Yesterday was one of those fun days you hasve from time to time. After a lazy morning with mi lass we met a few folk on Dalmeny Street Park, our local spot of greenery in Edinburgh. Two days previously I had been babysitting the Bendrix’s daughter, who likes the wicked playpark in the park. This takes up half of the park, the other being the meeting point for local dog owners, who love letting their pets off teh leash to run around ina butt-sniffing canine commingling. Anyhow, while Rocket – the bendrix’s half spaniel half labrador, concieved unexpectedly at last years audio soup – was running about, one of the aforesaid dog-owners noised me up about the forthcoming SCRUFTS. This information proved priceless & two days later we were back at the park, with the Bendrix in a highly competetive mood – he even came second in the human throwing contest!

For a small donation, each dog was allowed unlimited entry to the events & also a bag of home-made doggy sweets. Rocket was entered into every competion, not winning anything but coming a creditable third in the Waggy Tail Contest! Still, he’s only a pup, & the Bendrix already has a strict training regimne lined up for the next 12 months. While all this was happening, I was sharing around my birthday gin. I turned 37 last Tuesday, an awkeward day for a rave, but in the middle of two weekends. The first I’d spent at Eden festival, only a few miles from the old Jock Stock site, & indeed full of Jockstockers. It was a great old time, my highlight being COLONEL MUSTARD & THE DIJONS, a band straight from the Happy Monday’s School of Rock. My actual birtdhay treat was a trip to the Cameo to see the Stone Roses movie, while the following Saturday found me eating a fine Indian meal home-cooked by Ellie’s pal, Clare.

After SCRUFTS was finished, me & Ellie traversed town to spend the rest of the day with her dad – it was father’s day after all. The whole family is tennis mad, & we watched And Murray win the Queen’s Club tournament, which meant everyone was in a great mood. A taxi ride later & we were in the New Town & the Chez Jules restaurant for some proper tasty French cuisine. It was time to try – for the first time in my life, mind, the very famous ‘cuisses de grenouille’ – i.e. Frog’s Legs. This was followed by côte de beouf (steak) avec pommes dauphinnoise (creammy potatoes) & in due course my opinion of the French changed completely – these guys can cook!

Finally on the drunken, full-bellied walk home, I came across a couple of hulk Smash hands, which amused me no-end as I punched walls on the way home, the hands & shaking calling out stuff like, ‘Hulk SMAASSSHHHH….. Dont make me angry, you wont like it when Im angry!” Brilliant. At one point I was walking passed some pikeys ina wee park, did the smash & suddenly one of them came running out to fight me, taking up a ninja pose only a few feet away. However, he soon saw saw the gloves & on showing them their comedy capacities we were soon the best of friends!

For many centuries the true identity of King Arthur has been obscured by two separate entities. The first were the medieval romances which added so much fancy to his biography, such as many-towered Camelot & the Holy Grail. The second was modern Arthurian scholarship, a gaggle of blinkered academics who have come to the rather strange conclusion that Arthur did not, in fact, exist! However, after a long litological dig (literary archaeology) I have indeed found out the identity of Arthur – he was a Gothic general in the Byzantine legions who ranged all over Europe in the early sixth century AD. Wherever he went he left a trail, but as the name Peter differs according to which language it is uttered in (French = Pierre, Danish = Pedyr), so too was Arthur’s name different in varying regions. Add to this the oral corruptions & scribal mistakes that abounded through the barely literate Dark Ages, then as we shall see Arthur’s name & identity kaliedoscoped into manifold splinters. This was caused by what by what I have identified as The Chisper Effect, (after the children’s parlour game of Chinese Whispers) where words are corrupted & altered as they pass from ear to mouth. As an example of the Effect in action, let us examine the following sequence of names;

ELIFFER – ELIFERT – ALATHORT – ALATHAR – ELEUTHER – ELEUTHERIUS – ELIODORUS

At first glance they seem seven different men. However, four of the names were cited by different sources as being the father of a certain Peredur – ELIFFER, ELIFERT, ELEUTHER & ELIDYR. The first two names were even placed side-by-side in a medieval chronicle known as the Annales Cambrae, showing the original compiler of the text was working from different sources – a chisper that was taking place right before his eyes, as in;

573 – The battle of Arfderydd – between the sons of ELIFFER and Gwenddolau son of Ceidio; in which battle Gwenddolau fell; Merlin went mad.
580 - Gwrgi and Peredur – sons of ELIFERT – died.

That ELIFERT is also ELIFFER is made evident by medieval Welsh Triads which read; … Gwgon Gwron son of Peredur son of ELIFFER of the Great Retinue (Three Prostrate Chieftains) The spelling Eliffer can also be seen in a genealogy of northern Brythonic kings known as the Descent of the Men of the North (Boneddy y Gwr y Gogledd) , which reads;

Gvrgi a Pheredur meibon ELIFFER Gosgorduavr m Arthwys m Mar m Keneu m Coel

This gives us more information on Eliffer, who was once a king of the Hen Ogledd, that is the old north between the Humber-Mersey line & the Firths of Forth & Clyde. He also seems to have been a famous war-leader, for the epithet ‘Gosgorduavr,’ means ‘of the great retinue/warband.’ In another genealogy (Harleian 6), a chisper of the syllable ‘f’ to ‘th’ can be seen, as in; Gurci ha Peretur mepion ELEUTHER cascord maur map letlum map Ceneú map Coylhen. This ‘th’ chisper is important, for it gives us the central component of King Arthur’s name. Returning to the list of names given above, we see that between ELIFERT & ELEUTHER are placed the names ALATHORT & ALATHAR. Again, these are different 6th century versions of the same person, & it must be noted that the chisper effect of placing a ‘t’ to the end of the name is identical to that which occurred with ELIFFER & ELIFERT. In this instance, where Jordanes gives us ALATHORT John of Antioch calls him ALATHAR. He was the Magister Utriusquae Militae of Thrace, i.e. the master of both cavalry & infantry (utriusquae means both). Both Jordanes & John of Antioch tell us how he fought alongside Hypatius for the emperor Anastasius against the gothic rebel-leader Vitalian (513 AD), with Jordanes adding he was a Goth.

The next Arthurian avatar in the chain is ELEUTHERIUS whose name appears in a letter by Severus of Antioch, sent to Misael the Chamberlain, sent during the episcopacy at some pointbetween 513 & 518, which states proclaims a; ‘Glorious sacellar the lord Eleutherius.’ The sacellarship was a role in the Byzantine government akin to that of Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, a rank which came with the command of military units based in Constantinople. The role also corresponds to that of the ‘Grand Curator,’ found in another letter by Severus (515 AD), adressed to Hypatius, which proclaims ‘the illustrious HELIODORUS, your curator.’ . The name change may have been delibarate, with Severus writing to men who spoke different languages (Hypatius/Misael the Chamberlian), or unintentential, through the Syraic translator of the letters – Athanasius II of Antioch – & the transliterations of later scribes. A link to the avatars comes in the letter to Hypatius, which connects HELIODORUS to of the city of Augusta, (Augusta Traiana), the second largest city in Thrace, which corresponds with ALATHAR’s title of MVM for Thrace. Another link between these two avatars is found in The ‘Book of Pontiffs,’ a ninth century collection of biographies of the popes, stating that during the papacy of Hormisdas (514-523), two bishops named Ennodius & Peregrinus were flung out of Constantinople by Anastasius; ‘In fury the emperor threw them out by a postern gate & set them on a dangerous ship, along with soldiers & the magistriani & preafectiani ELIODORUS & Demetrius.’ The soldiers on board this ‘dangerous ship’ were led by a Magister, which connects (H)ELIODORUS to the MVM for Thrace. The sailing took place at some point between the 28th July 516 (when a letter was received in Constantinople by Anastasis via an imperial embassy from Rome) & the 11th July 517, (when Anastasius broke off negotiations with Rome following the failed embassy of Ennodius & Peregrinus). Surely, then, these men are all one & the same, supported by their arrival in, & disappearance from, Byzantine politics, over a space of only four years (513-516).

Returning to our chisper-chain of seven names once more, we can see it weaves between Byzanine & British avatars with regularity, suggesting that they should be the same person. The dates certainly fit, for as the father of Pheredur (D.580), the activity of ELIFFER/ELIFERT/ELEUTHER can easily be dated to the early decades of the sixth century. As we have seen, another solid connection between the two men’s ‘biographies’ comes with their military leadership. The forces that ALATHAR/ELIODORUS was said to have commanded – both cavalry & infantry – could well have been perceived as ELIFFER’s ‘Great Warband’ by Brythonic historians. This Brytho-Byzantine connection is reinforced through Peredur, who in the oldest version of the Welsh tale, Peredur son of Efrawg, found in a manuscript known as Peniarth 7, spends 14 years with the empress of Constantinople. It is while Peredur sojurned in the Byzantine capital that Procopius names a certain Pharos the Herulian fighting alongside Belisarius during the great reconquista of territories lost by the Roman empire to the Visogoths & Vandals in the 5th century. Again, let us observe the Chisper Effect in action to ascertain how Pheredur (the oldest spelling of Peredur) was derived from Pharos the Herulian. Beginning with the latter, he would have appeared as Pharos Eril, the epithet being found on inscriptions in Scandinavia.

Pharos-Eril/Irul ————— Parc-ival

I have looked at this deeper in another post (see….) In shortParcival is the name used for Peredur by the 12th Century German writer Wolfram von Eschanbach, who stated the original source as being written in Arabic, then translated into Provencal French, from which he then wrote down the name Parcival. This translation & retranslation opens up multiple possibilities of chispering, & by simple reading aloud the two names shows how similar they indeed are. This in turn gives us a direct link between ELIFFER & ALATHAR, for as the latter was described as a Goth, so too can be described ELIFFER’s son, Peredur, i.e. Pharos the Herulian, whose tribe was described by Pliny & Tacitus (1CE) as being Gothic.

We are now in a position to paint a portrait of a rather interesting dark-age figure, whose name appears in several forms, of which we shall us choose Alathar as the principal. His biography tells us;

1 – He was a king in the North of Britain
2 – He took a high-ranking position in the Byzantine Empire
3 – He was a Goth with connections to Thrace
4 – He was considered a great man among his peers (illustrious & glorious)
5 – He was a military leader of major forces
6 – His son was Pheredur/Pharos the Herulian

It is now time to turn to the main avatar himself, ARTHUR, derived from ALATHAR through a common chisper; the rhotacism that changes l’s to r’s found, for example, Old Romanian, Old Portuguese, & the Norman poets. Through traces of his existence we can connect his byzantine avatars with his British. Seminal to this are a great number of pottery sherds found in Tintagel, Cornwall, which legend tells us was the birthplace of Arthur himself, asserted as being, ‘Only a comparatively brief importation from the Medittaranean lasting from c AD 475- cAD 550 at the most,’ *** (2). The consistency of Tintagelware is made up from broken sherds of amphorae which once used to store olive oil or wine. Byzantine in origin, they suggest they were once part of the supplies that sailed from Constantinople with a military force.A quater of all the remains were found at Tintagel, suggesting this was the main entry point for the forces involved, & it interesting that at the majority of the other sites where Tintagelware is found, we can taste a trace of Arthur. Of these, South Cadbury Hillfort was even thought to be Camelot itself.

