Author Topic: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow  (Read 8587 times)

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Offline SteveH

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Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« on: April 24, 2022, 10:26:38 am »
After reading this I do believe I could now be considered a local   .............  ;)

The little-known and bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow and Edinburgh
The region is rich with Brythonic history, which many centuries ago included clusters of kingdoms, bloody battles, and poetry. Traces of this forgotten land can still be found in place names to this day

Yr Hen Ogledd or the 'Old North' is perhaps the lesser known part of Wales when it comes to Welsh history. Today it stands as northern England and the southern parts of Scottish lowlands.

The region is rich with Brythonic history, which many centuries ago included clusters of kingdoms, bloody battles and poetry. Traces of its existence can still be found in place names to this day.

Here we look at the little-known and bloody history that binds Wales to places such as Carlisle, Glasgow, and Edinburgh with the help of Glen George’s Welsh language book Golwg Newydd ar yr Hen Ogledd [A New Look at the Old North].

Over in Scotland the name Glasgow is thought to derive from the Brythonic Celtic "Cleschi" meaning 'Dear Green Place'. As many of us may know 'glas' means the colour 'blue' in the Welsh language. In Brythonic Welsh however it was used to describe ‘green’ – hence why to this day we sometimes call grass 'glaswellt' in Welsh, with its literal translation meaning 'blue hay'. Edinburgh on the other hand was initially called 'Din Eidyn', which was a fortress and meant 'dun' or 'hillfort' of Eidyn in Brythonic.

cont  https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/little-known-bloody-history-binds-23732444?IYA-reg=49560bcd-5a9c-47f0-8fc5-ba2e71710589

Offline Helig

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2022, 10:31:57 am »
I have read that many years ago Welsh was spoken in the area up to the south of Scotland. The village where I lived is now called Sanquhar but it is a corruption of Sean Caer. This means "the old fort". Another thing I am interested in is the use of fechan in words in the south of Scotland There is Ecclefechan for a start. This is similar to Llanfairfechan.



Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2022, 02:06:39 pm »
I had heard of the Welsh connection with Brittany in France, but reading the above story was the first time hearing about the Scottish link.

Offline Hugo

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2022, 03:12:58 pm »
I suppose the answer is that Britain was just one country at the time of the Roman Invasion.    The Romans built the Antonine Wall to divide the warlike Picts and Scots from the rest of Britain.     The wall stretched from the River Clyde to the Firth of Forth
Cunedda originated from the territory of Manau Gododdin, the region around what is now modern Edinburgh in southeast Scotland, and later migrated to North Wales. This movement was apparently at the behest of a higher authority and designed to offer Cunedda land in return for ousting Irish raiders who had invaded and settled along the Welsh coastline in the late 4th century, near the end of the Roman occupation.”
Language is fascinating to study and if you look at place names in northern England and Scotland you can see their connection with the Welsh language.   Fechan meaning small pops up in places as Helig has mentioned also Pen ( or Ben ) meaning top or head.    In Welsh Glas now means blue but in older Welsh it means Greeny blue.    You can see this In old Welsh names such as Maes Glass  (Green field)    Ffordd Las  (Green Road)
The Cornish language is the closest I have seen to Welsh and when I had a holiday there and bought a Cornish dictionary.    Names of places in Cornwall are very similar to those in Wales

Offline Ian

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2022, 07:02:59 pm »
The topic of early languages in Britain is one that's always under review and with good reason. The earliest known occupation of Britain dates back to 900.000 years BCE, although this was mainly Neanderthals. Humans finally arrived around 500.000 BCE, as evidenced by fossils in Sussex, during the period when Britain wasn't an island but connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline.

There's evidence from bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk and Pakefield in Suffolk that a species of Homo was present in what is now Britain at least 814,000 years ago. At this time, Southern and Eastern Britain were linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge (Doggerland) allowing humans to move freely. The species itself lived before the ancestors of Neanderthals split from the ancestors of Homo sapiens 600,000 years ago. The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that later became the Thames and Seine. Reconstructing this ancient environment has provided clues to the route first visitors took to arrive at what was then a peninsula of the Eurasian continent.

Britain was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60,000 years ago, when Neanderthals returned. By 40,000 years ago they had become extinct and modern humans had reached Britain. But even their occupations were brief and intermittent due to a climate which swung between low temperatures with a tundra habitat and severe ice ages which made Britain uninhabitable for long periods.

Written linguistic evidence only exists post-Roman occupation and opinion is divided on what preceded it. However, what is fairly well established is that we all originated in India or Africa from a small number of tribes and probably had rudimentary language skills but as soon as the great migrations from Africa got underway, tribal languages diversified.

Today the most widely spoken language is English, which has become the de facto international language.

It's also worth considering that language and religion are the two main causes of wars and genocide.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2022, 08:28:52 am by Ian »
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Helig

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2022, 10:22:34 am »
I found these on a search for this subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Strathclyde

https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/inr.2004.55.2.111?journalCode=inr

https://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/britons.html

The other thing that Wales and Scotland have in common is a history of assistance from the French in times of war, or conflict. There is The Auld Alliance in Scotland and French forces assisted Owain Glyndwr in his battles with the English.


Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2022, 10:45:50 am »
Very interesting Helig, I did live in Govan, (mentioned in the last link) by the Clyde in the 50s. I have passed the links to my sister, who by coincidence lives in Brittany.

Offline Hugo

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2022, 02:05:53 pm »
Just a couple of pages from my short Cornish dictionary and you can see the similarity with the Welsh language

Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2022, 10:10:31 am »
The Snowdonia lake that's home to Wales' own Loch Ness Monster which plagued a Conwy valley
The Afanc is a legendary Welsh water monster that was said to have been relocated after flooding a Conwy community

Have you ever heard of the Afanc? According to legend there was a period in time when the good folk of Conwy were constantly tormented by terrible floods that both drowned their livestock and ruined their crops. The cause of this destruction to people?s farms and livelihood was said to not be a natural occurrence, all knew that the floods were caused by: the Afanc.

The Afanc was (or still is) a legendary Welsh water monster, likened, some have said, to the Loch Ness Monster. The Afanc lived in Llyn-yr-Afanc (The Afanc Pool) in the River Conwy. A gigantic beast who, when riled, was strong enough to break the banks of the pool causing the floods. Despite attempts to kill the creature it's hide was so tough that no spear, arrow or any man-made weapon could pierce it.

cont  https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/The-Legend-of-the-River-Conwy-Afanc/


Offline Helig

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2022, 10:22:12 am »
It is interesting to read this. I have never heard of it before but there is more detail here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanc

http://www.landoflegends.wales/location/llyn-yr-afanc-bettws-y-coed

It seems to be connected to the Arthurian legends and the Mabinogion.

Is anyone up for an Afanc hunt?

Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....
« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2022, 10:34:41 am »
Helig.   Glad you liked it and thanks for the additional info.

Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....Christmas Day ferry boat tragedy 1806
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2022, 10:02:55 am »
A ferry boat tragedy on Christmas Day cost 12 lives and devastated communities. But the disaster which happened when a crew was taking post for the Irish Mail over the River Conwy on December 25, 1806 prompted a new era of safety.

The crew of the Conway Ferry was taking the mail from London to Dublin. But the vessel became swamped by the treacherous waters of the Conwy Estuary.

cont https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/christmas-day-ferry-boat-tragedy-24793900

Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History ....Mumbles Pier after a huge fire
« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2022, 10:17:02 am »
The shocking damage to businesses on Mumbles Pier after a huge fire
Several businesses on the beloved structure have been reduced to rubble following a huge fire on Wednesday

gallery https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/gallery/shocking-damage-businesses-mumbles-pier-24903195?IYA-reg=49560bcd-5a9c-47f0-8fc5-ba2e71710589

Offline SteveH

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Re: Welsh History........ First humans in Llandudno after last Ice age
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2022, 10:23:56 am »
First humans in Llandudno after last Ice age related to hunter-gatherers from Italy
Early inhabitants of North Wales survived on 'large marine mammals' and were among the second wave of settlers in Britain, study finds

Research on some of the oldest known human DNA fragments from Britain has shed light on the ancestry of people who first colonised North Wales after the last Ice Age. Analysis suggests humans living in Llandudno 13,600 years ago were related to people in Italy.

Scientists in London also revealed the Llandudno group survived on a diet of freshwater food and ?large marine mammals?. By comparing their DNA with another contemporaneous group of settlers in Somerset, the researchers found they were genetically distinct, suggesting two separate waves of migration into Britain.

Human bones from each site were analysed. One was a male from Kendrick?s Cave at Great Orme?s Head, the other was a female from Gough?s Cave in Somerset. She was older, having lived 14,900 years ago.

cont https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/first-humans-llandudno-after-last-25355099

Offline Helig

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Re: Welsh History ....bloody history that binds Wales to Glasgow
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2022, 11:10:13 am »
I read an article about this in the paper yesterday. The study was done by University College, London, London's Institute of Archaeology, The Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute. It said their findings mean these genomic sequences now represent the earliest chapter of the genetic history of Britain. The woman found in Gough's Cave, Somerset, died about 15,000 years ago. Her ancestors were part of an initial immigration into North West Europe. The man found in Kendrick's Cave is from a later period about 13,500 years ago. His ancestors were part of a Western hunter gatherer group that migrated to Britain about 14,000 years ago.

The researchers said that the discovery of items such as a decorated horse jawbone at Kendrick's cave suggested it was used as a burial site.

Chemical analysis of of the bones showed that the woman from Gough's Cave ate terrestrial herbivores such as red deer, bovids (wild cattle called aurochs) and horses. The man from Kendrick's cave ate a lot of marine and freshwater foods, including large marine mammals. These finding are to be expected given that Kendrick's Cave is in close proximity to the sea. Gough's Cave is inland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough%27s_Cave