The legend of the Saltire

Scotland’s national flag, the Saltire, is reputedly the oldest in Europe. According to legend, its origins can be traced back to the ninth century AD, to a battle fought by a combined army of Scots and Picts against the English of Northumbria. On the night before the battle, the Pictish king ‘Hungus’ vowed to make Andrew the patron saint of Scotland if the English were defeated. In response, the Apostle himself appeared in a vision, promising Hungus and his Dál Riatan allies a great victory. The next morning, as the opposing forces prepared to fight, a strange cloud-formation in the shape of a huge diagonal cross appeared in the blue sky. Flushed with hope, the Picts and Scots attacked their enemies ferociously, despite being heavily outnumbered. The English and their king ‘Athelstan’ were soundly beaten, and the Cross of Saint Andrew became the emblem of Scotland.

The Pictish king Hungus: stained glass window at Athelstaneford parish church, East Lothian.

It’s a good story, even if it isn’t based on real events. It may have been created in the thirteenth century, around the time when Saint Andrew’s Cross started being used as a national emblem. Before 1286, the diagonal cross traditionally associated with the Apostle’s crucifixion had been used in Scotland but only in religious contexts, as an emblem of St Andrews Cathedral. The fabled Pictish king ‘Hungus’ turns up as a key figure in the cathedral’s own origin-legends, so his appearance in the Saltire story is certainly appropriate.

Battle-scene on the Saltire memorial at Athelstaneford.

The battle in which the Saltire appeared in the sky supposedly took place in the year 832, near the present-day village of Athelstaneford in East Lothian. The village proudly proclaims its status as the birthplace of Scotland’s flag. In the graveyard of the parish church stands an impressive memorial commemorating the great victory. The main panel shows King Hungus and his army facing the defeated English, who have thrown down their weapons in token of surrender. Above is a smaller panel containing an inscription with these words:

‘Tradition says that near this place in times remote, Pictish and Scottish warriors about to defeat an army of Northumbrians saw against a blue sky a great white cross like Saint Andrew’s, and in its image made a banner which became the flag of Scotland’

Doocot (built 1583) now the Scottish Flag Heritage Centre.

Behind the church is a doocot (the Scots word for ‘dovecote’) constructed in the sixteenth century as a nesting-place for pigeons. Inside this tiny building is the Flag Heritage Centre where visitors can learn about the Saltire legend via an audiovisual presentation. A leaflet describing the battle, the memorial, the church and the doocot is also available. It gives additional information, telling us that the battle was said to have taken place at an ancient ford on the Peffer Burn. The village of Athelstaneford takes its name from this crossing-point.

Scottish Flag Heritage Centre: lightshow image of a warrior during the audiovisual presentation.

A few snippets of real history are embedded in the legend. We know, for instance, that the figure of King Hungus is based on one or more genuine Pictish kings who bore the name ‘Angus’ (Óengus in Gaelic; Onuist or Unust in Pictish). The most famous of these was the great warlord Óengus, son of Fergus, who conquered Dál Riata in the eighth century. A slightly later namesake – probably a member of the same family – ruled the Picts from 820 to 834 and is usually identified as the king in both the Saltire legend and the foundation-tale of St Andrews Cathedral. The Scots who fought alongside Hungus at Athelstaneford were commanded by Eochaid, grandfather of Cináed mac Ailpín. Little is known of Eochaid but he appears in the genealogical traditions attached to Cináed and may have been a historical figure. The defeated Northumbrian ruler ‘Athelstan’ is presumably based on the famous English king of this name, a West Saxon by birth, who lived a century after the Saltire battle. In 832, the traditional date of the legendary encounter, the Northumbrians were actually ruled by a king called Eanred.

Sign outside the parish church.

The true origin of the name Athelstaneford is unknown. It might commemorate the real King Athelstan – who campaigned in Scotland in the 930s – or perhaps a local namesake who happened to own land around the Peffer Burn. Whatever the truth of the matter, this quiet East Lothian village is forever linked to the most recognizable symbol of Scottish nationhood. If you like old folklore, Pictish legends and half-forgotten history, it’s well worth a visit.

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The Flag Heritage Centre is maintained by the Scottish Flag Trust.

Information about the Cross of Saint Andrew can be found at the National Archives of Scotland.

Athelstaneford village has its own website.

Photographs in this blogpost are copyright © B Keeling.