The two oldest sources for Arthur paint a picture of a less-than-noble warrior who fought 12 battles against the Saxon invaders of Britain in the early sixth century. Each recension of the Historia Brittonum, written over the period 550-650, gives us a slightly differing version of Arthur’s passage; so to simplify matters I have synthesized them into a single account, being;

Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons in those days, but Arthur himself was the dux bellorum. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror.

His first battle was at the mouth of the river which is called Glein. His second, third, fourth, and fifth battles were above another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region of Linnuis. The sixth battle was above the river which is called Bassas. The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon.. The eighth battle was near the fortress of Guinnion, in which Arthur carried the image of holy Mary ever virgin on his shoulders; and the pagans were put to flight on that day. And through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the blessed Virgin Mary his mother there was great slaughter among them. The ninth was at hthe City of Legion, which is called Cair Lion. The tenth battle was waged on the banks of a river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought on the mountain which is called Agnet. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of the Almighty.

And while they were being defeated in all the battles, they were seeking assistance from Germany and their numbers were being augmented many times over without interruption. And they brought over kings from Germany that they might reign over them in Britain, right down to the time in which Ida reigned, who was son of Eobba. He was the first king in Bernicia, i.e., in Berneich.

ARTHUR here is not a king, but a Dux Bellorum, an evidently Roman military title meaning ‘Duke of Battles.’ This connects with his Byzantine roots, & that, ‘there were many more noble than himself,’ links to his Gothic roots. Nennius ends the twelve battles with the onset of the reign Ida, said by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have begun in 547, which fits in with Arthur death at Camlann in 538, given by the other of our oldest Arthurian sources, the Welsh chronicle called the Annales Cambrae:

517 – The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights on his shoulders and the Britons were the victors.
538 – The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell: and there was plague in Britain and Ireland.

These dates fit perfectly with our Arthurian avatars. Indeed, As ELIODORUS, we saw him leaving Constantinople in 516 with a ship full of soldiers probably on their way to fight the Battle of Badon the following year. We can also match ARTHUR’S first battle – fought at the mouth of the River Glein – to an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;

501 A.D. This year Porta and his two sons, Beda and Mela, came into Britain, with two ships, at a place called Portsmouth. They soon landed, and slew on the spot a young Briton of very high rank.

Portsmouth lies on edge of the Solent, which is something of a giant estuary fed by several rivers. Looking over the waters there to this day still stands virtually intact the citadel of Portchester (Portus Adurni), the greatest example of a Roman Sea-fortress in the world, defending Britain’s best harbour at Portsmouth. But which of the rivers which feed the Solent is the Glein? The very name appears in the the Ravenna Cosmography written 700 AD, which sites the place-name Clauinio/Clauimo, while similar geographical Roman text, the Antonine Itinerary, dated to c.200 AD, sites the Roman settlement of Clausentum 20 miles west of Chichester & 10 miles from Winchester, suggesting Bitterne, on the mouth of todays River Itchen, was the site of Clausentium. Thus the River Glein would be toady’s River Itchen. That Arthur fought at Portsmouth is confirmed by a the beautiful old Welsh elegy, Geraint Son of Erbin, which briefly mentions Arthur fighting in a cavalry battle at a place called Llongborth, which means ‘ship–harbour’ in Welsh – a perfect match to Portsmouth. In addition, the same poem tells us Geraint died in the battle, which connects sweetly with the ASC ‘s description of the death of a, ‘Young Briton of very high rank.’ The relevant stanzas read;

In Llongborth I saw Arthur,
And brave men who hewed down with steel,
Imperator, and conductor of the toll.

In Llongborth Geraint was slain,
A brave man from the region of Dyvnaint,
And before he was overpowered, he committed slaughter.

At Llongborth, we see Arthur fighting side by side with Prince Geraint of Dyvnaint – i.e. Devon, which formed a part of the old celtic country Dumnonia, which roughly corresponds to the modern day West Country of England. Geraint would have been ‘more noble’ than Arthur, but as Nennius he was given command of the armies, gaining the title of Dux Bellorum, or ‘War-Chief.’ That he won the victory comes from his title as Imperator (amerauder in the original Brythonic), which does not in this case mean emperor, but rather the honorifical title assumed by Roman military commanders, proclaimed as such by their victorious troops on the very field of battle. It seems that it was this first great victory that propelled ARTHUR to assume command of the Brythonic resistance.

It is now time to look at the other Arthurian Avatars which were created through the Chisper Effect.

ARTHURUS – ARTHWYS – ALTHIAS – ELAPHIAS

ARTHURUS/ARTHURIUS is the name used in several Saints Lives for Arthur, placing hinm mainly in South West Britain. ARTHWYS is a name used by the ‘Descent’ genealogy for an early king of Northern Britain. It must be noticed that one lineage shows him to be the father Elifer, i.e. himself. ALTHIAS was a Byzantine general who fought in Africa c.535, who Procopius tells us won a personal duel against a Vandal leader & ‘won a great name in consequence of this deed throughout all Libya.’ This exlpains why Arthur was famous in Carthage, as given in Alain de Lille’s 12th century, “Whither has not the flying fame spread and familiarized the name of Arthur the Briton, even as far as the empire of Christendom extends? Who, I say, does not speak of Arthur the Briton, since he is almost better known to the peoples of Asia than to the Britanni, as our palmers returning from the East inform us? The Eastern peoples speak of him, as do the Western, though separated by the width of the whole earth… Rome, queen of cities, sings his deeds, nor are Arthur’s wars unknown to her former rival Carthage.‘ This passage suggest Arthur was active in both NW Europe & the Byzantine Empire, confirming the Arthurian avatars. Indeed, it is in the Latin dialect spoiken in Provencal France that an ELAPHIAS appears as a Gothic nobleman. Through him we can link ourselves to the ELIFFER-ELIODORUS chain, from which we return to ALATHAR once more, as in;

ELIODORUS – ELIDYR – ALADWR – ALATHAR

ELIDYR appears alongside ELIFFER & ARTHWYS in the ‘Descent’ genealogies as a king of the north. Indeed, his son, Lywarch Hen, tells us; ‘I used to have brothers. It was better when they were the young whelps of great Arthur, the mighty fortress.’ Another ancient Welsh poem called Kadeir Teyrnon (the Chair of the Soverign) mentions The tribe of ALADWR in association with ARTHUR & also places his activities in the North along Hadrian’s wall.

With Alathar as the central cross, we can create a chisper-chain in the form of a figure of 8. Each name shows only a slight phonetic change from those on either side, & each can be connected to King Arthur in varying degress of certainty. Other Arthurian avatars do not quite fit into the chisper-chain, but instead are possible offshoots. According to the Chronicle of John Malalas, a cetain ERYTHIUS held the title of Patricius in 527, & was also the member of the senate, with a title of vir illustris. The title of Patricius was found in connection with Arthur on a seal at Westminster last seen in the 16th century. A certain king HELIADES was said by the romances to have fought at the Battle of Camlann, while a King HELIAS led an army againts King Mark of Cornwall. There was an ELIUD, said to be the father of St Serf, who appears to have been the Byzantine proconsul of Jerusalem. There was an ALD, a Goth who was fighting for the Byzantines in Armenia. Finally there was also a HIARTUR, of whom Saxo Grammaticus tells us fought against a certain Rolf in Denmark, in order to place Hother on the throne. This is a perfect example of teh chisper effect, for remmebering the names of Hiartur, Rolf, & Hother, let us look at the following passage from Geoffrey of Monmouth;

Fitting forth his fleets accordingly, he made first of all for Norway, being minded to set the crown thereof upon the head of Lot, his sister’s son. For Lot was grandson of Sichelm, King of Norway, who at that time had died leaving the kingdom unto him. But the Norwegians disinclined to receive him, and had raised one Riculf to the kingly power, deeming that, so they garrisoned their cities, he would be able to withstand Arthur himself. Accordingly, when Arthur, as I had begun to tell, landed upon the coast of Norway, King Riculf met him with the whole people of the kingdom and did battle; but after much blood had been shed upon both sides, the Britons at last prevailed, and making an onset, slew Riculf with a number of his men. When they had won this victory they overran and set fire to the cities, scattering the country folk, nor did they cease to give full loose to their cruelty until they had submitted the whole of Norway as well as Denmark unto the dominion of Arthur.

Thus…

Hother = Loth
Rolf = Riculf
Hiartur = Arthur

HENRY WENTWORTH BELLSMITH

“Murder, adultery, selfishness, hypocrisy, everything we call evil or sinful are equally meritorious with the most spotless purity of soul and body … sin becomes a misnomer and crime another name for virtue”

The above words were written in the 1890’s by an Anglo-Canadian in his forties called Henry Wentworth Bellsmith, of whom all evidence suggests he was a member of the notorious Ripper Gang which stalked the streets of East London in 1888 during an ‘Autumn of Terror,’ brutally claiming the lives of five Whitechapel prostitiutes. Born in London in 1849, he moved to Toronto in 1878 with his wife & children. However, by early 1888 he had separated from his wife & moved to London & at first took up a job with the Toronto Truss Company.

It was on hearing of his old lodger in 1889 that year-old suspicions were reawakened in a certain boarding house keeper, E Callaghan, who strongly suspected Bellsmith of being the Ripper. He stated that Bellsmith was a multilingual mysogonist who kept three loaded guns in his rooms, who had lodged with him in Finsbury Street between April & August 1888, leaving his room with bloodstained bedsheets a few days after the death of Martha Tabram (August 7th), a possible Ripper victim. He also stated that Bellsmith had at some point gone to America, but must have returned in 1889, adding, “We all regarded him as a lunatic, obsessed with women of the street, who he said should be drowned.” A certain Dr Forbes Winslow took a statement from Callaghan – dated Aug 8, 1889, 20 Gainsborough Sq, Victoria Park – & on investigations became positive that Bellsmith was the Ripper – the Jamaica Gleaner reports (24 October 1889);

“I know for a fact,” said the doctor, “that this man is suffering from a violent form of religious mania, which attacks him and passes off at intervals. I am certain that there is another man in it besides the one I am after, but my reasons for that I cannot state. The police will have nothing to do with the capture. I am making arrangements to station six men round the spot where I know my man is, and he will be trapped.” The public had laughed at him, the doctor went on to say, but on the Tuesday before the last body was discovered he had received information that a murder would be committed in two or three days. In conclusion, Dr. Winslow remarked, “I am as certain that I have the murderer as I am of being here.”

Winslow told the police that Bellsmith could be found at 8AM every morning at St Paul’s Cathedral, but chose to ignore him. This, then, is the closest the police ever got to catching this particular member of the Ripper Gang. That he was not working alone was strongly hinted at by Dr Winslow who stated; ‘I am certain that there is another man in it besides the one I am after.’ Perhaps this was the man placed by the People newspaper (7 October 1888) at the murder of the third victim, Elizabeth Stride;

THE DOUBLE-ACT

The police have also received information that about half past ten on the Saturday night a man aged about 33 years entered a public house in Batty street, Whitechapel, and while the customers in the house were in conversation about the Whitechapel murders, he stated that he knew the Whitechapel murderer, and that they would hear about him in the morning, after which he left.

