The Faded Map: The Lost Kingdoms of Scotland (37 page)

When it is borne firmly in mind that, until the coming of the railways in the nineteenth century and a road network in the twentieth, the sea was not seen as a barrier but as a highway, then this recently discovered frontier comes into focus and makes every sort of economic, social and military sense. The upper reaches of the Firth of Clyde were an integral part of the kingdom of Strathclyde – in a real sense, its beating heart – and the
communities who lived, farmed, hunted and fished on the shores of the Holy Loch, Loch Long, Loch Goil and Gare Loch were all linked by busy seaborne traffic. Navigation was easy. The coastlines are all intervisible except in the very worst of the weather and the crossing distances are short. When the tiderip is powerful, sailors will have used the age-old practice of ‘aiming off’ – picking a landmark some way to the left or right of where they actually wish to make landfall – and knowing that the tide will alter their course. These devices and their seasonal variations will have been well known.

Easy navigation was not the sole consequence of the geography of the upper Clyde. The network of sea lochs and their settlements were protected to the south, where the firth ultimately opens out to the Irish Sea and the ocean beyond. The bulk of the Isle of Bute and the islands of the Cumbraes guard these approaches. The name of the Cumbraes resembles those of the great marker stones to the north of them for it simply means ‘the Isles of the Britons’, reinforcing the sense of a frontier zone. These sentinels encourage the impression of a near-landlocked Strathclyde lake. Elizabeth Rennie has identified a ring of coastal fortresses on Bute, Cumbrae and the mainland which are intervisible and could quickly be in communication through beacons or signals in the event of any emergency. In addition, she and her colleagues have shown, through meticulous archaeology, that there was a homogenous cultural community living on the shores of the upper firth and its sea lochs.

Inspired by these findings, David Dorren and Nina Hendry, members of the Cowal Archaeological and Historical Society, began to look in the other direction, investigating the landscape to the north-east of the Clach nam Breatann. They discovered another clearly marked frontier. And in the wilder country many of its markers had survived more or less in situ. A series of cairns, standing stones and pointer stones (known as
merkie stanes
in Scots) divided the kingdoms of Dalriada and southern Pictland over a long distance – for nearly forty miles. The frontier extended to Glen Lochy, near Tyndrum, and, there, Dorren
and Hendry made another discovery. Across the glen there runs a striking-looking ridge which glitters with deposits of quartz. This, they believe, was the Druim Albainn, ‘the Ridge of Britain’, referred to by Adomnan and others. It had been assumed that Drumalban was simply the name of the range of high mountains running north from the heads of lochs Long and Lomond but it may be that, in the Dark Ages, it was understood as a man-enhanced physical and demarcated line. As it descends to Glen Lochy, the easiest pass through the high mountains from east to west below the Great Glen, the frontier becomes necessarily more defined and it ran along the quartz ridge. It cannot be insignificant that the nearest settlement is Tyndrum, Taigh an Droma, ‘the Farm on the Ridge’ –
droma
is an older Gaelic rendering of
druim
.

Strathclyde’s boundaries in the tamer and more densely populated Lowlands can hardly have been unclear or undefined even if they may have shifted more often. To the south the watershed hills at the head of the Clyde Valley almost certainly separated the kingdom from Rheged and later, Bernician Galloway, although no detailed research exists. To the north-east, Flanders Moss will have supplied a natural divide while, to the east, a rare scrap of documentary evidence may be helpful.

The Annals of Ulster recorded that, in the year 642, the king of Strathclyde ambushed a Dalriadan army. At Strathcarron, Eugein defeated the Scots and killed their king, Domnall Brecc, the grandson of Aedan macGabrain. This may well have been a skirmish on the frontier and it suggests that it lay somewhere along the low watershed ridge between the headwaters of the River Carron which flows into the Firth of Forth and the Kelvin which flows into the Clyde. The Bannock Burn is not far away and it is the descendant of the Dark Ages’ name for this boggy border region, Bannawg.

