Claudius, by Douglas Jackson. Book review

Transworld, 2009. ISBN 978-0-593-06062-9. 328 pages

Set during the Roman invasion of Britain under Emperor Claudius in 43 AD, Claudius features a number of historical figures in important roles, including Claudius himself, his strategist and political fixer Narcissus, the Roman generals Aulus Plautius and Vespasian, and various British tribal rulers including Caratacus, Togodumnus, Cogidubnus, Boudicca and Cartimandua. The main characters, Rufus and his elephant, are fictional.

A Roman invasion force of four crack legions and their associate auxiliaries is marching to conquer Britain. With them is Rufus, a young slave and the keeper of the Emperor’s elephant, the majestic Bersheba. Against them stands Caratacus, king of the Catuvellauni and leader of the British tribes, a man of great courage and ability but hampered by his erratically aggressive brother Togodumnus and uncertain which of his allies he can trust. The stage is set for a brutal showdown between the legions and the British warriors – one in which Rufus and his elephant will play a vital, and possibly fatal, part.

The title is something of a misnomer. Although there are a few passages told from Claudius’ viewpoint, for the most part the central character of the novel is Rufus, the slave, elephant handler and fighter trained by an ex-gladiator introduced in the first novel in the series, Caligula (review forthcoming in due course). Occasionally the narrative looks back to the events of the first book, but you don’t need to have read Caligula to read Claudius. Both books can be read as stand-alones. The story is told in third person from a variety of viewpoints, cutting back and forth between the Roman side and the British side, so the reader gets to see the build-up to battle from both sides of the conflict. It also allows the reader to get to know other characters besides Rufus, of whom the most compelling for me were Caratacus and a (fictional) scout and warrior of the Iceni tribe called Ballan.

A newspaper quote on the back cover describes the novel as “visceral”, and if that means “lots of blood and guts” it’s a pretty accurate description. With the Romans murdering little children and torturing old people, and the Britons conducting appalling human sacrifices, the novel is even-handed in its brutality. The violence is described in the same graphic detail that characterised Caligula, with very little left to the imagination. I think it’s fair to say that this is not a book for the squeamish, and those who like to read at mealtimes should consider themselves warned. As with the previous novel, I found the shock value wore off surprisingly fast, and began to wonder if this was going to be a catalogue of gruesome atrocities of the sort that leaves me thinking that both sides deserve each other and can I vote the elephant for Emperor?

Plough on to halfway, though, and the novel steps up a gear as the violence becomes focussed to a definite purpose, the battle for the crossing of the River Thames. This decisive battle occupies most of the second half of the book, and is in my view the best bit. The use of multiple viewpoints is extremely effective, both in the build-up to the battle and in the battle itself. It allows the reader to see the complexity of stratagem and counter-stratagem as both sides lay cunning traps for each other, and it shows both the individual dramas of the key players and their part in the greater whole. Suspense is built and maintained by cutting back and forth between the players at critical moments in classic cinematic style. The Batavian auxiliaries (here going by the delightful name of “river rats”), the Second Augusta’s legionaries, the British defenders and the Romans’ British allies all get their share of the action, and there’s even an ingenious role for Bersheba the elephant.

In the absence of a historical note, the reader is left on their own to work out the historical basis of events and where any alterations have been made. I’m not an expert on the Roman invasion and can’t comment on the historical accuracy or otherwise. I can say I was surprised to see the Iceni taking part in the battle at the Thames, since Tacitus explicitly says, “We had not defeated this powerful tribe, they had voluntarily become our allies”, and I thought Verica would be older than he is portrayed if he was issuing coins in the reign of Tiberius. I’d have liked to see the author’s take on these items and any others, and was mildly disappointed by the lack of a historical note.

It looks to me as if the novel is leaving scope for a sequel to make a trilogy (any takers for the third one being called Nero?). A pair of talismanic brooches that end up in the hands of two charismatic queens, both of whom have dramatic if contrasting parts to play in the further history of the establishment of Roman Britain, the appearance of Nero as a distinct if minor character and a questioning note to the Epilogue could all be lead-ins to a further adventure for Rufus and Bersheba.

