all complete skeletons’ was found. So, those ancient, aboriginal Brythons are still here!

These ‘heroic-age’, Brythonic Kingdoms in this ancient period, almost always came to form the ancestral birthright locations of later, post-Roman Brythonic Kings. Their histories and achievements, their land boundaries and family lineages would have been fiercely protected by their Bards and passed down through the generations. The Brythonic warrior class were known to place a great deal of importance on their paternal lineage and being able to recite one's ancestors for many generations’ past would have been a given.

My Welsh history included the writing of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in his History of the Kings of Britain tapped into this ancient and oral history carried forward by the Druids and then later by the Bards of this country. He greatly extended this earlier ‘word-of-mouth’ knowledge, attempting to list the lineage of all the kings of Britain who had reigned after the somewhat mythical arrival of one Brutus Greenshield from Rome. This long, ruling-line of Proto-Welsh Brythons ‘officially’ remained up to AD 689, when the end of Gwynedd's (Venedotia) attempts to regain Lloygr; the territory lost to the Anglo-Saxons, signaled to many that the time of the Brythons had come to an end.

The following list is far from complete, as there were many blanks and omissions in the surviving lists. It should not then be taken as being historically accurate, but it does form a framework for the known progenitors to these king’s and their descendants. Geoffrey of Monmouth championed the untraceable Brutus Greenshield as progenitor to this line (a political proposal?), but older Welsh sources offer an alternative, and the very namesake of this country; Prydein ap Aedd Mawr.

Aedd Mawr is purported by those ancient Brythonic scholars, to be the first tribal hunter-chieftain to have arrived with the melting ice and to have successfully settled here, naming these new lands he’d discovered for his son and heir; Prydein. Who knows, it may be Aedd Mawr’s remains that were discovered in Gough’s Cave Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, back in 1903, or perhaps it was his son’s; Prydein. That just boggles the mind….

The listed lineage (with exceptions and omissions); ‘ap’ = son of.
Beli ap Manogan ap Eneid ap Cerwyd ap Crydon ap Dyfnarth (285 BC) ap Cherin ap Porrex (II) ap Millus ap Elidyr ap Peredur ap Ingenius ap Archgallo ap Kinarius ap Guithelin ap Gurguit-Barbtruc ap Belenos-Hên/Belinus (387 BC) ap Dyfnwal ap Dunfallo ap Cloten ap Rudaucus ap Staterius ap Pinner ap Ferrex/Porrex ap Corodubic ap Kimarcus ap Iago ap Sisillius ap Gurgastius ap Rifallo ap Cuneglas (750 BC) ap Marganus ap Leir ap Bladud ap Rud-Hud-Hudibras ap (Brutus Geenshield) - or, Prydein ap Aedd Mawr.

They must have been an impressive line of warlords, as their offspring became the uncontested rulers of Cymbri and all Prydein. One of these Kings name’s stands out, and he was Beli Mawr. Marrying Dôn, (the mythical Math ap Mathonwy’s daughter) Beli becomes high king of Cymru and all Britain. They blessed Britain with six impressive children, and who went on to form a cornerstone of Welsh and British history. Beli and Dôn’s five remarkable sons; Lludd Llaw Ereint, Caswallawn Fawr, Rianaw, Nynniaw and Llefelys (heroes of Mabinogion fame) wrote their own glorious history in the annals of Britain, when they banded together for the first time in history to repel the invasion forces of one Julius Caesar.

Caesar’s Invasions in 55 & 54 BC.

The Tusculum portrait. The only known bust of
Gaius Julius Caesar sculpted whilst still alive
Attribution Link

The only surviving texts from of these invasions, were written by Caesar himself and are well known. In later Welsh manuscripts, the age-old oral tradition had been written down, and their contents made contentious and controversial reading to contemporary historians;

The allies’ first, major contact with Caesar following his landing was made on at a flat plain of land, and near a stronghold known as CaerCant, (Canterbury Fort, Kent suggested). During this battle, King Nynniaw was able to bring Caesar to single combat. In this swordfight, Nynniaw was struck a terrible blow to the head and by Caesar himself, part of which was stopped by his shield and his helmet, but Caesar’s legendary Gladius had stuck-fast to Nynniaw’s shield-rim. Nynniaw then threw down his own sword and claimed the Roman gladius from his split shield. This infamous son of Beli Mawr went on to slaughter many Romans with Caesar’s own blade. Rumours were rife at the time that ‘Caesar the Treacherous’ had poisoned his blade, as all who had been injured by it on the field of battle subsequently died, as did Nynniaw himself, many days later and in fevered agony. Caesar’s poisoned gladius was labelled ‘Crocea Mors’ by the Brythons, meaning yellow or ruddy-death and was eternally cursed.  