In an earlier blogpost I wrote about the two Pictish kings named Óengus and their connection with St Andrews.

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Dunnichen left out of battlefield list

Reverse of the Pictish cross-slab in the kirkyard at Aberlemno, Angus (Photograph © B Keeling)

To the disappointment of many folk in Angus, a new inventory of Scottish battlefields has omitted the great battle of Dun Nechtáin (AD 685) in which the Picts defeated an invading army from English Northumbria. The site of the battle has traditionally been identified with the area around Dunnichen Hill, 3 miles east of Forfar, by historians as well as by local people. This was questioned by Alex Woolf in a significant paper published in 2006. Woolf suggested that the Dun Nechtáin of 685 may have lain much further north, in Badenoch, in the vicinity of Dunachton. In the light of such uncertainty, the compilers of the battlefield inventory felt unable to include Dunnichen in their list.

Although I remain supportive of the Dunnichen theory, I believe the compilers reached the right decision. A particular place proposed as the site of a famous battle cannot be given an ‘official’ stamp of recognition while the location of the event is in doubt. No amount of circumstantial evidence can change that. Not even the scenes of warfare on a Pictish stone at nearby Aberlemno can clinch the identification in Dunnichen’s favour, for we cannot be certain that the sculptor was thinking of Northumbrians (rather than Britons, Scots or even other Picts) when he carved the ‘enemy’ warriors.

For a local perspective, take a look at this report published a couple of weeks ago in Dundee-based newspaper The Courier.

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I first mentioned the battlefield inventory in a round-up of online news last July.

Here’s the full reference to Alex Woolf’s article: ‘Dun Nechtáin, Fortriu and the geography of the Picts’ Scottish Historical Review 85 (2006), 182-201

Those of you who have access to James Fraser’s excellent (and essential) book From Caledonia to Pictland will find reasons for continuing to support Dunnichen at pp.215-6. As Fraser points out, the main plank of Woolf’s argument (i.e., that nowhere in Angus fits Bede’s placing of the battle among ‘inaccessible mountains’) depends on a very narrow interpretation of Latin mons as an impressive Highland peak like those in Badenoch rather than as a smaller hill like those in the gentler landscape of Angus.

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Bede’s ‘Wilfaresdun’

I suppose this qualifies as one of my occasional ‘non-Scottish’ blogposts as it doesn’t deal with places or events in Scotland. There is, however, a slight Scottish connection, because the main event referred to here marked a significant milestone in the career of Oswiu, king of Bernicia, whose realm included parts of what are now Lothian and the Borders.

We begin with the words of an Englishman, the Venerable Bede, writing c.730 at the Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow. In Book 3, Chapter 14 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede tells us that two northern English kings prepared to do battle with one another in the summer of 651. One was Oswine, ruler of Deira, a kingdom roughly coterminous with the pre-1974 county of Yorkshire. The other was Oswiu of Bernicia, whose territory lay north of the River Tees and whose chief citadel lay on the imposing rock of Bamburgh. According to Bede….

“Each raised an army against the other, but Oswine – realising that he could not fight against an enemy with far greater resources – considered it wiser to give up the idea of war and wait for better times. So he disbanded the army which he had assembled at Wilfaresdun (Uilfaresdun), that is Wilfar’s Hill (Mons Uilfari), about ten miles north-west of the village of Catterick (vico Cataractone).”

But better times were not on the menu for Oswine. After disbanding his army, he sought refuge in the home of a local lord, supposedly a loyal henchman, who held land at Gilling. There he was betrayed to Oswiu and cruelly murdered, his death occurring on 20 August.

Bede says good things about Oswine, whom he regarded as a man of piety and generosity. Oswiu on the other hand emerges from the story with little credit, but went on to become one of the greatest of all Northumbrian kings, ruling Deira and Bernicia as a single realm. The story is useful in giving us an insight into the tensions that simmered between the respective Deiran and Bernician royal dynasties in the mid-seventh century, before they were brought together as a unified Northumbria in the era of Oswiu and his sons.

Two of the places mentioned in the story are easy to find on a modern map. Catterick, here referred to by Bede under its Latin name Cataracto or Cataracta, was a former Roman town on the main north-south highway running along the eastern side of Britain. It lay close to a major junction, now known as ‘Scotch Corner’, where another road branched off to Carlisle via the high moorlands of Stainmore. Gilling, which Bede called Ingetlingum, lies south of this branch-road and was the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery. The present village is known today as Gilling West.

