Merlin and Stonehenge

'Stanenges, where stones of wonderful size have been erected after the manner of doorways, so that doorway appears to have been raised upon doorway; and no one can conceive how such great stones have been so raised aloft, or why they were built there'.1

The Hanging Stones
Since Henry of Huntingdon, archdeacon in the Diocese of Lincoln, provided the earliest written reference to Stonehenge in his History of the English, 'Historia Anglorum', c.1130 AD, debate has continued as to the correct meaning of the name.

According to the druid-obsessed 18th century antiquarian William Stukeley “the old Britons or Welsh call Stonehenge choir gaur, which some interpret chorea gigantum, the giants dance: I judge, more rightly chorus magnus, the great choir, round church, or temple.”2 Before him, William Camden writing in his Britannia, published 1610, stated that “Leland’s opinion that the British one, Choir gaure, should not be translated Chorea Gigantum, a Choir of Giants, but Chorea nobilis, a noble Choir; or else that gaure is put for vaure, which makes it Chorea magna, a great Choir, is probable enough.”3

Stonehenge by William Stukeley

The modern rendition suggests the place-name derived from Old English, its meaning usually interpreted as a description of hanging or suspended stones, seemingly a reference to the horizontal lintels across the upright sarsens. Alternatively, it may refer to an Anglo-Saxon form of punishment; a stone gallows.4 The Saxon word for Gallows was 'hengen'.

Writing his Latin chronicle less than a decade after Henry of Huntingdon, Geoffrey of Monmouth in his 'Historia Regium Britanniae'  (History of the Kings of Britain) c.1136,  which he claimed he translated from an ancient book in the British tongue, rendered  'chorea gigantum'. In the Welsh adaptations of Geoffrey’s Historia, the Brut Y Brenhinedd (Chronicle of the Kings) Stonehenge is called Côr y Cewri, which gives 'The Giant's Circle' in English which seems an apt description for the monument constructed of massive stones on Salisbury Plain. However, I will follow the translation given by Lewis Thorpe and stick with the 'Giant's Dance'.5

The Night of the Long Knives 
By way of providing an explanation of how the monument on Salisbury Plain was erected Geoffrey claims that Merlin the wizard was responsible for magically transferring The Giant’s Dance from Ireland to Salisbury Plain in England.

Geoffrey, loosely following the account in the 9th century Historia Brittonum,6 tells us that after Hengist's Saxon's had treacherously slaughtered 460 unarmed British Nobles 7 at a peace conference, having concealed daggers in their shoes, Vortigern is forced to concede his cities and fortified places in consideration of their granting him his life. He then fled to Kambria (Wales).

Geoffrey continues: Afterwards, St. Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, gave Christian burial to the British nobles at the  monastery not far from Kaercaradauc, now Salisbury, situated on the mountain of Ambrius, as he thought something ought to be done to perpetuate the memory of that piece of ground, which was honoured with the bodies of so many noble patriots, that died for their country.

Masons and carpenters were summonsed to construct a lasting monument to those great men, but they refused to take on the task lacking confidence in their own skills to manufacture a fitting edifice. Tremounus, archbishop of the City of Legions, went to the king Aurelius, and said, “If any one living is able to execute your commands, Merlin, the prophet of Vortigern, is the man.”

"If you are desirous," said Merlin, "to honour the burying-place of these men with an ever-lasting monument, send for the Giant's Dance, which is in Killaraus, a mountain in Ireland. For there is a structure of stones there, which none of this age could raise, without a profound knowledge of the mechanical arts. They are stones of a vast magnitude and wonderful quality; and if they can be placed here, as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever." 

The first illustration of Stonehenge: Merlin and Stonehenge

 from Wace's Roman le Brut (Egerton 3028).

Utherpendragon, brother to the king, was despatched to Ireland with fifteen thousand men. After defeating Gillomanius and his vast army the Britons made for mount Killaraus and arrived at the structure of stones. Merlin challenged them to take down the stones. They set up their engines, cables, ropes and ladders in an attempt to remove the Giant's Dance but all to no purpose. Merlin laughed at their vain efforts, and then began his own contrivances and took down the stones, and gave directions for carrying them to the ships, and placing them therein. This done, they set sail again, to return to Britain; where they arrived with a fair gale, and repaired to the burying-place with the stones. Merlin set up the stones brought over from Ireland, about the sepulchre,  placing them in the same manner as they had been in the mount Killaraus.

After forming a confederacy with Pascentius, the son of Vortigern, and the Saxons, Gillomanius came for the Giant's Dance and landed at the city of Menevia (St Davids, Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales). Uther went forward into Kambria to engage with the confederate forces of Gillomanius while  Aurelius lay sick in Winchester. One of the Saxons, named Eopa, disguised as a monk, went to Winchester and promised to restore the king to health if he would take of his potions. The king duly obliged but the potions secretly conveyed a poisonous mixture and after falling asleep he died shortly after. He was buried within the Giant's Dance, near the convent of Ambrius.8 On his death Uther's body was also taken to the convent of Ambrius, where they buried him within the Giant's Dance close to Aurelius Ambrosius.

The one and only occasion when Geoffrey refers to the stone circle by the name of Stonehenge is when he states that Constantine was buried: “......by the side of Utherpendragon within the circle of stones, called Stonehenge in the English language, which had been built with such wonderful skill, not far from Salisbury”.9

Such is the story of the founding of Stonehenge, at least as far as Geoffrey was concerned; Merlin is intimately connected with a monument constructed as a memorial to the British Nobles murdered by Hengist's Saxons. After bringing the Giant’s Dance to Britain, followed by Arthur’s conception, Merlin’s significance fades from the Historia and the wizard disappears from Geoffrey's pages.10

Had Geoffrey invented the story of how the Giant’s Dance got to Salisbury Plain, or was he following an ancient tradition? In what follows we will examine Geoffrey's claims:

• The Giant's Dance was erected as a monument to 460 British nobles close by their sepulchre,
• The Giant's Dance was dismantled from a pre-existing stone circle in the west and transported over water to Salisbury Plain,
• The stones of the Giant's Dance possessed healing properties.

Next: Merlin and Stonehenge Part II: The Stonehenge Cemetery

*

Notes & References:
1. Henry of Huntingdon, 'Historia Anglorum', c.1130.
2. William Stukeley, Stonehenge, A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids, 1740.
3. William Camden, on Wiltshire in Britannia, 1610.
4. Christopher Chippendale, Stonehenge Complete, Fourth Edition, Thames & Hudson, 2012.
5.  Lewis Thorpe, Introduction and Translator, The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Penguin Classics, 1973.
6. The account is notably absent from Gildas, Bede and the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
7. The Historia Brittonum cites 300 but fails to identify the location.
8.  Probably the Abbey at Amesbury, two miles east of Stonehenge the largest settlement on Salisbury Plain.
9.  Thorpe, Op.cit. p.262.
10. Geoffrey returns to Merlin in a later work, Vita Merlini, c.1151.

