In the Land of Giants

by Adams, Max;

  Oswald was a child of the Bernician royal family, which, inevitably, traced its origins to the pagan god Woden. Bede believed the Bernicians to be Angles, said to have emigrated from the ancestral lands of Angeln around the base of the Jutland Peninsula some time in the middle of the fifth century. Their seat of power lay on the coast of north Northumberland at the fortress of Bamburgh; the lands that they claimed to rule lay broadly between the River Tyne and the River Forth. The brooding, massive castle, which stands there today on a sand-blasted outcrop of the igneous Whin Sill that forms the spine of Hadrian’s Wall, is a caprice of the Victorian arms manufacturer William Armstrong (1810–1900). His grand house at Cragside near Rothbury is full of technical wonders: a pioneering hydro-electricity supply, a novel passenger lift, a water-powered roasting spit, a Turkish bath. An indefatigable industrialist, like a Bernician overlord he patronised the elite artisans and craftsmen of his day. The house is sumptuous in every detail: grotesquely so, almost. His occasional guests, who over the years included the Shah of Persia, the King of Siam, the Prime Minister of China and the Prince and Princess of Wales, might well have believed themselves transported back to the golden-gabled hall of Beowulf’s Heorot.

  An entry in the Historia Regum, a work traditionally attributed to Symeon of Durham but which may preserve parts of an eighth-century chronicle, describes the fortress as it must have been in the Early Medieval period:

  The city of Bebba is extremely well-fortified, but by no means large, containing about the space of two or three fields, having one hollowed entrance ascending in a wonderful manner by steps. It has, on the summit of the hill, a church of very beautiful architecture, in which is a fair and costly shrine. In this, wrapped in a pall, lies the uncorrupted right hand of St Oswald, king, as Bede the historian of this nation relates. There is on the west and highest point of this citadel, a well, excavated with extraordinary labour, sweet to drink and very pure to the sight.*6

  The entrance at the north-west corner of the castle, known as St Oswald’s Gate, survives. The original wooden palisade of the British fortress, later replaced by a stone rampart and recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ‘E’ version under the year 547, must lie beneath medieval and later walls. The church of St Peter, mentioned by Bede, likely stood on the site of the present church at the east corner of the citadel. The great hall, which must have crowned the height of the stronghold, probably lay to the east of the medieval keep. A fragment of a carved stone chair discovered in the nineteenth century is likely to be part of the original throne of the Bernician kings, their ‘seat of paternal antiquity’.*7

  That real people lived and died here is all too evident from recent excavations of an Early Medieval cemetery just to the south-east among the sand dunes that periodically swallow the coastline here. The evocatively named Bowl Hole, first revealed by chance after a great storm in 1816, has yielded more than a hundred graves dating to the century either side of Oswald’s birth.7 These were well-fed people who had grown up not at Bamburgh itself but apparently all over Bernicia; their teeth had munched on rich food, although many suffered childhood stress—scarlet fever, perhaps. Some of the men appear to have been buried with parcels of food, perhaps from their funeral feasts. Only one or two had suffered weapon injuries, which would tell of great deeds in battle; maybe the real warriors never made it home to be buried here. There is no evidence for the interment of kings; there is a royal cemetery somewhere in Bamburgh that still awaits discovery when the sands shift one more fateful time. What is so fascinating is the range of styles of burial at the Bowl Hole: some in stone-lined cists (a thoroughly British Christian rite), some flexed on their sides, some lying supine and others prone, on their faces. Not all of them were born locally, either: at least one, judging by the chemical traces left in his teeth, was born on the west coast of Scotland—on Iona, perhaps.8 Was he a companion of Oswald?

  The combination of rocky citadel, imposing location and magnificent buildings, together with the technical marvel of the well (recently excavated and found to be rock-cut to an extraordinary depth of one hundred and forty-four feet) reflected the power and pretensions of the Bernician kings.9 No child growing up there could fail to have his or her imagination stirred by such a back yard, standing indomitable against the batterings of the North Sea and all would-be invaders.