This leads us to the only witness account to a Ripper murder that actually seems to observe a murder in progress, that of Elizabeth Stride, the 4th of the canonical five. The witness concerned was a Hungarian immigrant Jew named Israel Schwartz, who through a translator gave the following account to the Star newspaper;

When he first came homewards about a quarter before one he first walked down Berner Street to see if his wife had moved. As he turned the corner from Commercial Road he noticed some distance in front of him a man walking as if partially intoxicated. He walked on behind him, and presently he noticed a woman standing in the entrance to the alleyway where the body was found. The half-tipsy man halted and spoke to her. The Hungarian saw him put his hand on her shoulder and push her back into the pass- age, but feeling rather timid of getting mixed up in quarrels, he crossed to the other side of the street. Before he had gone many yards, however, he heard the sound of a quarrel, and turned back to learn what was the matter, but just as he stepped from the kerb a second man came out of the doorway of a public house a few doors off, and shouting out some sort of warning to the man who was with the woman, rushed forward as if to attack the intruder. The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in the second man’s hand, but he waited to see no more. He fled incontinently to his new lodgings. He described the man with the woman as about 30 years of age, rather stoutly built, and wearing a brown moustache. He was dressed respectably in dark clothes and felt hat. The man who came at him with a knife he also describes, but not in detail. He says he was taller than the other but not so stout, and that his moustaches were red. Both men seemed to belong to the same grade of society.

The account given to the Star differs in a few places to that given to Chief Inspector Swanson earlier that day, which is understandable given that he, as the Star tells us,’ Could not speak a word of English, but came to the police station accompanied by a friend, who acted as interpreter.’ However, the differences are relatively minor such as the first man trying to pull Stride from the passage & the second man was holding a pipe, not a knife. Despite the darkness of the night, Schwartz gave the police a fairly detailed description of the Rippers, which when combined with those of the Star account, give us the following;

Man 1 (who threw the woman down) – 30 years old / 5 ft 5 in / fair complexion / dark hair / small brown moustache / full face / broad shouldered / respectable dress: dark jacket and trousers / black felt cap with peak / stoutly built / brown moustache

Man 2 (who warned man 1 & chased Schwartz down the street) – 35 / 5 ft / 11in /healthy complexion / light brown hair / respectable dress: dark overcoat / old black hard felt hat, wide brim / had a clay pipe or knife in his hand / Not so stout / red moustache
There are three tallies between the man 2 of Scwarzt & the description Callaghan made of Bellsmith , as in;

5’11 // 5’10
Healthy complexion // Dark complexion
Respectable dress // Respectable dress

We can now assume that Bellsmith had an accomplice during the murders, the peak-capped wearing short, stocky 30 year-old we shall call from her on in , THE SAILOR. His identity at this point remains unknown, but it was observed during the Autumn of Terror that the murders all took place on the weekends certain ships were berthed in London.

A further link between Bellsmith & the murder of Elizabeth Strude comes from another witness called Matthew Packer, who tells us (through the Daily News – 15th November); On Tuesday evening two men came to my house and bought twelve shillings’ worth of rabbits off me. They then asked me if I could give an exact description of the man to whom I sold the grapes, and who was supposed to have committed the Berner-street and Mitre-square murders, as they were convinced they knew him, and where to find him. In reply to some questions by Packer, one of the men said ‘Well, I am sorry to say that I firmly believe it is my own cousin. He is an Englishman by birth but some time ago he went to America, stayed there a few years, and then came back to London about seven or eight months ago. On his return he came to see me, and his first words were “Well, Boss, how are you?” He asked me to have some walks out with him, and I did round Commercial-street and Whitechapel. I found that he had very much altered on his return, for he was thoroughly harem scare-em. We met a lot of Whitechapel women, and when we passed them he used to say to me, “How do you think we used to serve them where I come from? Why, we used to cut their throats and rip them up. I could rip one of them up and get her inside out in no time.” He said, “We Jack Rippers killed lots of women over there. You will hear of some it being done over here soon, for I am going to turn a London Jack Ripper… The man who states he is the Ripper’s cousin is giving us a perfect blueprint of the activities of Bellsmith, who spent a decade in America before returning to London in March-April 1888, which was indeed 7-8 months before the above news story appeared.

Bellsmith, or at least a man strongly resembling his description, turns up in another Whitechapel boarding house, as reported by the Port Philip Herald (Australia) 22 November 1890. The story is similar to that of Callaghans, who on seeing Bellsmith in 1889 remembered his activities in 1888. In this case, an unnamed landlady sees her lodger in 1890, & remembered how he had raised suspicions in her of his being the Ripper. She tells us how a multilingual, revolver-owning Canadian rented her room who, ‘Was a man who could so alter his appearance that if you met him in the street once you would not know him again.’ She described him as being of middle-height, with a small, fair moustache and light brown hair, an exact match for the description of Man 2 made by Schwarzt in relation to the Elizabeth Stride murder. The landlady also tells us that in 1890, her old lodger had returned to London with a new wife in her mid-twenties, which fits in neatly with what we know about Bellsmith, who did indeed remarry Carolin Taylor (b.1866) in 1889.

THE LOOK OUT COUPLE

Knowing that Jack had an accomplice, we can now understand why he was given several descriptions by eye-witnesses, the confusion of which ensured his, or rather their, elusiveness. It has often been noted how amazingly the Ripper eluded capture, despite such a brazen modus operandi of killing prostitutes in the streets. On one occasion a policeman patrolled a section of Whitechapel & found nothing untoward, then only ten minutes later returned to the same place & found a dead woman who had suffered crude, organ-removing surgery. It seems, then, that a look-out system was in place, & at three of the murders, witnesses place a man & a woman gently carousing while only feet away a ghastly murder was taking place.

That a woman was part of the Ripper Gang helps us to clear up two perennial mysteries of the case. The first is the female DNA found on the licker of the stamp that sent the Openshaw Ripper latter, said to be the most viable Ripper letter. The second is that on the morning of the last murder, witnesses swore they saw Mary Jane Kelly in the street at 9AM, when she had evidently been slain at around 4.00AM. Detectives investigating the room in which Mary was butchered discovered the charred remains of a burnt bonnet, & what appears to have happened is that the female member of the Riper Gang has swapped her blood-stained clothes for those of MJK. Confirmation comes through the description of a 5’5”, stoutly-built 30-year-old man said to be seen with MJK at 9AM, an exact match to THE SAILOR.

At the murder of Annie Chapman, one witness describes hearing what sounded like a body dropping against a fence, while five minutes later another witness describes a man & a woman cavorting on the street-side of the fence. Her description is vague, but she gives the man a dark complexion & was perhaps over 40, which fits in with Bellsmith (shabby genteel, foreign, dark complexion, age 39 at the murders). Thus, while Chapman was being brutalized on the other side of the fence, the couple were keeping an eye on the street.

At the murder of Elizabeth Stride, a resident of 36 Berner St, Fanny Mortimer, describes; A young man and his sweetheart were standing at the corner of the street, about twenty yards away, before and after the time the woman must have been murdered, but they told me they did not hear a sound. Evening News, 1st October 1888

At the murder of Catherine Eddowes a man & woman were seen quietly conversing at the entrance to Mitre Square ten minutes ten minutes before the body was found. The woman was standing facing the man with her hand on his chest, but not in a manner to suggest that she is resisting him. Some reports say that the clothes of the women were said only to be only similar to those of Catherine Eddowes, introducing doubt & the possibility the two women were not the same person. An amalgamation of the descriptions of the man give us; 30-35 years old, 5 foot 7 inches tall, fair complexion, brown hair small fair mustache (some said descriptions said big) with a medium build. He was wearing a pepper and salt colored jacket which fits loosely, a muffler, a grey cloth cap with a peak of the same color. He has a reddish handkerchief knotted around his neck. Over all he gives the appearance of being a sailor.

Let us now compare this description with that of THE SAILOR described by Isaac Schwartz as having killed Elizabeth Stride less than an hour before Eddowes was slain.

30 years old // 30-35 years old,
5 ft 5 in // 5 foot 7 inches tall
fair complexion // fair complexion
dark hair // brown hair
small brown moustache // small fair mustache
respectable dress: dark jacket and trousers // pepper and salt colored jacket
black felt cap with peak // a grey cloth cap with a peak of the same color

The tallies are such that they are possibly the same person, & the SAILOR had taken on the role of Look-Out for the second murder of the night. We can definitely place him in that part of Whitechapel only a few minutes before the murder by a report in the ‘Star’ newspaper of October 1: “From two different sources we have the story that a man, when passing through Church Lane at about half past one, saw a man sitting on a doorstep and wiping his hands. As everyone is on the look-out for the murderer the man looked at the stranger with a certain amount of suspicion, whereupon he tried to conceal his face. He is described as a man who wore a short jacket and sailor’s hat.”

FRANCIS TUMBLETY

It is now time to look at the final member of the Ripper Gang, Francis Tumblety, who in recent years has become one of the chief candidates for the elusive serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. His name surfaced again in the 1990’s, after the discovery of a letter by an English policeman named Stewart Evans. It was written in 1913 by John J. Littlechild, Chief of CID Special Branch during the murders, who tells us;

I never heard of a Dr D. in connection with the Whitechapel murders but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr. T. (which sounds much like D.) He was an American quack named Tumblety and was at one time a frequent visitor to London and on these occasions constantly brought under the notice of police, there being a large dossier concerning him at Scotland Yard. Although a ‘Sycopathia Sexualis’ subject he was not known as a ‘Sadist’ (which the murderer unquestionably was) but his feelings toward women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record. Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offences and charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail, jumped his bail, and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne and was never heard of afterwards. It was believed he committed suicide but certain it is that from this time the ‘Ripper’ murders came to an end.

Those ‘unnatural offences’ were acts of homosexuality against five men over the entire period of the murders. The first incident took place on the 31st August, the very date of the killing of Mary Ann Nichols, the first of the five canonical Ripper victims. This is only the first of many coincidences that must surely put beyond reasonable doubt that Tumblety was Jack the Ripper. However, it appears that he was in fact the mastermind of a cult of murder which I shall now present as the RIPPER GANG. Indeed, the first instincts of the police were that the murders were perpetrated by a gang, as in; ‘One of the chief theories of the police with respect to the matter is that the sort of “High Rip” gang exists in the neighbourhood.’(Echo – London, U.K. – 1st September 1888)

Evans & Gainey present many points which strongly suggest Tumblety was the murderer, being;

1 – He was in Whitechapel at the time
2- He was arrested for “unnatural acts” during that period (homosexuality) & released on bail
3- After he fled Britain, the murders stopped
4 – British detectives followed him to the USA.
5- He was remembered for collecting female uteri in jars & extreme mysogony
6 – His wife had worked as a prostitute whilst married to him
7- He had pretensions of being a doctor
8 – He was known to use aliases
9 – Scotland Yard asked the San Francisco police for a copy of his handwriting in October 1888 – before he was arrested
10 – Was suspected of murders in the US, & was tried for manslaughter
11 – Rings in his inventory upon his death matched those taken from —
The only known material ‘trophies’ taken from a victim by the killer were the two imitation gold rings (brass) taken from Chapman
12 – Peddled porn in his childhood
13 – Was wealthy enough to change both clothes & residence frequently

We can now tie Tumblety to Bellsmith through an account given by the anonymous landlady who seems to have had Harry Wentworth Bellsmith lodging with her, whoremembers that he had a brother who visited him two times. She described him as Canadian, being much older than Bellsmith & residing in the neighborhood of Oxford street. Let us presume for one moment that this ‘doctor’ was Tumblety, who would have been 56 at the time of the murders fitting his elderly description. That he lived in the vicinity of Oxford Street seems to be the foundation of a news story published ten days after the double killings.

