Glass Island - The Fictional World of 6th Century
Britain
By Gareth Griffith
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Glass Island, my novel set in 6th century Britain, specifically in the years AD 576-578, tells
of the westward push of the Saxons into what is now south- west England and of
the resistance of the native population. The story is told from the side of the
Celtic Britons, taking a young woman, a chieftain’s daughter by the name of
Eleri Gwir (Eleri the Truth or Plain Speaker) as its central character. The
major turning point is a battle recorded in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle as the Battle of Deorhem (Dyrham) of 577 and it is this event
that forms the dramatic centrepiece of the novel. It is thought to be a
decisive moment in British history, an event that broke the land bridge between
the Celts of Wales and those in Devon and Cornwall. It may also have resulted
in a wave of Britons migrating to what later became known as Brittany.
In writing of “The Fictional World
of 6th Century
Britain,” I wish to convey some of the difficulties that novelists and
historians alike encounter in this period of history about which very little is
known. All the “historical facts” in the previous paragraph could well turn out
to be unfounded. There may not have been a Battle at Deorhem at all. If there
was, it may not have been in 577. And what are we to make of the claim that the
three British “kings” of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester died there? The
evidence is sparse, confined to a single line in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
recording what may by then have been more folk memory than hard fact. The same
goes for the emigration theory, which is speculative. Certainly, the Britons
migrated to Brittany – but did the Battle of Deorhem result in one such
migration? We don’t know for sure.
Personally, I knew next to nothing
of this history until I happened, by chance, to come across a book in a
library. This was an academic treatise by Professor Kenneth Jackson called Language
and History in Early Britain, published in 1953 by the Edinburgh
University Press. It was one of those moments. Standing at the bookshelf, I
started writing the first chapter of Glass Island in my head. Since then
I have come to realise that Jackson’s work was a ground-breaking book for its
time and remains to this day a reference point for scholars in the field.
Basically, in his historical overview Jackson follows the schema set out in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whereby the West Saxons started a new advance in the
last quarter of the 6th century, beginning at Old Sarum and Barbury and culminating in
the battle at Deorhem. Jackson wrote:
“By this the bounds of Wessex were pushed up to the Severn along a broad
front from northern Somerset to the country already occupied on the
Warwickshire Avon; and the Severn was still apparently regarded as the boundary
between English and Welsh at the time of Augustine’s conference with the
British bishops in 603. Thus practically the whole of Gloucestershire east of
the Severn was now part of Wessex, and the Welsh of Wales were divided by land
from the Britons of the South- West.” (Jackson, p 204)
Assuming that to have been the case,
what issues arise for the novelist, in particular for one writing from the
losing side in this struggle?
For a start, the story becomes one
of loss and dispossession for those Britons living in the region we now
identify with the county of Somerset, an area that encompasses modern-day Bath,
Glastonbury and Taunton. Who were these people? How did they live? What did
they believe? What stories did they tell themselves about their lives, past,
present and future? Did they flee from their enemies after the decisive battle
was lost, or did they stay to serve their new masters?
The
Laws of Ine, which relate to a West Saxon king of 690, suggest that
“Welshmen” continued to live in some parts of Wessex at that time, although at
a lower social standing than their Saxon neighbours. Indeed, Nicholas J Higham
has compared that “racially defined legal system” with Apartheid in late
twentieth-century South Africa, with such a system leading eventually to the
Britons losing their assets. (The
Anglo-Saxon World edited by Nicholas J Higham and Martin J Ryan, Yale
University Press, 2015, p 110) For Jackson, meanwhile, it seemed plausible that
Brittonic was still spoken in parts of Somerset and Dorset in this later
period, but not in what he terms “the old, eastern Wessex.” (Jackson, p 239)
Even if some or even many Britons
remained, we yet come to a time when one way of life ended and another started,
with the old way almost entirely lost to history. It is a universal theme,
dealing with what happens to people who find themselves on the wrong side of
history, as refugees, as slaves, their names and their identities forgotten.
Because little or no record is left, written or archaeological, it’s as if they
never existed. They are left to be recovered by the novelist.
This issue is taken up at the very end of the novel, in “Last Words”, where the narrator (Owain) speaks years later to the central character (Eleri Gwir), as follows:
“Write it down, Owain,”
she said. “Before we’re all dead and gone.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if we are to
live on, if we are to be remembered, the land and its people, our story must be
known,” Eleri said. “If we don’t make our mark on the page, we’ll be lost to
history. No one will know we ever lived and breathed. We’ll melt away and we’ll
be gone forever, carried off by the river of time.”
‘Bryn Derwydd won’t be
forgotten,” I insisted.
‘It will if a record
isn’t made. It has to be worth remembering to someone, Owain. Our story has to
be worth remembering. If we don’t tell it, who will? Will our enemies? I don’t
think so. They’ll tell their own side of it, if they say anything at all.”
There is obvious irony in writing a
novel about the losing side (the Britons) in the language of the winners
(English). In seeking to retain a sense of that native cultural tradition and
to convey the foreignness and otherness of the Britons to the Saxons, I have
inserted a smattering of non-English names and phrases. For example, I do not
refer to the Battle of Deorhem, which is what the Saxons called it, but to the
Battle of Bryn Derwydd (as it happens, the name of the hill behind my
grandmother’s house in Penmaenmawr, North Wales). In doing so, I am paying a
debt to another book which has influenced Glass Island – Robert Graves’
wonderfully eccentric The White Goddess, which associates the word
“derwydd” with the origin of “Druid”, meaning “oak- seer.” In addition, in
using the occasional non-English word I am seeking to recover something of the
cultural identity of the region prior to the Saxon invasion. But note that for
convenience I have resorted to modern Welsh usage, which is not strictly
correct. A Brythonic or Brittonic language would have been spoken by the
characters of the novel, which would be more aligned to early or Old Welsh, or
even to older versions of Breton or Cornish.
On this issue of language, the
contemporary interpretation seems to be that the separation of Welsh from
Cornish and Breton occurred over a long period. The view is that the Britons
continued to speak varieties of the same language rather than separate
languages, with TM Charles-Edwards arguing that “the varieties of British
remained dialects rather than independent languages until the twelfth century.”
(Wales
and the Britons, 350-1064, OUP, 2013, p 92)
We might ask how the characters of
this area of south-west Britain, prior to the coming of the Saxons, would have
described themselves – as Britons, as Welsh, as Cymry, or by reference
to some regional or tribal name? How would their universe of self-identity have
been constructed?
Clearly, they would not have called
themselves Welsh. This was the name the Saxons had for them, meaning either
foreigner or something a little less pejorative, referring to all those people
who had been part of the Roman Empire. (Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 by
TM Charles-Edwards, OUP, 2013, p 1) In time, an even more pejorative meaning
was attached to “Welsh”, with the word meaning “unfree person/slave.” (The
Anglo-Saxon World, p 109)
Cymry, too, is unlikely as a term of self-identification, although not out of
the question, deriving as it does from the Brythonic or Brettonic word Combrogi,
meaning fellow-countrymen. When using the word Cymry or Kymry the
Britons of the years up to the tenth century would not have been referring to
the people of a defined geographical area but, rather, to all those P Celtic
speakers, from Scotland down to Brittany. In 577, this would have included the
region of south-west England to which Glass Island refers. But, then,
the word Cymry does not appear to have come into common usage before the 7th century,
which make it an unlikely candidate for self-identification after all. (John
Davies, A History of Wales, Penguin, 2007, p 69) Instead, for the 6th century the
term Britons would seem to be a better bet, although on the ground that
“generic or national” approach may have been countered by the forces of
tribalism and adherence to more local identities.
Place names are another conundrum. A
few remnants of Celtic names remain in the region, as recorded by Jackson. For
example, the River Hafren became the Severn and Avon means simply river in
Welsh. But these borrowings are few and far between in the Somerset area. It is
another feature of dispossession, with the names one people gave to the land
being displaced by those of another culture. This, too, is commented on in Glass
Island, with Eleri Gwir lamenting the fact that the land is lost to its
stories, saying:
“To walk through that
land was to walk with the gods and with the first lords of naming; it was to
walk with Arthur and Kai and Bedwyr. And we’ve lost all that.”
This is only to scratch the surface
of the complexities that arise when thinking and writing about this
fascinatingly obscure period of British history, this maelstrom of change and
conflict. Other issues include questions of religion and the survival of a
distinctly Celtic culture or elements of it. Then there is the continuing
influence of the Roman empire to consider. And what about Arthur? If he is
mentioned, is it as an historical figure or as one of myth and legend? But
these may be issues for another time.
For the present it is enough to say
that, all in all, 6th century Britain makes for a rich and open landscape upon which
the novelist may make their distinctive mark.
Glass Island
AD
576. A time of upheaval for the people of the Summer Land – the Saxons push
further and further westward, a new religion supplants the old, unexpected
alliances are formed and deadly rivalries fester – son against father, brother
against brother.
Eleri
Gwir, the daughter of a chieftain, speaks only the truth – and one thing she
knows is that war is coming and that a reckoning awaits her people.
The
Red Cloaks of Caer Baddan, the last remnant of the Roman legions on British
soil, represent hope for Eleri and for all the Summer Land. And their leader
Macsen represents something else for Eleri herself – new possibilities, new
horizons to explore.
As
the decisive battle between the Britons and the Saxons draws nearer, Eleri and
her people must decide what their role will be in this story.
This
rich and compelling novel brings to vivid life a moment of transformation that
shaped the Britain we know today.
Gareth Griffith
Gareth Griffith was born in Penmaenmawr, North Wales,
and now lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife Sue.
His career has encompassed teaching, research and
writing, including many years working as the manager of
research for the parliament of New South Wales. He has a PhD from the
University of Wales. His academic publications include a study of George
Bernard Shaw's politics, published by Routledge, and several publications on
the study of parliament.
These days, when Gareth isn’t writing, he enjoys
reading, music, dark Scandi film and TV, and Dark Age Britain. Glass
Island is his first novel.
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See you on your next coffee break!
Take Care,
Mary Anne xxx