Anglesey

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Re: Anglesey

Postby TisILeclerc » 10:19 am

Orkney has its share of stone dropping giants as well. The most famous being Cubbie Roo who was particularly clumsy.

It is believed that these tales were imported from Norway.

In an exact parallel to the tales of the Norse jotuns, and their bridge building exploits, Cubbie Roo was renowned for his numerous attempts at building stone bridges to link the islands - a strange obsession for a creature supposedly large enough to stride across the stretches of water separating each island.

In all these cases, however, Cubbie's bridge building efforts wer in vain. The basket he strapped to his back to carry the stones nearly always breaks and the stones fall, later becoming some well-known landmark, mound or skerry.

For example, Cubbie Roo was responsible for attempting a bridge between Rousay and Wyre. The stones for this structure fell and formed the mound now known as Cubbie Roo's Burden.

While creating a bridge to Eynhallow, Cubbie inadvertently created the "Skerry o the Soond", while a failed construction attempt between Eday and Westray formed the Red Holm. Dane's Pier in Stronsay was said to be the result of a failed attempt to build a bridge between Stronsay and Auskerry.


http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/giants/

One of the usual names for British road builders is Wade. Strange coincidence that General Wade was responsible for building roads, bridges and forts in the highlands.

Whitby has a legend of Wade as well. He was pretty impetuous as well creating hollows and lumps all over the place.

Folklore tells us, (contrary to historians who would accredit the Romans) that Wade's Causeway (sometimes referred to as Old Wife's Way), an old road running from Malton to Eskdale was built by the giant Wade for his giantess wife 'Bell' so that she could use it to take her cow onto the moors for milking.

Tales are also told of how in creating this road Wade needed extra earth and soil and so scooped up the ground with his hand thus leaving the mile long bowl-like valley known as the Hole of Horcum.

When Wade had completed this highway he found that he had some excess earth and so he flung it away onto the moors creating either Blakey Topping, Roseberry Topping or Freeborough Hill depending upon the version of the story you are being told.


http://www.whitbyonline.co.uk/whitbyhis ... ntwade.php

Given that these islands are covered with giant standing stones it would be appropriate to give some sort of credence to these stories however garbled they be. Whoever built them had the ability to organise and bring to specific locations massive stones. For some reason that building activity stopped and presumably the technology was lost.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 12:01 pm

Mick Harper wrote:Giantess Apronful


Thankfully, someone else has already point out the bleeding obvious:

Barclodiad y Gawres "The Giantess's Apronful" is a type of monument known as a decorated Cruciform Passage Grave, and its location here in Anglesey makes it very unusual. Tombs of this type are usually only found in Ireland and reach their zenith in the tombs of the Boyne valley area.


http://www.megalithics.com/wales/barclody/barcmain.htm

On the site Mick mentions ...

Image

...it describes the markings as Chevrons. Is it just me, or is there a similarity with the lozenge shapes Jon has well-described in connection with sunrise patterns at Stonehenge etc? It's a good reminder that Anglesey has plenty of connections with Ireland. Druid traffic etc. Coincidentally, Barclodiad y Gawres is also slap-bang on the extension of the "Two Dragons" line, from Oxford to Dinas Emrys (ref = Ancient Paths, Graham Robb)
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 1:28 pm

So not a 'Roman' road as we're told.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 1:37 pm

More on Sts Seiriol and Cybi. Their counterparts may be St Cyril and his brother, St Methodius, known as 'Apostles to the Slavs'. Despite being Byzantine, they are officially the patron saints of Europe, along with St Benedict, according to Pope John Paul II's decree of 1980.

St Cyril was called Constantine and St Methodius was Michael. St Cyril is of particular interest as the inventor of Cyrillic script, one of the most widely used scripts in the world.

The Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets are the oldest known Slavic alphabets, and were created by the two brothers and their students, to translate the Bible and other texts into the Slavic languages.[5] The early Glagolitic alphabet was used in Great Moravia between 863 (the arrival of Cyril and Methodius) and 885 (the expulsion of their students) for government and religious documents and books, and at the Great Moravian Academy (Veľkomoravské učilište) founded by Cyril, where followers of Cyril and Methodius were educated, by Methodius himself among others. The alphabet has been traditionally attributed to Cyril. That attribution has been confirmed explicitly by the papal letter Industriae tuae (880) approving the use of Old Church Slavonic, which says that the alphabet was "invented by Constantine the Philosopher".