But where was Wilfaresdun, Wilfar’s Hill?

Historians have occasionally puzzled over this question. Some have suggested possible answers, while others have concluded that the place cannot now be identified. Suggestions have tended to focus on a belief that the place-name may have survived, with modern equivalents being sought as far afield as Wilbarston in Northamptonshire. Wilbarston is too distant to be a viable candidate but it comes under the spotlight because no similar name survives within the broad range of Bede’s “about ten miles north-west of Catterick”. In these situations the desperate search for ‘sounds like’ place-names on a modern map sometimes takes precedence over rational thought or even, as in this case, over the testimony of a contemporary chronicler. Hence we find the small North Yorkshire village of Garriston being proposed as a possibly close match to Wilfaresdun because the two names share a superficial similarity. But Garriston poses a couple of serious problems: first, it lies south-west of Catterick, an orientation that must rule it out of any serious search; and, second, it was unlikely to have ever been known as Wilfaresdun. It has the rather different name Gerdestone when it is first mentioned in the historical record (in Domesday Book in the late eleventh century). In any case, we have no good reason to doubt the geographical context given by Bede, whose information probably came from Ceolfrith, the renowned abbot of Jarrow. Ceolfrith had formerly been a monk at Gilling, where the murdered King Oswine was venerated as a saint. The Gilling monastery had been founded by Oswiu himself in atonement for the treacherous assassination of his rival.

The monks of Gilling kept alive a memory of Oswine and undoubtedly preserved authentic stories about his life. Ceolfrith would have been familiar with these tales during his time there as a novice monk. It was surely from Ceolfrith that Bede obtained his information about the location of Wilfaresdun and we can therefore take it at face value. Wilfar’s Hill, then, lay approximately ten miles north-west of Catterick. These were Roman miles, shorter than today’s measure, so the true distance in modern terms is roughly nine miles. Bede and his contemporaries had no satellite imaging or aerial photography, so their measurements of distance were based on how far a traveller had to walk or ride along roads and tracks. If we follow the Roman highway from Catterick, steering a north-west course, we soon find ourselves on the branch-road to Carlisle. There are few significant or prominent hills in the early stages of this route, for we are still in the rolling agricultural countryside of Richmondshire. In fact, there is only one noticeable landmark worthy of note. Standing on the north side of the Roman road, some eight miles out from Catterick, it rises alone from the surrounding fields and is visible from a considerable distance. Its name on modern maps is Diddersley Hill.

The southern flank of Diddersley Hill, viewed from the Roman road.

The suggestion that this hill might be Bede’s Wilfaresdun was made by Andrew Breeze in an article published seven years ago. Having visited the location this summer I am inclined to think Professor Breeze may be right, and that Mons Wilfari has been rediscovered. I also share his belief that Diddersley Hill may have been a traditional mustering-point for the armies of Deira, not just in the summer of 651 but at other times too. It certainly fits the requirements: a conspicuous landscape feature, visible to military forces approaching along the Roman road from east or west, an ideal venue for a king to gather an army comprising the warbands of subordinate lords. It is not difficult to imagine Oswine summoning his henchmen to this place in preparation for a decisive battle with Oswiu. Perhaps it was here, on the slopes of this hill, that the Deiran king surveyed his forces and deemed them insufficient for the task.

Diddersley Hill, viewed from the north.

Diddersley Hill, from the north, in its landscape context.

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Andrew Breeze, ‘Where were Bede’s Uilfaresdun and Paegnalaech?’ Northern History 42 (2005), 189-91.

The three photographs of Diddersley Hill are copyright © B Keeling 2012.

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More Brunanburh links

King Athelstan depicted on a Victorian cigarette card.

The Battle of Brunanburh was a great victory for the English king Athelstan over an alliance of Vikings, Scots and Strathclyde Britons. It took place in 937 but its location has long been a mystery.

This blogpost adds four more links to the two I noted in an earlier post relating to the battle.

In a new paper uploaded to his webspace at Academia, Mick Deakin examines the case for locating the battle near Kirkburn in Yorkshire. Using old chronicles alongside place-name data, Mick reminds us that we should not be too quick to place the battlefield west of the Pennines (as many of us do – including myself). Several pieces of information in this paper were completely new to me, and it has certainly got me thinking about my own westward-leaning view of the campaign.

