Druids – Return to My Trees

Wrapped up in Books Part II – The history, legends and folklore of Wales

September 6, 2021Culture and Nature, Forest FolkloreLeave a Comment

Reading into Welsh history, culture, legend and folklore

Seeing as it’s #NationalReadABookDay it seems a good time to post the second instalment about the literature that inspired me and influenced my thinking around The Liminal Forest.

In the last post I talked about the nature books and writers that had inspired me. Restoring balance and reconnecting with nature through walking is one of the dominant themes of The Liminal Forest but so is my homeland of Wales. This is a project where I walked 300 miles through Wales mapping a route for the new National Forest for Wales, after all.

So, today I’m going to take you a quick literary tour of the Welsh history, culture, legend and folklore books that helped educate me and guide me on my journey.

First up are three essential Welsh history books, A History of Wales and The Making of Wales – both written by John Davies – along with When Was Wales? Gwyn A. Williams’ famous polemic on the idea of a united Wales. I’d first read the latter some 30 years before so it was refreshing to dive back into the arguments around Welsh history and identity once again.

The Place-Names of Wales helped me make sense of locations and showed how important the Welsh language is in describing places in relation to the land, forests, mountains, rivers and sea.

Wild Wales, George Borrow’s 19^th century walking trip through the country provided a fascinating journey back in time while two books that discussed Wales’ ancient Celtic past – A Brief History of The Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis and The Druids by Stuart Piggott – both helped shed light on some of our earliest connections to nature. The Celtic Saints by Nigel Pennick, meanwhile, showed me how those Druidic themes influenced early Christianity.

William Linnard’s Welsh Woods and Forests is pretty much the bible of trees in Wales and provided me with a detailed and complex woodland history that explains the extent of deforestation that continues to this day. The Heritage Trees of Wales by Archie Miles highlighted some of our nation’s greatest and quirkiest trees – many of which I visited while I walked.

A good part of this project considers the role of folklore and legend in retaining our connection to the forests. Welsh Folk Tales from the National Museum of Wales, The Mabinogi – Legend and Landscape of Wales and The Mabinogian all shed light on Wales’ ancient bardic forms of storytelling.

As did the Physicians of Myddfai, Terry Breverton’s deep dive into the famous natural healers of the Middle Ages. Mysterious Wales and Hando’s Gwent (written and edited respectively, by Chris Barber) both captured the magic of Welsh folklore.

Much of the credit for bringing the bardic and Arthurian tales to the attention of the wider world must go to the complicated character of Iolo Morganwg – even if his reputation suffered greatly as a result of his own creative embellishments. A Rattleskull Genius, edited by Geraint H. Jenkins became essential reading to understand Iolo and the role he played in the Romantic Movement.

Gruff Rhys’ highly enjoyable American Interior also offered insight on Iolo and the Madoc legend that he was so tied to.

The role of industry in dislocating people’s connection to nature and the woodlands is another central theme for this project. Rhondda Coal, Cardiff Gold: Insoles of Llandaff, Coal Owners and Shippers by Richard C. Watson was essential reading to understand how my hometown, Cardiff, developed. Matthew Williams’ Lost House of Cardiff showed me what coal fortunes built.

In the final post about the books that influenced this project I’ll look at the major issues Wales and the whole world needs to address if we truly are to reconnect with nature and save our future on this planet.

Dewi Sant’s ground raising miracle

August 3, 2021Forest Folklore, WalksLeave a Comment

Dewi Sant, or St. David as he is known in the English language, is the patron Saint of Wales.

More importantly for my Liminal Forest adventure he’s also one of a long line of Celtic Saints who have deep connections to nature and, possibly, to the ancient Celtic philosophy of the Druids who revered the power of the natural world.

In this video snippet I visit the village of Llanddewi Brefi where Dewi was said to have performed the miracle that made him famous throughout Wales and beyond and established both his saintly and his mystical credentials.

Matthew Yeomans explores the legend of Dewi Sant’s miracle at Llanddewi Brefi

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The Romans are Coming – A walk from Wentwood to Caerleon

July 29, 2021July 29, 2021Deforestation, WalksLeave a Comment

I left Curley Oak, the wise tree of Wentwood Forest, and continue west across forestry tracks until I came across a fork in the road. One path headed down a steep ravine while the other carried on straight by the side of the woods. There was a Danger Sign warning that forestry workers were felling trees. However, there was no sound of saws or signs of activity so I kept going straight on the route I’d mapped.

After half a mile I stumbled on an ancient fort. Nowadays all that remains is a raised mound surrounded by oak and ash trees but, according to the OS map, this was Caer Licyn (Caer means fort in Welsh). It was marked as a Motte and Bailey (a style of fortification introduced by the Normans around the 11^th century) but there was also some debate that it might have been a Celtic iron age site. As I stood by the mound, with its view across all the countryside below leading down to the River Severn, I couldn’t help wondering if this might once have been one of the Silurian Celt defences against the Roman invasion?

By the time the Romans came knocking, the Celts of Wales, Ireland and Scotland were the last holdouts against a military machine that had routed all of Europe and most of what we now know as England. In Wales the Celts – many being refugees from Gaul – settled in small agricultural hamlets amid a matrix of oak dominated forests just like Wentwood.