A certain member of the Criminal Investigation Department has recently journeyed to Liverpool and there traced the movements of a man which have proved of a somewhat mysterious kind. The height of this person and his description are generally ascertained, and among other things he was in possession of a black leather bag. This man suddenly left Liverpool for London, and for sometime occupied apartments in a well-known first class hotel in the West End. It is stated that for some reason or another this person was in the habit of ‘slumming’. He would visit the lowest parts of London, and scour the slums of the East End. He suddenly disappeared from the hotel leaving a black leather bag and its contents, and has not yet returned. He left a small bill unpaid, and ultimately an advertisement appeared in The Times, setting forth the gentleman’s name, and drawing forth attention to the fact that the bag would be sold under the Innkeeper’s Act to defray expenses, unless claimed. This was done last month by a well-known auctioneer in London, and the contents, or some of them, are now in possession of the police, who are thoroughly investigating the affair. Of these we, of course, cannot more than make mention, but certain documents, wearing apparel, cheque books, prints of obscene description, letter, & c., are said to form the foundation of a most searching inquiry now afoot, which is being vigilantly pursued by those in authority. It has been suggested that the mysterious personage referred to landed in Liverpool from America, but this so far is no more than a suggestion.” The Globe of October 10, 1888.

Here we have the black bag of a doctor, the slumming in the East-End, the arrival from America (via Liverpool), & the obscene photography, which Tumblety used to peddle as a young man. If it is Tumblety, it seems he absconded from the hotel at some point in September, at which point we should look at the following story from the Evening News (19th September 1888) where we have a tall, well-dressed man attempting to cut a woman’s throat near Oxford Street at the same time a Ripper suspect flees an Oxford Street Hotel.

Another terrible outrage was committed in London, this morning, at the West end. A woman was stabbed in the breast in Down street, Piccadilly, by a man who attempted to cut her throat. He was seen and pursued, but escaped. The woman was taken to St. George’s Hospital, where she lies in a precarious position. The man is described as a tall man, well dressed. Adelaide Rogers, of 21 Stangate, Westminster Bridge road, ran out of Down street between two and three o’clock this morning, and informed a policeman stationed in Piccadilly that she had been stabbed. She was bleeding profusely from a serious wound on the right cheek, and had already become faint from loss of blood


Conclusion

It seems that in 1888 the Ripper killings were conducted & orchestrated by two Canadians, Henry Wentowrth Bellsmith & Francis Tumblety, & that they were assisted by several people. The motive, I believe, was a pseudo-religious mission to highlight the poverty in the East End slums. In his book – Henray Cadevere – Bellsmith writes ’0h, Liberty! What crimes are done in thy name! The work of Socialists?” mused Cadavere, bitterly. “This the work of brotherhood and humanity?” His work was the murder of the underclass, & his mentioning of the scoialist William Morris – who himself was arrested on suspicion of being the Ripper – leads us to Morris’ comrade-in-socialism, George Bernard Shaw, who in a letter to The Star (September 24th 1888) wrote;

Will you allow me to make a comment on the success of the Whitechapel murderer in calling attention for a moment to the social question? Less than a year ago the West-end press, headed by the St. James’s Gazette, the Times, and the Saturday Review, were literally clamering for the blood of the people… The Saturday Review was still frankly for hanging the appellants; and the Times denounced them as “pests of society.” This was still the tone of the class Press as lately as the strike of the Bryant and May girls. Now all is changed. Private enterprise has succeeded where Socialism failed. Whilst we conventional Social Democrats were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organisation, some independent genius has taken the matter in hand, and by simply murdering and disembowelling four women, converted the proprietary press to an inept sort of communism. The moral is a pretty one, and the Insurrectionists, the Dynamitards, the Invincibles, and the extreme left of the Anarchist party will not be slow to draw it. “Humanity, political science, economics, and religion,” they will say, “are all rot; the one argument that touches your lady and gentleman is the knife.” That is so pleasant for the party of Hope and Perseverance in their toughening struggle with the party of Desperation and Death!

Is it possible that the murders were contracted out to Tumblety & Bellsmith by the Socialist intelligentsia? Perhaps, Tumblety’s bail was set at £300, about £25,000 pounds today, which was met by persons unknown. Two or three days later he was on his way to New York & political immunity. Whether Shaw & Morris are involved or not, however, from now on I believe the identity of the Ripper(s) can be classed as a mystery no more.

Censorship is the last line of defence…

…Yesterday I was finally prevented from posting my studies concerning King Arthur & his period on the international e-forum known as Arthurnet. Its moderator, Judy Shoaf, from the University of Florida, had been growing increasingly exasperated with my discoveries which ended up with her conducting a condescending campaign against me. Continuing on regardless I continued to post my discoveries, countering any counter-arguments tossed at me from the (apparent) best in the field with aplomb. I was just to hot to handle. The crunch moments came in the past week when I posted my discovery of the Holy Grail, on which I suddenly had the plug pulled out on me just as I was about to reveal the truth behind the legend, with our so-called neutral moderator denying me the chance to have my democratic say – & she heralding from the country of liberty herself. Here’s what she wrote at the end of the last post I was allowed to place on Arthurnet.

Damo is just playing games with words. I would point out that using Wolfram as raw material for his games is so productive because Wolfram was likely to play these games himself. He clearly loved inventing names. Flegetanis not only evokes “Fulgentius” (author of a well-known mythography) but even more strongly “Flegeton” or Phlegethon, the flaming river of the classical underworld. Wolfram managed to pack two different mythical-authoritative-scary meanings in one, outdoing for once Damo’s own vigorous inventiveness. I was delighted to find this sentence in the Wikipedia article on Fulgentius: “Fulgentius’ etymologies (while typical of his age) have been recently criticized as being wildly extravagant, arbitrary, and often simply incorrect.” I will try to post a bit separately about why I, as moderator, have allowed Damo, whose theories are wildly extravagant, arbitrary, and often simply incorrect, to continue to post on Arthurnet, and why his writings should not be taken as an accurate guide to anything except his own imagination.’

Quality stuff! There is no intelligent dissemeniation & rebuking of my thoughts here, just outright denial & refusal to broadens one’s capacity for intellectual endeavor. What has happened is that where great minds in the past have failed to discover the truth about Arthur, then it is deemed an impossible task. However, I live in the blossoming age of the internet, when obscure ancient texts are available at the click of a button, & I also live in Edinburgh & its fathomless National Library of Scotland. I understand why Judy doesnt want me to succeed – shes been running Arthurnet for 20 years now, & for some cheeky young(ish) Burnley boy to swagger in & work out every unsolved ‘problem’ seriously decredits the whole purpose of the site, which was to pool ideas & work out who Arthur was. Problem, is after 20 years they got absolutely nowhere, showing that what was need was something along the lines of;

‘Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have either been very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change’
Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions)

I have found Arthur, & I have also found the Holy Grail. It may seem ‘wildly extravagant’ & ‘arbitrary,’ but it was the only way to find the answer! Here’s the nuts & bolts of why I was taken off Arthurnet, & please decide for yourself on whether I am correct or not.

FINDING THE GRAIL

In the early years of the 13th century, two writers gave the location of the castle in which the grail was kept. The first was Robert de Boron – who placed the ‘secret of the grail’ at the Vaus d’Avaron, in the west, erroneously changed by later poets to Avalon in Glastonbury. The second was Wolfram von Eschenbach – who placed the castle in France at a place called Montsalvat, adding the grail was guarded by the Knights Templar. This in turn leads us to a department of France called Aveyron, famous for being a Templar hotbed. Just a mile inside its modern borders we find the charming village of Montsalvy. Today, the grail castle has to be the ruins known as the castle of Mandarulfen at Montsalvy, which in turn leads us to an artifact known as the Mandylion. This was a piece of material which bore the face of Jesus which has been associated with the Holy Grail for a number of years, especially in the work of Dan Scavone.

The Mandylion was taken to France in the wake of the 1204 sack of Constantinople by French crusader knights, & that a castle named after it was built at Montsalvy is strong evidence that that it was indeed the grail. Before Constantinople, the Mandylion was held in the Syrian city of Edessa, where it surfaced in 544 during a siege of the city by the Persians. Two years previously, a Byzantine general was stationed in that very city, whose name was Bouzes. Is it a coincidence that medieval romancers named one of the three grail knights as Sir Bors? Perhaps, but when we observe second grail knight was known by two names – the Gerrman Parsifal & the Welsh Pheredur – & that Bouzes fought in the same army as a certain Pharos the Herulian, we can reconcile both Parzival & Peredur, whose names contain the phonetics of Pharos Eril – the latter epithet being that of the Herulians found on stones in Scandinavia;

PH – The ‘ph’ of Pheredur, the archaic spelling of Peredur
AROS – The ‘arz’ of Parzival
ER – The ‘ur’ of Pheredur
IL – The ‘al’ of Parcival

We should see the name Pharos the Herulian as the trunk of a tree on which the name Peredur is found along the Welsh branch & Parzival along the Teutonic. History also supports the connection, for Peredur’s 14 year sojurn in Constantinople finds a tally with Pharos the Herulian who served in the armies of Byzantium.

The medieval grail legend tells us that Sir Bors, Parcival & Galahad, on discovering the grail, took it to a site on the Egypto-Arabian border where the Saracens dwelt, called Sarras. This points us to the Sinai peninsular, which Procopius tells us was the homelands of the Saracens. So far so good. It is at the foot of Mount Sinai that three years after the Mandylion was seen at Edessa, the Byzantines built a fortified monastery dedicated to the transfiguration of Jesus. This was the grail castle, which was deemed to be in the middle of the wasteland by medieval writers – & we must remember that Sinai is an absolute desert. That the mandylion was moved there is evident from Templar-built churches in Cyprus (the church of panagia phorbiotissa at asnou is the best) which saw the iconography of Mt Sinai – burning bush/10 tablets’ together with the mandylion & images of the transfiguration. Indeed, in the book ‘Approaching the Holy Mountain,’ we are told;

‘Take the famous tenth century diptych showing the disciple Thaddesu & King Abgar who recieves the mandylion, represented in the features of Constantine Porphyogennetos, who had transferred the mandylion from Edessa to Constantinople in 944. A row of monastic saints below make makes it propbale that the two wings of what may have been a tryptich are agions to be seen within the localism characteristic of Sinai.’

