Chapter 33: The Fort of Emrys
The low cloud that had cooled the morning had lifted, and as the three friends made their way to the north-west quadrant the sun cast crisp blue shadows on the long grass, freshly sprouted. There was a renewed heat to the day, promising to echo that of two days previously when the friends had arrived under unseasonably warm skies.
The circle was a hive of activity; groups of cap-wearing workmen gathered about the sides of the ditch, while a number of special guests, including Flinders-Petrie, and sight-seers, unconnected to the excavations or reconstructions had been attracted by the promise of some kind of show, and the general hub-bub of excitement. These included both local villagers from both Avebury and the Kennet villages south of the river, as well as walkers and those who had chosen to stop here on their way to more distant destinations, giving the goings-on an almost holiday-like feel, in which Keiller, strutting about manically, was the tweed-wearing master of ceremonies.
Rather than give a long speech, Keiller merely waved at the assembled crowd and advised they keep their distance, though thanking them for their interest. After twenty minutes of fixing ropes to the freshly cleaned stone lying on its side, the work of lifting began.
The stone, to the delight of the crowd, lifted a few inches on each of the first dozen attempts, but after a while the act of levering, though visually impressive, with its large wooden levers, blocks, ropes and pulleys, seemed to lift the stone in smaller and smaller increments, and a few of the assembled crowd began to drift away and seek a more sheltered part of the circle.
Tolkien, Barfield and Lewis watched in silence, with the sense that they were witnessing an event the likes of hadn’t been seen in this place for thousands of years.
Then there was a sound like a gun-shot and one of the ropes holding the stone flailed to one side, causing two of the workmen to be thrown to the ground; the stone, that had been raised but three or so feet twisted on its axis churning a deep cut out of the turf and fell back to the floor with a ground-shaking thud. The small crowd surged forward; Keiller strode forward to the stone, while Piggott went to the aid of the workmen, who were laughing but shaken. Flinders-Petrie stood to one side shaking his head and tapping his walking stick onto the ground impatiently. Beside him stood a small woman in, Tolkien guessed her sixties or seventies, her long grey hair tied back in a bun.
Petrie and Keiller exchanged a few words, and shook hands; the former then strode through the crowd with the lady following him, leaving Keiller seemingly torn between following the old man and returning to the re-adjustment of the ropes; Keiller was hopping from foot to foot, then throwing his hat on the grass he turned back to the stone, chagrined.
Lewis turned to Tolkien with raised brows; ‘This looks as if it’s going to take a while; shall we take a stroll?’
Tolkien nodded. ‘It does indeed; the process is rather too mechanical for me, anyway – ropes and pulleys, concrete – the ancients didn’t use concrete…’ he bristled, eyeing the sacks of the stuff lined up ready by the empty hole ready to secure the stone in place.
‘No..’ came a low female voice behind them; ‘…the blood of a fatherless virgin was much more effective!’
Tolkien turned, surprised; there, standing a few paces behind, was a burly and commanding figure of a woman, stocky in a high collared fur coat and woollen bonnet; his first impression was of a head mistress, but there was a spark in her dark eyes that betrayed a wit and fire; she smiled.
‘Violet Mary Evans, and this’… she gestured to a tall man at her side, ‘Dr Thomas Penry Evans. I was of course referring to rites long forgotten.’
Tolkien introduced his party swiftly; ‘I thought you were talking of Merlin.’
‘Yes, he’s part of the tradition. The old ones will demand a sacrifice if these stones are to stand.’
Tolkien ignored the wide-eyed look Lewis flashed him.
‘Let us hope not Mrs Evans.’
She smiled. ‘I see blood under the stones; perhaps this has already happened so we are all safe from that fate today.’
The three friends shared uneasy looks, and Lewis fought hard not to betray a smile. All the while the grey eyes of Mrs Evans coolly observed them, creasing at the edges at the men’s discomfiture.
The stalemate was broken by Owen Barfield, who took a step forward and introduced his party to the new arrivals.
‘We are here by accident, it seems – we had meant to be already long gone.’
‘Back to your dreaming spires?’
