“I didn’t buy a map; that would have spoilt it, somehow; to see everything plotted out, and named and measured. What I wanted was to feel that I was going where nobody had been before.”
From ‘A Fragment of Life’, by Arthur Machen.
The formidable figure of Gwyn ap Nudd dominates the mythological landscape of Britain, both ancient and modern. He is the Dark Lord of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld; he is the King of the Tylwyth Teg and also the fearsome leader of the Wild Hunt. There is a vast amount of information about him on the internet, so I shall forebear from reproducing it all here; instead, I shall simply refer to those parts that particularly captured my attention while I was studying and pondering this alluring figure.
For those of you who are regular visitors to this site, it will come as no surprise when I begin this post by quoting yet again from Ralph Whitlock’s 1979 book In Search of Lost Gods:
“Against the backdrop of human settlement in Britain, even the Celts were relative newcomers. As warlike invaders they started to arrive in Britain about the middle of the first millennium BC, but before that the island had an unwritten history of at least two thousand years. The Celts came in no great numbers, imposing themselves as an aristocracy on the older races, and it is unlikely that they initiated a great religious upheaval. Rather, their own beliefs were probably grafted on or merged with those of a much older religion.
Thus, in our search for the old gods, we may well find traces of those who had commanded the worship of men in the days when Stonehenge was young….”
It also strikes me as perfectly possible that, when searching for these old gods, we should find evidence of men of flesh and blood, whose reputations and exploits were such that they went on to acquire the standing of gods or demi-gods in the wild tales and legends told by their descendants. It seems likely that Hercules, Theseus, Arthur and others were once historical figures, so it seems no less likely that someone such as Gwyn ap Nudd may have once physically walked and ridden across the mist-shrouded plains and hills of prehistoric Britain. I’m under no illusions that I’ll even come close to proving such a thing, but if this man once existed, he may have left signs of his life and passing that we can discern in certain words and legends, as well as upon the physical landscape in which we live.
There is no shortage of material to consider, but his kingship seems as good a place as any to start. When I read of Gwyn ap Nudd being described as the King of the Tylwyth Teg, my mind immediately wandered to Stonehenge and the possibility that it may have been Caer Sidi, or the Fairy Fortress described in Taliesin’s poem The Spoils of Annwn.
Even if Stonehenge was not the structure mentioned in the poem, it still possesses many attributes that would seem to link it to the Fair Folk, perhaps the most notable being ‘Stonehump’, the recently discovered mound that has apparently always existed on the site, marked below with a blue spot.
I’ve written about the other connections between Stonehenge and the Fair Folk in the link above to the Caer Sidi page. Whether or not these links and associations were ever ‘real’ in the sense that archaeologists and other scientists approve of, I cannot say, but that is not my concern. I’m simply interested in the fact that there’s no shortage of reasons to believe that Stonehenge was once associated with the Fair Folk, or with a belief in them, so as Gwyn ap Nudd was later credited with being the King of these beings, it seems reasonable to me to believe that he was once associated with the monument and its landscape.
As the Lord of Annwn, or the Welsh Otherworld, Gwyn is also identified with Glastonbury, but as the Tor is merely one portal of many to the Otherworld, rather than the Otherworld itself in its entirety, I see no reason why Gwyn should not have been associated with all the other portals or openings to this strange realm; indeed, I would regard it as inevitable. Again, the portal or entrance to the Otherworld that springs most readily to mind is Stonehenge, while I’ve long ago lost track of all the information that’s been presented here that makes the compelling case for this notion.
In this context, I was intrigued to learn that Gwyn’s family or tribe was described, in mediaeval times, as being the “Talaith y Gwynt”, or the “the nation of the wind.” If I’m correct about Vespasian’s Camp once having been the City of Apollo as described by Pytheas of Massilia, then it follows that there were once kings in this place known as Boreades, or sons of Boreas, the ancient Greek god of the North Wind.
It may be that the word ‘Boreades’ derives from a different source, but it’s possible that there are other links between Boreas and Gwyn ap Nudd. Boreas was intimately associated with horses and one of Gwyn’s later manifestations was as the Leader of the Wild Hunt; as for their dispositions, Boreas was depicted as rapacious with dark, straggly hair and was said to be very strong with a violent temper, a description that isn’t a million miles away from that of Gwyn.
I also noted that one Roman term for the North was Septentrio, as used by Pliny, Tacitus and others. The word derived from ‘septem triones’ or ‘seven plough oxen’, a term that was used to describe the constellation of the Great Bear, but I mention this purely on account of the number seven, which will appear again later on in this piece. As Carl Sagan once observed “Imagination takes us to worlds that never were, but without it, we go nowhere,” so it may be that all these links between Gwyn ap Nudd and Stonehenge are illusory, but they make a poetic logic, if nothing else, while they were substantial enough to register on my consciousness and to linger there.
Before we leave Stonehenge, I’ve written in depth about the mountain of evidence linking the Druids to the ruins on the plain, so I won’t go over it again. Nonetheless, it seems completely unavoidable to me that the Druids and their forebears – proto-Druids? Keepers of the Portals? – were intimately associated with the site from the very earliest times, so this made me think of some other possible links between Gwyn and Stonehenge, as well as between Gwyn and the Druids.
As the Lord of Annwn and later as the Leader of the Wild Hunt, Gwyn ap Nudd came to be viewed as a psychopomp, or one who led the souls of men into the Otherworld or afterlife. Pomponius Mela described the Druid belief that souls were eternal and lived on in the infernal regions, or ‘ad inferos’, an idea that’s echoed almost literally in the idea of Annwn, but I shall come to the etymology of ‘Annwn’ in due course.
In his Natural History, Pliny wrote of the Druids: “Therefore we cannot too highly appreciate our debt to the Romans for having put an end to this monstrous cult, whereby to murder a man was an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh most beneficial” while in the Arthurian tale Culhwch and Olwen, Gwyn ap Nudd murdered a nobleman named Nwython, then forced the man’s son to eat his father’s heart. This cruel act may simply have been a form of mental torture, so I may be wrong in seeing it as some form of Druidic communion, but the matter of the consumption of human flesh by Druids and by one of Gwyn’s victims seemed to be worth remarking upon, if nothing else.
There seems little doubt that the name Gwyn means something like ‘fair’, ‘bright’ or ‘white’, while it later acquired associations with holiness or purity. In a multitude of recorded Near Death Experiences, survivors speak of having seen a welcoming figure in white as they made their way through the afterlife, or Annwn, so I naturally wonder about this in connection with Gwyn’s role as a psychopomp and on account of what I see as his Druidic connections, while it’s perhaps worth mentioning once again that Pliny described the Druids as wearing white during one of their more important ceremonies.
Something that took my mind away from the environs of Stonehenge was the matter of Gwyn’s father, Nudd, or Nudd Llaw Eraint, or “Nudd of the Silver Hand.” The business of someone possessing a silver hand has been nagging at the back of my mind ever since I first read about it, many years ago, but the quiet voice has yet to make itself fully heard and understood.
In the meantime, I remembered the discovery of a Roman silver ingot in the Mendips, dated to somewhere around 48 AD, while I also remembered from my previous studies of this region that the ancient Dobunni tribe were noted artisans. In addition to this, their name almost certainly means something like “The People of the Deeps”, while it’s possible that the word ‘annwn’ can be found in the last syllables of the tribe’s name.
As I wrote in my book and elsewhere on this site, the Mendips have many ‘archaeologically attested’ entrances to the Underworld in the form of the strange swallets, or holes in the limestone, while the Neolithic specialist Jodie Lewis has described the area as “a landscape full of special and somewhat mysterious places.” As Gwyn ap Nudd was the Lord of Annwn, then it follows that he would also be associated with the entrances to this dark realm, while in light of his father’s disfigurement, there is something tantalising about the presence of silver and silver mines in this region, not to mention the skill at metalworking of its former inhabitants.
Even now, however, it’s difficult to get away completely from Stonehenge. As Dr Robin Melrose detailed in his book “The Druids and King Arthur“, Queen Aelfthryth founded a Benedictine monastery in Amesbury in AD 979, which was named after Saint Melor and in which his relics were housed. Aside from any other attributes, Melor was highly notable on account of having lost his right hand at the age of seven, when it was replaced by a silver prosthesis that eventually grew to function as well as the original. It is a truly bizarre tale, matched only by that of Gwyn’s father Nudd, so it’s difficult not to see some link between Gwyn ap Nudd and the Stonehenge region when we bear in mind the scarcity of holy men with prosthetic silver hands who lost the originals to acts of violence.
Gwyn’s father Nudd seems to have derived from the Celtic god Nodens, who was often equated with Mars, the Roman war god. Gwyn is described as a great warrior, and while there’s no doubt that there were many such people in ancient Britain, the mention of people who excel in battle immediately brings to mind the fearsome Silures of South Wales, those people upon whom “neither terror nor mercy had the least effect”, according to Tacitus.