Over its long history the name of Strathclyde changed. On his famous map of the second century
AD
, Ptolemy plotted the Damnonii on the Clyde Valley and their lands are briefly illuminated in the flicker of light that is St Patrick’s letter to
Coroticus, probably a Damnonian king who commanded the great citadel called Alt Clut, the Rock of the Clyde. Like the stones in the north and the islands in the firth, the modern name of Dumbarton Rock remembers the Britons. It is from Dun Breatainn, ‘the Fort of the Britons’.

Rising sheer and majestically out of the waters of the Clyde, Dumbarton Rock is a double summit – a split plug of volcanic basalt. More extensive fortifications were possible on the larger and flatter top of White Tower Crag but there was also a stockade on the more easterly summit known as The Beak. Boats could be beached below at the mouth of the little River Leven. It drains from Loch Lomond, less than five miles to the north and the likelihood that it was navigable gave Dumbarton Rock a strategic hinterland stretching all the way north to the Clach nam Breatann as well as an imposing command of the Clyde both up- and downriver. Admired by the chroniclers as
civitas Brettonum munitissima
, it was indeed ‘the best-fortified city of the Britons’. For centuries the fortress and the kingdom were synonymous – Alt Clut.

In the 1970s, archaeologists discovered the remains of an impressive rampart on the steep eastern slopes of The Beak. Made from rammed earth and rubble with thick oak beams to support it and supply a flat fighting platform, the wall probably had a breastwork to shelter defenders. The beams had been burned at some point in a turbulent history but they allowed carbon dating. It appears that this awkward structure went up some time in the 580s or 590s.

Other finds suggested an even longer history. There were fragments of tableware from the time of Britannia, perhaps as early as the first century
AD
. Opulence and the presence of a wealthy royal court on the rock were evident in shards of wine amphorae from the Mediterranean and the jugs and glasses needed to drink it in the proper style. And, as on Dunadd, there were craftsmen jewellers at work on Alt Clut making objects from precious metals and gemstones – the sort of things kings could distribute to a royal war band.

The first ruler of the Rock of the Clyde to emerge is glimpsed only in a supporting role but his name adds to the sense of a king ‘giving gold and horses’ to his leading warriors. Rhydderch Hael means ‘Riderch the Generous’ and he reigned some time between 570 and 600. Adomnan knew of Rhydderch in his
Life of St Columba
and he was a contemporary of great kings in the north, Aethelfrith, Urien and Aedan. It may be that warriors from Alt Clut were at the siege of Lindisfarne when Morcant Bwlc had Urien murdered in his tent.

When St Patrick wrote to Coroticus at the end of the fifth century, it seems that at least the royal family were Christians. And, where rulers led in matters religious, their subjects tended to follow. Rhydderch rode to war as one of Y Bedydd, and he may have been an early patron of a famous saint. Kentigern’s shadowy beginnings may have been at Traprain Law in the
lands of the Gododdin but it is as the apostle of Strathclyde he is known.

Bonedd Gwyr Y Gogledd

The Descent of the Men of the North is a set of two lineages for the kings of Rheged, Gododdin and Alt Clut, and it lists the names of twenty kings of the sixth century. First transcribed in the twelfth century, the genealogies contain several ahistorical elements and connect two dynasties which had no connection. Nevertheless, there are famous names, real kings and a passion for a link to the Roman past. The first list descends from Coel Hen, thought to be the last Dux Britanniarum, ‘the Duke of the Britains’ (meaning all the four provinces of Britain in the late fourth century) and the last commander appointed by an Emperor. Two lines issue from Coel. Urien appears in the Rheged king list but not Owain. On the Gododdin side are Gwrgi and Peredur, the kings of Ebrauc who defeated Gwenddolau at Arthuret and also Cadrawd Calchvynydd, the king who ruled from Kelso. The second group descends from Macsen Wledig and, although Aedan macGabrain makes an unlikely appearance, it lists the Alt Clut or Strathclyde kings ending with Rhydderch Hael. These genealogies are too easily dismissed as fanciful and they have a good deal to say about attitudes and aspirations in north Britain in the sixth century.