‘Porlock; that is we intend to arrive in Porlock in a few days’ time but we have been delayed; we should, by now, have been way past Calne – perhaps we may have even reached Wells by now. And we would have been in Glastonbury in the next day or two.’
Mrs Evans smiled.
‘Deo non fortuna…’ she quipped; ‘God not luck; you shall still be in Glastonbury – it is where we two are headed and we have room in our car for all three of you if you wish to take me up on the offer.’
‘Why that would be most kind!’ beamed Lewis. ‘Only we must first let our host know – we had arranged to stay this night and all our belongings are in the boarding house…’
‘Don’t worry. There is no rush. We would have driven past but I was tiring and we had thought to stop a few hours and perhaps set off again after tea…’
Barfield had stood silently since the offer had been made with a curious expression playing across his features as if he wished to say something but was holding back.
‘A fatherless virgin you said…’
Mrs Penry Evans turned and smiled.
‘Indeed.’
‘It’s just that Professor Tolkien here was asking some questions regarding the stones and Merlin just last night.’
Tolkien shifted uneasily from foot to foot; Owen was clearly wishing for Tolkien to take up his story, and he so hated being put on the spot.
Tolkien coughed and mumbled;
‘I was thinking of the name Marlborough and its derivation from Merlin’s barrow; it refers to the smaller cousin of Silbury in the grounds of Marlborough school – however, it just struck me as odd that in Geoffrey of Monmouth Merlin is credited with the building of Stonehenge; I wondered if perhaps a similar tale was once told of this place, too. Perhaps the later enchanter’s name has been inserted in a very ancient story that spoke of the origins of all such sites.’
‘Merlin, I believe, was a title rather than a given name.’ Mrs Penry Evans stated flatly. ‘The one who built these monuments first bore that title, one that many men later claimed. You see it means ‘man from the sea’ and the first Merlin did indeed come from over the sea and brought the wisdom to build these sites with him.’
Man from the sea… Tolkien bit his tongue; he half-agreed – the name stemmed from the old name for Carmarthen, Moridunum, the fort by the sea – and probably meant ‘the man from Moridunum’, the equivalent of calling himself ‘Bloemfontein’…
Lewis, who was becoming more his old self as the day progressed, turned to Tolkien and raised an eyebrow. Tolkien ignored him.
‘Geoffrey does say that Merlin brought the stones from Killaraus in Ireland, I’ll give you that,’ Tolkien relied; ‘but I’ve been having a long think on the matter…’ he paused, wondering whether to continue. Lewis gave Barfield a look that said here we go… while the Penry-Evans’ were looking at Tolkien with genuine interest.
‘Geoffrey’s name for Merlin is Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys, if we use the Welsh.’ Tolkien cleared his throat again and looked at the floor, before raising his head and flashing a quick smile.
‘Stonehenge is near Amesbury and that name is thought to derive from Ambrosius Aurelianus, the 5th century war leader and victor at Mons Badonicus – but maybe the name is older…’ he grinned again ‘and belongs not to the town but to the Stones; Amesbury being simply the town closest to the Fort of Ambrosius – a rather poetic name for Stonehenge. Of course, it is no fort, but ‘bury’ often also means burial place of barrow, such as here at Silbury. And if Ambrosius is Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys, then the name Emrys’bury’ is more than fitting for a site said to have been built by Merlin as a grave-marker for the Britons slain by the Saxons.’
Lewis, who had feigned disinterest, had found his interest suddenly piqued. ‘Bravo, Tollers! I’d never thought of that.’
‘Oh it gets better, Jack! Due to the law of mutation in the Welsh language an m mutates into a v meaning that both Avebury and Amesbury could arguably derive from Emrys’ burial place. The coincidence of that suggests we’re not looking at a name based on a 5th century warlord, but an earlier derivation from a precursor to the Merlin Ambrosius of legend, who lent his name to both sites, way, way back in prehistory when both sites were built.’
‘You’re saying that Stonehenge and Avebury once bore the same name?’ Lewis asked, seeking clarification for his friend’s bold statement.
‘Yes, I am. The burial place of Emrys.’
Mr Penry-Evans, who had taken a back seat throughout the discussion, now stepped forward, and said, in a sing-song South-Walian accent.
