The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (23 page)

One other possibility concerns the Roman cognomen Bassus. One of the consuls at the time of Julius Caesar was Ventidius Bassus, and there were two noted poets at the time of Nero, Caesius Bassus
and Saleius Bassus. Several inscriptions have been found in Britain, mostly in the north, bearing the name Bassus. One at Black Carts, halfway along Hadrian’s Wall, notes that part of the
wall here was built by Nas . . . Ba[ssus] of the First Cohort. Most significantly, at the fort of Alavana at Kendal in Cumbria, there is a tombstone to the centurion Publius Aelius Sergius Bassus
Mursa of the Twentieth Legion. Alavana stood on what is now the River Kent, though the original name for this river is not known. Might Publius Aelius Bassus have earned such a reputation that the
area around his burial would be remembered by his name?

7.
The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon.

Unlike Bassas, most scholars pounce on this site as straightforward and unchallenged. Leslie Alcock says it is the battle “about which we can have the most
confidence”, adding that “there is full agreement that this was in Scotland.” But if there was full agreement when he wrote that, there isn’t now.

Cat Coit Celidon means “battle in the forest of Celidon”, which Nennius had already said in Latin. It seems strange that he should restate it in Celtic unless he wished to emphasize
the original Welsh name as something specific, rather than another Forest of Celidon which had become better known in the intervening
years. If so, then it suggests there are
at least two Celidons, which immediately complicates the matter.

The usual interpretation is that this refers to the Caledonian Forest, which is a very widespread location. Caledonia was the Roman name for Scotland. Sometimes it was used to specify the
Highlands, north of the Antonine Wall, but generally it applied to the whole country. Stories about the bard Myrddin, which we will explore later, record that after the battle of Arderydd he fled
into Coed Celyddon, where he ran wild and went mad. Arderydd is the modern Arthuret, a few miles north of Carlisle. Just beyond, up Liddesdale, is the start of the present day Border Forest, which
runs through to the Kielder Forest in Northumbria. There is no specific spot within this forest called Celidon, so if this is the same forest where Arthur’s seventh battle occurred it could
have happened almost anywhere across the north-west, perhaps as far as High Rochester, where the Roman fort of Bremenium stood. Nikolai Tolstoy, following clues in the Scottish Arthurian romance
Fergus of Galloway
, has determined that the battle probably took place near Hart Fell.

There is an ancient inscribed stone here, near the village of Yarrow. Dating from the early sixth century, it commemorates the burial of two princes, Nudus and Dumnogenus (Nudd and Dyfnwal),
sons of Liberalis.
Liberalis
may be a Roman cognomen but it is as likely an epithet suggesting he was generous, a nickname that appears as
Hael
in British. It is tempting to think
this refers to Nudd Hael, the grandson of Dyfynwal Hen (
see
Table 3.4
), but he lived in the late sixth century, too late for this inscription. Nudd/Nudus was involved in a raid on Anglesey
against Rhun ap Maelgwyn to avenge the death of Elidir the Wealthy. Rhun retaliated with a march across Britain to York, and up as far as the Clyde, so he would have passed through this area.
Possibly Nudd was killed in this show offeree, which might have been the real Battle of Celidon.

The Caledonian Forest is too generalized a description to pinpoint Nennius’s battle, and yet he seems to be trying to be specific. He does not say the “Caledonian Forest” but
the “Forest of Celidon”, which may be something different, even personalised. In the Mabinogion story
Culhwch and Olwen
, we learn that Culhwch is the grandson of Celyddon Wledig,
an
important local chieftain. The story is set chiefly in Gwent. Celyddon is not otherwise identifiable, so we cannot verify his territory, but it would not be far removed from
Gwent. This is the area of Arthur’s capital, Gelliwig, as we will explore later. There are several towns and localities in this area bearing the prefix
gelli-
, derived from
celli
for a woodland grove, including Gellideg, Gelligaer and Gellinudd. Though no Gelliddon survives, the other names are testament to a special wood around Caerphilly, and it is quite
possible that the Forest of Celyddon was once there. Blake and Lloyd have used similar logic but different etymological trails to fix Celidon in North Wales, between the rivers Clwyd and
Conway.

Frank Reno follows a different route, reminding us that
coed
is a contraction of
Argoed
, the proper Brythonic word for forest, and that the phrase “Men of Argoed” was a
phrase used to describe the Men of Powys. The main forest in Powys is the Clun, in present day Shropshire, and is relatively close to Baschurch and Caer Faddon. Intriguingly the derivation of Clun
is the same as for Glein.