Those of you who follow the comment thread below my previous ‘Brunanburh links’ blogpost will have seen Damian Bullen’s recent comments supporting the case for Burnley. Damian sets this out in more detail at his blog where, among other things, he looks at possible clues offered by local place-names. Lancashire antiquarians of the 18th and 19th centuries were happy to believe that Athelstan’s great victory was indeed won on the moors above Burnley, just as their Yorkshire counterparts thought that its true location lay in the White Rose county. Whatever our own individual views on the location of Brunanburh, the important point is that neither Burnley nor Kirkburn can be ruled out as long as the site of the battle remains a mystery.

It’s good to see these and other theories being brought into the limelight, not least to keep the debate alive, and to remind everyone that the mystery still persists. At the moment, there’s a real risk of the debate being pushed aside by a growing academic consensus that the battle took place at Bromborough on the Wirral. In the paper cited above, Mick Deakin quotes from the recently published Brunanburh Casebook, a collection of articles dealing with various aspects of the topic. The book’s editor Michael Livingston writes: ‘…put simply, the case for Bromborough is currently so firm that many scholars are engaged not with the question of whether Brunanburh occurred on the Wirral, but where on the peninsula it took place…’. While it is true that Bromborough has a strong case on place-name grounds, its identification as the battlefield of 937 remains unproven, and this uncertainty needs to be acknowledged. Alternative theories should therefore be kept in the foreground, to be studied alongside Bromborough, and with equal scholarly vigour.

My third link is to an item by Kevin Halloran, an expert on 10th-century history and the author of two fascinating studies of the Brunanburh campaign (both published in Scottish Historical Review). In a paper recently uploaded at his Academia webspace, Kevin looks in detail at Athelstan’s invasion of Scotland in 934, a military venture that turned out to be a prelude to Brunanburh. Much of the background to the latter campaign was put in place three years earlier, so Kevin’s paper will be useful to anyone with an interest in the wider political context. Some of you will already be aware that Kevin has made a strong case for identifying Burnswark, a prominent hill in southwest Scotland, as the location of Brunanburh.

Finally, a valuable resource is Jon Ingledew’s Battle of Brunanburh website which summarises the respective arguments for Burnley, Bromborough and Broomridge (in Northumberland). Jon has also gathered the various chronicle references, which makes it easier to see the different names given to the battle by medieval writers.

And so the debate continues……

N.B. You’ll need to be signed up to Academia to download the papers by Kevin and Mick.

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Vikings and other things

A view of Dingwall by I. Clark (1824).

Interesting news from Dingwall in Easter Ross which is soon to get a new visitor centre celebrating its rich Viking heritage. The town is located at the mouth of the River Peffery, hence its Gaelic name Inbhir Pheofaran, and was once a thriving port giving access to the Cromarty Firth. Dingwall is a name of Norse origin meaning ‘field of the thing’ (thing = ‘assembly’) and indicates a public meeting-place where disputes were settled and judgments pronounced. The venue was most likely a substantial artificial mound in the vicinity of the old parish church of St Clement’s. No trace of the mound survives today but archaeologists believe that the site is now occupied by the Cromartie Memorial Car Park.

The recent archaeological survey and the new heritage centre are linked to a wider initiative called the THING Project (the acronym means ‘Thing Sites International Networking Group’). This involves agencies and experts from Scottish regions such as Orkney and Shetland which were intensively settled by Vikings, together with partners from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Isle of Man and Norway itself. Among the project’s long-term aims is a nomination for the thing sites as a group entry on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.

More information on these interesting developments can be found via these links:

Heritage hub for Dingwall (Highland Council/Dingwall History Society)

Norse heritage and thing site (Dingwall Business Association)

THING Project

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Is King Arthur buried in Scotland?

The Yarrow Stone (Photo © B Keeling)

The answer to this question is Yes, at least according to Damian Bullen of Edinburgh, whose thoughts on the topic have been reported fairly widely in recent days. He thinks Arthur’s grave-marker is the Yarrow Stone, an Early Christian monument standing in the valley of the River Yarrow near Selkirk. A number of Scottish newspapers have picked up on his theory, two of these being the Daily Record and the Southern Reporter.