Battlefield action during the Roman invasion of Britain, with lots of violent battle scenes, some shady palace plots, and an elephant.

Nan Hawthorne, new blog

I have been asked by Nan Hawthorne to announce that the original stories, letters and drawings that formed the basis for her novel An Involuntary King are now available on a new blog.

The stories were written by Nan and her best friend between 1964 and 1970, when Nan was aged 12 to 17, and have a charm all their own. Nan says of them, "They are fun to read, but they should also interest anyone who encourages young people to stir their imaginations".

Cynddylan

A group of hauntingly beautiful Welsh poems lament the death of a leader named Cynddylan son of Cyndrwyn. On the internal evidence of the poems, he lived some time in the seventh century and was active in the areas that are now the north-west Midlands of England and the north-east of Wales. What do we know about him?

Evidence

Marwnad Cynddylan (The Lament for Cynddylan)

[…]
the king of Dogfeiling, oppressor of the Cadelling.
I shall lament until I would be in my oaken silence
for the slaying of Cynddylan, grievous loss.
[…]
Grandeur in battle! So good was the destiny
that Cynddylan, the battle leader, got
seven hundred chosen soldiers in his retinue,
When the son of Pyd requested, he was so ready!
[…]
They used to drive back the spoils from the dales of Taff.
Captives lamented; lame, cattle bellowed.
[…]
Before Lichfield they fought,
There was gore under ravens and keen attack.
Limed shields broke before the sons of the Cyndrwynyn.
I shall lament until I would be in the land of my resting place
for the slaying of Cynddylan, famed among chieftains.
[…]

--Marwnad Cynddylan

Canu Heledd (The Song of Heledd)

Maes Cogwy

On the ground of Maes [C]ogwy, I saw
armies, battle affliction:
Cynddylan was an ally.

Cynddylan

Come outside, maidens, and look at the land of Cynddylan.
The court of Pengwern is a raging fire:
[…]
Cynddylan, fiery supporter of the marches,
mail-wearing, stubborn in battle,
defending Tern, his patrimony.
[…]
Cynddylan Powys, you had a splendid purple cloak,
a storehouse to feed guests, like a lord;
the whelp of Cyndrwyn is mourned
[…]

Eglywsseu Bassa (Baschurch)

Baschurch is his resting place tonight.,
his final abode,
the support in battle, the heart of the people of Argoed.
Baschurch is crumbling tonight.
My tongue caused it.
It is red; my grief is too great.
Baschurch is confined tonight;
for the heir of the Cyndrwynin:
the land of the grave of Cynddylan the Fair.
[…]
Baschurch has lost its privilege,
after the English warriors slew
Cynddylan and Elfan Powys.
[…]

--Canu Heledd

Welsh Triads

Three Gate-Keepers at the Action of Bangor Orchard:
Gwgon Red Sword, and Madawg son of Rhun, and Gwiawn son of Cyndrwyn. And three others on the side of Lloegr:
Hawystyl the Arrogant, and Gwaetcym Herwuden, and Gwiner.

--Red Book of Hergest

The Action of Bangor Orchard may be another name for the Battle of Chester, on three grounds:

• there is a Bangor (Bangor is-y-Coed) only a few miles from Chester


• the Battle of Chester is known to have been a major engagement between at least one Brittonic king (Selyf ap Cynan of Powys) and at least one early English king (Aethelferth of Bernicia/Northumbria), which would explain the reference to Lloegr on the other side (Lloegr or Loegria was the medieval Welsh name for what is now England)


• Bede refers to the presence of a large contingent of monks from Bangor is-y-Coed at the Battle of Chester (Ecclesiastical History Book II Ch. 3), which is a direct link between the battle and Bangor

See my earlier post for the likely date range for the battle.

Interpretation

Date

If the identification of the Battle of Chester as the Action of Bangor Orchard is correct, and if the Cyndrwyn in the Triad is the same as the man named as Cynddylan’s father in the Canu Heledd poetry, Cyndrwyn had a son of fighting age in 613/617. His other sons could have been older or younger than the Gwiawn in the Triad, but only within a couple of decades either side before biological possibility starts to get strained.