St Catherine’s monastery was a repositary for cristian icons – including copies of the mandylion which probably influenced all future images of Jesus. Indeed, one of these, originally made in the 6th century, is touched up in the 940′s just before the mandylion itself is moved to Constantinople. We are also told that the knights found the natives of Sarras had reverted to pagan ways, which matches a description by John, Bishop of Nikiu, describes the peoples about Sinai (in the reign of Anastasius) as; -’Impious barbarians, who eat flesh & drank blood, arose in the quarter of Arabia & approaching the borders of the red sea, they seized the monks of araite (Rhaithou), & they put them to the sword or led them away captive & plundered their possessions; for they hated saints, & were themselves like in their devices to idolators & the pagans…’

It’s location then helps us solve the mystery of the last of the grail keepers, Galahad, in whose name we can see the phonetics of a welsh Arthurian knight called Glewlwyd as in

Gal = Gl
Ah – Ewl
Ad – wyd

In a poem called Culwhych & Olwen he tells us; ‘Half of my life is past, and half of thine. I was heretofore in Kaer Se and Asse, in Sach and Salach, in Lotor and Fotor; and I have been heretofore in India the Great and India the Lesser.’ Here we see Sarras as Caer Se & Asse, & with Ethiopia being known as Lesser India in antiquity, we can place him in the region of the Red Sea! With Bouzes & Pharos being goths, that it makes sense that Galahad/Glewlwyd was also a Goth, & indeed, in the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire – a gigantic compendium of all the names recorded in those times – there is a Goth who lived at just the right time called Gudahal, which contains all the letters of Galahad, as in;

g u d a h a l
g a l u h a d

If the letters changed over 700 years, through the effect of dark-age chineses whispers – then perhaps certain facts did also. Thus, whhen medieval writers wrote that Galahad was the son of Sir Lancelot, what they meant to say was Galahad was the father of Lancelot, for the Prosopography tells us that Guduhal had a son called Landarit. It is through understanding how names change over time & through languages that I have been able to unravel the knotted woolen ball of the Arthuriana. For example, just look at some of the names given for Guinevere…

Gwenhwyfar – Triads
Guanhumara – Monmouth
Guennuuar – Caradoc
Wenneuereia – Gerard of Wales

To an untrained eye, Wenneuereia & Gwenhwyfar seem totally different, but they are the same woman. The way I see it is that the historian must develop techniques to analyze the changes that incur during the chisper process in order to elucidate a name-change. For example, by isolating rhotacism in a changing consonant to one particular language, although we may have lost the text itself, we can identify at least the language in which the text was written.

JUDY’S REPLY

After ignoring my protests for a few days, I alerted Judy to my blog, on which she suddenly began to speak again – here’s the blog she sent to arthurnetters – funny as!

From Judy Shoaf, your moderator.

The concern of some Arthurnetters as to the poverty of Damo’s grasp of basic texts and concepts had moved me enough that I held back his latest post. I would like to recap and explain why I have continued to forward his posts to the list, despite the fact that they do not form a contribution to Arthurian scholarship in any way, and if taken seriously as statements of fact would actually form a sort of negative contribution.

To clarify, up front: None of Damo’s posts has ever included a single assertion that is useful to the study of Arthurian literature or of history. If any people on the list have assumed that they did, I apologize to them. My thought was that he was perhaps making a contribution on the creative side.

Damo joined the list, I believe, in January of 2012, with the announcement that he had had a revelation regarding the identity of Arthur as Arthwys, King of the Pennines. Since then Damo has posted abundantly, at least 160 posts. His methodology is roughly as follows:

If it is my idea, it is a good, true idea.
If an assertion fits or can be made to fit my idea, or generates an idea in my mind, it is a fact.

Thus any bit of Wolfram’s Parzival which generates a train of thought in Damo’s mind constitutes a “fact” which he has “proven” to be a valid part of Arthuriana, and even of history. Its factuality is not dependent on whether it actually happened that way, but depends on how well it serves the pattern in Damo’s head.

Damo has always been polite and kept his temper, so far as I can recall. He has never complained when people dismissed his assertions as absurd.

I have posted his comments for almost a year and a half as an example of how King Arthur is still generating fact-free history, as he did for Geoffrey of Monmouth, for the Welsh hagiographers, or for Malory. It seems to me that Damo writes very much in that spirit, as someone who pulls “history” out of the air and then asks us to believe in it, and apparently at least in passing believes it himself.

What has surprised me, given Damo’s obvious abilities, is that he has clearly gone far beyond the possibility of combining his “research” into any coherent whole. He simply wanders along playing the “name game” and asserting that Arthur was here or there, but he seems to have no ambition to write a narrative in which all his assertions and name games would find a place.

Then she wrote privately to me with;

Damo, thank you for resolving my debate with myself re. whether to continue posting your stuff. You have always been polite on the list and I hesitated to block someone who is generally well-mannered, but I think it is time to part ways. Your work is moronic, and of interest only for its spectacular ignorance & I decided not to shame you by sending it to anyone. You said that I censored you. I am censoring you. I am not going to post any more of your stuff on the list.

Charming stuff!

Basically, as a neutral she was waiting for me to turn rude or whatever, so she had grounds to remove me from Arthurnet. To provoke this she first begen to insult my intelligence, then began to name me as the composer of each post I offered, as in ‘Damo on Merlin, Damo on Montsalvy,’ but this didn’t work either. Finally, she just denied me from posting at the very point I offered a well-researche hypothesis on the location of the grail castle, leaving me no choice to record her unfair & ignorant attitude for posterity. In essence she blinked first & like I said before, censorship is the last form of defence… & somewhere in the middle of all this is the Holy Grail, the discovery of which prompted my removal from a meeting of Arthurian minds. Its a simple case of an upset child taking the ball off me & saying I cant play anymore! Proper kindergarten.

To finish, I would like to quote Judy one last time, who said… ‘None of Damo’s posts has ever included a single assertion that is useful to the study of Arthurian literature or of history.’ This evidently contradicts what she wrote to me concerning my discovery of Arthur’s grave, as in;

‘BTW, I was interested in your idea that Nudus and Dumnogenus are adjectives modifying princes in the Yarrow Stone inscription. I thought you must be wrong, because clearly you don’t know Latin, and this would not work grammatically. BUT I checked the inscription and your suggestion makes sense—the forms have endings in –i which fit the plural “princes” rather than implying names of single individuals in apposition with “princes.” It’s odd that the two words were read as names, but one would expect that a memorial would give the names of the persons involved; perhaps the names were on the other side, which I gather is damaged. However, I guess people who study inscriptions are better qualified than I am to interpret what the words mean in context. The way one figures it out is to look at other memorial stones (or texts) that use these words or a similar structure. (Liberalis, on the other hand, looks like a name, in terms of both grammar and sense… At the same time, the fact that the inscription may have been misinterpreted does not mean that it marked Arthur’s grave!

Here we have an example of the stuck-in-the-sand nature of Arthurian academia. Judy’s initial instinct was ‘I thought you must be wrong,’ a sentiment shared by every other scholar who have been trying to find Arthur through entire lifetimes. However, Judy is a Latin expert & recognized the correctness of my theory. Unfortunately she lacks expertise elsewhere, & can only offer outright denial when presented with unfamiliar territory, tendencies noticed by another guy called S. H. Rosenbaum, who experienced a similar attack. He wrote;

To Judith Shoaf, moderator of Arthurnet;
This is all very interesting and revealing; it seems I am indeed treading on your meme. This pattern of response is similar to others who find their convictions threatened, their arguments untenable. The only recourse is to deny the evidence, state their credo and stop their ears. I highly doubt you will read any of the referenced works, and suspect rightly that you keep to only those authors who agree with your precepts. It is such attitude that has led this subject to naught but dead ends. Or perhaps I have read too many books, or in your view, not the right ones? As for my “free association of ideas”, they are based on the process of elimination, observation, Occam’s Razor and simple reason. This runs counter to the depressing, stagnant state of historical knowledge that relies not on innate curiosity but the easy comfort of consensus. Faced with such un-reason, I will abandon this Arthurian direction and revert to research papers discussing the more intellectual and linguistic aspects regarding Post-Roman Britain. Savor this small triumph, for as others endlessly and pointlessly talk, to no purpose or result, I will be reading anything and everything, exploring new concepts by speaking and writing, and above all else, thinking and learning.

Food for thought!

Well…

It’s been a good few months since I’ve written a non- histro-detective blog, but I guess a Mayday is a good time to start a new course of chiccachiare – that means ‘chit-chat’ in Italian & indeed that is the land from which I have only just returned, landing in Edinburgh airport yesterday afternoon & apparently bringing the sunshine with me. On my arms was my beautiful new muse & girlfriend, Miss Elinor Dickie, my constant companion for the previous two weeks as we took advantage of the cheap Ryan air flights between Edinburgh & Cagliari (£40) in Sardinia. This, combined with the out of season price-plummet that occurs across Ausonian shores, meant that we only paid a tenner a night each for lovely properties. The first one was a villa in Flumini, a tranquil seaside village a half-hour’s bus-ride from the Sardinian capital. We were sharing it for the weekend with Victor Pope & our name drummer – Jonny – who had brought his girlfriend, Dee, a long for the ride – here’s a shot of us in recent action as THE VICTOR POPE BAND.

We had a cracking four nights, perched on the beach, or barbeceueing in our lovely garden; drinking beers, our sun-starved skins soaking up the rays as if we were fledgelings leaving the nest & encountering a little gabble of grubs. Cagliari really came alive on Saturday night, with the beers full of the dapper-youth, & us guys ending up in a mad disco-pop karaoke club til 3. The night ended with jonny accidentally smashing a window in our apartment which, good on him, he became pro-active about the next morning, removing the frame, finding the Italian for ‘glazer’ (vetraio) & pointing me in the right direction – it only cost a tenner to replace the glass so no harm done.

On Tuesday, the guys returned to Edinburgh, leaving me & Ellie to our own devices for a week. We moved 100k up the island, to a wee village called Massama just outside the compact, bustling city of Oristano. It was here that we tasted the real Sardinia, mingling with the locals far from the tourist trail in off-season tranquillity. Indeed, our arrival coincided with an annual festival to Saint Mary, of which we made a wee film using our camera-phones. Which as you will see was pretty good fun!

During the dancing we got chatting to this lass – Julia – who is off to Edinburgh herself on the 17th May. This began an exchange of tour-guidism, for the next morning she whisked me & ellie on a tour of the coast line to the north of Oristano, a wonderful mix of breathtaking views & fabulous beaches, including the remnants of a Punic-Roman city called Tharros. Talking of history, on one occasion we caught a train to the treeless yet evergreen Sardinian hinterland, where near the town of Marcomer we came across the fantastic remnants of a Bronze-Age civilisation the Sardinians called Nuraghe. While observing the still intact towers I couldn’t help but notice their similarities to the brochs of northern scotland… a comparison which has been noted by scholars. Then getting out my Ptolemy I found the tribes that dwelt in that part of Sardinia were known as the Corsi and the Carenses… The tribes in scotland who lived in the broch areas were given by Ptolemy as the Cornovi/Cornavi and the Cerones. It seems now that the Sardinian Corsi also settled in Scotland as either the new -novi- cor the sailing -navi- cor.