It seems Caesar just about escaped with his life on that first incursion in 55 BC, and regardless of his later personal reports written in comfort and with the benefit of hindsight, he was given a thorough trouncing on the fields and beaches of Kent by the allied Brythons.

Sadly or happily depending on your viewpoint, Caesar’s second invasion the following year was far more successful. Caswallawn, in his infinite wisdom and his hubris had decided he didn’t need the Northern Triad to help him, even though they were declared eager and ready to make the long journey south again in defence of Britain. Caswallawn in his arrogance had declared that his forces alone could repel the Romans once and for all. This ‘Northern Exclusion’ was a massive insult to the northern tribes after all they had done in the first invasion, and it must have caused uproar and eternal resentment toward the southern states. (It may have even been the ancient inspiration for Britain’s current north-south, cultural divide). Despite Caswallawn’s fortifications of LludsDun, the Thames approaches and many parts of coastal Kent, and regardless of his courage and leadership, the shambles of this second defence, and the internecine and treacherous, shameful backstabbing which ensued remains a sad and pivotal point. 

In this writer’s humble opinion, it marked the ending of the natural development of ancient Brythonic tradition, the culture and even the way-of-life in mainland Britain. Eventually, it changed the form and manner of Britons themselves. Regardless of those southern tribes’ shameful supplication to Rome, Brythonic Britain had almost a century to organise itself prior to the true Roman invasion of 43 AD, but they spent this time mostly adopting the culture, dress and attitudes of Rome, fighting each other and manoeuvring for more personal power, land and wealth. A cynical, technological age had come to replace a mythical, magical era, and nothing in Britain would ever be the same again, but hey; at least the roads got sorted out!

Again this was the prevailing history when I went to school, and which was entirely at odds with my handed-down Welsh history. Current thinking by leading archaeologists and historians on the period have also questioned the age-old and accepted wisdom of Rome’s gifts to ancient Britain. Did Rome bring us civilisation, medicine, education, roads, law and so-much more? In this writer’s humble opinion, they only brought their own versions of these things. We had all these concepts, teachings and advancements in Britain long before the arrival of Caesar. Our traditions and our laws were developed in our own way, and in our own style over countless generations. In-fact our glorious, unmatched culture stretched back tens of thousands of years uninterrupted, long-before the arrival on one Gaius Julius Caesar and centuries before Rome was even founded. The Romans only ever brought us the ‘cross of woe’ and almost four hundred years of brutal oppression, subsuming and destroying our own forms of art, education, construction and all the other things we were brilliant at before the Roman conquest. I think our Brythonic ancestors would have flourished had the Romans not invaded us so brutally and then stayed for so long. For example; an iron-age drover’s road in Britain was equal to anything the Romans built, and these superior roads would have criss-crossed ancient Britain since the onset of farming.

From: A Bronze Age road in Shropshire (Copyright © 2015 Edward Watson)

‘Excavation of ancient trackways is relatively rare but one event recently produced some interesting finds that have a significant bearing on the argument of the origin of Roman roads in Britain.

Archaeological evidence shows that well planned structures were being built from Neolithic times, through wet areas at least, such as the Sweet Track in the Somerset levels, itself laid over an earlier track. Increasingly sophisticated structures of timber and imported stone are found during the Bronze Age, as at Eton Rowing Lake (Berkshire), Fiskerton (Lincolnshire), Fengate/Flag Fen (Cambridgeshire), and several examples in the Thames estuary. Even gridded and metalled (gravelled) streets have been found in the later Iron Age tribal centres at Danebury and Silchester (Hampshire), from around 400 BC. The Romans certainly used these pre-historic trackways that followed escarpments, banks and ditches, which they straightened and engineered, combining short sections as necessary to provide direct routes as instruments of conquest. However, archaeological excavation has revealed that carefully surveyed and engineered, all-weather rural roads were not exclusive to Roman technology.’
Source; https://clasmerdin.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-ancient-highways-of-britain.html


From: The Institute for Creation Research: ‘Archaeologists uncovered the remains of a well-maintained and well-built British road beneath an ancient Roman road in 2011. This evidence contrasts what modern texts teach about primitive-pagan peoples inhabiting the land before Caesar conquered it, and even draws into question the long ages of human development suggested by evolution.