Furthermore, I’m struck by the references to Gwyn ap Nudd possessing a blackened face, something that also makes me think of the Silures on account of the way in which they were described as being dark of complexion [coloratus] by Tacitus in his biography of Agricola. The ancient Ethiopians were so-named on account of their burned or blackened faces, while they were patently black all over, so I find myself wondering about Gwyn’s blackened face and its precise meaning, especially as his name means ‘white’ or perhaps ‘holy’.
Whatever the truth of the matter may be, his prowess in battle and his dark face inescapably brings to mind the Silures, so it seems natural to look once again to the north-west of Stonehenge, to the heartland of the strange and ferocious people who defied the Roman legions for so long and with such outstanding success.
I would have looked somewhere to the north-west of Stonehenge in any event, for reasons that I’ve gone into on many occasions before, but the former capital of the Silures tribe seems as good a place as any to look for traces of Gwyn ap Nudd, the mighty warrior with a blackened face.
In the medieval poem The Dialogue of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir, Gwyn’s martial standing is praised, because he is described as “the hope of armies” and “hero of hosts”; as for the place of his origin, he replies to the questioner “I come from battle and conflict.” If, as I suspect, there’s an Iron Age [or even earlier] origin for these tales, then I can think of no better place for Gwyn to have been born and raised than in the heartland of the Silures, who successfully resisted the Romans from around 43 AD to 78 AD, when instead of being vanquished and made extinct, they came to a mysterious agreement or settlement with the otherwise unforgiving invaders.
Be all that as it may, just a brief glance through one of my books on folklore reveals that fairies are reputed to be seen at nearby Trellech, while Master Pwca, or Puck, was said to haunt Trwyn Farm. A black dog, possibly one of the Cwn Annwn, has been seen at Redbrook [an apparition I saw for myself in the early 1990s], while a pack of these creatures have also been seen at Tregare and Penrhos. There is yet another haunted tumulus at Newcastle, while in the same place, fairies and elves were said to congregate at an oak tree, something that I find of great interest on account of the link between the Druids and oaks. I could continue for a long while yet, going through all my books, but it seems certain that this area is more haunted than most in Britain, and not just by ghosts.
All this and more seems reason enough to look closely at Usk, whose Welsh name is Brynbuga, an appellation or title that was first recorded in the 15th century, apparently. The meaning of this name is casually given as “The Hill of the Bogeyman”, but a closer examination reveals that there is a very great deal more to the matter than just that. I suspect that the information becomes more relevant still when we remember that Gwyn ap Nudd was The Lord of Annwn and that according to the poem Culhwch and Olwen, Gwyn was the person “whom God has placed over the brood of devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race.”
Gwyn ap Nudd is an accomplished enough character in any event, but given the details provided about his appointment as Lord of Annwn, he is extremely impressive. Elsewhere, Annwn is thought of as a generally benevolent afterlife, similar to the Elysian Fields when it was ruled by Gwyn’s predecessor Arawn, but Gwyn is described here as [presumably] the only person with the ability to keep in check a host of supernatural monsters that would otherwise destroy Mankind. If Gwyn ap Nudd ever lived, then he must have been a formidable Druid, priest or magician to have acquired such a singular standing, and it is with the idea of this singularity in mind that I return to an examination of the word ‘Brynbuga’.
As I wrote earlier, it is presumed to mean Hill [bryn] of the Bogeyman [buga]. In brief, when we look at the word ‘buga’, we see that it may be related to hobgoblin, Irish bocan, Early Irish boccanach, as well as the Welsh bwg (bwci, Cornish bucca), English bug, bugbear and bogie, as well as Puck, the Anglo-Saxon puca and larbula and boc-sithe, meaning an apparition or ghost.
There is the possibility that Buga may have been a proper name, the name of a giant that once roamed Gwent along with six others of his kind, which made me think of the repeated refrain in The Spoils of Annwn whereby “seven alone rose up…” All this is interesting enough, but I was particularly struck by the observation in a book called The Development of Celtic Linguistics that ‘buga’ might not be a proper name, nor a reference to a ghost or demon, but could instead mean “The Hill of THE Buga”, or in other words, the most fearsome supernatural being of them all.
If the word ‘buga’ is related to the word ‘boggart’, then it refers to an always-malevolent creature whose realm was mainly the north of England. Otherwise, there was the giant Buggane of the Isle of Man, a creature that always dwelt near water, but whichever way we look at it, there is something awe-inspiring about such a strange place name, regardless of its precise or original meaning. The uniqueness of this name fascinates me, so I find it hard to not see some parallel with the singular details of Gwyn ap Nudd’s reign over Annwn, especially when I bear in mind all the other circumstantial evidence I’ve provided above.
Gwyn was described as the Lord of Annwn, who kept a brood of demons in their place, and as the King of the Tylwyth Teg or the Fairies, so when I consider a landscape haunted by ghosts, fairies and the Cwn Annwn, with a place with such an unusual name as Brynbuga at its centre, then some connection between the person and the place becomes unavoidable for me.
I was born and grew up in Usk, living there for 18 years, and for most of that time I lived just a hundred yards or so away from a Puck’s Lane, which skirted a field behind the gaol in which the bodies of executed prisoners had been buried. As a young boy in the late 1960s, I always wandered along to see the large-scale excavations at Usk, then in the early 1970s, due to the generous and enlightened attitude of those in charge, I was allowed to work there myself, something I enjoyed beyond the power of mere words to convey.
As far as I’m aware, the Romans set up a fort at Usk that also contained a cavalry wing, in or around 55AD, then in AD 66 or 67, the legion moved out, leaving behind a caretaker force of auxiliaries until a new legionary fortress was built at nearby Caerleon in AD 75. The reason always given for this relocation of the fort was because of flooding, which makes me wonder how auxiliaries, or native troops, were better able to survive being swamped by water than Roman soldiers. The foundation of this fort in 55 AD also came shortly after the destruction of an entire legion by the Silures, who continued to harass and kill Romans for over twenty years, so I also find myself wondering why the twentieth legion left Usk when it did and why auxiliary troops continued to be stationed in what had been the capital of the Silures.
I’m inclined to believe that something other than occasional floodwater caused these movements and I’m also inclined to believe that this ‘something’ was related to the later name of the place, but I cannot prove it. We know that Caesar’s legions in 55BC were fearful of the mist-shrouded island they were ordered to invade, so I can well imagine that the men who went into south Wales over a century later were at least mildly superstitious about setting up camp in the heart of a tribe that had already caused them so many problems, with many more to come.
I’m sure that others will speedily correct me if I’m wrong and this is something I would welcome, but I also seem to recall that no Roman cemetery was ever found at Usk, despite the fact that the place was occupied for ten years by a legion in the middle of some of the most hostile territory in Britain at the time. Presumably, a good many Romans met violent deaths in or around Usk at the hands of the Silures during the active life of the fortress there, but if this was the case, I don’t know of anyone ever having found the graveyard for this people, which in turns leads me to wonder if they were buried elsewhere and if so, why?
Were the deceased, or those who disposed of them, fearful of ending up in an Otherworld that was hostile and malevolent towards their souls? I do not know, but again, I suspect that the reputation of the place known as The Hill of the Spectre or Demon was in place long before the name Brynbuga was first written down in the Middle Ages.
Long before I ever thought of doing such a thing, a study of the ‘haunted’ landscape around Usk was effectively carried out by the writer Arthur Machen, pictured above at Caerleon. You can read about this man for yourself, of course, but he was and still is regarded as a superlative writer on the subject of supernatural terror in the countryside. Arthur Machen was born in Caerleon, just a few miles away from Brynbuga, or Usk, and while he is perhaps best known as the author of The Bowmen, the tale that played such a prominent part in the story of The Angels of Mons, many of his stories deal with otherworldly creatures that inhabit the countryside of south Wales, while he gathered his information by wandering extensively around the landscape in question.
I’m not aware that Machen ever wrote any non-fiction on this subject, but his chilling body of work reflects the belief in and perhaps the “daimonic reality” of the many supernatural entities, such as malevolent earth spirits, of this locale. It may be that there are other parts of the British Isles that are equally rich in such things, which have nonetheless gone unrecorded through lack of a gifted and insightful author to chronicle them, but the simple fact remains that Machen’s written legacy bears witness to this region being home to some particularly potent supernatural creatures.
When I combine all this with the other available information about giants and suchlike in ancient Gwent that corroborate Machen’s observations, then consider the strange name of Brynbuga and the unique standing of Gwyn ap Nudd, the Dark Lord of Annwn and King of the Tylwyth Teg, then a meaningful pattern begins to make itself known to me that is endlessly fascinating to contemplate.
Machen’s stories do not necessarily constitute ‘proof’ of any kind, but it would be a boring world indeed if we all shared identical values. On the one hand, there are those who will thrill to the latest archaeological revelations concerning Stonehenge, which are based on an apparent anomaly on a geophysics survey and on an unexcavated possible pit, and that’s absolutely fine if that is the kind of objective evidence that either satisfies curiosity or else further provokes it.
