The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts. Rodney Castleden

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СКАЧАТЬ in connection with Badon, as great a puzzle as Aristotle’s total silence regarding his pupil Alexander the Great.

      What Gildas was complaining about above all was the complacency of the British. Those who had struggled to push back the Saxons in the years leading up to Badon had died. The new generation was “ignorant of the storm”—it had no idea what efforts were needed to defend Celtic Britain against the invaders.

      It is an articulate and emotionally highly charged account, with a great deal of invective directed at one British ruler after another: Gildas was dissatisfied with nearly all of them. Probably with conscious understatement, he calls his thunderous accusations admonitiuncula, “just a little word of warning.”

      The text is largely compiled from biblical quotations, making it more sermon than history. Another frustration is the obscure Latin style Gildas uses, making it rich in ambiguity when what we want is clarity.

      There may also have been more than one version. Bede’s specific references to Gildas imply that he, in 731, was working from a different version than the one we have today, and we have no way of knowing which is the more authentic. Gildas died in 570.

THE GODODDIN

      A series of elegies in 103 stanzas about a disastrous expedition of the bodyguard of Mynydd Mwynfawr, King of Din Eidyn (Edinburgh). The expedition was ranged against the Anglians at Catraeth (probably Catterick).

      The Gododdin has survived in a single manuscript called The Book of Aneirin. We are told simply, “This is The Gododdin. Aneirin composed it.” The subject matter and the detail tell us that this is a genuine sixth-century Celtic poem. The bard Aneirin lived in the second half of the sixth century. The Gododdin of the title are the men of the Votadini tribe, but the warriors on this expedition include handpicked men from kingdoms all over Britain—Elmet, Clyde, Gwynedd, and Dumnonia—which tells us that communications among the British kingdoms must have been effective and that the Britons were ready to help one another against the Anglo-Saxons (See Alduith).

      The Gododdin chief feasted the men for a year at Din Eidyn before sending them to fight the Lloegrwys (the men of England) or the Dewr a Brynaich (the men of Deira and Byrnaich). Aneirin comments grimly, “They paid for that feast of mead with their lives.” The British attack on Catraeth was probably pre-emptive, an attempt to annihilate the embryonic Anglian community while it was still relatively small and powerless; the crushing defeat would have been all the more traumatic because it was unexpected.

      One line in The Gododdin jumps off the page. A warrior is praised for his fighting prowess, “though he was no Arthur.”

      GORDEBAR

      See Aircol, Vortipor.

      GOSCELIN

      See Places: Cerne Abbas.

      GURGUST LETHAM

      The King of York in the early sixth century.

      GURON

      A hermit living at Padstow in north Cornwall, who was evicted by St. Petroc.

      GWALLAWG

      A king of the Dark Age Pennine kingdom of Elmet.

      GWRGI

      See Peredur Steel-Arm.

      HELMET

      A very fine horned helmet made of bronze was deposited in the Thames River at Waterloo Bridge in the first century BC. It was found in 1868.

      Like the Battersea shield, also found in the Thames (See Art), this was almost certainly not an accidental loss, but a deliberate deposit in water. The horns may have been intended to combine ferocity and potency symbolism. The bronze was originally enameled. It is a masterpiece of the armorer’s craft, and it is possible that it was made to adorn a wooden statue of a god rather than to be worn by a mortal in battle; it would scarcely protect the wearer from a well-aimed sword blow. The Romans had an equivalent to this in their decorative parade helmets.

      HENGIST AND HORSA

      See Vortigern.

      HUNTING

      See Religion: Headhunting; Helis; Symbols: Dog, Stag.

      HUSSA

      See Urien.

      ICENI

      A British tribe living in East Anglia. Its tribal focus or capital was at Caistor St. Edmund, for which the Roman name was Venta Icenorum. In the 1930s, when it was partially excavated, the evidence showed that the Iceni had adopted very little Roman culture. They were few opulent houses and few substantial public buildings. The surrounding area had few Roman villas, they were few mosaics, and there were few oil amphorae. All this was interpreted as showing that the Iceni were poor and backward. We now see the same evidence as showing that the tribe was consciously retaining its Celtic identity and resisting a takeover by the Roman way of life—not a sign of poverty or backwardness at all.

      The Iceni famously engaged in a revolt against Rome in AD 60–61, after their queen, Boudicca, suffered maltreatment by Roman soldiers.

      ILLTUD

      Illtud was a Breton, a cousin of King Arthur, and converted to the monastic life by Cadoc of Lancarfan. He may, as claimed, have been baptized by St. Germanus. He was ordained by St. Dubricius in the time when Merchiaun the Wild was King of Glamorgan.

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