Read The Mammoth Book of King Arthur Online
Authors: Mike Ashley
§32–35 of Nennius’
Historia
tells a story about Germanus’s visit to Britain, a story that does not relate to any other life of Germanus of
Auxerre. It tells how Germanus tries to seek audience with the wicked king Benli, who refuses to see him. He is welcomed instead by one of Benli’s servants, Cadell. Germanus warns Cadell to
leave the fortress, and that night it is destroyed by a bolt from heaven. Cadell was the grandson of Vortigern and became the forefather of the kings of Powys. Table 3.9 assigns him the dates
460–530, which is too late for St Germanus. Most scholars believe that Nennius has confused Germanus with the Irish-born St Garmon, who may have been a nephew of St Patrick, and who preached
throughout Wales, especially Powys, in the late fifth century. The hill fort of Moel Benlli is near Maesgarmon, the suggested site for the “Alleluia” victory. It is possible that both
sites should be associated with St. Garmon.
In the next section Nennius returns to the Saxon invasion of Britain, although, as with the Cadell episode, he seems now to be recounting folklore rather than true history.
In §36 he tells us that after the Saxons had been settled on Thanet for “some time”, Vortigern promised to supply them with provisions if they would fight
the enemy, the Picts and Scots. But as the barbarians had “greatly increased in number”, the Britons could not keep up with demand and told the Saxons they were no longer needed and
could go home.
We don’t know how long Nennius meant by “some time.” It could mean an entire generation, possibly suggesting two different folk memories that have become jumbled. The first
Saxon
adventus
, around 428, led to them being granted land at Ruym. The next stage may be after that settlement has grown through children and fresh settlers. We could now have moved on to
the period described in the
ASC
as starting in 449.
In §37 Nennius contradicts himself. He reports Hengist as saying, “We are indeed few,” and promising that if Vortigern agrees, Hengist will go home and return with more men. He
returns with sixteen ships and his daughter, with whom Vortigern becomes besotted. Hengist agrees that Vortigern can marry her in exchange for the “province” of Kent. Vortigern grants
Kent to the Saxons, much to the annoyance of the native ruler Gwrangon. Hengist continues with his grand plan and, in §38, says to Vortigern:
If you approve, I will send for my son and his brother [cousin], both valiant men, who at my invitation will fight against the Irish, and you can give them the countries
in the north, near the wall called Guaul.”
Vortigern agrees, and Octa and Ebissa arrive with forty ships. The two sail to the land of the Picts, lay waste to the Orkneys and take possession of territory “beyond the
Frenessican Sea”, a contrived name for the Solway Firth.
One other point to note from this section is that Nennius says Vortigern had an interpreter called Ceretic. This was a common Celtic name, so one should not jump to conclusions, but one wonders
why Nennius (or his chronicler) should name the interpreter at all, as he appears nowhere else but here. It suggests a connection with Cerdic, the later West Saxon leader, but since we have already
determined that Cerdic’s reign may not have
started until 538, he is unlikely to be with Hengist in the 440s.
Nennius’s narrative turns to another reason to condemn Vortigern. In Section §39 he reveals that Vortigern married his own daughter. As he had only just married Hengist’s
daughter this seems to be another folktale inserted well out of sequence. Nennius tells us that Vortigern has had a son by his daughter whom he tries to deny, and that Germanus (or St. Garmon)
condemns Vortigern for this. It may be that Vortigern married a widowed daughter-in-law or step-daughter. The child of this union is believed to have been called Faustus, of whom more shortly.
The next section takes us into the legend of how Vortigern first met the young Ambrosius. Vortigern seeks the counsel of his wise men who tell him to retire to the “remotest boundaries of
your kingdom,” and there build a city to defend himself from the Saxons who, they say, intend to slay him. Vortigern sets off, and, reaching the province of “Guined” (clearly
Gwynedd), finds a suitable site on the summit of Hereri, or Snowdon.
Building work commences, but each morning the previous day’s work is found to have vanished over night. Vortigern again consults his counsellors, who tell him he must find a “child
born without a father”, who can be sacrificed to satisfy the gods. Despite Vortigern’s professed Christianity, certain pagan rituals had clearly resurfaced. Excavations at several hill
forts have found evidence of human sacrifice.