The ancient road, just south of Shrewsbury, was cobbled and even engineered with a camber for draining off water. The Daily Mail reported, "[It] even has a kerb fence system to hold the edge in place."1 Researchers used carbon-dating to determine its pre-Roman status.’

Source; https://www.icr.org/article/british-pre-roman-roads-lead-genesis


So, we are not the mongrel offspring of stone-age Caucasian or Gael invaders after all, nor are we Roman, Saxon or Norman equivalents. We are Brythonic/British aboriginal people. We always have been, and it’s high time we adopted the term Brythonic in our history teachings regarding ancient Britain and consigned the word Celt back over the channel to Gaul where it belongs, once and for all.

~~~~~~~~~~

Eifion Wyn Williams was brought-up in Snowdonia by a family of teachers, historians and poets. His Taid (Grandfather) was an orator and a storyteller of note, and the whole family would listen to his historical tales of dark Druids, and magic, glimmering warriors like Lludd Llaw Ereint (silver hand) and Lleu Llaw Gyffes (agile handed), both of whom feature in Eifion’s recent writing. A common character in one of Taid’s tales was a huge and terrifying giant called Yspaddaden Pencawr, who incidentally lived locally and actually ate naughty children! Eifion recently turned his focus to his Taid’s stories, the result of which is a historical trilogy entitled Iron Blood & Sacrifice, He hopes that they will appeal to a broad readership, as they are novels of adventure, love and bloody conquest at the end of the day, and with a large slice of romanticism throughout from a hopelessly romantic Brython.

Amazon Author’s Page; https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B077CVBL2F

The Celtic Community

by Annie Whitehead

Women
In the first of this series, Who Were the Celts*, I relied mainly on archaeological evidence. For the second, How the Celts Lived,** I relied on the Greek writers, who seem to have said little about the role of Celtic women, but are still our only real sources. Some of the information for this portion is taken from the findings of modern scholarship.

Women used to provide a dowry, but the men had to offer comparable value from their own property. Husbands had absolute power over their wives.

Among the Bretons, the women belonged to ten or twelve men at a time, particularly to brothers, fathers, or their children; however, the children born of such unions belonged to the man who had the woman while she was still a virgin. In Ireland, it was thought perfectly natural for men to have sexual relations with other men’s wives, mothers or sisters. Community of wives was the rule in Caledonia.

The status of women among the Celts seems to have been quite wretched. However, in the mid-first century AD, in what is now Great Britain, the Brigantes were in fact governed by a woman, Cartismandua (Cartimandua) and, in 61 AD, Boudicca, a woman of royal  blood, commanded the army of the ancient Britons. Yet no similar state of affairs can be found among other tribes or at earlier periods.

Queen Boudica by John Opie - public domain

The fidelity of Celtic women was famous throughout the ancient world, as can be seen from certain legends. Polybius [1] apparently spoke to a Galatian woman, Chiomara, wife of the king of Tolistobogii. She had been captured and raped by a Roman centurion around 189 BC. He was promised a large sum of money for her return. As she was being returned, she signalled to her compatriots to cut off the centurion's head. She presented the head to her husband, saying that it was finer thing even than fidelity, that only one man who had been her lover should remain alive.

Besides conjugal fidelity, Gaulish women had other qualities. Apparently they were beautiful, fertile, good nursing mothers, and they took great care of their children.

It is known that the Celtic women accompanied their menfolk into battle. The wives of the Helvetii defended entrenched positions against the Romans; the wives of the Britons encouraged them to a greater ardour in combat. Before the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul (Gaul on the Roman side of the Alps), a terrible civil war was fought, and the women strode into the midst of the armies, taking the role of arbiters to resolve the dispute.

Children
Caesar wrote that in Gaul, the father had the power of life and death over his children. This was also true of the Ancient Britons, and the Irish. Caesar also reported on a distinctive custom:
“The Gauls are unlike the other peoples in that they do not allow their children to address them in public until they have reached the age at which they are capable of performing their military service; they feel it is a disgrace for a man’s son to appear with him in public while still a child.” [2]
This could mean that sons remained with their mothers until they reached the age of military action or that children were brought up away from home.

The Family Unit
Irish Iron Age Celts had larger units consisting of four generations of descendants from a common great-grandfather; this unit was known as the derbfine and had its own identity in law, owning land collectively. The larger group, known as tuath or 'tribe', was ruled by the chief or king.