Maes Cogwy is the Battle of Cocboy, mentioned in Historia Brittonum as the battle in which Oswald of Northumbria was killed:

Penda, son of Pybba, reigned ten years; he first separated the kingdom of Mercia from that of the North-men, and slew by treachery Anna, king of the East Anglians, and St. Oswald, king of the North-men. He fought the battle of Cocboy, in which fell Eawa, son of Pybba, his brother, king of the Mercians, and Oswald, king of the North-men, and he gained the victory by diabolical agency.

--Historia Brittonum ch. 65

Bede gives the date of Oswald’s death as 642 AD and names the location as Maserfelth (Book III, Ch. 9). Maserfelth/Maes Cogwy is not definitively located; Oswestry in Shropshire is the usual candidate, based on the name (Oswestry is from the Old English “Oswald’s Tree”), but there are other possibilities.

Wherever the location, the reference to Maes Cogwy indicates that Cynddylan was a contemporary of Penda of Mercia and was of fighting age in 642. The reference to the “son of Pyd” in the Lament for Cynddylan may refer to Penda, who was the son of a king named Pybba, and if so this would be consistent with Cynddylan as a contemporary and ally of Penda. If we take fighting age to be from 15 to 50, Cynddylan’s conjectural birth date would be in the range 592 – 627, and Gwiawn’s conjectural birth date would be in the range 563 – 601. There is enough overlap in these ranges for them to have been sons of the same father. If Gwiawn was in his 20s at the Action of Bangor Orchard and Cynddylan in his 40s at Maes Cogwy, they could have been approximate contemporaries, both born around the turn of the century.

Cynddylan’s territory

The poetry gives Cynddylan the following territorial associations and titles:

• King of Dogfeiling


• Oppressor of the Cadelling


• Court of Pengwern


• Tren, his patrimony


• Cynddylan Powys


• Fought a battle at Maes Cogwy


• Fought a battle at Lichfield


• Buried at Baschurch


• Cattle raid on the dales of Taff

The dales of Taff refers to the River Taff, which flows through Cardiff in South Wales, but as the poem clearly describes it as a cattle raid it probably was not in Cynddylan’s own territory.

Dogfeiling was in what is now north-central Wales, somewhere in the valley of the River Elwy near modern Denbigh. Its associations are with Gwynedd, and it may have been a sub-kingdom of Gwynedd or an independent unit, or both at different times.

The Cadellings were the main royal dynasty of Powys, named after a founding figure called Cadell or Catell according to a story in Historia Brittonum. Appending the name of a territory to its ruler’s name was common practice, so “Cynddylan Powys” implies that Cynddylan was king of Powys. As he was also called “oppressor of the Cadelling”, this may indicate that he was either a king from a rival kingdom who had taken over Powys, or an internal rival from a different dynasty. The territory of medieval Powys was in the uplands of east-central Wales; early medieval Powys may well have been larger, but there’s no reason to assume it was in a different place altogether (more on this in a later post).

The location of Cynddylan’s court, Pengwern, is not known. There are several places called Pengwern in modern Wales (type “Pengwern” into Streetmap UK), and there may well have been others in the past whose names have since changed or been lost. The name is a topographical one, meaning something like “head of the swamp” or “head of the alder grove”. Gerald of Wales identifies Pengwern with Shrewsbury, but Gerald’s account was written in the 1190s, well over half a millennium after Cynddylan’s likely lifetime.

“Tren” has been argued to be a territory based on the catchment of the River Tern, the area surrounding Wroxeter (White and Barker 2002). One of the verses in Canu Heledd refers to “Dinlleu Vrecon” (the city of Wroxeter). Baschurch is in Shropshire, about 15 miles from Wroxeter on the other side of Shrewsbury, and Lichfield is about 40 miles away to the east. As mentioned above, the location of Maes Cogwy is not known, but if it is Oswestry it is also in Shropshire.

