The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (22 page)

Does Nennius’s phrasing preclude Arthur from also being a king? Clearly he is set apart; fighting alongside kings suggests equal, or superior, rank.
Dux Britanniarum
was a very
senior role, almost equal to
vicarius
, and if that role had continued in some form the rulers of the smaller kingdoms would certainly have looked up to the
dux
as their senior
commander. He may not have held the title of High King, but he could have wielded the same authority.

Perhaps we should not take the title
dux
too literally. By Nennius’s day, the understanding of the role of
dux
may have been lost, so only the title survived. It may have had
some vestigial prestige attached, so that any military commander who brought various kings together to fight a common foe might have been given this title without it meaning anything specific. This
means Arthur need not have been stationed in the north (where the battle-hardened Men of the North probably didn’t need a commander), but may have been based in Wales or in the south. Indeed,
if the southern factions had had no kings of stature since the old Roman provinces crumbled, they probably needed a commander to bring them together.

In some ways it does not matter. The
dux
would have to be of royal blood in order to command kings, as they would not serve alongside someone whom they regarded as inferior. We might not
find Arthur ruling a kingdom, but he’ll be in the pedigrees. So if Nennius’s battles provide us with locations and we can fine tune the time, we should be able to identify him.

1.
The first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein
The name Glein is derived from the Celtic
glan
, meaning “pure” or
“clean.” No river is called Glein today, but two are called Glen, in Lincolnshire and Northumberland. The Lincolnshire Glen flows through the Fens and today joins the River Welland near
Spalding, but in the fifth century Spalding was on a hard ridge of land virtually on the shoreline of the Wash, which then reached further inland. Interestingly, the origin of the name Welland is
uncertain, but it is also a Celtic word and could mean
“good” or “holy” stream, thus the names Glen and Welland may be connected and the mouth of the
Glen may, at one time, have been at the mouth of the Welland. This is a possible site, because the area to the north, in Lindsey, was one of the first to be settled by the Angles. The Fens do not
lend themselves to major battles but, as Hereward the Wake proved five centuries later, they are suited to a covert guerrilla operation in territory which would be known by the British but highly
dangerous to the unwary invader. There is, however, no significant base nearby from which Arthur could have launched his attack. There may be another appropriate site in Lincolnshire at Brigg,
originally Glanford Bridge, which I discussed in the last chapter. The river, now called the Ancholme, was a major estuary, before drainage works reduced much of the surrounding marsh.

The Glen in Northumbria also flows into another river, meeting the Till near Doddington. This confluence is close to Yea-vering Bell, the largest Iron Age hill fort in Northumberland. It was a
significant site of over a hundred dwellings, and a major archaeological dig in 1960 showed that it had been reoccupied after the Roman period. Yeavering has an unspoilt view down to Bamburgh and
Lindisfarne and would have been a major defensive site against the early Germanic invaders in the fifth century. The site was of such importance that after the conquest of the area by the Angles,
Edwin of Northumbria established his own palace here at the foot of the hill. If Nennius’s list is in chronological order, Yeavering Bell is also a suitable location for the first conflict.
However, considering how important this site would have been to the British and Saxons, it is surprising the battle list refers to the river and not to the fort.

There are other suggestions. In 1867, in
Chronicles of the Picts and Scots
, W.F. Skene suggested Glen Water, a small stream running down to the river Irvine at Darvel in Strathclyde, near
Kilmarnock. His suggestion was based on local legend, which even supplies a date for the battle, 542
AD
. However, since that was the year that Geoffrey of Monmouth said Arthur
of Badon died, it would seem an unlikely date for the first of his battles.

Josephus Stevenson suggested, in notes to his 1838 translation of Nennius, either the River Lune, in Westmorland, or the Leven in Cumberland. The Lune is of special interest. The name is
derived from
glein
, likewise meaning “pure and healthy”. The river has a major estuary at Lancaster where there was a small Roman fort, strengthened in the 340s as
a coastal defence against the Irish. Of all the
glein
rivers it is the only one with a mouth to the sea and a significant fortification.