Personally speaking, at least as far as a study of Gwyn ap Nudd and Stonehenge is concerned, I’m inclined to place slightly more value on the implications of the written works of a man who influenced and who was praised by H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, a man who wrote a story that Stephen King believes to be the best of its kind and a man who played a major part in one of the strangest cultural events of our times, the episode of The Angels of Mons.
There are still many loose ends to tie up, such as the precise origins and meanings of words such as Burrium, Boulaion and Bullaeum, ancient names for Usk that may possibly be related to the ‘buga’ element of Brynbuga. I’ve wondered about Boreas, in this context, but it’s highly doubtful that there’s any connection there, but on the subject of winds, there’s still the question of the proper meaning of the ‘venta’ in the name ‘Venta Silurum’. There’s also the question of the meaning of the word ‘Gwent’ and a host of others that may have some bearing on the distant origins of Gwyn ap Nudd, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
While it stands to reason that many people reading this might regard any link between Brynbuga and Gwyn ap Nudd as ‘unproven’ at best, my contemplation of the Lord of Annwn led me to the pleasing study of an intriguing place name, while it has also reinforced my growing conviction that there is ‘some thing’ hidden in Gwent that was regarded as having immense value by our ancestors.
Wordsworth wrote of it as an insubstantial “something….whose dwelling is the light of setting suns”. There was a time when I thought of it as a physical artefact or idol, but now I’m more inclined to believe that it was some sacred path, dancefloor or place where select people congregated in the belief that their presence in a certain location and at a certain time would confer notable powers upon them, something not too far removed from Machen’s ideas about psychogeography.
And there, for now, the whole matter must rest, but there’s no doubt in my mind that “Somewhere, something wonderful is waiting to be discovered”.
My grateful thanks to Thalia Took, artist, for permission to use her wonderful image of Gwyn ap Nudd at the top of this post. My grateful thanks also to Dr Robin Melrose, Aynslie Hanna and MOJO Productions, to Mark Kirkbride for allowing me to discover for myself what it’s like inside a hill such as Brynbuga, and to all those I met while growing up in Usk in the 1960s and 1970s.
.png)
{ 116 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Next Comments →
Hi Dennis,
Gwyn ap Nudd is Chief of Annwn in Culhwch and Olwen, but in the First Branch of the Mabinogion, the Chief of Annwn is Arawn, who hunts with a pack of supernatural dogs. Arawn sounds like St Aaron, one of the martyrs mentioned by Gildas – and Gerald of Wales says that in the 12th century there was a church dedicted to St Aaron at Caerleon. Arawn swaps places with Pwyll, king of Dyfed, who fights and kills someone called Hafgan (‘Summer Song’ or ‘Summer White’). Sound familiar? Pwyll later marries the horse-goddess Rhiannon, and horses (as well as dogs) were ritually sacrificed at Danebury in Hampshire, not a million miles from Silbury Hill, which was still a sacred place in the Iron Age. Rhiannon and Pwyll have a son Pryderi, who is abducted on the night of his birth, and ends up in Gwent. So many connections!
Hi Dennis,
Gwyn ap Nudd is Chief of Annwn in Culhwch and Olwen, but in the First Branch of the Mabinogion, that job is taken by Arawn, who hunts with a pack of supernatural dogs. Arawn sounds like Aaron, one of the saints mentioned by Gildas – in the 12th century Gerald of Wales said that there was a church dedicated to St Aaron at Caerleon. Pwyll takes over Arawn’s job for a year, and kills someone called Hafgan (‘Summer Song’ or ‘Summer White’). Sound familiar? Later Pwyll, which is related to Greek ‘poine’ (vengeance) and Latin ‘poena’ (punishment), marries the horse goddess Rhiannon – horses (as well as dogs) were ritually sacrificed as Danebury in Hampshire, not a million miles from Silbury Hill, still a sacred place in the Iron Age and Roman period. Pwyll and Rhiannon have a son Pryderi, who is abducted on the day of his birth and ends up in Gwent. There seem to be so many possible connections between Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwent, and even between Gwyn ap Nudd and parts of southern England.
Don’t worry about the double post, Robin – I’ve published them both as there were slight differences in detail and very interesting they are too. Thank you.
I probably contributed far too many ramblings about Gwyn, Arawn and Annwn on the theme Facts Fable and Shades of Grey http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=9554 and will not exhaust everyone’s patience again.
John, when I wrote this post and titled it “In Search of Lost Gods – Gwyn ap Nudd”, it was meant as a declaration of intent, and not as a plan simply to repeat everything that is currently known about Gwyn. I for one am extremely grateful to you for having unearthed so many gems and I hope you’ll continue to do so. I know for a fact that I’ve repeated myself on many occasions during the time I’ve written for Eternal Idol, but while I try my best not to do so, it’s sometimes inevitable and I understand that this principle applies to others as well as to myself.
In my long experience over the decades of going in search of things, animals, people, facts and so forth, I’ve gone down many cul-de-sacs, while I’ve also wandered in circles, retraced my steps and gone over old ground, long before I eventually arrived at my goal. The great heroes of remote antiquity did the same thing with their wandering quests, while another element common to the people of the past and to ourselves is the requirement to ponder long and hard on some matters before so much as a glint of light appears. This light, in turn, might well prove to be a false dawn, but all these things are part of the intense enjoyment I derive from the contemplation of our remote ancestors.
I have many more things to say about Gwyn ap Nudd and who knows? Some of them might even be relevant and of interest. I will post at least one of these ‘things’ at some point later tonight, so if you or anyone else has an opinion, whether it’s negative or positive, I will be very pleased to hear it.
A few days ago, I found myself thinking once again of the late Margaret Gelling, a lady I wrote about at the end of this post, and someone who maintained – among other things – that the place-names and particularly the hill names in Britain constituted “a vast and subtle code”. Now, I have neither the learning nor the wit to try to crack this code, so I won’t attempt to try.
I don’t personally have any time for the current rash of ‘codes’ pertaining to Da Vinci, the Bible, Mayan prophecies or anything else for that matter, but instead, I think of my chosen fields of study as having “echoes in the darkness”, which interest me very much indeed. When I sit here in my study, I often think of myself – along the same lines – as listening out for “a voice in the night” and trying hard to make sense of what that voice might be saying, although it’s invariably very difficult.
Nonetheless, a lot of information has been sent in since I published this post and I would say it’s impossible to deny the many links and associations that keep coming to light between Gwyn ap Nudd and certain locations in Gwent and in the south of England. A lot of them are tenuous, perhaps, but then again, many are far more substantial, such as St Melor with his silver hand so close to Stonehenge, and I hope to be able to provide a few more like this before I’m finished.
Rather than repeat everything I previously wrote about Margaret Gelling, I would urge anyone who’s interested to look at the relevant section in the link I’ve provided, as well as to look again at the link to her obituary. Despite this lady’s vast learning and insight, I couldn’t help but notice that even she regarded some names as ‘obscure’ – names such as Wixhill and Wingfield – and I think it’s fair to say that Silbury Hill falls squarely into this category.
My 1968 BBC booklet that accompanied Atkinson’s foray into Silbury Hill says that the name is of unknown meaning, and that Silbury was first recorded as Seleburgh about 700 years ago. It adds that “…-bury occurs frequently in the name of earthworks, and is probably derived here from an old Saxon word meaning a barrow or burial-mound.” Well, I’m sure we’re all familiar with this and it seems to make sense, while I’m also sure we’re all familiar with the first written account of Silbury Hill that was provided by John Aubrey. I’d read it many times before now, but on this occasion, something leapt out at, that may or may not have a bearing on the matter.
Aubrey wrote “No history gives us any account of this hill. The tradition only is, that King Sil (or Zel, as the country folk pronounce) was buried here on horseback and that the hill was raised while a posset of milk was seething”. The BBC booklet continues, saying “Nothing else is known about this mythical king whose name was doubtless invented to explain the name of the site.”
Well, all things are possible, but I immediately found myself thinking once more about the way in which people ‘in mediaeval times’ had apparently invented the fantastic stories of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea visiting in Britain and working in tin mines. I was also reminded of something I’d read on page 182 of Janet and Colin Bord’s ‘The Secret Country’ when discussing the story of King Zil in his golden armour. They wrote:
“This may not be pure fantasy, if the case of the Hill of the Goblins (Bryn yr Ellyllon) near Mold (Clwyd, Flint) is any guide as to how much credence to place in old folk traditions. This cairn was long said to be haunted by a man in golden armour, and when the mound was cleared away in 1833, as already described in Chapter 1, a gold corselet was found, together with a man’s skeleton.”
All this aside, I was baffled by Aubrey’s choice of words, because he stated that the king’s name was Sil, but said that the country folk supply a different version. Aubrey’s sketch of the hill, along with notes from around 1660, clearly supplies the name ‘Silbury’, but the implication of what he wrote is that his version – Sil – is correct – whereas ‘Zel’ is a presumably inferior variation. The earliest known name, as we’ve seen, is ‘Seleburgh’, but I don’t know if Aubrey was aware of this; either way, if the local tradition was to speak of a King Zel, as opposed to a King Sil, I would be inclined to think that the local version might be of more interest.