So, these associations indicate that Cynddylan was active in north Wales, in east-central Wales, in the Shropshire Plain around Wroxeter (and perhaps Shrewsbury), and as far east as Lichfield. If Gwiawn in the Triads was his brother, this may indicate the family also had connections with the area of Bangor is-y-Coed and Chester. All these places fall into a reasonably coherent area, covering the counties of what is now Cheshire and Shropshire and the uplands of eastern Wales.

This would be consistent with early medieval Powys having been a considerably larger kingdom than its medieval counterpart, including the lowlands of Cheshire and Shropshire in addition to the uplands of medieval Powys. However, I don’t think it necessarily proves the case. Cynddylan need not have inherited all of these areas, nor need he have ruled all of them for his whole career. He may have started as ruler of one region and expanded his influence, perhaps temporarily, into neighbouring areas. Bede’s pages are full of early medieval English kings doing just that. Taliesin’s poetry refers to a king of Powys in the previous generation, Cynan Garwyn (whose son Selyf was killed in 613/617 at the Battle of Chester), as fighting battles across the length and breadth of what is now Wales, from Gwynedd in the north-west to Gwent in the south-east. It seems likely that Cynddylan would have followed the same behaviour.

Since the poem specifies Tren as Cynddylan’s patrimony, I would take that as an indication that his original family lands were in the area near Wroxeter. This would be consistent with his burial at Baschurch, if family and/or friends retrieved his body from whatever battlefield he died on and brought him home for burial. He may have controlled the city of Wroxeter as well, or it may have been semi-independent. The titles of King of Dogfeiling and King of Powys could have been gained later in his career (perhaps temporarily), by marriage, inheritance or military force. The battle at Lichfield may have further added to his territory or may have been merely a raid on a neighbour.

The poetry refers to “Cynddylan and Elfan Powys”. This may indicate that Elfan was king of Powys at the time and Cynddylan was not, which would be consistent with the suggestion above that Cynddylan was only temporarily king of Powys. Or it may indicate a shared title, suggesting that Powys could have multiple kings (which was known among the West Saxons in the seventh century). Whether this represents a form of joint kingship, some kind of confederation, or reflected the partitioning of a territory among heirs, is open to question.

It is also possible that Tren has been misidentified, and that Cynddylan was a king or sub-king of Dogfeiling who conquered some or all of Powys, raiding as far as Lichfield and Cardiff, and perhaps being buried at Baschurch because it happened to be near his place of death rather than for family associations. And no doubt many other permutations can be argued.

Eventual fate

It’s clear from the poetry that Cynddylan was killed in a disastrous battle, perhaps along with most of his adult male relatives, that the opposing side included English, and that his kingdom was lost to his surviving family.

There is not enough internal evidence from the poetry to identify the site of Cynddylan’s fatal battle definitively.

However, if Cynddylan is correctly identified as an ally of Penda of Mercia, the battle of Winwaed must be a likely candidate. Winwaed was fought at an unknown location between Oswy of Northumbria on one side and Penda of Mercia with thirty allies on the other (Bede, Book III Ch. 24). Bede doesn’t list the allies, but Historia Brittonum says that “kings of the Britons” were killed there along with Penda. The battle was a colossal disaster for Penda and his Brittonic allies. Bede says that Penda and almost all his thirty allied commanders were killed, and Historia Brittonum calls it “the slaughter of the field of Gai”. Cynddylan had fought with Penda of Mercia against Oswy’s brother Oswald at Maes Cogwy. It must be at least a strong possibility that he was among Penda’s allies at Winwaed and died there.

References
Full-text sources available online are linked in the text.
White R, Barker P. Wroxeter: Life and death of a Roman city. Tempus, 2002, ISBN 0-7524-1409-7.
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.



Map links

Approximate location of Dogfeiling
Baschurch
Lichfield
Chester
Bangor is-y-Coed
Cardiff

East Bergholt Church

East Bergholt is famous as the birthplace of John Constable and the location for some of his most celebrated paintings. (Can there be anyone in the world who hasn't encountered Flatford Mill, even if only on a chocolate box?). It still looks a little like that today, with the addition of a popular tea room and a large population of very well-fed ducks.

