Welsh History Month continues on the Wales Online website by asking what is the most important object in Welsh history? Today Dr Madeleine Gray, from the University of South Wales, argues the case for the carving of St Derfel’s horse. In the parish church at Llandderfel in Merionethshire is a huge, battered carving of an animal. Its head has been hacked away until it is no more than a stump. Its feet are tucked neatly underneath the body. The local people call it “St Derfel’s Horse”.
It is now kept safe in the church porch, but at one time it was carted round the parish on Easter Tuesday and the children were given rides on it. Alongside the animal is a decorated pole. This is usually called “St Derfel’s Staff”, but it is far too big to have been a walking-stick.
But this bizarre carving is all that is left of one of the most important cult images in medieval Wales, a carving of the warrior saint Derfel Gadarn, Derfel the Strong. According to legend, Derfel was one of King Arthur’s knights. He fought at the battle of Camlaan, where Arthur’s son and enemy Mordred was killed and Arthur himself was mortally wounded. After the trauma of the battle, Derfel gave up his warrior life and became a wandering hermit. He founded churches in north and south Wales before becoming abbot of Bardsey. There he died, and was buried alongside (according to tradition) 20,000 other saints.
As well as the church with his statue in Merionethshire, the little chapel of Llandderfel on the slopes of Mynydd Maen above Cwmbran in Monmouthshire was named after him. Pilgrims called there on their way to the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Penrhys, and the chapel claimed to have a picture and a relic of the saint. It was a web of devotion crisscrossing Wales – and all that is left of it now are these two mutilated pieces of carved wood.
Saints, soldiers and stags
Derfel was not the only Welsh saint to have had an earlier career – what we would nowadays call a late vocation. Several of his fellow-soldiers at Camlaan subsequently became religious leaders. A spear which was said to be the one St Pedrog wielded in the battle was kept as a relic in his church at Llanbedrog on the Lleyn. Gwynllyw, who gave his name to St Woolos in Newport, was a soldier as a young man. He and his wife Gwladus (the parents of the better-known St Cadoc) were a wild young pair, eloping from her father’s palace in Brecon and running away over the hills. Cadfan and Illtud were both famous as soldiers before they took to the religious life.
The animal with Derfel, though, was in fact not a horse but a stag. Many of the Welsh saints had stags as companions. Brynach’s cart was pulled by two stags. Another two stags helped Cadoc’s monks to rebuild their monastery. Illtud rescued a stag which was being hunted by King Meirchion. The animal became tame and helped to pull a cart. All these stories show the way the saints were expected to be able to control the natural world: the wildest and most terrifying of animals did their bidding.
We do not know what the story about Derfel and the stag was. The neighbouring church at Llangar was said to have been built on a site shown by a white stag, and there may have been a similar story about the stag at Llandderfel. Or perhaps Derfel rode the stag, like St Teilo. (The carving of St Teilo riding his stag in the parish church of Llandeilo Talybont, now in the museum at St Fagans, is a modern copy of a medieval carving from Brittany.)
Prayer and pilgrimage
The carving of Derfel and his stag was of enormous importance to the people of north Wales. It was very vividly carved, and parts of it could be made to move. The eyes, for example, could blink. This wasn’t necessarily to deceive people – any more than a modern computer animation at an old building is meant to deceive. But it made the statue more lifelike, and so gave it more power. We also need to remember that the statue was painted – you can still see traces of the red undercoat on the stag.
According to Ellis Price, who was sent by Thomas Cromwell to take the statue down at the Reformation, as many as six hundred people visited it on the saint’s day in April. Not that this compares with the tens of thousands (many of them Welsh) who went to Rome or Compostela on the great festival days, but it’s still pretty impressive for a little hamlet in the Welsh hills.
The world we have lost
The carving of Derfel’s companion is a very rare survival from our medieval past. At one time Wales was full of these statues. Carvings of our saints would have filled the churches and dotted the countryside. We know about a lot of these statues because the poets wrote about them. But almost all of them were destroyed at the Reformation. Carvings of the Virgin Mary at Penrhys and Cardigan, of Mary Magdalene at Usk, of local saints in almost every church, all were swept away.
We may regret this wholesale obliteration of our cultural heritage, but the reformers believed what they were doing was good and important. After all, bringing cattle, horses and money to give to a statue in the belief that it will rescue you from hell is a rather silly thing to do. If the priests were really encouraging people to do this (and presumably pocketing the proceeds) then reform really was needed.
So why is the carving of St Derfel’s stag so important? To begin with, it makes us think about the Age of the Saints in Wales. The Welsh saints were an interesting bunch, always awkward, sometimes challenging. They were expected to live in harmony with nature, but also to be able to control it. The stag was Derfel’s companion but it sat submissively at his feet.
The Welsh saints were people of holiness but also people of great power, and they could use that power in ways that seem strange to us. Derfel was a soldier: not one of the chivalrous knights of later Arthurian legend but a skilled fighter, someone trained to kill. Cadoc cheated King Arthur over a herd of cattle and blinded King Rhun of Gwynedd. Robbers from Gwynedd who attacked Winefride’s shrine at Holywell all suffered horrible deaths.
The statue also makes us think about the lives and beliefs of ordinary people in medieval Wales. They seem to have valued Derfel for his courage and leadership as much as his piety. In a way, a saint who had been a soldier was more holy because he had had to choose to change his way of life. Saints as well as soldiers were expected to be able to protect their people, in the way that Derfel did.
The battered remains of Derfel’s stag also make us think about the changes of the sixteenth century. They were traumatic for many people – but they gave us the Welsh Bible and the culture of the chapel and the gymanfa ganu, and they helped to make us the people we are today.
The later history of the carving is important, too. The way it was carried around the parish at Easter may actually be a survival of pre-Reformation parish processions, with the statue of the saint bringing blessing to the whole community. Giving children rides on the“horse’ was perhaps a way of diminishing its power, but it also shows affection. The rural dean who ordered the mutilation of the carving in 1730 was clearly aware of its power – and it’s equally clear that the locals were reluctant to damage it too much.
Now Derfel’s stag sits peacefully in the church porch. But the saint is having a new lease of life in industrial south Wales. The Ancient Cwmbran Society (motto“Discovering the Ancient History of a New Town’) has commissioned a new larger-than-life statue of the saint. Part of their exploration of the early history of the Cwmbran area has included archaeological work at the Gwent Llandderfel. The saint has an important part in the Society’s heritage trail round the valley.
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The Book of Kells is one of the world’s most famous illustrated manuscripts and the most elaborate manuscript of its kind to survive from the early Middle Ages. A copy of the four gospels, it was written by Irish monks in the 9th Century on calf-skin, with spectacularly intricate designs. Today, it is on display in the Library of Trinity College Dublin and seen by 500,000 visitors each year.
Now we can explore each of the pages in high-resolution detail on our iPads. The iPad app contains all 680 pages of the manuscript allowing the user to scroll through the manuscript page by page. High resolution images of the most highly decorated pages are included at up to six times their original size.
The Book of Kells for iPad was designed and developed by X Communications in partnership with Trinity College Library Dublin. This publication follows on from the award-winning CD-ROM which was published in 2000 and then later replaced by the DVD-ROM in 2006.
The images used for the iPad app were digitised by The Digital Resources & Imaging Services in Trinity College Library from transparencies provided by Faksimile-Verlag Luzern who published a facsimile of the manuscript in 1990.
X Communications is a campus company founded in 1994 by Marie Redmond from the School of Computer Science & Statistics. The company is an award-winning digital media agency and has produced interactive installations for The National Museum, The National Library, the Hugh Lane Gallery, and the National Gallery. The Book of Kells for iPad took six months to complete; the designer is Stephanie Francis and the programmer is Killian Walsh.
All images on the app are protected by Digimarc® for Images which allows invisible persistent digital watermarks to be embedded into images to show ownership and copyright and any use of the images on the Internet is monitored.
For details on the Technical Specs for the App and how to buy it, pop along to the App’s website at BookofKells.com.
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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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This is the 24th and final part in our series of animated/audio stories of King Arthur based on artwork found around the Houses of Parliament, courtesy of a wonderful Virtual Tour found at explore-parliament.net. We highly recommend you go to the Explore Parliament site to watch/hear the presentation about this artwork.
The shields which run in a frieze around the Queen’s Robing Room purport to be those of Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. Shields, each bearing unique arms, originally served the purpose of identifying, during the confusion of battle, the various knights who were concealed under the all-enveloping armour. These eventually became hereditary; and this kind of armorial tradition does not appear much before the 12th century.
However, as early as the sixteenth century it was felt that Arthur’s knights ought to be supplied with coats of arms just like their knightly equivalents of the day, and with the most scrupulous care arms were originated by the College of Arms for the knights of the Round Table. It is these which form the decorative frieze around the Queen’s Robing Room.