So all in all, a lovely trip to Italy & a great way to start the summer of 2013, which seems like its going to be fun. Indeed, it heralded the commencement of my first period of personal poetic composition since I completed Axis & Allies two winters ago. I have lain fallow for some time now, in which several seeds were planted which I shall cultivate throughout the summer. So far I have completed four poems of a series concerning the death of Garibaldi, who died in Sardinia. Here’s one for starters;

And so he sleeps…
Snow-white poncho drapes his heavy corpse
As if he were the highest of the Alps
Towering
Unmissable
Gravely honoured by pickets in silenzia
Who feel this is the honour of their lives

To see this tender Chapelle Ardent
It seems the whole of Italy has come
& will come yet
O noble Mecca of the brave Risorgimento
An Augustus of Rome
Alighieri of Ravenna
A demagogue dutifully deified

Night falls
Urania rises, & the stars
Shine happily tonight
For as each soul on leaving mortal clay
Bright star becomes
Come seldom-times, those rarest of the rare
There shall commence a lustre yon compare
It happens once a century or less
& this today, by Italy’s slender moon
Untramelled
Guissepe Garibaldi ever shines.

I have just made a litological discovery which should have massive ramifications for two of the main faiths on the planet; Judaism & Christianity. In our modern age, the atheistic trend is to look upon the Bible as a fabrication, a collection of wild inventions. The Old Testament, however,is more a history of the Jews, tracing their roots through Moses, Abraham & Noah all the back way to Adam. Along this ancient lineage, there is one figure of whom there is now evidence to say definitely existed. His name was Joseph, he who dreamt of a seven year famine in Egypt & managed to persuade the pharoah to prepare for the cataclysm in advance.

The evidence for him was found just over a century ago, during the 1907-08 excavations at Lisht, a village to the south of Cairo, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Dieter Arnold’s ‘Middle Kingdom Tomb Architecture at Lisht‘). It was the site of a series of royal burials of the Middle Kingdom (2055 BC to 1650 BC), the two principal pyramids being that of Amenemhat I & Sensuret I. Through the litological process I have discovered that Amenemhat was the very pharoah who invited the semitic Joseph into the higher echelons of Egyptian society.

Looking at the Book of Genesis, there are several clues which will help us ascertain the true identity of Joseph.

Joseph’s Egyptian name
41:45 Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah

Joseph becomes the Chief Steward of the King’s house & estates
45:8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to
Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Joseph hoards up anti-famine foodstuffs
41:48 He gathered up all the food of the seven years when there was plenty in the land of Egypt, and stored up food in the cities; he stored up in every city the food from the fields around it.

Returning to the excavations at Lisht, four relief blocks discovered there mirror the clues above. They all seem to be from the same ancient scene, broken in four by the ravages of time. Of these, the largest block bears the Egyptian name Sobeknahkt. Given that the Book of Genesis was written c.600 BC, in a different language, we can see how the name Sobeknahkt became the biblical Zapenath, (SEE NOTE 1) with both sharing principle phonetics, as in;

Sob – Zap
Ek- He
Nahkt – Nath

Stunningly, we know that a Sobeknahkt was royal chief steward during the later years of Amemenhat I, fitting perfectly with the Bible’s versions of events. Indeed, the block at Lisht gives him the titles of ‘Chief Steward,’ & ‘Chief of the Friends,’ the latter meaning he was the most trustworthy of all the pharoah’s officials, reflected by the Pharoah’s proclamation to Joseph of; “Only with regard to the throne will I be greater than you.‘ There is also an image of Sobeknahkt on one of the smaller blocks, which shows him filling storage jars, a perfect fit for Joseph’s laying aside a fifth of Egypt’s produce in preparation of famine!

Chronological Support

1980 BC – Joseph in Egypt / Arrival of Jacob (+430)
1550 BC- The Exodus / Hyksos Expulsion (+40)
1510 BC – Moses ends his wanderings (+468)
1042 BC – Start of Saul’s reign (+40)
1002 BC – Start of David’s reign (+40)
962 BC – Start of Solomon’s reign (+4)
958 BC – Start of Solomon’s Temple (+143)
815 BC – Foundation of Carthage

According to Wildung, Amenemhat reigned from 1991 BC to 1962 BC, & using information gleaned from the Bible & elsewhere, we can place Joseph in this very time period. Beginning with the foundation of Carthage, Polybius dates this to to 814 or 813 B.C. Likewise, Velleius Paterculus said Carthage lasted 667 years. As the city was utterly destroyed in 146BC by the Romans, we obtain a year of 815BC for its foundation. This date has been confirmed through archeological means, when in 2000, Nijboer of Groningen University used the radio-carbon analysis of animal bones in the first layer of settlement at Carthage to date them to a period just before 800BC. (‘SEE NOTE 2′)

We can now link the the foundation of Carthage to the building of Solomon’s temple through Josephius, who wrote; ‘Therein it was recorded that the temple was built by king Solomon at Jerusalem, one hundred forty-three years and eight months before the Tyrians built Carthage.’Adding 815+143 together gives us 958 BC for the foundation of the Temple of Solomon. Next we learn from the bible that the temple was begun in Solomon’s fourth year;

(KINGS I…6-1) And it came to pass… in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. (SEE NOTE 3)
 
Thus, Solomon began his reign in 962 BC. From here we go back another 40 years, to the start of the reign of King David;

(KINGS I … 10-13) So David slept with his fathers, & was buried in the city of David. And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years reigned he in Hebron, & thirty & three years reigned he in Jerusalem. Then sat Solomon upon the throne of David his father; & his kingdom was established greatly

Giving us the year 1002 BC for the start of David’s reign. Next, we must go back another 530 years to the start of the Exodus of Moses

(Acts… 13:18, 20-22) For some forty years he (Moses) bore with their conduct in the desert…. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. It was then that they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin. He reigned forty years before God removed him and appointed David as their King...”

The exact year would be 1532 BC, but the key phrase is ‘about 450 years,’ giving us a little flexibility. This allows to identify the year c.1550 BC as the year of the Exodus, supported by modern scholarship appertaining to the reign of Ahmose I & the expulsion of the Hyksos. Then, from this date we are told in Exodus 12.40 that‘The sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years,” taking us to the year c.1980 for the arrival of Joseph’s family, led by Jacob, in Egypt – slap-bang in the centre of Amenemhat’s reign! (SEE NOTE 4)

Supporting Evidence

By investigating the period of Amenemhat further, I have unearthed more evidence that confirms my discovery.

1 – In an ancient Egyptian text known as ‘The Teaching of King Amenemhat I’ we find a reference to that king’s anti-famine measures; ‘None hungered in my years, none thirsted then. 
Men rested through what I had done, and told tales of me.’

Its biblical parallel is, ‘the seven years of plenty that prevailed in the land of Egypt came to an end;
 and the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every country, but throughout the land of Egypt there was bread.‘

2 – In the reign of either Amenemhat or his successor, Sensuret, a farmer named
Heqanakht mentions the coming of the famine to Egypt – Do not worry about me! Behold, I am healthy and alive. Behold, you are like one who can eat his fill, when he was (already so) hungry that he had sunken eyes. Behold, the whole of Egypt has died (and) you did not hunger.

3 – When the Bible tells us Joseph gained authority over the land of Egypt, so have relics of Sobeknahkt been scattered across that land, from the blocks at Lisht, through a statue at Thebes, to a stela at Abydos

4 – The blocks at Lisht name a woman known as ‘beloved Dejeb-nut’ as belonging to Sobeknahkt’s family. This seems an Egyptian version of the Hebrew name Di-Nah, who was said to be Joseph’s sister. Also shown is his ‘beloved father’ who can now only have been Jacob.

5 – The Egyptian tale – The story of Sinuhe - is set during the reign of Amenemhat’s succesor, Senwosret I. The tale tells us that Sinuhe flees Egypt & finds shelter with a certain king Amuneshi in the hills of Canaan. This king was surely Joseph’s own son Manasseh, the patriarch of his eponymous tribe. This is supported by the siting of Shechem in the traditional lands of the Manasseh tribe, the very city that Joseph & his family were dwellers. That the Israelites lived in both Egypt & Canaan is confirmed in an early translation of the Old Testament – – the Septuagint or LXX made under Ptolemy I in the 3rd Century BC, which reads; “And the sojourning of the children of Israel, that is which they sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years.” – Exodus 12:40 – (See John Fulton)

6 – The Book of Genesis tells that Joseph, ‘was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.’ That Sobeknahkt’s tomb lay empty & broken connects with biblical transference of Joseph’s bones to Israel (Exodus 13-19).

7 – The Bible tells us that – the sons of Israel came to buy corn among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. The economic boon of selling stockpiles of grain to foreign nations is reflected in a great increase in jewel caches found in the graves of Amenemhat’s Egypt, alongside records of the opening up of trade links with city-states such us Byblos. That there was a famine at this time is recorded on the tomb of a nomarch (also called Amenemhat) at Beni Hasan.

Conclusion

Looking at the evidence again, we have a Chief steward of Egypt bearing the same name given to Joseph doing the same thing (storing foodstuffs) that made Joseph famous, at the very time that Joseph was said to have lived. The matches between Joseph & Sobeknahkt seem irrefutable, & common sense dictates they are one & the same man. In light of this, my discovery strongly supports the veracity inherent in at least an early part of the book on which both Christianity & Judaism are built.

NOTES

1 – It is possible the Paneah element comes from Ipa – this was the name given to a Vizier late in Amenemhat’s reign & also to one of his an official treasurers. Perhaps Sobeknahkt was known by two different names (as well as Joseph to the Canaanites.)

2 – See Docter et al 2005 – Meditteranea (Rome) ed G Bartolini

3 – It is this passage in Kings I that has deflected scholarship away from the true Joseph. In it we are told that there were 480 years between the Exodus & the building of Solomon’s Temple. However, this figure is a typical biblical device, formulated by the general number for many generations – 12 – multiplied by the general number for a geneartion – 40. However, the number I obtained above is drawn from a number of seperate, concise figures, which together add up to a more accurate amnount than the sweeping generalisation of 480 years.

4 – From here we obtain an approximate birth year of 2020 BC for Joseph, who was at least 30 years old when his father, Jacob, came to Egypt. To this we can add another 40 years to the birth of Jacob (2060 BC), then another 160 years between Jacob’s birth & the birth of Abraham (2220 BC). Going further back in time the bible tells us there were over 261 years between Abraham’s birth & the time of the great deluge, giving us an approximate year of 2500 BC for the flood. I shall be looking at this in more detail in another post, but suffice it to say this year connects with a great flood at Kish, confirmed in other sources such as the epic of Gilgamesh.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fulton, John – A New Chronology

Josephius, Flavius – Against Apion (1CE)

Polybius – The Histories (3rd Century BC)

Wildung, D – L’Âge d’Or de L’Égypte (le Moyen Empire, Office de Livre, 1984)

When we cast our gaze back through the murky waters of the Dark Ages, there is one figure that seems rather neglected by the armies of moderns historians. His name was Ambrosius Aurelianus, a Roman general who in the 5th century led Brythonic opposition to the first furious waves of Saxon invaders. Sipping now the bramble wine Ive been brewing all Autumn (tasty & natural & strong), I shall now present the most cutting edge account of his life & times. We must begin with Gildas, who celebrated the fame of Ambrosius within a couple of generations of his lifetime.

That they (The Britons) might not be brought to utter destruction, took arms under the conduct of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who of all the Roman nation was then alone in the confusion of this troubled period by chance left alive. His parents, who for their merit were adorned with the purple, had been slain in these same broils

From this we glean the following facts.

Ambrosius was a Roman – His surname Aurelianus means he belonged to the high-status Aureli gens. This was an ancient Pleibian family, which broke into numerous branches such as the Cottae, Oristedes & the Symmachi.