Vortigern’s men search the land and we learn that:
41. [. . .] they came to the field of Elleti, in the district of Glevissing, where a party of boys were playing at ball. And two of them quarrelling, one said to the
other, “O boy without a father, no good will ever happen to you.” Upon this, the messengers diligently inquired of the mother and the other boys, whether he had had a father.
Which his mother denied, saying, “In what manner he was conceived I know not, for I have never had intercourse with any man;” and then she solemnly affirmed that he had no mortal
father. The boy was, therefore, led away, and taken before King Vortigern.
The next day the boy asks Vortigern why he has been taken. Vortigern reveals the problem with his citadel and the boy, as if by inspiration, reveals the
reason for the problem.
42. [. . .] “There is,” said he, “a pool; come, dig and you will find.” They did so, and found a pool. “Now,” he continued, “tell
me what is in it”, but they were ashamed, and made no reply. “I,” said the boy, “will show you. There are two vases in the pool.” They looked, and found it so.
Continuing his questions the boy said, “What is in the vases?” They did not know. “There is a tent in them,” said the boy. “Separate them, and you shall find it
so.” This being done by the king’s command, there was found in them a folded tent. The boy, going on with his questions, asked the wise men what was in it. But they did not know
what to reply. “There are,” said he, “two serpents, one white and the other red; unfold the tent.” They obeyed, and two sleeping serpents were discovered.
“Consider attentively what they are doing,” said the boy. The serpents began to struggle with each other; and the white one, raising himself up, threw down the other into the
middle of the tent, and sometimes drove him to the edge of it; and this was repeated thrice. At length the red one, apparently the weaker of the two, recovering his strength, expelled the
white one from the tent; and the latter being pursued through the pool by the red one, disappeared.
Then the boy, asking the wise men what was signified by this wonderful omen, and they expressing their ignorance, said to the king, “I will now reveal to you the meaning of this
mystery. The pool is the emblem of this world, and the tent that of your kingdom: the two serpents are two dragons; the red serpent is your dragon, but the white serpent is the dragon of the
people who have seized many lands in Britain, almost from sea to sea. At length, however, our people shall rise and drive away the Saxon race across the sea, whence they originally came. But
you must depart from this place, where you are not permitted to erect a citadel. I, to whom fate has allotted this mansion, shall remain here; whilst to you it is incumbent to seek other
provinces, where you may build a fortress.”
“What is your name?” asked the king: “I am called Ambrosius (in British Embreis Guletic),” returned the boy; and in answer to the king’s
question, “What is your family?” he replied, “A Roman consul is my father.”
Then the king gave him that city, with all the western provinces of Britain; and departing with his wise men to the sinistral district, he arrived in the region named Guunnessi, where he
built a city which, according to his name, was called Cair Guorthegirn.
This story is best remembered in the version retold by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in which he transforms Ambrosius into Merlin. The important matter here is that despite being called
a boy without a father, Ambrosius reveals he is the son of a consul. Perhaps by now the elder Ambrosius was dead, killed, as Gildas wrote, in the Saxon wars or in the battle of Guoloph in 437. If
the younger Ambrosius was at his height in the 460s, he was perhaps born in the 430s, and therefore still a child at the time of the Saxon settlement.
The fortress is usually taken to be Dinas Emrys, in Snowdonia, one of the major hill forts of North Wales. The name has obvious associations with Ambrosius, who was also called Emrys Wledig.
Though it is unlikely that he lived here, it is possible that he (or his father) ordered that it be rebuilt as a safe retreat from Segontium during the raids by the Irish and Picts.
It is interesting that Ambrosius is found in Glevissing (Glywysing), one of the early Welsh kingdoms in Gwent, the territory of the Silures. This area was heavily Romanised, but also clung
steadfastly to its British roots. Glywys, the traditional founder of Glywysing, was the great-grandson of Owain, son of Maximus. We do not know the precise dates of Glywys but, as shown in Table
3.7, they were probably around 445–515. This means he was active throughout the Arthurian period.
The name
Glywys
means “a man of Glevum”, the Roman name for Gloucester. Vortigern was descended from one of four brothers attributed with founding Gloucester. Though
Gloucester is not in Glywysing, it is close to the borders of Gwent, in the territory of the Gewisse. Glywysing itself was not established
until around 470, so although Nennius
records Ambrosius as having been found there, the chronicler was simply using a later name for a traditional site. This ties in with the theory that the Ambrosius family was connected with
Gloucester.