East Bergholt stands on the high ground (44 metres above sea-level! In East Anglia that counts as Alpine) above the north bank of the River Stour. (Map link here)

I have a particular liking for East Bergholt church, and not only because it marks the end of the climb up from Fen Bridge (which is noticeably uphill, especially on a hot day). Here it is:
















If you think it looks a bit, um, unfinished, well spotted. Yes, it was supposed to have a tower, but the money dried up after the Reformation.

Which means East Bergholt, uniquely in England as far as I know, has managed to acquire a ring of bells without having a bell tower to put them in. Normally an English parish church will have half a dozen or so bells hung high in the tower, to be rung for Sunday service, weddings, civic alarm and high days and holy days in general. If you've read Dorothy L Sayers' The Nine Tailors, you get the picture. But at towerless East Bergholt, the bells are housed in a bell cage in the churchyard:


















Peering in, you can see the bells, a handsome ring of five:





















The bell cage was built in the 1530s as a temporary solution until the money for a tower could be raised. In the way of temporary solutions, it became permanent.

Twilight of Avalon, by Anna Elliott. Book review

Edition reviewed: Touchstone 2009, ISBN 978-1-4165-8989-1. 426 pages.

Twilight of Avalon is subtitled “A novel of Trystan and Isolde”, and is billed as Book 1 of a trilogy. It’s set in Britain seven years after King Arthur’s death at the battle of Camlann, some time in the first half of the sixth century or thereabouts. Trystan, Isolde and King Mark (here spelled Marche) are famous characters in Arthurian legend, and other characters from the legends such as Merlin, Mordred and Arthur’s sister Morgan make appearances. The author’s note says that Madoc of Gwynedd is loosely based on the historical figure of Maelgwn Gwynedd. All the other main characters are fictional.

Isolde is the illegitimate daughter of Mordred, King Arthur’s son and nephew by incest with Morgan, and of King Arthur’s unfaithful wife Guinevere. Orphaned at the age of 13 when Mordred was killed fighting Arthur at Camlann, Isolde was married to Arthur’s heir, the boy-king Constantine and made High Queen of Britain, at least in name. Now Constantine has been killed, in battle as is thought (though Isolde knows it was murder), and Isolde’s position at court has become extremely precarious. She is widely distrusted as a witch, because of her descent from Morgan and because she has skills as a healer and a limited power of second sight. Evil King Marche of Cornwall is scheming to get the High Kingship for himself, and forces Isolde into marriage as part of a traitorous plot. With her only possible ally among the lesser kings dead in suspicious circumstances, Isolde flees from the court at Tintagel to seek evidence of Marche’s treason. She finds herself forming a reluctant alliance with a mysterious prisoner, Trystan, who has lately escaped from Marche’s dungeons, and his three rag-tag companions. Isolde must not only find a way to foil Marche’s treason, but also come to terms with her own past.

If you’re familiar with the story of Tristan and Isolde from Wagner’s opera or from the Arthurian romances, you’ll find Twilight of Avalon a very different take. Despite the “sweeping romance” promise in the cover blurb, the traditional romantic love story doesn’t make any appearance at all, though there are hints that it may be intended for Book 2 and/or 3. There’s no glamorous Camelot and no high chivalry. The setting is the darkest of Dark Ages, an unremittingly grim world of violence, chaos and betrayal. With few exceptions, the kings of Britain are violent, arrogant, deceitful, self-centred and/or a bit thick. None of them features on the list of tyrants named by Gildas in On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain*, but they are clearly cut from the same cloth. The lives of the warrior aristocracy are nasty, brutish and short; you probably don’t want to imagine how miserable this world must be for the peasantry off-stage.