Society
Below the nobles were ordinary freemen, farmers who paid food-rent to the king and received cattle from the nobles in return for obligations. At the bottom of the social pyramid were, unsurprisingly perhaps, the slaves. There were learned men, the aes dána (men of art) whose skills gave them status above that or their birth and placed them on a similar level in society to warriors.

Homosexuality
There is some evidence to suggest that homosexuality was fairly openly practised among the Celts, and that it was not frowned upon. Diodorus [3] wrote that

“The Celtic women are not only as tall as the men but as courageous … but despite their charm the men will have nothing to do with them. They long instead for the embrace of their own sex. It is particularly surprising that they attach no value to either dignity or decency, offering their bodies to each other without further ado. This is not regarded as at all harmful; on the contrary, if they are rejected in their approaches, they feel insulted.” [4]

Strabo [5] confirms these homosexual practices with the brief mention that the young men of Gaul were “shamelessly generous with their boyish charms.”

Gerhard Herm wrote that as soon as they were old enough to bear arms, young people indeed lived away from home, living almost wholly with others of their own sex. They learned riding, swordsmanship, hunting, and drinking. They had to prove themselves in the field, and saw their like as the only suitable company. It is easy to see that this placed emphasis on male friendships, and Herm suggested that this gave rise to the cult of the male body. Certainly, according to Strabo, the Celts "tried to avoid becoming fat or pot-bellied, and they punished any boy whose waist was larger than the standard they set." Diodorus linked this to the wearing of the "armbands of all sorts" and said that the Celts "wear about their necks heavy rings of solid gold."

Death
The Celtiberians used to abandon their dead for the vultures to eat. The Gauls who took Rome used to bury their dead; and it was not until an epidemic occurred that they began to pile up corpses to burn them. Plutarch [6] remarked that the Gauls did not lament the passing of a dead man.

The Dying Gaul - public domain image

The funerals of the Celts of Gaul, who were relatively highly civilised, were quite splendid affairs. Anything thought to have been valued by a person during his lifetime was put on the pyre along with the body, even domestic animals.

At the time when bronze was the predominant metal for the manufacture of weapons, incineration was practised in various parts of Gaul, particularly in the southeast and north. When bronze swords disappeared, to be replaced by iron, burial under artificial mounds (tumuli) or in the earth itself, became more common.

Galician Celtic Stele for the deceased, called Apana, presumably an aristocrat of the tribe of Celtic Supertamáricos. Second Century of the Common Era. Image - public domain

One section of the Celtic community with which most people are familiar is the Druidic tradition. The Druids and their role will be examined in the last of this series, which will focus on government and Social Structure.

Next time: Occupations and Leisure Activities
*  ** Read the previous articles HERE and HERE

[1] Polybius, or Polybus, was a Greek historian born between 210 and 205 BC, in Arcadia. He wrote a general history of his time, and died around 125 BC
[2] Quote/translation The World of the Celts - G Dottin p40
[3] Diodorus (Sicilus) of Sicily was a Greek historian who used varied literary sources with little judgement of his own, and often without regard to exact chronology. For certain periods, though, he provides the best evidence available
[4] From Gerhard Herm's The Celts p57
[5] Strabo was a Greek geographer, who lived from about 58 BC - AD 25
[6] Plutarch was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, who lived from 45-120 AD

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016 and has been awarded an indieBRAG medallion. Her new release, Alvar the Kingmaker, which tells the story of Aelfhere of Mercia, a nobleman in the time of King Edgar, is available now. She is also a contributor to 1066 Turned Upside Down, an anthology of short stories re-imagining the events of 1066.
Annie's Author Page
Alvar the Kingmaker
To Be A Queen
Annie's Website
Annie's Blog

Who Stole Britain’s Sixth Century?

By David Ebsworth 

I paid my first visit to Sixth Century Britain almost fifty years ago. It was Rosemary Sutcliff’s fault, since it was through the pages of A Sword at Sunset that my juvenile “King Arthur’s Round Table” image of the so-called Dark Ages first began to dissolve – the idea dawning that a more “realistic” portrayal of the period may be possible. Soon afterwards, I became an avid reader of Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave and the subsequent novels in that series. Brilliant historical fiction!