In addition to all this, something that Aynslie wrote a little while back made me look once again at the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names by A.D. Mills, from which Silbury is absent, so I looked instead at other names beginning with ‘Sil’. There were some names there whose explanations frankly baffled me, because they seemed contradictory, so I’ll spell out the entries here for others to decide:
Silpho N.Yorks. Silfhou c.1160, ‘flat-topped hill spur’. OE scylfe + hoh.
Also
Silsoe Beds. Siuuilessou 1086 (DB). ‘Hill-spur of a man named *Sifel’. OE pers.name + hoh.
I couldn’t find a mention in the glossary for the name Sifel, prefixed by an asterisk, but it supplied the three words scelf, scielf and scylfe, all Old English and all meaning [apparently] “shelf of level ground or gently sloping ground, ledge”.
In brief, this all had me wondering if one possible meaning of Silbury could be “The tomb or barrow with a level top?” I was particularly interested by the aforementioned word ‘Silpho’, which isn’t a million miles away from the first elements of Silbury, so it strikes me that a possible meaning is just that – flat-topped hill spur – which would be interesting not just because Silbury has a notably level top, but also because it was built on a spur of chalk. I very much doubt that this geological nicety played any part in its naming, but Silbury is in turn overshadowed by the chalk ridge at the top of which is West Kennet Long Barrow; would this make it a flat-topped spur, albeit a huge one? I don’t know.
In short, I find myself considering the possibility – no more, because I am not an expert in these matters – that instead of the name Silbury having at its end two syllables that refer to a mound or tomb, the reverse might be the case? Perhaps ‘Sil’ is a corruption of a word meaning something along the lines of ‘a flat-topped hill or spur’, which would seem to fit perfectly, in which case, what does the ‘bury’ part mean?
It’s possible that it could still mean ‘mound’ or ‘tomb’, because such doubling-up or repetition can be found elsewhere, notably in the word ‘Caermarthen‘, where the word for ‘fort’ essentially appears twice. However, if the opening element means something concerning a hill of some shape, then I find myself wondering about the element ‘bu’ which we’ve discussed at great length already, with regard to Buga, buggane and its possible presence in the words ‘Burrium’ and ‘Bullaeum’.
All of which led me to consider, with reference always to Gwyn ap Nudd, any resemblances between Silbury and Usk, or Brynbuga, but I’ll write about this and much else another time.
For what it is worth Sil in Welsh is to spawn (with the creating aspect perhaps the most appealing) and there is a river Sil in Galacia which has strong Celtic connections:
http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_20/alberro_6_20.pdf
offers the following conclusion:
“Historical, archaeological, linguistic and cultural sources of evidence point to the retention of Celtic heritage in northwestern Spain and northern Portugal, in spite of the fact that the Celtic languages once spoken there were lost due to the Roman occupation of those areas. The abundance of Celtic placenames, the numerous Celtic hill-forts (castros) with round houses, representations of tetes coupees, gold torques and stone heads wearing torques, inscriptions, dedications to Lug and other Celtic deities, the continuing practice of story-telling and the stories themselves, and a number of cultural factors tend to support this assertion” .
Here the mention of Lugh seems to offer another link to Gwyn ap Nudd via Nuada (the Irish equivalent of Nudd) whose court Lugh wished to join in a manner similar to that which Culhcwh sought out Arthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugh
Dennis –
Your mention of Aubrey’s reference to the folk belief about the building of Silbury and the Bords’ book The Secret Country spurred my mind to start playing with words, as well. It’s been about 25 years since I last read The Secret Country, but one thing I do remember is how many stories they mentioned that featured milk. The “seething” milk in Aubrey’s tale made me think of the Celtic berw, “boil”. I wonder if berw might have been the original second half of the name “Silbury”, rather than bury. That might explain the posset of seething milk in the story. Also, Celtic sile is “drip, flow”. Put together and it makes me think of a great cauldron, such as the one in the tale of Taliesin and the three drops of awen from Ceridwen’s cauldron.
There’s probably no connection at all, but it’s still an intriguing thought.
Hi Tony Hinchcliffe.. (I found your last comment on the ‘previous comments’ page.)
It certainly sounds as if the area where you live had some possible Druid connections, so it’ll be interesting to hear what you find out about that.
I think I’ve come across a couple of Little Silver places, one might be a quarry near Exeter? (Haven’t browsed any maps yet.)
Meanwhile, I’m currently typing up some of the ‘Nymets’ research stuff I’ve collected over the past few years so that it’s more easy to access on the computer. One piece of info was in the form of two very interesting excerpts from ‘Wisht Maen’, an old Earth Mysteries magazine produced in Devon, and found in the Westcountry Studies Library in Exeter. This edition was marked ‘Spring ’94′. Because you particularly mentioned the nymets and because some of this might be helpful to Dennis in his research, I’m copying it here. (I guess it is still copyright of Wisht Maen and its authors.)
Firstly Hugh Franklin writes a long and fascinating piece called ‘Signposts in Nymetland’, about the area near Bow Henge and the Roman fort by the River Taw. Too much to copy here, but a sample of his intriguing links include:
“These names have excited interest for many years, for the root of ‘Nymet’ is NEMETO, a British word for ‘a pagan sacred place, sacred grove or shrine’, which also gave rise to Old Cornish NEVED (Lanivet) and Welsh NYFED, leading to speculation that this area might harbour some persisting traces of pagan or Celtic christian worship as has been found in other parts of the country (Aqua Arnemetiae at Buxton, Medionemeton at Cairnpapple, Vernemetum at Willoughby), and on the continent. [Ref: Griffith, F.M. 'A Nemeton in Devon?' ANTIQUITY page 121, 1985]
A Domesday Book spelling of Okehampton was Ochenemitona — could this conceal a dedication to the ancient Oc/Og, the once supreme ruler of the universe in Irish mythology, meaning ‘the high one’? (compare the ‘Og’ names close to Stonehenge — Ogbury Camp, the Ogbourne villages, the Og and Ock rivers). Another ‘bow at a venture’ might be to equate the Okehampton area with the ‘Uxella’ of Ptolemy, a Celtic word meaning ‘high place’, marked on his map as seeming to be in the heart of Devon but so far unlocated (Ux/Ox/Og/Oc). The high moors here dominate the landscape for miles and tower over Bridestowe, whose St. Brigid was the sister of Oc and his half-brother Ogma.”
and:
“The ‘Crook’ of Crooke Burnell (cruc — hill, mound or tumulus), can be vaguely made out on the hillside to the south across the valley and the road, and I am told there was another one nearby which has since been flattened. Whether these belong to this period or a later Bronze Age I do not know. The Celts coming in around 500BCE may have called it that in their language or it may have been built by them. Certainly, when they came into this part of the country, they also recognized its ancient sanctity and utilized it for their own purposes, and the whole numinous area became their NEMETON.”
While Andy Norfolk’s similar piece on Nymets:
“The Nymet placename is an interesting survival of an old British/Celtic place name in an area where most of the names are Saxon. Devon is from ‘Defnas’, the name of the tribe that used to live there and hence their territory. This name for a Saxon area is derived from the British tribal name latinised as ‘Dumnonii’. P H Heaney suggests that the name Denbury may record a Celtic stronghold within an otherwise Saxon area.
Devon was invaded by the Saxons from about 658 and they broke into north and west Devon after a battle in 710 between the Saxon king Ine and the British king, Geraint. Nymet is derived from a British word ‘nemetos’ meaning pagan sacred place or sacred grove. It is related to the Gaulish word ‘nemeton’, a holy place, and the Welsh ‘nyfed’, a shrine. In old Irish, the phrase ‘br tha nemed’ means the fate or wyrd of the nobles. In present day Cornish the word ‘nef’, plural ‘nevow’ was recorded as meaning heaven, sky or climate by Morton Nance in his dictionary of Unified Cornish. In the newer dictionary of the revised Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn, the word ‘nev’ is shown as meaning heaven and ‘neves’ is given as meaning sacred grove. I think there is more than a hint here that the sacred grove or shrine would have been used for worship of a sky god/dess.
The names Nymet Tracey and Nymet Rowland may not imply that there were two sacred sites at these places. The River Yeo was known in Saxon times as the ‘Nimed’ or ‘Nymed’ in the Cartularium Saxonicum dating from 739 edited by Birch in 1885-93. The river name may be so because the river itself was regarded as holy or because it was near a holy shrine. The names George Nympton and Kings Nympton are supposed to be derived from the river Mole which was previously known as the Nymet. But what about Bishops Nympton? Looking at the distribution of the Nymet/Nympton names I believe they may mark the boundaries of a sacred land lying mostly east of the Taw. The south east corner of this area may be marked by the village of Way, if — and it’s a big if — the name is derived from the Saxon word WEOH or WIG meaning ‘a holy place or heathen temple’. (This word crops up in Huish Episcopi and also Wye in Kent).”
Andy Norfolk is co-ordinator of the Cornish Earth Mysteries Group. [or he was when that article was published!]