You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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Grand Concert for the 2013 Los Angeles St. David’s Day Festival – National Day of Wales (Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant, Los Angeles – Diwrnod Cenedlaethol Cymru)
March 3, 2013 at 1:30pm
At the Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90027
The St. David’s Day Festival – National Day of Wales replants its daffodil roots at the Barnsdall Art Park on March 3, 2013!
Inside the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre there will be a special ticketed St. David’s Day Grand Concert beginning at 1:30pm with a Druid blessing, followed by a screening of the rare 1962 short film ‘Dylan Thomas’ starring Richard Burton. After this the Welsh Choir of Southern California (Côr Cymraeg De Califfornia) will take the stage, and then a special performance by Paul Child, and in her debut North American appearance – Welsh soprano and harpist Siobhan Owen!
Paul Child and Siobhan Owen
We are all excited by the return of Paul Child to Hollywood. Among his many achievements, Child is Wales biggest independent selling artist, the ‘Official Voice of Welsh Rugby’, and recently sang at the half time show of the final match of the Wales Rugby Grand Slam. Interesting to note, each time he’s sung before a match, Wales has registered a victory.
Siobhan Owen was born in North Wales to a Welsh father and Irish mother, and moved to Australia when she was 2 years old. A classically trained singer from the age of 9, Siobhan also turns her haunting soprano voice and gentle harp playing to a repertoire of traditional Celtic songs.
She has received prestigious awards for both her classical and Celtic singing and is a popular performer at festivals, concerts, recitals etc around Australia. Siobhan is presently working on her fourth studio album which promises to be “A reflective, sublimely beautiful musical journey”.
Outside the concert beginning at 10am visitors will be delighted in a free Celtic Marketplace, Welsh language classes by Jason Shepherd of the Learn Welsh Podcast, Celtic workshops, Welsh Corgi demonstrations, Kids Crafts at the Ogden Nash Children’s Area, and the LA Eisteddfod featuring poetry, storytelling, readings and performance at the Harold Lloyd Outdoor Stage, Welsh food, and much more.
Welsh Nursery Rhymes by our very own Peter Freeman
We will be promoting artists from both Wales and the US in a special book release party on Welsh Nursery Rhymes written by Peter Anthony Freeman (Llanelli, UK) and published by A Raven Above Press. International artists include Nathan Wyburn (Abergavenny, UK), Anthony Richards (Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, UK), Siobhan Owen (originally from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio, UK now residing in Adelaide, South Australia), Michele Witchipoo (New York City, NY), Kimberly Wlassak (Los Angeles, CA), Rochelle Shelly Rosenkild (Riverside, CA), Brian Kenny (Middletown, NY), Nichola Hope (Barry, UK) Sarah Hope (Barry, UK) Rhys Jones (Swansea, UK), Kerry Evans (Swansea, UK), Jo Mazelis (Swansea, UK), Judy Adamson (Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, UK), Spine Stealer (Los Angeles, CA), Karen Richards (Cleveland, OH), Laurent Castiau (Belgium), Gaabriel Becket (Portland, OR), Xavier Lopez Jr. (Seattle, WA), Jason Shepherd (Swansea, UK), Adrien Burke (Los Angeles, CA), Danny Walden (Bell Gardens, CA), Robert Karr (Westminster, CA), John Charles (Los Angeles, CA), Grasiela Rodriguez (Pomona, CA), Casey Ruic (Cleveland, OH), Daniele Serra (Cagliari, Italy), and Lorin Morgan-Richards (Los Angeles, CA).
We will be promoting artists from both Wales and the US in a special book release party on Welsh Nursery Rhymes written by Peter Anthony Freeman (Llanelli, UK) and published by A Raven Above Press. International artists include Nathan Wyburn (Abergavenny, UK), Anthony Richards (Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, UK), Siobhan Owen (originally from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio, UK now residing in Adelaide, South Australia), Michele Witchipoo (New York City, NY), Kimberly Wlassak (Los Angeles, CA), Rochelle Shelly Rosenkild (Riverside, CA), Brian Kenny (Middletown, NY), Nichola Hope (Barry, UK) Sarah Hope (Barry, UK) Rhys Jones (Swansea, UK), Kerry Evans (Swansea, UK), Jo Mazelis (Swansea, UK), Judy Adamson (Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, UK), Spine Stealer (Los Angeles, CA), Karen Richards (Cleveland, OH), Laurent Castiau (Belgium), Gaabriel Becket (Portland, OR), Xavier Lopez Jr. (Seattle, WA), Jason Shepherd (Swansea, UK), Adrien Burke (Los Angeles, CA), Danny Walden (Bell Gardens, CA), Robert Karr (Westminster, CA), John Charles (Los Angeles, CA), Grasiela Rodriguez (Pomona, CA), Casey Ruic (Cleveland, OH), Daniele Serra (Cagliari, Italy), and Lorin Morgan-Richards (Los Angeles, CA).
Also, Sarah Hope from Barry, UK (now in Cardiff) will be in attendance exhibiting a collection of ceramic wall mounted pieces and dinnerware that are decorated with themes from welsh nursery rhymes and stories. The pieces are a collaboration between artists Sarah Hope and Nichola Hope and sculpture Kevin Caufield. A perfect tie in to the Welsh Nursery Rhyme Book by Peter Anthony Freeman that is also due to launch at the festival!
The last Welsh festival in LA brought over 2,000 attendees with famous celebrities including Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandson and Henry Thomas (star of Legends of the Fall and ET). There is really no better place to celebrate the history and accomplishments of Welsh-Americans then at Barnsdall Art Park. Designed by Welsh-American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, its nestled atop a shaded hill and away from the city bustle, the park has a clear view of the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park (named for Welsh philanthropist Griffith J. Griffith) and near the infamous Gower Street to the west (known for the golden age of cinema and Welsh-American stars like Glenn Ford and Myrna Loy).
For more information goto: http://www.aravenabovepress.com
or contact Lorin Morgan-Richards (Festival Executive Director) at 323-384-2429
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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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Welcome in the Springtime with us in this unique Holiday Special dedicated to Brighid. We dedicate this show to the Goddess and Saint Bridget with 8 fantastic pieces of music, along with a wonderful Prayer to Brighid from our resident bard, Chris Joliffe. We’ve got a fantastic piece about Oimelc (Imbolg) by Ellen Evert Hopman from her book, Scottish Herbs and Fairy Lore along with some superb information about Bridget’s Cloak by John Willmott of Celtic Ways. We top all of these wonderful goodies off with a great Competition to win a fabulous Celtic Twist CD.
How to Listen
The Episode is available for subscribers on the feed, or you can download it or listen to it from our Episodes page. You can find the Shownotes for this episode in the Shownotes section.
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We hope you enjoy it and wish you many Springtide blessings
Gary & Ruthie x x x
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You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
If you come to the site and listen or listen from one of our players – have you considered subscribing? It’s easy and you automatically get the episodes on your computer when they come out. If you’re unsure about the whole RSS/Subscribing thing take a look at our Help page.
The second month of the year is generally thought of as dark, damp and dreary, its only saving grace being its shortness. To the pagan Celts, however, the first of February was an occasion of celebration, for on that day was the beginning the feast of Imbolc, the winter half of the year passed its mid-point, and the vital spirit in the earth began its springtime phase of renewal.
Life in those days proceeded to an accompaniment of myth and poetry, dramatizing every stage in the hunter’s and farmer’s year. At Imbolc fires were lit to honour the rebirth of the goddess, daughter of the earth. There were torchlight processions to shrines associated with generation, in dells and sheltered hollows and where springs well up from the ground. Thereafter followed the ceremony of “churching” the mother, and the earth was ritually purified at the festival now called Candlemas, which in the church calendar is on February 2nd. Its Christian reference is to the purification of Mary after the birth of Jesus. In ancient Greece it marked the retune from the underworld of Persephone, daughter of Demeter or mother earth.
The north European name for the goddess whose birth or return was celebrated at the start of February was Brigid, alias Brig, Bride, Frigg, Brigantia. She existed in three aspects, beginning as the spring maiden, becoming the bride and matron in the course of the summer and ending as the old witch of winter. Healers and craftsmen were under her special care, and she was known by their emblems, the serpent and the fire, which are also symbols of the fertilizing energies in the earth. In Ireland, were veneration of the goddess is still evident in numerous grottos and rustic shrines dedicated to the Virgin, Brigid represented the native spirit of the country. She was the Bride to whom the high king of the four quarters of Ireland was married at the time of his coronation. Her name is commemorated throughout Ireland in Bride, Kilbride, Bridebridge, Brideswell etc., and her legend was assimilated and renewed by the famous Irish nun, St Bridget.
