Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 1 (of 3), History and ethnologySkene, W. F. (William Forbes)
History
Celtic Scotland : $b A history of ancient Alban. Volume 1 (of 3), History and ethnology
Skene, W. F. (William Forbes)
Celts -- Scotland; Civilization, Celtic; Scotland -- Antiquities, Celtic; Scotland -- History -- To 1603
The Arthur of Nennius was, however, a very different personage from the
shadowy and mythic monarch of the later Welsh traditions, and of the
Arthurian romance. He is described by Nennius as merely a warrior who
was a military commander in conjunction with the petty British kings who
fought against the Saxons.[165] The Saxons referred to were those whom
Nennius had previously described as colonising the regions in the north
under Octa and Ebissa, and it is to that part of the country we must
look for the sites of the twelve battles which he records. The first was
fought at the mouth of the river Glein. The second, third, fourth, and
fifth, on another river called Dubglas, in the region of Linnius, and
this brings us at once to the Lennox, where two rivers called the
Douglas, or Dubhglass, fall into Loch Lomond. This was certainly one of
the districts about the wall called ‘Guaul’ which had been occupied by
Octa’s colony; and Nennius tells us elsewhere that Severus’s wall, which
passed by Cairpentaloch to the mouth of the river Clyde, was called in
the British speech ‘Guaul.’[166] The sixth battle was fought at a river
called Bassas. The seventh in the Caledonian wood,[167] which again
takes us to the north for the site of these battles. The eighth in the
fastness of Guinnion, which is connected by an old tradition with the
church of Wedale, in the vale of the Gala Water. The ninth at the City
of the Legion. The tenth on the strand of the river called Tribruit. The
eleventh in the mount called Agned, which once more brings us to the
north, as there can be no doubt that Edinburgh, called by the Welsh
Mynyd Agned, is the place meant, and this battle appears to have been
directed against the Picts, who were in league with the Saxons.[168] The
twelfth was the battle at Mount Badon,[169] in which Nennius tells us
that 960 men of the enemy perished in one day from the onslaught of
Arthur, and that he was victorious in all of these battles. Nennius adds
that while the Saxons were defeated in all of these battles, they were
continually seeking help from Germany, and being increased in numbers,
and obtaining kings from Germany to rule them till the reign of Ida, son
of Eobba, who was the first king in Bernicia, with which sentence he
closes his narrative, and this still further tends to place these events
in the north. So far we may accept Arthur as a historic person, and this
account of his battles as based on a genuine tradition.[170] The
chronicle attached to Nennius tells us that he was slain twenty-one
years afterwards in the battle of Camlan, fought in 537 between him and
Medraud.[171] As Medraud was the son of Llew of Lothian, this battle
again takes us to the north for its site.[172]
[Sidenote: Kingdom of Bernicia.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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