Earlier in his
History
Geoffrey refers to the Forest of Calaterium, where one of his pre-Arthurian kings, Archgallo, wanders dejectedly after being deposed. Archgallo is almost certainly
based upon Arthwys ap Mar (Arthur of the Pennines), and I’m convinced that Geoffrey had access to a Northern Chronicle which covered the exploits of Arthwys, some of which he may have
confused with Arthur of Badon’s. Calaterium is sufficiently similar to Celidon to cause possible confusion. Some experts, including J.A. Giles, have suggested that Calaterium was the old
Royal Forest of Galtres, north of York, around Sutton-on-the-Forest and Easingwold. This was a rich area much treasured by the later kings of Northumbria. We will see in Chapter 9 that, according
to Geoffrey, Arthur pursued the Saxons from Lichfield to the Forest of Caledon. It is over 300km to the Caledonian Forest, but about half that to the Forest of Galtres.

8.
The eighth battle was at the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary, the everlasting virgin, on his shoulders [shield]; and the pagans were
put to flight on that day.

This is the only battle that carries a description and is not unlike
the
Welsh Annals
reference to Badon, suggesting that the reference to the Virgin
Mary must be significant. Why did Arthur carry the image of the Virgin Mary at this battle rather than any of the earlier ones? The usual answer is that the battle occurred at a church or other
holy place, and that Arthur may have been protecting a church from the heathen invaders. We should not overlook the fact that the Celts were Christians whilst the Saxons and Angles were pagans. One
legend attached to Arthur, but linking him to the Crusades, tells that Arthur brought back with him from Jerusalem a splinter of the Holy Cross, which was kept at Wedale. Wedale is in the Scottish
Borders and the main town is Stow. Stow is the Saxon for “holy place” and the church there is dedicated to St. Mary.

Connecting Stow with a fort called Guinnion is not straightforward. Skene and others simply based it on the fact that a Roman fort was known to be nearby, and that this must have been Guinnion
(“White Fort”). The nearby Gala Water tumbles at high spate along the valley and is sometimes called the “White Strath” or
Gwen-y-strad
, though this seems rather
convoluted. Alistair Moffat, in
Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms
, follows a more convincing route. He reminds us that
gwen
, or more properly
gwyn
, means not only
“white” but also “holy”, in the sense of “pure”. Thus the name Stow may simply have been a Saxon translation of an earlier Celtic name. Some etymologists suggest
that Wedale was originally Woe-dale, or “dale of woe”, remembering a Saxon defeat, whilst Moffat suggests the name derived from
Guidh-dail
, the Valley of Prayer, but had
previously been the Holy Valley or
Gwyn-dail
, possibly corrupted into
Gwyn-ion.
This all seems rather tenuous to me.

In fact as Gwynion the name is quite common in Wales. There are at least four noted hills, or crags, called Carreg Gwynion, near Pembroke, Rhayader, Rhos and in the Berwyn Mountains at
Llanarmon. This last is the site of a well preserved Celtic hill fort, which seems more likely to have been the “fortress of Guinnion” than at
Guidh-hail.
This locale would
better suit a battle between Welsh factions, but it is less than a day’s ride from Chester and cannot be ruled out. The fact that the name is fairly common in Wales suggests that at one time
it was probably equally common across the rest of Britain. If so the name may have adapted to
Wenbury or Winbury or Whitsbury, near Fordingbridge, a site I discuss later in
relation to Cerdic’s battles.

A more intriguing possibility is Wanborough, just outside Swindon. The name was once
Wenbeorge
, which is usually treated as “wenn beorge,” meaning the “place at the
tumour-shaped mounds”, as
wenn
is Saxon for tumour. However,
wen
could as easily be derived from the Welsh
gwyn
for “white”, a theory strengthened by the fact
that nearby are two sites, White Hill, renowned in Roman times for its pottery production, and Whitefield Hill, near the site of some ancient earthworks. The surrounding hillsides are covered by
the many famous chalk carvings, such as the White Horse at Uffington. Wanborough was the site of the Roman fort Durocornovium, the Fort of the Cornovii, and this may well have been known locally as
the White Fort. What adds to the intrigue of this site is that a little way to the south is Liddington Castle, one of the most favoured sites for the battle of Badon.

