Gwyn Read online

  The nose of this dog is a hill (possibly man-made,) that rises up from the west Somerset Levels like a miniature Glastonbury Tor. Like the Tor (which you can see upon the horizon) it sits upon the ‘Michael Line/Beltane alignment and also has a ruined church upon it, dedicated to St. Michael (the Christian equivalent of Gwyn); - the name of the dog’s nose is ‘Burrow Bridge Mump’ (the Mump is also known as ‘Alfred’s Burrow’, ‘Burrow Mump’ or simply, ‘the Mump’.)

  Other than the giant canine drawing upon the ground, there is no alternative explanation as to who or what, was the Girt Dog of Langport. But, it’s not only place names that speak of the dog’s existence; there is also local folklore. An old Somerset ‘Wassailing Song’ sings of the ‘Girt Dog of Langport’. The 5th and final verse is sung as follows;

  “The Girt Dog of Langport he burnt his long tail,

  And this is the night we go singing wassail!

  O Master and Missus, now we must be gone;

  God bless all in this house till we do come again.”

  (from the Oxford Book of Carols, taken from a compilation gathered by Sabine Baring-Gould, no later than 1907.)

  This traditional song was sung in villages all around this giant landscape dog - Langport, Othery, and Curry Rivel (‘Cur’ being an old name for a hound) every year for centuries!

  The traditional date for Wassailing was the 7th of January (which was ‘Old Christmas Day’) a climax of all the Christmas festivities. How apt then, that the Winter King’s dog should be remembered as a part of the traditional seasonal festivities of Somerset! Just how old this song is, can only be guessed. Wace, the 12th century Anglo-Norman poet, recorded that the Saxons ‘Wassailed’ before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

  “The Girt Dog of Langport he burnt his long tail . . .” is a fascinating line in the Wassail and may give us more evidence as to the great dog’s existence. On July the 10th, 1645, the English Civil War ‘Battle of Langport’ took place at Wagg Rhyne, upon the Girt Dog’s tail. The Royalist army set up their encampment the night before the battle, upon the dog’s tail, where they chopped down a large section of the apple orchards there, to fuel their campfires, thus burning the Girt Dog’s tail! The Royalists lost the Battle of Langport and scattered, many retreating to the church of St. Michael upon the dog’s nose for sanctuary!

  So how is the dog important to the story of Gwyn? If ‘The Girt Dog’ truly is there ( . . . and I’m sure he is,) and he was drawn by the Native Britons, as Gwyn’s dog “Dormarth” ( . . . and I’m sure he was,) then he has to have existed from at least, or before the 7th century, when the Saxons conquered Somerset. Knowledge of his existence must have also been passed on to the Saxons for him to end up in the Wassailing song. (‘Wassail!’ is Saxon for ‘be of good health!’)

  Truly the Girt Dog is an astounding creature, a fine dog for a hunter god to be proud of;

  Gwyn speaks

  ‘Handsome my dog, and round-bodied,

  And truly the best of dogs;

  Dormarth was he, which belonged to Maelgwyn’.

  Gwyddneu speaks

  ‘Dormarth, red-nosed, ground-grazing On him we perceived the speed Of thy wanderings on Gwibir Vynyd’(Cloud Mount).

  It has been speculated that Burrow Mump (the dog’s nose) is a man made hill. It certainly looks out of place in its location. The flat Somerset Sea Moors that surround it only exist because of irrigation channels known as ‘Rhynes’. These channels help to turn bog and marsh into green fields for grazing, but are still prone to serious flooding today. Upon this damp flat landscape the dog’s nose stands out like a sore thumb! It is also formed of reddish soil that is contrary to the black peaty soil of the Levels. The description ‘red-nosed, ground-grazing’ is certainly peculiar, to say the least!

  His name ‘Dormarth’ is Welsh for ‘Death’s Door’. As Gwyn is the ‘Escort of the Grave’, then the name of his dog (guarding the western approach to the sacred isle of the dead) is perfectly suitable. ‘On him we perceived the speed o thy wanderings on Gwibir Vynyd’ quite clearly implies that Dormarth is a beast that people can stand upon.