The Yarrow Stone is one of the most important ancient monuments in Scotland. It bears a Latin inscription, probably carved in the early 6th century, commemorating the princes Nudus and Dumnogenus (‘Nudd’ and ‘Dyfnyen’), two sons of Liberalis. Nothing else is known about these people but they belonged to a prosperous ‘royal’ family that had been Christian for at least a generation. The names of the deceased show that they were Britons or, more precisely, that their family favoured the use of Brittonic names rather than Anglo-Saxon or Gaelic ones. Liberalis (‘Generous’) presumably held land and authority in the Yarrow Valley.

There is no mention of Arthur in the inscription, nor is there any obvious reason to connect him with the stone. Hence, not everyone agrees with Mr Bullen’s view that it marks the grave of the historical figure behind the legends. Simon Stirling, author of the forthcoming book The King Arthur Conspiracy: How a Scottish Prince Became a Mythical Hero, is rightly sceptical of the Yarrow theory and has his own views on Arthur’s true identity. Simon supports the idea that the historical Arthur was really Artúr of Dál Riata, a son of Áedán mac Gabráin. On his blog he offers an alternative location for the burial-place and will no doubt say more about it in his book. In the meantime, I recommend Michelle Ziegler’s comprehensive study of Artúr mac Áedáin in the Arthurian-themed first issue of The Heroic Age. Dál Riata is also the setting for another ‘Historical Arthur’ candidate, as explained in an interesting blogpost by Mak Wilson.

Another note of caution on Mr Bullen’s theory is sounded by Melissa Snell who, like me, prefers to keep an open mind on the question of Arthur’s historicity. After discussing the Yarrow idea, Melissa adds a summary of her own views: ‘Arthur may have existed — I have never denied the possibility. But until some real, physical, unequivocal, archaeological or documentary evidence comes to light that supports his existence, I must continue to tell you We don’t know.’ More of Melissa’s wise words can be found in an older post entitled The Truth of Arthur.

It’s always interesting to see what local historians think of a new theory relating to their area. Selkirk-based Walter Elliot, well-known for his research on the Roman fort of Newstead (Trimontium), was reported by the Selkirk Weekend Advertiser as saying: ‘Mr Bullen has certainly researched the Yarrow Stone and the various stories about Arthur very well. Whether the two can be joined together is a matter of question.’ Walter’s comments appear in a longer article which can be found via this link.

Historic Scotland also reserve judgment on the matter: ‘The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) records indicate that ‘the Yarrow Stone was set up to mark the grave of two British Christian chieftains. It dates from the early 6th century and falls into place in the early Christian series more richly represented in Wales and Cornwall.’ As such, we certainly believe it is of national importance.’ This quote is from an article in Archaeology Daily News.

I can’t see many people being convinced by Mr Bullen’s theory. On the other hand, I do think he might be on the right track when he suggests that the name Dumnogenus means ‘born of the Dumno’ in the sense of ‘member of the Dumnonii’. The latter were a people of Devon and Cornwall who gave their name to the early medieval kingdom of Dumnonia. A Roman map shows a similar name Damnonii on the western side of the Forth-Clyde isthmus around what is now the Greater Glasgow urban area. If, as seems likely, Damnonii is a misprint for Dumnonii, then the ancient Glasgwegians and their Cornish compatriots belonged to two geographically-separated groups who happened to bear the same name. If the prince Dumnogenus/Dyfnyen buried at Yarrow was given this name because he was a member of a northern Dumnonian gens then we might envisage the territory of this people extending a considerable distance southward and eastward of Glasgow. This seems broadly consistent with later evidence (or a very strong hint, at least) that the kingdom of Strathclyde – the presumed successor of the Damnonii or Dumnonii – encompassed Teviotdale and other tributary valleys of the Tweed in the 10th and 11th centuries. The River Yarrow eventually flows into the Ettrick Water which itself joins the Tweed near Selkirk. Perhaps the native inhabitants of this area considered themselves ‘Dumnonian’ in post-Roman times as well as answering to Clyde-based kings five centuries later?

Postscript: I discuss the Yarrow Stone and its historical context on pp.34-5 of my book The Men of the North: the Britons of Southern Scotland.