He was one of the last true Romans to remain in Britain – That some stayed behind in positions of power after the departure of the legions is confirmed by a chronicle known as the Bern Codex; ‘In the year 409, Rome was taken by the Goths, and from that time Roman rule came to an end in Britain, except for some, who were born there, and who reigned for a short time.’

His parents were members of the Roman aristocracy – they were probably of senatorial or consular rank on account of them wearing purple-bordered togas.

His parents had been slain in Britain – Gildas describes their plight; ‘The miserable remnant, being taken in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers.’

The next record of Ambrosius comes from the Historia Brittonum of the Welsh monk Nennius. The material seems to have been compiled by several historians, including Gildas, with the final pieces added in the late seventh century. It would be in the early 9th century that Nennius would transcribe his version of the text, which tells us;

“What is your name?” asked the king (Vortigern); “I am called Ambrose,” returned the boy; and in answer to the king’s question, “What is your origin?” he replied, “A Roman consul was my father.’

From this we glean the following facts;

Ambrosius was a boy after 450 (i.e he was born in the 440s) – Chronologically, the passage above occurred after the arrival of the Saxons lin 449. This connects with a passage in Roger De Hovedon; ‘In the year of grace 464, the Britons sent messengers into Brittany to Aurelius Ambrosius and his brother Uterpendragon, who had been sent there for fear of Vortigern, beseeching them to come over from the Armorican country without delay, to drive out the Saxons and king Vortigern, and take the crown themselves. As they had now arrived at man’s estate, they began to make preparations of men and ships for the expedition.’

The father of Ambrosius was a Roman consul - At this period, the Roman empire elected two consuls every year, one for the western empire based in Rome, & the other for the eastern empire in Constantinople.

The works of Gildas & Nennius are the two foundation stones of all Dark-Age research, two candles of illumination without which our knowledge of that great period in history would be as black as midnight. Yet they do offer us glimpses of truth & in the case of Ambrosius have given us enough clues as to asecrtain the identity of his father. Blending the facts we have already gathered we know we are looking for;

(i) A Roman Consul…
(ii) …from the Aureli gens…
(iii) … able to have children in the 440s.

It is time to look through the consular list of Rome, in particular the one kept by Cassiodorus. Looking through his list, there are only three consuls who bear the name Aurelianus in the 5th century. The first is far too early (Aurelianus, consul 400) & likewise the third is far too late (Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, consul 485), which leaves only one possible candidate for an Aurelian consul. His name was Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (*), a member of the Symmachi branch of the Aureli gens, & was consul for the western empire in 446 AD. Throughout my litological surveys of 2012 I have been surprised how much historical information has been missed by many centuries of serious scholars, but this particular nugget seems so obvious its perpetual non-discovery defies belief. When our oldest historians tell us that a certain man was the son of a Roman consul, common sense dictates we flick through a list of Roman consuls just as we moderns flick through a telephone directory!

It is at this point, however, that the hard evidence for Aureliius ends, & from now we must abide with pure speculation. Yet the remaining evidence contains tantalising essences of truth, such as the connection between Quintus, Britain & his fellow consul for 446, Flavius Aetius. When he took over the reigns of the eastern empire that year, Aetius was entering his third office as a consul, during which time Gildas records him receiving a desperate letter from the British; “To Aetius, now consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons… The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned.”

Gildas then very curtly says that the Romans ‘could not assist them.’ However, knowing that Quintus was in Britain, slain in the Gildasian ‘broils’ which beset the native Britons, it is possible that Aetius (**) sent Quintus on some post-consular military mission to Britain c.450. Both his arrival in the islands at that time & his death are supported by Nennius.

The king (Vortigern) sent messengers throughout Britain, in search of a child born without a father. After having inquired in all the provinces, they came to the field of Aelecti, in the district of Glevesing, where a party of boys were playing at ball. And two of them quarrelling, one said to the other, “” boy without a father, no good will ever happen to you. (***)

This passage gives us several new incites. It makes apparent that Quintus was slain before the birth of his son Ambrosius. We also learn that Ambrosius lived in the kingdom of Glywysing, a coastal sub-kingdom between the modern-day cities of Swansea & Cardiff. This in turn leads us to a contemporary of Ambrosius – Saint Paul Aurelian. His Vita, written by Wrmonoc, tells us;

Saint Paul, surnamed Aurelian, the son of a certain count named Perphirius, who held a position of high rank in the world, came from a province which is in the language of the british race, because a section of it is regarded as an island, is called Penychen.

Penychen was one of the the three cantrefs of Glywysing (along with Gwynllwyg & Gorfynydd) placing another nbly-born Aurelian in the very area where the young Ambrosius grew up. With the saint dying c.575 AD, he would have been born two generations or so after Ambrosius. As both their home regions & surnames match, it is highly likely that they were related, especially when Wrmonoc tells us that Paul, ‘sprang from a family most noble in the eyes of the world.’ It is tempting to conflate Ambrosius with Count Perphirius (***), especially when the latter mean means ‘clad-in-purple.’ Indeed, the title comites/count was used for a number of different positions of power in the Roman empire, from military stations to civic seats, strongly suggesting Paul’s father was a Roman. Yet this is impossible to prove Ambrosisus & Perphirius were one & the same, especially when the name Perphirius was used elsewhere by figures such as a famous 5th century Roman charioteer.

Returning to Ambrosius Aurelianus, Nennius tells us that he was the great king among the kings of Britain, & we can see his name scattered across the country, from the Humber estuary in the north, to Amesbury in the south, which in the ninth century was know as Ambresbyrig, “the burh of Ambrosius”. (****) From these fortified poistions he would have rallied the British to the ongoing cause, as defined by Gildas;

Sometimes our countrymen, sometimes the enemy, won the field, to the end that our Lord might this land try after his accustomed manner these his Israelites, whether they loved him or not, until the year of the siege of Badon.

The era of these battles is given us by the 8th century English historian Bede, who placed the activities of Ambrosius during the 17 year reign of the eastern Roman Emperor Zeno (474-491). Medival writers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth & Roger De Hovedon gave vivid accounts of his campaigns, imposing his deeds upon the blueprint of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but their validity as accurate sources can never be ascertained. However, both Monmouth & De Hoveden gave us information that was verifiable in other sources.

The Identity of his Mother

Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that the boys mother was a daughter of the King of Dyfed; ‘They told them that none knew his father, but that his mother was daughter of the King of Demetia, and that she lived along with the nuns in St. Peter’s Church in that same city.’ Looking through medieval genealogies, it is tempting to see this king as Triphun, with Triphun meaning Tribune, both a military & political rank in Roman times. Indeed, Constantius of Lyon tells us of the presence of a Tribune in Britain in the 430’s;

About this time a deputation from Britain came to tell the bishops of Gaul that the heresy of Pelagius had taken hold of the people over a great part of the country and help ought to be brought to the Catholic faith as soon as possible. A large number of bishops gathered in synod to consider the matter and all turned in help to the two who in everybody’s judgement were the leading lights of religion, namely Germanus and Lupus… Suddenly a man of the rank of Tribune accompanied by his wife, stepped into the middle and put his ten-year-old daughter, who was blind, into the arms of the bishops.

The year of his death

According to Roger DeHovedon, Ambrosius died in the year 498, when;

There appeared a star of wonderful size and brightness, with a single ray, on which was a ball of fire extended like a dragon, out of whose mouth proceeded two rays, one of which seemed to extend its length beyond the regions of Gaul, and the other, verging towards the Irish Sea, terminated in seven smaller rays. Struck with terror at this sight, Uther anxiously inquired of liis wise men what this star portended. They made answer, ” The star and the fiery dragon under the star, are thyself; the ray which stretches towards the region of Gaul, portends that thou wilt have a very powerful son, who will possess the extensive territories which the star covered ; the other ray signifies thy daughter, whose sons and grandsons shall successively possess the kingdom of Britain. Hasten, therefore, most noble prince; thy brother Aurelius Ambrosius, the renowned king of Britain, is dead ; and with him has perished the military glory of the Britons.

Confirmation for this dating of the death of Ambrosius comes from the 6th century Chronicle of Edessa, which tells us that for many days during January 499, there was seen a great comet ‘like a spear.‘ By this time he had become the first great hero of post-Roman Britain, whose descendants it seems carried on the fight. Gildas tells us;

And now his progeny in these our days, although shamefully degenerated from the worthiness of their ancestors, provoke to battle their cruel conquerors, and by the goodness of our Lord obtain the victory.

Since Geoffrey of Monmouth, the ‘progeny’ of Ambrosius has been conflated with the other great Brythonic war-leader of the age, King Arthur. Monmouth made him the nephew of Ambrosius, but of this we can never be sure…

NOTES

(*) Although purely conjectural, we can deduce the motivation behind Quintus’s naming of his son, for the author Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (mostly called Ambrosius) dedicated his work ‘De differentiis vel societatibus graeci latinique verbi’ to Quintus. Was this a literary sign of the endearing friendship that drives men to name their children after their greatest friends? Indeed, it seems Macrobius was close to the entire family, for he also wrote about Quintus’ grandfather – also called Quintus Aurelius Symmachus – in his famous ‘Saturnalia.’ This Quintus had been a loyal supporter of the British-based Roman emperor Magnus Maximus. Apart from lands in Britain, this Quintus also had estates in Italy, Sicily & Mauritania (West Africa). He was also a distinguished author, but little of his work has been translated into English. It is possible that through his connections with the British-based Magnus Maximus he may have even held lands in Britain, but this is pure speculation.

(**) In his own endeavors Aetius was much more successful, however, halting Attila & his Huns in their tracks in 451.

(***) Nennius tells us that the mother of Ambrosius at first claimed immaculate conception for Ambroisus, & it was only later that Ambrosius revealed his true identity.

(****)Geoffrey of Monmouth places Ambrosius near to Amesbury by the rather fabricated ordering the building of Stonehenge, perhaps connected to the hillfort known as Vespasian’s camp only two miles from Stonehenge. Other possible Ambrosius sites include;

Ombersley in Worcestershire,
Ambrosden in Oxfordshire,
Amberley in Herefordshire,
Amberley in Gloucestershire
Amberley in West Sussex
Emberton – Buckinghamshire
Ambleston – Pembrokeshire
Ambleside – Cumbria
Emborough – Somerset

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bede – Chronica Majora (725)

Bern Codex – MS Bern Bürgerbibliothek Codex 178, f.11 (c.860)

Cassiodorus – Chronica (519)

Constantius of Lyon – Vita Sancti Germani (480)

De Hovedon, Roger – Chronica (1192)

Geoffrey of Monmouth – History of the Kings of Britain (1130)

Gildas – De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (c550)

Nennius – Historia Brittonum (c.830)

Wrmonoc – Life of Saint Paul Aurelian (884). Taken from The Saints of Cornwall (vol.1) by Gilbert H Doble

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk to my drummer’s house just off the Leith Links in Edinburgh. My purpose was to get a container for the bramble wine I am about to start brewing (its been a bumper crop this year), but I also came away with a few books. He is moving out soon & on hearing he was going to take a load of them to a charity shop, the poet in me reveled at the chance to gain a few additions to my own library. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was welcomed warmly, but I also gained a copy of Tacitus’s Agricola & Germania. Now, I knew that the Agricola was the only source on the Battle of Mons Graupius, & I also knew that no-one had been able to identify the battle-site. Yet, this same state of affairs had existed before, from Brunanburh to King Arthur’s grave, & I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I made a pot of tea & had a look at the battle. It occurred c.83AD, somewhere in the north of Scotland, & was said to be a great victory over the allied Caledonian tribes by the great Roman general Agricola. Within about an hour or so I’d worked out where it took place.