The conversion of the Irish and other Celtic nations from the Druidic to Christian rite seems to have been more in the nature of a reformation than the work of outside missionaries. Beyond the influence of Rome, the Celtic church adopted many of the shrines, festivals, customs and legends of its pagan predecessors, and accommodated the old gods by renaming them as Christian saints. It was evidently a peaceful change, for early Celtic church is unique in claiming no martyrs. With the Christian revelation came a revival of scholarship and mysticism. The Druid colleges were re founded as Celtic monasteries and the great sanctuary of the goddess Brigid, at Kildare, became Ireland’s first nunnery under St Bridget. In it there burnt a perpetual flame, an inheritance from the days of the old goddess, which for about a thousand years up to the Reformation was tended by a succession of nineteen vestal nuns. Both their number and their function were survivals from pagan times, as was recognised by a 13th century Archbishop of Dublin who succeeded briefly in suppressing the atavistic flame; and the legend of St Bridget is a compilation of miracle tales far older than Christianity. From Brigid she acquired the attributes of a fire goddess, appearing with a pillar of flame over her head and receiving the name Fiery Dart. The nuns of her order wore white robes in the style of an earlier priesthood. From Kildare they spread across Ireland and into Scotland occupying the old goddess shrines and rededicating them to St Bridget, thus identifying her with that misty wraith of folklore, the woman in white, whose haunts are by springs, wells and the crossing of rivers.
Many of St Bridget’s shrines are at holy wells, where her ethereal figure in the image of the white goddess can be glimpsed or imagined in the twilight. These places still attract pilgrims. hundreds of local people attend St Bridget’s well to the west of Mullingar on the last Sunday in August, making a ritual journey through 14 praying stations on their way to the shrine. In England dedications to St Bridget are rare, and with one exception they are all found in the western part of the country along the border with the Celtic lands.
The notable exception is the church of St Bride in London’s Fleet Street, where Bridget’s holy well (now blocked up), outside the church to the south east, indicates the prehistoric sanctity of the site.
In the early chronicles of St Bridget’s life there is no mention of her ever leaving Ireland. Yet near Glastonbury in Somerset an island in the marshes at Beckery is identified as the former site of her chapel and hermitage, and medieval visitors to Glastonbury Abbey were shown her relics. Other evidence of a separate English St Bridget is in her 19 English churches which, being early dedications, should by customs have been founded personally by their patrons. Almost a third of these churches are in Cumberland, which in Roman times was part of the British nation of Brigantia, named after its principle goddess. It may have been Brigantia rather than the Irish Brigid who gave her name to the Cumberland parishes of Kirkbride, Bridekirk and Brigham and left her mark on the sacred history of Glastonbury.
In Wales, where St Bridget is known as St Ffraid, several churches and eight holy wells are dedicated to her. Far more common are dedications to the Virgin Mary, St David and his mother St Nun, who also gave her name to two holy wells in Cornwall. One of these performed a rare useful function. Many ancient wells have retained their reputation as places of healing or vision from times when these were gifts of the earth goddess. Mostly they are believed to cure certain diseases or parts of the body, but St Nun’s well at Altarnun on Bodmin Moor provided a psychiatric remedy. Lunatics were brought there to be treated by a method which he Cornish called “bowssening”. The patient was led to the brink of a pool made by the waters of St Nun’s well. He was then seized by priestly therapists, hurled into the water, ducked and tossed about until he was half drowned, after which he was laid in the well chapel while sacred chants were sung over him. If this failed immediately to soothe his mind the process was repeated.
St Nun’s holy wells in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany are natural shrines of the earth goddess and, like those of St Bridget in Ireland, mostly retain the atmosphere of sanctity which has attracted people to them since prehistoric times. At Altarnun, where St Nun was said to have been born and buried, a community of early Christian nuns reformed her pagan cult and continued the administration of healing waters. She journeyed to Wales, landing at St Nun’s bay, Pembrokeshire during a raging storm, and took refuge by a well within a stone circle, where fair weather prevailed with blue skies and summer flowers. There she gave birth to St David, leaving a mark on one of the stones where she pressed down during delivery. The well, to the south of St David’s cathedral was famous for curing children’s and other complaints, and is now a place of Catholic pilgrimage.
Another Cornish well of St Nun is at Pelynt overlooking the Looe valley. Those who can find its obscure site are rewarded with a glimpse of fairyland. The well chamber, built into a bank and lodged within the roots of a tree, is overgrown with ferns and still gives clear, medicinal water. St Nun’s name is attached to it, but it has been reclaimed by its original owners, the Cornish piskies, who are said to bring good luck to those who respect the places and curses to those who defile it.
As the annual rebirth of Brigid preceded the festival of purifying mother earth, so is the feast of St David on the 1st March followed next day by that of his mother St Nun. On those dates in early spring the wells of St David and St Nun begin their traditional season of potency. According to ancient perception, encoded in mythology, the spirit of fertility withdraws at the approach of winter into the metals of the earth, exuding again in spring to stimulate growth and to restore in the waters of the earth their healing and oracular powers. These powers are most concentrated at certain spots where fresh, cool water wells up from the ground. In Britain and Ireland there are literally thousands of holy wells, many neglected and with their legends forgotten, but a surprising number of them are still locally cherished and visited for the virtue in their waters and the peaceful beauty of their settings. Their characters change with the seasons or, as the ancients saw it, with the stages in the annual life cycle of the goddess. For those who admire the maidenly aspect of nature, the season of resort to holy wells begins with the snowdrops and the birth of their patron goddess, Brigid.
You can also now download a Celtic Myth Podshow App from the iTunes store. This is the most convenient and reliable way to access the Celtic Myth Podshow on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’re always connected to the latest episode, and our App users have access to exclusive bonus content, just touch and play! To find out more visit the iTunes Store or our Description Page.
You can now also find an Android version of the App which works identically to the iPhone version. You can find it on Handster at http://www.handster.com/celtic_myth.html or by using the QR code opposite. It’s also found on the Opera Marketplace as well as AppBrain in the US.
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London has many Sacred sites Some writers have long believed that Greenwich and the surrounding area contains many ancient sites such as the Maze at Maze Hill, a possible stone circle at The Point, and the Gorsedd or Great Seat on Blackheath Common. The area was closely connected with the May Day festival, and it’s likely that Greenwich – “the green village” – derived it’s name from it. The area is also closely connected with the fertility rites of the Horned God, Herne the Hunter, commonly known in this area as the Green Man. The Isle of Dogs is said to have have derived its name from Herne’s dogs, who were known as the dogs of the underworld, whose ghostly barks people claimed were often heard at dawn or dusk through the mist. It is likely that this island was closely connected with worship of the stag goddess, Diana.Opposite the Isle of Dogs in Rotherhithe is Cuckcolds Point, where from ancient times a Horn Fair marched in honour of Herne the Hunter down to Deptford and up over Blackheath Common to Charlton House, reputed to built an an ancient Celtic site. Today, the Horn Fair still happens every year in Charlton.
Writing in Prehistoric London in 1925, E O Gordon said there was traditional evidence of two stone circles and at least 4 mounds in London. Research by other writers since then, has led to speculation that London had at one point many Standing Stones and other places of worship, which presumably were destroyed or had Churches built on them from the time after the Saxon invasion of Britain in the 4th century AD, and the subsequent Saxon capture of the city in the 6th century AD. This is a summary of the most commonly accepted sites:..
Stone Circles/Standing Stones
The Temple of the Stag Goddess, Diana, Central London
Built on the site of the present St. Paul’s cathedral, a lunar site traditionally recognised as being ruled by the Moon Goddess and Goddess of Hunting, Diana. Consequently it has also been closely associated with the worship of the Stag and the Horned God. According to legend, as recorded by in 1136, seventy years after the Norman Conquest of England, a Welsh cleric named Geoffrey of Monmouth completed a work in Latin which he titled Historia Regum Britanniae, or History of the Kings of Britain. This a detailed narrative which begins with the Trojan diaspora which followed the fall of Troy. Geoffrey said that King Brutus (who gave his name to Britain), was guided by the goddess Diana to lead Britain’s first inhabitants to the island, arriving around 1100 BC. Thus, it is worth speculating whether Brutus (Brwth) himself was connected with the Pagan site which once stood on St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The site is also connected with the King Lud, who gave his name to the present day Ludgate Circus and Ludgate Hill, on on which St. Paul’s Cathedral stands. Heli (Beli Mawr in the Welsh) in about the year 113 BC. Lud, the son of Heli (Beli Mawr), became King in 73 BC. Lud rebuilt the city of London that King Brutus had founded and had named New Troy, and renamed it Caerlud, the city of Lud, after his own name. The name of the city was later corrupted to Caerlundein, which the Romans took up as Londinium, hence London. At his death, Lud was buried in an entrance to the city that still bears his name, Ludgate. My intuition tells me that Ludgate Hill was a scared site for the Celts, probably because of it’s connections with Brutus and Lud.