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Scotland’s DNA: Land of the Britons

Clach nam Breatainn, the Stone of the Britons (Photo © B Keeling)

Here’s a link to an article that appeared a couple of days ago at the website of the Scotsman newspaper. It’s written by Alistair Moffat (co-author of The Scots: A Genetic Journey) and deals with a number of DNA-related topics. Alistair begins by looking at the Strathclyde Britons, a group whose history is of particular interest to me. He mentions two iconic sites associated with this people: Clach nam Breatainn, the ‘Stone of the Britons’ in Glen Falloch beyond the northern tip of Loch Lomond; and the ancient stronghold of Dumbarton (Dun Breatainn, ‘Fortress of the Britons’) on the north bank of the Clyde. He also mentions the Galbraiths, a leading family of the area around the loch, whose surname means something like ‘Stranger Briton’. Other families referred to in the article include the MacFarlanes of Arrochar, the MacDonalds and MacLeods of the Isles, the Kennedys of Galloway and the royal Stewarts whose forefather was Walter FitzAlan, High Steward of Scotland. Alistair even brings in a bit of his own history by recalling the days when he played rugby in the Scottish Borders against tough opponents called Beattie – a surname whose genetic origins go back to the Irish kings of Leinster. As an extra bonus, the article is headed by an excellent photograph of the Falls of Falloch in full spate.

Scotland’s DNA: Land of the Britons by Alistair Moffat

[I am grateful to Phil Ramsay for bringing this article to my attention]

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Did Merlin really exist?

Gustave Dore's iconic depiction of Merlin with Vivien

Although I’m sceptical about the idea of a ‘real’ King Arthur I don’t have similar doubts about Merlin. This isn’t just because I’m a devotee of the wizard’s latest TV incarnation courtesy of the BBC. No indeed. My belief in a historical Merlin goes back more than three decades, to my first encounter with a famous entry in the Welsh Annals under the year 573:

bellum armterid inter filios elifer et guendoleu filium keidiau; in quo bello guendoleu cecidit; merlinus insanus effectus est.
‘The battle of Arfderydd between the sons of Eliffer and Gwenddoleu son of Ceidio; in which battle Gwenddoleu fell; Merlin went mad.’

In 1876 the renowned Celtic scholar W.F. Skene identified Arfderydd as Arthuret, a parish on the Anglo-Scottish Border a few miles north of Carlisle. Skene also proposed that the nearby place-name Carwinley, recorded in the 13th century as Karwindelhou, derives from an earlier Caer Gwenddoleu, ‘Gwenddoleu’s Fort’. Most historians now accept this derivation. The fort itself is either the Roman one at Netherby or a native stronghold beneath the Norman ‘motte and bailey’ castle of Liddel Strength.

Much academic attention has been directed at the Welsh Annals to assess their original date of composition. They seem to have been compiled c.900, probably at the great monastery of St David’s, by a monk who gathered information from a number of earlier sources. It is likely that the entry for Arfderydd was originally a brief notice of the battle (bellum armterid) and that the details of the participants were added later. The information about Merlin may have been inserted c.1150 after the publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and possibly reflects traditions enshrined in older Welsh poems attributed to the ‘wizard’ himself. In these poems, we see Merlin fleeing in terror from the carnage of Arfderydd to seek a refuge in the forest of Celidon, a wild region of what is now southern Scotland. There in the deep woods he lived alone as a fugitive, hiding from King Rhydderch of Dumbarton who sought to capture him. In medieval Scottish legend it was believed that Merlin’s grave lies beside the River Tweed at Drumelzier, a village between Biggar and Peebles.

Wales makes its own claim for Merlin in the Arthurian stories of Geoffrey of Monmouth and in folklore about the town of Carmarthen whose Welsh name Caerfyrddin is said to mean ‘Myrddin’s Fort’ (Myrddin is an old Welsh form of Merlin). Glastonbury in Somerset is another place associated with Merlin in his familiar guise as King Arthur’s chief counsellor. For me, however, the ‘real’ Merlin is the one from the lands around the Anglo-Scottish Border. He was the bard of King Gwenddoleu at a royal caer near Carwinley in northern Cumbria. He fought at the battle of Arfderydd in 573 where he witnessed the slaying of his lord. Afterwards, he fled into the wild woods of southern Scotland to live out his remaining years as a hunted man.

Why do I believe this to be history rather than legend? The answer is fairly straightforward: it’s a hunch, an instinct, a quirky personal preference. I could try to justify my stance by adding that I’ve been interested in the circumstances surrounding the battle of Arfderydd for more than 25 years, looked at scholarly papers on the earliest Welsh traditions and reached a conclusion based on the views of experts. But this wouldn’t be entirely true. Most experts are rightly cautious about who Merlin was and whether he was ‘real’. Their careful consideration of the literature doesn’t account for my unbridled enthusiasm in placing him among the historical figures of 6th-century North Britain. Like I said, it’s really nothing more than a hunch.

