Every Briton knows of the legend that King Arthur will one day return to Britain's aid when he's most needed.
What is not so widely known is that, with his dying breath, the Last of the Druids made a similar oath to the people of Mona Insulis (or Anglesey as the island is now known in English, or Ynys Môn to the Welsh)...
The time was 60AD and the Roman legions of Caius Suetonius Paulinus, destroyer of Boudica, were massed on the banks of the straights separating the Island from the mainland. On the opposite bank, the Roman historian Tacitus describes the scene:
By the shore stood an opposing battle-line, thick with men and weapons, woman running between them, like the Furies in their funereal clothes, their hair flowing, carrying torches; and Druids among them, pouring out frightful curses with their hands raised high to the heavens, our soldiers being so scared by the unfamiliar sight that their limbs were paralysed, and they stood motionless and exposed to be wounded.
Under protection of the fire of Ballistae - catapults capable of throwing flaming missiles up to 2000 feet - the Romans crossed the Menai Straights in flat bottomed boats and joined battle with the Celts on the other side:
It is said that they spared none they met on that bloody field of battle. Men, women and children were slaughtered, butchered by an army spurred on by its earlier shame. Many of the Druids and their followers were thrown into their sacred groves of oak and then burned alive. There were, it is said, few prisoners taken. How long the battle lasted is not known. What is, however, is the fact that the Romans showed no quarter in the fight for Mona Insulis.
Today, the bloody shore runs from Moel-y-Don to the sou'west of Llanfairpwll to Tal-y-Foel opposite Caernarfon. The shore still bears testimony to the carnage of that day's events. Place names such as Bryn-y-Beddau, (the Hill of Graves), still appear on modern maps of the island. Here the islanders who survived after Paullinus had left to fight Boudicca buried their dead.
Above the village of Llanidan are two fields still known as The Field of the Long Battle and the Field of Bitter Lamentation. There is also Plas Goch, (the Red Place); its name giving a hint to the story behind it."
And as the Roman Legionnaires tossed the wounded bodies of the defeated Druids into the blazing pyres and burnt these ancient priests alive, the Last of the Druids turned his eyes skywards and vowed to his Gods through the pain that, at the time in the future when the Island was most in danger, he would return.
That time is now.
Things have changed somewhat over the almost two thousand years which separates that fateful day from the Anglesey of today. Danger to Mona Insulis no longer comes from foreign invaders - but from economic malaise and depopulation. Observe the sad current state of the island:
- A GDP per head of only half of the UK average thus making it officially the poorest county in the UK according to the Office of National Statistics;
- Equivalent to some of the poorest parts of Poland in a recent OECD report;
- The lowest GVA per head in Wales at just 53% of the UK’s average;
- A dwindling private sector following the closures of Anglesey Aluminium, Octel, MEM/Eaton, Peboc and many others;
- A rising unemployment rate currently standing at 5.8%;
- An economic inactivity rate of 25.1%;
- A changing population profile with a net outflow of 16-24 year olds;
- Anglesey has the smallest resident population of all counties in North Wales, and the second smallest resident population in Wales after Merthyr Tydfil.
As Blogging seems to be the modern phenomenon which most closely corresponds to "pouring out frightful curses with hands raised high to the heavens", the Druid intends to lead his resistance through this blog.