  Those whose imaginations struggle with black and white plans of walls and post-holes must visit Bede’s World in Jarrow where, in the shadow of Bede’s own monastic church, cows, geese and pigs with convincing Dark Age grunts and smells provide the backdrop for halls and sunken huts, which would have been the entirely familiar playgrounds of the children of Æthelfrith and Acha. Literary support for the mentality and motivations of those who used them comes from the greatest early Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf; and no less a critic than the scholar J. R. R. Tolkien made the explicit link between Beowulf and Oswald as long ago as 1936.10 So, if we cannot portray Oswald physically as an individual, we can at least picture his milieu and his circumstances. For a start, he was the oldest of his several natural brothers but he had a half-brother who was probably somewhat older than him—perhaps twenty years older.*8

  Father and half-brother spent much of the year campaigning in foreign lands for glory and the rewards of conquest. King Æthelfrith, we know, fought against the Scots of Dál Riata, the British of the Forth and of Gwynedd and the fabled King Urien of Rheged; he was a busy warlord. At other times the peripatetic Bernician kings progressed through their estates, consuming the fruits of tribute rendered from the fertile Northumbrian soil. Several of these estates can be reconstructed in outline. Their principal palace site, Yeavering (Bede’s Ad Gefrin), which lay at the foot of an imposing Iron Age hill fort and ‘holy mountain’ on the northern edge of the Cheviot Hills, was brilliantly excavated in the 1950s and early 1960s. The site of Old Yeavering in the dale of the River Glen is a place to pause and absorb a sense of history and myth. Glendale now is a forgotten corner of England, nestled within sight of the Scottish border in a dramatic natural amphitheatre. But it has featured in more than its fair share of history, as a strategic corridor for armies entering or leaving northern England and a bottleneck ripe for ambush. Here in 1513 an English army inflicted a terrible defeat on the Scots at Flodden Field; just to the east, below Humbleton Hill, is the site of another Anglo-Scottish conflict, immortalised in Shakespeare’s Henry IV as the place from where noble, soil-stained Sir Walter Blunt brought news of Earl Douglas’s discomfiture and Harry ‘Hotspur’ Percy’s capture of the Earl of Fife: a ‘gallant prize’.11 Earlier, almost lost in the mists of time, the Annales Cambriae record the River ‘Glein’ as the site of the first of Arthur’s legendary twelve battles.

  In the days of Kings Æthelfrith, Edwin and Oswald the greatest architectural feats since the end of the Roman Empire stood here as symbols of royal power: a palace complex, noble halls of great technical complexity and grandeur and, wonder of wonders, a grandstand unique in its period. In a pagan temple offerings were made to the gods and tribal totems of the Bernicians; immense herds of cattle, the surplus wealth of the land and the tributary tax of subject kingdoms were corralled and counted; and the family of Æthelfrith could take comfort from the knowledge that the most powerful warlord in early Britain was unchallenged by any other earthly force. So complacent were the Bernician kings in their golden hall that no defences were ever constructed at Yeavering, a place of tribal assembly, judgement and ritual since time out of mind.

  During great festivals, the cream of Northumbrian society gathered in the mead halls of Bamburgh, Yeavering or one of the other royal vills.*9 Mead flowed, tall tales grew taller, gifts of rings and torcs were made, alliances cemented or broken, troths plighted and promises made and regretted. Small boys being small boys, no doubt conversations were overheard which were meant to be private and neglected cups were drained by aspiring warriors who should have been in bed.

  One wonders what status Oswald enjoyed with his father and half-brother
. His moral authority among younger siblings was one thing, but half-siblings are another; jealousies are easily fostered. Anglo-Saxon warlords did not name heirs; kings were chosen by the political elite from a pool of athelings, those whose blood and personal attributes entitled them to be considered; those who survived. In his time Eanfrith would make one disastrous bid for the kingdom of Northumbria; Oswald would wait his turn. His relationship with his father was terminated when he was twelve. Oswald would not see his home or native land again until he was twenty-nine.