* * *

Footsteps of King Arthur Conference

Chaired by Professor Roberta Gilchrist 

(University of Reading and Glastonbury Abbey Trustee)

Conference Itinerary:
09:30 - 10.30 Registration and coffee
10.30 – 10.35 Welcome
10.35 – 10.45 Introduction
10.45 – 11.15 Professor Elizabeth Archibald (Durham University) - ‘King Arthur through Modern Eyes’
11.15 – 11.45 Dr Cheryl Green (University of Reading) - ‘Antiquarian Excavations and the legacy of Arthur’
11.45 – 12.30 Break
12.30 – 1.00 Johnny McFadyen (PhD Student, University of Bristol) - ‘Arthur in the Medieval West'
1.00 – 1.30 An audience with Geoffrey Ashe M.B.E. - Question and answer session
1.30 – 2.30 Buffet Lunch
2.30 – 3.00 Professor Ad Putter (University of Bristol) - ‘Medieval Arthurian literature on British soil.’
3.00 – 3.30 Rhianedd Smith (University of Reading) - “We don’t want Disney'
3.30 – 4.00 Break
4.00 – 4.30 Professor Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol) - ‘The Historical Arthur’
4.30 – 5.00 Discussion & Questions to the panel from delegates
5.00 – 5.15 Summary
5.15 – 5.30 Closing

Speakers:

Elizabeth Archibald is Professor of English at Durham University and Principal of St Cuthbert's Society. Her interest in Arthur began when she was an undergraduate at Cambridge.
Her publications include 'A Companion to Malory' (1996), 'Incest and the Medieval Imagination' (2001), and 'The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend' (2009).
Elizabeth is the President of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society.

Cheryl Green was Research Assistant for the project led by Professor Roberta Gilchrist, University of Reading, assessing the archives from the 1908 – 1979 excavations at Glastonbury Abbey. This informed a major four-year research project culminating in a Monograph (forthcoming Gilchrist and Green 2014) publishing exciting new evidence resulting from the re-analysis of the historic excavations, extensive new geophysical survey and specialist assessments of the finds assemblages.

Johnny Macfayden is just finishing his PhD on Latin Arthurian literature at the University of Bristol. His research interests are primarily to do with the socio-politcal and ideological utility of the Arthurian Legend, Medieval Romance and Latin Arthurian Historiography.

Geoffrey Ashe is the author of 26 books and needs no introduction to Arthurian scholars.
Geoffrey has a special interest in Glastonbury which is reflected in King Arthur's Avalon (1957) and its fiftieth anniversary edition. He was co-founder and secretary of the Camelot Research Committee which, under the presidency of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, conducted the excavation of the South Cadbury hill-fort.

Ad Putter is the General Editor of Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, and has published widely in the area of medieval literature. His books include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance (1995), An Introduction to the Gawain Poet (1996), and Studies in the Metre of Alliterative Verse (2007).

Rhianedd Smith has recently completed an AHRC funded doctoral research project examining the interpretation of Glastonbury Abbey's legends and archaeology.

Ronald Hutton has published fourteen books on different aspects of history and prehistory, mostly with reference to Britain, including Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain (2011) and Witches, Druids and King Arthur (1993).


Tickets cost £20 adults and £18 concessions, to include a buffet lunch and are on sale from the Abbey Shop or via the online shop

* * *

Arthur and the Giants

"....and what of Arthur himself? His nature is unmistakable: he is the folk hero, a beneficent giant, who with his men rid the land of other giants..." 

Land of the Giants
In 'The History of the Kings Of Britain' Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that the island of Britain was first called Albion and inhabited by none but a few giants. After the Trojan war Brutus sets sail from Greece and arrives at the deserted island of Leogecia. Here he finds a desolate city with a temple of Diana with a statue of the goddess which reputedly gave answers to those who consulted her. They set three fires to the three deities Jupiter, Mercury and Diana and offered sacrifices to each. Before the altar of the goddess, Brutus drank from a consecrated vessel filled with wine and the blood of a white hart and asked the goddess of his destiny. He laid down on the hart's skin that he had spread before the altar and fell asleep. During the night goddess presented herself to him and foretold of his future:

“Brutus! There lies beyond the Gallic bounds,
An Island which the western sea surrounds,
By giants once possessed, now few remain,
To bar thy entrance, or obstruct they reign,
To reach that happy shore thy sails employ
There fate decrees to raise a second Troy
And found an empire in thy royal line,
Which time shall ne'er destroy, nor bounds confine.”

After Brutus arrives on the coast of the promised land at Totnes he drives the giants into the caves and mountains and then divided the country among themselves. Brutus called the island Britain after himself. His campanion Corineus called that part of the island that fell to his share Corinea and his people Corineans, called in Latin Cornubia. Here he encountered more of the said giants which were in greater numbers here than the other provinces. Among the rest was one detestable monster called Goëmagot (Gogmagog) who was of such enormous stature that he pull up an oak as if it were a hazel wand. One day when Brutus was holding a festival in the port where they first landed they were attacked by this giant and twenty of his companions. They killed everyone but Goëmagot who Brutus wanted Corineus to fight in combat. During the fight the monster fell into the sea at a site called 'Lam Goëmagot', that is Goëmagot's Leap.

The site of this wrestling match is said to be Plymouth Hoe where chalk giants once appeared on the Hoe carved into the turf. In Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall in 1602, he refers to there being two club wielding figures on the slopes of the Hoe, first recorded in 1495, one bigger than the other, which he calls Gog and Magog, bisecting the original name, although it seems the smaller figure should have been called Corineus and the larger figure Gogmagog if the figures represented the duel as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The chalk figures were unfortunately destroyed during the construction of the Royal Citadel in the reign of King Charles II.

St Michael's Mount

Later in Geoffrey's Historia he tells of a giant who has come over from the shores of Spain and has abducted Helena the daughter of Duke Hoel and fled with he to the top of what is now Michael's Mount. The soldiers who pursued him were helpless, overturning their ships with vast rocks or killed them with several sorts of darts and devoured them half alive. Arthur fought him alone and after killing the giant had Bedver (Bedwyr) cut off the creature's head and take it back to camp to put on public display. Arthur told them he had found none so great since he killed the giant Ritho on Mount Avarius.

Thus, following the tradition of Brutus the Trojan set out in the 9th century Historia Brittonum, is Geoffrey's account for the foundation of Britain to which he elaborates in the giants of Cornwall. There is a strong possibility that Geoffrey's account is the inspiration behind the Cornish fairy tale 'Jack the Giant Killer', the tale of a plucky lad who slays a number of giants during King Arthur's reign. Although Jack and the Giant Killer did not appear in print until the early 18th century the oral tradition must have been in existence in the west country many years before.

Giants are very common throughout British folklore, often represented as the original inhabitants of the island before the civilising of the island and it is likely that the traditions existed before Geoffrey's time. Indeed, many of Arthur's retinue from the earliest stratum of the Arthurian legend, i.e. before Geoffrey, appear to be giants.

Gwenhwyfar's family of Giants
Gwenhwyfar first appears as Arthur's Queen in How Culhwch Won Olwen (c.1100). Shortly after, her abduction features in The Life of Gildas (Vita Gildae), written c.1130 by Caradog of Llancarfan for the monks of Glastonbury.

Subsequently the tale of the abduction of Gwenhwyfar became popular with the writers of Continental Arthurian Romance. However, it is significant that in Gwenhwyfar's first appearance in Arthurian literature she is listed amongst Arthur's companions Cei and Bedwyr, both characters from the earliest stratum of the Arthurian legend. From this we can hold with reasonable confidence that Gwenhwyfar is not an invention of the later continental writers but has her origins in Welsh vernacular tradition. 'Culhwch' also lists a certain Gwenhwyfach, said to be her sister.

The Triads of the Island of Britain (Trioedd Ynys Prydein) claim that the battle of Camlan was brought about because of a quarrel between Gwenhwyfar and Gwennhwyfach (Triad 84) , also listed as on of the Three Harmul Blows of the Island of Britain (Triad 53) when Gwenhwyfach struck upon Gwenhwyfar. The name Gwenhwyfach is unknown outside of Culhwch and these two Triads.