But I was troubled. Something about the language. Silly things. Like Mary Stewart’s place names - Dinas Emrys, and Maridunum, as examples. Sutcliff’s use of Yr Widdfa and Eburacum. Lots of other novels based in the period that use names such as Gwynedd or Guenhumara. And, because I have a love of languages and etymology, I began to think the unthinkable. Why would authors writing in modern English use pseudo-Welsh or Latin words for places or people and, in doing so, lose the specific descriptive images that the contemporary “Ancient Welsh” Brythonic language(s) would have conjured up?

And I was troubled by many other things too. So I picked up histories like Laing’s Celtic Britain and The Celtic Realms by Dillon and Chadwick, to find out more. Astonishment. It seemed that those beautiful Celtic manuscript illuminations may not, after all, have been the original invention of some highly creative solitary monk on Iona, but borrowed from a much earlier indigenous literacy; that Romano-Britons probably did know one end of a stylus from the other, and had not simply committed to prodigious memory all of their records in some exaggerated “oral tradition”; that the early Dark Ages may be so-named due to Romano-British documentation being lost to us, rather than never having existed; and that “Arthur” may be no more than the imaginative product of some medieval Tolkien.

These things continued to intrigue me, on and off, over the intervening years but I did little about it until circumstance recently caused me to look again at the years we would now call 540-550 AD. Most of Britain had been occupied by the Roman Empire for a period of roughly 400 years. In the aftermath, how much of Roman administrative culture survived, and how much broke down through local warlords carving out their own domains? We don’t know. And how much did people continue to live as they had done under Roman rule? We don’t know that either but, contrary to some of the “old” history, we can now see, archaeologically, that towns like Canterbury, Cirencester, Chester, Gloucester, Winchester, Wroxeter – and presumably many more – continued to be developed, with new-build taking place, well into the Sixth Century and beyond.

Possible Appearance of Post-Roman Chester

Meanwhile, we can be reasonably certain that, from the Third Century onwards, there had been increasing numbers of continental migrants settling mainly in the south and east of the Britannia provinces. We speculate that some of these may simply have been auxiliaries in the Roman army. Or that they were mercenaries, foederati, employed to fight in the various conflicts that beset the period. Or that they were simply economic migrants – Angles, Saxons and Jutes. This is often portrayed as an “invasion”, but there’s little hard evidence for this. Battles are cited. Dates given. Yet all the sources are questionable, to say the least.

The documents normally taken as “primary sources” for this period are: the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae of Gildas, originally written, we think, in the early Sixth Century; Saint Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People), written about two hundred years later; the Historia Brittonum, compiled by some anonymous editor we now know as “Nennius”, also allegedly from the Ninth Century, though the actual manuscripts are much later; the so-called Harleian genealogies, the British Library’s Manuscript 3859, itself dating from the Twelfth Century; the Annales Cambriae (The Annals of Wales) with the earliest copy dating from the Twelfth Century; and such Irish documents as the Annals of Tigernach. And then there are even later literary manuscripts – those that are now frequently described as The Four Ancient Books of Wales, priceless as historical artefacts but entirely unreliable as historical sources for the period.

Gildas and De Excidio

That sounds like plenty of resource, yet there are very few who would be brave enough to claim these as providing the same level of “evidence” as we might expect for almost any other period of history. Only the De Excidio is contemporary and, after that, we have maybe five or six documents, scattered over the next 600 years and subject to all manner of copying errors, fashion and culture changes, political and religious tampering, literary adaptation, or simple grapevine misinterpretation. For those writing about the early Anglo-Saxon era of the late Sixth Century onwards, all of the manuscripts detailed above may provide something upon which to bite. But for those writing about the hundred preceding years, and about the very uncertain fate of the Romano-British population, they hold little of real value. So, what “new” details of the period did I discover?

Like almost everything else relating to 6th Century Britain, the extent to which Western Europe was afflicted by famines through an “Extreme Weather Event” of circa 535 AD is disputed. I was satisfied, however, that such a natural catastrophe had actually taken place, bringing widespread starvation in its wake.

Endless Winter - the Extreme Weather Event, approx. 540 AD

Similarly, I was satisfied that it was within the boundaries of possibility that Britain was struck by an outbreak of bubonic plague during the period. Procopius and other contemporaries record the plague as devastating Constantinople in 542 AD and then spreading both east and west. Gildas refers to the pestilence in Britain in the same era, though without dating the attack. The documents now known as Annales Cambriae and the Annals of Tigernach record “a great mortality” – believed to be the same plague – hitting Ireland and Wales at this time.

