Is Arthur's Avalon a Nemeton Near Uley Bury?

Temple of Nodens, Lydney Park, Gloucestershire

Uley Shrine, Artist's Conception

In an earlier blog post, I made my case for Arthur's Camlan being the Uley Bury hillfort on the River Cam in Gloucester shire (http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/12/uley-bury-and-arthurs-camlan-process-of.html).  Here I wish to discuss a more likely Avalon than the one at Glastonbury, which appears to derive from very late tradition.  

Prior to the altering the River Cam's course to funnel it into the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, it debouched at Frampton Pill (near Frampton on Severn; see map at the bottom of this post).  From here someone could easily take a boat down the Severn to Lydney, where a Roman period temple to Nodens was situated.  This temple was within both the Dobunni and Hwicce tribal areas.  Furthermore, there is the possibility that its Roman period name was *Nemetabala, the 'Sacred Grove of Apple Trees.'  If this is the place's name, a connection with Geoffrey of Monmouth's Avallonis is obvious.

The idea for *Nemetabala comes from Richmond and Crawford, for noticed the following from Chapter 70 of Nennius's HISTORIA BRITTONUM:

Iuxta flumen, quod vocatur Guoy, poma inveniuntur super fraxinum in proclivo saltus, qui est prope ostio fluminis.

"By the river called Wye, apples are found on an ash-tree, on the hillside by the river estuary."

Now, to begin, Lydney Park is some 15 kilometers from the mouth of the Wye.  So to identify this magical ash/apple tree with the site of the Nodens temple is more problematic than Richard and Crawford seem to imply.  The viability of the form *Nemetabala has also been called into question.  I've culled from various respectable sources for everything I could find on the linguistic analysis of the original Metambala name, as found in the RAVENNA COSMOGRAPHY:

From Rivet and Smith's The Place-Names of Roman Britain:

e -am-) because the analogues show this in other names which have *nemeto- as first element.

DERIVATION. For *nemeto- 'sacred grove', see AQUAE ARNEMETIAE. R&C think that the second element could be *ambala 'navel', but this is hardly likely in place-names. They speculate also that -abala 'apple' might be involved, and cite Nennius on a freak apple-bearing ash-tree which grew at the mouth of the Wye; but on scribal grounds this emendation is hazardous, and the use of such an *abala as a second element in compounds is nowhere attested. It seems that we should first associate the present name with its only possible British analogue, Vindobala. Several roots bal- bail- are assembled by Ellis Evans in GPN 147-48, mostly in personal names which have bal (l)- with suffix or as first element in a compound. Of the various senses of these diverse roots, that in the name Balista in Liguria, perhaps 'white-peaked', is the most promising; possibly Celtic *balma 'pointed rock, peak', which must have existed in British in view of Welsh bal 'peak, summit', Breton bal 'steep beach, steep slope'. In the present name 'grove-hill' or 'hill-sanctuary ' would make good sense; but there can be no certainty of it.

IDENTIFICATION. The position of the name in the list indicates a location in Monmouthshire or Gloucestershire west of the Severn; a possibility is therefore the sacred site, with a Roman temple in an Iron Age hill-fort, at Lydney, Gloucestershire (SO 6102).

From Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews
(http://www.kmatthews.org.uk/Ravenna_Cosmography/group7.html)

Metambala is possibly for *Nemetobala (Rivet & Smith 1979, 424, who wrongly credit it to Richmond & Crawford 1949, 41, who preferred *Nemetaballa) and it may perhaps be identified with the religious complex at Lydney, important until the beginning of the fifth century as the major cult-centre of Nodens, given the religious associations of the word *nemeton (‘sacred grove’). Dillemann’s (1979, 67) suggestion that it represents Μεταβολη (meaning something like ‘crossing’, a translation of the Traiectus of the Antonine Itinerary Iter XIV), while ingenious, cannot be right: there are no traces of a Greek source for the British section (Rivet & Smith 1979, 201 contra Richmond & Crawford 1949, 3 and Dillemann 1979, 64).

From Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape
By Della Hooke

*Nemetobala 'walls of the sacred grove, sanctuary walls' (*nemeto- with gwawl from Irish fala, 'rampart'), a site perhaps to be identified as Lydney Park hillfort, a sanctuary subsequently to be rededicated to the Roman god Nodens-Mercury when a temple complex was built within the ramparts. [Nodens was identified with Mars, not Mercury, and British *ual- would have been the correct derivation, not Irish fál]

In passing, I note on earlier maps an Ashbury, 'fort of the Ash-trees' (now Ashberry), near the mouth of the Wye, hard by the Spital Meend promontory fort and Offa's Dyke.

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=198723&sort=2&type=promontory%20fort&typeselect=c&rational=a&class1=None&period=None&county=None&district=None&parish=None&place=&recordsperpage=10&source=text&rtype=monument&rnumber=198723

On the Spital Meend place-name, see

https://www.academia.edu/9072562/The_distribution_and_origin_of_meends_in_the_Forest_of_Dean

It is possible the name of this place - originally in Welsh, of course - was transferred from the fort itself.  If so, the ash of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM near the mouth of the Wye may have been a reference to Spital Meend.

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS ON THE PLACE-NAME METAMBALA

As with many of the names in the RAVENNA COSMOGRAPHY, Metambala looks to be terribly corrupt.  Any emendation of it is, therefore, fraught with peril.  However, I do think the first element of the name does stand for *Nemeto-.

(passage from Della Hooke)

Some of these places mentioned by Hooke are the Nympsfield Long Barrow and the Uley Long Barrow, otherwise known as Hetty Peglar's Tump.  

From Ekwall:  

"Nymdesfeld 872...Nimdesfelle DB. Nimedesfeld 1236... 'FELD by a holy grove or place.  No doubt the Brit name of the place was Nemeto- 'holy place.'"

The Nemeton name applied to Nympsfield just to the NE of Uley Bury hillfort (my candidate for Arthur's Camlan) must, in my opinion, be seen in a transferred sense.  The nemeton itself was not at Nympsfield.  Instead, it is a short distance away at West Hill, very near Uley Bury.  The site in question is nicely described in the following Websites:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=205240&sort=4&search=all&criteria=Uley%20Shrines&rational=q&recordsperpage=10

https://archaeologyathull.wordpress.com/archaeology-of-britain/u/uley-shrine/

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Uley_Shrines.html?id=cp5nAAAAMAAJ

https://www.academia.edu/1888448/The_Uley_Shrines_Excavation_of_a_Ritual_Complex_on_West_Hill_Uley_Gloucestershire_1977-9._By_A._Woodward_and_P._Leach._English_Heritage_Archaeological_Report_

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803121907784

http://curses.csad.ox.ac.uk/sites/uley-history.shtml

The actual monograph on the site can be found in entirety here:

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-1416-1/dissemination/pdf/9781848022157_ALL_72.pdf

This monograph contains the following passage under its 'Synthesis' section:

The continuity of worship at this site is astonishing.  More importantly, at exactly Arthur's time the pagan nemeton was converted into a Christian church.  Yet the nemeton or 'sacred grove' name persisted.

Had Arthur been buried at this place after falling at Uley Bury, the legend that this particular nemeton was Avalon, the Otherworld apple orchard, could easily have developed.

I would argue for the West Hill nemeton, not Lydney Park, as the RAVENNA COSMOGRAPHY'S Metambala. However, there is a title/epithet attached to both Mars and Mercury at Uley on the lead curse tablets.  This title has not been published, as it is apparently yet to be analyzed.  It may contain a clue as to the name of the Celtic deity worshipped at the Uley shrine, and hence to the name of the place itself.  I'm trying to obtain this title from Professor Roger Tomlin at Oxford, so that I can try my hand at it.  Any new information forthcoming will be offered as a new blog post here.

"More interesting than this, however, is a title which is applied to Mars in both those tablets, and to Mercury in four other tablets (28, 40, 62 and 78). Its use confirms that the same god is meant. It occurs in two cognate forms, of Celtic etymology like other cult titles of Mercury in Britain and Gaul, and was certainly of local significance, since another tablet (Tablet 75) refers to 'the temple of Mercury' at a place name which incorporates the same word. Unfortunately the reading and its etymology require further study, and it would be premature to publish it here. In due course it will be possible to make a minor addition to the toponymy of Roman Britain, and even to make a guess at the Celtic name of the god of Uley." - R.S.O. Tomlin

Map of the Hwicce Kingdom (Courtesy Della Hooke)