Gwenhwyvach = 'Gwen the Small' has led to the assumption that Gwenhwyvar should in
fact be translated as Gwenhy-Mawr = 'Gwen the Great', which could perhaps mutate to Gwenhwyvawr. This interpretation seems more likely due to scribal error, with 'White Fairy' probably the correct translation of her name. This has led to the interpretation of an additional line to a later version of Triad 56, 'Bad when little, worse when great' which is seen as portraying Gwenhwyfar as able to change in size and become gigantic in stature. However, there is another Triad (Triad 56) that links Arthur's queen to the giants. Here Arthur has Three Great Queens, all named Gwenhwyfar:

Gwenhwyfar daughter of Cywryd Gwent,
and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gwythyr son of Greidiawl,
and Gwenhwyfar daughter of Gogfran the Giant. 

A late tale recorded by Sion Dafydd Rhys, c.1600, preserves a tradition at a place called Bron Wrgan, on the frontier of the land of Shropshire, as the abode of giants who have imprisoned some brothers to Gwenhwyfar, the daughter of Gogyrfan the Giant (Gawr). Arthur saved them all, killing the giants, and taking the head of the biggest of them and throwing it into the middle of the river instead of a stone, in stepping across the river, to go to Castell y Cnwclas. And as he placed his foot on the head of the giant in stepping across the river Arthur said, 'May the head grow (tyfed yr iad) in the river instead of a stone'. And henceforth that river was called Afon Tyfediad.

There is Welsh tradition that Arthur married Gwenhwyfar at Castell y Cnwclas, now known as Knucklas Castle, by the village of Knucklas in Powys and the Afon Tyfediad is the River Teme, rising on Cilfaesty Hill, forming the boundary between Powys and Shropshire, England from Wales.

Arthur and the Giants in Celtic Mythology
Giants, or cewri, feature prominently in Welsh folklore and mythology. Among the most notable are Brân the Blessed (Bendigeidfran = Blessed Raven) from the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, and Ysbaddaden Bencawr, chief giant and the father of Olwen, of the early Arthurian tale How Culhwch Won Olwen. In the latter tale Arthur features prominently as a giant-slayer in Welsh tradition. Furthermore, many features in the Celtic landscape preserve traditions of Giants, such as the mountain in southern Snowdonia known as Cadair Idris, the chair, or seat, of Idris the Giant who used the mountain as his chair while gazing at the stars. But it is a late tradition in which Idris appears as a giant in popular culture.

However, we find early references to Idris as an ancient chieftain in the Welsh Annals (Annals Cambriae) and the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Tigernach, all of which commemorate his death around 632 AD, with both Irish annals referring to Idris as 'King of the Britons.' His realm was presumably around the Cadair Idris region which remained one of the least Romanised areas of North Wales. He was the ruler over the forts which guarded the Mawddach and the pass north to Llyn Tegid. The folklore surrounding the stone at Dol-y-feili, including Lech Idris and the now lost stone at Mynydd Hengae may have marked the tribal boundaries or at least a range of ancient trackways near Cadair Idris. Edward Lhuyd noted two pairs of of extra-ordinarily large skeletons found with hazel rods in the middle of 16th century by peat cutters in the bog at the base of the southern ascent of the mountain.

The giant-slaying runs like a sub-plot running throughout Culhwch with the main story generally based on the well-known scenario of 'The Giant's Daughter', variants of which are found across the world. Arthur and his retinue are given forty impossible tasks (anoethau), by Ysbaddaden Chief-giant to achieve if Culhwch is obtain the hand of Olwen, the giant's daughter.

Yet the giant slaying in Culhwch appears to have an obsession with the removal of the beard's as if some kind of trophy. Essentially, the attainment of the majority of the these tasks is to ultimately obtain the comb and shears between the ears of the supernatural boar, the Twrch Trwyth, to groom the Chief-giant.

Culhwch sets off to obtain the last task first, 'The sword of Wrnach the Giant'. Cei beheads the giant and takes his sword. The Chief-giant tell them the sword is required to kill the Twrch Trwyth, but the boar is not killed; at the end of the tale he is last seen disappearing into the sea off the Cornish coast pursued by the two hounds Aned and Aethlem.

Another of the impossible tasks set by the Chief-giant is to make a leash from the beard of Dillus Farfawg (the Bearded), to hold the two whelps of the bitch Rhymhi. The Chief-giant  tells them that 'And no use can be made of it unless it be twitched out of his beard while he is alive, and he be plucked with wooden tweezers. He will not allow any one to do that to him while he lives, but it will be useless if dead, for it will be brittle'.

Arthur is not present during the killing of the giant Dillus Farfawg, it is Cei who is again the giant slayer. As Cei and Bedwyr were sitting on top of Pumlumon on Carn Gwylathyr, they saw smoke rising to the south which was Dillus the Bearded singeing a wild boar. After eating Dillus fell asleep: 'When Cei knew for certain that he was asleep he dug a pit under his feet, the biggest in the world, and he struck him a blow mighty past telling, and pressed him down in the pit until they had entirely twitched out his beard with the tweezers; and after that they slew him outright'. 

Finally, at the end of the tale, it is Goreu son of Custennin, Arthur's cousin, who beheads the Chief-giant and impales his head on a stake.

The Legend of Rhitta Gawr
The combination of Giants and beard-collecting surfaces again in the Legend of Ritho, or Rhitta, Gawr, a tale which features strongly in Welsh folklore yet does not appear before Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th century version although it no doubt existed in oral tradition before this time.

Arthur heard that a giant of monstrous size from the shores of Spain, and had forcibly taken away Helena, the niece of duke Hoel, and fled with her to the top of that which is now called Michael's Mount. The soldiers who pursued him were helpless against him. Arthur slayed the giant and commanded Bedver to cut of his head, and  and give it to one of the armour-bearers, who was to carry it to the camp, and there expose it to public view.

Yr Wyddfa

Arthur said he had found none of so great strength, since he killed the giant Ritho, who had challenged him to fight, upon the mountain Aravius. This giant had made himself furs of the beards of kings he had killed, and had sent word to Arthur to carefully cut his beard and send it to him; and then, out of respect to his pre-eminence over other kings, his beard should have the honour of the principal place. But if he refused to do it, he challenged him to a duel, with this offer, that the conqueror should have the furs, and also the beard of the vanquished for a trophy of his victory. In his conflict, therefore, Arthur proved victorious, and took the beard and spoils of the giant.

Geoffrey's Mount Aravius is usually accepted as Yr Wyddfa, the summit of Mount Snowdon, (in Welsh 'Eryri' = 'the Abode of Eagles'), where a cairn was erected at the spot the giant lay called Gwyddha Rhita (Rhita’s cairn). A difficult phrase but the best translation of Yr Wyddfa is 'the important tumulus', or 'burial place' possibly from the giant's tomb, however this is a contentious issue. The burial mound was destroyed many centuries later to make room for a hotel. However, the 15th century bard Rhys Goch Eryri of Beddgelert apparently introduced the tale into its present form but located the burial mound on Carnedd Llewellyn. Once people realised it was not the highest summit in Wales, the story re-located to Yr Wyddfa.

John Rhys records a tale when Arthur and his men pursued their enemy into the upper reaches of Cwmllan (Camlan?), called Tregalan, on the southern slopes of Snowdon, the modern Watkin Path, where they were pushed up the bwlch, or pass, towards Cwm Dyli. When Arthur's army had reached the top of the pass, the enemy let fly a shower of arrows at them. Fatally wounded Arthur fell, and his body was buried on the mountain pass so that no enemy might march that way so long as Arthur's dust rested there. The pass is called Bwlch y Saethau, (the Pass of the Arrows) and the heap of stones called Carnedd Arthur, (Arthur's Cairn) which could still be seen on the top of the pass in 1850.

After Arthur's death on Bwlch y Saethau, his men ascended to the ridge of the Lliwed and then descended the precipitous cliff-face into a vast cave called Ogof Llanciau Eryri, (the Cave of the young Men of Snowdon) above Llyn Llydaw in Cwm Dyli. Arthur's warriors are said to lie sleeping in their armour in the cave waiting for the second coming of Arthur to restore the crown of Britain to the Kymry.