There are some fantasy elements to the novel, and some features of the traditional high medieval setting are retained. Tintagel is a stone-built castle with turrets and dungeons, travellers with no money living rough eat rabbit stew and wear rabbitskin cloaks**, literacy is so all-pervasive that an uneducated man who cannot read and write says of another character “he might as well have ‘Saxon’ stamped on his forehead”, copper coins are a standard medium of exchange and despite the chaos and poverty there is sufficient of a mercantile economy for a hermit living on a wild moor in the middle of nowhere to have ready access to a supply of wine. A crucial plot twist depends on Isolde having a real power of second sight that actually works, and another depends on a character apparently seeing a ghost conjured up by some supernatural power on Isolde’s part. Isolde has somehow induced total amnesia about her entire life prior to the battle of Camlann, apparently by effort of will, and hears strange supernatural voices. That said, there is much less mysticism and magic than in many Arthurian novels, which was a major plus point for me. An early reference to goddess-worship and the Christian church being responsible for the oppression of women had me rolling my eyes, but I was glad to find that the question of religion is more interestingly handled as the book develops, with an open-minded Christian hermit drawing a parallel between magic and miracles.

The pace is leisurely, not to say slow. With its minute-by-minute account of Isolde’s thoughts and feelings, the narrative can take a lot of pages to cover not very much ground. For example, the first two chapters (27 pages) are occupied by Isolde contemplating the body of her dead husband in church, and taking food to two prisoners and tending their injuries occupies 17 pages. About a third of the way in I had hopes that the plot might pick up, as Isolde decides to go in search of a goldsmith-cum-spy who can bear witness to Marche’s treachery, but was disappointed. The narrative promptly bogged down again in a sequence of escape, recapture, re-escape, re-recapture and re-re-escape interspersed with scenes of Isolde nursing just about every other character through illness or injury, the goldsmith was never mentioned again and the urgent need to find proof of Marche’s treasonous dealings seemed to just fade away. I wonder if the book was drastically cut to length and half the plot vanished, leaving these (to my mind) rather annoying loose ends, or if perhaps they are going to be picked up somehow in Books 2 and 3. I also felt the escape-recapture cycle got a bit repetitive for my taste. Guards working for an evil tyrant are traditionally inefficient, partly for plot purposes and partly because tyrannical leadership styles rarely get the best out of their subordinates, but having the same guards fall for the same trick pulled by the same prisoner twice within a few days stretched my credulity.

Twilight of Avalon is very much Isolde’s story, as all events are seen through her eyes and understood through her feelings. Fortunately, Isolde is an attractive and even admirable character. She is essentially powerless, a pawn in the games of kings like Marche, but she is not weak, she never whines and she never gives up. She makes use of her wits, her limited supernatural powers and whatever else comes to hand in her quest to outwit Marche. Isolde is also a gifted storyteller, and numerous tales and legends are nested into the narrative, giving an extra layer of depth to the setting. Isolde dominates the novel so completely that I found my perception of the whole book altering with my reactions to her character. Twilight of Avalon should suit readers who like to identify with a particular character, provided they take to Isolde and her emotional journey.

The secondary characters – everybody else – perhaps divide a little too readily into good and bad, though Madoc of Gwynedd is an interestingly complex character with a mix of qualities. I hope to see more of him in the sequels. I’d have liked to see more of his point of view in this novel, particularly with regard to his apparently sudden change of heart. I’d also have liked to see Trystan’s viewpoint. Isolde’s amnesia governs her reactions to him (and is essential to the plot), but Trystan has no similar amnesia and I was curious about his motivations and his opinion of (and feelings for?) Isolde. He spends most of the novel in a prison cell, almost as powerless as Isolde, yet he clearly has experience and skills as a soldier and a leader of men. I hope Trystan’s role will be further developed in the sequels.

Although billed as Book 1 of a trilogy, Twilight of Avalon feels to me like the first third of a single long book. The mystery of Trystan’s identity is resolved (for those readers who didn’t guess it as soon as he appeared, or at least as soon as he was named), but little else is. The outcome of Marche’s treasonous dealings, the ongoing war, Trystan’s role, Isolde’s position at court, and her relationship with the lesser kings and with Trystan are all To Be Continued.

