Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and UsesFergusson, James
History
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses
Fergusson, James
Megalithic monuments
If we must go so far north, I would rather feel inclined to place it
at Wood Castle, near Lochmaben, in Dumfriesshire, where there is a
circular enclosure identical in plan and dimensions with King Arthur's
Round Table at Penrith.[162] Strategically, it is a much more likely
spot than the exposed east coast of Northumberland; but, except
the plan of Wood Castle, I know of no authority for placing this
battle-field in Annandale.
There is no indication where the second, third, or fourth battles were
fought; but for the fifth we have this important designation that it
was fought "super aliud flumen quod vocatur Duglas vel Dubglas quod est
in regione Linuis," or in another MS. Linnuis. A marginal note suggests
Lindesay, in Lincolnshire, but for no other reason apparently than from
the first three letters being the same in both. There is a River Duglas
flowing past Wigan, in Lancashire, which Whittaker, in his 'History
of Manchester,' boldly adopts as the place indicated, and others have
been inclined to accept his determination. After going carefully over
the ground, I confess no spot appears to me more unlikely for a great
battle than the banks of this river, nor does any local evidence of
their having been so now remain. One cannot but feel that if Arthur
ever allowed himself to be pushed into such a corner, with nothing but
the sea behind him to retreat upon, he certainly was not the general
that made so successful a stand against the Saxons. I am much more
inclined to believe that Linnuis is only a barbarous latinization of
Linn, which in Gaelic and Irish means sea or lake. In Welsh it is Lyn,
and in Anglo-Saxon Lin, and if this is so, "In regione Linnuis" may
mean "In the Lake Country."
The name of the river does not appear to me at all an insuperable
difficulty. All the rivers about Penrith, the Lowther, the Eamount,
and the Eden, have names that were certainly given to them by the
Saxons, but they must have had Celtic names before they came; and Dubh
as an adjective is dark or black, and Glas, green or grey, is used
as a substantive to denote the sea, in Irish. Such an epithet would
apply admirably to the Lowther; and if it could be identified with the
river mentioned by Nennius, our difficulties would be at an end. These
speculations, however, must of course be taken for what they are worth.
There is, so far as known, no authority for the name Duglas or Dubhglas
being applied to the Lowther or Eden.
The sixth battle was on a river called Bassas. It has been suggested
that this means the Bass Rock in the Frith of Forth; but it need hardly
be objected that a rock is not a river, and there is an extreme
improbability that Arthur ever saw the Lothians. In Derbyshire there is
a Bas Lowe[163] in a neighbourhood where, as we shall presently see,
there is reason to believe Arthur fought one or more of his battles,
but I am not aware of any river so called in that neighbourhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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