Angie, this is all wonderful stuff, so thank you very much for taking the time and the trouble to copy it all out and send it in. I’ve always thought of Eternal Idol as being a text-based sight first and foremost, so I’m certain that I won’t be the only one who appreciates your efforts. Any tiny thing that might allow us a glimpse of the ancient landscape through the eyes of our ancestors is invaluable, while I’m particularly interested in anything that might pertain to the Druids, ancient temples and holy places, and the evidence of place-names is something substantial to ponder as well.
Aynslie and John,
One of the things that struck me long ago about Stonehenge – perhaps on account of the sheer size and intricacy of the ruins and the landscape – was the sheer amount of ways in which you could reasonably view the place, while I’ve gone into most of the ones I’m aware of here on Eternal Idol.
By the same token, I would not have thought it possible, some years ago, that there could be so many reasonable interpretations of the word ‘Silbury’, all of which seem to be perfectly valid and applicable without ruling out any other meaning.
And while I remember it, here’s a photo showing just a glimpse of some of the former ‘deeps’ at Silbury, before “the hill was raised to cover it”. From memory, this ditch went even further down than the photo shows, encircling the base, before it was filled in once more.
There were a number of small satellite pits around the earliest mound on the site; I can’t imagine that they were excavated to provide building material, so I wonder if the same principle originally applied to the digging of this huge ditch and whatever other subterranean features it may contain.
It seems that material from the encircling ditch was used to enhance the central mound, but as a non-engineer, it strikes me as a strange use of labour to dig such a vast, circular hole in the ground, only to fill it all in later.
West Kennet Long Barrow, on the ridge above Silbury Hill, was built then gradually filled back in, but I don’t think this activity was performed for the purpose of simply plugging a hole. I’m inclined to believe that an identical principle applies to our ancestors’ prolonged and arduous foray into ‘the deeps’, after which they carefully covered their work and whatever secrets it may contain beneath this awe-inspiring and enigmatically-named mound.
Photograph by kind permission of Mark Kirkbride of Skanska.
And on the subject of ‘deeps’, there’s the surrounding ditch, of course, which was probably designed as a moat. From what I understand, it’s about 125 feet wide and at least 16 feet deep, now containing something like 5,000,000 cubic feet of silt [from a Middle English word scylt, apparently].
Dennis: your post at 11.03 0n 15.02 above. That’s a beautiful photo of Silbury, taken from the other side of the (Roman) A4, on the high spur ground upon which West Kennet long barrow is located. I took part in fieldwalking in the field of your photo exactly 12 months ago, another cold, windy February. The search was primarily on for Mesolithic evidence as part of someone’s Ph.D. That field was also where the Romans had their substantial settlement, lower down, to the right of your photo, as you are probably aware.
Sil is an unknown for place name experts and there is not a hint of anything with a sil in the reference I have on Welsh place names. It cannot be entirely ruled out that a river in Galacia has the same name and some association, but it seems a remote possibility.
So what is left? Other than to say if, to you, it looks like a representation of pregnancy then perhaps this is what it was?
I have been on the top of Silbury and there was an urge (as there was for Beacon Hill (Highclere) and a desire to trudge to the top.
Hi Dennis,
Angie’s post on nymets reminds me that there is one in Gloucestershire, Nympsfield, which is near the Romano-British temple to Mercury at Uley. Also John Witts post in which he mentions that ‘sil’ in Welsh means ‘spawn’ got me thinking. Apparently Welsh ‘sil’ is related to Latin ‘semen’ (seed) and to the Semones, ancient Roman amd Umbrian gods who may have been spirits of nature, representing the generative power hidden in seeds. Perhaps King Sil is an old nature god. According to Wikipedia, the best known of the Semones was Sancus, whose name means ‘hallowed’ (Latin ‘sanctus’).
This provides a quick survey of Silbury http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/englandsilburyhill.htm. and this seems to be the official line http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002586.html.
There clearly remains far more questions than answers. Three huge mounds at Avebury, Marlborough and Marden in a relatively local area must have some bearing. (As Dan J says beacons is perhaps the most obvious)
Is the idea behind the mound seen at Newgrange or Maes Howe and if so why was there no need for a super mound at Stonehenge?
Wikipedia quotes from In Wilts Archaeological Magazine December 1861 p 181, noted by J. B. Partridge, “Wiltshire Folklore” Folklore 26.2 (June 1915), p 212. “that hundreds of people from Kennett, Avebury, Overton and the neighbouring villages thronged Silbury Hill every Palm Sunday” and if this is a folk memory then it suggests an association with a Spring Festival.
One last thought could the folklore about King Sil have even the remotest connection with the Silures – or is that being too simplistic?
I’ve often wondered about any possible connection between the Silures and Silbury Hill myself, John. I can’t see one that would stand any examination, but there’s no question that the names of the Silures and of Silbury are strange, evocative and filled with numerous possible meanings, all of which seem to have some validity or relevance.
From reading about Silbury Hill, it seems that many skeletons were said to have been recovered from the hill itself by antiquarians, as well as a bridle and numerous horseshoes, so when you consider the nature of the folklore, the apparent presence of a ghostly rider on moonlit nights and so forth, I don’t doubt that there’s real substance to this story of King Sil, whoever he may have been.
All of which reminded me of Annwn, Arawn, Gwyn and their various connections with otherworldly pigs. We know from the excavations carried out by the Stonehenge Riverside Project at Durrington Walls that many young pigs were ceremonially killed there at Mid Winter, which made me think of Gwyn ap Nudd in his guise as the Winter King.
In addition, there was the discover of “Stonehengehog”. I accept that I’m in a small minority in thinking that this figurine depicts a hedgehog, but that doesn’t matter. If the figure did indeed represent a pig, then it’s an ‘otherworldly’ one almost certainly, by virtue of the fact that it was buried in a child’s grave in or around 100BC, from what I gather. This grave was also to the west of Stonehenge, the west being the place where the sun sets and so forth, so I wonder if this pig had any link with Arawn, Annwn and/or Gwyn?
The more I look at Stonehenge, the more associations I seen between Gwyn and Annwn, but I’m sure there are still others in addition to “Stonehengehog”, the pigs at Durrington Walls, St Melor and so forth. The news item above appeared in the London Metro, by the way.
Earlier on, Marden Henge was mentioned, so here’s a BBC link on the subject that I’ve just found and I’ll also post it on Alex’s essay on Marden, if I can find it. If I caught what was said correctly, there was a mention of pig bones, but I’m sure there’s more here of interest.
A little while back, John expressed surprise that there was no large mound near Stonehenge, but I would say that there is or perhaps was one, judging from the map below that shows a large tumulus in the middle of Vespasian’s Camp, which is moreover close to water. I don’t have any more information about this mound or its size, but perhaps this is something that others could look into.
Otherwise, it may be that there is a certain something about Stonehenge that lends itself to interpretations, but the more I look at the place, the more I see possible associations with Annwn and perhaps Gwyn ap Nudd. I don’t have the precise details to hand, but I’m sure that in 1926, Colonel Hawley discovered a human skeleton buried in the centre of Stonehenge, which prompted the authors of Stonehenge in its landscape to remark that “it hinted at a use of the monument that was otherwise unattested”, or something along those lines.
Hawley was unable to date the skeleton, so all I know is that it was buried on a Northwest-Southeast alignment. I somehow neglected to put this into my original TANITH post, but with the benefit of hindsight, it seems that whoever this person was, they were buried in the rough direction of the setting sun on Midsummer’s Day, which seems interesting in light of the stories of Gwyn ap Nudd as a Winter King.
Robin pointed out earlier that Arawn swaps places with Pwyll, king of Dyfed, who fights and kills someone called Hafgan (“Summer Song” or “Summer White”), while John and Aynslie have mentioned his May Day fight with Gwythyr ap Greidawl, something that portrays him as a winter sun god, while I’d also think of the stories of Apollo Hyperborea in this context.
Otherwise, as I’ve mentioned many times before, Gwent is squarely to the northwest of Stonehenge and there seems to be many factors linking Gwyn ap Nudd to Gwent, or to the former realm of the Silures who may have been “The Guardians of the Sun.”
Finally, for now, this idea of Gwyn ap Nudd as a Winter King doing battle with an adversary representing the summer made me think of what I wrote about The Stonehenge Sentinel some years ago. I seem to remember writing a lengthy speculative account of this encounter in my Stonehenge book that never saw the light of day, so I’ll try to dig it out and if it’s not too dated or inaccurate, I might post it up.
Gwyn is often associated with Orion, the constellation representing the Greek Hunter God:
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/orion.htm
There is clearly more than an element of supernatural involved in Gwyn’s attributes and the following essay deals with such matters http://www.danuforest.co.uk/gwyn_ap_nudd_19.html a
Just the notion of gaining access to otherworld is easily ridiculed and I must admit the first time I saw the article I did not read on. But coming across it again, having just read about rock art, made me think that ritual access to the otherworld may provide as good an explanation for the elaborate decorated stones at New Grange, Dod Law, Old Bewick, Roughing Linn and Achnabreck. There is also a carved stone at Bryn Celli Ddu http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/1969/ and the design was hidden from view (although perhaps not from the otherworld) ?