‘of course, you may wish to claim him for your own but Merlin, or as we should more properly cal, him Myrddin Emrys was a Welshman, as I’m sure you know. And he was taken to a place named Dinas Emrys in North Wales to be sacrificed so that the collapsing castle of King Vortigern would stand; but before his blood was shed he discovered the true cause – the red and white dragons fighting in a cave beneath the castle…’
Just then the stone which had been hauled up again a couple of feet fell back to the earth with a grinding thud.
‘There’s your collapsing castle, Mr Penry Evans!’ Tolkien laughed. ‘Such a tale is often used to explain the precarious condition of standing stones… and as for your Dinas Emrys – does not this also mean ‘fort of Ambrosius’ as do Amesbury, and, as we have just concluded, Avebury? In reminding us of the story of Dinas Emrys, good Sir, you have demonstrated that this is yet another version of the same myth! Perhaps before being set in the fastness of Snowdonia the Emrys myth was set within a ring of collapsing stones in Wessex… a Bronze Age myth carried from here to the mountain refuges of the fleeing Cymru…’
‘Except for one difference…’ the jovial Welshman added, seemingly not chagrined at a national myth being so bowdlerized by the stocky Sais, ‘according to the Welsh triads Emrys was said to be buried at Dinas Emrys; you see, before Geoffrey of Monmouth we are perhaps looking at an original tale where the youth did not survive – where, unlike Merlin, he was killed and the stones were indeed cemented by his blood. If this place is Dinas Emrys, perhaps Merlin lies waiting to be discovered here?’
‘I say wouldn’t that be marvellous!’ It was Keiller – who had approached during Penry Evan’s rejoinder. ‘Apologies for interrupting but I am a sucker for old folklore and legends, and I’m afraid I only caught the tail end of this particular exposition!’
He grinned at them all, clutching his hat in his hands.
‘Might I be so bold as to ask if you would all wish to resume this topic over a sherry and luncheon tonight at the Manor? I do so miss decent conversation! There is room at the Manor should any of you wish to stay.’
Before the logistics of possible leaving times and driving arrangements could be discussed Mrs Penry Evans fixed the school-boyish man with her matronly eyes, and strode forward and took his hand; she smiled slowly. ‘Yes, that would be perfect.’
‘Well this seems a bit of luck,’ Lewis said as an aside to Tolkien. ‘We don’t have to pack; we get an invitation to a dinner, and a lift in the morning to our destination without having to break sweat.’ The latter man nodded, but it was Barfield who answered. ‘Not luck, God, as the lady said. Deo non fortuna.’
‘But which God?’ Lewis asked, as the sprightly capricious Keiller hopped away back to where the workmen were seeking to re-attach the ropes to the stone;
‘this place seems full of them.’
‘Was Emrys a god, originally, do you think?’ Barfield asked Tolkien.
The latter scratched his chin. ‘One god or two.’
‘Why so?’ Lewis asked, frowning.
‘You see, I don’t see how the original Emrys would derive from Ambrosius…a Roman name, if the naming of these sites predates the Roman period. The original name, which later became Emrys, ought to be closer to the Ave or Ame remembered in the placenames, and as far as I can see there’s just one candidate…’ he paused for effect.
‘He does this on purpose, Owen.’ Lewis said, irritated, poking Tolkien with his walking stick.
Tolkien laughed. ‘Think – the killing of the youth to keep the stones from falling, it’s clearly a foundation sacrifice, and such legends are usually old creation myths twisted out of shape or half-remembered. Like the Greek Titans who become the earth; Emrys’s killing is a cosmogonic act – and the nearest we have in the Old North is the killing of Ymir, the giant.’
Lewis’s ears pricked up at the mention of Nordic myths, his childhood favourite.
‘From Ymir's flesh the earth was formed,
and from his bones the hills,
the heaven from the skull of that ice-cold giant,
and from his blood the sea…’ he intoned. ‘Ymir’s bury…Amesbury… Good God, man! It does seem to fit!’
’And Ymir means..?’ Tolkien asked, as if testing his students back in Merton College.
Lewis shrugged. ‘I ought to know, I’m sure it’s been discussed.’
‘Twin.’ Tolkien said. ‘It means Twin.’