  *1The epigraphs which head each chapter are from a work generally known as Anglo-Saxon Maxims II, because there is something similar in the Exeter Book known as Maxims I. British Library Cotton MS Tiberius B.i ff. 115r-v. The translations are adapted from Tom Shippey’s Poems of learning and wisdom in Old English. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1976.

  *2See Glossary, Appendix C, p.409.

  *3Rex Norðanhymbrorum, king of the Northumbrians: the term was first applied by Bede to King Edwin in II.5 of his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), abbreviated to EH by historians.

  *4See Chapter IV.

  *5Oswudu has been left out of the genealogical table In Appendix B, p.408, because I suspect him to be the same as Osguid, mis-transcribed.

  *6Historia Regum (HR) sub anno 774. Symeon’s authorship of the Historia Regum is no longer acceptable. Hunter-Blair 1964.

  *7See Chapter VII.

  *8The dynamics of such families haven’t changed much; my own mother was one of eleven and the second-hand mythology of that Midlands family growing up during the Second World War is enough to fill the imagination with plenty of food for thought.

  *9Villa regia: a royal estate. See Colgrave and Mynors 1969, 188. See also Glossary, Appendix C, p.415.

  Notes to the Text

  ABBREVIATIONS

  HB

  Nennius’s Historia Brittonum

  EH

  Bede’s Ecclesiastical History

  ASC

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  LC

  Life of Colomba

  HA

  Historia Abbatum

  WLG

  Whitby Life of Gregory

  AC

  Annales Cambriae

  PLC

  Bede’s Prose Life of St Cuthbert

  VW

  Vita Wilfridi

  HTSC

  Historia Translationum Sancti Cuthberti auctore anonymo

  HSC

  Historia de Sancto Cuthberto

  Chapter I

  1 Nennius: Historia Brittonum (HB) 70; ed. J. Morris 1980.

  2 Rackham 2006, 150.

  3 Beowulf trans. and ed. Alexander 2014–31.

  4 Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EH) (Historia Ecclesiastica) III.5.

  5 EH II.5.

  6 HB 57; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC) Recension E sub anno 617.

  7 Groves 2011.

  8 Retrieved from an online article by Project Director Graeme Young: www.btinternet.com/~graemeyoung/BowlHole.htm 13.07.2012.

  9 Young 2003, 18.

  10 Tolkien 1936.

  11 Henry IV Part I, Act I, Scene 1.

  Available now

  Acknowledgements

  My first thanks go to the trustees of the Roger Deakin Award, whose generous help contributed to both my travels and the provision of a camera. The Royal Literary Fund has been a continuing source of tangible and intangible support. Richard Milbank, Anthony Cheetham and the unflappable staff at Head of Zeus have been enthusiastic supporters of a project that carried all sorts of risks of failure. Sarah Annesley has been both a sometime indulgent companion on the trail and, at all times, a sympathetic and encouraging spirit.

  Many, many hosts have put me up, helped me along the way and listened to my traveller’s tales: the organisers of the Oswestry Litfest, Steve and Denise Lawson, Malcolm and Fiona Lind, Stephen and Christina Stead, Sophie and Roger Brown, Karen Crofts, June Kempster, Bob Sydes and Sarah Austin, Paul and Sarah McGowan and Mark Whyman. My thanks to all. Two other companions on the trail, Dan Elliott and Malcolm Pallister, made those walks memorable and inspiring. Pam Bowyer-Davis and Ruth Matthews were gracious and knowledgeable guides at Wareham and Canterbury.

  I would like to thank Donald Clark and Colin Evans, both of whom plucked me off beaches when I might have been stranded, and several ferrymen whose names I neglected to write down. Special thanks go to skipper James Mackenzie, his crew and our shipmates on Eda Frandsen, for a special and unforgettable journey across the seas. The kind, generous and knowledgeable friendship of many colleagues in Donegal is much appreciated, as always; so too the support, interest and bloody awkward questions of my friends in the Bernician Studies Group, without whose insatiable curiosity and erudition this book would probably never have got off the ground. Colm O’Brien has, not for the first time, contributed more than he knows to shore up the holes in my knowledge.