First instalment in a retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend, with a strong focus on Isolde’s emotional journey and a refreshingly low quotient of magic and mysticism.



*Madoc of Gwynedd is loosely based on Maelgwn Gwynedd, who is usually identified with Gildas’ Maglocunus, but if the character has done any of the outrageous things for which Gildas castigated his historical counterpart, they don’t feature in the book.

**There’s a debate about whether the Romans or the Normans introduced rabbits to Britain, but in the 13th century rabbit was an expensive luxury food. Rabbits didn’t become the ubiquitous free country pie filling until at least the late Middle Ages.

Old English gods and myths: Hell

First of an occasional series. Very little is known of the pre-Christian religion of the early English (‘Anglo-Saxons’), because all the surviving Old English texts were written down after the conversion to Christianity and no written account of the previous religious beliefs survives. There are some snippets in Bede’s On the Reckoning of Time, some place names, bits of word etymology, fragments in poetry that might be echoes of an older tradition, occasional archaeological finds, and extrapolation from accounts of related cultures such as Tacitus’ Germania and the Norse myths. I need hardly say that this is not as firm a basis as one would like for trying to reconstruct a lost religion (!). Nevertheless, it’s better than nothing, so with that caveat in mind let’s see where we get.

Origin of the word “hell”

The modern English word “hell”, meaning the dwelling-place of the dead, the underworld and/or a place of punishment after death, derives directly from its Old English counterpart “helle”. This occurs in early sources:

In King Alfred’s translation of Boethius (ninth century), Cerberus, the dog who guards the gates of Hades in Greek and Roman mythology, is called “helle hund".

In the Old English poem Beowulf, the monster Grendel is described as “feond on helle”, “an enemy from hell”.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “helle” is cognate with Old Frisian (helle), Old Saxon (hellia, hel), Old High German (hella), Old Icelandic (hel), and Gothic (halja), probably originally meaning a hole or place of concealment. So the word is widespread in the Germanic languages, and was in use by at least the ninth century. It was probably in use much earlier, since it occurs in several languages and may therefore derive from a time before the languages became differentiated, though it’s always possible that the languages borrowed it from each other.

Descriptions of hell

Since “helle hund” was used in relation to Cerberus, “hell” was presumably considered to be roughly equivalent to Hades and was not confined to the Christian concept of hell. No description of the pagan English concept of hell has come down to us, but since the word was cognate with the Old Icelandic Hel, it’s a reasonable inference that the concept attached to the word was also similar to the Norse concept. Luckily, we have an idea what that was.

In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, Hel referred both to the goddess of the underworld and to her realm. (This is similar to Greek and Roman mythology, in which Hades referred both to the god of the underworld and to the underworld itself). Snorri gives a vivid description of Hel and her realm:

But evil men go to Hel and thence down to Niflhel [Dark Hel]; and that is down in the ninth world.

--Gylfaginning chapter 3. Prose Edda.

Hel he threw down into Niflheim, and made her ruler over nine worlds. She has the power to dole out lodgings and provisions to those who are sent to her, and they are the people who have died of disease or old age. She has there an enormous dwelling with walls of immense height and huge gates. Her hall is called Eljudnir (Sprayed with Snowstorms), her dish is Hunger, her knife is Famine, her slave is Lazy, and her woman servant is Slothful. The threshold over which people enter is called Fallandaforad (Falling to Peril), her bed is named Kor (Sick-bed) and her bed curtains are called Blikjandabol (Gleaming Disaster). She is half black and half a lighter flesh-colour and is easily recognised). Mostly she is gloomy and cruel.

--Gylfaginning, chapter 34. Prose Edda.

When the Norse god Odin journeys to the realm of Hel to ask questions of a long-dead seeress, she tells him:

I was snowed on with snow, and smitten with rain,
And drenched with dew; long was I dead.