  As the centuries passed by, Gwyn became dark and sinister to the minds of Christian folk; the nighttime hunter who collected the souls of the dead. A kind of Dark Age Grim Reaper who went out on the Wild Hunt with the ‘Hounds of Annwn’ (‘Cwn Annwn’). These hounds got a bad name, becoming known variously, as the ‘Hounds of Hades’ or ‘Hellhounds’! In Devon they were known as ‘Yell Hounds’ or ‘Wish Hounds’ and inspired the Sherlock Holmes story of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. Many writers have connected the ‘Cwn Annwn’ with Gwyn ap Nudd; but this is an assumption and a possible error. In none of the literary sources about Gwyn is there any mention of him having a pack of hounds. The only dog he is connected with is Dormarth, ‘handsome and round-bodied’ .

  The ‘Cwn Annwn’ came from a different story and are the hunting dogs of a King of Annwn called Arawn (this story is told in the Mabinogion tale of ‘Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed’.) Arawn’s Hounds of Annwn are described as having white bodies and red ears. Hounds of the same red and white description belong to a god of Ireland called Finn (in many ways he is the Irish equivalent of Gwyn and both their names mean ‘White, bright’) but I have found no source material that specifically says Gwyn hunted with the Cwn Annwn.

  Based on what little descriptive evidence there is of Gwyn, it would be best to visualise him as a strong Celtic warrior, on horseback, holding a spear and shield, with Dormarth running along side. The scary and frightening pack of hellhounds, pursuing human souls to take back to Hades, is an unjustified image based on a misnomer - a visual injustice. That said, before the Cwn Annwn were demonised into Hellhounds they would have played the same psychopomp role of Gwyn and Dormarth. But there was an important distinction; they were in my view ‘soul carriers’ not ‘soul catchers’.

  In ‘The Cygnus Mystery’ by Andrew Collins, the author (after doing a world wide investigation) shows how, all across the globe, ancient people viewed birds as ‘soul carriers’. Often swans or geese, sometimes eagles or vultures, it depended upon what species was relevant to the given culture. It has been suggested that the origin of the night hunting Hounds of Annwn is actually the night cries of migrating geese; their eerie honking noise sounding like dogs barking in the night sky. Curiously the migration of geese in the skies above the British Isles coincides with late autumn, the return of Orion and Samhain, the Celtic New Year. One date often quoted is the feast of St Martins (11th November), which is shared with known geese migration, and the activities of the Cwn Annwn! (Curiously, ‘St. Martins Land’ was the ‘Otherworld’ place where the ‘Green Children of Woolpit’ said that they had come from - please see chapter 3.)

  All said and done, I do not think that Dormarth (the Girt Dog of Langport) should be seen as one of the Cwn Annwn. He is quite clearly an individual. Going back to viewing the star lore perspective of Gwyn (as the constellation Orion) it is quite possible that Dormarth is the constellation of Canis Major (the great dog of the heavens.) As the constellation Orion goes hunting into the night sky, following right behind him is Canis Major;

  “Only a Glastonbury Giant can make sense of this; only a star-effigy can at once inhabit earth and sky. Sirius, Canis Major’s bright Dog-Star, is his celestial nose, while his “ground grazing” nostril at Alfred’s Burrow is no less ruddy - being an artificial hill of red clay, brought perhaps in prehistoric times from Red Hill, three miles away. (Or so says Collinson’s History of Somerset.)”

  (Mary Caine, ‘The Glastonbury Zodiac; Key to the Mysteries of Britain’.)

  This pattern of star lore is very similar to Saxon star lore. In Saxon Mythology there is an elven hero called Aegil the Archer, who is known to be personified as the constellation of Orion. His brother is Wayland the Smith, who was the star Sirius. Their father was called Wade and he represented the Milky Way. (‘Watling Street’ is named after him.) So in Saxon myth we have Orion being the son of the Milky Way, wit
h Sirius being his brother, and in Welsh myth we have Gwyn (Orion) being the son of Nudd (the Milky Way) accompanied by Dormarth, his trusty hound (Sirius).

