The Druid’s Circle
The Druid’s circle is an ancient stone monument located on Penmaenmawr, the larger headland to the west of the town of Conwy in north Wales. Despite the name, this stone circle predates the druids and the Celtic religion by millenia and may be up to 5000 years old. Known as Meini Hirion in Welsh, meaning long stones, several prehistoric trackways run past the site. This area was important because the type of rock at Penmaenmawr, augite granophyre, was ideal for making stone axes. Axe heads from Penmaenmawr have been discovered around Britain including in Scotland, Yorkshire and the Thames Valley. Modern quarrying destroyed the remains of a large prehistoric settlement on the mountaintop west of Penmaenmawr, although some archeological studies were undertaken before the evidence was lost. Excavations conducted in 1957 at the druid’s circle itself discovered the cremated remains Read more…
Dinas Emrys
Dinas Emrys is a medieval castle that overlooks Llyn Dinas in Snowdonia near Beddgelert. The current castle was built over the top of an ancient hillfort and sits on a strongly fortified rocky outcrop. The castle started out as an Iron Age Hillfort. According to Welsh mythology, it was here that King Lludd ab Beli buried two dragons, one white and one red, which were to fight each other for all eternity. Modern archaeology reveals that Dinas Emrys was reoccupied in the late Roman period, since the rough stone banks around its western end date to this time. With the departure of Rome, chronicles from Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth tell the story of King Vortigern retreating into Snowdonia during his wars against the Saxon invaders and choosing this location as the place to build his seat. Unfortunately for him, Read more…
Wroxeter Roman City
The Roman City of Wroxeter is located five miles southeast of Shrewsbury in the March of Wales. Known as Viroconium and initially established as a fort over a native settlement, Wroxeter became the fourth largest city in Britain with a population of up to 15,000 people. Wroxeter was built at the end of Watling Street, the main Roman road that ran from Dover, through London and across much of Britain.The site was initially established as a jumping off point for the Roman invasion of Wales. Once Wales was conquered, the fort was abandoned by the military and taken over by the civilian population that had settled around it. After the departure of the Romans, Wroxeter continued to be inhabited. In 1967, excavation uncovered the ‘Wroxeter stone’ written in ‘partially Latinized primitive Irish’ and dated to the 5th century when the Read more…
Din Lligwy
Din Lligwy is an ancient fortified village located on the east coast of Anglesey near the village of Moelfre. It dates to the pre-Roman and Roman period but was inhabited by Native Britons. Coins and pottery found here have been dated to the 4th century AD. This was a farming village that is remarkably preserved for being so old. It is one of our very few examples of how local people lived during the Roman occupation of Britain. Still visible today are the foundations of both round and rectangular buildings, all built in using locally available limestone. Large amounts of metallic slag as well as remains of several hearths with charcoal formed from oak were found in one of the large rectangular structures, indicating it was a workshop for the smelting and working of iron. The outer protective wall is Read more…
Mob Ball, Football, and the Origin of Sports
Have you ever heard of ‘Mob Ball’? I hadn’t! People (and by that I generally mean ‘men’) played sports a thousand years ago or more, even if those sports wouldn’t have looked quite like what we experience today. Soccer (or Football) even existed, with the rather ominous name of ‘mob ball’ or ‘mob football’ (see below). Other sports included: Archery–always popular and in the reign of Edward I, a required activity for all villagers on Sunday afternoons; ‘Bowls’–a form of bowling, which also included another game called ‘skittles’; ‘Colf’, the precursor to golf; hammer-throwing; ‘shinty’–a hockey-like game; wrestling; horseshoes; quarterstaff contests; and ‘stoolball’–a precursor to cricket. http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/entertainment-middle-ages.htm ‘Mob football’ developed between the 7th and 9th centuries in Britain. This site writes: “It was explicitly violent and played between villages, at the time of celebration and festivity. In fact, it was Read more…
Halloween in Wales
As I sit here munching candy corn (which my son at one point declared ‘the best candy’–even better than chocolate–though he can’t have any because he’s allergic to corn), I’m thinking about the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery, The Fallen Princess, which takes place at Halloween. Except that during the Middle Ages, it was called ‘All Hallow’s Eve’, the day before All Saint’s Day, and it was less about candy and more about a belief in actual spirits. All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween, has its roots in an older, pagan tradition, called Nos Calan Gaeaf , Welsh for Samhain, a Gaelic word meaning ‘Summer’s End’. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. http://www.controverscial.com/Samhain.htm The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’. From the National Museum of Wales: “A pagan holiday dating back to the Iron Age Celts, Samhain was Read more…