Chapter 33: The Fort of Emrys
The low cloud that had cooled the morning had lifted, and as the three friends made their way to the north-west quadrant the sun cast crisp blue shadows on the long grass, freshly sprouted. There was a renewed heat to the day, promising to echo that of two days previously when the friends had arrived under unseasonably warm skies.
The circle was a hive of activity; groups of cap-wearing workmen gathered about the sides of the ditch, while a number of special guests, including Flinders-Petrie, and sight-seers, unconnected to the excavations or reconstructions had been attracted by the promise of some kind of show, and the general hub-bub of excitement. These included both local villagers from both Avebury and the Kennet villages south of the river, as well as walkers and those who had chosen to stop here on their way to more distant destinations, giving the goings-on an almost holiday-like feel, in which Keiller, strutting about manically, was the tweed-wearing master of ceremonies.
Rather than give a long speech, Keiller merely waved at the assembled crowd and advised they keep their distance, though thanking them for their interest. After twenty minutes of fixing ropes to the freshly cleaned stone lying on its side, the work of lifting began.
The stone, to the delight of the crowd, lifted a few inches on each of the first dozen attempts, but after a while the act of levering, though visually impressive, with its large wooden levers, blocks, ropes and pulleys, seemed to lift the stone in smaller and smaller increments, and a few of the assembled crowd began to drift away and seek a more sheltered part of the circle.
Tolkien, Barfield and Lewis watched in silence, with the sense that they were witnessing an event the likes of hadn’t been seen in this place for thousands of years.
Then there was a sound like a gun-shot and one of the ropes holding the stone flailed to one side, causing two of the workmen to be thrown to the ground; the stone, that had been raised but three or so feet twisted on its axis churning a deep cut out of the turf and fell back to the floor with a ground-shaking thud. The small crowd surged forward; Keiller strode forward to the stone, while Piggott went to the aid of the workmen, who were laughing but shaken. Flinders-Petrie stood to one side shaking his head and tapping his walking stick onto the ground impatiently. Beside him stood a small woman in, Tolkien guessed her sixties or seventies, her long grey hair tied back in a bun.
Petrie and Keiller exchanged a few words, and shook hands; the former then strode through the crowd with the lady following him, leaving Keiller seemingly torn between following the old man and returning to the re-adjustment of the ropes; Keiller was hopping from foot to foot, then throwing his hat on the grass he turned back to the stone, chagrined.
Lewis turned to Tolkien with raised brows; ‘This looks as if it’s going to take a while; shall we take a stroll?’
Tolkien nodded. ‘It does indeed; the process is rather too mechanical for me, anyway – ropes and pulleys, concrete – the ancients didn’t use concrete…’ he bristled, eyeing the sacks of the stuff lined up ready by the empty hole ready to secure the stone in place.
‘No..’ came a low female voice behind them; ‘…the blood of a fatherless virgin was much more effective!’
Tolkien turned, surprised; there, standing a few paces behind, was a burly and commanding figure of a woman, stocky in a high collared fur coat and woollen bonnet; his first impression was of a head mistress, but there was a spark in her dark eyes that betrayed a wit and fire; she smiled.
‘Violet Mary Evans, and this’… she gestured to a tall man at her side, ‘Dr Thomas Penry Evans. I was of course referring to rites long forgotten.’
Tolkien introduced his party swiftly; ‘I thought you were talking of Merlin.’
‘Yes, he’s part of the tradition. The old ones will demand a sacrifice if these stones are to stand.’
Tolkien ignored the wide-eyed look Lewis flashed him.
‘Let us hope not Mrs Evans.’
She smiled. ‘I see blood under the stones; perhaps this has already happened so we are all safe from that fate today.’
The three friends shared uneasy looks, and Lewis fought hard not to betray a smile. All the while the grey eyes of Mrs Evans coolly observed them, creasing at the edges at the men’s discomfiture.
The stalemate was broken by Owen Barfield, who took a step forward and introduced his party to the new arrivals.
‘We are here by accident, it seems – we had meant to be already long gone.’
‘Back to your dreaming spires?’