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Notes & References

* On the oldest traditions of Merlin see: A.O.H. Jarman, ‘Early stages in the development of the Merlin legend’, pp.335-48 in R. Bromwich & R.B. Jones (eds) Astudiaethau ar yr Hengerdd/Studies in Old Welsh Poetry (Cardiff, 1978).

* An excellent and accessible discussion of the northern Merlin is given by Nikolai Tolstoy in his book The Quest for Merlin (Sevenoaks, 1985).

* Skene’s identification of Arfderydd as Arthuret was announced in a paper presented to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in Edinburgh: ‘Notice of the site of the battle of Ardderyd or Arderyth’ PSAS 6 (1876), 91-8.

* While visiting Carwinley in search of Caer Gwenddoleu, Skene heard of a local legend about a great battle between ‘Picts’ and ‘Romans’. Was this a genuine tradition of the bellum armterid of 573, preserved in Cumbrian folklore? I explored this question in a short article published sixteen years ago: ‘Local folklore and the battle of Arthuret’ Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society 95 (1995), 282-4.

The battle itself occupies one half of Chapter 5 of my book The Men of the North: the Britons of Southern Scotland (Edinburgh, 2010).

* For additional information on these topics, take a look at Diane McIlmoyle’s blogposts on Merlin and the battle of Arthuret.

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The Names of Rheged

Place-name expert Professor Andrew Breeze is giving the annual James Williams Lecture in Dumfries on 2 December 2011. His topic will be ‘The Names of Rheged’.

This event is organised by the Dumfries & Galloway Natural History & Antiquarian Society who will be publishing the lecture as a paper in their Transactions. In the meantime, those of us who are unable to attend will hopefully be able to read a summary on the Society’s website at a later date.

Information about time and venue can be found via this link.

For background information on Rheged I recommend Michelle Ziegler’s blogpost in her Lost Kingdoms series.

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The place name ‘Paisley’

Paisley Abbey (photograph © B Keeling)

Paisley is a large town on the southern fringe of the Greater Glasgow urban area. It lies on the White Cart Water, a tributary of the River Clyde, and is the largest settlement in Renfrewshire. Paisley’s best-known landmark is the impressive abbey which developed from a priory founded in the 12th century by Walter FitzAlan, High Steward of Scotland and forefather of the Stewart dynasty. The abbey has connections with the Stewarts and Bruces, and with the great Scottish hero William Wallace. Among its treasures is a sculptured tomb said to be that of Princess Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce of Bannockburn fame. Marjorie married into the House of the Stewards in 1314 and was the mother of Robert II, the first Stewart king. A more recent addition to the abbey’s monuments is the Barochan Cross, carved c.900, a fine example of sculpture from the old kingdom of Strathclyde. It formerly stood in an exposed position at Barochan five miles to the northwest before being brought to Paisley Abbey for protection.

The abbey reputedly stands on the site of a church founded by Saint Mirin in c.600. Mirin, also known as Mirren or Murrin, was an Irish monk who came to Scotland as a missionary. Little is known about him but he presumably preached among the Britons of Renfrewshire. Today he is commemorated in Paisley by a modern statue and the name of the local football team ‘St Mirren’. Inside the abbey his carved image can be seen in wood and stone.

Paisley Abbey: wooden carving of St Mirin (photograph © B Keeling)

Older forms of the place name Paisley include Passaleth (1157), Paisleth (1158), Passelet (1163) and Passelek (1296). Although the suffix -ley is reminiscent of Old English leah, ‘a clearing’, the medieval forms belong to a period when Celtic languages were spoken in the area. The dominant speech around c.1100 was Gaelic but its arrival in this part of Scotland was fairly recent at that time and most people in Renfrewshire had previously spoken Cumbric, the language of the North Britons. The shift from Cumbric to Gaelic began in the second half of the 11th century after the Scottish king Mael Coluim III conquered Strathclyde and deposed its native rulers. Mael Coluim and his fellow-Scots spoke Gaelic but the place name Paisley did not originate in their language. Its early recorded forms show it to have been formed in Brittonic, the language group to which Cumbric belonged.