Of course in reality such ideas can be put down as imaginary, but in dealing with our ancestors’ beliefs then perhaps they were not limited by our constraints of reason.
No-one seems to have brought up SILCHESTER in connection with the Silbury Hill/ SILURES derivations.
According to a Brittania website entry, about the archaeology of 8th Century Nennius’ 28 British cities, ” CAER-CELEMNON is probably Silchester (Calleva) via, perhaps, an original of something like Caer- Callef. Interestingly, Celemion was the name of the grandmother of Merfyn Ffrynch, King of Gwynedd. Perhaps she came from the town.’
I could not easily trace any other possible derivation candidates for Silchester.
There has been further recent mention, by ANGIE LAKE, of the likelihood of there having originally been a large post, or tree, at the centre of Silbury Hill. I reckon it’s been mentioned in either ‘British Archaeology’ magazine and/or Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine, within the past 2-3 years. I fancy that further thought may have gone into Richard Gough’s report of Colonel Drax’s 1793 excavations.
I have just now found the reference, in the Wiltshire Studies (W.A.M.) as mentioned. It is in W.A.M., Vol. 103, 2010, PP257-268. Silbury Hill: Edward Drax and the excavations of 1776, by Brian Edwards.
If Dennis or anyone wishes to comment on this article, please go ahead. I have it, and can quote sections of it later on if required. Suffice to say, there does seem to be documentary evidence that a fairly large wooden post was at Silbury’s centre. It is possible Jim Leary’s revised edition of his “the Story of Silbury Hill” has somewhat more to say about the post than his early 2010 Edition gives (which I have). I don’t think he was fully aware of the Edwards’ W.A.M. 2010 article for his original version.
There has been mention of various Pill names, associated with a Welsh derivation. I would add that there is a Pill near Portishead and Avonmouth in North Somerset; and another within Newport, Monmouthshire/ Gwent: both along an approx. N.W. line from Stonehenge, towards the Silures’ territory.
Dennis, returning to your comments above, on 15/02 at 11.03 p.m., first to Margaret Gelling’s work & then mention of a hill-spur as a possible derivation for ‘SIL-’, based upon your studies of the Oxford Dictionary of Place Names. e.g. you mentioned the word “Sifel”.
My surname, Hinchliffe [similar to Hinchcliffe, Hinchley, and other variations], interestingly appears to have quite ancient topographical roots linking it to a small area in the Holme valley near Huddersfield; and possibly elsewhere between Huddersfield & Sheffield. Both elements of the name have topographical meanings. The 2nd element probably derives from the “sylfe,scielf or scelf” you have noted from the P.N. Dictionary, e.g. there is the deserted village of Hinderskelfe in North Yorkshire [in the grounds of the later Castle Howard].
The 1st element, “hinch”, seems to come from an origin ‘hanging’ meaning steep slope.
I wasn’t too sure whether you were suggesting that the ‘hill-spur’ element to Silbury might have alluded to a hill-spur ADJACENT to Silbury? (rather than to the artificial hill itself). I was very struck by the hill-slopes close to Silbury, i.e. Waden Hill to its east and the higher ground south of the A4, part of which contains West Kennett Long Barrow and another part of which actually looks DOWN upon Silbury Hill SSW of Silbury Hill and the very adjacent A4.
Jim Leary the English Heritage excavator of Silbury has himself recently commented on a “Country Tracks” programme, that Silbury actually rises up towards the heavens in a like manner to its surrounding higher ground, and may be a celebration of the holy river the Thames, of which the Kennet is a tributary.
Incidentally, there is a “Mini- Silbury Hill”, now acknowledged, close to the footpath leading south off the A4 to the West Kennett long barrow (N.G.R. 4107 1684 approx) to add to the Marlborough Mound & the destroyed mound at Marden henge in this local area.
On the theme of Sil “The original Silenus resembled a folklore man of the forest with the ears of a horse and sometimes also the tail and legs of a horse” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silenus.
Whereas my place name reference puts Sil as an unknown with regard to Silbury for Silchester, it suggest tentatively an association with willows.
Well, that’s very interesting, John – not just the horse connection, but the fact that my name – Dennis – derives from Dionysus. Thank you!
Tony, you’re right that no-one’s yet mentioned a possible link between Silbury and Silchester, but I understand this was looked into before and the following comes from an English Heritage study of the hill:
Aubrey himself, however, preferred other explanations and compared the name to Silchester, believing it to be linked to that of the Roman town (ibid 680-1). Whereas Silchester was ‘ Sili’s castrum…… Silbury might be his monument or mausoleum’. Writing almost 80 years later Stukeley (1743, 41), by contrast, believed the name to be Saxon in origin and interpreted it as ‘the great or marvellous hill…’ .
My Oxford Dictionary of Place-Names suggests that Silchester means ‘Roman station by a willow copse’ from OE siele + ceaster. It adds “Alternatively, the first element may be a reduced form of Calleva ‘place in the woods’, the original Celtic name of this Roman city first recorded in the 2nd cent AD.
Otherwise, I seem to remember writing about the wooden post you mention in a piece called The Silbury Hill Totem Pole, but I think there are other references to this ‘Druid oak’ on Eternal Idol somewhere. I was also very interested to hear of everything you wrote concerning your name and other matters, while you and I must be psychic, because I’ve been thinking about writing about the mini-Silbury to which you refer for a few days now.
John, Mike Pitts supplies a very good and even-handed account of the fate of those who look into rock art and otherworlds on pages 231-234 of Hengeworld, while I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted it before in a post entitled “Elvish Preseli“.
For my part, I’m more than happy to talk about various spectres I’ve seen over the course of the decades I’ve been looking into these things. For example, I remember travelling to Edgehill on the anniversary of the battle around 20 years ago, when I had to call in to a local pub for directions. I remember that a girl there asked me if I was hoping to see the ghost of Prince Rupert, so I politely agreed that I was, even though I had not previously heard of this alleged haunting and even though I knew Rupert had survived the battle.
Nonetheless, when I sat watching the old battlefield by moonlight from a vantage point at the top of the Edge Hill, I was amazed to see a ghostly white figure on horseback, which I was able to observe at my leisure. I even made my way down the slope towards it, whereupon both horse and rider imperceptibly melted away back into history as I drew closer. However, it’s one thing to speak of this and many other sightings, but there exists a line that I’m not prepared to cross, simply because it’s self-defeating.
For example, everything I’ve read suggests to me that the shining apparition that allegedly haunts West Kennet Long Barrow on Midsummer’s Day is Gwyn ap Nudd. I have not personally seen this apparition, but if I had, I very much doubt that I would say as much, because to go around publicly claiming to have seen what is in effect a prehistoric British god would elicit a hostile reaction even from those who are interested in such things. Having said that, I know of someone who has seen Herne the Hunter and who may be prepared to speak of their experience, so that’s something else I’ll look into, but there are certain things that I personally feel it would be counterproductive so speak of.
Otherwise, I’m still fascinated by this business of Gwyn ap Nudd and I feel there’s more to said and speculated about, so I’ll post more as and when I have time, and thank you again for all your diligent work.
I knew I’d read something about a post in the middle of Silbury Hill before! Thank goodness someone remembers where all these gems are hidden in E.I.s pages. (I actually forwarded that to Dennis, too!) Am getting senile in my old age…
Whatever ghosts are, is it possible that every sighting can be dismissed or explained away as tricks of the light, over active imagination and the like? Logically, the evidence suggests ghosts exist although I would be happier (I think) to see something for myself. It also seems the Celts believed the otherworld was very real and accessible.
A informative piece from Anna Franklin http://www.merciangathering.com/lughnasa.htm
“The massive man-made Silbury Hill, 130 feet high, was in Neolithic times nearly 4,600 years ago. For years archaeologists thought it must be a burial mound, but investigations have disproved this. Turves were used to construct the inner part of the hill in the Stone Age and remain within, with the grass and insects preserved. They were cut at the beginning of the harvest, about the time of Lughnasa. Then over a period of about 50 years blocks of chalk covered the turf. [4] According to folklore, King Sil sleeps within Silbury Hill, clad in golden armour, waiting to one-day ride forth once more. There is some speculation that it is a harvest mound, representing the pile of earth raised up over a seed to make it grow. The same idea is echoed in burial mounds and even the great pyramids of Egypt- the mounds will bring the dead within to rebirth; Sil may be the sacrificed corn god. Possibly this is the idea reflected in the turf towers built in Britain and Ireland and the mountain pilgrimages at Lughnasa. Festivities were held on Silbury Hill into the eighteenth century with horse races, and bull baiting, after which the bull was killed, roasted and eaten. Paul Devereux noted that a double sunrise effect might be observed at Beltane and Lughnasa from the hill.[5]“
There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that the original Gwyn ap Nudd was a prehistoric British deity of great antiquity, some kind of ‘Winter King’. I imagine that his lineage stretches back for millennia, but I would also imagine that his presence and memory were bolstered along the way by avatars, or outstanding humans who won renown for their deeds in their own time, who were later thought of as incarnations or representatives of this god.