  The constellations of the night sky connect the mythologies of every culture on the planet. You just need to learn how each culture viewed the ‘Heavenly Cinema’ and which pattern of stars represented which leading characters in that culture’s mythology. Planet Earth has hundreds of cultures from many different countries, but it only has one sky, and before the invention of theatre and television, and before the night sky was erased by streetlights, the heavens above were the ‘All night, every night, entertainment show’!

  We are born, we have our childhoods, grow up, live our adult lives, pursue our ambitions, eventually we grow old and then we die. In the span of a human being’s lifetime, the shapes of the fixed constellations never change. The gods and goddesses of the Heavens are immortal. They resided in the sky before you were born and they’ll continue to do so after you die. In humanities’ quest for purpose and spirituality, it has always looked to the heavens - the sun, the moon, the stars, are many of the deities of old.

  The existence of the Glastonbury Zodiac and the Girt Dog of Langport may seem absurd to many people. That such a creation could ever have been formed is eccentric beyond belief and besides, what use or purpose would it serve the ancient Britons? The same ancient Britons who transported over forty ‘Bluestones’ from Preseli in south Wales, some 250 miles to Salisbury Plain, in order to construct Stonehenge. We may see its use every solstice but we still don’t know for certain how they did it! Or why? Clearly, the ancient Britons had their own beliefs and skills and although the Zodiac concept may not fit with our ‘rationalised’ approach today who is to say that such a concept was not current then.

  Following the Beltane Line from the Girt Dog’s nose, through Glastonbury Tor onwards, it arrives at the ancient perplexing Neolithic complex of Avebury. They built a stone circle so big there that a small village fits inside it! Part of the complex is Silbury Hill, completely man made, 130 feet high and for what purpose? No one knows. Across the bog and marshes of what would become the Somerset Levels (when irrigated, many millennia later,) the ancients were building long wooden track-ways in 3800 B.C.

  In Yorkshire between 3500 B.C and 2500 B.C. the Thornborough Henges were created, deliberately it would appear, to represent the three stars of Orion’s Belt, on the ground! A current survey of the Priddy Rings of the Mendips shows a similar layout of three huge ring earthworks. From the Mendips you can see Glastonbury Tor. We now know too that Glastonbury Tor was at the very least, deliberately carved to an angle that would allow the Midwinter sun to roll up the side of it! So: is there the possibility of the Tor terraces being deliberately carved into a Cretan Maze type spiral pathway?

  With the list above (as just some of many examples) drawing the signs of the zodiac upon the ground, creating a hill (the dog’s nose) and sculpting into the land a 5 mile long dog, would be easy to such unfathomable geniuses as our native British ancestors!

  Neither is the British Isles unique in its eccentric landscape. Upon the Nazca desert in Peru, covering an area of 200 square miles are geoglyphs (landscape drawings) of a humming bird, spiders and a monkey, which can only be seen from the sky! These drawings upon the ground were being sketched out at the same time that Rome was invading the British Isles! Elsewhere, China has over 100 pyramids, including the biggest in the world - the ‘White Pyramid of Xian’, it outranks anything in Egypt. Search the Internet for ‘Chinese Pyramids’ for yourself and see the awesome aerial photographs.

  The truth is, we still know so very little about our ancient ancestors and it is a huge error to think of them as simple and not capable of amazing feats of genius. The intellect in our genes that allows us to create industry, computers and achieve space travel, is inherited from them. We see the remains of their grand designs, they baffle us; how do we learn to understand their motives?

  Chapter Six

  The Changing Isles

  “This island was at the first called Ynyswytrin by the Britons, then, by the Angles (when they had conquered the land), Glastinbiry.”

  (William of Malmesbury, ‘The Antiquities of Glastonbury’ , circa 1135 A.D.)

  In 43 A.D. the Roman Empire finally succeeded in invading Britain. They had first tried, unsuccessfully, ninety years beforehand (in 55 B.C, and again in 54 B.C.) But in 43 A.D. the Roman army came and it stayed. Of the four Roman Legions that arrived (5000 men in each Legion) the 2nd Legion Augusta, commanded by General Vespasian were given the job of conquering the southwest of Britain. This would include ‘Ynys Witrin’, the sacred isle.