Glywys is sometimes called Glewys Kerniw, or Glywys Cernyw, and some commentators have connected him to Cornwall (Cernow). However, Cernyw is also the name of a place in south Wales, a strip of
territory along the coast between Chepstow and Cardiff. Glywys founded a church here towards the end of his life and the name lives on in the present-day Coedkernew, four miles south-west of
Newport.
Finally, Nennius tells us that, unable to build his original fortress, Vortigern sets off to the “sinistral” part of Wales, where he establishes his citadel at Caer Gwrthegirn.
“Sinistral” means “left”, and Vortigern evidently moved west from Snowdonia towards the Lleyn Peninsula. There is still today a Nant Gwrtheyrn on Lleyn, in the extreme west
of Gwynedd, and Lleyn Peninsula has several sites of Arthurian interest
(see
Chapter 24). However, Vortigern is also associated with Gwrtheyrnion, which later formed part of Brycheiniog and
southern Powys, whilst Geoffrey places his final fortress at Ganarew in Gwent.
After this detour about Vortigern and the young Ambrosius, Nennius returns to the main story about the Saxons, and for once we may have some real history.
43. Meanwhile Vortimer, the son of Vortigern, valiantly fought against Hengist, Horsa, and his people; drove them back to the Isle of Thanet, and thrice enclosed them
within it, and besieged, attacked, threatened and frightened them on the western side. The Saxons despatched envoys to Germany to summon reinforcements, with an additional number of ships
with many men: and after he obtained these, they fought against the kings of our peoples and princes of Britain, and sometimes extended their boundaries by victory, and sometimes were
conquered and driven back.
44. Four times did Vortimer valorously encounter the
enemy; the first has been mentioned, the second was upon the river Derguentid, the third at the
Ford, in their language called Episford, though in ours Rithergabail, there Horsa fell, and Categirn, the son of Vortigern; the fourth battle he fought was near the Inscribed Stone on the
shore of the Gallic sea, where the Saxons, being defeated, fled to their ships and were drowned.
Soon after Vortimer died; before his decease, anxious for the prosperity of his country, he charged his friends to bury his body at the entrance of the Saxon port, viz. upon the rock where
the Saxons first landed. “For though,” said he, “they may inhabit other parts of Britain, yet if you follow my commands, they will never live again in this island.”
They imprudently disobeyed this last injunction, and neglected to bury him where he had appointed [for he is buried in Lincoln].
This episode of Vortimer’s battles against the Saxons sounds like the precursor to the campaign of Ambrosius as told by Gildas, and could explain Gildas’s account that the Saxons had
returned home. It also echoes the
ASC
’s description of the battles between Vortigern and the Saxons, although only one seems to be specifically cited in both accounts. Nennius records
that Horsa was killed in the battle of Episford, which would seem to equate with the
ASC
entry under the year 455, which notes that Horsa was killed at
Ægælesþrep.
The name
Ægælesþrep
has long been translated as Aylesford on the river Medway in Kent, though a proper translation would be Aylesthorp. Because it has long been believed
that all these battles were fought in Kent, antiquarians have looked for likely Kentish names. In fact
Ægælesþrep
would more likely evolve into Addlethorpe or Althorp, both
villages in Lincolnshire. The first is near Skegness, but Althorp is on the Trent, almost within site of Bonby, where I suggested the Saxons may have first settled (
see
Map 4
).
Nennius, who calls this battle Episford, says its British name is
Rithergabail,
or
Rhyd-yr-ceffyl
in modern Welsh, the “ford of horses”. As
epi
means horse,
Nennius may have believed that the name Episford commemorated the death of Horsa, rather than
simply signifying a ford where horses gathered. However, in the
Brut
Tysilio
(
see
Chapter 9), Episford is treated as Fishford, which is apparently a literal translation of the original Welsh version,
Rhyd y pyscod. Pyscod
is sufficiently similar to
Episford to suggest an error in translation or copying. But the translator of
Tysilio
, Peter Roberts, maintains that Nennius’s source did not state
Rithergabail
but
Sathnegabail
, more properly
Syddyn-y-ceubal
, “the station of the ferryboat”. This is still reflected in the towns of North and South Ferriby, on either side of the Humber,
just north of Bonby.