Roman Religion in Britain
Question: There’s been a lot written about Roman religion. What’s different about it in Britain? While you’re right that the Roman religion is something we know a lot about, it didn’t just get transplanted to Britain whole cloth and didn’t look in Britain the same as what it looked like in Rome. The reason for this is that the Romans who conquered Britain were almost exclusively male, they were members of the Roman army, and many were not actually Roman by birth. This shaped which gods and goddesses they focused on in their worship. Secondly, as I mentioned in an earlier video, the Celtic religion syncretized to some degree with the Roman, in part because the Romans worked so hard to eliminate the druids and native religious beliefs. By the end of the first century AD, as far as the Read more…
Celtic Religion
Our understanding of Celtic religion is at times a long the lines of educated guesses. Like the people living in Britain prior to 800 BC, the Celts had no written language. This makes it obviously very difficult for us to develop a clear understanding of their religious beliefs. What we do have is the writings of the Romans who conquered them, which in itself is problematic because, when victors write history, invariably they are writing from a position of their own magnificence, and by definition are seeking to downplay and barbarize the achievements and culture of those they conquered. Scholars do think there was a basic religious homogeneity among the Celts, with significant regional differences, especially since they were spread out across Europe from Czechoslovakia to Ireland. Like the Romans who came to Britain after them, the Celts were polytheists, Read more…
The Summer Solstice
June 21, 2019 is the summer solstice this year, celebrated at Stonehenge and across the globe, for the longest day of the year. “Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning “sun” + “to stand still.” As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.” http://www.chiff.com/a/summer-solstice.htm Within Welsh mythology, there is very little discussion of the solstices or what holidays were celebrated within the celtic/druid year. This is not the case of Stonehenge, which archaeologists and historians have studied extensively. “When one stands in the middle of Stonehenge and looks through the entrance of the avenue on the morning of the summer solstice, for example, the Sun will rise above the Heel Stone, which is set on the avenue. If one stands in the entrance and looks into Read more…
Roman Roads (Bwlch y Ddeufaen)
Roman roads crisscross Britain and for centuries were the best way to travel through the country. In an earlier post, I discussed the routes across the Welsh and English countryside during the Middle Ages. Many of these roads were based in the Roman roads, built between the 1st and 4th centuries AD. In Wales, the Romans built roads but also improved old ones, which wasn’t their normal operating procedure. It was forced upon them, however, because they found the land so inhospitable that it made it difficult for them to lay down their straight roads. The Roman roads lasted such a long time because the Roman legions who built them designed them to do exactly that. The Romans built over 53,000 miles of roads, intended to connect every corner of their empire ultimately with Rome. Britain, of course, was one Read more…
The Saxon Invasions
It is a matter of record that the Saxons invasions of Britain began in the last years of the Roman occupation, and then started in in full force after the Romans left the island in 410 AD. They marched away, seemingly without a backward glance, leaving the Britons–after 400 years of occupation–to fend for themselves. Map retrieved from: http://historiarex.com/e/en/225-anglo-saxon-invasions From Gildas, writing in the 6th century: From Britain envoys set out with their complaints, their clothes (it is said) torn, their heads covered in dust, to beg help from the Romans. … The Romans … informed our country that they could not go on being bothered with such troublesome expeditions; that Roman standards, that great and splendid army, could not be worn out by land and sea for the sake of wandering thieves who had no taste for war. Rather, Read more…
The Triumph of Medieval Propaganda
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his History of the Kings of Britain back in the 12th century as a triumph of medieval propaganda. It was at the behest of Robert of Gloucester, his patron, that he claims to have transcribed/copied/invented his history, placing King Arthur at the center of a national–and by that I mean English–origin myth. The idea was to justify the conquest of Britain by the Normans as a mirror to what King Arthur had done in the 5th century, including crossing the English Channel from Normandy to Britain. Children’s author Phillip Womack (author of The Other Book and The Liberators) said in the Times Online: “As inhabitants of these islands, we don’t have many myths that bring us together, but King Arthur is one. I think that we will always seek him as a saviour, whatever situation we’re Read more…
^