The destruction of the Pagan temple at Ludgate Hill happened in 597 AD, when this sacred site of the Celtic Britons had the first St. Paul’s Cathedral on Ludgate Hill – bulit by the Saxon King Aethelbert of Kent. However, after Aethelbert and one of his subordinate Kings Saeberht of Essex both died in 616 AD, the people of London reverted back to Paganism, and leading Christian clerics such as Mellitus where forced to flee the city. It would be another fifty years before Christianity once more took hold – meaning that London was a Pagan city up until the 7th century AD.
Apparently when the building of the present St. Paul’s cathedral began in 1675, architect Sir Christopher Wren, discovered remains of the Stag Goddess temple in the foundations of the previous Catherdral destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Brihtsige’s Stone, Brixton
Brihtsige’s Stone, gave it’s name to Brixton, which is derived from Brixistane meaning “at the Stone of Brihtsige” (The London Encyclopedia, p 91). Further detail is provided in Brief History of Brixton by Alan Piper of the Brixton Society who gives the earliest known reference to “Brixistane” as 1067, by when the name attached to the north-eastern district or Hundred of the County of Surrey – covering more or less the present London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Lambeth and Southwark. The name derives from “Brixi’s stone”, a pillar or stone erected by Childe Brihtsige to mark the meeting place of the Hundred court at the top of Brixton Hill, between its junctions with what are now New Park Road and Morrish Road. The top of such a hill was a typical for meeting places of the Celts – known as a Gorsedd – and the Stone of Brihtsige was almost definately – in my opinion – a continuation of this.
The Stone of the Maidens, Greenwich
Maidenstone Hill, Greenwich, the Stone of the Maiden. Gordon in Prehistoric London also noted a number of locations with the name Maiden Lane, which she said may have had a ceremonial role in Celtic times. She argued that “Maiden” is a corruption of the Sanskrit and Arabic term Maidan meaning “an open place of public meeting” (The Aquarian Guide to London, p 116). The Stone of the Maidens is also the origin of Maidstone in Kent, and the place name of Maidenhead.
Greenwich has many geomantric and shamanistic sites, the original Maze Hill, for example, was a almost certainly an initiation centre, probably dating from pre-Christian times. Such sites once existed all over the island of Britain. According to Jack Gale writing in Other Meridians, Another Greenwich, Morden College in Blackheath is believed to have built a on maze “not unlike that on the slopes of Glastonbury Tor”. (1)
One author E O Gordon described after visiting the area, how the Maze is still visible in what looks like a natural basin in which Morden College nestles. She concluded that the physical features and the basins contours indicated the site of the Maze:).
“Not far from the entrance of Morden College, successive ridges and depressions, faintly discernible, represent the remains of a labyrinth pathway. An old survey of the Manor of Greenwich shows that the familiar thoroughfare of Maze Hill, led direct to the maze”.(1)
Another possible site of a Maze was near The Point, on the edge of Blackheath Common in a area once known as Troy Town. According to Gale, this also may have been the site of ancient maze. (Other Meridians, Another Greenwich, Jack Gale, Adelphi, London, England, 1994, p 22).
The Bryn Gwyn, the White Hill, Tower of London
Now the site of the White Tower in the Tower of London. This ancient and sacred site is said to have been the burial site of Bran’s Head. As Bran was the crow god in Celtic mythology, the Raven’s in the Tower are all that remains of the worship of the sacred head of Bran. It was thought that as long as Bran’s Head was buried in the White Hill facing France, Britain would always be safe from invasion. However, in the 6th century AD, the Celtic chieften Arthur Pendragon disinterred it claiming only he would guarantee the safety this island. He removed Bran’s Head, and as had been predicted by Merlin, Celtic rule started to collapse under Saxon invasion and was finally wiped out in Cornwall and Wales by the 16th century. (The White Goddess, Robert Graves).
The Llandin, Parliament Hill
From a Welsh name signifying a “High-place of worship”. The ley line between here and the White Hill in the Tower of London, is the Midsummer’s day azimuth – the line in which the Sun rise on Midsummer’s day.
The Penton, Islington
On the present site of a water reservoir at the top of Pentonville, Kings Cross. This site is connected with both Merlin and the worship of the sacred head.
The Tothill, Westminster
On the ancient Isle of Thorns or Thorney Island. This island was created where the River Tyburn split (roughly on the site of the present Buckingham Place) to form an island, on which stands today the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. This site is traditionally regarded as a Solar site, where in later times before the Saxon conquest of Kent and London in the 6th century AD, had been a place where the Druids made laws and had a Tree College. It is no coincidence that this site was of great significance to our Celtic forebears, and that today it is the seat of the British government. The Thorney Island was also a traditional, safe crossing point for horses over the River Thames (hence “Horseferry” Road on the old island today).Penny Drayton writing in her article Toot Hills says:
Thorny island The Original Westminster Palace, with Westminster Abbey in the background
Arguably the most auspicious toot hill is the one at Westminster, London. Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament are the most-recent of a succession of palaces and churches which date back to the post-Roman period. Indeed, the first church here, dating to the seventh century, may have taken advantage of the copious remains of Roman buildings.
The locality was known for many centuries as Thorney Island, being an area of relatively solid ground amid the marshes bordering the Thames. Additionally, there was an artifical mound, known as Tot Hill.Tot Hill still stood in Queen Elizabth I’s time, as Nordon, the topographer of Westminster, wrote ‘Tootehill Street, lying in the west part of the city, takes the name of a hill near it which is called Toote Hill, in the great field near the street.’ Toot Hill is indeed shown on a 1746 map by Rocques by a bend in Horseferry Road roughley where Regency Palace now stands.
The name survived in Tothill Fields, the old tournament ground now part of of the playing field for Westminster School in Vincent Square, and Tothill Street, which aligns with the northern transcept of Westminster Abbey. Alfred Watkins discovered and described a pair of leys, one running down the middle of Tothill Street, although his claims that the two alignments crossed at Tot Hill does not match Rocques’ map, although there is no certainty that his cartography was reliable.
Jeff Saward has recorded that there was a maze on Tot Hill, which was recorded as restored in 1672 and traditionally a site for various games of skill and agility, and a so-called Troy Game (played every Sunday in Lent by knights on horseback) may be first recorded in the sixth century.
Sir Thomas Mallory, in the fifteenth century, has Queen Guenevere inviting the Knights of the Round Table to ride out early one morning in May into the woods and fields beside Westminster. Such specualtion about earlier activities here was kept alive throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century by persistent specualtion of Tot Hill being a Druidic site, although the origins of this fable have been lost in the proverbial mists.
Wat Tylers Mound, Blackheath
Blackheath Common, now known today as Whitefields Mount. It was here in 1381 that Wat Tyler and his rebels gathered.
Kennington Mound, Oval
Opposite Kennington Park. This ancient site – where people had the right of public assembly – is today a water fountain. In more recent times it was the site of Chartist meetings and the starting point for Poll Tax and Liverpool dockers demonstrations in more recent times.
Sacred Caves
Merlin’s Caves, Chislehurst, Kent
Merlin’s Caves, commonly known as Chislehurst Caves. It has 9 druid alters and the site is thought to be more than 8000 years old. According to The Women’s Encylopaedia of Myths and Secrets by B G Walker (p 651), these caves were the most likely site of Merlin’s secret cave (On the Trial of Merlin: A Guidebook to the Western Mystery Tradition. Deike Rich and Ean Begg, The Aquarian Press, London, England, 1991).
Merlin’s Cave, underneath the Penton and near a pub by the same name.
Jack Cades Cavern
This site, underneath Blackheath Common, it contains an effigy of the Horned God.
Sacred Wells
Camberwell, London
Camberwell, South London. The old word “Cam” means “cripple” (Cripple’s Well’s) in Welsh indicating that the well had healing propetries, and confirms that the site was sacred to the pre-Saxon Celtic population of London. Alternatively, the Well could be named after Camber (Camber’s Well), on of the three sons of the legendary first King of the Briton’s – Brutus, who first established the city of London in the 12th century BC. The area has other connections with the early Britons in the name Walworth, which means “enclosure of the Britons”, according to A. D. Mills in his Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names(Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1998);
Ladywell, South London. In 1986, Robert Smith published The Well of Our Lady (The Ladywell Village Society, London, England, January 1986). In it, he shows how the sacred well was recorded as early in local records as early as 1472. Smith notes that there has been a Christian Church near the site for over a 1000 years, and that in the past, the well was dedicated to St.Mary, and was visited by pilgrims on there way to Canterbury. The dedication to St. Mary also fits in with the many other examples of Christianity taking over Pagan sites in this way. Sadly, the well is now covered by the road over the bridge by the entrance to Ladywell station..
