Drumburgh Moss Looking North
Some time ago I discussed the Roman-period name of the Roman fort at Drumburgh:
My idea, in brief, was that we could go with this being a sort of Grail Castle, in so far as the Latin word gabata for a particular kind of service dish had been likened to a similar platter preserved in the word grail. I acknowledged, of course, that such a name would imply some geographical characteristic was being referred to as Concavata, 'the hollowed-out' place or, according to Professor Roger Tomlin, the "dish-like" place. Tomlin had already guessed this had to do with the hill the fort stood upon which could be imagined as an upside-down serving platter.
I now think that guess, though a good one, may not be correct.
Instead, my research of the immediate environs of the Concavata fort showed the Drumburgh Moss just to the south. This is a very unusual and, indeed, unique landscape feature.
Peat forms at the rate of about 10cms every 100 years and, because the raised mires are essentially ‘trapped’ within post-glacial depressions, they grow upwards to form a shallow dome, like an inverted saucer. But the growth of the Solway Mosses has not been a simple accumulation of peat. Cores show layers of peat separated by sand (watch the video of Alasdair Brock explaining this while taking a core sample on Wedholme Flow), indicating that in places there were several incursions by the sea, and there were regions that initially remained as ‘islands’. Nor did all the wetlands form in an empty bowl, because here and there melting glaciers had dumped their burden of rocks and till, leaving small, tear-drop-shaped hills or drumlins.
Frank Mawby throws more light on the Solway Mosses: “The classic image of a raised mire as a bog in a slight saucer-shaped depression doesn’t fit for Wedholme, Bowness and Glasson – they all have a glacial topography and all have grown over ridges and mounds. Bowness, of course, is a classic of glacial topography in that it never overwhelmed the Rogersceugh drumlin, although it did almost cover another lower, parallel ridge to the north. But Drumburgh Moss is in a saucer and probably fits the classic mire model.”
If I'm right about this, does the identification of the 'hollowed-out' place with the Moss take away our desired cauldron symbolism?
Not necessarily. I had treated of the cauldron as itself being symbolic of a lake or marsh. It is well-known that cauldrons are common votive deposits in bogs. My argument for the Welsh Ceridwen's cauldron as being emblematic of Penllyn itself was detailed in my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON:
Ceridwen
Her name means the ‘Bent or Crooked Woman’ and she is the quintessential hag or crone, associated in this case with Llyn Tegid or Bala Lake in north-western Wales. The true nature of her magical cauldron will be revealed when we take a closer look at her son, Morfran Afagddu (q.v.).
Creirwy (or Creirfyw)
Crierwy, one of the three fair maidens/ladies or fair queens (gwenriein) of Welsh Triad 78, is the daughter of CERIDWEN. Her name derives from creir, a common Welsh variant spelling for crair, ‘relic, holy thing, talisman, treasure, richly decorated article, object of admiration or love, darling, safe-guard, strength, hand-bell, church-bell’. -wy is merely a feminine suffix, as in Gwenonwy, while the alternate terminal –fyw (byw) means ‘lively’. This etymological analysis does not, however, shed much light on Creirwy’s character. We will see below that Ceridwen’s son MORFRAN, ‘Sea-raven’, is a black cormorant deity of Bala Lake/Llyn Tegid. The Welsh word for ‘lake-monster’ was afanc, actually the word for beaver, being derived from the word for river, afon, and meaning literally ‘water-dweller’. The Irish cognate word is abhac, meaning ‘dwarf, supernatural being’, but this last is also used for a beaver and even a small terrier. Beavers reside in streams, not large lakes, but otters (otter as a word is etymologically related to ‘water’) do live in lakes and are, in fact, found in Bala Lake. One of Ceridwen’s assumed forms when pursuing Taliesin is that of an otter. All of which brings us back, albeit rather circuitously, to Creirwy. It would seem reasonable to assume that this sister of Morfran the divine cormorant and daughter of Ceridwen the divine otter ought to be another submarine denizen of the same lake. Fortunately, a saint’s life comes to our rescue: there is a 6th century Breton saint heralding from Wales of the same name (Chreirbia), and she isintimately associated with the goose. It is likely that the Llyn Tegid Creirwy is the same personage, and she should be paired as a divine lake bird with her brother Morfran. Perhaps significantly, there is a Welsh folk belief in Caernarvonshire of geese on a lake at night being transformed witches. This was especially true on the first Thursday night of the lunar month. In Welsh Thursday is Ddydd Iou or the ‘Day of Jove’, i.e. Jupiter, the Classical counterpart of the Norse Thor of Thursday. It is noteworthy, perhaps, the Jupiter’s consort Juno is known for her sacred geese.
Morfran
The son of the crone Ceridwen of Penllyn, the ‘Chief Lake’ that is now known as Lake Tegid or Bala Lake, was named Morfran Afagddu. This name means ‘Sea-Raven the Utterly Dark’. Because he is on Lake Tegid and we have Irish Fiach Mara or ‘Sea-Raven’ as a name for the cormorant, this tells us much about Ceridwen’s cauldron. Morfran was set at the cauldron to wait for the magical drops to come flying out. Gwiawn Bach, the first incarnation of the poet Taliesin, was set to tend the fire under the cauldron, while a blind man stirred it. Anyone who observes cormorants is aware of their peculiar habit of spreading their wings for several minutes to heat up in the sun before they begin their daily fishing in a lake or the sea. This is what Morfran is doing in front of the cauldron which is symbolic of Penllyn itself. The fire Gwiawn Bach keeps perpetually stoked is the sun, which warms the waters of the lake. The waters of the lake are stirred by the wind, and this accounts for the blind man of the story. Perhaps significantly, the Irish also call the cormorant the Cailleach Dubh, i.e. the ‘Black Hag’. So it is quite possible that the story-teller mistakenly assumed Morfran was a second character, when in reality the cormorant was Ceridwen herself in bird form. Lakes were possessed of great spiritual power for the ancient Celts as they were liminal places, in essence being portals to and from the Otherworld. This is why sacrificial victims were submerged in bogs and why weapons and other items, often first ritually destroyed, were deposited as votive items. We have recovered many cauldrons from bogs. A human figure is being submerged in a cauldron on the Gundestrup, which itself was found in a bog.
Thus there may be a mythological link between the inverted saucer that was the Drumburgh Moss itself and any ritual cauldron that may have been constructed to represent the Moss.
As for any goddess we can associate with the South Solway Mosses, I would point again to Dea Latis, whose altars were found at Birdoswald and Burgh-By-Sands (the 'Avalon' Roman fort only a half dozen kilometers or so east of Drumburgh). As the preeminent 'Lake Goddess' of the region, Drumburgh Moss would not only have belonged to her, but would actually, by natural extension, be her. After all, the goddess, the lake and the cauldron were one.
I did approach Professor Roger Tomlin with this idea. He had once discussed the hill as as possible gabata, but when I sent him the information on the moss and pointedly asked him
"Such hills are not at all unusual for forts. No chance we could be talking about the saucer-shaped Drumburgh Moss, which would be a much more distinctive feature?"
He responded:
"Quite possibly. It's many year since I was there (on foot from Newcastle), and I don't remember the topography, but I can accept the idea."
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