  Nameless and sadly unrecorded assistance and kind interest from various campsite owners, curators, passers-by, café proprietors, ferrymen, hoteliers and, in particular, the very kind man who gave us a lift from Achnamara, are acknowledged with gratitude.

  Plate section

  Giants, Ancestors, Ruins, Argonauts

  DUNAGOIL

  ‘glowing orangey-green hill against the wine-dark sea and Arran’s late afternoon battleship grey’ (see pages).

  THE WALL AND WHIN SILL

  ‘it looked to us like some immense humpbacked prehistoric monster’ (see pages).

  SNOWDONIA

  ‘The giants were there too’ (see pages).

  DINAS EMRYS

  ‘Three times his masons and carpenters built their ramparts, and three times they fell down in the night’ (see pages).

  HERE LYETH…

  ‘people came by sea from many parts to be buried at Cooley’ (see pages).

  ALL HALLOWS, GOODMANHAM

  ‘Christian missionaries, at least the savvy ones, came bearing the promise of an upgrade, not a revolution’ (see pages).

  ST ANDREW’S, WROXETER

  ‘…like the wind through woods in riot, through him the gale of life blew high’ (see pages).

  ST MARTIN’s, WAREHAM

  ‘I stopped before the creamy-white marble effigy of a great warrior’ (see pages).

  DIN LLIGWY

  ‘We found Din Lligwy hidden in a copse of trees, like some sacred grove’ (see pages).

  DIN LLIGWY

  ‘Din Lligwy must have been the settlement of an elite family, the massive neatness of the stone foundations… tell of wealth and architectural pretension’ (see pages).

  ROTHESAY

  ‘Perhaps post-Roman Britain was a genteel, faded seaside town of a land’ (see pages).

  LYSTYN GWYN

  ‘It was as if the inhabitants had vanished minutes before, never to return’ (see pages).

  ST GERMAN’S CATHEDRAL

  ‘…its dedication may be original and pre-date the island’s ascription to Patrick’ (see pages).

  ST CYBI’S WELL

  ‘…it was a rather lovely spot, green and quiet and perfect for a mid-morning break; and I drank the water’ (see pages).

  THE NORTH CHANNEL

  ‘…the sea-kingdom of the British of Rheged’ (see pages).

  A DISTANT GLIMPSE OF JURA

  ‘It was exhilarating sailing, utterly absorbing of mind and body and lived entirely in the moment’ (see pages).

  THE RIVER FROME AT WAREHAM

  ‘The Great Heathen Army made their headquarters here in 876’ (see pages).

  ST PATRICK’S ISLE

  ‘Monks and traders, raiders and royal fleets found the same places convenient’ (see pages).

  Encounters, Entrepreneurs, Identities, Spaces

  MORAG, KYLES OF BUTE

  ‘Donald Clark, her owner and skipper, plucked us off the beach as cool as you like’ (see pages).

  INISHOWEN — MARTIN HOPKINS, DESSIE MCCALLION, COLM
O’BRIEN

  ‘…during that first morning on site there was a more or less continuous, and welcome, stream of visitors’ (see pages).

  SOMERSET

  ‘this layer cake of generations of farmers, drovers, artisans and cottagers’ (see pages).

  ESSEX

  ‘More back lanes; more rain… no one to meet by chance or talk to; no walkers of any kind’ (see pages).

  HIGHLAND CATTLE, HALTWHISTLE BURN

  ‘…peering curiously through their fringes at gawping passers-by’ (see pages).

  WHITECHAPEL

  ‘tensions that hold this extraordinary urban orrery in perpetual, confounding, vibrant equipoise’ (see pages).

  MOVILLE, INISHOWEN

  ‘We had been allowed the run of Rosato’s bar… so we were guaranteed an audience’ (see pages).