Vortigern
Studies Index
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Caer Guorthegirn
Robert
Vermaat |
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Yr Wyddfa
Mountain
Arfon, Gwynedd |
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One of the
more strange places where Vortigern is reputed to have
built his 'city' is the wilderness of North Wales. Here,
in the absolute inaccessible highland of Gwynedd, he
built his fortress to escape from his persuers. At least,
this is told to us by 'Nennius':
Historia
Brittonum, chapter 40
| .. Having, to no purpose,
travelled far and wide, they came at length to a
province called Guenet; and having surveyed the
mountains of Heremus, they discovered, on the
summit of one of them, a situation, adapted to
the construction of a citadel. Upon this, the
wise men said to the king, "Build here a
city; for, in this place, it will ever be secure
against the barbarians." |
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.. et
postea ipse cum magis suis arcem adipisci venit
et per multas regiones multasque provincias
circumdederunt et illis non invenientibus ad
regionem, quae vocatur guined, novissime
pervenerunt; et illo lustrante in montibus Hereri
tandem in uno montium locum, in quo aptum erat
arcem condere, adeptus est. et magi ad illum
dixere: arcem in isto loco fac, quia tutissima a
barbaris gentibus in aeternum erit.
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 Geoffrey of Monmouth later
changed this 'Heremus' to 'Erir':
Historia
Regum Britanniae, book VI, chapter 17
At last he had
recourse to magicians for their advice, and commanded
them to tell him what course to take. They advised him to
build a very strong tower for his own safety, since he
had lost all his other fortified places. Accordingly he
made a progress about the country, to find out a
convenient situation, and came at last to Mount Erir,
where he assembled workmen from several countries, and
ordered them to build the tower.
Clearly,
both 'The mountains of Heremus' and 'Mount Erir' are
versions of Eryri, 'Abode of Eagles', better known as Yr
Wyddfa or Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales.
 Though
we can find several structures in this locality, it seems
very hard to believe that anyone would dare to build a
hide-out in a harsh place as this one! Or was Geoffrey
simply mistaken, meaning the well-known Dinas
Emrys
instead?
Of course,
Dinas Emrys is only a few miles to the south of Yr Wyddfa,
and we have seen that local legend has connected other
places in the region with Vortigern, such as Llyn
Dinas.
It seems safe to suggest that maybe Geoffrey did only
mean a certain region and did possible only refer to
Dinas Emrys. Besides that, Yr Wyddfa is of course not
just one mountain, but also the name of a whole mountain
range. It could therefore be possible, as one reader of
this website rightly remarked, that another place was
meant that the highest peak.
 However,
we should never rule out this possibility of a fortress
on the mountain completely, for maybe Geoffrey had heard
from such a structure. Since the view from the mountain
is indeed far and wide, a look-out instead of a hide-out
could remain possible!
I can't
resist including this beautiful poem, ascribed to(*)
George Borrow (1803-1881):
Cold is the snow on
Snowdon's brow
It makes the air so chill;
For cold, I trow, there is no snow
Like that of Snowdon's hill.A hill most chill is
Snowdon's hill
and wintry is his brow;
From Snowdon's hill the breezes chill
Can freeze the very snow.
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Oer yw'r
Eira ar Eryri, -o'ryw
Ar awyr i rewi;
Oer yw'r ia ar riw'r ri,
A'r Eira oer yw 'Ryri
O
Ri y'Ryri yw'r oera, -o'r ar,
Ar oror wir arwa;
O'r awyr a yr Eira
O'i ryw i roi rew a'r ia
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(*): I
fact, this is not a poem by Borrow at all! These strange
Welsh 'Englynion' or stanzas consist entirely of vowels,
except for only one consonant, the 'R'. Borrow liked to
recite it to dazzle (or bore) his friends and fellow
walkers by his command of the Welsh language..
George Borrow had this
to say about Vortigern and Snowdon:
Wild
Wales, Chapter 29
It is interesting from
its connection with history: it was to Snowdon that
Vortigern retired from the fury of his own subjects,
caused by the favour which he showed to the detested
Saxons. It was there that he called to his counsels
Merlin, said to be begotten on a hag by an incubus, but
who was in reality the son of a Roman consul by a British
woman. It was in Snowdon that he built the castle, which
he fondly deemed would prove impregnable, but which his
enemies destroyed by flinging wild-fire over its walls;
and it was in a wind-beaten valley of Snowdon, near the
sea, that his dead body decked in green armour had a
mound of earth and stones raised over it.
Those who wish to go and
see for themselves, can of course climb Snowdon, which is
no mean feat in the best of wheather for the average
walker. But for the less able-bodied enthousiast there is
another possibility; the much-praised and much-reviled
small railway that goes to the top as well! Since the
views tend to be good in (almost) any weather, I can
recommend it.
Bibliography 
- Borrow, George
Henry (1862):
Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery, at:
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/english/wildwales/chap30.html.
- Griscom, Acton (ed.), R. Ellis Jones (trans):
Geoffrey of Monmouth.: The Historia Regum
Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, (London 1929,
repr. 1977).*
- Stead, Michael J.: Literary landscapes, (Oxford
1989), pp 74-75..*
- Thorpe, Lewis (trans.): Geoffrey of
Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, (Penguin
Classics 1966).*
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