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Melkin's Prophecy VIII

by Steve Goodwin

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n earlier date is also suggested in Blake and Lloyd’s The Keys of Avalon (2000), and further analysis reveals that an earlier date is for more probable and a summary of  findings is found in appendix 2. Perhaps the strongest evidence comes from research carried out by Keith Nurse which is published in History Today, August 1999. His article makes a new assessment for the dating of the dyke after an archaeological investigation at a site near Oswestry, Shropshire. The investigation and radiocarbon dating of archaeological finds concluded that a more probable construction of the dyke was the early 5th century, the time when Britain saw the withdrawal of the Roman forces and when western Britain saw an increase in ‘barbarian’ assaults from the Picts and Scots/Irish. Nurse points out: “A Shropshire County Council Archaeological Service report on the excavations by H.R Hannaford concludes that the most likely date indicates that the people who constructed Wats Dyke were not the Mercians of Offa (r.757-96) or subjects of his predecessor, Aethelbald (r.716-57). New information places the construction of the dyke within the shadowy period that began with the formal withdrawal of the Roman administration (AD 410) and ended with the absorption of the area into Mercia.” (Nurse; 1999; p.3-4).

With this in mind, the re-reading of early Welsh poetry and our earliest British source (Gildas) supports the theory that the earlier date of construction is far more credible. Gildas’ account states that the native Romano-Britons ask Rome for help in repelling the brutal assault from the Picts and Scots. Consequently, Rome sends an army to repel the invaders and afterward build a wall/earthen rampart for the defence of the native population before they withdraw to the continent. This is echoed in a passage of 9th century Welsh poetry that laments the loss of their eastern lands around the rivers Dee and Severn. The poem ends:

“Gone are my brethren from the lands of the Severn
Around the banks of Dwyryw.
Sad am I, my God, that I am yet alive.

No more the well trained horses, no more the scarlet cloaks,
No more the great golden plumes.
Thin my leg, bare, uncovered…

Brothers I had who never lost heart,
Brothers who grew like hazel saplings.
All are gone, one by one…

The dykes endure. He who dug them
Is no more.”
(Morris; 1993;p.244-5)

There is good evidence to argue that both dykes (Offa’s & Wat’s) are at least 300 years old by the time of Offa (r.757-96), and that these earthworks were adopted by the Mercian kingdom who rebuilt and modify them, and this is what Asser alludes to in his account. This would go someway in explaining how an 8th century Mercian kingdom with limited resources, manpower and skills was able to construct the longest frontier dyke in Western Europe.

Other early sources that back up this theory are numerous; Beda describes a similar place as dose the 9th century collection of earlier stories none as the Irish form of Nennius where it states: “Severus was the third king that came to Britain; and it was by him was made the Saxon ditch against the barbarians.” As early as the 4th century Jerome wrote under the year Anno Abraham 2221; AD 205 “Severus brings war over against the Britanni, where also, in order to safeguard the acquired provinces from barbarian attack, he made a wall from sea to sea for 132 miles”.

Furthermore, Bede (c.731) relates the following: “He [Severus] was compelled to come to Britain by the desertion of nearly all the tribes allied to Rome, and after many critical and hard fought battles he decided to separate that portion of the island under his control from the remaining unconquered peoples. He did this not with a wall, as some imagine, but an earthwork. For a wall is built of stone, but an earthwork such as protects a camp from enemy attack is constructed with sods cut from the earth and raised above the ground level, fronted by the ditch from which the sod were cut and surmounted by a strong palisade of logs. Severus built a rampart and ditch of this type from sea to sea and fortified it by a series of towers.” (Bede)    

Here both Jerome (c.400) and Bede (c.731) are describing a fortification that can only be what we now know as Offa’s and Watt’s dyke. Jerome claims that Severus’ wall was built from “sea to sea for 132 miles” this about the same length as Offa’s dyke. This is reinforced by Bede’s detailed description of Severus’ “earthwork” with its “ditch” and “rampart” the same form of construction as the Welsh dykes. As we know Hadrian’s Wall is made of stone and only 70 mile long, furthermore, Bede would have known all this as he spent most of his life within a couple of miles of Hadrian’s Wall.

 Map 9 shows the layout of these linear earthworks, they follow a defensive line from the Wye northward through the Marches, up through Shropshire to Oswestry. At this point the two dykes are less than 300 metres apart.  Further north Offa’s Dyke begins to bare west into Wales and Wat’s Dyke continues northward for 37 miles passing through the Mynachlog site and terminates at Bassingwerk, on the Dee estuary. I suggest that this is the “linea bifurcate” described in the prophecy, and it may just be the “ancient wall” that runs north-south in Procopious’ account. Furthermore, the prophecy states that Joseph was buried south of an oratory. An oratory was a word used to denote a chapel built over a Christian martyr or prominent holy person before the 10th century. The grave yard of Mynachlog, Yr Ardd ddu/The Black Garden, is the southern section of the site. This would appear to be the same spot described in the prophecy, the site of the original monastery of Afallach.