The third uncertainty I faced was the extent to which Rome’s occupation of Britain had left a legacy that still endured more than a hundred years after the Legions had marched away. The archaeological evidence shows that sites like Wroxeter, Chester and Birdoswald were not only still occupied as towns in the mid-Sixth Century but were also subject to the new-build developments I mentioned earlier. But it was the road system that intrigued me. We all know that the Romans built a sophisticated network of highways and byways across Britain, as they did everywhere within the Empire. So I concluded that the roads in question were likely to have still been very much in use. We are blessed that history has left us the Antonine Itinerary, which describes the Empire’s roads in great detail, including their lengths and distances between way-stations, or mansios. The Iter Britanniarum covers Britain’s section of the network, with a different itinerary for each of fifteen major routes. So, Itinerary XII, for example, covers the journey from Carmarthen to Wroxeter.

In truth, we have no real idea what most locations were called at all in Sixth Century Britain. We can speculate, using those names the Romans adopted from what they thought the locals called them, or by looking back retrospectively from accounts and stories written down only hundreds of years later. But there can be no certainty about any of this without some major new archaeological discovery and research and I still pray that Time Team, or the inestimable Mary Beard, may one day devote time to helping us re-discover the period.

Similarly, we know almost nothing about individuals who lived in Britain during the 6th Century. The same accounts and stories written down hundreds of years later leave us a patchwork of “names” that, on closer inspection, turn out to be, far more likely, titles or praise names, simple shadows, which may never have been anything more, in the first place, than folk-tale characters. My favourite, of course, is Gwenhwyfar – the character we all know as Guenivere or Guenhumara. But even a cursory examination will show us that Gwenhwyfar may not originally have been a name at all, but a title, or description. It means White Enchantress, or similar, and explains why there are so many apparently confusing legends with multiple characters all called Gwenhwyfar. Similarly, there are characters like Peredur (Hard-Spear), Vortigern (High Lord), Vortepor (Lord Protector) and scores of others – perhaps not actual names at all, but maybe praise names or self-styled titles.

And, still on language, I remained intrigued by the lack of primary sources for the period from a “Celtic” viewpoint, and the old myth that indigenous Britons must have only kept their lore, traditions and genealogies orally. Yet there are literally hundreds of inscriptions, revealed by archaeology, dating from around 500 BC onwards, in their own Celtic languages, though using Etruscan, Greek or Latin alphabets. These include entire poems, such as that found in 1887 at Deux-Sèvres – a hymn to the goddess Epona. So, literate Celtic Britons, who then lived alongside the literacy of the Mediterranean world for 400 years, and it seemed entirely inconsistent to me that Romano-Britons should have written no texts on their own history, philosophy and beliefs. And is it pure coincidence that the only fragments of Celtic language texts from the 6th Century are Christian documents, such as the famous An Cathach, attributed to St Columba? Peter Berresford Ellis, in his excellent study, A Brief History of the Celts, provides an entire chapter on Celtic literacy, and cites the references which imply that Saint Patrick, “in his missionary zeal”, burned hundreds of non-Christian texts. If true, then how widespread was the practice of Christians burning “pagan” texts?

All of which brings me back to the only contemporary primary written source for those studying Fifth and early-Sixth Century Britain. This is the text by Gildas called De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Gildas, a Welsh-Breton priest, apparently wrote one hundred and ten historical chapters and admonitions, upon which Bede drew heavily almost two hundred years later – although the oldest actual manuscript of the De Excidio dates from the Eleventh Century. For students of the Dark Ages it’s still invaluable although, over the last hundred years, a growing body of academics and researchers have questioned the authenticity of the work and, at times, whether Gildas was even the author’s real name.

My conclusion, of course, is that the period between 500 AD and 600 AD is effectively a “lost century” in British history. But at least we know with more certainty what happened next. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and other sources confirm the way in which Angles, Saxons and Jutes consolidated territory into the Kingdoms of Northumbria (most of what we now know as northern England), Mercia, Anglia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent, with the more specifically “Celtic” folk confined to the Southwest, Wales, Cumbria and the lands north of Hadrian’s Wall. According to the Chronicles, there were one or two more battles in the period, like that at Deorham around 577 AD.