The Roman army probably arrived in Wales about five years after it undertook its concerted pacification of the British Isles. But if the Romans thought they could quickly control this part of Wales they were in for a shock. In a series of guerrilla attacks over a period of five or six years the Silures led by their charismatic leader Caradog (known to the Romans as Caractacus) terrified the Roman forces with a wild dervish-like ferocity.

Even when Caradog was defeated, captured and taken to Rome he so impressed the Emperor Claudius with his bravery (and apparently his gift of the gab) that he was pardoned and freed. Strangely, he chose to live out the rest of his days in Rome rather than returning to south Wales.

His fellow countrymen and women back home didn’t fare so well. The Roman army had been harassed and frustrated for decades by the Celts’ launching raids and ambushes before retreating to their woodland hideaways. In order to destroy the resistance, the Romans decided to cut down the forests and eradicate the Druids who, by now, had retreated to their spiritual stronghold on the island of Mona (what we now call Ynys Mon or Anglesey in English).

They did so by slaughtering everyone on the island and burning to the ground the Druids’ sacred oak groves. From that point on, the Druids disappeared from Welsh history and entered the otherworld of legend. For the next thousand years different generations of poets and antiquarians would seek to rekindle the legacy and lineage of the Druids as you’ll learn if you stick with me on this journey.

But back to this walk. It was time to leave Wentwood behind so I joined the Usk Valley Walk – one of a number of semi-official Long Distance Walking Paths that snake their way through the United Kingdom. Now out of the forest, I could see the River Usk below me taking broad turns to make its way downstream – like a skier making wide slaloms down a mountain.

In the distance was the town of Caerleon. In Roman times it was known as Isca Silurium and was one of the most important strategic forts in all of the British Isles. That’s where I was headed next.

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On the trail of the Druids – A walk through Wentwood Forest

July 27, 2021Walks1 Comment

Wentwood Forest lies a few miles east of Newport, between the historical Roman town of Caerleon and the former Norman stronghold of Chepstow. Today Wentwood is the biggest woodland in southeast Wales and an anchor point for the proposed National Forest of Wales.

So, it made sense to begin my walking adventure here – mapping an imaginary route for the new National Forest. In fact, Wentwood Forest is part of the largest area of ancient woodland anywhere in Wales with a recorded history spanning over 1000 years – though there have been woods covering the area for many thousands more.

Its current parameters constitute just one small part of a vast ancient forest that once covered the land between the rivers Usk and Wye – a forest that was home to some of Wales’ earliest citizens – the Silurian Celts and their fabled mystical leaders, the Druids.

We know very little about how the Silures and their Druid caste lived. One of the only remaining legacies are the many burial mounds, cairns and standing stones dating back to the period when the Druids would have held sway over the Celtic communities.

Before setting off through the forest I decided to climb nearby Gray Hill. It might well have been one of the most important Druidic sites in Wales. On its southern slope is a jagged set of standing stones that, according to antiquarians could be older than Stonehenge.

Today the stone circle is in serious disrepair and most of the stones are no longer standing. However, one famous local writer/historian had no doubt about Gray Hill’s spiritual importance.

His name was Fred Hando. From the 1920s until his death in 1970 Hando wrote more than 800 articles and several books about the history and folklore of this corner of Wales. He was fascinated by the stone circles, positing”

“That the two stones inside the circle aligned to the spring solstice and claimed (completely without evidence of course): “when the ancient observers saw their stones in line with these horizon sunrises and sunsets they were able to advise their agricultural tribesmen what the seasons were. Such knowledge was power!”

Who knows quite how important Gray Hill was to the Druids. What I can tell you is that, today, it offers amazing views of the Severn estuary and the coastline running down from the Severn Bridge all the way to Newport, including the full expanse of the Gwent Levels and even the iconic transporter bridge that towers above Newport docks.

From Gray Hill I wandered east through the forest trails towards Curley Oak. This tree is the oldest in Wentwood. It is estimated to be more than 1000 years old and sits in a part of the forest that feels truly ancient.

Today, much of what we associate with Druids is the stuff of Celtic legends. The main reason we know so little is the lack of a paper trail. The Druids didn’t write down any of their philosophy, teachings or culture – apparently not because they couldn’t write but because they believed that learning through an oral tradition would both create the highest standards of knowledge and also stop that knowledge falling into the hands of their enemies. Indeed, scholars have speculated that it took between 12 and 20 years of study to attain the highest level of Druidic learning – much the way shamans today in the Amazon learn the ways of the forest and continue to pass it down through generations.

What is clear from the earliest descriptions of these important people is a very strong connection to nature, the forests and one species of tree in particular – the oak. Greek scholars in the 2^nd century BC first mention them and, later, Roman writers including Strabo and Pliny the Elder believed the name Druid was derived from the Greek word for oak – drus. Later Celtic etymologists reasoned that the word Druid actually meant oak knowledge. (You can learn more in the Reading List.)

Today, the trees that would have known the Druids’ secrets are long gone but in this old oak section of Wentwood, at least, you sense that the spirit of the forest is still alive.