If I’m right about this, then this leaves a lot of territory to explore, while I’m also mindful that Gwyn ap Nudd found form as Fionn mac Cumhaill in the Irish traditions, but this is something I intend to look into a bit further down the line.
For now, I am interested in the idea of Gwyn ap Nudd as a psychopomp. As I wrote in my post, I don’t think it’s out of the question to suppose that one avatar, incarnation or representative of Gwyn may have been a notable Druid, somewhere along the line, given what we know of the Druid beliefs in another life ‘ad inferos’ or in Annwn. This in turn makes me think of the Priddy Circles in the territory of the Dobunni, which I wrote about in my book and which I’ve mentioned here on Eternal Idol before now, but I’ll come to those as well as soon as I can.
Given Gwyn’s possible earthly antecedents as a Druid of some standing and given what we know of his annual battle with an opponent, I was reminded of something that Julius Caesar wrote in Book VI of his De Bello Gallico:
“All the Druids are under one head, whom they hold in the highest respect. On his death, if any one of the rest is of outstanding merit, he succeeds to the vacant place; if several have equal claims, the Druids usually decide the election by voting, though sometimes they actually fight it out.”
This of course is the briefest possible mention or description of what was almost certainly a truly momentous contest. When the leading Druid died, then logic suggests that the circumstance of others holding equal claims to this position must have been in place around 50% of the time. When Caesar writes that this matter was usually decided by voting, I’m guessing that ‘usually’ meant around 70% of the time, because when he says that they sometimes fight, it doesn’t sound as if it were an exceptionally rare occurrence.
I’ve looked at this following passage many times before now, but I think it’s worth looking again at what Tacitus recorded about the Druids on Anglesey in his Annals:
“On the beach stood the adverse array, a serried mass of arms and men, with women flitting between the ranks. In the style of Furies, in robes of deathly black and with dishevelled hair, they brandished their torches; while a circle of Druids, lifting their hands to heaven and showering imprecations, struck the troops with such an awe at the extraordinary spectacle that, as though their limbs were paralysed, they exposed their bodies to wounds without an attempt at movement.”
We know from other classical accounts that there were certainly Druidesses and you could easily understand from the above account that Druidesses were present on Anglesey and that some of them – if not all the Druids present that day – were dressed in “robes of deathly black”. In any event, they certainly seem to have known something of warfare and combat, while Pliny records that for other ceremonies involving the shedding of blood, they wore white robes.
My point, belatedly, is that I don’t find it hard to picture two senior Druids, one dressed in white, another in black, perhaps, engaging in deadly combat, while I would also assume that such a rare contest took place on a very special or notable piece of ground. If this were ever the case, then it would have more than just the one echo of a psychopomp and ‘Winter King’ struggling with an adversary for supremacy.
Perhaps Neith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neith a goddess of war, hunting and associations with water has some role in this. Certainly her African (Libyan) origin would provide a source that allowed a cult to move east into Egypt and north west into Iberia and then perhaps through trade along the Atlantic coastal areas of western Europe. Iberia also seems to be the current favourite for the origins of the Beaker people.
The African connection was dealt with on EI here http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=9255
The gradual change from hunting/gathering to farming would have involved a change in lifestyle so it seems likely the gods may have changed as well. Those which had to be placated in the hunting and killing of animals (lords of the beasts as such) would not necessarily be those who provided crop fertility.
What is intriguing about Gwyn is he possesses so many attributes pertinent to both the hunt and agriculture as well as an association with death. This suggests at least that he may represent a very old deity who had a fundamental relevance which has persisted from the earliest times.
All this talk of the Druids reminds me that Dr Brian John, who has a blogsite devoted to the Stonehenge bluestones and how they may have arrived in the vicinity from West Wales (manpower or glacier-power?) at:-
htpp://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/
-has recently had a series of Posts about a Meteorite apparently found centuries ago near Stonehenge, and how a well-known Professor of Astronomy, Colin Pillinger, has said it was found in a ‘Druid barrow’. Later, it was outside the entrance of Lake House, where Sting now lives, and which is fairly near the so-called ‘Bluestonehenge” at the bottom of The Avenue, near the River Avon.
Brian’s Posts on the subject, one after the other 7 all fairly recent, include the titles “Druid Meteorite”, “the Lake House Meteorite”, & “the meteorite – another ‘blau stone’ ?”
In principle, I’d love to write something about Gwyn ap Nudd appearing in the form of intense light in the prehistoric sky, and of how this ‘stone from heaven’ played a pivotal part in the affairs of our ancestors, etc. However, does a “Druid burial” mean that Druids were buried there, or that Druids did the burying? Or both? I doubt there are many others as interested in the ancient British Druids as I am, but I wouldn’t have any idea of what constituted a Druid burial. For all I know, the barrow cemeteries around Stonehenge might be populated exclusively by proto-Druids, or there might not be a single one there – I just don’t know.
Dr Angelika Franz wrote about an apparent Druid burial in Der Speiegel, but unless a grave was found with an inscription and perhaps a gold sickle or two, it seems to me to be informed guesswork. Yes, the meteorite’s interesting, but if a stone the size of a baby elephant slammed into Salisbury Plain from outer space, I don’t think it would have been just the stargazing Druids who would have taken an interest.
We are told that in mediaeval times, people entering woodland would pray to or address Gwyn ap Nudd, the Winter King and King of the Tylwyth Teg. We also know that Shakespeare famously mentioned another elusive British deity, Herne the Hunter, in The Merry Wives of Windsor; with all this and more in mind, I was wondering if this quote from A Winter’s Tale could be a veiled allusion to Gwyn?
“A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins….”
Dennis,
I have been following the development of this thread with interest. It leads me to the inevitable question-is the glass half empty or half full? Chasing the evolution of Gwyn ap Nudd as “the” god of Annwn, king of the fairies, leader of the Wild Hunt and generally bad news all around for those who have to deal with him leaves me to the conclusion that not only is he a psychopomp but he’s a pretty good psycho as well. The upshot is Gwyn is the last survivor of Welsh mythology who is essentially a synthesis of all the former residence of Annwn into one avatar, a distilled product of many gods and men including Arawn and Hu all compressed into one figure which easily explains his apparent schizophrenia. As such, he covers a lot of ground and is the exemplar of the dark, underworld side of Celtic mythology. If Stonehenge provides the entry to Annwn, as you have proposed, this would mean that the glass is half empty and the underworld ultimately controls the world or did in Celtic times.
To me, this flies in the face of Stonehenge as a temple of Apollo or the sun with all of the nobler aspects of divinity and the light which Apollo or the British equivalent of Apollo, possibly his good twin Gwythyr ap Greidyawl who must also be the essence of numerous gods and men, represents. I see the glass as half full. I’ve always cheered for the good guys and hoped that good triumphs over evil though recent events make me less optimistic.
So, how do we reconcile these disparate and opposite views or is one correct and the other just plain wrong? This discussion has forced me to consider what I know about Celtic mythology and the mindset involved in their mythos. Pigheaded and perverse, especially to the non-Celt, they were subtle masters of multiple levels of meaning and, especially, truths hidden in plain sight with a superficial, often opposite, denotation. It also begs the question of what approach would people with this kind of worldview use when it came to their gods and how they interacted, reflected in the annual cycle of the seasons.
A major clue to a possible resolution of the question can be found in one of the Triads of Britain:
The three renowned astronomers of the Isle of Britain: Idris the giant; Gwydion son of Don; and Gwyn son of Nudd. Such was their knowledge of the stars, their natures and qualities, that they could prognosticate whatever was wished to be known unto the day of doom.
The Gwydion listed above is a sun god and, I think, another name for Gwyn’s immortal enemy Gwythyr ap Greidyawl. He assaulted Caer Sidi, long before Arthur, and was captured and punished for his efforts. He returned and assaulted Hell in the Battle of the Trees. The fact that these two are both listed as astronomers, along with Idris (whose seat called Cader Idris and, later, Arthur’s Seat, is one where anyone who can survive a night on the chair will become a bard or a madman) provides a major clue to what may be going on as well as an explanation for the incongruity of Gwyn’s name meaning “white”.
If we take the Mayday battle as a sign of Gwythyr’s or Gwydion’s inevitable victory and the beginning of summer because light has won over darkness, we have to accept the alternate scenario of another battle at Samhain where Gwyn wins the day and darkness and the bitter cold of winter triumph. White snow tends to dominate the landscape during Gwyn’s rule as Winter King and this may be the source of his otherwise incongruous name. This battle will continue until the end of time just as the season’s continue to change.
But what has this to do with Stonehenge? If we accept the temple of Apollo theory for Stonehenge and substitute Gwydion for Apollo, we have to entertain the idea that it was also the temple of Gwyn for half the year. This also gibes rather nicely in explaining the Apollo Cunomaglus reference discussed here . I’ve never associated Apollo or his Celtic counterpart with dogs but Gwyn ap Nudd is definitely linked with a pack of Hellhounds and, especially, one dog named Dormarth who led the hunt. The Wild Hunt was also, famously, conducted at Samhain when Gwyn became dominant.