  Many British tribes chose to have immediate ‘Peace’ with Rome but the Durotriges did not bow down to the invaders. They reinforced Maiden Castle (their biggest hill fort) and stood firm. But in vain. In 44 A.D. Vespasian’s elite fighting force captured Maiden Castle. Then followed the submission, one by one, of all the lesser hill forts, of which there were over 3000 hill forts in southern Britain. These included Brent Knoll and Compton Dundon (Gwyn’s own ‘head’, of the Orion effigy, in the Glastonbury Zodiac) resulting in Ynys Witrin being taken by the Roman Empire around 44 to 46 A.D.

  Vespasian’s victories against the British made him famous and he later became the Emperor of Rome.

  Many native British tribes were seduced or broken by Rome and had to just learn to live with the new regime. However, there were some who remained defiant, and under the leadership of Caractacus, the son of Cunobelinus, there were many who still tried to attack the Roman Legions whenever they could; but still in vain. Caractacus appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ (1136 A.D.) as Arviragus, the younger son of Kymbelinus.

  It’s during this 1st century that Joseph of Arimathea is said to have come to Glastonbury, bringing with him the Holy Grail. The problem with this (the first of Glastonbury’s super legends) is that there is very little evidence to support it.

  The only evidence comes from the ‘Antiquities of Glas-tonbury’ written by William of Malmesbury (1135 A.D.), over a thousand years after the events were said to have happened. The Grail story doesn’t even get mentioned, and will not appear until a later Romance written in the 13th century by Robert de Boron. There is no earlier evidence than this, and there is yet another problem;

  “Their leader, it is said, was Philip’s dearest friend, Joseph of Arimathea, who buried the Lord. Coming therefore into Britain sixty-three years from the Incarnation of the Lord, and fifteen from the Assumption of Blessed Mary, they began faithfully to preach the faith of Christ. But the barbaric king and his people, hearing such novel and unaccustomed things, absolutely refused to consent to their preaching, neither did he wish to change the traditions of his ancestors; yet, because they came from far, and merely required a modest competence for their life, at their request he granted them a certain island, surrounded by woods, thickets and marshes, called by its inhabitants Ynys-vitrin, on the confines of his kingdom.”

  (The Antiquities of Glastonbury.)

  First of all, who is this ‘barbaric king’ who gives Ynys Witrin away as if it’s an uninteresting backwater ‘on the confines of his kingdom’? Britain had been part of the Roman Empire for twenty years already! Further on, in the ‘Antiquities of Glastonbury’, it says

  “Firstly, it is to be remembered, that three pagan kings (Arviragus, Marius, and Coillus) conveyed twelve portions of land to the twelve disciples of Philip and James who came to Britain in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 63, and it is from this that the name “12 hides” originated.”

  If Arviragus is Caractacus (as explained above) then this event couldn’t even have happened. Caractacus was captured in 51 A.D. and taken to Rome as a prisoner!

  Furthermore, Somerset in the 1st century was a chaotic hotbed of activity. At the same time that Joseph of Arimat-hea was said to have arrived, the Roman Legions were building the ‘Fosse Way’, (the ‘Roman road’) through ‘Virgo’ an
d ‘Scorpio’ of the Glastonbury Zodiac. It was just 5 miles from Ynys Witrin. (The Fosse Way functioned as a Roman wall of defence from Exeter in the South to Lincoln in the North East.) Close at hand, and for more than ten years, the Romans had been mining for lead and silver in the Mendips, near the Priddy Rings earthworks.

  Three years before Joseph’s arrival, the Roman’s 14th and 20th Legions had massacred the last of the Druids upon the sacred isle of Anglesey. Then came Boudica’s bloody and violent but ultimately futile revolt against the Empire. When she was defeated, so too was the rebellious will of the rest of the British. Rome had subdued the natives.

  So, was there a local ‘barbaric king’ with a reasonably sized island to give away, to complete strangers, - an island that was a ‘sacred ground’ to his ancestors? It seems most unlikely to say the least! Especially considering

  ‘neither did he wish to change the traditions of his ancestors.’