Rhys records the poem of a local bard, known as Glaslyn, which claims that near Arthur's Cairn on the shoulder of Snowdon lies the remains of the famous giant Ricca, recalling an older couplet in a poem by Rhys Goch Eryri:

On the ridge cold and vast,
There the Giant Ricca lies.

The Giant's cairn on the summit of Snowdon was demolished before the hotel was erected. Glaslyn the bard had not heard it called after Ricca's name, but he confirms that old people used to call it Carnedd y Cawr, 'the Giant's Cairn.'

Geoffrey's version of the tale has remained popular but a variant of the tale is recorded in a chapter on giants,  compiled from oral tradition, by Sion Dafydd Rhys (John Davies of Brecon, 1534 - c.1619) in his defence of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, which survives in the manuscript Peniarth MS 118, Llyfr Sion Dafydd Rhys (c.1600),  Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales:

'In the land of Merioneth and close to Pen Aran in Penllyn and under the place called Bwlch y Groes, is a grave of great dimensions where they say Lytta or Ritta or Ricca or Rithonwy or Itto Gawr was buried; whose body some of the giants removed from Eryri to somewhere near Mynydd Aran Fawr in Penllyn. This Ricca Gawr was the one with whom Arthur had fought and had killed in Eryri. And this giant made for himself a robe of beards of the kings he had killed. And he sent to Arthur to order him to cut off his own beard and send it to him. And as Arthur was the chief of kings he would place his beard above the other beards as an honour to Arthur. And if he would not do that he begged Arthur to come and fight him; and the victorius of them to make a robe of the others beard.

Other accounts say that Itto Gawr called himself the king of Gwynedd and they fought on top of a hill called Bwlch y Groes between Mowddwy and Penllyn in Merioneth. After casting their weapons away, in the struggle they rolled to the plain to the place called Blaen Gynllwyd, after plucking each other beards. And in membrance of that the hill is called Rhiw y Barfau [near Towyn] And after that they fought with swords in the place where Arthur killed the giant in which place Itto's grave can be seen to this day at the foot of the slope.'

Arthur the Giant
As we have seen there is ample evidence for Arthur as a giant slayer but what of Arthur as a giant?
His in-laws, i.e. Gwenhwyfar's family, appear to be giants as we have seen above. Yet, apart from the many references to Arthur in the landscape that portray him as a being of huge size, a man capable of throwing enormous capstones from cromlechs as a discuss or quoit, throwing  a massive boulder as a pebble from his shoe, and huge mountain features that are described as his chair, megalithic henges described as Arthur's Round Table, we find but one reference in medieval literature.

In the Mabinogion tale Rhonabwy's Dream (Breuddwyd Rhonabwy), Rhonabwy sleeps on a skin from a yellow calf, as a prelude to gaining otherworldly wisdom, which is where we began with Brutus at the temple of Diana. Significantly, the tale is found only within the 14th century Red Book of Hergest, among other prophetic works such as the Sybilline prophesies and The Seven Sages of Rome. The tale then is in essence the vision Rhonabwy experiences whilst sleeping on the yellow calf-skin.

In the tale Arthur shows concern at the size of the men now defending the island:

“Then came Iddawc and they that were with him, and stood before Arthur and saluted him. 
"Heaven grant thee good," said Arthur. "And where, Iddawc, didst thou find these little men?" 
"I found them, lord, up yonder on the road." 
 Then the Emperor smiled. 
"Lord," said Iddawc, "wherefore dost thou laugh?" 
"Iddawc," replied Arthur, "I laugh not; but it pitieth me that men of such stature as these should have this island in their keeping, after the men that guarded it of yore." 



Edited 21/02/13


Notes & References

Rachel Bromwich and D Simon Evans, eds. Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale, University of Wales Press, 1992.
Rachel Bromwich, ed. Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, University of Wales Press; 3rd Edition, 2006.

Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, The Mabinogion, Dent 1949.

Lewis Thorpe, trans. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings Of Britain, Penguin, 1973.
John Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, 1891.
John Rhys, Celtic Folklore: Welsh & Manx, 1901
Chris Grooms, The Giants of Wales: Cewri Cymru, Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.
Sion Dafydd Rhys, The Giants of Wales and Their Dwellings, available online at Mary Jones, Celtic Literature Collective.
Robert Jones, Yr Wyddfa: The Complete Guide to Snowdon, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 1992.

* * *

Albion's Lost Lands: Lyonesse

“So all day long the noise of battle rolled
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur’s Table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their lord,
King Arthur.  Then, because his wound was deep,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land:
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.” 1

Lyonesse
The search for the site of Arthur's final battle where he fell mortally wounded at Camlann has defied identification; candidates have been proposed from the length and breadth of the country. Lord Tennyson seems to be in no doubt and in his Arthurian epic “Idylls of the King" places the final battle between Mordred and the King at Lyonesse.

Tennyson has Arthur roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse long before they crowned him King and refers to the 'sad sea-sounding wastes' and 'lonely coast' of Lyonnesse.

We cannot be certain of Tennyson's inspiration in identifying Lyonesse as the scene of Arthur's final battle against Modred but he was clearly aware of the legend of a land off the coast of Cornwall, connecting Penwith with the Scillies; The Land of Lyonesse, stretching some eighteen miles west of Land's End and eight miles north-east of the Isles of Scilly with a watchtower at the most westerly point to guide seafarers.

“A land of matchless grace was Lyonesse,
Glorious with rolling hills, rejoicing streams,
Hoar monuments upreared when Time was young,
Wide plains of forest, slopes of golden corn,
And stately castles crowning granite peaks”

Following Arthurian tradition Tennyson’s Lyonesse was the realm of Tristan, or Tristram as he became known by English writers, one of the main characters of the greatest legends of Cornwall, the story of Tristan and Iseult, a Cornish hero and one of the Knights of the Round Table. Thomas Malory has the Lady of Lionesse play a significant role in his tales of Arthur and mentions Surluse as part of the kingdom of Lyonesse where Sir Galahad was ruler under Arthur. 2

However, although the tales of Tristan are firmly placed in Cornish tradition there were two other places with variations of the name Lyonesse as Leonais: one in Brittany, and the other seemingly from the French name for Lothian in Scotland. Arthurian romancers may have confusingly called this land off the coast of Cornwall 'Lyonesse,' following the Breton tradition, but the Cornish name for this stretch of land between Land's End and the Scillies was 'Lethowstow'.

On the flats between the small Isles of Scilly are the remains of field walls, now under the sea, evidence of division of the land before it was submerged. Further evidence of man's presence before the inundation is found in an Early Iron Age hut found below the high-water mark on St Martins and pottery from the 3rd and 4th centuries and a Roman bronze brooch from a stone grave found below normal high tides on Old Man. Environmental evidence shows that as late as Roman times the area between the Isles of Scilly was dry land and just one island, a single large, wooded isle which could be walked to at low tide. A Roman writer records a heretic who was banished to Sylina Insula, the island of Scilly, in 387 AD.

The confusion of the location of Lyonesse/ Lethowstow, as the antiquarian, William Camden records, seems to exists because Cornish people during the 16th century referred to the Seven Stones reef off Land's End as the City of Lions, the reputed site of the capital of the legendary kingdom, confused with the Breton town Leonais, probably the region around the coastal town of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, and this form is the probable source of Malory’s Lionnesse. The Seven Stone rocks are held to be the remains of the city where local fishermen have dragged up domestic items in their nets, still calling the Seven Sisters the 'The Town.' 3 Today this reef remains a navigational hazard for shipping and has caused as many as 200 shipwrecks.