We have two main pieces of evidence for Agricola’s campaign in Scotland – the account by his son-in-law, Cornelius Tacitus, & the remains of a chain of a dozen ‘marching forts’ that the Romans erected as they pressed further north. David Breeze, in his ‘The logistics of Agricola’s final campaign,’ tells us; The known Roman marching camps north of the Forth point to all roman armies following roughly the same route, skirting the south eastern flanks of the highlands to pass around the mounth at stonehaven & continue north-westerly along the edge of the mountains. This same route, incidentally, was used in 1746 by the British army on their way to face another Caledonian army at Culloden.

Many of the camps are sited near the sea, so Agricola could maintain contact between his fleet & his soldiers, confirm’d by a passage in Tacitus;

In the summer in which he entered on the sixth year of his office, his operations embraced the states beyond the Forth, and, as he dreaded a general movement among the remoter tribes, as well as the perils which would beset an invading army, he explored the harbours with a fleet, which, at first employed by him as an integral part of his force, continued to accompany him. The spectacle of war thus pushed on at once by sea and land was imposing; while often infantry, cavalry, and marines, mingled in the same encampment and joyously sharing the same meals,

Knowing that Agricola withdrew to winter quarters after the battle, which was the high-water mark of the invasion, common sense tells us that the battle took place at a fort near the end of the chain. Indeed, it is upon the area around the penultimate fort at Balnagieth, just to the west of Forres, that all the topographical clues found in the account of Tacitus coalesce. These can help us paint a mental picture of the battlefield, which would have contained, in the following order;

SEA – CAMP – PLAIN – HILL – WILDERNESS

Sea

Few in number, dismayed by their ignorance, looking around upon a sky, a sea, and forests which are all unfamiliar to them; hemmed in, as it were, and enmeshed, the Gods have delivered them into our hands (Calgacus speaking about the Romans)

Camp

And so you and I have passed beyond the limits reached by former armies or by former governors, and we now occupy the last confines of Britain, not merely in rumour and report, but with an actual encampment and armed force.

He arrayed his eager and impetuous troops in such a manner that the auxiliary infantry, 8,000 in number, strengthened his centre, while 3,000 cavalry were posted on his wings. The legions were drawn up in front of the intrenched camp;

Plain

The plain between resounded with the noise and with the rapid movements of chariots and cavalry. Agricola, fearing that from the enemy’s superiority of force he would be simultaneously attacked in front and on the flanks, widened his ranks

Hill

The enemy, to make a formidable display, had posted himself on high ground; his van was on the plain, while the rest of his army rose in tiers up the slope of a hill.

The effect of tiers indicates the hill quite steep. We can also infer from the text that Mons Graupius was not a smooth, single-peaked feature, & instead possessed several peaks, as in;

Those of the Britons who, having as yet taken no part in the engagement, occupied the hill-tops

Wilderness

When, however, the enemy saw that we again pursued them in firm and compact array, they fled no longer in masses as before, each looking for his comrade; but dispersing and avoiding one another, they sought the shelter of distant and pathless wilds

In addition to the above, we must note that the battlefield was close to several settlements & hills;

Meanwhile the Britons, wandering amidst the mingled wailings of men and women, were dragging off their wounded, calling to the unhurt, deserting their homes, and in their rage actually firing them

The silence of desolation reigned everywhere: the hills were forsaken, houses were smoking in the distance

Nelson's Tower on Cluny Hill

Forres

There is only one place in Scotland that combines the correct topographical features given above with an appropriate Roman fort, & that is Forres, twenty-five miles east of Inverness beside the Moray Firth. This means that the steep multi-peaked’ hill known as Cluny Hill was once named Mons Graupius. The Cluny Hills today house the eco-living lovers that are the Findhorn Foundation, & a impressive monument to Nelson, yet 2000 years ago it was home to a massed confederacy of Caledonian tribes, all ready to face the alien invaders.

Forres lies close to the sea, & to its east there is a plain which leads to a Roman Marching Camp at Balnagieth, while to the south of Forres spreads a hilly wilderness. Tacitus tells us Agricola’s army were lightly equipped, indicating he was acting on information that the Caledonians had gathered en masse, & were preparing to give him the set-piece battle the Romans excelled at. It seems they had gathered at a Caledonian ‘power base‘ for just to the east of Forres lies the oldest Pictish hill-fort at Burghead – where a recent dig at Clarckly hill uncovered Iron Age circular stone houses & building foundations. Also found at the fort were carved slabs depicting bulls & a very ancient chambered well, while the fort itself is three times bigger than any other Pictish hillfort, suggesting its great importance.

Sueno’s Stone

We now come to the evidence for Forres that has really been staring the world in the face. The Pictish monument known as Sueno’s stone is the largest (6.5m), most impressive piece of Pictish stoneworking we know. It is dated to c.900 AD, while its name comes from an 11th century Dane. On one side there is a great cross, & on the other we have images from a great battle. Scholars have scratched their heads over which battle it was, but surely now the most magnificent piece of Pictish artwork can be associated with the greatest military moment of the Caledonians. One can imagine the King of the Picts commissioning the monument – which originally had another obelisk standing beside it (Timothy Pont’s Mapp of Murray c 1590) – to honour the great ancestors.

The stone is packed full of battle-scenes, all of which can be connected with passages in Tacitus.

Two cavalry forces - Agricola… opposed their advance with four squadrons of cavalry held in reserve by him for any sudden emergencies of battle
&
Meantime the enemy’s cavalry had fled

Archers – The action began with distant fighting. The Britons with equal steadiness and skill used their huge swords and small shields to avoid or to parry the missiles of our soldiers, while they themselves poured on us a dense shower of darts

Corpses and decapitated heads – The open plain presented an awful and hideous spectacle… Everywhere there lay scattered arms, corpses, and mangled limbs

An infantry battle – Agricola encouraged three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to bring matters to the decision of close fighting with swords

Soldiers with small shields & large swords - An enemy armed with small bucklers and unwieldy weapons

Other features on the stone also reflect the battle;

A tent - This would have been the Roman camp

Three musicians blowing trumpets - Three Roman trumpet brooches were found at Culbin sands just to the north of Forres, which lie beside a perfect natural harbour for Agricola’s fleet

A broch – This would have been the Caledonian hillfort at Burghead, known as ‘The broch’ by locals

A kilted war-leader – This would be either Calgacus, or King Galdus given in the medieval account of the battle by Hector Boece

Balnageith

Agricola’s presence this far north is suggested by a number of Roman finds in coins in the area. Alongside discoveries at Cawdor, Portmahomack & Tarradale, also discovered were cooins minted in the name of pre-83AD Roman emperors, such as a Vespasian at Garnout, a Nero at Fortrose, & most importantly a Titus at Forres. In addition, the temporary camp at Balnagieth has all the hall marks of Agricola’s hand, of whom, ‘It was noted by experienced officers that no general had ever shown more judgment in choosing suitable positions,‘ for n one side it is protected by the River Findhorn just a couple of miles upstream from a beautiful sea-harbour. The fort is 234 metres long, & at least 70 meters wide & surrounded by a 3 metre wide ditch, while , ‘it is possible that the camp was possessed of six-post corner-towers and that the front of the rampart was revetted in timber, which would suggest a more permanent encampment. (Britannia xxii (1991) p.226 & fig.4.)

The Boresti

Forres is looking more & more like it hosted the grand battle of Mons Graupius, & there is more evidence to come. Agricola is said to have; led his army into the territory of the Boresti. He received hostages from them, and then ordered the commander of the fleet to sail round Britain. Nobody knows where the Boresti dwelt, but the word seems could be linked to the Boreas, as in Hyperboria, the north wind from beyond the land of the boreas. The b of Boresti wseems to have at some point changed to a v, which then became Forres, eithe r through a scribal error, or a misunderstanding over the two letters – for example, the 9th century Cyrillic script of the Slavs uses the letter b for the v sound. It must also be noted that the legion which fought at Mons Graupius was the Ninth, which was Spanish in origin – as is evident in later centuries Spanish dialetic pronunciation of the Latin language changed v’s to b’s.

Victoria

The quest for Mons Graupius has been going on for centuries, but as with many things like this, no concensus has ever been reached. A spenner in the works was Ptolemy’s secod century naming of a fort in the Perthshire area as Victoria, or victory. This sent many scholars scampering to that part of Scotland & ignoring Tacitus when he said that the Romans were at the ‘furthest bounds’ of Scotland & that Agricola ordered his fleet to round the northern tip of Britain (with them being so close, I presume)

Several sites have been suggested for Camp Victoria, but the best candidate for is the Roman marching camp called Battledykes, near Fortrose. Jamieson, writing in 1786, states the fort possessed five gates, & was double ramparted, except for a portion of the western side which was a marsh. It is the mention of the marsh – & of course the ‘battle’ element in the name of the fort, that connects with this passage from Tacitus concerning a battle that took place the year before Mons Graupius.

This becoming known to the enemy, they suddenly changed their plan, and with their whole force attacked by night the ninth Legion, as being the weakest, and cutting down the sentries, who were asleep or panic-stricken, they broke into the camp. And now the battle was raging within the camp itself, when Agricola, who had learnt from his scouts the enemy’s line of march and had kept close on his track, ordered the most active soldiers of his cavalry and infantry to attack the rear of the assailants, while the entire army were shortly to raise a shout. Soon his standards glittered in the light of daybreak. A double peril thus alarmed the Britons, while the courage of the Romans revived; and feeling sure of safety, they now fought for glory. In their turn they rushed to the attack, and there was a furious conflict within the narrow passages of the gates till the enemy were routed. Both armies did their utmost, the one for the honour of having given aid, the other for that of not having needed support. Had not the flying enemy been sheltered by marshes and forests, this victory would have ended the war.

Conclusion

We can now see that Agricola pushed beyond the Forth & fought a battle near Fortrose. The next year he built a series of marching camps as far as Forres, where the Caledonians were waiting for him. History is written by the victor, & Tacitus tells us that, ‘About 10,000 of the enemy were slain; on our side there fell 360 men.‘ However, the scottish historian, hecto boece, tells a different story;

Our annals record that twelve thousand Romans died in that unhappy conflict, and about twenty thousand Scots, Picts, and auxiliaries. Among these was the Danish leader Gildo, who was surrounded by the enemy while fighting with great ferocity and ardor, together with a few chosen comrades.

What is true, is that after the battle of Mons Graupius the Romans hardly ever ventured this far north again & it is easy to see how the Caledonians would have slowly but surely looked upon Mons Graupius as the moment they dismissed tribal rivavlries, bonded as a fighting force & met the might of rome in open conflict. They may have lost many men, but their combined strength was enough to convinve the romans to build a wall across britain to keep them out of the empire, rather than attempt to subdue them. It is to celebrate this, then, that the Picts erected their fabulous memorial of the day the Romans came to town – Sueno’s Stone.