Wells Park, London
Wells Park, South London, the site of seven wells, of which one still exists on the site of the demolished property of 26 Longton Avenue; Wells Park is named after medicinal springs which were found in Sydenham in the seventeenth century, when Sydenham was still in Kent. This attracted crowds of people to the area. Some of the former wells in the area are within the park’s grounds and the springs are still active.
Brideswell, Central London
Brideswell, Central London, near St. Brides Church, Fleet Street, London.
This well was located close to the south-east corner of the present church. St Bride’s is one of the oldest of the London churches and probably built upon an ancient shrine dedicated to the Celtic goddess Bridget. The well has disappeared under a modern house/office extension but evidence suggests that it was still providing water in the 19th Century. A beautiful specimen of one of London’s Plane trees lies close to the spot of the well, which we might suppose connects to its healing energies.
Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell, London
Clerkenwell took its name from the Clerks’ Well in Farringdon Lane (clerken was the Middle English genitive plural of clerk, a variant of clerc, meaning literate person or clergyman). In the Middle Ages, the London Parish clerks performed annual mystery plays there, based on biblical themes. Part of the well remains visible, incorporated into a 1980s building called Well Court. It is visible through a window of that building on Farringdon Lane.
St Chad’s Well is almost certainly ancient and it’s original dedication is lost in history It was located on the banks of the Fleet River and possibly dedicated to Bridget along with the spring at Brideswell . It stood near the ‘Battle Bridge’, an ancient arched bridge which crossed the Fleet. The area surrounding the bridge was called Battle Bridge until 1836 when a statue of King George IV was erected at the meeting of what are now Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross Road and York Way, thus Battle Bridge became the ‘King’s Cross’. The strongest tradition associated with Battle Bridge is that the name commemorated the final battle between the British led by Boudicca, and the Romans. Boudicca and 80,000 Britons are said to have been slaughtered here.e
St Chads Well 1896
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From the middle to the end of the 19th century, the well was in considerable repute, at least locally. The gardens were then spacious, and well stocked with trees and flowers. The water was heated in a large cauldron and thence drawn into glasses. By the beginning of the 19th century, the well was in decline. A visitor in 1825 found it neglected and dilapidated;
‘Entering by an elderly pair of wooden gates, a scene opens which the unaccustomed eye may take for the pleasure ground of Giant Despair…You perceive painted on an octagon board “Health Restored and Preserved”. By an open door stands an ancient ailing female in a black bonnet, a clean cotton gown and a check apron…this is the Lady of the Well’.
Ashton, John (1938); The Fleet, Unwin.
St Chad, born in Northumbria, became Bishop of Mercia in 669 and died in Lichfield in 672. St Chad is the patron saint of wells and springs
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Swearing on the Horns, Highgate, 1906. Described by Bryon in Childe Herald, there were once about 20 public houses in Highgate, where strangers were required to take a pair of antlers horns in their hands, and swear a jocular oath:
. . . Both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath,
With dance and draught till morn . . .
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The custom of Swearing on the Horns in Highgate died out at the end of the 19th century, but has been revived as an occasional ceremony in certain pubs. (The London Encyclopedia, pp379-80, Papermac, London,1983).
Historical background
The Pagan fertility god Herne the Hunter/the Green Man was one of the main gods of the ancient Britons from Paleolithic times. Chesca Potter, writing in her pamphlet Mysterious Kings Cross (Mandrake, Oxford, 1990), says that the Stag-headed God represents:
“The male fertilic power of nature, physically and spiritually. In prehistoric times, the Shaman would have dressed in deerskins and a mask with stag-horns becoming as the God . . .”
There is enough evidence to say that the Green Man/Herne the Hunter is well connected with certain areas of London: We have the Horn Fair – still held in Charlton village every year; the connection in the early history of Greenwich with fertility rites, stag worship and the Green Man; the possibility that Herne Hill is named after him, indeed, did the hill have a greater significance to the Stag-worshipping Celts of early London?
There is also the Pagan temple dedicated to the Goddess Diana which once stood on the site of St. Paul’s Cathedral, reputedly built by the legendary King Brutus who Diana appeared to in a vision in Malta and urged him to settle in “the great white island” – Albion some 3,000 years ago. He landed at Totnes in Devon and marched on London where he erected the temple of Diana – on which he recorded details of his vision of the Goddess of the Stag and Archery. This Pagan temple survived until the arrival of the Saxon’s in the 7th century when St. Pauls Catherdral was first built.
Thus, it could be argued that the worship of the Horned God and the Stag Goddess arrived with King Brutus and stayed an integral part of the religious life of Celtic Londoners right up the first suppression of Paganism in London in the 7th century A.D. However, the Pagan rites of Celt’s of London have survived well into recent times with the May Day festivals, the May Pole celebrations, and other festivities connected with the Green Man/Herne the Hunter. In medieval times, for example there was at least four major May Day festivals – often lasting well over a week: in May Fair (Mayfair), the Southwark Fair, the Greenwich Fair, and the Horn Fair from Bermondsey to Charlton.
Finally, there is also a belief that the Isle of Dogs is named after Herne’s 50 dogs, identified by their red tipped ears, and known as the Hounds of Hell. It is highly possible that the worship of the Green Man in Celtic times and beyond, was centered around Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, although today there is scant evidence of this, except in the place names.
The ancient legends connect the Robin Hood/Green Man stories with Wimbledon Common and Windsor Castle, and possibly other areas of London through pub names: l notice there’s a Herne’s Tavern on Peckham Rye Common, one called The Horns in St. Pancras, the Horn Tavern in EC4, the Green Man in Bellingham etc.
The Horned God also has Germanic origins which were brought over by Pagan tribes such as the Angles and the Saxons to Britain from the 4th century onwards. Perhaps one of the reasons why stag workship has survived so long in most parts of Britains is that the Saxon tribes were themselves Pagans and no doubt contributed substantially to the survival of both the folkore and stag worship up until present times. One of our readers, Penda, from Germany, e-mailed me (March 2001) with the following information on the origins of stag worship in Britain.
The stag played an extremely important role in the Germanic witchcraft traditions. The god Yngvi Freyr’s sacred animal was the stag, and he used a stag horn to slay the giant Beli. One of the tribes that invaded Briton were called the Ingavones, whom were a tribe that was dedicated to Yngvi Freyr. Rituals surrounding Yngvi Freyr were very “shamanic” oriented. They did shaking/swaying dances with small bells sewn into their tunics. Other Inveonic rituals involved wildly dancing around boar heads, as well as dressing up in boar skins and wearing stag horns.In fact a holy ring-stead involves a circle of stones (to represent Freya’s necklace, the Brosingomene) with a stang (a pole with stag horns on top). These two important peices represent Vanic (gods of fauna and flora of sea and land) might in its totality. Freya translates to “Lady”, which in turn means bread (power) maker, while Frey translates to “Lord” which means bread (power) giver. The Brosingomene is like a womb, both a protector and a container for power (magen), while the stang (harts horn) is like a penis, projective, pentetrative, and power weilding(through “ejaculation” or release of power).
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Evidence of the Pagan Saxons in London can be found in the fact that the Germanic Pagan God Tiw was the God of Law – who gave his name to Tues-day. One long forgotten river in London was named after him: the River Tyburn, which now flows mainly underground from it’s source in north London. Oxford Street was once, for example, called Tyburn Road until 1713 when Edward Harley, the 2nd Earl of Oxford bought up the area and had the street named after him. The place commonly known as Tyburn is where Marble Arch is today, and was London’s main execution site from 1388 until 1783. As condemned prisoners had the right to make a final speech this is the origin of Speakers Corner – where anyone can exercise the right of free speech free from the threat of libel laws (like in Parliament itself). Furthermore, it is an established fact that the River Tyburn (which flows near Marble Arch), splits right where Buckingham Palace is today and forms an island called Thorney Island, on which law making and such like was traditionally carried out according to pre-Roman Celtic tradition. There, was apparently, once a Druid tree college on the site. The fact that it is the site of the British Parliament and the seat of government is another connection with Pagan times long since forgotten in London’s official history.
May Day Festivals in London
Another part of the worship of the Horned God was the celebration of fertility in the festival of May Day. These happened in May Fairs held in Greenwich and the area in central London known today as May Fair. In fact, there was once two fairs in Greenwich, on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of both Easter and Whitsun week, with the Easter celebrations being the best known. A time honoured custom at the Greenwich May Day was for young couples to climb the hill to where the Royal Observatory is today, and then run or roll down the hill to the great excitement of the gathered crowds. One wonders how old the effigy of the Horned God in Jack Cade’s Cavern under Maidenstone Hill in Greenwich is? Indeed, whether the ancient cave was also the site of initiation rites connected with the Horned God.