But all of the foregoing contrived to give me a series of intriguing premises. What if, indeed, there was no “Arthur” – simply post-Roman warlord rivalries, filling the political vacuum and collectively inspiring the much later legends? What if the Black Hags appearing so often in Celtic mythology were actually the outward symptoms of plague? What if post-Roman Britons were also devastated by the effects of the Extreme Weather Event? What if the “invasions” by Angles, Saxons and Jutes were no more than economic migrations by which those folk, for the most part, were simply the Sixth Century’s answer to labour and skills shortage? What if most of what we’ve been taught about the period comes down to us simply from propaganda aimed essentially at further boosting the development of Christianity in Britain? What if (the corollary), for the same reason, the true record of Romano-British culture and philosophy had to be deliberately expunged?

And what if these things, together, conspired to “steal” Britain’s Sixth Century from us?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David Ebsworth is the pen name of writer, Dave McCall, a former negotiator and Regional Secretary for Britain's Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool (UK) but has lived in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife, Ann, since 1981. Following his retirement, Dave began to write historical fiction in 2009.

His latest and fifth novel, The Song-Sayer's Lament - published earlier this year - brings to life a tale of warlord rivalry, betrayal, plague, heartbreak and famine in a detailed re-imagining of post-Roman 6th Century Britain.



Website: www.davidebsworth.com
Twitter: @EbsworthDavid
Facebook Page: David Ebsworth- Author

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Winter Crone Legends

by Elaine Moxon

"She who hardens the ground with the frost and ice, which quickens the dormant seeds in the earth's womb."

'VISIONS OF THE CAILLEACH' - Sonia d'Este & David Rankine

'The Cailleach' by Michael Hickey

Winter is almost upon us, the solstice looming as the nights lengthen and daylight becomes a rare and precious thing. To our ancient ancestors we are in 'Geimredh', the dark half of the year. The sun takes his leave of us for more and more hours, our lives increasingly illuminated by the moon. Writing Dark Ages historical fiction, it is important that I know what this time means to my characters, both Britonic and Saxon. Both cultures contain legends of the Crone or Winter Hag, a goddess of good or evil who shapes the land and controls the very forces of nature. She has many guises and names, including:-

• Death Goddess
• Wise Woman
• Frau Holle/Hel
• Valkyrie
• Cailleach
• Lady of the Beasts
• Hag of the Mist
• Harsh Spirit of Winter
• Hag of the Mill-Dust

Geimredh begins at 'Samhuinn' (1st November), which for the Celts marked the beginning of a new year, a beginning shrouded in darkness, where they believed the veil between the living and dead was at its thinnest, thus allowing ease of communion between the worlds. Incidentally, burial chambers and stone circles are often oriented to the midwinter solstice, aligning those buried and the winter rituals performed within them to the Otherworld. It is also the time of the last harvest where the pagan Lord dies with the cutting of the last sheaf and begins his journey through the underworld, laid to rest in the womb of the Great Mother. It is therefore fitting that his matrimonial partner, the Lady or Goddess, takes the helm to guide her people until he is re-born in the spring. Then she will be the virgin maiden, awaiting her lover. If the harvest was good, this final sheaf was fashioned into a 'kern maiden', referencing the fruitful spring goddess. However, if the harvest was poor, it was fashioned into the guise of the Crone and no, one farmer would wish to keep it long in his house for it brought bad luck. Such was the fear of the Crone's power.

Even before man cultivated grains and modelled kern maidens, the Crone was still venerated and was a symbol of death. The elder tree is sacred to the autumn equinoxe for pagans to this day, but as far back as the Megalithic period it was present. Known as the 'tree of death', representations of elder leaves have been found carved onto funerary flints at Megalithic burial sites. There is also evidence of Welsh and Manx Celts planting elders on new graves. Winter continues to be a harsh time for many in our modern world. Death is never far away. The old or infirm, people or animals, can perish. For our ancestors, living so close to the land, tied by their dependency upon it, this was moreso. As in death, the world around them was bereft of light. Devoid of life, it must have seemed as though the Otherworld had taken over; the world of the Crone. In winter, fodder is scarce and our ancestors slaughtered weaker animals to save feed for the stronger beasts, and to feed themselves through the winter.