Recap:

• The “linea bifurcata” of the prophecy equates to the frontier dykes called Offa and Wat. Wat’s dyke bisects the Mynachlog site that sits below Afallach.
• The southern garden of Mynachlog is an ancient monastic burial site, and this again corresponds with the prophecy.
• Interestingly, Thomas Edwards’ 1832 description of Northop opens with a genealogy of the local saint which begins Afallach ap Beli Mawr. Furthermore, his account ends with the ancient belief that the river Dee’s name was derived from a Celtic female deity (Don). 

The prophecy continues: “where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and where the 13 spheres rest.”

As with the rest of the prophecy this line can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Generally, “the wattle” has been taken as referring to the ancient church of Glastonbury, which we are told was destroyed by fire in 1184. An early 12th century account of the “Old Church” by William of Malmesbury (c.1130) states that the floor of this chapel was covered by astronomical symbols of lead inlayed into a stone floor. Scholars such as Professor Carley have suggested that this may be what is meant in this part of the prophecy. Considering the esoteric nature of much of the prophecy this explanation suits   our purpose. However, this may be yet another tradition which was imported into the Glastonbury corpus in the early days of the Norman Conquest in order to undermine the Welsh Church’s claim of predominance over that of Canterbury as mentioned earlier. Whatever the case this is pure speculation based on circumstantial evidence, and can not be proven one way or the other. Nevertheless, if William, as he suggests at the beginning of his account, is relating a tradition which was initially concerning the floor pattern of the original church of Avalon he would in fact be describing the floor of the church of Afallach, North Wales. The manipulation of existing traditions was a common practice of the Catholic Church, and considering the politics involved and the fact that a claims from the Welsh Church clearly worried the Romano-Norman bishops, by concentrating all claims of an early tradition in one place (Glastonbury), which was under Norman control, this enabled Canterbury to under mine the Welsh claim to an independent origin.

Whilst the above has been the accepted view of what the ‘wattle’ represented, like elsewhere in the prophecy there is an alternative and far simpler explanation. “Where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden…” is in my belief, the prophecy simply  referring to a wattle chapel or oratory which was located on the site now called Monachlog/Monastery, situated high above the bank of the river Dee. The Dee equates to the divine goddess who has three forms ‘the maiden’, ‘the mother’ and ‘the hag’. “…where the 13 spheres rest” describes the chapel floor where the 13 astronomic symbols are to be found.

 However, my favoured view is that the chapel is described as being constructed of “cratibus”, in the Latin in of the prophecy, which translates as wattle, wickerwork or hurdle and this in turn is in its Welsh form is ‘Clwyd’ the ancient  name of the mountains that run like a spine through Flintshire.

• Wattle ~ (n) clwyd, pleiden. (Collins Welsh Dictionary)
• Clwyd ~ hurdle, wicker-work (Ellis; Flintshire Place-names; 1955)

In addition, as pointed out earlier, the prominent peak of the Clwydian Range is non-other than Moel Fammau or Mother’s Mountain, and Blake and Lloyd (2000) point out that the landscape around the mountain reflect the Celtic Mother goddess’ triple form which are linked to mythology of the area; Nant y Wrech/the Valley of the Hag, Moel Fammau/Mountain of the Mother and Bryn Bannon/Hill of the Maiden Consort. In the same area is another very old tradition which was recorded in the mid 16th century:

‘In Denbighshire there is a parish which is called Llanferres, and there is there Rhyd y Gyfarthfa [the Ford of the Barking]. In the old days the hounds of the countryside used to come together to the side of that ford to bark, and nobody dared go to find out what was there until Urien Rheged came. And when he came to the side of the ford he saw nothing there except a woman washing. And then the hounds ceased barking, and Urien seized the woman and had his will of her; and then she said, “God’s blessing on the feet which brought thee here.” “Why?” said he. “Because I have been fated to wash here until I should conceive a son by a Christian. And I am daughter to the King of Annfwn, and come thou here at the end of the year and thou shalt receive the boy.” And so he came and he received there a boy and a girl: that is, Owein son of Urien and Morfudd daughter of Urien.’  (Quoted in Blake & Lloyd; 2000; p.132)

Here we find a Celtic pagan tradition that was over-laid with a thousand years of Christian sensibility. However, the original tradition is still visible, that is, how the daughter of the King of the Underworld (Annfwn) who is symbolically linked to the river, copulates with the Celtic/British king to produce a semi-divine child in order to ensure the further fertility of the land. At its simplest the tradition represents the coming together of Christianity and Paganism and its result. A similar story is told about Maelgwyn or Melkin whose name is attached to the prophecy. Now I am not arguing that a goddess literally hung about the river, though, I would argue that this represented a pre-Christian ritual in which ‘people’ played the role of a goddess/priestess in earthly form. These traditions are echoes of a Celtic pagan past which was not afraid of the female aspect of the divine and the power of the natural world which appear to have merged with an early form of Christianity.

On to part IX

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