The May Fair in London, c. 18th century. Note the May Pole in the picture. Mayfair in London takes its name from the May Day fair that was held there until its suppression in the 18th century. It was held every year on May 1st for 15 days, rivaling the present day Notting Hill Carnival which only lasts for 2. Originally held in Haymarket, in 1686-8 it was moved to Great Brookfield – now the site if Curzon Street and Shepherd Market.).
There is other evidence in place names such as Hornsey in North London, Hornchurch in Essex. If the area had such strong connections with the Horned God and his pack of dogs, then this would make sense. We also have Mayfair – once the site of May Day celebrations until it was suppressed in 1764. There was also a May Fair in Greenwich until it was also suppressed in 1870.
Until 1718, there was a 134 ft May Pole by the Church of St. Mary in the Strand in central London. We also know that the Church of St. Helen in Bishopsgate is built on the site of a Pagan temple probably connected with the Horned God, as the writer Chesca Potter says that the early Celts regarded St. Helen as the consort of the Horned God. St. Paul’s Cathedral is also built on a Pagan temple dedicated to the worship the Goddess Diana, who was closely connected with Stag worship. Like with the Swearing on the Horns in Highgate, a similar ceremony survived at St. Paul’s until the turn of the century: the head of Stag was brought into the Church by clergymen and laid on the altar, and which point, huntsmen from the forests surrounding London, blew their horns at the four quarters. This was followed by “great feasting and celebrations” according to John Matthews and Chesca Potter writing in The Aquarian Guide to London(The Aquarian Press, London, England, 1990).
The Horn Fair
The Horn Fair was an ancient festival – more like today’s Notting Hill Carnival – which started at Cuckold’s Point in Rotherhite and paraded down the streets through Deptford, across Deptford Bridge, through Greenwich and up to the ancient site now where Charlton House in south London.
Early Celtic London
This early history of Celtic London is completely ignored in most history books of the city for whom London emerged as a city either after the arrival of the Romans or at the time just before the Norman invasion. The Battle of Hastings in 1066 saw the triumph of the Norman invaders, but before then the last most significant date before the Saxon invasion was in 410 AD, when the Romans left Britain, and Celtic rule established. In London and Kent at least, this would last for some 200 years after the departure of the Romans.
This l consider worth mentioning, as l would assume from this, that worship of the Horned God in London and the South-East of Britain would have been widespread before the Saxon’s drove our Celtic forebears from the area around 560 AD (even though the Celts by this time were largely Christians and the Saxons were Pagans). Thus, we can assume that from historical records, that London was Celtic (and therefore largely Welsh-speaking) until at least the 6th century AD. Evidence that worship of the Horned God was still widespread in the 7th century is found in an edict issued by the Pope in 669 AD. He had been forced to send a mission to southern England and led by Theodore the Greek, who became the new Archbishop of Canterbury. One of his first actions was to issue a series of laws that forbade pagan practices. One of the most famous of these concerned the wearing of animal masks and costumes during the Twelve Days of Yule:
Whoever at the kalends (first) of January goes about in the form of a stag, that is changing himself into the form of an animal, dressing in the skin of a horned beast, and putting on the head of a beast, for those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years, because it is devilish.
The English language arrived after the Jutes, Saxons and Angles (who later gave their name to this land: England from Land of the Angles or Angland) conquered most of the island of Britain. Although the Celts were driven out from most of what we call England today, they succeeded in maintaining their language and independence in Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria, by and large until after the arrival of the Norman’s in the 11th century.
Before we look at the evidence of worship of the Horned God in Celtic Britain before the Saxon invasion, we should look at the historical background of these events. In 410 AD, the Roman Empire no longer considered Britain to be a colony, and Roman officials were expelled and a native government established. At this time, southern Britain was being constantly raided by Saxons, Irish and Picts, according to Peter Berresford Ellis, writing in Celt and Saxon: The Struggle for Britain AD 410-937. (Constable, London, England, 1993). Between 425 and 450 AD, the High King of Britain of southern Britain is now known to have been Vortigern (from Vawr-tighern or Overlord), was the ruler of the southern half of Britain around 450 AD. Known by the Celts of Kent asGwrtheyrn Gwrthenau or “supreme Leader” , he became the arch-traitor in the Celtic kingdom, as he is accused of betraying Britain to the Saxons.
It is worth speculating whether Vortigern had any connections with Greenwich, which until the end of Celtic times had a greater magical significance than it does today, with its Great Seat or Gorsedd on Blackheath Common, the Maze on the edge of the Common (from where Maze Hill gets it name), and the areas connection with the Horned God, May Day and fertility worship. The Great Seat (now known as Whitfield Mount) may have been a place where the High-King of Kent attended meetings or took part in rituals that celebrated the Winter and Summer Solstice.
Vortigern employed Jutish mercenaries to help fight the Saxons who were attempting to establish settlements in Kent. However, in 449 AD, these mercenaries rose in mutiny, led by Hengist and Horsa. By 465 AD, the Jutes managed to breakout of their settlement on Thanet Island (from the Celtic word meaning “the bright island”), and begin their conquest of Kent.
By 488, Aesc, the son of Hengist, had been crowned King of Jutish Kent. This was followed in 495 AD, when the Saxons began to establish a kingdom near Southampton. It is unclear when Greenwich and London fell to Saxon rule, but this would have been around 560 AD, as the Saxons began in invade mid-Britain in 571 AD. We know that Vortigern fought one battle on the River Darent in Kent (the Celtic name means “The River by the Oaks”), with other battles being fought between the Jutes, Saxons and the Celts at Aylesford and Crayford (Cray coming from the Celtic word “fresh or clean”). The Saxon chronicles at the time claimed to have killed 4000 Britons, and that the “British forsook Kent and fled to London”). However, the Celts regrouped and defeated the Saxons at Richborough in 460 AD, where some say that Vortigern was killed in his hour of triumph.
It seems that following this battle, a new Celtic leader emerged in southern Britain, known in the Welsh tradition as Emrys (the historian Gildas referred to him as Ambrosius Aureliannus). He led a another successful counter-offensive against the Saxon invaders. Emrys made a prophecy that the Red Dragon (the Celts) would triumph over the White Dragon (the Saxons). However, it was to be the Saxons who had conquered most of the island of Britain by the 7th century AD. By the time Aesc became King of Kent in 488 AD, Berresford Ellis observes that:
The indigenous Celtic population (of Kent), the descendants of the Cantii who gave their name to the area (and Canterbury), and were the first to face the landings not only of Julius Caesar but of Aulus Plautius one hundred years later, had either been massacred by the new (Saxon) settlers or driven westward out of the area; a few perhaps had been retained as Slaves by the Jutes to be absorbed eventually in their German culture . . . (p41).
Historical evidence presented by Berresford Ellis indicates that the Saxons and Jutes pursued “a policy of annihilation” against the native Celtic population of Kent in the 6th century AD. The Saxon’s engaged in “clearing the native inhabitants” from their lands, which would eventually become England. The Celts of Kent and southern Britain, worn down by “two centuries of raiding” were “virtually exterminated”. In Sussex, for example, very few Celtic place names survive, showing a “fairly immediate and complete change of population” (Celt and Saxon, p43-44).
By the end of the 6th century AD, the Saxon’s controlled London (from the Celtic Londo, meaning “a wild place”). The Saxon King Aethelberht of Kent exerted his authority over the city, having been converted to Christianity by Augustine in 597 AD, and had the first Saxon Church built there in 604 AD at St. Pancras Old Church, itself built on a Pagan sacred site on a small mound beside the River Fleet (now a underground sewer). Aethelberht also built over the main Pagan site connected with Stag worship in London – St. Paul’s Cathedral , completed in the same year. Thus, we have evidence that the Saxon’s obliterated the Celtic places of worship and other places of cultural importance after they had driven the Celts from London.
The Witch of St. Pancras: Shown here crossing the Fleet River with Old St. Pancras Church in the background. From a printed printed by John Hammond in 1643 entitled “A Most Certain, Strange and True Discovery of a Witch”. In 1968, the Beatles used the Church graveyard for the inside shot of their double album The Beatles: 1962-1966.Thus, the advent of Christianity and Saxon rule probably saw the end of the worship of Herne the Hunter in the area, although the tradition of May Day and the Horn Fair has survived through to the present day.
Several writers, such as E. O. Gordon, Jack Gale, John Matthews and Chesca Potter, have all highlighted Greenwich’s much older history – that of being a site of great significance to our Celtic forebears in pre-christian times. I was always intrigued by it’s name the “Green Village”, with it’s possible connections to earlier May Day festivals, and the Horned God, Herne the Hunter, commonly known in this part of Britain, as The Green Man.