‘Porlock; that is we intend to arrive in Porlock in a few days’ time but we have been delayed; we should, by now, have been way past Calne – perhaps we may have even reached Wells by now. And we would have been in Glastonbury in the next day or two.’
Mrs Evans smiled.
‘Deo non fortuna…’ she quipped; ‘God not luck; you shall still be in Glastonbury – it is where we two are headed and we have room in our car for all three of you if you wish to take me up on the offer.’
‘Why that would be most kind!’ beamed Lewis. ‘Only we must first let our host know – we had arranged to stay this night and all our belongings are in the boarding house…’
‘Don’t worry. There is no rush. We would have driven past but I was tiring and we had thought to stop a few hours and perhaps set off again after tea…’
Barfield had stood silently since the offer had been made with a curious expression playing across his features as if he wished to say something but was holding back.
‘A fatherless virgin you said…’
Mrs Penry Evans turned and smiled.
‘Indeed.’
‘It’s just that Professor Tolkien here was asking some questions regarding the stones and Merlin just last night.’
Tolkien shifted uneasily from foot to foot; Owen was clearly wishing for Tolkien to take up his story, and he so hated being put on the spot.
Tolkien coughed and mumbled;
‘I was thinking of the name Marlborough and its derivation from Merlin’s barrow; it refers to the smaller cousin of Silbury in the grounds of Marlborough school – however, it just struck me as odd that in Geoffrey of Monmouth Merlin is credited with the building of Stonehenge; I wondered if perhaps a similar tale was once told of this place, too. Perhaps the later enchanter’s name has been inserted in a very ancient story that spoke of the origins of all such sites.’
‘Merlin, I believe, was a title rather than a given name.’ Mrs Penry Evans stated flatly. ‘The one who built these monuments first bore that title, one that many men later claimed. You see it means ‘man from the sea’ and the first Merlin did indeed come from over the sea and brought the wisdom to build these sites with him.’
Man from the sea… Tolkien bit his tongue; he half-agreed – the name stemmed from the old name for Carmarthen, Moridunum, the fort by the sea – and probably meant ‘the man from Moridunum’, the equivalent of calling himself ‘Bloemfontein’…
Lewis, who was becoming more his old self as the day progressed, turned to Tolkien and raised an eyebrow. Tolkien ignored him.
‘Geoffrey does say that Merlin brought the stones from Killaraus in Ireland, I’ll give you that,’ Tolkien relied; ‘but I’ve been having a long think on the matter…’ he paused, wondering whether to continue. Lewis gave Barfield a look that said here we go… while the Penry-Evans’ were looking at Tolkien with genuine interest.
‘Geoffrey’s name for Merlin is Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys, if we use the Welsh.’ Tolkien cleared his throat again and looked at the floor, before raising his head and flashing a quick smile.
‘Stonehenge is near Amesbury and that name is thought to derive from Ambrosius Aurelianus, the 5th century war leader and victor at Mons Badonicus – but maybe the name is older…’ he grinned again ‘and belongs not to the town but to the Stones; Amesbury being simply the town closest to the Fort of Ambrosius – a rather poetic name for Stonehenge. Of course, it is no fort, but ‘bury’ often also means burial place of barrow, such as here at Silbury. And if Ambrosius is Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys, then the name Emrys’bury’ is more than fitting for a site said to have been built by Merlin as a grave-marker for the Britons slain by the Saxons.’
Lewis, who had feigned disinterest, had found his interest suddenly piqued. ‘Bravo, Tollers! I’d never thought of that.’
‘Oh it gets better, Jack! Due to the law of mutation in the Welsh language an m mutates into a v meaning that both Avebury and Amesbury could arguably derive from Emrys’ burial place. The coincidence of that suggests we’re not looking at a name based on a 5th century warlord, but an earlier derivation from a precursor to the Merlin Ambrosius of legend, who lent his name to both sites, way, way back in prehistory when both sites were built.’
‘You’re saying that Stonehenge and Avebury once bore the same name?’ Lewis asked, seeking clarification for his friend’s bold statement.
‘Yes, I am. The burial place of Emrys.’
Mr Penry-Evans, who had taken a back seat throughout the discussion, now stepped forward, and said, in a sing-song South-Walian accent.
‘of course, you may wish to claim him for your own but Merlin, or as we should more properly cal, him Myrddin Emrys was a Welshman, as I’m sure you know. And he was taken to a place named Dinas Emrys in North Wales to be sacrificed so that the collapsing castle of King Vortigern would stand; but before his blood was shed he discovered the true cause – the red and white dragons fighting in a cave beneath the castle…’
Just then the stone which had been hauled up again a couple of feet fell back to the earth with a grinding thud.
‘There’s your collapsing castle, Mr Penry Evans!’ Tolkien laughed. ‘Such a tale is often used to explain the precarious condition of standing stones… and as for your Dinas Emrys – does not this also mean ‘fort of Ambrosius’ as do Amesbury, and, as we have just concluded, Avebury? In reminding us of the story of Dinas Emrys, good Sir, you have demonstrated that this is yet another version of the same myth! Perhaps before being set in the fastness of Snowdonia the Emrys myth was set within a ring of collapsing stones in Wessex… a Bronze Age myth carried from here to the mountain refuges of the fleeing Cymru…’
‘Except for one difference…’ the jovial Welshman added, seemingly not chagrined at a national myth being so bowdlerized by the stocky Sais, ‘according to the Welsh triads Emrys was said to be buried at Dinas Emrys; you see, before Geoffrey of Monmouth we are perhaps looking at an original tale where the youth did not survive – where, unlike Merlin, he was killed and the stones were indeed cemented by his blood. If this place is Dinas Emrys, perhaps Merlin lies waiting to be discovered here?’
‘I say wouldn’t that be marvellous!’ It was Keiller – who had approached during Penry Evan’s rejoinder. ‘Apologies for interrupting but I am a sucker for old folklore and legends, and I’m afraid I only caught the tail end of this particular exposition!’
He grinned at them all, clutching his hat in his hands.
‘Might I be so bold as to ask if you would all wish to resume this topic over a sherry and luncheon tonight at the Manor? I do so miss decent conversation! There is room at the Manor should any of you wish to stay.’
Before the logistics of possible leaving times and driving arrangements could be discussed Mrs Penry Evans fixed the school-boyish man with her matronly eyes, and strode forward and took his hand; she smiled slowly. ‘Yes, that would be perfect.’
‘Well this seems a bit of luck,’ Lewis said as an aside to Tolkien. ‘We don’t have to pack; we get an invitation to a dinner, and a lift in the morning to our destination without having to break sweat.’ The latter man nodded, but it was Barfield who answered. ‘Not luck, God, as the lady said. Deo non fortuna.’
‘But which God?’ Lewis asked, as the sprightly capricious Keiller hopped away back to where the workmen were seeking to re-attach the ropes to the stone;
‘this place seems full of them.’
‘Was Emrys a god, originally, do you think?’ Barfield asked Tolkien.
The latter scratched his chin. ‘One god or two.’
‘Why so?’ Lewis asked, frowning.
‘You see, I don’t see how the original Emrys would derive from Ambrosius…a Roman name, if the naming of these sites predates the Roman period. The original name, which later became Emrys, ought to be closer to the Ave or Ame remembered in the placenames, and as far as I can see there’s just one candidate…’ he paused for effect.
‘He does this on purpose, Owen.’ Lewis said, irritated, poking Tolkien with his walking stick.
Tolkien laughed. ‘Think – the killing of the youth to keep the stones from falling, it’s clearly a foundation sacrifice, and such legends are usually old creation myths twisted out of shape or half-remembered. Like the Greek Titans who become the earth; Emrys’s killing is a cosmogonic act – and the nearest we have in the Old North is the killing of Ymir, the giant.’
Lewis’s ears pricked up at the mention of Nordic myths, his childhood favourite.
‘From Ymir's flesh the earth was formed,
and from his bones the hills,
the heaven from the skull of that ice-cold giant,
and from his blood the sea…’ he intoned. ‘Ymir’s bury…Amesbury… Good God, man! It does seem to fit!’
’And Ymir means..?’ Tolkien asked, as if testing his students back in Merton College.
Lewis shrugged. ‘I ought to know, I’m sure it’s been discussed.’
‘Twin.’ Tolkien said. ‘It means Twin.’