There is another intriguing link between Apollo, Dionysus and Stonehenge. Apollo left his sanctuary at Delphi every year for three months to visit the Hyperboreans, presumably at his sanctuary of Stonehenge in Britain. During that period, his shrine was turned over to Dionysus for winter revels until he returned. Pytheas, hearing stories of the notable temple in Britain and its joint occupants, would naturally have thought of the only parallel in the Greek pantheon where a time-share arrangement occurs and assigned Apollo as the equivalent of the British god or gods.
This would mean that both Gwyn and Gwydion were sun gods though Gwydion was the more conventional of the two, being the warm, yellow summer sun. Gwyn, on the other hand, was the cold, white winter sun and gave no warmth.
One also needs to remember that the Celts viewed death and the “afterlife” quite differently than the Greeks. The Celtic Otherworld is not the Greek Underworld. There is as much distance between the concepts of the two and their respective inhabitants/rulers as there is between Greece and Britain. In addition to that, both Annwn and the realm of Hades have been colored over the ages by Roman and then medieval Christian influences. Someone entering Annwn would have vastly different expectations of the existence awaiting them than someone entering the Greek Underworld, and thus any Psychopomps involved would have been viewed as extremely different characters.
I prefer to think along the lines of why out of all the Celtic gods did Gwyn become an ‘avatar’ – a god on earth as evidenced in Culchwch and Olwen – who is called upon in so many different situations?
If Stonehenge is anything, it is a place of opposites, for the summer and winter solstices cannot be other. As such it seems likely that both would have been celebrated or ritualised and the evidence indicates that both were. But surely there is one feature of Stonehenge that is beyond dispute? That is, it did not create a belief, a belief created it.
And it seems very possible Gwyn represented a fundamental part of that belief – hence all his attributes. A summer and winter king along with an Earth Mother Goddess make a neat trinity.
Caesar had a great many interesting things to say in his De Bello Gallico about the reverence of Mercury and Apollo, but I’m particularly interested by what he had to say about Dis Pater. “The Gauls claim all to be descended from Dis Pater, declaring that this is the tradition preserved by the Druids” – as he claims elsewhere that “The Druidic doctrine is believed to have been found existing in Britain and thence imported into Gaul; even today those who want to make a profound study of it generally go to Britain for the purpose”, I would imagine that this deity, or his equivalent, was to be found in Britain and, judging from the context of the above two quotes, I would also imagine that he had strong links with the Druids.
While looking up Dis Pater, I came across this link dealing primarily with Ogmios, a Gaulish god of the Underworld, but there’s some very interesting material there about this deity having an ‘Aethiops’ or burned face. As far as I can see, there’s no mention of Gwyn ap Nudd here, but I can see plenty of associations with him on this excellent page.
The concept I have is that Gwyn represents a religious theme in Britain but there were gods in other countries or cultures who possessed the same characteristics under a different names or guises.
Do we not need to look that far back in time for the basics of this religion? Christianity is very much based on light in battling darkness and alongside this conflict there is a maternal Madonna and a belief in an afterlife?
However life after death in Mesopotamia and Judaism was dealt with in a very different manner from Egypt (a relative late comer on the scene) and if anything this suggests the religion that found its way to Britain after the retreat of the ice sheet evolved elsewhere than the fertile crescent.
I’ve not yet finished with Gwyn ap Nudd, but I don’t think I’ll be writing much for a while as things are. In the meantime, I was reminded today of a book I’ve not seen since the 1970s, The Secret Commonwealth written by Robert Kirk. From memory, there’s a huge amount of fascinating material there, some of which is doubtless relevant to Gwyn ap Nudd in some way, shape or form, so I intend to read it again as soon as I have time.
What I found interesting was, in one paragraph you have the words; buga, bucca, larbula. In Italian/Latin, each of these can be an entrance of some sort. Bocca ( mouth ) Buca ( hole ) Labbri ( Lips ) labyrinth?
Apparently DNA testing shows the earliest Britons may have come from the Basque region, and where did they originate. Basque in Latin is vasca, vase in French, silt ( Silures ?) or mud. Did the Silures cover their faces in mud?
I hope this isn’t too confusing, just thought there might be some connections here.
Thank you for writing in with this, Tina. A high proportion of the posts I publish here contain similar observations inasmuch as I’m happy to think out loud in public about coincidences, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the words you point out possess such characteristics. I’m not sure what to make of it, but words interest me greatly and I’m always happy for people to write in with such observations. If you look at the contributions for the post on Gwyn ap Nudd, for example, you’ll see that many of them deal with the possible meanings of the name of Silbury Hill, but there are plenty of other posts here that go into almost identical territory. Thank you again and if anything else occurs to you, please by all means write in again.
There is no such thing as coincidence!
I just happen to be reading entries on Stonehenge here today, about 75 years after the death of H. P. Lovecraft, and noticed you have mentioned Arthur Machen. I keep meaning to join the Friends of Arthur Machen (are you a member, I wonder?) who hold a Dinner in his honour every year (which I have never yet attended), around the beginning of March – he was born on 3rd March 1863.
My parents met for the first time in his company, back in the 1930s; so he is like a spiritual godfather to me: and I knew his son Hilary, and his daughter Janet too. One of my actual godparents was Hilary’s first son, Mark; my mother deliberately chose someone young to be my godfather – but alas, Mark died young, and I have no real memory of him.
Scrolling down, I see the photo of Arthur Machen, holding his pipe, standing in the Roman amphitheatre at Caeleon-upon-Usk, and I am moved to contact you by commenting here. I shall have to check, but I think it must be the same photo which the National Portrait Gallery have of him; if so, I have the original glass negative, wrapped in cotton-wool, in a box downstairs!
In the early 1970′s I worked in the [then brand new] Newport Reference Library, Dennis, in which was, and no doubt still is, housed a large Arthur Machen Collection, within the Local History section. Was only there a year, but remained in Gwent until 1980, during which I got to know the Gwent countryside and rivers, and towns such as Usk & Caerleon, as well as Gwent’s industrial heritage. I understand you grew up in the Usk area. Do you remember the [Yorkshire-born] County Architect building his own, rather unattractive, house near the river in Usk?
Well, Gate, I think that on balance, H.P. Lovecraft is my favourite writer of fiction, although William Hope Hodgson is there in a photo finish. I haven’t read a great deal of Machen’s works, although I have long had a great interest in the matter of the Angels of Mons, but everything I’ve read by Machen and everything I’ve read about him interests me greatly, as you’ll probably have gathered from this post. I’ve by no means finished my observations on Gwyn ap Nudd, Brynbuga and others, but I’ll catch up as soon as I can.
I’m very pleased that you wrote in, so please by all means feel free to share anything else related to Arthur Machen and I’m sure I won’t be the only one who will be very pleased to read what you have to say.
Tony, I was born in Cefn Ila, just outside Usk, while I lived and was raised there for 18 years. I find it hard to imagine a better place to grow up and there was a time when I was intimately familiar with Usk itself and with the surrounding region, but I’ve not been back in a long time. The place has a pretty colourful history, as it was the capital of the Silures, a Roman cavalry fort, the setting for the Battle of the Yellow Pool and so forth, but I’m more and more interested in the Welsh name and with what Machen had to say about the surrounding countryside.
As for the house you mention, I can’t remember when it was built, but I think you mean the one close to the main bridge over the river. I have a feeling that George Melly lived in Usk for a while and for some reason, I thought he lived at the house in question, but I’ll have to go back there one of these days and bring myself back up to date, while I’ll also have to visit the Machen collection that you mention.
“Somewhere, something wonderful is wating to be discovered”, you write, Dennis.
Well, we’d better not miss tomorrow’s (Sunday 25th March, 4.10 p.m.) edition of Time team, when, quote, “the team visit the Roman legionary fortress of Caerleon…, where they find evidence of a vast courtyard leading down to the river [Usk] and a mysterious square structure within it. Can they cast new light on what was once seen as solely a military outpost?”
Quite a few significant things in my life occurred at Caerleon. I lived just outside, on the Usk road, not too far from Llanhennock. I’ll take a look at your piece about Cefn Ila soon, thanks. The County Architect’s name was Kenneth P. Jones, and he was my boss when he wanted a library in his department. That possible George Melly connection sounds very interesting!
Thank you for this, Tony, and I’ll make a point of trying to watch Time Team tomorrow. I remember Llanhennock well, as I used to go to a pub there, but I’ve forgotten the name, while I also used to visit the Cheshire Home there when I was at school. The whole area holds a great many distant but vivid memories for me – some pleasant, some less so – but I think you and I would have a lot to chew the fat about one of these fine days.
Still on the subject of Brynbuga, or the Hill of the Spectre, I was reminded today of Thomas the Rhymer and his association with Eildon Hill, which may possibly mean “Elves Hill”, so if anyone else knows of any other such hills in Britain, I would be very interested to hear of them.
I just typed in “Blacked faced gods” to Google and came up with Kali – any similarities with Gwyn? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
← Previous Comments
Next Comments →