There have been other suggestions, including Burgh Castle (Gariannonum) in Norfolk, Winchester (Caer Guinn), and the Wrekin (Caer Guricon) in Shropshire, but the only other one that has some
merit is Binchester, near Durham. Here was the Roman fort of Vinovium, one of the earliest in Britain which was later refortified and remained in use until the early fifth century. The origin of
the fort’s name is uncertain, most suggesting “the Way of the Wine” or similar. One suggestion is that it meant “pleasant spot”, which may link back to the Celtic
word gwyn
, which could have been Latinized to
vin.
The Celtic spelling of Vinovium is
Uinnouion
, becoming
Gwinnouion.
It was the largest fort in the north-east and held
a contingent of Germanic soldiers. Its location must have been important to later settlers because they also buried their dead here, showing that it became a sustained community. At nearby Escomb
is the oldest surviving Saxon church in England, and it may be that, once converted, the Saxons were drawn to what had long been a holy and venerated area, as Arthur’s battle in the name of
the Virgin Mary might imply.

9.
The ninth battle was waged in the City of the Legion

This ought to be reasonably straightforward but unfortunately isn’t. There were three main legionary towns, Caerleon, Chester
and York. With the
construction of Hadrian’s Wall, Carlisle also became a legionary town but not in the conventional sense, and, unless it was the capital of Valentia and its status changed, not at the end of
the Roman period. Although Caerleon remained a legionary base, the legion was seldom there, beyond a skeletal force. It was involved in the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, but by the third
and fourth centuries was assigned elsewhere, including Richborough in Kent. So whilst Caerleon can rightly claim the name City of the Legion, it was far less significant than either York or
Chester.

York was not only the home of the VI Legion, it was the military capital of Britain, and the fortress remained permanently manned and strengthened throughout the Roman period. The headquarters
of the Fort was such a major building that it remained in use well into the ninth century.

Like Caerleon, Chester’s XX Valeria Victrix legion was often stationed elsewhere, especially during the third century, but Chester was refortified in the fourth century and remained so
until the end of the Roman period. Nennius refers to the city in the singular, as
urbe Legionis,
“city of
the
Legion”, as if by the time of this battle all but one legion
had left Britain. Gildas, in describing York, used the plural
Legionum urbis cives
, “the city of the Legions”. Unless this was too subtle for Nennius’s source we are
evidently talking about a different place. The XX Valeria Victrix was the last legion to leave Britain.

So whilst York was the major legionary fortress, and more likely to have been a focus for Anglo-British confrontation, Chester was the centre of the last legion, and is known to have been the
site of a major Anglo-British battle in about 615. Both therefore have an equal case to argue. Which one Nennius meant can only be solved by identifying the other localities in the list.

10.
The tenth battle was waged on the shore of a river which is called Tribruit.

Like Bassas, this river has almost defied analysis, and most authorities admit defeat. The early analysts, Skene and Glennie, considered the Celtic version of Tribruit,
Tryfrwyd
, a name which also appears in the poem
Pa Gur
(
see
Chapter 8), where it is spelled
Trywruid.
In a study of Scotland written in 1165, they
found that the old British name for the Firth of Forth was
Werid
, derived from
Gwruid
, meaning “men of the forth”. The word “shore” is
significant as it suggests more of a sea-shore than a river bank. The Celtic word is
traeth
and the word
Tribruit
or
Trywruid
may have originally been a combination of
Traeth
and
Gwruid
, with the “g” dropped, becoming
Traewruid.
It sounds plausible, albeit tortuous, and the site suggested is the Links of Forth between the river
and the heights of Stirling Castle, a site better known for the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

O.G.S. Crawford, the pioneer of aerial surveys in archaeology, also suspected that this battle was waged on the Forth, but further east at the Fords of Frew, between Gargunnuck and Kippen. This
was one of only two safe crossing places on the Forth, used most notably by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. Two other streams join the Forth at the point of the Fords, the Boquhan Burn to the west
and the Goodie Water to the east. Crawford believed that the old name for the Frew was the
Bruit
, so that the Fords of Frew, marking the stretch of three streams, was the
Tribruit.
The site seems more likely than its explanation, as it was a key crossing point, regarded as the gateway between the Lowlands and the Highlands. It was doubtless a frontier for many engagements
between the British and the Picts.