THE CASE FOR DREVA CRAIG AS CORDA/CORIA OF THE SELGOVAE

Louden Hill From Trahenna Hill (Photo Courtesy https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1475499)

In my blog article https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/06/an-apology-for-article-retraction-why-i.html, I tentatively proposed Dreva Craig as the site of the tribal hosting place of the Selgovae tribe.

I now have reason to believe I might well be correct in choosing that site.

Scottish place name expert John Wilkinson helpfully provide the following information online (http://johngarthwilkinson.com/2014/lanum-and-lugudunum/):

"Louden Knowe PEB [NT 137363], an outlier of Trahenna Hill, sits at the head of a long ridge above the magnificently situated hillfort known nowadays as Dreva Craig (where Dreva is a farm and Drev- will reflect W tref ‘steading’ in a hilly and isolated area which shelters many extant Cumbric place-names) and long famous for its chevaux de frise (R. Feachem, Guide to Prehistoric Scotland (London, 1963, 2nd edn 1977), p. 143); across from Drumelzier on the middle reaches of the Tweed (where a legend of Merlin/Myrddin as Lailoken is localised), it may preserve another *Lugudunon. Thanks to Bill Patterson for finding the name (not on the OS 1:50,000 Landranger)."

For more information on the exact location of this hill, see:

https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/ordnance-survey-name-books/peeblesshire-os-name-books-1856-1858/peeblesshire-volume-39/25

I am others have identified Merlin or Myrddin as either the god Lleu himself or an avatar of this deity.  *Lugudunon means, of course, 'Lleu's fort', and this is likely the original designation for Dreva Craig's hillfort.  

Any tribal hosting place would, by it's very nature, possess a profound sacred nature.  I can think of no place more powerful, more spiritually potent, in this regard, than a site named for the very important pan-Celtic deity Lleu.  It is for this reason that I now feel fairly confident in identifying Dreva Craig as the Corda/Coria of the Selgovae.