A NEW (AND CERTAIN!) IDENTIFICATION OF THE DEGSASTAN BATTLE

Runic inscription on the Ruthwell Cross

One of the problems with scholarly and amateur pursuit of the location of the famous Dark Age Degsastan battle site has been a stubborn insistence on this being an actual place-name.  It does not seem to have occurred to anyone to suggest that we are, in fact, simply talking about a standing stone or a cross.

I have been guilty of the same poor judgment.

But I remained unsatisfied with the "default" site for this place: Dawston in Liddesdale.  Firstly, the etymology was sketchy.  It could be made to work, but was always less than satisfactory.  Secondly, Aedan's attack on Bernicia must have been a naval operation, as to think that he marched far inland from Dalriada, leaving his forces no option of realistic retreat is, frankly,  preposterous.  Thus we are looking for someplace on or near the coast.

I had become aware of the Ruthwell Cross in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire some time ago.  But it was only when I read more on this monument that I learned it included a name thought to contain the first element of that found in Degsastan.  In runes, the relevant name reads "DAEGISGAEF."

Now, to my eye this is not a name - or, to be more accurate, it contains a name, but also another word.  Anglo-Saxon gaef is 'gave', and this immediately made me think of a standard dedicatory formula found on stones since Roman times (cf. Latin dedit, 'gave').  Had the carver started out meaning to write "Daeg's Gift (with gift being AS gyft), and then either made an error or had to adjust for space requirements, gaef is pretty obviously "gave."  So we end up with an intended 'Daeg gave [the cross].'

But even if Daegis is the proper form of the name, this is not difficult to bring into accord with the Degs/as- of Degsastan. 

I have this from one of the top experts on Anglo-Saxon runes:

"dægis would certainly be possible as a genitive form of a personal name Dæg (or of the noun dæg "day"). While gæf might conceivably be the past tense form of "give" (although one would expect gaf), it would not be a possible form of the noun "gift", and confusing the two would be a very odd sort of error for a carver to make."

Dr Martin Findell
Assistant Professor in Historical Linguistics
Room C8 Trent Building
School of English
The University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham

If I'm right here - and no other translation seems to make any sense - then this cross is Daeg's Stone/Degsastan.  This is not far from the famous Mabon sites.

The stone would also be close to Cynfarch's Mote of Mark and Llywarch Hen's Caerlaverock [1].

The stone may well have been erected there AFTER the battle - as historical entries in these later annals can easily contain anachronisms.  In other words, the battle may have been fought there and the cross erected at a later date.  The place then came to be referred to as the location of the cross. The cross is usually dated to the 7th-8th centuries, with the date of the Degsastan battle being 603 A.D.

NOTE: Caerlaverock or Caer Llywarch (Hen) is said to have been the cause of the Battle of Arthuret/Arderydd, at which Myrddin/Merlin went mad.