In such a barren landscape, any fruits borne during this time were considered sacred. Apples, a symbol of the sun and immortality, would be stored as long as possible. These remain in our modern psyche when we bob for apples at Hallowe'en, chew toffee apples or wassail our apple trees. When cut crossways an apple forms a 5-pointed star or 'pentacle' and this referred to the 5 sacred roles of the Lady or Goddess: birth, initiation, consummation, repose and death. Blackberries, with their growing cycle of green-red-black as the fruits turn, signifies the 3 stages of the goddess as maid-mother-crone and was sacred to the Celts. They also revered the hazelnut tree, as in autumn it produces flowers for beauty and fruit (nuts) for wisdom. Eating the nuts was said to impart knowledge and wisdom to those who ate them. Its association with water (the entrance to the Otherworld) made it a popular offering and has been found in lakes, wells and springs - once again the domain of female deities. This is further confirmed by 'Coll', the bardic number nine - hazel trees fruit after 9 years of growth. Nine is sacred to the aspect of the triple goddess (3 x 3 = 9). Finally, elder berries, indeed any berries remaining through winter, were deemed by the Druids to be a gift from the 'Earth Mother' or Crone and would be gathered to make ceremonial wines. In other rituals, married Celtic women would paint their naked bodies in woad to honour 'the veiled one'. Again, this is a reverence of the Winter Crone, She who controls the veil to the Otherworld, She who folds the elderly and 'tired children into her cloak of death to await another dawn'.

'White Wolf' courtesy of wallpapercave.com

The Crone can be found throughout many cultures in both a benevolent and malevolent form. You may recognise some of them!

"It is written that before the Norman invasion of England, Gyrth had a dream that a great witch stood on the island, opposing the King's fleet with a fork and trough. Tord dreamed that before the army of the people of the country was riding a huge witch-wife upon a wolf, and she tossed the invading soldiers into its mouth."

FROM BRANSTON'S DESCRIPTION OF A FAILED INVASION ATTEMPT BY HAROLD HARDRADA IN 1066 IN 'THE LAST GODS OF ENGLAND'.

Here we see resemblance to the Norse Valkyrie, Frau Holle or Hel - goddesses associated with death.

She rides through the sky on the back of a wolf, striking down signs of growth with her wand, spreading winter across the land. If she sees you, she will keep her mantle of snow over the land, so you must remain still.

"The man held the Druid wand first over his head and then over hers, at which she dropped down as if dead. He then mourned for her, dancing about her body to the changing music. Then he raised her left hand, touched it with the wand, and the hand came alive, and began to move up and down. The man became overjoyed and danced about. Next he would bring her other arm and her legs to life. Then he knelt over her, breathed into her mouth and touched her heart with the wand. She leapt up fully alive, and both danced joyously."

THE 'CAILLEACH AN DUDAIN' DANCE OR 'HAG OF THE MILL-DUST', APPROPRIATELY DANCED AT THE AUTUMN EQUINOXE, FROM THE ORDER OF BARDS, OVATES AND DRUIDS FOR 'ALBAN ELUED'.

Here we see 'the death of the fertile Mother of Life in the barren months that were to come and the promise of her resurrection in springtime'.

Other familiar representations of the Winter Crone are the Hag witches in Disney's 'Snow White' and 'Sleeping Beauty', where the aforementioned princesses are the spring-like maidens and the evil Crones their nemeses. We can also find similarities between the 'Snow Queen' in C. S. Lewis' 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', who is reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Snow Queen'. Meanwhile, Queen Elsa of Disney's 'Frozen' provides us with a more benevolent Winter Witch. She holds swathe over the land that is plunged into an eternal winter, building a palace of ice and a giant, boulder-like creature. As Beowulf hunts Grendel's mother in her watery cave (another Crone legend), so Elsa is hunted. It takes her sister Anna, another representation of the spring goddess, to persuade Arundel's population their Snow Queen has a good heart and can, if she wants to, remove winter from the land.

'The Snow Queen' by Elena Ringo

In conclusion, we are never far from these legends. Despite the many years separating us from our Megalithic or Dark Age ancestors, the legends persist and continue to permeate our so-called 'modern' lives. In reality, we are closer to our forebears than we imagine!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

'Pagan Feasts' - Anna Franklin & Sue Phillips

'Visions of the Cailleach' - Sonita d'Este & David Rankine

'Alban Elued' - Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids

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Elaine has always loved writing and history. When she decided to combine the two, she wrote her Dark Ages debut 'WULFSUNA', which was published in January 2015 through SilverWood Books. She enjoys baking, knitting and gardening and lives in the Midlands with her family and their mad Labrador. She is currently writing the second book in her ‘Wolf Spear Saga’ series.