The Hollow Hills

SOME OTHER BRIEF NOTES

Segontium, Geoffrey of Monmouth in the Vita Merlini tells us of cups made by Weland the Smith in Caer Seint (Segontium), which were given to Merlin. There is also another story of a sword made by Weland which was given to Merlin by a Welsh king. There is a brief reference in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 418 A.D. “In this year the Romans collected all the treasures which were in Britain and hid some in the earth so that no one afterwards could find them, and some they took with them into Gaul.”

Galava. The main body of legend places King Arthur in the Celtic countries of the west, Cornwall, Wales, Brittany. In this I have followed the legends. But there is evidence which supports another strong tradition of Arthur in the north of England and in Scotland. So this story moves north. I have placed the traditional “Sir Ector of the Forest Sauvage” (who reared the young Arthur) at Galava, the modern Ambleside in the Lake District. I have often wondered if “the fountain of Galabes [Fontes galabes] where he (Merlin) wont to haunt” could be identified with the Roman Galava or Galaba. (In The Crystal Cave I gave it a different interpretation. The mediaeval romancers make “Galapas” a gaint — a version of the old guardian of the spring or waterway.) The fostering of Arthur on Ector, and the lodging at Galava of Bedwyr, are feasible; we find in Procopius that, as in later times, boys of good family were sent away to be educated. As for the “chapel in the green,” once I had invented a shrine in the Wild Forest I could not resist calling it the Green Chapel, after the mediaeval Arthurian poem of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, which has its setting somewhere in the Lake District.

Ambrosius' Wall. This is the Wansdyke, or Woden's Dyke, so called by the Saxons, who saw it as the work of the gods. It ran from Newbury to the Severn, and parts of it are still traceable. It was probably built some time between 450 and 475 A.D., so I have ascribed it to Ambrosius.

Caer Bannog. This name, old Celtic for “the castle of the peaks,” is my own interpretation of the various names — Carbonek, Corbenic, Caer Benoic, etc. — given to the castle where the youth finds the Grail.

There is a Celtic legend in which Arthur carries off a cauldron (magic vessel or grail) and a wonderful sword from Nuadda or Llyd, King of the Otherworld.

Cei and Bedwyr. They are Arthur's companions in legend. Cei was Ector's son and became Arthur's seneschal. Bedwyr's name was later mediaevalized to Bedivere, but in his relationship with Arthur he seems to be the original of Lancelot. Hence the reference to the guenfawyvar (white shadow: Guinevere) which falls between the boys on page 342.

Cador of Cornwall. When Arthur died without issue, we are told that he left his kingdom to Cador's son.

Morgause. On the subject of Arthur's unwitting incest with his sister, there is a rich confusion of legend. The most usual story is that he lay with his half-sister Morgause, wife (or mistress) of Lot, and begot Mordred, who was eventually his downfall. His own sister Morgan, or Morgian, became “Morgan le Fay,” the enchantress. Morgause is said to have borne four sons to Lot, who later were to become Arthur's devoted followers. This seemed unlikely if Arthur had lain with her when she was Lot's wife, so I have taken my own way through the confusion of the stories, with the suggestion that after leaving the court Morgause will lose no time in taking her sister's place as Lot's queen. I believe there was in the fifth century a nunnery near Caer Eidyn (Edinburgh) in Lothian to which Morgian could have retired. This could be the “house of witches” or “wise women” of legend, and it is tempting to suppose that Morgian and her nuns came from there to take Arthur away and nurse him after his last battle against Mordred at Camlann.

Coel, King of Rheged, is the original of the Old King Cole of the nursery rhymes. We are told that Hueil, one of the nineteen sons of Caw of Strathclyde, was much disliked by Arthur. Another of the sons, Gildas the monk, seems to have returned this dislike. It is he who, in 540 A.D., wrote The Loss and Conquest of Britain, without once mentioning Arthur by name, though he refers to the Battle of Badon Hill, the last of Arthur's twelve great battles, in which he broke the Saxon power. From the tone of Gildas' book it is to be inferred that, if Arthur was a Christian at all, his Christianity went no further than lip-service. At any rate he was no friend to the monks.

Caliburn is the most pronounceable of the names for Arthur's sword, which was later romanticized as Excalibur. White was Arthur's colour; his white hound, Cabal, has a place in legend. Canrith means “white phantom.”

It will be seen from these necessarily sketchy notes that any given episode of my story may — to quote Geoffrey Ashe again — "be taken as fact or imagination or religious allegory or all three at once." In this, if in nothing else, it is wholly true to its time.

— M.S.

November 1970 — November 1972