In later traditions Lyonesse is said to have sunk beneath the waves some time after the Tristan stories take place. A persistent legend claims that the Isles of Scilly are all that remain of the fabled land of Lyonesse. However, we find no references in medieval Arthurian legend to the sinking of Lyonesse.

The story goes that a devastating storm swept in to the south west driving the marauding sea over Lyonesse, drowning the luckless inhabitants and submerging the kingdom beneath the waves, until all that remained in view were the higher ground to the west, known to us now as the Isles of Scilly. Legend claims that only one man, Trevilian survived, and he rode a white horse up to high ground at Perranuthnoe before the waves could engulf him. It is said that his ancestry lives on in the Cornish Trevelyan family, whose coat of arms bears a horse issuing out of the sea.

Elizabethan antiquaries collected reports current in the 16th  century stating that Lethowstow contained 'fair-sized towns and 140 churches' and was suddenly engulfed by the sea. They also claimed that one could hear the bells of the drowned city ringing out during rough seas. Today the remains of field boundaries show up at low tide along the sands of the Sampson Flats between the isles of Tresco and Sampson in the Scilly Isles.

Stanley Baron, a journalist from the News Chronicle who was residing in Cornwall during the 1930's, was awoken during the night by the muffled ringing of bells and was told by his hosts that he had heard the bells of Lyonesse.  Edith Oliver, the former mayor of Wilton, claimed she had twice seen towers, domes, spires and battlements beneath the waves whilst standing on the cliffs at Land's End.

What Lies Beneath 
Perhaps much of this can be dismissed as fantasy?
Yet, there is evidence of a drowned forest on the Cornish coast with tree stumps sticking out into the sea at Mount's Bay suggesting the sea levels were once much lower. Furthermore, the old Cornish name for St Michaels Mount is 'Carrack Looz en Cooz' which translates as 'The grey rock in the wood'. Archaeological evidence indicates that Mount's Bay was the source of a prehistoric axe material. We have clear evidence of a submerged land in the south-west England within historical times.

Inundation legends are found in many other parts of north-western Europe, not least in Celtic lands.

Gerald of Wales claimed there was a drowned city beneath the waters of  Llangorse Lake in the Brecon Beacons, Mid Wales. On the North coast of Wales near Llandudno was Llys Helig, the palace of Prince Helig ap Glanawg; it is said the ruins can still be seen at very low tides. Off the North-West coast of Wales in Caernafon Bay there is a cluster of rocks, a reef known as Caer Aranrhod, named after the mother of Lleu Llaw Gyffes from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion. Charlotte Guest in her notes to the Mabinogion, states that, "There is a tradition that an ancient British town, situated near this place, called Caer Arianrhod, was swallowed up by the sea, the ruins of which, it is said, are still visible during neap tides, and in fine weather."

Tree stumps can be seen leading out into the sea at low tide in Cardigan Bay, Wales, the mythical site of Cantre'r Gwaelod (The Bottom Cantred).

But the nearest legend to Lyonesse is the tale of the mythical Breton city of Kêr-Is which was built on the coast of Brittany in a then-dry location off the current coast of the Bay of Douarnenez. Over time the Breton coast had slowly given way to the sea and it now threatened Kêr-Is. To protect the city from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by King Gradlon.

But the gate was left open during a storm and at high tide a massive wave crashed down on Kêr-Is and the city was swallowed by the incoming waters. King Gradlon escaped on Morvarc'h, his magical horse.  Which is all remarkably similar to the tale of Lyonesse and Trevilian who escaped on his horse and perhaps the inspiration behind the Cornish story.

In addition to describing Lyonesse as the site of the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, Tennyson's Idylls of the King also claim the lost land is the final resting place of  King Arthur himself. Perhaps this is why the grave of the King cannot be found – it lies beneath the sea.



Copyright © 2013 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

*

Notes & References:
1. Alfred, Lord Tennyson,  'The Passing of Arthur' from Idylls of the King, published in twelve books between 1856 and 1885.
2. Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, first published 1485.
3.G E Daniel, Lyonesse and the Lost Lands of England in Myth or Legend?, Bell and Sons, 1955.

 * * *

More Staffordshire Hoard Artefacts Found

Three years after metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert made the discovery of the largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold in 2009, a further 90 pieces have been discovered in the same field during ploughing of the field in Hammerwich, near Lichfield.

Following the original discovery of the Hoard the dig was closed down when archaeologists were confident they had retrieved everything that was recoverable. Last month, a team of archaeologists and experienced metal detectorists from Archaeology Warwickshire returned to the field when it was ploughed and recovered further material. These are currently being examined and x-rayed at a specialist archives laboratory.

More Staffordshire Gold - Photograph by Vivienne Bailey

Many of the 90 pieces from the new find of gold and silver weigh less than a gram and includes a probable helmet cheek piece, a cross-shaped mount and an eagle-shaped mount. Experts from Staffordshire County Council and English Heritage believe the pieces could be part of the original hoard. Archaeologists were convinced they had recovered all of the Hoard in 2009 and Dr Della Hooke, vice president of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society, said "It's absolutely amazing. In the last search they used top-quality equipment to go over the area, which they use to find underground stuff in Afghanistan. They were absolutely certain there was nothing else down there.”

Dr Hooke added that the new find could also prove wrong some theories as to how the items got to the field, "Nobody really knows why the hoard is there. It could have either been a deliberate burial on a boundary perhaps after someone died or buried quickly by someone who had stolen it who was making an escape on Watling Street. ….....This new finding, if it is part of the hoard, could change everything. If they found the items in a different location it doesn't sound like it was stolen after all."

However, the new pieces appear remarkably similar to the items recovered from the same field in 2009, typical warrior regalia, or Anglo-Saxon "gangland bling" as historian David Starkey called it, the spoils of war recovered from the fallen at the battle site. Repeated ploughing is capable of scattering artefacts considerable distances from the original interment. It is unlikely we will ever know why the Hoard was buried in this field but it is significant that it is very close to the major route of the Roman road of Watling Street, the modern A5. We can only speculate if the Hoard was booty from one of Penda's many raids on Northumbria or the Welsh  attack on Caer Lwytgoed, Wall (Letocetum) near Lichfield,  recorded in Marwnad Cynddylan.

The Staffordshire Hoard artefacts found in 2009 include a bishop’s pectoral cross, a large folded cross, a helmet cheek piece, a filigree seahorse and many sword fittings including hilt plates and pommel caps. The bulk of the Hoard has been dated to the 7th century, although there is some debate among experts as to when the Hoard first entered the ground yet there seems little doubt that this is war booty buried in the Mercian heartland of Staffordshire.

The Staffordshire Hoard was declared treasure and valued at £3.3m by independent experts at the British Museum, the most valuable treasure discovery ever made. A huge fundraising campaign, led by The Art Fund, and featured a major donation from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, was launched to bring the treasure back to the West Midlands.

The new items were found in the same field where over 3,900 pieces of over 5kg of gold, 1.5kg of silver and thousands of small garnets and some copper alloy objects were found in 2009 but we will have to wait for an inquest on 4th January 2013 when South Staffordshire Coroner Andrew Haigh will rule if the metalwork pieces are part of the Anglo Saxon collection and should be declared treasure.


** UPDATE JANUARY 2013 **
Coroner confirms new find is Staffordshire Hoard
After hearing evidence for around an hour, which included a presentation from Anglo-Saxon metalwork expert Dr Kevin Leahy who worked on the original discovery, Coroner Andrew Haigh ruled in Stafford today (Friday 04/01/2013) at South Staffordshire Coroner’s Court inquest, that a further 81 artefacts discovered in November 2012 in the same farmer’s field in south Staffordshire, including a helmet cheek piece and pectoral crosses similar to items from the original find in 2009, are part of the Staffordshire Hoard collection.