Thus, it is clear that the Pagan history of Greenwich and Deptford goes back into the mists of time where all that survives today are folklore, myth and legend. Few would now accept that the old city of London and the Kentish villages (as they were then) of Greenwich and Deptford had no history before the Roman occupation in 43 AD.
The Green Man, who in the Celtic myth was known as the King of the Underworld, was known by many names in Celtic Britain: as Arawn as he rides over Pembrokeshire; as Gwyn ap Nudd as he hunts between Glamorganshire and the West country; while further east, he appears as Herne the Hunter. He is always accompanied by his white hounds, which have the tell-tale red-tipped ears of dogs of the underworld, according to Caitlín Matthews, writing inMabon and the Mysteries of Britain (Arkana, London, 1987, p23).
I believe that that worship of Herne was a strong religious practice among the early Celts of this area of South East London in pre-christian times (England was declared a Christian country under the Saxon Kings in 665AD). St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was a site originally dedicated to the worship of the Stag Goddess, Diana. According to the Annals of St. Paul’s (1879), St. Paul’s Cathedral was a site of a temple – probably a stone circle – until the Aethelberht had it destroyed and the site rededicated as a Christian site between 604AD and 610AD, as noted in 1879 by John Murray in the Annals of St. Paul’s (Quoted inHell, Volume Two, May 1994. Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, Kitchen Sink Press/Mad Love Publishing, MA, USA, 1994.
However, it takes a long time for people to forget or lose religious practices which are thousands of years old. The investigative writers Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell state
“The continuation of clearly Diana centred rituals at St. Paul’s until almost a thousand years after the alleged ascendancy of Christianity is documented in John Stone’s Survey of London (1598), in which he tells how a buck and a doe (Diana’s sacred animals), would be slaughtered at the high altar upon a certain date each year, after which the head would be paraded about the cathedral upon a pole while horns were blown to announce the sacrifice, these being answered by horn blasts from every quarter of London. Commentators at the time remarked: ‘It seems we have our Diana worship back’ “.
In Windsor Park, people still claim to have seen Herne the Hunter or heard his dogs calling out through the mist. These ghostly appearances are said to be seen when Britain is under threat, for example, just before the Second World War. According to Eric L Fitch, writing In Search of Herne the Hunter (Capell Bann, Berkshire, England, 1994, p161), the last time it was reported seen was by a soldier guarding Windsor Castle in 1976.
Matthews and Potteralso claim that the Isle of Dogs – which was a combination of forest and marshland until quite recently – is haunted by a ghostly huntsman riding through the sky with a pack of phantom hounds. In their view, it is probable that Herne the Hunter was once worshiped on the island, and his “presence” still lingers there. A carving of a head that resembles the Green Man can be found above an old entrance to a house bordering Greenwich Park in Park Vista: It shows his head with the leaves and bushes growing out of his mouth, nostrils and ears – a common representation of the Green Man
In Windsor Park, people still claim to have seen Herne the Hunter or heard his dogs calling out through the mist. These ghostly appearances are said to be seen when Britain is under threat, for example, just before the Second World War. According to Eric L Fitch, writing In Search of Herne the Hunter (Capell Bann, Berkshire, England, 1994, p161), the last time it was reported seen was by a soldier guarding Windsor Castle in 1976.
Matthews and Potteralso claim that the Isle of Dogs – which was a combination of forest and marshland until quite recently – is haunted by a ghostly huntsman riding through the sky with a pack of phantom hounds. In their view, it is probable that Herne the Hunter was once worshiped on the island, and his “presence” still lingers there. A carving of a head that resembles the Green Man can be found above an old entrance to a house bordering Greenwich Park in Park Vista: It shows his head with the leaves and bushes growing out of his mouth, nostrils and ears – a common representation of the Green Man
The Herne myth is closely interwoven with the Robin Hood legends. Areas connected with him in London, such as Wimbledon Common and the Kingston Zodiac which surrounds it, contain places named after him, such as Robin Hood Gate and Lane in Wimbledon, and Robin Hood Lane in Millwall, according to Mary Caine writing in The Kingston Zodiac (published in Kingston, Surrey, England, 1978). Greenwich Park, which researchers believe at one time, had at least one stone circle and several underground initiation sites, is undoubtedly an ancient and sacred site. When the park was enclosed in 1433, a stretch of ancient roadway, which was believed to have been part of the old Roman Watling Street, was closed to public use. (Other Meridians, Another Greenwich, Adelphi, London, England, 1994, p 22).
Conclusion
The evidence presented here supports the hypothesis that the early Celtic inhabitants of London worshipped the Horned God, and that the Pagan celebration of fertility in the May Day festivals survived until quite recently in the city with the May Fair near Tyburn (Marble Arch), and the Greenwich Fair. Rituals connected with worship of the Stag Goddess Diana, and the Horned God, also survived until quite recently with the Swearing on the Horns in Highgate, and the Blowing of the Horns in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Along with place names and local legends connecting the Horned God or Green Man with the Isle of Dogs and Richmond Park, these suggest that these beliefs and religious worship was once widespread in Celtic London and the surrounding areas, and probably only began to die out with the Saxon conquest on London in the 6th century AD.
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Ireland lay on the edge of the world until Columbus proved otherwise in 1492. The mysterious Atlantic was explored by sailors such as Saint. Brendan (†577) and one of islands he came across on his voyages was Hy Brasil, the Irish Atlantis, which he referred to as The Promised Land.).
It got its name from the Irish Uí, meaning descendant of Bresal, meaning beauty. Bresal was of the Fir Bolg and it was after one of his daughters, Galvia, that Galway got its name. It was suggested that the country of Brazil was named after the island, but it actually got its name after the red coloured Brazil wood. Other names for the island included Tir fo-Thuin (Land Under the Wave), Mag Mell (Land of Truth), Hy na-Beatha(Isle of Life), and Tir na-m-Buadha (Land of Virtue).
There is a description of the island the 9th century biography of Saint Brendan Navigatio Sancti Brendani which was a medieval bestseller. The island was described as being shrouded in mist, visible for one day only every seven years, circular in shape with a river running across its diameter. Though visible it could not always be reached.
Its exact location has never been clarified. In 1325 the Genoese cartographer Dalorto placed it west of Ireland, later it appeared southwest of Galway Bay. Some said it was off the Kerry Coast. On some 15th century maps, islands of the Azores appear as Isola de Brazil, or Insulla de Brazil. A Catalan map from 1480 labels two islands “Illa de brasil”, one to the south west of Ireland one south of “Illa verde” or Greenland.
Over the centuries many sought it. Indeed, Christopher Columbus may have gone looking for it when he went to Galway in 1477 to follow up on the stories he had heard of land to the west.In the 15th-century The Book of Hy-Brazil was written in both Irish and Latin giving lists of diseases, their symptoms and cures under various columns.
A considerable amount was written about the island in the 17th century. One of the most famous visits to Hy-Brasil was in 1674 by Captain John Nisbet of Killybegs. He and his crew were familiar with the waters of west.One day a fog came up and when it lifted, the ship found itself perilously close to rocks. While getting their bearings, the ship anchored in three fathoms (one fathom =six feet) of water, and four crew members rowed ashore to visit Hy-Brasil. They spent a day on the island, and returned with silver and gold given to them by an old man who lived there.
In his work A Chorographical Description of West or H-Iar Connaught (1684) the historian and last chief of the O Flaherty clan of Galway, Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1629 – 1718 ) or Roderick O’Flaherty wrote about the island.
He recalls a tale about a man Murrough Ó Laoí from Iross-Ainhagh, in the south side of the Barony of Ballynahinshy, about nine leagues (one league=3.45 miles/5.5 km) from Galway who had visited the island for two days. While out rambling in 1668, Morogh encountered three men, who kidnapped him and brought him to the island, where the people could speak both English and Irish. From the island he could see The Aran Islands as well as Golamhead and Irrosghill (South Connemara). When he came to he found himself at Seapoint, just outside the city of Galway, not knowing how he got there. He began to practice medicine seven years later with great skill although he had never being to any medical school.
John O’Donovan (1806-1861) from Kilkenny was one of Irelands greatest scholars and internationally renowned for his work on folklore and the Irish language. He was recruited to the Topographical Department of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland under George Petrie in October 1830 and worked diligently for the Survey on place-name researches until 1842. It was inevitable that he would come into contact with the name of the island. In another version of the tale a version given to him in 1839, Ó Laoí was a member of a ship’s crew who landed on the island, and was warned off by a man who told them it was enchanted. As they were leaving, the man gave Ó Laoí a book, telling him not to open it for seven years. Ó Laoí obeyed the instructions, and was able to practise surgery and medicine. The book remained in the family after his death but on further enquiry O’Donovan was told that Ó Laoí’s descendants had recently sold the book in Dublin.