It may be that the Byzantine emperor, who was called Michael, and the Patriarch of Constantinople were more influential than Cyril 'n' Methodius.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 3:35 pm

I wonder if we have not being making one particular case forcefully enough? Or perhaps I have failed to do so.

Pendragon = "Chief-Dragon", but in a figurative sense, "foremost leader" or "chief of warriors".


These being Welsh/Celtic/Original British warriors, they had to be cast out by the Romans/Saxons/Normans, by any means necessary, either literally or figuratively. As with all the Celtic Saints, both temporal and spiritual matters were looked after by members of the same ruling families. So for the interloping (late arrival) Roman Christian faith to make progress, it needed some Roman/Saxon/Norman muscle to eliminate the dragons (= real people) before enforcing conversions to Roman faith.

Talk of serpents and worms (as things that crawl on the ground) could just be a derogatory translation by the Roman/Saxon/Norman, meant to slur the name and reputation of the Welsh/Celtic/Original Britons they were usurping, and eradicate all memory of them as recognisable people from the official histories. As the Romans/Saxons/Normans gradually expanded their control as overlords from the south east, it's no coincidence that these "dragon-slaying" encounters happen in the margins, where the old ways clung on as long as they could.

For example, the Dragons Gazetteer map.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/map/Dragons
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 4:21 pm

Why would dragons = 'real people' any more than 'real animals'?

It seems that dragon-slaying events are mostly linked to grand families, estates and iconic saints (even the occasional pope) rather than the margins as you put it.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby TisILeclerc » 4:24 pm

We are told that Arthur as a name comes from a word for a bear. Which would make Arthur the High Dragon Bear. Or something like that.

Perhaps it means something else.

Ceard in Scots Gaelic means a tinker or smith. The word Arthur could be related to smith or artificer or artisan.

This would make sense of him drawing a sword out of a stone. If the dragon or 'wyrm', 'orme', or whatever is to do with metal working and smelting we could perhaps see Arthur as the chief artisan or artificer at the metal foundry.

That would make him worth his weight in gold or whatever other metal they threw at him.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby hvered » 4:40 pm

In TME we equate dragons with metal-working. Arthur would indeed be the 'Pendragon' of blacksmiths. The grandeur, mystery, of the "Sword in the Stone" is readily understood: it's almost an allegory of creation.

The name Arthur is we're told derived from a Celtic word artos meaning bear. It could just as well be artifice, artefact or just Art though there's a certain appeal in a Bear-man with semi-divine powers a la Hephaistos and Vulcan.
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 11:37 pm

hvered wrote:Why would dragons = 'real people' any more than 'real animals'?


Because the leaders of the Welsh/Celtic/Original British warriors called themselves Dragons.

Pendragon or Pen Draig, meaning in Welsh "head (Pen) dragon (Draig) " or "chief dragon" (a figurative title referring to status as a leader and shortened from Pen y Ddraig (pronounced Thraig soft 'th' as in 'then')), is the name of several traditional Kings of the Britons:

Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of Constantine II of Britain, called "Pendragon" in the Vulgate Cycle
Uther, brother of Aurelius and father of King Arthur, called "Uther Pendragon" because he was inspired by a dragon-shaped comet (in the Vulgate, he took the name from his brother)
King Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon
Maelgwn of Gwynedd, described by Gildas as the "dragon of the island"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon
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Re: Anglesey

Postby Boreades » 11:45 pm

hvered wrote:It seems that dragon-slaying events are mostly linked to grand families, estates and iconic saints (even the occasional pope) rather than the margins as you put it.


Sorry, my bad, I meant in the margins geographically, or at the edges of the lands controlled by the Romans/Saxons/Normans. That is, where they were in conflict with the existing and traditional Welsh/Celtic/British ruling families and warriors that obstinately clung onto their pre-Catholic beliefs.
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