Gildas (British History)

[N R Scott]

On the topic of Middlesbrough, Mick, I was wondering, do you have any opinions/theories concerning Roseberry Topping?

[Mick Harper]

Assuming this was not the northern version of butterscotch Angel Delight I discovered that Roseberry Topping was in fact a local hill. Assuming also that, apart possibly from our very own Tyke-a-like Chad, nobody here would have heard of this feature, let us take it as an Official AEL Challenge to make something of it. Here is my initial contribution:

[Hatty]

The North York moors are scarred, literally. Why anyone would think these place-names are Viking is a mystery.

Dartmoor tors are another give-away, rock-dumps in the most heavily mined area of southern England.

[N R Scott]

It's said that there was a spring at the top before the collapse. There's a local legend that King Oswald of Northumberland's son, Prince Oswald, was drowned in it.

I also recall reading about an American archaeologist, called Alfred Vincent Kidder, who theorised that a 3000 year old pyramid lay beneath Roseberry Topping. At the time this piqued my interest, but I couldn't find his original writings on the subject.

[Hatty]

Sounds plausible (the spring, not the pyramid). There was a programme the other evening pointing out where water had been channelled to flush out debris from a Roman mine. The Victorians used the same technique. Dartmoor still has leats (straight water channels).

[N R Scott]

I've been reading about the local Roseberry Topping legends.

Now this is pretty much the local story regarding King Oswald and his son;

[N R Scott]

And one more thing on this ( - sorry to keep polluting this site with my petty, northern trifles). I was wondering about the name 'Roseberry.' The general consensus is that it originally meant Odin's Rock, and that it reached Roseberry via 'Othensberg' and various other names and spellings.

However, I can't help but wonder if Roseberry is simply a more modern rendering of Oswy. I'm probably way off the mark here - in fact, I'm not even sure I'm pronouncing Oswy correctly, but I thought I might as well throw it up just in case.

[Chad]

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

Yes, there's no need to point out that 'northern' and 'trifles' are synonyms. But to business. Here is my take (from the principles enshrined in The Megalithic Empire rather than AE per se) using your extract.

[Mick Harper]

Here is our treatment of another member of Northumbrian royalty. I won't put it in blue, to make it more readable. Emboldened bits have particularly Megalithic significance.

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A similarly obscure saint with a Continental reach is St Rombald whose name is connected to holy wells at Astrop in Northamptonshire and another one nearby at Brackley. His Christian legend is, even by Dark Age standards, a marvellous account of a seventh-century infant prodigy, born into the Northumbrian royal family, who lived for only three days but still managed to insist on being baptised with water from a hollow stone 'too heavy to move' aka a megalith.

The mother of this miraculous infant was a Mercian princess called Cuneburga, the patron saint of Castor, a major Roman industrial site adjacent to Ermine Street. Her legend claims that when running away from ruffians she spilled the contents of her basket and created a path with flowers springing up where she trod whilst thorn bushes grew behind to entangle her pursuers, a motif also used for Olwen and her path of trefoils in her role as the Welsh moon goddess. St. Cuneburga's church with its imposing tower is said to be the equal of any cathedral. [ footnote: Cuneburga refers to 'coney burrow', coney meaning rabbit. Rabbit warrens tend to be situated near prehistoric industrial sites, even in apparently otherwise unsuitable areas like Dartmoor where artificial burrows called 'buries' or pillow mounds had to be artificially constructed.]

Rombald's three-day life was deemed sufficiently important to merit a complete Anglo-Saxon biography and to have a church dedicated to him at Romaldkirk village, north of Bowes Castle on the river Tees in County Durham. Not any church either since St. Romald's church was known as 'the Cathedral of the Dales', a very imposing building for a small village.

A St. Rainbold, i.e. Rombold, was the first recorded priest at Avebury and there is a St. Rombold's church in Buckingham (where he is supposed to have died, and where repentant Lollards made offerings). Also at Pentridge in Dorset, next to Cranbourne Chase which just happens to be the longest cursus still extant in Britain, extending over four miles from Pentridge to Martin Down overlooking the Nine Stones, a stone circle on a ley line to Avebury from where (according to John Michell) it continues to Stonehenge.

Rombald's Moor is a level plateau between Bradford and Leeds in Yorkshire and seems to be the northern equivalent of Salisbury Plain judging by its flatness and the unusual number of cup-and-ring stones located there. This Rombald was a giant fleeing from his angry wife who dropped stones held in her skirt, which sounds familiar. Rombald's influence extends all the way south to the Channel crossing at Folkestone (next door to Radegund at Dover) where he was the patron saint of the local fishermen. His birthday unsurprisingly is the 1st November, Samhain.

[Chad]

[Hatty]

Os = ox/ oss. The geographic spread of Os- places like Osbourne (East Cowes!), Osterley, Oswestry, several Oxtons, suggests animals-on-the-hoof in general.

Oswestry, a famous 'Iron Age hillfort', has an Oswald legend attached (the name means 'Oswald's tree', allegedly) but more importantly it's a stop-over on the English-Welsh marches. Oswald seems to have been an immensely popular name until the end of the Middle Ages.

Osmotherley according to Wiki isn't named for King Oswald but a villager called Oswald or Osmund (there's a convenient get-out). Could be that Osmotherley, in the Hambleton Hills, refers to an ox-mound i.e. cattle enclosure in a clearing (hill fort), though 'mother' might be mutton.

[Mick Harper]

What's brown, steams and comes out of Cowes backwards?!

[nemesis8]