The island was still being marked on sea charts in the 19th century. J. Purdy’s chart of 1830 stated that “Brazil Rock” could be found at 51°10′ N and 15°50′ W. and still appeared under that name until1865, when as its location could not be verified it was removed from maps.
It was suggested in 1870 that the mysterious island could The Porcupine Bank, a shoal raised area of seabed with cold-water corals in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 km/124m west of Ireland discovered in 1862. The last documented sighting of Hy-Brasil was in 1872, when the historian T. J. Westropp and several friends saw the island appear and then vanish. This was Westropp’s third view of Hy-Brasil, but on this voyage he had brought his mother and some friends to verify the existence of Hy-Brasil.
Scientists today believe sightings of the island believe are the results of a mirage, but this does not take away from the beauty of the legend.
Even today, it still continues to inspire authors, most notably Peter Treymayne who wrote a charming story My Lady of Hy Brasil and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill who wrote a very fine poem as Gaeilge enitled An Bhreasaíl. As the seanchaí Eddie Lenihan once remarked
‘if you have no magic in your life you are living in a sad place’.
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Mystery has always surrounded the how a country in Latin America ended up with a name of Celtic origin. In traditional Irish legends, the phantom island of Brâzil was believed to lie off the south-west coast of Connacht in western Ireland. It was named after Bres, the son of Ériu whose father was a Formorian sea god, Elatha. Consequently, according to Michael Dames “Bresil” was a magical realm – neither sea nor land, yet both. According to Dames:
“Brazil, South America, was named after it”. (Mythic Ireland(Thames and Hudson, London, UK, 1992).
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Apparently well into the early 20th century, the Gaelic speaking people of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay believed that what they knew from legend as the mythical land of Brazil was visible every seven years. To earlier generations of people living in Connacht (the province of which Galway is the capital), Brazil was known as the Isle of the Living, the Isle of Truth, of Joy, of Fair Women, and of Apples. Other early Celtic legends also say that the island only appeared at sunset in the mists of the Atlantic and they called it:
“The blessed stormless isle, where all men are good and all the women pure and where God retreats for a recreation from the rest of us”. (Summer of the Red Wolf by Niorris West, William Heinemann Ltd, UK, 1971)
In one account from the 17th century recounted by Dames, Captain John Nisbet of Lisneskay, Co. Fermanagh, claimed to have landed on the island and found cattle, sheep, horses, black rabbits, and a strong castle. Nisbet knocked on the door in vain – but there was no answer. When night came he made his way to the beach with his eight companions and lit a fire. Then a “hideous noise” ensured and they fled to the boat. When they returned the next day, the found an old Scottish gentlemen and servants on the shore, dressed in outdated clothes and talking “old fashioned speech”. The old man claimed to have been imprisoned there by a necromancer and confirmed that the island was indeed “O Brazile”.
Some also believe that the Brazil was is the disputed island of Rockall in the Atlantic Ocean (a small island some 84 feet wide and 70 feet of so above sea level), that was annexed by the UK in 1955 and is claimed as Irish territory, is the last remaining part of the lost land of Brazil.
Another hypothesis is that an Irish monk – Saint Brendan, had been to a land he called Hy Brazil. The island of Saint Brendan or Brazil of Saint Brendan was one of the names that could be seen in maps found in the early Middle Ages-around the 9th Century. This island was a mythological place:
“Where bells tolled over the old sea and the island seemed to vanish in the horizon every time the sailors tried to reach it”
According to this version of the legend, Hy Brazil was discovered by Saint Brendan, who left Ireland in 565 A.D. In my view, if St. Brendan visited any island, he may have found the island of Rockall and assumed that it was part of the mythical land of Brazil, which he would have known about as it had been mentioned in Irish legends going back some 3000 years. Bres after all was the son of Eriu, the mythical Goddess who gave her name to Eire (Ireland), which indicates that this was one of the earliest Irish legends.
Brazil was certainly well known during medieval times when explorers from Europe where setting out to discover what they called the “New World”: In the period of 1351 up to around 1731, the name Hy Brazil could be found on most European sea maps, always showing it as an island in the Atlantic Ocean. According to A Russell-Wood:
Fourteenth century maps carried the reference to Insule Sancti Brandani, recalling the legendary voyages of the sixth century Irish monk in search of the “Promised Land of the Saints” which were to be recorded in Latin prose in the ninth century Navigatio Brendani. These islands ‘migrated’ from north of Europe to the west. Since the early fourteenth century, there had been references to an island called Brasil not far west of Ireland. Both name and island moved westwards, being transformed into a landmass and recognized as such by Duarte Pacheco Pereira in his Esmeraldo de situ orbis.
The mythical island of Hy Brazil appeared out in the Atlantic to the west of Ireland in charts as early as 1325, as well in the famous Catalan Atlas dated 1375 and, subsequently, on numerous maps for the next 200 years, including Waldseemuller’s map of the British Isles issued at Strassburg in 1513 and its later editions. It was also shown on Toscanelli’s chart dated about 1457 which was said to have been used by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage in 1492. This is highly significant as it indicates that if Brazil was known to Columbus, then it would almost certainly have been known to Pedro Alvares Cabral (1460-1526) who “discovered” Brazil in 1500.
To add to the confusion that faced early explorers using these maps, some early charts also depicted the mythical land of Brazil far out in the ocean half way to Zipangu (Japan). Apparently Brazil been ‘sighted’ so often that early geographers were reluctant to abandon the possibility of its existence. In fact, it was not finally removed from British Admiralty charts until the 1865.
So how did the country called Brazil end up with it’s name ? One theory says that Brazil was initially colonized by people coming from Viana do Castelo (in northern Portugal), and that through the knowledge of legends from the Celts in Galicia, they would have been aware of the lost continent of Brazil. And not only Columbus, but other early explorers from England knew about the lost land of Brazil. According to”The Island of Brazil”, a contemporary account written by William of Worcester (and published in the late 18th century) recalled that when word of a “new land to the west” reached Bristol in the late 1470s this was presumed to be Brazil. In 1480, a Bristol merchant John Jay outfitted at great expense an 80-tonne ship to sail to the island of Brazil, described as “a name often given in medieval European tales to a land far to the west of Ireland”. Setting sail in July 1480 from Bristol, Jay’s ship voyaged west, intending to “traverse the seas.” But the journey ended in failure. English crews had yet to master the new methods of astronomical navigation devised in Portugal and Spain: open, oceanic voyaging – as opposed to island hopping by way of Iceland and Greenland.
In the Welsh and Cornish myths, Bresal was a High King who made his home in the Otherworld “which is sometimes called Hy- or I-Breasal in his honor”. Like in the Irish myth, “His world is visible on only one night every seven years”. Thus, it is clear that the Celts of Galicia, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and sailors from England all knew of the legend of the lost land of Brazil. Would it then be unreasonable to assume that when Portuguese explorers reached South America they mistakenly thought they had landed on Breasal’s world and named the land they discovered “Brazil” in his honour ?
Of course, it is possible that the name of the country called Brazil is not connected with the Celtic myth – but in my opinion this theory is not convincing. In this account, the word “Brazil” is derived from the Portuguese and Spanish word “Brasil”, the name of an East Indian tree with reddish-brown wood from which a red dye was extracted. The Portuguese found a New World tree related to the Old World brasil tree when they explored what is now called Brazil, and “as a result they named the New World country after the Old World tree”. The authors are clearly not aware of how most of the Celtic nations (especially Galicia) – themselves with a history of seafaring as old as the Portuguese and Spanish – had there own legends of the mythical continent of Brazil.
Of course, we do not know if Cabral in 1500 knew about the legends of the lost land of Brazil from the of the Celt’s of Galicia when he claimed the land of Brazil for the Portuguese Crown in 1500. It is interesting to speculate as to whether Cabral himself was of Celtic origin. Some writers believe that the Cabral family in Portugal came originally from Galicia, from one of two towns of that name, and that they arrived in Portugal very early presumably before the Islamic conquest of the Iberian peninsula. Another link is that Irish legend records that the Irish people are themselves descended from the Milesians who with their King, Heber, and the Bard AmergIn, came from Galiciaaround 1268 BC and conquered Ireland, as noted by Robert Graves in his classic book The White Goddess (1961, 1972 Farrar, Strauss and Giroux New York, USA).
Either way, it is my view that most evidence concerning the origin of the land of Brazil suggest that it was of Celtic origin, and that this same name ended being given to the land of Brazil when it was “discovered” by Cabral, as it featured on most nautical maps at the time, and because the Celtic myth of the lost land of Brazil was certainly known to Spanish and Portuguese explorers.
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