Three major churches of Renfrewshire, c.950 (Note: Govan was partly in Lanarkshire)

The consensus of opinion sees Paisley deriving ultimately from Greek basilikos, ‘royal’, a word borrowed into Latin as basilica which in Christian times came to mean ‘church’. From Latin the term basilica passed into the Brittonic languages where it evolved into forms such as Old Welsh bassalec. The latter is still preserved in Wales as the village-name Bassaleg, written as Basselek in medieval documents. Paisley, too, is generally assumed to mean ‘basilica’. The change from initial B to P may have been due to local dialect and is not unknown in Celtic borrowings from Latin, e.g. Irish peist, ‘monster’, from Latin bestia. In Paisley’s case, the 12th-century forms Passaleth and Passelet probably arose from mistranscription of -ec by medieval Scottish scribes, perhaps under the influence of Irish baslec which also meant ‘basilica’. Passelek, recorded in the 13th century, might be a fairly close rendering of how the original Cumbric name was pronounced.

Basilica is actually very rare in place names in the British Isles. It occurs in Ireland only twice, at Baslick in County Roscommon and Baslickane in County Kerry. The former was originally Gaelic Baisleac-mor, ‘Great Basilica’; the latter derives from Baisleacan, ‘Little Basilica’. In Britain the only examples are the Welsh village Bassaleg and, if we accept the conventional view, Paisley itself. In places where Brittonic speech survived until quite late (i.e. to the 11th century) we might expect native ‘church’ names to contain eccles (from Latin ecclesia) or the prefix llan-, ‘enclosure’ (i.e. ‘monastic enclosure’) rather than basilica. The latter’s rarity in place names is consistent with its specialised use in Continental Europe where it denoted an important relic-church containing the bones of a major saint. Did the original church at Paisley hold the remains of such a person? By this definition the tomb or shrine was unlikely to commemorate a local or regional saint such as Mirin but one of international renown like a famous martyr or even an Apostle. It may seem surprising, then, to find no folklore at Paisley comparable to the elaborate foundation-legends of St Andrews which claim that the eponymous Apostle’s bones were brought from Constantinople to Fife. If Paisley did indeed have an early basilica, and if the latter term is usually associated with an important saint, why is there no local tradition of major relics being enshrined? The absence of such lore may seem, at first glance, to cast doubt on the usual derivation of the place name.

Or maybe the term basilica was not used so narrowly in the British Isles? Perhaps the Britons and their Irish neighbours associated it with any category of saint, even a minor local one? When we look at Baslick in Ireland, for instance, we find stories about St Sacell, an obscure disciple of Patrick and hardly a figure of international importance. At Bassaleg in Wales we find a similar picture: tales of a local saint (the female hermit Gwladys) but nothing about anyone of major significance. To me, this raises the possibility that the Irish and Britons regarded basilica as simply another word for ‘church’. Its occurrence (or survival) in only a handful of place names suggests that it was well down the list of preferred terms, perhaps being seen as exotic and pretentious. If Baslick and Bassaleg are the relic-churches of Sacell and Gwladys respectively, then maybe Paisley is in fact St Mirin’s basilica and the place where his bones were venerated.

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The Barochan Cross (now in Paisley Abbey)

Notes
* Alternative Brittonic origins for Paisley from Welsh pasgell llethr, ‘pasture slope’ or pas lle, ‘exit place’ have been suggested (by James Johnston and William Oxenham respectively).
* Although basilica is usually associated with churches of the highest status in Western Christendom this appears not to be the case in Eastern Orthodox areas.
* William Oxenham makes the following interesting observation on Paisley: ‘Kuno Meyer the originator of the suggestion that the name is a corruption of Latin Basilica later withdrew it as being based on unsatisfactory evidence.’ (Oxenham 2005, 210) Having not yet tracked down Meyer’s text I’m not sure what reason he gave for withdrawing the basilica idea.

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References

Stephen T. Driscoll, Oliver O’Grady and Katherine Forsyth, ‘The Govan School revisited: searching for meaning in the early medieval sculpture of Strathclyde’, pp.135-58 in S.M. Foster & M. Cross (eds) Able Minds and Practised Hands: Scotland’s Early Medieval Sculpture in the Twenty-First Century (Leeds, 2005) [see p.151 on Paisley as an early relic-church]

James B. Johnston, Place-Names of Scotland. 3rd edition (London, 1934)

William Oxenham, Welsh Origins of Scottish Place-Names (Llanrwst, 2005), pp.210-11

William J. Watson, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1926), p.194

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This post is part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde series: