The Arthurian Collection is a part of Vortigern Studies

The following are the Vortigern passages in Nennius' Historia Brittonum, set out in the original Latin, but in different scripts according to the sources from which I believe individual passages to have been copied and edited together. The Latin text I used is that of the Phillimore John Morris edition, however untrustworthy, because I have no regular access to better.  The passages relating to the legend of Vortigern and Ambrosius - O - are in the ordinary script of this book.  Passages from the lost Gesta Germani are lettered in italics.  Passages relating to Hengist and Horsa are lettered bold.  Passages from other or unqualifiable sources, including possibly historical ones, are underlined. Passages which I regard as partially or totally editorial, created by the author (the man I call Nennius) purely to join up existing stories or account for discrepancies, are placed in {} brackets.  There follow four separate translations, each of the groups of passages extrapolated as coming under one of these headings.  It will be seen that at least certain sections of the narrative, when brought together, tend to make sense as individual narratives in themselves.  The footnotes are in the nature of a running commentary and should be read together with the narratives.

NENNIUS DE GUORTHIGIRNO (CAPITULI XXXI-L)

XXXI.

Factum est autem {post supradictum bellum, id est quod fuit inter Brittones et Romani, quando duces illorum occisi sunt, et occisionem Maximi tyranni}, transactoque Romanorum imperio in Britanniis, per XL annos fuerunt sub metu.  Guorthigirnus regnabat in Britannia^[1], et dum ipse regnabat in Britannia, urgebatur a metu et a Romanico impetu, necnon et a timore Ambrosii.  Interea venerunt tres cyulae a Germaniae expulsae in exilio, in quibus erant Hors et Hengist, qui et ipsi fratres erant, filii Guictgils filii Guitta filii Guectha filii Woden filii Frealaf filii Fredulf filii Finn filii Fodepald filii Geta qui fuit, ut aliunt, filius Dei; non ipse est Deus deorum Amen, Deus exercituum, sed unus est ab idolis eorum, quod ipsi colebant.  Guorthigirnus sucepit eos benigne et tradidit eos insulam quae in lingua eorum vocatur Tanet, Britannico sermone Ruohim.  Regnante Gratiano secundo cum Equitio, Saxones a Guorthigirno sucepti sunt, anno CCCXLVII post passionem Christi.

XXXII.

In tempore illius venit sanctus Germanus ad praedicandum in Britannia, et claruit apud illos in multis virtutibus, et multi per eum salvi facti sunt, et plurimi perieriunt.  Aliquanta miracula, quae per illum fecit Deus, scribenda decrevi.  Primum miraculum de miraculis eius: erat quidam rex iniquus atque tyrannus valde cui nomen erat Benli.  Illum vir sanctus voluit visitare et properare ad iniquum regem, ut praedicaret illi.  At cum ipse homo Dei venisset ad ostium urbis cum comitibus suis, venit portarius et salutavit eos, et miserunt eum ad regem, et rex durum responsum dedit illis et cum iuramento dixit:"Si fuerint vel si manserint usque ad caput annis, non venient usquam in medio urbis meae".  Dum ipsi expectarent inauatorem, ut nuntiaret illis sermonem tyranni, dies declinabat ad vesperum, et nox appropinquabat, et nescierunt quo irent.  Interea venit unus de servis regis e medio urbis, et incliniabit se ante virum Dei, et nuntiabit illis omnia verba tyranni, et invitavit illos ad casam suam.  Et exierunt cum eo, et benigne suscepit eos.  Et ille nihil habebat de omnibus generibus iumentorum, excepta una vacca cum vitulo, et occidit vitulum et coxit et posuit ante illos.  Et praecepit sanctus Germanus ut non confringeretur os de ossibus eius, et sic factum est.  Et in crastino vitulus inventus est ante matrem suam, sanus et vivus incolumisque,

XXXIII.

Iterum de mane surrexerunt ut impetrarent salutationem tyranni.  At ipsi cum orarent et expectarent iuxta portam arcis, et ecce vir unus currebat, et sudor illius a vertice ad plantam pedum distillabat.  Inclinabat se ante illos, et dixit Sanctus Germanus: "Credis in Sanctam Trinitatem?"  Et respondit illis "Credo", et baptizatus est.  Et osculavit eum, et dixit illi: "Vade in pace.  In ista hora morieris, et angeli Dei in aere expectant te, ut gradieris cum illis ad Deum, cui credisti."  Et ipse laetus intravit in arcem, et praefectus tenuit illum et alligavit.  Et ante tyrannum ductus, interfectus est; quia mos erat apud nequissimum tyrannum, nisi quis ante solis ortum pervenisset ad servitudinem in arce, interficiebatur.  Et manserunt tota die iuxta portam civitatis, et non impetraverunt ut salutarent tyrannum.

XXXIV.

Solito ex more supradictus affuit servus, et disit illi Sanctus Germanus: "Cave ne unus homo maneat de hominis tuis in ista nocte in arce."  Et ipse reversus est in arcem, et deduxit filios suos (quorum numerum erat novem) et ipsi ad supradictum hostpitium cum ipso reversi sunt.  Et pracepit Sanctus Germanus manere eos ieiunos et clausis ianuis, dixit: "Vigilantes estote, et si quid evenerit in arce, nolite aspicere, sed orate indesinenter, et ad Deum vestrum clamate."  Et post modicum intervallum noctis, ignis de caelo cecidit et combussit arcem et omnes homines qui cum tyranno erant, et nusquam apparverunt usque in hodiernum diem, et arx non aedificata est usque hodie.

XXXV.

In crastino die vir illis, qui hospitalis fuit illis, credidit et baptizatus est cum omnibus filiis suis - et omnis regio cum eis; cui nomen erat Catel.  Et benedixit ei, et addidit, et dixit: "Non deficiet rex de semine tuo."  Ipse est Catell Durnluc; "Et tu solus rex eris ab hodierna die."  Et sic evenit; et impletum est quod dictum est per prophetam, dicentem "Suscitans de pulvere egenum, et de stercore erigens pauperum, ut sedeat cum principibus et solium gloriae teneat."  Iuxta verba Sancti Germani rex de servo factus est, et omnes filii eius reges facti sunt, et a semine illorum omni regio Povisorum regitur usque in hodiernum diem.

XXXVI.

Factum est autem, postquam metati sunt Saxones in supradicta insula Tanet, promisit rex supradictus dari illis victum et vestimentum absque defectione, et placuit illis, et ipsi promiserunt expugnare inimcos eius fortiter.  At illi barbari cum multiplicati essent numero, non potuerunt Brittones cibare illos.  Cum postularent cibum et vestimentum, sicut promissum erat illis, dixerunt Brittones: "Non possumus dare vobis cibum et vestimentum, quia numerus vester multiplicatus est; sed recedite a nobis, quia auxilio vestro non indigemus.^[2]"  {Et ipsi consilium fecerunt cum maioribus suis, ut pacem disrumperent}^[3].

XXXVII.

Hengistus autem, cum esset vir doctus atque astutus et callidus, cum explorasset super regem inertem et super gentem illius, quae sine armis utebatur, inito consilio dixit ad regem Britannicum: "Pauci sumus^[4]: si vis, mittemus ad patriam nostram et invitemus milites de militibus nostrae regionis, ut amplior sit numerus at certandum pro te et pro gente tua."  Et ille imperavit ut facerent, et miserunt, et legat transfretaverunt trans Tithicam vallem, et reversi sunt cum cyulis sedecim, et milites electi venerunt in illis, et in una cyula ex eis venit puella pulchra facie atque decorosa valde, filia Hencgisti.  {Postquam autem venissent cyulae, fecit Hencgistus convivium Guorthigirno et militibus suis et interpreti suo qui vocabatur Ceredic}: et puella iussit ministrare illis vinum et siceram, et inebriati sunt et saturati sunt nimis.  Illis autem bibentibus, intravit Satanas in corde Guorthigirni, ut amaret puellam, et postulavit eam a patre suo per interpretem suum, et dixit: "Omne quod postulas a me impetrabis, licet dimidium regni mei."  {Et Hencgistus, inito consilio cum suis senioribus, qui venerunt secum de insula Oghgul^[5], quid peterent regi pro puella, unus consilium cum illis omnibus fuit^[6]} ut peterunt regionem quae in linguam eius vocatur Canturguoralen, in nostra autem Chent.  Et dedit illis, Guoyrancgono regnante in Cantia^[7], et inscius erat quia regnum suum tradebatur paganis et ipse solus in potestatem illorum clam dari.  Et sic data est puella illi in coniugium, et dormivit cum ea, et amavit eam valde.^[8]

XXXVIII.

Et dixit Hencgestus ad Guorthigirnus: "{Ego sum pater tuus et consiliator tuus ero, et} non praeterire consilium meum umquam, quia non timebis te superari ab ullo homine neque ab ulla gente, quia gens mea valida est^[9].  Invitabo filium meum cum fratrueli suo, bellatores enim viri sunt, ut dimicent contra Scottos; et da illis regiones quae sunt in aquilone, iuxta murum qui vocatur Guaul."  Et iussit ut invitaret eos, et invitavit Octha et Ebissa cum quadraginta cyulis.  At ipsi cum navigarent circa Pictos, vastaverunt Orcades insulas, et venerunt, et occupaverunt regiones plurimas ultra Mare Frenessicum usque ad confinium Pictorum.  Et Hencgistus semper cyulas ad se paulatim invitavat, ita ut insulas ad quas venerant absque habitatore relinquerent, et dum gens illius crevisset et in virtute et in multitudine venerunt ad supradictum civitatem Cantorum.

XXXIX.

Nam super omnia mala adiicens, Guorthigirnus accipit filiam sui uxorem sibi, et peperit ei filium.  Et hoc cum compertum esset a Sancto Germano, eum corripere venit cum omni clero Brittonum.  Et dum conventa esset magna synodus clericorum ac laicorum in uno concilio, ipse rex praemonuit filiam suam ut exiret ad conventum et ut daret filium suum in sinum Germani et ut diceret quod ipse erat pater filii.  Et mulier fecit sicut erat edocta.  Germanus autem eum benigne accepit et dicere coepit: "Pater tibi ero nec te dimittam, nisi mhi novacula cum forcipe pectineque detur et ad patrem tuum carnalem tibi dare licetur."  Et obaudivit puer, et usque ad avum suum patrem carnalem Guorthigrnum perrexit, et puer illi dixit: "Pater meus es, caput meum tonde et comam capitis mei."  Et ille siluit et tacuit et puero respondere noluit, sed surrexit et iratus est valde, ut a facie Sancti Germani fugieret, et maledictus est et damnatus a Sancto Germano et omni Brittonum concilio.

XL.

Et postea rex ad se invitavit magos suos, ut quid faceret eos interrogaret.  At illi dixeret: "In extremas fines regni tui vade, et arcem munitam invenies, ut te defendas; quia gens quam suscepisti in regno tuo invidet tibi, et te per dolum occidet, et universas regiones quas amaras occupabit cum tua universa gente post morten tuam^[10]."  Et postea ipse cum magis suis arcem adipisci venit, et per multas regiones multasque provincias circumdederunt, et, illis non invenientibus, ad regionem quae vocatur Guined novissime pervenerunt.  Et illo lustrante in montibus Hereri, tandem in uno montium loco, in quo aptum erat arcem condere, adeptus est.  Et magi ad illum dixere: "Arcem in isto loco fac, quia tutissima a barbaris gentibus in aeternum erit."  Et ipse artifices congregavit^[11], id est lapidicinos, et ligna et lapides congregavit, et, cum esset congregata omnis materia, in una nocte ablata est materia^[12].  Et tribus vicibus iussit congregari, et nusquam comparvit.  Et magos arcessivit, et illos percunctatus est, quae esset haec causa malitiae, et quid hoc eveniret.  At illi responderunt: "Nisi infantem sine patre invenies, et occidetur ille, et arx a sanguine suo aspergatur, numquam aedificabitur in aeternum."

XLI.

Et ipse legatos ex consilio magorum^[13] per universam Britanniam misit^[14], utrum^[15] infantem sine patre invenirent.  Et lustrando omnes provincias regionesque plurimas, venerunt ad campum Elleti, qui est in regione quae vocantur Gleguissing, et pilae ludum faciebant pueri.  Et ecce duo inter se litigabant, et dixit alter alteri: "O homo sine patre, bonum non habebis."  At illi de puero ad pueros diligenter percunctabantur, et cunctantes matrem, si patrem haberet.  Illa negavit et dixit: "Nescio quomodo in utero meo conceptus est, sed unum scio, quia virum non cognovi unquam."  Et illi eum secum duxere usque ad Guorthigirnum regem, et eum insinuaverunt regi.

XLII.

Et in crastino conventio facta est, ut puer interficeretur.  Et puer ad regem dixit: "[Cur viri tui me ad te detulerentur?" Cui rex ait: "Ut interficiaris, et sanguis tuus circa circa arcem istam aspergeretur, ut possit aedificari."  Respondit puer regi]: "Quis tibi monstravit?" Et respondit rex: "Magi mi mihi dixere."  Et puer dixit: "Ad me vocentur."  Et invitati sunt magi, et puer illis dixit: "Quis revelavit vobis ista arx a sanguine meo aspergeretur, et, nisi aspergeretur a sanguine meo, in aeternum non aedificabitur?  Sed hoc ut cognoscatis, quis mihi de me palam fecit?"  Iterum puer dixit: "modo tibi, o rex, elucubrabo, et in veritate tibi omnia satagam.  Sed magos tuos percunctor: quid in pavimiento istius loci est?"  At illi dixere: "Nescimus".  Et ille dixit: "Comperior: stagnum in medio pavimenti est.  Venite et foedite, et sic invenietis."  Venerunt, et foederunt, et ruit^[16].  Et puer ad magos dixit: "proferte mihi: quod est in stagno?"  Et siluerunt et non potuerunt revelare illi.  Et ille dixit illis: "Ego vobis revelabo: duo vasa sunt, et sic invenietis."  Venerunt et viderunt sic.  Et puer ad magos dixit: "Quid in vasis conclusis habetur?"  At ipsi siluerunt et non potuerunt revelare illi.  At ille asseruit: "In medio eorum tentorium est: separate ea et sic invenietis."  Et rex separari iussit, et sic inventum est tentorium complicatum, sicut dixerat.  Et iterum interrogavit magos eius: "Quid in medio tentorii est?  Etiamnunc narrate!"  Et non potuerunt scire.  At ille revelavit: "Duo vermes in eo sunt, unus albus et alter rufus: tentorium expandite".  Et extenderunt et duos vermes dormientes inventi sunt.  Et dixit puer: "Expectate et considerate quid facient vermes".  Et coeperunt vermes ut alter alterum expelleret: alius autem scapulas suas ponebat ut eum usque ad^[17] dimidium tentorii expelleret.  Et sic faciebant tribus vicibus.  Tandem infirmior videbatur vermis rufus, et postea fortior albo fuit, et extra finem tentorii expulit.  Tunc alter alterum secutum trans stagnum est, et tentorium evanuit.  Et puer ad magos refert: "Quid significat mirabile hoc signum quod factum est in tentorio?"  Et ill proferunt: "Nescimus."  Et puer respondit: "En revelatum est mihi hoc mysterium, et ego vobis propalabo.  Regni tui figura tentorium est; duo vermes duo dracones sunt; vermis rufus draco tuus est; et stagnum figura huius mundi est.  At ille albus draco illius gentis quae occupabit gentes et regiones plurimas in Britannia et paene a mari usque ad^[18] mare tenebunt.  Et postea gens nostra surget, et gentem Anglorum trans mare viriliter deiciet.  Tu tamen de ista arce vade, quia eam aedificare non potes, et multas provincias circumi, ut arcem tutam invenias; et ego hic manebo."  Et rex ad adolescentem dixit: "Quo nomine vocaris?"  Ille respondit: "Ambrosius vocor", id est Embreis Guletic ipse videbatur.  Et rex dixit: "De qua progenie ortus es?"  Et ille: "Unus est pater meus de consulibus Romanicae gentis."  Et arcem dedit rex illis cum omnibus regnis occidentalis plagae Britanniae, et ipse cum magis suis ad sinistralem plagam pervenit, et usque ad regionem quae vocatur Guunessi affuit, et urbem ibi, quae vocatur suo nomine Cair Guorthigirn, aedificabit.

XLIII.

Interea Guorthemir, filius Guorthigirn, cum Hengisto et Horso et cum gente illorum petulanter pugnabat, et eos usque ad supradictam insulam, quae vocatur Tanet, expulit, et eos tribus vicibus conclusit, obsedit, percussit, comminuit, terruit.  Et ipsi legatos ultra mare usque in Germaniam transmittebant, vocando cyulas cum ingenti numero bellatorum virorum.  Et postea pugnabant contra reges nostrae gentis: aliquando vincebant et dilatabant terminos suos, aliquando vincebantur et expellebantur^[19].

XLIV.

{Et Guorthemir contra illos quattuor bella avide gessit.  Primum bellum} super flumen Derguentid; secundum bellum super vadum quod dicitur in lingua eorum Episford, in nostra autem lingua Rithergabail, et ibi cecidit Hors {cum filio Guorthigirni cuius nomen erat Categirn}; tertium bellum in campo iuxta Lapidem Tituli, qui est super ripam Gallici Maris commisit, et barbari victi sunt, et in fugam versi usque ad cyulas suas mersi sunt in eas muliebriter^[20] intrantes.  Ille autem post modicum intervallum mortuus est, et ante mortem suam^[21] ad familiam suam dixit ut sepulchrum in portum ponerent a quo exierant, super ripam maris, "in quo vobis commendo: quamvis in alia parte portum Britanniae teneant, tamen in ista terra in aeterneum non manebunt."  {Illi autem mandatum eius contempserunt, et eum in loco in quo imperaverat illis non sepelierunt}.

XLV.

At barbari reversi sunt cum magno opere, cum Guorthigrnus amicus eis erat propter uxorem suam, et nullus illos abigere audaciter valuit; quia non de virtute sua Britanniam occupaverunt, sed de nutu Dei.  Contra vuluntas Dei quis resistere poterit et nitatus?  Sed quomodo voluit Dominus, fecit; et ipse omnes gentes regit et gubernat.

{Factum est autem^[22] post mortem Guorthemir regis Guorthigirni filii}, et post reversionem Hengisti cum suis turbis, consilium fallax hortati sunt ut dolum^[23]Guorthigirno cum exercitu suo facerent.  At illi legatos, ut impetrarent pacem, miserunt, ut perpetua amicitia inter illos fieret.  At ille Guorthegirnus cum suis maioribus, natu^[24]consilium cum omnibus fuit ut pacem facerent^[25]; et legati eorum reversi sunt, et postea conventum adduxerunt, ut ex utraque parte Brittones in unum sine armis convenirent, ut firma amicitia esset.

XLVI.

Et Hengistus omni familiae suae^[26] iussit ut unisquisque artavum suum sub pede in medio ficonis sui poneret: "Et quando clamavero ad vos et dixero 'Eu, nimet saxas!'^[27], cultellos vestros ex ficonibus vestris educite, et in illos irruite, et fortiter contra illos resistite.  Et regem illorum nolite occidere, sed eum, pro causa filiae meae quam dedi illi in coniugium, tenete, quia melius est nobis ut ex manibus nostris redimatur."  Et conventum adduxerunt, et in unum convenerunt, et Saxones, amicaliter locuti, in mente interim vulpicino more agebant, et vir iuxta virum socialiter sederunt.  Hengistus, sicut dixerat, vociferatus est, et omnes seniores trecenti Guorthigirni regis iugulati sunt.  Et ipse solus captus et catenatus est, et regiones plurimas pro redemptione animae suae illis tribuit, id est Est Saxum, Sutsaxum....

XLVII.

Sanctus vero Germanus Guorthigirno praedicabat, ut ad Dominum suum converteret et ab illicita coniunctione se separaret; et ille usque ad regionem quae a nomine suo accepit nominem Guorthigerniaun miserabiliter effugit, ut ibi cum uxoribus suis lateret.  Et Sanctus Germanus post illum secutus est cum omni clero Brittonum;et ibi quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus mansit, et super petram et die orabat noctuque stabat.  Et iterum Guorthigirnus usque ad Arcem Guorthigirni, quae est in regione Demetorum iuxta flumen Teibi, ignominiose abcessit.  Et solito more Sanctus Germanus eum secutus est, et ibi ieiunus cum omni clero tribus diebus totidemque noctibus causaliter mansit; et in quarta nocte, arx tota mediae circa noctis horam per ignem missum de caelo ex improviso cecidit ardente igne caelesti, et Guorthigirnum cum omnibus qui cum eo erant et cum uxoribus suis defecit.

{Hic est finis Guorthigirni ut in libro beati Germani repperi; alii autem aliter dixerunt.}

XLVIII.

Postquam exosi fuerunt illi omnes homines gentis suae pro piaculo suo inter potentes et impotentes, inter servum et liberum, inter monachos et laicos, inter parvum et magnum, et ipse dum de loco ad loco vagus errat, tandem cor eius crepuit et defunctus est non cum laude.  Alii dixerunt: terra aperta est et deglutivit eum in nocte in qua combusta est arx circa eum, quia non inventae sunt ullae reliquiae illorum qui combusti sunt cum eo in arce.

{Tres filios habuit, quorum nomina sunt Guorthemir (qui pugnabat contra barbaros,ut supra diximus), secundus Categirn, tertius} Pascent, qui regnavit in duabus regionibus Buelt et Guorthegirniaun post mortem patris sui; largiente Ambrosio illi qui fuit rex inter omnes reges Britannicae gentis.  {Quartus fuit} Faustus, qui a filia sua genitus est illi; et Sanctus Germanus baptizavit illus et nutrivit et docuit; et [Faustus ille] condidit locum magnum super ripam fluminis quod vocatur Renis, et manet usque hodie.  {Quintam filiam habuit, quae fuit mater Fausti Sancti.}

XLIX.

Haec est genealogia illius, quae ad initium retro recurrit.  Fernmail ipse est, qui regit modo in regionibus duabus Buelt et Guorthigirniaun - filius Teudibir.  Teudibir ipse est rex Bueltiae regionis, filius Pascent filii Guoidcant filii Moriud filii Eldat filii Edoc filii Paul filii Mepurit filii Briacat filii Pascent; filius Guorthigirn Guortherneu filius Guitaul filii Guitolin filii Gloiu.  Bonus, Paulus, Mauron, Guitolin, quattuor fratres fuerunt filii Gloiu, qui aedificabit urbem magnam super ripam fluminis Sabrinae, quae vocatur Britannico sermone Cair Gloiu, saxonice autem Gloecester.

L.

Sanctus Germanus reversus est post mortem illius ad patriam suam.

1) The possibly historical or unidentifiable fragments

31.

Factum est autem post supradictum bellum, id est quod fuit inter Brittones et Romani, quando duces illorum occisi sunt, et occisionem Maximi tyranni, transactoque Romanorum imperio in Britanniis, per XL annos fuerunt sub metu

...It happened {after the above-mentioned war (or: battle) that took place between Britons and Romans, when the leaders of [the Romans] were killed, and after the killing of Maximus the tyrant (or: usurper; or: kinglet)}, and once the rule of the Romans in the Britanniae was gone, they were in fear for forty years^[28].

Regnante Gratiano secundo cum Equitio, Saxones a Guorthigirno sucepti sunt, anno CCCXLVII post passionem Christi

As Gratianus the second reigned with Equitius, the Saxons were received by Vortigern, in the year 342^[29] after the death of Christ.

36.

Factum est autem, postquam metati sunt Saxones [in supradicta insula Tanet], promisit rex supradictus dari illis victum et vestimentum absque defectione, et placuit illis, et ipsi promiserunt expugnare inimcos eius fortiter.  At illi barbari cum multiplicati essent numero, non potuerunt Brittones cibare illos.  Cum postularent cibum et vestimentum, sicut promissum erat illis, dixerunt Brittones: "Non possumus dare vobis cibum et vestimentum, quia numerus vester multiplicatus est; sed recedite a nobis, quia auxilio vestro non indigemus."  Et ipsi consilium fecerunt cum maioribus suis, ut pacem disrumperent.

It happened then, after the Saxons were counted... the afore-mentioned king promised they would be given food and clothing without fault; and they were pleased, and they promised to mightily fight his enemies.  But as these barbarians were multiplied in number, the Britons could not feed them.  When they asked for food and clothing, as it had been promised to them, the Britons answered: we cannot give you food and clothing, for your number is multiplied: but go away from us, for we are not in need of your (military) help^[30].  [This led to war^[31].]

37.

Guoyrancgono regnante in Cantia, et inscius erat quia regnum suum tradebatur paganis et ipse solus in potestatem illorum clam dari.

Gwyrangcon [ruled] in Kent, and was unaware that his kingdom was being handed over to the pagans, and that he himself was being given into their power.

43.

Et ipsi legatos ultra mare usque in Germaniam transmittebant, vocando cyulas cum ingenti numero bellatorum virorum.  Et postea pugnabant contra reges nostrae gentis: aliquando vincebant et dilatabant terminos suos, aliquando vincebantur et expellebantur.

And they sent envoys across the sea to Germany, calling for ships with a great number of fighting men.  And from then on, they would fight against the kings^[32] of our nation: sometimes they would win and enlarge their borders, sometimes they would be defeated and expelled.

45.

[Saxones] hortati sunt ut dolum Guorthigirno cum exercitu suo facerent

[The Saxons] urged [on each other] a deceitful counsel, to make a betrayal towards Vortigern and his army^[33]

At ille Guorthegirnus cum suis maioribus, natu consilium fecerunt, et scrutati sunt quid facerent.  Tandem unum consilium cum omnibus fuit, ut pacem facerent.

But then Vortigern with his great men made a council, and looked into what they were to do.  At length they were all of one opinion^[34], to make peace.

48.

Postquam exosi fuerunt illi omnes homines gentis suae pro piaculo suo inter potentes et impotentes, inter servum et liberum, inter monachos et laicos, inter parvum et magnum, et ipse dum de loco ad loco vagus errat, tandem cor eius crepuit et defunctus est non cum laude.

After all the men of his nation were hateful to him because of his crime [or: as his own sacrifice for atonement^[35]], among the mighty and the powerless, among the bond and the free, among clergymen and laymen, among great and small, he then wandered from place to place, till at length his heart broke and he died - not with praise^[36].

Alii dixerunt: terra aperta est et deglutivit eum in nocte in qua combusta est arx circa eum, quia non inventae sunt ullae reliquiae illorum qui combusti sunt cum eo in arce.

Others said: The earth opened and swallowed him in the night^[37] in which the fortress was burned around him, for no remnants whatever were found of those who were burned in the fortress^[38].

Pascent{, qui} regnavit in duabus regionibus Buelt et Guorthegirniaun post mortem patris sui; largiente Ambrosio illi qui fuit rex inter omnes reges Britannicae gentis.

Pascent... ruled in the two regions of Builth and Gwrtheyrnion after his father's death; by the gift of that Ambrosius, who was king among all the kings of the British nation...

{Quartus fuit} Faustus, qui a filia sua genitus est illi; et Sanctus Germanus baptizavit illus et nutrivit et docuit; et [Faustus ille] condidit locum magnum super ripam fluminis quod vocatur Renis, et manet usque hodie.

Faustus, who was born him from his own daughter.  St.Germanus baptized, brought him up and taught him; and [Faustus] founded a great place on the shore of a river, called Riez, and it has lasted to this day.

49.

Haec est genealogia illius, quae ad initium retro recurrit.  Fernmail ipse est, qui regit modo in regionibus duabus Buelt et Guorthigirniaun - filius Teudibir.  Teudibir ipse est rex Bueltiae regionis^[39], filius Pascent filii Guoidcant filii Moriud filii Eldat filii Edoc filii Paul filii Mepurit filii Briacat filii Pascent; filius Guorthigirn Guortherneu filius Guitaul filii Guitolin filii Gloiu.  Bonus, Paulus, Mauron, Guitolin, quattuor fratres fuerunt filii Gloiu, qui aedificabit urbem magnam super ripam fluminis Sabrinae, quae vocatur Britannico sermone Cair Gloiu, saxonice autem Gloecester.

This is his genealogy, taken backwards.  Fernmail is the one who currently reigns in the kingdoms of Builth and Gwrtheyrnion, son of Teudibir.  Teudibir is the one who is king of Builth, son of Pascent II, son of Guoidcant, son of Moriudd, son of Illtyd, son of Edoc, son of Paul, son of Mepurit, son of Briacat, son of Pascent I; son of Vortigern Guortheneu, son of Gwydawl, son of Gwythelin, son of Gloyw.  Bonus, Paul, Mauron and Gwythelin were four brothers, sons of Gloyw, who built a great town on the shore of the river Severn, called in the British tongue Caer Gloyw, but in Saxon Gloucester.

2)- The legend of Vor-tigernos and Vortamo-rix.

31.

Vortigern ruled in Britain, and as he ruled he was driven by the fear of Picts and Scots, and by the assault^[40] of the Romans, and, for that matter, by the fear of Ambrosius.

37.

And in one ship out of them came a maiden, fair of face and greatly beautiful.  And [the maiden poured] them wine and sicera [spirits], and they were excessively filled and drunk.  And as they were drinking, Satan entered Vortigern's heart to make him love the maiden; and he asked for her, and said "All that you ask you shall have from me, even to the half of my kingdom." [He was asked for a land] and he gave it.. And the maiden was thus given in marriage, and he slept with her and loved her greatly.

40.

And after this, the king called the wizards to himself to ask them what he should do.  And they said: "Go to the ends of you kingdom, and you will find a protected fortress to defend yourself; for the nation you welcomed into your kingdom envies you, and will kill you by treachery, and will occupy all the kingdoms you love^[41] with all your nation, after your death."  And after that, he came with his wizards to attain the fortress, and sought it through many kingdoms and many provinces.  Not having found it, they came last to the kingdom called Gwynedd.  And, seeking through the mountains, he at length achieved the one place which was suited to build a fortress.  And the wizards said to him: "Make a fortress in this place, for it will be most safe from the barbarians for ever."  And he gathered together builders, that is stone-workers, and gathered together wood and stone.  And when all the matter was gathered together, in one single night the matter was stolen.  And three times he ordered that it should be gathered, and it did not appear anywhere.  And he summonsed the wizards, and questioned them, what was the cause of this evil, and what was happening.  But they answered: "Unless you find a child without a father, and he is killed, and the fortress is sprinkled with his blood, it will never be built up for ever."

41.

And because of the wizards' advice, he sent messengers through all of Britain, to find a child without a father.  And seeking all the provinces and many kingdoms, they came to Maes Elledi, which is in the kingdom called Glewissing, and the children were playing ball.  And behold, two were quarrelling among themselves, and one said to the other "O man without a father, you will not get your way".  So they asked the children diligently about this child, and [asked] the mother, if he had a father.  She denied it and said: "I don't know how he was conceived in my womb, but one thing I know: that I never knew a man."  And they led him to Vortigern the king, and presented him to the king.

42.

And on the next day a gathering was made to kill the child.  And the child said to the king: ["Why did your men take me to you?"  To which, the king said: "So that you may be killed, and your blood be scattered around this fortress, and it may stand."  The child answered the king:]^[42]"Who showed this to you?" The king answered: "My wizards told me."  And the boy said: "Let them be called to me."  And the wizards were summoned, and the child said to them: "Who revealed to you that this fortress should be sprinkled with my blood, and, unless it is sprinkled with my blood, it will not be built for ever?  But for you to know that, who made me known?"  Again, the child said: "Now, o king, I will work out a speech to you, and will satisfy you with all the truth.  But I question your wizards: what is in the foundations of this place?" And they said "We don't know."  And he said: "I learn: there is a pond in the middle of the foundations.  Come and dig, and you will find [that it is] so."  They came, and dug, and [the foundations] fell in; and the child said to the wizards "Publish your knowledge to me: what is in the pond?"  And they fell silent, and they could not reveal [anything].  And he said to them: "I will reveal it to you: there are two containers, and that is what you will find."  They came and saw [that it was] so.  And the child said to the wizards: "what is in the sealed containers?"  But they were silent and could not reveal [it].  And he stated: "Between [or: in the middle of] them, there is a cloth: separate them, and you will find so."  And the king ordered them to be separated, and thus a folded cloth was found, as he said.  And again he questioned his wizards: "What is in the middle of the cloth?  Come on, tell forth!"  And they could not know.  But he revealed: "Two worms are in it, one white and the other red: spread out the cloth."  And they spread it, and they found two sleeping worms.  And the child said: "Look and think about what the worms will do."  And the worms began to push each other out; each placed his shoulders^[43]against the other to push him [out of] the middle of the cloth.  And so they did three times.  At length, the red dragon seemed weaker, and the white then proved stronger, and pushed him out of the bounds of the cloth; then the one pusued the other across the pond^[44], and the cloth vanished.  And the child appealed to the wizards: "What does this astonishing miracle that happened in the cloth mean?"  And they spoke: "We do not know."  And the child answered: "Behold, this mystery is revealed unto me, and I will make it clear to you.  The cloth is a figure of your kingdom; the two worms are two dragons; the red worm is your dragon; and the pond is a figure of this world.  But that white one [is] the dragon of the nation which which shall occupy many nations and kingdoms in Britain and hold almost from sea to sea.  And after that our nation shall arise and manfully drive the nation of the English out across the sea.  You, however, go away from this fortress, for you cannot build it up; and go around many provinces, to find a protected fortress; and I will remain here."  And the king said to the young man: "By what name are you called?"  He answered: "I am called Ambrosius", that is, he turned out to be none other than Embreis Guletic.  And the king said: "From what descent do you spring?"  And he: "My father was one of the consuls of the Roman natnion."  And the king gave him the fortress with all the kingdoms of the western land of Britain, and he himself came with his wizards to the northern part, and came to the land called Gwynessi^[45].  And there he built a town which is called by his name, Caer Gwrtheyrn^[46].

43.

Meanwhile Vortimer son of Vortigern fought furiously against {Hengist and Horsa] and all their nation, and pushed them back right to the already-mentioned island called Thanet [surely, Oghgul].  Three times he besieged them; he shut them in, he struck them, he threatened them, he terrified them.

44.

And the barbarians were defeated, and turned in flight to their ships, drowning as they fled to them like women.  He, however, died shortly after.  Before he died, he said [to his family] that they should place his tomb in the harbour from which [the barbarians, surely] had left, on the shore of the sea, "and this I recommend to you: whether or not they can ever seize another harbour elsewhere in Britain, they will not remain in this land for ever^[47]."^[48]

45.

But the barbarians came back with great strength, for Vortigern was their friend because of his wife, and nobody was strong enough to bravely drive them out; for they did not occupy Britain by their own strength, but by the Lord's consent.  Against the will of God, who could resist if he tried?  But what the Lord wanted, He did; and he rules and directs all nations^[49].

3)- The miracles of St.Germanus

32.

In his [Vortigern's] time, St.Germanus came to preach in Britain, and was famous among them by his many virtues [or:powers], and many were saved through him, and many perished.  I made up my mind that some miracles performed through him by God ought to be writtend down.

The first of his miracles: there was a certain unrighteous and greatly tyrannical king whose name was Benlli.  The holy man wished to visit him and [he travelled?] to the unrighteous king to preach to him.  But when the man of God came to the gate of the city [royal fortress] with his companions, the gatekeeper came and hailed them.  And they sent him to the king; and the king gave them a hard response, and said, and swore it, "Whether they are, and whether they stay till the beginning of the year, they will not come to the middle of my city".

As they were waiting for the porter to announce them the speech of the tyrant, the day was dying into evening, and night was coming, and they did not know where to go.  [At that point^[50]] one of the king's serfs came from the middle of the city, and bowed before the man of God, and announced them all the tyrant's words.  And he invited them to his home; and they went out with him, and he gave them a warm welcome.  And he owned no animal of any kind whatever, except for one cow with a calf; and he killed the calf, coooked it, and placed it before them^[51].  And St.Germanus ordered that his bones should not be broken apart from each other, and it was done as he said.  And on the next day the calf was found before his mother, alive, healthy and unhurt.

33.

On the next morning they rose again and to ask for the tyrant's welcome.  But as they prayed and waited before the gate of the fortress, behold one man was running, and sweat was pouring from the top [of his head] to the soles of his feet.  He bowed before them, and Saint Germanus said: "Do you believe in the Holy Trinity?"  And he annswered to them: "I believe", and was baptized.  And he kissed him, and said to him: "Go in peace.  In this hour you will die, and the angels of God in the air wait for you to ascend with them to the God in Whom you have believed."  And he entered happily into the fortress, and the commander held and bound him.  And, led before the tytrant, he was slain: for it was the habit of the most villainous tyrant to kill them, unless they came to their slave work in the fortress before sunrise.  And they remained all day before the gate of the town, and they did not ask for the tyrant's welcome.

34.

In the same way as we said, Saint Gerrmanus went to stay with the serf, and told him: "Make very sure that not a single one of your people remains in the fortress tonight."  And he turned back to the fortress, and led out his sons (whose number was nine) and went back with them to the same arbour.  And Saint Germanus ordered them to fast and keep their windows closed, [and he] said: "Be watchful, and if anything happens in the fortress, do not look, but pray without ceasing, and call to your God."  And after a short part of the night, fire fell from the sky and burned the fortress and all the men who were with the tyrant, and they never appeared to the present day, and the fortress was not [re]built.

35.

On the next day, that man who had been hospitable to them believed^[52]and was baptized with all his sons, and the whole kingdom with them; his name was Cadell.  And he blessed him, and [?crowned him?] and said: "There shall not fail to be a king from your seed" (he is Cadell Ddyrnllug) "and you alone shall be king from this day onwards." And so it happened, fulfilling the words of the prophet: "Raising the hungry from the dust, and uplifting the poor from the dung, that they may sit with princes and hold the throne of glory."  According to the words of Saint Germanus he was made a king from a servant, and all his sons became kings, and the kingdom of Powys is ruled by their seed to this day.

39.

For on top of all his other evils, Vortigern took his own daughter for wife, and made her pregnant with a son.  And as this was discovered by St.Germanus, he came to seize him with all the clergy of the British.  And when a great single parliament of clergy and laymen was convened, the king ordered his daughter in advance to come out of the gathering and give her son into the lap of Saint Germanus and say that he was the son's father.  And the womand did as she was told.  Germanus, however, received him lovlingly and said: "I will be a father to you, and I will not reject you, unless [surely: but?] a razor, scissors and comb are [surely: must be?] given to me, and you be allowed to give them to your father according to the flesh."  And the baby obeyed him, and he reached to his grandfather and father according to the flesh, and the child said to him: "You are my father.  Shave my head and the hair of my head."  And he fell silent and said nothing and did not want to answer the child; rather he rose (and he was very angry) to flee from the face of Saint Germanus, and was condemned and accursed by Saint Germanus and all the clergy of the British.

48.

Indeed, Saint Germanus preached to Vortigern to convert him to his Lord and make him break his unlawful union; and he fled miserably to the kingdom which, from his name, received the name Gwrtheyrnion, to hide there with his wives.  And Saint Germanus followed after him with the whole clergy of the British; and he remained there for forty days and forty nights, and he prayed by day above a stone, and by night he stood [upright].  And again Vortigern shamefully went to the Fortress of Vortigern, which is in the kingdom of the Demetae by the river Teifi.  And in the same way as before, Saint Germanus followed him, and there he fasted three days and three nights with all the clergy, in the manner of a plaintiff; and on the fourth night^[53], about the middle of the night, the whole fortress suddenly fell, burning with heavenly fire through fire sent from heaven^[54], and it unmade Vortigern with his wives and everyone who was with him.

50.

After his death, Saint Germanus went back to his own country.

4)- The legend of Hengist and Horsa

31.

At that point came three ships driven out of Germany into exile^[55], in which were Horsa and Hengist, who were also^[56] brothers, sons of Wihtgils son of Wehta son of Woden son of Frealaf son of Fredwulf son of Finn son of Fodepald son of Geata who was, as they say, son of God; but he was not the God of Gods, the Amen, the God of Hosts, but one of their idols, which they worshipped.  Vortigern received them benevolently and handed over to them the island called in Saxon Thanet, but in the British speech Ruoihm.

37.

However, as Hengist was a smart, crafty and learned^[57] man, when he made his study of the gormless king and of his folk, who had no habit of arms, he called for a meeting and told the British king: "We are few^[58].  If you want, we shall send to our fatherland and invite soldiers from the soldiers of our region, so that there should be a greater number to fight for you and for your nation.  And he commanded that it should be done, and they sent them, and the messengers sailed over across the Tithic vale [the sea]^[59], and came back with sixteen ships and chosen soldiers came over in them...

And Hengist  [and his senior people decided] to ask for the kingdom called in their language Cantuorguoralen, in ours Kent.  And he gave it to them [as Gwyrangcon reigned in Kent, and he was unaware that that his kingdom was being handed over to the pagans, and that he himself was being secretly given into their power].

38.

And Hengist said to Vortigern: "{I am your father and will be your adviser^[60], and} never disregard my advice, for you will not fear to be overcome by any man nor by any nation, for my nation is valiant^[61].  I will call in my son with his cousin, to fight against the Scots [Irish]; and give them the lands that are in the north^[62], near the wall which you call Guaul.  And he ordered him to call them in, and he called in Octha and Ebissa with forty ships.  But when they sailed against the Picts, they devastated the Orkneys, and they came and occupied many kingdoms beyond the Frenessian Sea up to the Pictish border.  And Hengist was always calling in ships, little by little, to the point where the islands from which they came remained without inhabitants, and they came to the afore-mentioned state of Kent, while his nation grew in power and numbers.

44.

[There were four battles]...[there was a battle] on the river Derguentid; a second at the ford called [ford of Horsa], and there fell Horsa; a the third battle took place in the field near the Stone of Tyttla^[63], on the shore of the Gallic sea...^[64]

45.

... and after the return of Hengist with his hordes... they sent messengers to plead for peace, to make an everlasting alliance between them.  [And Vortigern with his elders made a council and they all came to a decision] to make peace. And their messengers came back, and after that they brought together a gathering, to bring the British from the other side all together and without weapons, to make a firm alliance.

46.

And Hengist ordered his whole family [that is, following] that they should all hide their knife under their feet in the middle of the sole: "And when I shall call to you and say Eu, nimet saxas!, take your knives out of your shoes and run into them and fight them boldly.  And do not kill their king [on account of my daughter whom I gave to him in marriage^[65]], but hold him, for it is better for us that he should be redeemed out of our hands."  And they brought the gathering together, and they came in one place, and the Saxons, speaking amicably, all the while acted in their mind in the manner of foxes, and sat sociably man next to man.  Hengist called out as he had said, and all three hundred elders of king Vortigern had their throats cut^[66].  And he alone was caught and put in chain, and gave them many kingdoms for the redemption of his soul, that is Essex, Sussex...^[67]

Notes

^[1]Notice that the previous sentence uses the archaic plural Britanniae, this one the singular Britannia.  We may be fairly certain that this description of Vortigern's kingdom and his three fears is later, from a time that had quite forgotten that Vitalinus had ruled the Roman Britanniae.  The mentions of Maximus and of the Massacre of the Magistrates are from a period in which those two legends had already formed, that is one that cannot have used or, pehaps, even remembered the plural Britanniae; but if we take them away from the opening sentence, we get the perfectly clear and consistent statement that "It happened then that, once Roman power had passed away in the Britains, they were under fear for forty years".  This is the original and archaic sentence, certainly not annalistic in origin - the forty-year period is both vague and inapplicable - but coming from an age in which the Roman description of the four insular provinces as Britanniae was still remembered.  The effort to connect various kinds of lore, on the other hand - the killing of the duces, the fall of Maximus, a battle between Britons and Romans - shows the hand of Nennius himself.

^[2]This is probably from the Annales Romanorum: the style is very close, with irritating repetitions - dari illis victum et vestimentum - Cum postularent cibum et vestimentum - Non possumus dare vobis cibum et vestimentum; cum multiplicati essent numero -  quia numerus vester multiplicatus est; and the verb promitto turning up three times in as many sentences.  We observe that these repetitions, though not absent, are far less frequent in the Hengist- and Ambrosius-related passages, where they relate mainly to formulae of the "he said - she said - then he said" kind, and there is some effort to vary them, while these sentences repeat cibum et vestimentum without any shame.  What is more, the final sentence Et ipsi concilium fecerunt cum maioribus suis, ut pacem disrumperent, which is the only one not to feature repetitions, is, as I argue in notes 3 and 6, a Nennian interpolation; which strengthens the argument from style even further.  The Hengist and Ambrosius passages, therefore, are not by the same author.

^[3]This is one of three fateful councils that dominate the Nennian narrative: the Saxon council to break the peace (36), the Saxon council that resolves to ask Vortigern for Kent in exchange for Ronwein, and the British council that decides to seek peace with the Saxons.

^[4]This is in flagrant contradiction with the previous chapter, in which the Saxons were "too many"; indeed, there is a whole sequence of contradictions.  In the previous chapter, they were threatened with starvation, let alone lack of clothes, and the need for action was urgent; here, Hengist has all the time in the world for leisurely intrigue and whispers in the king's ear.  There, the great secondary immigration which caused the problem is presented as having already happened; here the Saxons are "few", and to increase their numbers is the still unachieved goal of Hengist's scheming, a political purpose which is, at the start of the chapter, more near the kingdom of dreamland than reality.  All this shows the suture between two completely separate accounts

^[5]This mention of the legendary island of Oghgul tends to prove that mention of this council is part of Nennius' editorial intervention, inventing a triad of Saxon councils.  No document of Kentish origin would have qualified either Angeln, the original home of the Anglians, or Jutland, from which the Jutes of Kent believed themselves to have come, as an island: they knew perfectly well that they were part of a peninsula jutting from the German mainland, and Widsith and Beowulf both mention the establishment of its border on the Eider by Offa.  Nor, for that matter, would they have confused the two: that the Men of Kent were not Anglian but Jutish in origin seems to have been a commonplace, known to all the English.  In other words,  "Oghgul" is an entirely Welsh idea.

^[6]This gathering of a council of seniores to discuss the situation reminds us of the previous chapter, in which the Saxons discussed the coming revolt in a council of elders.  Later on (45), the British hold a council to decide about peace.  There is no mention of any other formal gathering elsewhere in the narrative - the murderous meeting in which the Saxons slaughter the British elders is different in kind and character - and these three councils form a triad.  We notice with interest that, in tying together his separate accounts, Nennius seems himself to have created triads: as Caitlin Mathews (of all people!) rightly saw, "Vortigern is thwarted by three young men... Vortimer, Faustus, and Emrys" (Arthur and the sovereignty of Britain, London 1989, 46).  And yet nothing is more certain than that Faustus belongs to a different legend cycle than Vortimer and Emrys; so that if the regularity observed by Mrs.Mathews exists - and I think it does - it can only have been put there by the compiler, Nennius himself.  It seems therefore that when Nennius himself constructed stories, he did so within the triadic mind-set of Wales.  For that matter, a good few of Rachel Bromwich's collection of Triads must demonstrably be later than him; what we have here, however, is immediate witness of triads being created, since neither the three councils, nor the three young men who foiled Vortigern, can have existed as a triad before Nennius started writing.

^[7]That Kent is here called Cantia, while in the previous sentence it was described as either Cantuorgualen or Chent, suggests a different source.

^[8]While the suture between the historical account of the Annales Romanorum and the legend of Hengist is clear and visible, it is far harder to separate what, in this chapter, pertains to the legend of Ronnwen baganes, and what to the Kentish legend of Hengist.  The enlargement of the Saxon settlement from Thanet to all of Kent is clearly to do with the latter, given the structural analogy with the work of St.Augustine; but if we remove Ronwein from the equation, there is no clear reason for Vortigern to give it to them at all.  Two minor characters, Cerdic the translator and Gwyrangcon king of Kent, may have come in from quite separate legends; I strongly suspect the former to be identified with the Cerdic from whom the kings of Wessex claimed descent.  This chapter looks like a rather successful fusion of different elements, probably by Nennius himself.

^[9]This clearly answers to and confirms the earlier description of forty years sub metu, under fear; indeed, the allusion to fearing neither any individual nor any nation is clearly to do with Vortigern's three fears - the Romans, Picts and Scots (gentes) and the individual hero Ambrosius.  Therefore, if there is an internal continuity between the fear-ridden reign of Vortigern in ch.31 and Hengist's evil advice here, this indicates that Nennius has imprinted his own views on the material; another clue to the Nennian authorship of chs. 37-38 - at least in the sense of intense and profound editorial intervention - as contrasted with the chunks of Annales Romanorum and *Gesta Germani placed probably untrasmuted in other chapters.

^[10]There is a loss of continuity here.  Two chapters ago, the enemy were Vortigern's rebellious subjects; here, suddenly and with no reason given, it is the Saxons.  We are not told why Vortigern should consult his wizards at all, and the suggestion is that something had arisen to trouble him.  This (disregarding the chapter from the *Gesta Germani between them) shows the suture between two separate legends, the Kentish one of Hengist and the Vortigernid household myth.

^[11]This is to do with the Celtic idea of the king and his stronghold: craftsmen are often said to live in it, or else are summoned to it for great festivals or solemn occasions.  Archaeology confirms that: metal slag and other traces of craftsmen's work are regularly found inside Celtic hill-forts.   Indeed, to have a good many artisans at the royal court would be a necessary annex of the redistributive exchange system I have proposed to see in Celtic society, in which all the land's wealth must necessarily pass through the king's hands; and those who did not live there would necessarily have to go at the times of the great public occasions (festival/banquets), when exchange and redistribution took place.  This is one of many features that show that, in this particular episode, Vortigern is treated as a king in the fullness of his power, and not as a dethroned tyrant fleeing his people’s wrath.

^[12]This sudden outburst of jejune repetitions, not matched in previous sentences, is to go on until the end of the O episode.  It is not exactly in the style of the Annales Romanorum, since there is a continuous attempt to vary the repeated expression, which are mainly in the nature of "he did - he said - he did", and the repetitions dominate the prose far less than they do in the Annales out-takes.  Here we have, therefore, the sign of another individual hand.

^[13]A contemporary fantasy novelist or comic-book writer might be delighted to notice that the Latin legatos ex consilio magorum can mean both "messengers, because of the advice of the wizards", or "messengers from the Council of Wizards"; it would be quite possible to read this to mean that a permanent Council of Wizards sat at Vortigern's court. Of course, I am not suggesting anything of the kind: Vortigern sent his own messengers because of the advice he had received, period.

^[14]Another contradiction.  We have just seen Vortigern driven out of the council of the clergy and laity of Britain with curses; surely, that is, dethroned. Yet now he is acting as if his power were both paramount and unchallenged in Britain, and as if he had limitless resources of both materials and obedient subjects, summoning builders and building materials and sending plenipotentiary emissaries the length and breadth of the island to look for a child.  Clearly we are again in a different narration.

^[15]A howler, surprising among the modest but not disgraceful Latinity of Nennius.  Utrum, like its English cognate whether, is an interrogative term which demands an alternative: utrum...an, "whether... or".  It seems quite a casual mistake, but it is well to notice even the most passing irregularity, since so many of them turn out to be significant.

^[16]Alternatively: et fuit, "and it was [so]".

^[17]Another truly strange expression!  Usque ad dimidium does not mean "away from the middle" and cannot, in that sense, go with expellere: it would give the oxymoronic "expel him right into the middle of the tentorium".  This suggests that the original author was borrowing from an earlier Latin text, where somebody or something suffered the fate of expelleri usque ad dimidium alicubi - being thrown out of some place into the middle of another place; where the author of this passage - who may well have been the author of the Annales Romanorum - mistakenly read it to mean "being expelled from the middle."  This, in turn, reminds me of Constantius' notoriously puzzling account of the fate of the Pelagian leaders arrested in Germanus' second journey: ad mediterranea deferendi, "to be taken" (exiled, expelled, or jailed?) "to the place in the middle of the lands" (Constantius, Uita Germani, 27) - the riddling concept of "expulsion into the middle" seems common.  Anyway, the presence of two serious grammatical errors in a row is interesting, probably reflecting the hand of an author other than Nennius.

^[18]Here, however, usque ad is used correctly.

^[19]This has long since been identified as parallel with Gildas 26.1, in which, after describing Ambrosius’ first dawn of victory against the Saxons, Gildas goes on: Ex eo tempore nunc ciues, nunc hostes uincebant, ut in ista gente experiretur Dominus solito more praesentem Israelem, utrum diligat eum an non; usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis...; "From that time, once the ciues would win, another time the enemy, for the Lord to test the Israel of today against this tribe, whether they loved Him or not; until the year of the siege of Mount Badon..." There is no very close verbal resemblance and no question of a quotation (Nennius never quotes Gildas, anyway); this probably represents a commonplace.  Nennius: Et postea pugnabant contra reges nostrae gentis; aliquando uincebant et dilatabant terminos suos, aliquanto uincebantur et expellebantur; "And from then on they [i.e. the Saxons] fought against the kings of our nation; from time to time they won and enlarged their borders, from time to time they were defeated and expelled."  It is clearly out of place in the Nennian account, describing Vortimer's untrammelled success, stemmed only by constant new drafts from the Saxon mother country.  (The Saxons of Welsh legend are not very bright, at least their first generation: they keep getting news of Vortimer beating the stuffing out of more and more of them, and their reaction is to rush in greater and greater numbers to have the stuffing beaten out of them again.)  In fact, Nennius has put it there to serve as a buffer between two incompatible accounts: the notice in ch.43 that Vortimer had besieged them three times in "Thanet" (we have already seen what to think about that particular Thanet), and the notice in ch.44 that the war consisted of four battles, fought on the Kentish mainland rather than on the island - this is derived from the legend of Hengist, already adapted by Kentish chronographers and adapted even further, I would think, by Nennius himself.  Also, while in Gildas it follows the description of the historical Ambrosius’ victories, in Nennius it follows - with exactly similar swiftness - that of the legendary Vortimer’s.  In other words, this is the best evidence yet of the suggestion I made earlier, that the legend of Vortimer represents a deliberate Vortigernid attempt to expropriate the story of the great war from the historical figure of Ambrosius and to attribute its values to their own hero.

^[20]This is probably an echo of Gildas' muliebriter, applied to the surrender of the cowardly British to the Romans; here Nennius seems to want to move it away from the British and on to their enemies.  It would seem that, long before Geoffrey, Nennius too wanted to reverse some of the harshest verdicts of the old saint on his people.

^[21]The words that follow, ad familiam suam, are, according to Dumville, an interpolation.

^[22]Nennius routinely uses the expression Factus est autem, it then happened, to bring in information derived from a new document, either breaking the flow of information from another, or because the previous document has run out; cf. the openings of chapters 31 and 36, above.  Therefore, though this factum est autem turns up in the middle of a chapter rather than at its beginning as elsewhere, it marks the start of something new, as can indeed be shown by the content alone.  Here, we see that the Nennian source for O runs out, and Nennius goes back to the English legend of Hengist.

^[23]This is probably a reversal of a Gildasian concept, namely the dolus of the dolosi followers of the dolosa leaena. Dolus is a universal and negative Latin word; but it seems clear that the story, and Nennius too, are intent on presenting the British side as being as manly, militarily victorious, honourable, and free from treachery, as they can; unlike, in particular, the author of N, to whom fighting the barbarians honourably would seem an unnecessary luxury.

^[24]At this point, Morris interpolates consilium fecerunt, et scrutati sunt quid facerent.  Tandem unum... The sentence as he restores it goes as follows: "But then Vortigern made a council with his great men and looked into what they should do.  At length they were all of one mind, that they should make peace..."  It certainly is the case that something seems to be missing here.

^[25]If, as I argue in other footnotes, the two meetings of a Saxon council of elders are purely Nennian fictions, and if this is a part of a triad of three fateful councils - the Saxons' council resolving to break the peace; the Saxon council asking for Kent in exchange for Ronwein; and the British council resolving to seek peace with the rebels - which dominate the Nennian reworking of several independent sources into one narrative; then the two Saxon councils are fictitious.  And therefore - on the principle that nothing arises from nothing, and that Nennius must have had a pre-existent reason to invent a Saxon council of elders - this British council of elders can be proposed as the origin of the fiction, Nennius' inspiration to invent a triad.  It may preserve some historical features, for it is strongly reminiscent of the fateful Senate meeting escoriated by Gildas.  It cannot be that, for it is out of sequence, voting not to call for Saxons, but to make peace with Saxons aleady present.  On the other hand, unless the Saxons actually captured the emperor (which the sixth-century Vortigernid legend of O tends to deny), a government of sorts must have survived even at the height of the revolt; certainly with a Senate, since the Senate was, at all times, the central social institution of the Roman ruling class; in which case the decision to reach an accommodation - in effect, to surrender to the rebels - may have been taken by a Senate meeting, however depleted.

^[26]We notice that at this point, Hengist no longer discusses his plans with a council of elders, but rather issues orders to his familia - whether we take this to mean a genuine group of blood relatives of his, or his "household" in the sense of a tribal group he rules.  This is without a doubt the Hengist's legend's original view of his power structure, as the two councils of elders in earlier stages of the Nennian narration were part of an invented triad whose third term is Vortigern's possibly historical Senate meeting resolving on peace.  What is more, the sequence of events, as presented, savours of a not unintelligent attempt to tie various story elements into a coherent narrative: (1) there is originally a council of Saxon elders minded for war; (2), however, Hengist, who was already the prominent personality, advises subtlety, approaches the king in person, works on his fears, and brings his daughter over to ensnare him; (3) after the king falls hard for her, a second Saxon council is held, at which it is resolved to ask for Kent in exchange for her; (4) after this, Hengist is so prominent that he no longer needs to call for councils.  The urgency of war pushes him ever further to the fore, especially after his brother dies; (5) by the time Vortigern returns to power and peace is sought, Hengist is sole ruler and gives orders without consulting anyone. Of course, this sequence, however attractive and credible in itself, binds together narratives of various origins and dates and cannot be early; it can only be Nennius' own idea. It follows that those parts of Hengist's character which depend on it - i.e. the existence of a council of elders to which he reports - need not be seen as anything but Nennius' invention.  It is particularly significant that it is to this supposed council, and not to Hengist alone (though he, as the maiden's supposed father, should have the only say in who she marries) that the decision to ask for the kingdom of Kent is attributed: this is a clearly Welsh story feature, asking for a large under-kingdom beneath the high king's suzerainty, which is mirrored in Elen's demand of Britain for her father Eudav in exchange for her hand in marriage to the highest of king, Maxen emperor of Rome.  In other words, the role of the supposed English council of elders is a Nennian invention, and Hengist, in his own legend, was simply an untrammeled leader, issuing orders to his own men without asking anyone's advice.  Indeed, if the parallels with the legend of Romulus hold true, it may be that it was an English council of elders which Hengist's familia destroyed; perhaps it was from that, that Nennius got his idea for an English council intervening in matters of policy.

^[27]I have already pointed out the reasons why this whole legend can only be of English and Kentish, not Welsh, origin; but given that we know that Nennius did not speak English - that linguistic atrocity about Episford speaks for itself - the presence of these three English words, to him obviously no more than barbarous jargon, seems evidence of an English source.

^[28]The possibly historical element in this passage involves the end of Roman power - using the archaic term Britanniae and a possibly Roman notion of imperium as state power rather than monarchy - and the "forty years" of fear that is said to have followed it.  If we take this notice to be early, as the term Britanniae suggests, then the "forty years" might be connected to the historical date 410 rather than to the legendary 388 (the death of Maximus) which underlies so much Nennian and pre-Nennian Welsh chronology, but which cannot have arisen until Maximus was identified with the end of Roman power - probably by Gildas.  A document using Britanniae, on the other hand, is obviously pre-Gildasian.  It would therefore seem to describe the years 410-450 as one long term of fear, making no great distinction between the periods before and after 442 and the Saxon revolt.  The forty-year period, of course, is probably itself symbolic; it is a frequent Biblical term, as everyone knows.  It might refer only to the the 32 years before the revolt, but I think it just as likely that it describes the whole term up to Ambrosius' war of liberation, taking the whole period before and after the Saxons as one long run of degeneration and terror, with the Saxons turning Vitalinus into their puppet as only the climax of a descensus Averni.  Taken together, the use of Britanniae and the apparent lack of chronology suggest that the original may share a similar background as A, with its use of Britanniae.

^[29]Sic!

^[30]The use of Auxiliares in A, describing the Romani as auxiliares egregi, suggests that the word auxilium may have acquired a particularly military significance in insular Latin.

^[31]Whether or not the Nennian mention of a council of Saxon elders resolving on war has any basis in the original Annales Romanorum account on which he drew, it is certain that the British denial of the promised food and clothing to the Saxons was the cause of the revolt; not only does Gildas tell us so, but it is clearly so in Nennius' own mind, since he places it in that position - even though it is superfluous to his main picture, which features Hengist as treacherous and murderous and would seem to need no objective reason - such as a conflict over contributions - for the clash, except Saxon wickedness.

^[32]Another difference between Nennius and Gildas’ versions of this historical commonplace (see note 19) is that Nennius seems to emphasize the role of British kings, and perhaps the division of the country among several sovereigns, whereas Gildas implies that the war is one of all the ciues - that is, of all Britain together, considered as an ethnic group even more than a kingdom or kingdoms - against all the hostes.

^[33]This comes within the Hengist legend; but it is in complete contradiction with it. In Latin, Exercitus never means anything else than "armed forces", and to be told that Hengist and his Saxons intended to settle the hash of Vortigern's exercitus by treachery can only mean that they wanted to take out other armed forces, loyal to him, by a sudden assault. Nowhere else does the Hengist legend say that Vortigern had any army, exercitus, other than the Saxons; in fact, its whole doctrine is that Vortigern and his people could not defend themselves; and the fact that the legend's plot is actually against Vortigern's elders suggests that this mention is intrusive. On the other hand, there is a curious echo between this passage and the following, with ut facerent three times over, which reminds me forcibly of the methods of the author of the Annales Romanorum; and we remember that, at the place where the Saxons, feeling betrayed, are deciding for war, Nennius inserted a council of elders (part of the triad which we saw to be his own invention), and that the sentence that describes is markedly different from the rest of the Annales Romanorum passage, with no repetition at all. Now whatever passage originally followed the rest of ch.36, it must have involved a declaration of war; and these two passages, of which the latter seems to involve mention of a Senate sitting such as that certified by Gildas, which summoned the barbarians, seem to follow on well. Finally, the verb hortati sunt - something like "they made furious speeches to each other" - fits in very badly in the context of Hengist and his familia secretly and carefully preparing to carry out a multiple planned assassination, but very well in the context of an angry army, fearing the onset of hunger and exploding with fury: "they made furious speeches to each other, telling each other ut dolum Guorthigirno cum exercitu suo facerent, to make a betrayal against Vortigern and his army". The view of the revolt as dolum, secret betrayal, would of course be British rather than Saxon; but the feelings fit in very well with what may be garnered from Gildas.