Other suggestions include the River Glyme in Oxfordshire, Glynch Brook near Bewdley, and Gleiniant near Llanidloes, in west Wales. The Glyme is an intriguing possibility. The name means
“bright one”, so is not immediately related
to glein
, but its confluence, where it joins the River Dorn at Wootton, north of Oxford, is at the southern end of the little known
British enclave of Calchvynydd, which ran up through the Chilterns between Oxford and Northampton. Nearby is Ambrosden, a town which is suggestive of Ambrosius Aurelianus, and a likely spot for one
of his battles.

Gleiniant has the distinction of retaining the name
glein
. The stream at Gleiniant meets the Trannon at Trefeglwys in present day Powys, close to the old borders with Gwynedd and
Ceredigion. It is also close to one of the suggested sites for Camlann. Gleiniant would suit an internal struggle, but is far out of the conflict zone for the Saxons.

One final possibility is the Glynde Reach in Sussex, one I’m not aware has previously been suggested. This small stream was originally the Glynde Bourne – indeed it flows right below
the famous Glyndebourne Opera House – and Glynde is derived, according to some etymologies, from the Celtic for valley,
glen.
Others say it comes from the Saxon
glind,
for
enclosure. Either way it has a striking similarity to the first in Nennius’s list, made all the more intriguing as this could be the site of one of Aelle’s battles listed in the
ASC
as happening at
Mearcrædes burnam
in 485, exactly when I have suggested that Arthur’s battle campaign may have started.

Of all the suggestions the best possibilities are the Northumbrian Glein, the Cumbrian Lune and the Sussex Glynde.

2–5.
The second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis.

Dubglas is the original of the name Douglas. It is usually translated as meaning “black water”, but a more strict interpretation
is
“black-blue” or even “black-green”
(dub+glas). Glas
means that blue-green colour seen in glass – the name Glasgow means “green hollow”. So
we’re really looking for a dark, probably deep, river that reflected blue-black, or green-black. Unfortunately, that could apply to many, not helped by the fact that the name Douglas survives
as one English river, two Scottish rivers and twelve called Dulas in Wales. Doubtless there would have been plenty more called Dulas in England, which changed their name under Saxon domination to
such variants as Dawlish or even Blackwater (there’s a tempting site in Hampshire that I discuss separately on page 162). It was probably because of this abundance of names that the original
chronicler qualified the description by adding that it was in the region of Linnuis.

In 1945, Kenneth Jackson, in an article in
Modern Philology,
determined that
Linnuis
derives from
Lindenses
, meaning “the people of Lindum”, or Lincoln. This at
first seems promising, because we know that the area around Lincoln, which was Lindsey, was one of the earliest areas settled by the Angles. Unfortunately, no river in that area has a name remotely
like Douglas. The primary river is the Witham, and some have suggested that the Witham might originally have been called the Douglas, on the assumption that Witham is a Saxon name, derived from
“Witta’s ham.” However, Kenneth Cameron, in
English Place Names
, states that the Witham is probably one of a group of rivers the names of which go back before Celtic times
into unrecorded history, so it was probably never known as the Dubglas.

There is another candidate for Linnuis. The Roman geographer Ptolemy used that word to describe the area now known as Lennox, covering the territory north of the Clyde and Firth around Loch
Lomond. Just east of Loch Lomond is Glen Douglas, where the Douglas Water gushes down through the glen to enter the loch at Inverbeg. Beyond, across Loch Long, but still clearly visible from Glen
Douglas, is the strangely shaped peak of Ben Arthur, which may well be connected with the Dál Riatan king’s son, Artúir mac Aedan. The old road from the Dál Riatan
capital at Dunadd, in Argyll, skirts the southern fells of Ben Arthur before descending into Glen Douglas. There could certainly have been a battle here involving Artúir mac Aedan,
probably against the Picts. Otherwise it is far too distant for a battle of a southern or even a northern British Arthur against the Saxons.

Leslie Alcock has suggested that
Linnuis
may have been copied wrongly and that the original word was
Lininuis
, which would have derived from the peoples known as the Lindinienses,
who lived in Dorset and parts of Wiltshire, Somerset and Hampshire, the area that later became Wessex. The Roman name for Ilchester was Lindinis. Here the river Divelish runs from Bulbarrow Hill at
Woolland, to Sturminster Newton in Dorset. Just south of Bulbarrow Hill is the Devil’s Brook, running south to Burleston where it enters the River Piddle. En route it passes through Dewlish,
a village which also means “dark stream”. Although these two watercourses are minor, they do form a north-south barrier. Bulbarrow Hill is the site of a Celtic hill fort, and the rivers
run through a triangle formed by Cadbury Castle, the Badbury Rings and the Cerne Giant, all significant Celtic landmarks. This could certainly be a location for a confrontation between the British
and the West Saxons.