--Balder’s Dream

So the Norse Hel was thought of as a miserable place of cold and wet and hunger, presided over by a hideous monster. This is consistent with the description of Grendel’s bleak abode in Beowulf:

The fell and fen his fastness was
The march his haunt

--Beowulf, lines 102-103

…. walked nightlong
The misty moorland

--Beowulf, lines 161-162

…up steep screes, by scant tracks
Where only one might walk, by wall-faced cliffs,
Through haunted fens – uninhabitable country

--Beowulf, lines 1410-1411

Grendel, together with giants, ogres, elves and evil spirits, is described in the poem as the descendant of Cain, banished to the wastelands by God. Leaving aside the Christian gloss, the picture of a cold, wet, bleak and thoroughly miserable wilderness inhabited by monsters (one of whom, Grendel’s mother, is female), is entirely consistent with the Norse description of Hel in the Prose Edda.

Interpretation

So, it seems reasonable to infer that before they converted to Christianity the pagan English had a concept of a cold and miserable place called hell. As the word continued in use after conversion to Christianity as the name for a place of punishment after death, it seems likely that the original concept also included the idea that hell was the afterlife for people who weren’t favoured. Whether everyone who died a natural death went there, as Snorri says in Gylfaginning chapter 34, or whether evil people went there, as Snorri says in Gylfaginning chapter 3, is not clear. Quite possibly there were different traditions among different groups of people. If the word originated from a root meaning “hole” as the Oxford English Dictionary says (and I would take their word for most things on word origins), it seems likely that it derived from a description of the grave – a cold, wet, miserable hole in the ground where one went after death in the literal as well as metaphorical sense. This may tie in to the variable funeral customs observed in ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cemeteries, and I’ll come back to this in a later post.

Was “hell” in Old English also used in its other common modern sense, as an expletive and an intensifier in colloquial phrases (What the hell, how the hell, go to hell, hell of a… etc)? I have no idea. Formal court poetry doesn’t generally use colloquialisms, and Old English poetry is more formal than most because of the demands of the alliterative measure. If there was an Old English dictionary of slang and swearing it certainly hasn’t come down to us. Since the word was in use and represented a place that you wouldn’t look forward to going to, as in its modern sense, it seems not unreasonable that it might also have been in use as an imprecation, and I use it in this sense in Paths of Exile. However, I think we can safely say that phrases that rely on hell being a hot place (when hell freezes over, snowball’s chance in hell, a cold day in hell, hell-fire) probably came into use later, after the shift to the Christian concept of hell as a fiery place.


ReferencesBeowulf. Translated by Michael Alexander. Penguin Classics, 1973. ISBN 0-14-044268-5.
Oxford English Dictionary. Available online by subscription at www.oed.com
Prose Edda. Translated by Jesse Byock. Penguin Classics, 2005. ISBN 978-0-14-044755-2.

June recipe: Lemon syllabub

Syllabub has been a popular dessert since at least the sixteenth century, as the Oxford English Dictionary lists the first recorded use at around 1537. It generally involves cream, alcohol, sugar and a flavouring, often fruit, though there are as many variations as there are cooks. It makes a fine dessert for a summer evening.

Here's my recipe. The mixture tends to splatter more than ordinary whipped cream, so a large mixing bowl is a good idea, and if using an electric whisk (and it would be hard work to whip by hand), use a slow speed to begin with and increase to higher speed after the mixture has started to thicken.




Lemon syllabub

1 lemon
4 fl. oz (approx 100 ml) sherry, white wine or cider
0.5 teaspoon (0.5 x 5 ml spoon) ground nutmeg
3 oz (approx 75 g) sugar. I like light brown soft sugar for the warm colour and slight caramel flavour)
0.5 pint (approx 250 ml) double cream*

Put the lemon juice, lemon zest, sherry and nutmeg in a large bowl and leave to steep for an hour or two.
Stir in the sugar and mix until dissolved.
Pour in the double cream.
Whisk until the mixture is thick and standing in soft peaks (like ordinary whipped cream, or perhaps a bit softer).
Spoon into wine glasses or glass dessert bowls. I expect to get 6 or 8 portions out of this quantity, but it depends how big your wine glasses are.
Sprinkle with a little grated chocolate if liked. Chill in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours, then serve.



*I think double cream is called heavy cream in the US