^[34]If this is from the Annales Romanorum, and therefore from its evidently historical source, this shows one thing: that by the time the Annales were written there was still a reliable written source that blew the claim of the British aristocracy to have always opposed Vitalinus/Vortigern's policies - embodied in N1 - right out of the water, and that supported Gildas' view that whatever responsibilities, faults, and sins, had led to the disaster, were collective and not vested in one man. This shows, in turn, why great noble houses such as the lowland aristocrats behind such fictions as N1 found it convenient to produce them: the Saxon disaster, so keenly felt (as I showed in the first chapter of this book), must have carried a national sense of guilt and shame that needed to be shifted away from surviving aristocratic houses, on pains of weakening their legitimacy by associating them with the worst catastrophe in British history. This, in turn, shows that many or most of the British noble houses of the Ambrosian age were descended from the Roman senatorial nobility that had taken part in the ancient debacle; which further leads us to the conclusion that Gildas' picture of wholesale depopulation and "flight of the earls" was vastly overdrawn.

^[35]The word piaculum has a range of meanings from expiation to sacrifice for expiation to scapegoat to crime, evil act that needs expiation. Morris translates this as crime pure and simple, but while that was probably how Nennius understood it (and even so, if he turned to the Latin Bible, he would find plenty of instances of piaculum for sacrifice or scapegoat), the older writer from whom he had taken this sentence [see next note] was a trained rhetor with a broader understanding of Latin, who would, without a doubt, have properly understood the gamut of its meanings, and, in particular, the significance of describing a man driven out into the wilderness by the whole nation as pro piaculo. In other words, we need not doubt that at least one early writer - possibly of Gildas' school - saw Vitalinus/Vortigern as a piaculum, a scapegoat driven into the desert, loaded with the execration and ill-luck of British sins; which, in turn, is clearly related to the holy penitent of the Breton cult of St.Gurthiern.

^[36]The ironic little understatement at the end of the sentence, non cum laude, is, to my ear, a rather fine conclusion; and its stylistic felicity does not seem a lucky accident either. This is a survival of the work of someone with a better notion of Latin rhetoric than Nennius, let alone of the serial howler-maker from whom Nennius drew his version of O. The whole sentence, with its ringing list of social polarities - mighty and powerless, bond and free, ecclesiastics and laymen, great and small - savours of conscious rhetoric of the kind we met in Gildas, and sounds like a fragment of the writing of a trained rhetor of Gildas' kind, though not necessarily on Gildas' level of excellence: I doubt whether Gildas would have repeated himself as the author does, with great and small having no difference in meaning from mighty and powerless. The point however is that its kind of rhetoric must go back, at most, to Gildas' age. It sounds like a fragment from a sermon or homiletic letter, presenting Vortigern's awful fate as an exemplum, and yet not without sympathy: the notion of the expelled and exiled king as a piaculum for the whole nation is not unrelated to Gildas' view of the superbus infaustus tyrannus as the designated victim of a whole corrupt order of society and of devastating national stupidity.

^[37]Vortigern’s fortress was also burned down in the night in the *Gesta Germani, as indeed was Benlli’s. On the other hand, it is a fairly obvious picture to imagine.

^[38]Apart from the mystery of Vortigern's death place, discussed in the last chapter, this might also, however, be an echo of a Celtic legend of a multiple - usually triple - death; and in Geoffrey's version, Vortigern's query to Merlin about the time and nature of his own death is a practically inevitable part of such legends, in which the king who asks the question is given a series of apparently contradictory answers which eventually come true in surprising circumstances. The legend of Vortigern's triple death, in turn, may have originated from the notice that no burned remains were found in his fortress - hence the earth swallowed him as the fortress burned - hence he died a multiple death - hence (a necessary part of a Celtic multiple death legend) a sage had predicted it to him. I think it likely that the famous Irish concept of the geis, a sacred prohibition to violate which brings disaster on the hero, may be rooted in such legends of prophecy: just as the druids, being those who know, ought to be able to know the kind, date of birth and future destiny of a child still in its mother's womb, so too they must have been expected to be able to predict the date and kind of a man's death, and hence to be able to tell what things and places - things, perhaps, apparently without any baleful quality of their own, such as being in a certain place at a certain time, or performing a certain act - will result in the death of a particular person, though it would be harmless to anyone else.  From this notion of a negative individual destiny vested in particular times, places and things, and which the sages are capable of foreseeing, it is but one step to attributing the manipulation of those same times, places and things, to the same class of sages; for that matter, most mentions of geissa do not say that someone imposed them, but only that they exist - and that therefore, when they are broken, death will follow. It is that knowledge which ill-intentioned sages and other enemies can manipulate for their own purposes. In the famous death story of CuChulainn, we are not told how it became geis for him to eat the flesh of a dog and to refuse food from anyone: only that it was. It is on that knowledge that some of his many enemies act, offering him part of a cooked dog to eat; from that moment on, his destiny is sealed.

^[39]This hints at a complicated contemporary situation, in which, while Teudebir was still king of Builth - we cannot stretch the poverty of Nennius' Latin to believing that he would use est, present "he is", for a man who was dead as he wrote! - his son Fernmail had claimed the crown of the neighbouring little kingdom. This suggests that the ch.48 claim that Ambrosius had awarded Pascent both Gwrtheyrnion and Builth had a very contemporary resonance, and might be aimed to lend a recent conquest or acquisition the chrism of antiquity and legitimacy. See the next book, ch.1.

^[40]The word impetu here reminds one rather of the kind of Welsh cattle raids of which the accounts of Roman raids in A were indubitably a mythological reflection, than of an actual Roman war of conquest. Along with the triadic form of the story - "three fears of Vortigern: the Picts and Scots, the Romans, Ambrosius" - this suggests that this is a prosecution of the Welsh historical legend rather than any kind of properly historical material. Geoffrey, as so often, has a variant, non-Nennian reading: his three fears of Vortigern are the Picts, the Scots, and Ambrosius, with the Picts as a separate term from the Scots.

^[41]If this came, as I believe, immediately after the tale of his own disastrous second marriage, then the druids’ mention of Vortigern’s “love” for his kingdoms might have an overtone of reproach: you are betraying your own true bride, the land of Britain, with this foreign and pagan woman.

^[42]Strictly speaking, the passage in brackets, which is an editorial addition, is not necessary. As the child is supernaturally wise, he does not have to ask about his own situation or Vortigern’s reasons; and if we start the debate from his question “Who showed this to you?”, it becomes clear that the child is not asking for information, but calling Vortigern’s magicians into question.

^[43]Mention of pushing by the scapulae or shoulder-blades means that the vermes or crawling animals were certainly not worms or snakes, which have no shoulders. Their traditional designation as dragons seems correct.

^[44]This detail of the victorious dragon pursuing the defeated one right out of the borders of the cloth - i.e. of Britain - seems to say that the victorious Ambrosius pursued Vitalinus right out of the island; a detail matched in no other source, and which adds to the overall mystery of the end of Vortigern. The story never tells whether the victorious white dragon ever caught up with the red, and what happened if it did. The best we can make of it is that it seems to belong to the class of legends in which Vortigern escaped; in this version, to obscure exile abroad.

^[45]By the time this was adapted, the place and significance of Gwynessi were still understood; a later gloss explained the location of Caer Gwrtheyrn in the earthwork of Old Carlisle, Wigton, Cumberland. But Nennius himself was quite willing, for dynastic reasons, to say that the dynasty had ruled over Gwrtheyrnion and Built since the days of Ambrosius. Therefore, the fact that he put in the names of region and place shows that he copied his source pretty much verbatim, even when he damages his own dynastic case by so doing..

^[46]This is obviously the end of the central part of the narrative. The proportions of the story show that the brief and sketchy account of Vortimer's career, with its many omissions, is no more than a footnote, rounded off by the resigned remarks about God's will. In other words, the whole legend, in the form Nennius had it, was intended to explain the existence of Caer Gwrtheyrn, the royal arx of Gwynessi; a place which, by Nennius' time, had slipped into the world of old and far-off things, while the Pascentiad dynasty ruled in Builth and Gwrtheyrnion. The fact that it is clearly a derivative version of a previously existing original makes the original even more ancient. Also, the literary form in which it reached Nennius seems out of keeping with the intelligence that could isolate the two most telling and dramatic Gospel episodes to parallel Vortigern's disastrous betrayal of his country; though linguistic, narrative, and religious abilities need not go together, this hardly agrees with the Annales Romanorum style and elementary howlers. The author's clumsy attempt to water down the repetitious style with preciosities such as synonims - revelabo, elucubrabo, propalabo - and exotic forms such as satagam and dixere are marred by his severe misuse of elucubrabo and satagam. It may not even have been his choice, since the preciosities are particularly visible whenever Ambrosius speaks; in other words, he felt compelled to attempt elaborations, despite the inadequacy of his learning, to render the speech of an emperor or sage. What this tells us, then, is that the text Nennius used was by someone with bad Latin and an Annales Romanorum idea of style; yet we have seen that the use of Gospel topoi in the original legend indicates an able and penetrating literary mind with no shortage of Latin Christian learning. In other words, the version of O used by Nennius cannot have been the sixth-century original; indeed, it encloses some misunderstandings - such as in the detail of the miracle of the dragons, which I analyzed earlier - and seems, from what is left, to give a grossly inadequate amount of space to Vortimer and Ronwein. It follows that the unscrupulous and unwise omission of details found in Geoffrey - the assembled Britons dethroning Vortigern, Ronwein poisoning Vortimer - was probably not the fault of Nennius, but of his source, who summarized the original of O in an unbalanced and unintelligent manner, understanding neither the significance of the Vortamo-Rix as the true image of the dynasty's imperial claims (see next chapter), nor the excusable nature of Vortigern's crimes, and was therefore led by his Vortigernid dynastic loyalties to lie about matter of (legendary) fact, in a legend whose original Vortigernid significance he did not recognize.

^[47]This is particularly important: both overall significance and verbal echoes connect it to Vortigern's great fortress of ch.XL The barbarians in aeternum non manebunt in the place where Vortimer is buried, whatever other harbours they might seize elsewhere in Britain; just as the great fortress tutissima a barbaribus gentibus in aeternum erit, though they are doomed to seize the rest of Britain. Clearly, by his near-sacred death, the Vortamo-rix succeeds in the task set his father by the magi, to find a tutissima shelter for all Britain that will survive the barbarians. Vortigern's own Cair Guorthigirn in Gwynessi is described as arcem tutam; but not tutissima, and not significant for the defence of all Britain. That the Vortamo-Rix is said to die of poison at the hand of the villainous mother of all the Saxons is probably (apart from its legendary connection with Celtic heroines and villainesses pouring drinks to heroes) another echo of the story of Ambrosius being poisoned to death by a Saxon villain. This might be part of the overall meaning of the legend of the Vortamo-Rix, which, as I said, represents a Vortigernid claim to the whole theme of the great war against the Saxons: if the idea that the great kings of the past died at the hands of treacherous barbarians - which was certainly a part of the mental equipment of the author of N in the early 600s - was a commonplace, then the legendary Vortamo-Rix must have taken it on himself as part of his imperial image, to out-Ambrosius Ambrosius himself.