The coroner’s ruling means that the new artefacts are officially classed as treasure, and will now undergo a valuation by the Treasure Valuation Committee at the British Museum at a hearing likely to take place at the end of March. The hearing will determine the amount of money the land owner and metal detectorist who originally discovered the Staffordshire Hoard can expect to receive for the newly found items.

The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent is currently displaying the largest exhibition of the Staffordshire Hoard to date. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery also has a permanent exhibition of the treasure.


Sources:
'More Delights are Discovered' – Stafford Express & Star, 20 December 2012
Coroner Confirms New Staffordshire Hoard Find - Birmingham News Room 04 January 2013


** UPDATE APRIL 2014 **
Rethinking the Staffordshire Hoard
England's largest-known cache of Anglo-Saxon metalwork has been reunited for the first time since its excavation, allowing researchers to uncover a wealth of new information about its parts, provenance, and purpose.
It is now known that decorations were stripped from far more weapons than previously suspected. Could the hoard comprise the spoils of multiple battles?
Current Archaeology 290

*

Staffordshire Hoard at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
A new gallery uncovering the fascinating story of the Staffordshire Hoard is now open from 17 October 2014 at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Hundreds of pieces from the Hoard are on show, along with hands-on displays exploring how these intriguing items were used, before they were buried some 1400 years ago.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery


Secrets of the Saxon Goldsmiths
All that glitters is not gold? According to the latest research on the Staffordshire Hoard, it certainly seems so. Ongoing investigations are revealing that sophisticated Saxon goldsmiths had developed a technique to make their gold appear to be rather more golden than it really was. How did they do it?
Current Archaeology 297 


The Staffordshire Hoard Symposium
Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium held at the British Museum in March 2010.


The Staffordshire Hoard website
Keep up to date with the latest news on the largest hoard of Anglo Saxon gold ever found.

* * *

The Bones of Richard Whiting

"Item, Certayn persons to be sent to the Towre for the further examenacyon of the Abbot, of Glaston . . . . Item. The Abbot, of Glaston to (be) tryed at Glaston and also executvd there with his complvcys. . . Item. Councillors to give evidence against the Abbot of Glaston, Rich. Pollard, Lewis Forstew, Thos. Moyle." - The Remembrances of Thomas Cromwell, October 1539.

Mystics and Madmen
From the memoirs of the King's henchman, Thomas Cromwell, is it is clear that the fate of the Last Abbot of Glastonbury had already been decided before he had left the Tower; Richard Whiting was guilty and should suffer before his own community the ultimate indignity, and destined for him the gruesome death of a traitor in the sight of his own Abbey; Cromwell decreed the Abbot was to be hung, drawn and quartered at Glastonbury.

Following what can only be described as a mock trial at the Bishop's Palace at Wells, the proceedings appear to have moved directly to the execution the next morning, 15th November 1539, when Abbot Whiting and the Abbey treasurers John Thorne and Roger James, were taken to Glastonbury.  On the outskirts of the town the frail old Abbot was spread-eagled across a sheep hurdle which was tethered to a horse, and then dragged through the streets of Glastonbury, past his beloved Abbey, now in ruins after wrecking by the Royal Commissioners, and up the Tor where the gallows had been erected by the side of St Michael's tower.

On 16th November, the day after the execution, Lord Russell, he who had assembled the jury at Wells, wrote to Cromwell:

" My Lord, - 'This shall be to ascertain that, on Thursday, the 14th day of this present month, the Abbot of Glastonbury was arraigned, and the next day put to execution, .... for the robbing of Glastonbury church, on the Torr Hill, next unto the town of Glaston : The said abbot's body being divided in four parts, and head stricken off; whereof one quarter standeth at Wells, another at Bath, and at Ilchester and Bridswater the rest, and his head upon the abbey gate at Glaston.

To the cities and towns here named, these fearful tokens of royal vengeance were duly despatched and at once placed on poles in prominent places, " according to law :" at Bridgwater, near the market-place ; at the borough of Ilchester, on the ancient octagonal tower of the parish church of Our Lady ; at Wells, over an old gateway, now wholly destroyed, which stood not far from the east end of the cathedral ; and at Bath, on a spot said to be covered by the handsome Roman Catholic church...' - J. Russell." [1]

Just as Rusell had reported, Whiting's lifeless body was cut down, the head hacked off and his corpse divided into four parts. Before nightfall Whiting's head had been fixed over the gateway of his Abbey at Glastonbury, the four parts of his body dispersed to Bridgewater, Ilchester, Wells and at Bath.

The events of the downfall of Glastonbury Abbey and the execution of its Abbot and two treasurers can only be described as one of the most abhorrent episodes of the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the 16th Century. Yet it is also perhaps the most enigmatic. Most of the information about Richard Whiting's arrest, trial, and crime are now 'missing'. The Letters of Lord Russell and Richard Pollard, the Royal Commissioner, seemingly the only surviving accounts of the execution.

Events of the last days of Glastonbury Abbey and it's Abbot generate an atmosphere of such strangeness it is difficult to argue with Geoffrey Ashe who describes the execution on the Tor as “the act of madmen or mystics …” [2] Cromwell clearly thought Whiting was hiding something and not just treasure. Theories abound that the Abbots of Glastonbury were guardians of the true Apostolic Succession of the British Church. If the King could have uncovered this it would have served him well in his fight for supremacy over the Church of Rome. Whatever it was, Whiting took the secret to the grave with him.

Consequently there are doubts about the record of the execution: there was almost certainly no trial at Wells; Cromwell had already decided the fate of the Glastonbury Three in London.

It has been suggested that the place of Abbot Whiting's martyrdom was not the Tor, but the smaller hill nearer the town, called Chalice Hill, arguing that Cromwell had ordered that "the Abbot of Glaston would' be taken to Glaston and executed by its ruins . . " [3] and that the Tor cannot be seen from the Abbey. But this is not correct - the Tower of St Michael can be clearly seen from the Abbey grounds and therefore the hangman's gibbet constructed by the side of the Tower would also be clearly visible. Indeed, my understanding is that the site of the executions were on the North side of the Tor facing the Abbey and the last thing that Whiting would have seen as he stood at the gallows was the wrecking of his beloved Abbey. The whole act of this execution of  a frail, harmless old man was cruel beyond reason.

The Abbot was executed on his own; the two monks are not reported as being strapped to hurdles along with Whiting. There is no record of the two monks John Thorne and Roger James being taken to the place of execution with him, but immediately afterwards and by another route.  Dr. F. G. Lee states “The refinement of cruelty which thus compelled an old man to bear his sufferings alone is manifest.” [4]

“From a MS. in the handwriting of the late Mr. Sharon Turner, it appears that in looking over certain transcripts of papers from the family collections of the house of Russell he found the draft of a letter from Sir John Russell to Cromwell, in which the former admits that the Abbot was intentionally executed alone, so as to prevent his receiving any sympathy or aid from his two spiritual sons in the Order—who were executed on the same day—and because of his stubbornness and obstinacy.” [5]

The letter of Richard Pollard to Thomas Cromwell, November 16, 1539, tends to confirm this:

“Pleaseth it your Lordship to be advertised that..[On November 15] the late abbot of Glastonbury went from Wells to Glastonbury, and there was drawn through the town upon a hurdle to the hill called the Torre, where he was put to execution; at which time he asked God for mercy and the king for his great offences towards his highness…Afore his execution [he] was examined upon divers articles and interrogatories to him ministered by me, but he could accuse no man of himself of any offence against the king's highness, nor would he confess no more gold nor silver nor any other thing more than he did before your Lordship in the Tower…I suppose it will be near Christmas before I shall have surveyed the lands at Glastonbury, and take the audit there….” [6]

Out of the Ruins
Following the Dissolution, the Abbey remained an abandoned ruin, albeit for a period in the 16th century when a colony of Protestant Dutch weavers were established on the site. In the 17th century even more stones were removed, so that by the turn of the 18th century the once illustrious Abbey was described as a ruin and remained in private ownership until the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1908 the Abbey ruins were purchased by the Bath and Wells Diocesan Trust and became the property of the Church of England. Shortly after Frederick Bligh Bond was appointed by the Church to direct an archaeological investigation. Bligh Bond had considerable expertise in church architecture and had quite rapid success in rediscovering a number of buildings that had once occupied the site. Before completing his archaeological work Bligh Bond was dismissed in 1921 by Bishop Armitage Robinson after he claimed in his book The Gates of Remembrance (1918) to have received information from the dead monks of the Abbey who guided his excavations in automatic writing sessions through the medium Captain John Allan Bartlett. These were the first recorded results by psychic archaeology and of course the Church would have none of it. Five years later Bligh Bond left for America where he worked as editor on the magazine, of the  American Society for Psychical Research.