To become properly culted, all early saints needed their hagiographers to record miracles and an exemplary life but Kentigern’s seems to have appeared very late. Jocelyn of Furness’
Life
was composed in the late twelfth century but it may have drawn on much earlier sources. The author claimed to have used old legends and a biography in Gaelic. Kentigern is certainly a Gaelicised version of Old Welsh Cyndeyrn and both mean something like ‘Chief Lord’ – a title rather than a name. The saint was also known as Mungo and that is a smoother version of
mwyn-gwr
or ‘dear lad’. The nickname was said to have been coined by Kentigern’s first patron, St Serf, when he and his refugee mother, Princess Thenu, turned up at the
diseart
at Culross in a coracle after a fabled journey across the Forth.

The story becomes less blurred when Jocelyn relates that the saint built a church on the Clyde, where the Molendinar Burn joins it. Now the site of Glasgow Cathedral, the foundation echoes the Celtic love of sanctity when it is bounded by water and God’s own hand. A more prosaic reason for the location might be in the name for Molendinar means ‘Mill Burn’. Kentigern went on to live, pray and preach on its banks for thirteen years before some unreported incident, perhaps a dispute with the royal family at Alt Clut, drove him south.

It seems that Kentigern established himself at the monastery at Hoddom in Dumfriesshire and archaeologists have discovered the remains of a baptistery he himself might have used. It is difficult to establish whether or not Kentigern was a founder of Hoddom (not least because his own dates are uncertain) but his association will have added prestige. After a return to the Clyde, possibly with the generous sponsorship of Rhydderch Hael, the saint built up a substantial community of monks on the Molendinar Burn.
Familia
was a versatile Latin term which could apply to such a community and some toponymists believe that
clas-gu
, an Old Welsh translation meaning ‘dear family’, is the origin of the place-name of Glasgow.

Mungo’s Miracles

Every saint needed a stock of miracles to prove his holiness and Mungo performed four. They have become famous as the result of a verse which describes Glasgow’s coat of arms, although quite why any of them seemed at all miraculous is difficult to see:

Mungo brought back to life the pet robin of his first patron St Serf – although the point surely is that the bird
did
fly. Perhaps the reference is to its state before Mungo laid on his saintly hands. The second miracle seems not to have been a miracle at all. Again, at St Serf’s community at Culross, Mungo fell asleep and allowed the fire to go out. To rekindle it, he took some branches from a tree. Perhaps it was a fire burning with green wood that amazed everyone. The bell sounds as though it was a preaching bell brought back from Rome by Mungo but why it should never ring is a mystery. The final miracle is based on a fable. King Rhydderch of Strathclyde believed that his queen, Languoreth, had given a ring to her lover. In fact, the king had thrown it in the Clyde. When told that she faced execution if the ring could not be produced, Languoreth appealed to Mungo for help. He had a fish caught in the Clyde (perhaps that is the miraculous part) and the ring was found inside it. This story harks back to the gospels and St Peter and the Tribute Money. An identical miracle was performed by St Asaph in Wales at the court of Maelgwyn of Gwynedd.

Towards the end of his
Life of Kentigern
, Jocelyn inserts a detail that sounds authentic. Through age, the old man’s jaw had become slack and, to avoid unseemly gaping and perhaps drooling, his monks tied a bandage under his chin. There then follows an account of his death in a bath which sounds like a garbled version of Kentigern collapsing during a service of baptism. Whatever the truth of that, the likelihood is that the saint lived to a great age, almost a living relic.

Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, Alt Clut remained defiantly independent, resisting the tide of Bernician arms and defeating Dalriadan armies. The names of vigorous kings like Beli (died 722) and Teudebur (died 752) appear in the chronicles and, despite a lack of detail, the overall impression is one of stability, certainly survival.

In the spring of 870, everything changed. Lookouts on the ramparts of Alt Clut must have turned to each other in disbelief. Rowing up the Clyde straight towards them was a vast fleet of warships, perhaps as many as 200 keels. On the prows of the leading longships stood two Viking kings, Olaf and Ivar. They had sailed from Dublin, broken through into the upper Clyde and were bent on storming the impregnable rock. Here is the entry for 870 from the Irish annals:

In this year the kings of the Scandinavians besieged Strathclyde, in Britain. They were four months besieging it; and at last, after reducing the people who were inside by hunger and thirst (after the well that they had in their midst had dried up miraculously) they broke in upon them afterwards. And firstly all the riches that were in it were taken; [and also] a great host [was taken] out of it in captivity.