^[48]A later gloss says: In Lincolnia enim sepultus est. t si mandatum eius tenuissent, procul dubio per orationes Sancti Germani quidquid pe(t)i(v)er(u)nt, obtinuissent. Like not a few glosses, it makes little sense: "For he is buried in Lincoln. But if they had held to his orders, no doubt they would have obtained whatever they prayed for - sic! - through the prayers of St. Germanus". Reference to the Vortigernid saint of choice is not out of place, but the concept of obtaining through his prayers "whatever they wished for" - and not the specific desired good of keeping the Saxons out - is a pious cliché and strictly out of place. His burial in Lincoln is interesting and might be part of an early version of the Vortimer saga.

^[49]It is interesting how this passage, almost pointless in the course of Nennius' flow of narrative, acqures the power and dignity of a resigned conclusion when it is placed at the end of the Vortigern-Vortimer narrative - as it must be, since it arises almost directly from it and it, in turn, does not carry on after it. It seems certain that this was the conclusion of the document from which Nennius drew the story, and it must follow that, as in the case of the Annales Romanorum, he inserted it at the appropriate places in his compilation pretty much verbatim. I already reached the same conclusion from the survival of the geographical terms Gwynessi and Caer Gwrtheyrn; and the noticeable Latin mistakes in grammar and vocabulary, which are found here and nowhere else, tell the same story. However, much of this story is rather more closely interwoven with the Hengist legend than other sources are with either. The acceptance that the English had a part in the plan of a God who "directs all nations" may hint that this was written after their conversion.

^[50]Interea should mean meanwhile, but in this case it obviously stands for a more colourless kind of time definition.

^[51]Given that cattle have immense importance in Indo-European cultures as sacrificial animals par excellence and natural images of wealth, and that this particular interpretative legend, though applied to the Christian Saints Patrick and Germanus, is indubitably pre-Christian, it seems clear enough that this gesture is what legitimates Cadell as a sacrificer before the saint. Benlli had refused to accept the carrier of the Sacred in the ring of his fortress - a natural place of sacrifice; therefore fire, the dynamic manifestation of the divine in sacrifice, will come from heaven uncontrolled by any priestly craft, and destroy him. Cadell had given the increase of all his wealth - the calf of his cow - to welcome the bearer of the Sacred. His act is parallel to the known Celtic practice of deliberately destroying precious and valuable objects, throwing them in sacred springs and other holy areas, giving wealth away to the Sacred; and the fact that on the next morning he finds his calf alive and well shows what lay at the back of this practice. By giving away the increase of their wealth to the gods, the Celts expected to receive as much back; indeed, as the calf that is returned is the same as has been sacrificed, they probably intended to symbolically give all the increase - sacrificed and unsacrificed - to the gods, and still have the use and enjoyment of it. We remember that the same relationship seems to exist between gold, silver and aes and the sovereign power of Rome in the world of A and Gildas; Rome ultimately owned all precious substances - stamping them with the image of Caesar - but they still circulated in Britain. That is, this ultimate claim over wealth seems to have been a regular feature of Celtic socio-economic practice, applicable to any sovereign authority, whether royal or divine. Cattle, as being both wealth and sacrificial matter, would probably be the equivalent of the oil and wine which Rome claims in the same A passage.

^[52]The thought comes unbidden that it does not take too much effort to believe in a God who has just pulverized an entire fortress!

^[53]If the destruction of the fortress took place on the fourth night after three days and three nights of fast, then the fast must have begun on the evening of the first night; which might perhaps be seen as an echo of the Celtic habit of reckoning days from the previous night.

^[54]...ignem missum de caelo ex improviso cecidit ardente igne caelesti - Good heavens! Would even the author of the Annales Romanorum produce such an atrocious repetition?

^[55]There is nothing in Gildas about the Saxons being exiles; in fact, his story implies close cooperation between settlers and mother country, with the latter paying close attention to the progress of the former and sending "a more extravagant helping of satellites and dogs" to reinforce them when things seemed to be going well. On the other hand, if we take the Hengist of The fight at Finnsburgh to be the same as the Kentish founding hero (and I repeat for the umpteenth time that I have my doubts about the identification) then the view that he was a wrecca, a wandering exile, certainly finds an echo in the legend; which Tolkien and Morris have not failed to point out. (But then, the number of heroic wandering exiles in Germanic legends must run into three figures, from Starkadhr to Grettir to Sigemund.)

^[56]The point of that qui et ipsi fratres erant is rather hard to see. The obvious Latin meaning is "who were also brothers", and implies that other groups of brothers had just been mentioned; which certainly does not correspond to the text as we have it, where no notable group of brothers are present other than Hengist and Horsa themselves.

^[57]Notice the extraordinary association of doctus, educated, with astutus et callidus, crafty and cunning. As the latter only repeat each other, it seems legitimate to assume that the first adjective is repetitious as well, and that Nennius (or his source) understood doctus not as "educated" but as "clever, crafty". If, however, the wording of the passage comes direct from Canterbury, it might be the case that the two concepts, education and craftiness, have to do with Hengist's close connection with Woden, a god both of immoral cunning, and of sacred science and learning. The divine hero I interpreted as his parallel, Romulus, is also connected both with craftiness and with the highest sacred learning.

^[58]Notice how naturally, in this reconstruction, Hengist's meeting with Vortigern follows on the Saxons' first arrival. The Saxons arrive; their war-leader or king looks around and assesses the situation; he decides that Britain is defenceless without more of his own lot - and that at the same time he can increase his power and standing by strengthening his army; he seeks a conference with the king and asks for permission to do so, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that a stronger army would deal better with the king's enemies.

^[59]This bizarre expression for the sea is found in Gildas and the Hisperica Famina, and seems typical of what I have called Nennius' "schoolboy habit" of using interesting, unusual or daring expressions whether or not they are to the point. This strongly suggests that the phrasing of this passage is by Nennius himself, rather than - as with the outtakes from the Annales Romanorum and the like - the Latin of other authors. On the other hand, the legend of Hengist is certainly English/Latin in origin, and Nennius received it in Latin. It seems that his editorial hand may have been heavier on the Hengist and Ronwein/ Vortigern/dragons/Emrys/Vortimer legends - which do seem more thoroughly intertwined in his text, as perusal of this page graphically shows - than on the *Gesta Germani, which seem to have gone in almost unchanged.

^[60]If this clever conceit is Nennius' own invention, it increases my opinion of his literary intelligence.

^[61]This account is shot through with a decidedly Saxon view of the weakness of the Romano-British state, and a vastly exaggerated view of the importance of Saxon drafts to its defence. The legend of Hengist is certainly of late and partly artificial formation, but this group of ideas or prejudices may well go very far back; it certainly expresses the views of an army which felt itself under-regarded and under-paid, or worse, for its fighting services. It would already be anachronistic by the time of Archbishop Theodore, when the legend of Hengist took its definitive form, since by then we are not talking about a minority of armed Saxons defending the island of Britain on behalf of a majority of unmilitary Britons, but - especially in Kent - of a country in which the majority would indubitably seem themselves as Saxon, or rather Jutish; it sounds rather like an ancient prejudice and self-excuse, carried down the generations to excuse the unforgotten and unforgettable first shock of hate, and to justify what can never have been felt as anything but the theft of the land from its orignal masters.

^[62]This is totally unhistorical, and can only represent a Kentish claim to the much later power of Northumbria - which is not only unhistorical, but ridiculous.

^[63]In Latin, this makes no sense - near the Stone of Title? What title? I suggest that this is a translation from English, and that the place is something like Tyttilstan - the Stone of Tittla, an early hero who turns up in the composite and artificial pedigree of the Wuffinga kings of East Anglia.

^[64]Whatever happened to the fourth battle mentioned by Nennius? Only three are described before Vortimer dies. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle does not help: it, too, only describes three, and the description seems equally mangled.

^[65]This is out of sequence with Hengist's political and cynical notion that it is better to keep the king alive and in their power, and clearly represents Nennius' editorial hand bringing in an element from the Welsh legend. It is even inserted between three words that go together, sed eum... tenete, "but... hold him": it seems to have been literally forced in.

^[66]For almost a century, textbooks on this subject have unreflectingly quoted the continental Saxon chronicle of Widukind of Corvey for a parallel for the treacherous Saxon parley in which the Saxon leader shouts (in his own tongue) Eu, nimet saxas! "Hey, seize the Saxon knives!" - WIDUKINDUS, Res Gestae Saxonicae, Moscow 1989, Bk.1. The parallel is worthless. First, Widukindus (925-c.1004) is a good century and a half later than Nennius and draws on a literate culture barely reaching to the days of Charles the Great; he cannot be used as a witness for a continental Saxon tradition earlier than the English account which reached Nennius in the days of King Mervyn, from a written tradition going back, at a bare minimum, to those of Archbishop Theodore. Secondly, his account is considerably less well structured than Nennius'. To begin with, it occurs at a parley between defeated Saxons and victorious Thuringians; now, the point in the Nennian legend is that the British did not speak Teutonic and therefore could not understand Hengist's treacherous order - but the Thuringians? Second, Nennius' treacherous parley takes place in a time of feigned peace, under the presidency of the restored Vortigern; in Widukind, it happens in the middle of war and when the Thuringians are winning - so why would they want to parley at all? Thirdly and most importantly, Widukind as good as signals where he got his story from: the Saxons of those ancient days, he says, wore big Saxon knives "such as the English use to this day, carrying on the fashion of the ancient tribe", quibus usque hodie Angli utuntur, morem gentis antiquae sectantes. The only point of this unnecessary statement is that the big saxae at the core of the story were an English habit. It was Widukind, or a predecessor, who imitated the story from the English, not the reverse. What the story does however signal is that the legend of Hengist arose among a group which thought it natural to call themselves "Saxons" rather than "English", in other words not among the main body of the English; which, in turn, agrees with my theory that it is a specific and local Kentish affair, originally quite separate from whatever intellectual life went on among the English bodies between East Anglia and the Trent.

^[67]The ending of this chapter seems corrupt. According to the Morris edition, the rest of the sentence is an interpolation; on the other hand, it is clear that the last few words do not complete a sentence.

History of Britain, 407-597 is copyright © 2002, Fabio P. Barbieri. Used with permission.

Comments to: Fabio P. Barbieri