Bligh Bond never actually claimed to have used spirits but said  that he had tapped into a memory bank of the monks who once occupied the Abbey, who he termed the 'Company of Avalon'. One of the discoveries Bligh Bond made at Glastonbury were some human bones interred near the site of the High Altar. Bligh Bond was convinced that these were the remains of Richard Whiting. An automatic writing session revealed that the Abbot's bones were recovered from the towns where they were displayed and at sometime must have been re-interred at the Abbey as Bligh Bond found them.

In the session Bligh Bond asked, "As to traces of an interment behind the reredos wall. Can you tell us anything of this ?"  [7]

The response: "Yee martyr was hee. They made a martyr's grave.  He was not coffined, for they were but bones got by ye faithful from Bathe and Tauntone, and brought in secret. He was yplaced under ye altare, and they who pulled yt downe when Elizabeth was Queene drew hym out. They knew not who hee was, our Abbot. Ye knowe. . . . Hee who swam in ayre when hee wold not. Whytynge. They knew not. Wee deemed the altare wold stande for alle tyme." [8]

The Company of Avalon seemed to confirm  that the bones that Bligh Bond removed from behind the reredos wall did indeed belong to Richard Whiting. In 1910 Dom Aelred Carlyle, Abbot of Caldey, an Anglican Benedictine community in South Wales, visited Glastonbury Abbey to meet with Frederick Bligh Bligh Bond. On his return to Caldey, Dom Aelred took with him ‘a casket of old bones’ that had been excavated at the Abbey a few years earlier. The casket contained a third of the bones found. Both Bligh Bond and Dom Aelred believed these bones were the remains of the Last Abbot of Glastonbury.  The bones, believed to be Whiting's, were placed in a reliquary at Caldey and “honoured at Vespers, Lauds and High Mass.” [9]

In 1913 Caldey changed allegiance from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism, and the relics were quietly removed from view. Eventually the monks, taking the bones with them, moved from Caldey to Prinknash Abbey, a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery in the Vale of Gloucester in the Diocese of Clifton, near the village of Cranham, Gloucestershire.

Today these relics are still preserved at Prinknash Abbey, and were shown in a television programme about the paranormal.

Evidence produced during the 2008 Channel 4 documentary presented by Tony Robinson have since  raised considerable doubts about the accuracy of the claims that the bones belonged to the martyred Abbot Richard Whiting. The relics, rolled in muslin and housed in a hand painted reliquary, were examined during the programme which found no evidence of the expected wounds that would have been inflicted by the brutal butchering of the Abbot's body on Glastonbury Tor. Two plastic bags containing what appeared to be powder was apparently the remains of Whiting's skull. Following analysis one of the bones was found to be non-human in origin, from a medium sized mammal. But although there is some doubt on one of the bones examined, others are human, and should be carefully considered in the context of whom they belonged to before disregarding the relics out of hand. [10]

The find seems to have raised more questions than answers: why was only a third of the remains found behind the reredos wall and passed onto Caldey Abbey? Where are the other two thirds? Is this all of the Abbot's remains that was recovered from Bath and Taunton as recalled by the Company of Avalon? Perhaps only the old monks knew the answers.

Today, there seems no way of substantiating the claim that the bones belong to Richard Whiting just as it is impossible to prove that Bligh Bond had breached the gateway to the memories of the monks of Glastonbury Abbey. Make of it what you will.

*

Today, 15th November, we remember the Glastonbury martyrs; the deaths of Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury and his companions John Thorne and Roger James. But it was also at this time that the last Abbots of Colchester, Thomas Marshall (John Beche), and Reading, Hugh Cook Faringdon, were cruelly executed outside their Abbey gates as traitors. We should remember them also and all those that lost their lives during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early days of the English Reformation. These five men were included in a list of sixty-three martyrs recognised by the Catholic Church for dying for their faith between the years 1534-1560 and formally beautified by Pope Leo XIII between 1886 and 1895.


Copyright © 2012 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

Notes & References:
1.  Dr. F. G. Lee, Historical Sketches of the Reformation, P.217.
2.  Geoffrey Ashe, King Arthur's Avalon.
3.  Francis Aidan Gasquet, Last Abbot of Glastonbury and Other Essays.
4.  Dr. F. G. Lee, op.cit. fn p.212.
5.  Ibid.. Appendix V, p.419.
6. T. Wright, ed. Letters Relating to the Suppression of Monasteries, (London: Camden Society, 1843), pp. 255-56, 261-262, Reprinted in Leon Bernard and Theodore B. Hodges, eds. Readings in European History, (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 241-42.
7.  A 'reredos' is an altarpiece, or screen behind the altar in a church, usually depicting religious iconography or images. Holy men were typically interred under the altar of their own religious house.
8.  Frederick Bligh Bond. The Gate Of Remembrance : The Story Of The Psychological Experiment Which Resulted In The Discovery Of The Edgar Chapel At Glastonbury. p.65.
9.  Jon Cousins, The Glastonbury Documents I: Re-Membering Richard Whiting. Cousins describes the execution of the Glastonbury Three as an act designed to break the spirit of the Somerset town. Something is missing that can only be restored by the the return of Whiting's remains to the Abbey.
10. Tony Robinson and the Ghosts of Glastonbury -Tony Robinson and Becky McCall investigate antiquarian Frederick Bligh Bond, who claimed his excavations at Glastonbury were guided by communications from dead monks. First shown 30 December, 2008, Channel 4.

* * *

Iron Age Army found in Danish Mass Grave

Bog Bodies
Naturally preserved human corpses are not an uncommon find in the wetland peat bogs of Northern Europe. Preserved in the saturated sphagnum moss, optimal conditions for preservation, examples of  'Bog bodies' include the Osterby Head from Germany, Tollund Man from Denmark, Old Croghan Man from County Offaly in Ireland, Lindow Man from Cheshire, England, Grauballe Man in Jutland, Denmark, and the Windeby Girl from Northern Germany.

These well preserved bog bodies have proved to to be a treasure trove for archaeologists, opening  a window on the ancient North European peoples. In 1891 the Gundestrup cauldron was found in a bog at Himmerland, Denmark. Between 1946 and 1948, in the nearby Borremose peat bog three bog bodies were found, dating to the Nordic Bronze Age. The practice is indeed ancient, the oldest known bog body is Koelbjerg Woman, found in Denmark, dated to c.8,000 BC.

The vast majority of bog bodies discovered date from the Iron Age, and many display evidence of being stabbed, bludgeoned, hanged or strangled, or a combination of all these methods, the classic Celtic triple death of sacrificial offerings to the gods. Yet, others argue, citing the accounts of Tacitus as supporting evidence, that rather than religious sacrifices the bog bodies were criminals and outlaws who were executed before being unceremoniously dumped in the peat bogs.