August Hunt on the Vortigern Studies website draws attention to the Devil’s Water, a stream in Northumberland that passes through Linnel Wood and joins the River Tyne near Corbridge, at
Dilston. Linnel is probably derived from
llyn-elin
(“lake-elbow”). It is an interesting combination of the two names in an area that would have been rich for conflict during the
fifth and sixth centuries.

Of the many Dulas rivers in Wales, Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd in
Pendragon
suggest the Dulas that flows into Liverpool Bay at Llandulas, just east of Colwyn Bay. Another Dulas worth
noting is now called Dulas Brook, and runs parallel to the Golden Valley in northern Ergyng, eventually joining the River Dore at Ewyas Harold. This is in the same area as part of Arthur’s
hunt of the giant boar Twrch Trwyth, as told in the story of
Culhwch and Olwen
(
see
Chapter 8). That story, as we shall see, may well represent a series of battles conducted by Arthur
across southern Wales and it is possible that at least some of the battles in Nennius’s list equate to it. We shall encounter another later.

One other Dulas, or Dulais, worthy of note flows through Pontarddulais in Glamorgan, where it joins the River Neath.
Near its source it flows through Cwm Dulais, above which
is Craig y Bedw, or Bedwyr’s Crag. This area was known for its groves and bushes. The Welsh for grove is
llwyn
, and there are places called Llwyngwenno, Llwynadam, Llwyn-y-domen, and
so on. The area might have been known locally as the land of groves, or Llwyni, which might have evolved into
Linnuis.

6.
The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas.

This is one of the more baffling locations and even the most dedicated Arthurians have declared it impossible to identify. The more intrepid have suggested sites as far afield
as Bass Rock off North Berwick in the Firth of Forth, and the River Loddon in Old Basing in Hampshire, suggesting that the Loddon was once known as the river of Basa’s people. The etymology
for Basing is Saxon, and though this makes it unlikely to appear in what was originally a Celtic battle song, it may refer to an area so long occupied by the Saxons that their name had superseded
the original.

The same problem affects Basford, the name of three places in Cheshire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire. All seem to be derived from the Angle
Basa
’
s ford.
Blake and
Lloyd’s suggestion, Basingwerk, in Shropshire, is also of Saxon origin (“Basa’s stronghold”), and its Celtic name was
Maesglas
(“Green field”). Equally
frustrating is Bassingbourne in Cambridgeshire, for although of Angle origin, it does at least mean “Bassa’s stream”. It is, however, in an area long occupied by the Saxons.

In the 1860s, Skene suggested Dunipace, the site of two hillocks at Falkirk in Scotland, near the Roman fort of Camelon. He proposed that the name was originally
Duni-Bass
, meaning
“two mounds.” However the origins of Dunipace are not clear, with suggestions that it came from
Dun-y-pax
(“hills of peace”) or
duin-na-bais
(“hills of
death”). John Stuart Glennie, writing in
Arthurian Localities
, whilst recognising this as a possibility felt there was an even better site across the river where a huge rock precipice
may be the
bass
(or rock). Neither of the rivers in the area (the Bonny and the Carron) is called Bassas, but there is a ford across the Carron, and the Celtic name for ford, or shallows, is
bais.
But all this seems to be clutching at straws. The same concept of
bais
for shallows would work even better at the Fords of Frew on the Tribruit, discussed under battle 10.

The most likely suggestion is Baschurch in Shropshire, put forward by Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman in
King Arthur
,
The True Story.
The name derives from
the churches of Bassa, mentioned in a poem by Taliesin as the burial place of the kings of Powys. Situated near the Welsh Marches, Baschurch could well have been the site of forays by the West
Saxons. It is within a day’s march of the Gewisse territory to the south, and close to the site for Badon (Caer Faddon) given in the Mabinogion story
The Dream of Rhonabwy
(
see
Chapter 8). The nearest river is the Perry, but this name may be of Norman origin, derived from the Peveril family who controlled the area after the Norman conquest. We do not know the original
Celtic name.