The Mass Grave at Alken Enge
Excavations commenced in a peat bog near the village of Alken on Denmark's Jutland peninsula in 2009 revealed the Danish bog has been harbouring a sinsiter secret for thousands of years. To date the remains of around 240 Iron Age warriors had been found preserved  in the bog. At the time of the massacre the bog was a small basin by Lake Mossø, created by a tongue of land jutting into the lake. Many of the remains, aged between 13 and 45, exhibited cuts and slashes on the skeletons, typical of of slaughtered soldiers, suggesting they had died violently, yet, nothing certain is known about the identity of the victims or their slayers.

A skull found at the site
(Photo: Skanderborg Museum)

Danish archaeologists re-opened the mass grave in July this year to find new clues about their fate and the bloody practices of Germanic tribes 2,000 years ago at the edge of the Roman Empire. Archaeologists were confident they would end up with a scale much larger than the 240 that they had previously found as they had only touched upon a very small part of the bog. What they discovered was unique in Denmark and quite extraordinary in a European perspective.

In their further excavations the archaeologists discovered the skeletal remains of an entire army in an ancient mass grave at Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The remains of the Alken warriors were surprisingly well preserved and considered to be evidence of a sacrifice to the gods, confirming descriptions from Roman sources of atrocious war practices and shocking Teutonic massacres. Further, when the Teutons were victorious, they tended to kill all the surviving enemies.

Archaeologists have spent all summer excavating a small sample of what has turned out to be a mass grave estimated to contain the skeletal remains from more than 1,000 warriors, who were killed around 2,000 years ago. Test pitting at different places in the 40 hectare Alken Enge wetlands area continually revealed new finds, expected to be so massive that the archaeologists do not expect to be able to excavate all of it. They have so far only excavated an area of 80-90 square metres that contained bone fragments from around 240 men. The finds did not include complete skeletons but damaged human bones, including a fractured skull and a thigh bone hacked in half, along with the tools of war, axes, spears, clubs and shields, confirming that the bog at Alken Enge was the keeper of the remains from a sinsiter, violent event.

It is conjectured that the army beneath the bog may had been defeated and killed at a battlefield located some distance from the Alken Wetlands, as many of the archaeological finds in the area appear to come from afar. However, although unable to positively identify the battle site, the researchers are confident that the sacrifice occurred some time after the battle, as some of the the bones have bite marks on them and evidence of gnawing  indicating they were exposed to predators after death. Some time later, the remains of the fallen warriors remains were collected from the battle site, transported and sacrificially deposited into the waters of the lake that has since dried into a bog, thus preserving the remains.

Bog Warfare
The discovery of the remains of an entire army in an ancient mass grave is being portrayed as evidence of reports from written sources reporting macabre Teutonic practices and massacres. The researchers have compared the find at Alken to Tacitus' description of the aftermath of Rome's famous defeat in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, Northern Germania, in 9 AD when an alliance of tribes led by Arminius of the Cherusci ambushed and effectively destroyed three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus:

“In the middle of the plain, bones lay either spread out or heaped, depending on whether they had fled or resisted. Next to the bones lay bits of spears and horse limbs, and there were also human heads nailed to trees. In the nearby groves were barbarian altars in which they had sacrificed tribunes and centurions of the first rank,” - Tacitus, Annals, Book I (The War in Germany).

Although groups of survivors reached the Lippe valley, the Roman army that had been permanently under attack since it had passed through the Kalkriese narrows, now effectively no longer existed. Tacitus writes that captured officers were sacrificed to Germanic gods.

Retrieving the bodies of the victims of battle some time later is not unusual. Tacitus says that there was a tomb for soldiers of the legions of Varus, the usual interpretation is that a tomb was later built on the main battlefield. The Roman general Germanicus marched to the Teutoburg Forest, where he buried the dead. The burial took place at the Kalkriese, where five pits were found that contained the remains of many adult males. The skeletons seem to have been exposed for a few years before they were finally buried.

Germanicus ordered Aulus Caecina Severus to retreat from the Teutoburg Forest with four legions (I Germanica, V Alaudae, XX Valeria Victrix, and XXI Rapax) by way of the pontes longi (literally "long bridges" in Latin, an expression to describe wooden roads built across bogs). These trackways were the only way through the peat bogs but left the Roman army very vulnerable in narrow columns. Groups of Germanic warriors under Arminius attacked the withdrawing Legions, but the Romans were able to force their way across the bog and finally reached the safety of the Roman legionary base at Castra Vetera (Xanten) on the Lower Rhine. Tacitus describes this hill as steep and adds that it was only approachable from one side.

Tacitus describes the pontes longi, as "a narrow causeway between vast marshes," a well-known type of trackway that has been identified across the bogs of north eastern Europe, the oldest dating back to the Neolithic, such as the Sweet Track in Somerset. Not all of the many trackways running across these bogs have been dated dendrochronologically, but the construction of Roman roads in the Osnabrückerland has been determined for the year 5 AD, such as at Dievenmoor, "the thief's bog,” region in southwest Lower Saxony in Germany, which extends into the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the region dominated by the Teutoburg Forest.

The Bones of a Vanquished Army?
The discovery of human skeletal remains at Alken Enge should really be of no surprise. Several well-known sacrificial locations of differing context have been identified in the river valley of Illerup Ådal, known as the "Holy Valley", near Skanderborg. This area appears to have been a focal point for the wider community as a place to regularly conduct sacrificial rituals during the Iron Age; the Alken Wetlands is considered a very complex sacrificial location.

Yet we are left with the tantalising question of who were these slain warriors deposited into the dark waters of the lake at Alken Enge 2,000 years ago.

The sacrificed army was discovered in an area which has turned out to be brimming with archaeological treasures, where archaeologists have found around 15,000 objects, thought to be mainly weapons sacrifices from the Iron Age, but carbon 14 analysis has revealed that none of these could have belonged to the sacrificed army. Alken Enge appears to have been used a sacrificial site for some time.

Further, the archaeologists have not yet been able to determine the ethnicity of the slain warriors because they have found very few remains of weapons associated with them in the grave: a few arrowheads, the remains of a shield and a very well preserved axe, complete with a shaft, a very rare find. 

Ejvind Hertz, curator at Skanderborg Museum said “The bones have been sacrificed months or even years after the warriors were killed. We won’t know until the bones have been carefully analysed.” He added, "The bones are completely fresh. Some DNA has been preserved, so we can get a good profile of what Iron Age man looked like."

Detailed analyses of the remains of the slaughtered warriors will endeavour to answer questions about who they were, where they came from and reveal the story of an entire army's apparent sacrifice.

The excavation project is a cooperation between Skanderborg Museum, Moesgård Museum and Aarhus University, supported by a DKK 1.5m grant from the Carlsberg Foundation.


Copyright © 2012 Edward Watson
http://clasmerdin.blogspot.co.uk/

Source:
An entire army sacrificed in a bog - Science Nordic 22 August 2012

*

UPDATE 29 JULY 2014

Ritual Destruction of Iron Age Warriors
In 2012 archaeological excavations revealed the bones of an entire army, whose defeated warriors had been thrown into the bogs near the Alken Enge wetlands in East Jutland, Denmark. Continuing work has revealed a wooden stick bearing the pelvic bones of four different men. In addition the study team from Aarhus University, Skanderborg Museum and Moesgaard Museum has unearthed bones bearing marks of cutting and scraping, and crushed skulls suggesting a violent sequel took place after the fallen warriors had lain on the battlefield for around six months.
It appears the remains of the fallen were gathered together, the flesh was cleaned from the bones, which were then sorted and brutally desecrated before being cast into the lake.

Source: Past Horizons 29 July 2014

* * *