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12 houses/28 mansions

The 12 signs of the zodiac gave 12 calendar months to the Babilonians. Babilonian astronomers would look for constellation before sunrise- the house of the rising sun and the moon or month named accordingly. The Twenty-Eight Mansions are part of the Chinese constellations system. They can be considered as the equivalent to the 12 houses of the rising sun or in other words the 12 signs of the zodiac. However the zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy show the position of the Sun in a tropical year. Whereas the Twenty-eight Mansions reflect the movement of the Moon through a sidereal month.

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Leopold II- worse than Hitler?

While reigning as the autocratic ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium may have killed as many as 15 million people. How did The Congo become Belgian?

Ivory to the Victorians was like plastic is to us. Their houses would have so much; piano keys, false teeth, knife handles etc. So King Leopold at last could see how to make money from the African interior. He always wanted to have a colony like the British or the Dutch and he was interested in geography and the only blank space on the map was Congo. Making money was his only goal. He used diplomacy, violence, and propaganda to exploit and oppress African people. When the Congo ivory began to fail he turned to rubber, a new industry which began when John Boyd Dunlop (5 February 1840 – 23 October 1921) opened the first factory, the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company, in Belfast. The Congo became the world’s largest rubber plantation.

In 1876 Leopold II of Belgium hosted the Brussels Geographic Conference, inviting famous explorers, philanthropists, and members of geographic societies to stir up interest in a "humanitarian" endeavour for Europeans in central Africa to "improve" and "civilize" the lives of the indigenous peoples.  He used explorer Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, an area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While exploring the Congo for Leopold, Stanley set up treaties with the local chiefs and with native leaders. In essence, the documents gave over all rights of their respective pieces of land and labour in perpetuity to Leopold- 450 documents marked with an x. With Stanley's help, Leopold was able to claim a great area along the Congo River, and military posts were established. On 29 May 1885, after the closure of the Berlin Conference, the king announced that he planned to name his possessions "the Congo Free State", an appellation which was not yet used at the Berlin Conference and which officially replaced "International Association of the Congo" on 1 August 1885. The Free State was privately controlled by Leopold from Brussels; he never visited it. Leopold extracted a fortune from the Congo, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the people to harvest and process rubber. He ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal enrichment. 

As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Liverpool shipping firm, E. D. Morel observed a fortune being made in the export of Congo rubber and the shipping in of guns and manacles. The knowledge that the Elder Dempster ships leaving Belgium for the Congo regularly carried guns, chains, ordnance and explosives, and articles which were remote from trade purposes, while ships arriving from the colony came back full of valuable products such as raw rubber and ivory, led him to the conclusion that Belgian King Leopold II's policy was exploitative and a type of slavery. Morel, the main activist in the movement to expose the abuses of Leopold in his private colony, first realized the discrepancy in value trade goods being sent to the Congo while working for Dempster. As much as 80 per cent of the goods being shipped to the Congo on Dempster ships were ammunition and other weapons. From this shipping information Morel deduced the extremely aggressive tactics being used by Leopold.

Morel’s campaign finally succeeded and Leopold and his vicious trade was stopped. In 1908 the Belgian Parliament reluctantly annexed the state as a colony belonging to Belgium after international pressure.

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Alfred the Great

During Alfred’s rule England accumulates wealth and scholarship. Alfred sponsors the translation of Bedes history. Through Alfred’s innovation of the Burghs (see Wareham) Viking raids in the 890’s and thwarted. Basically they give up even though there is wealth.  Wessex becomes a great, wealthy and powerful kingdom which will in due course become the foundation state of the state of England. He dies in 899.

His vision was that the peoples of Angles and Saxons would become one people, and the kingdom’s of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia would become one kingdom  which happens under the kingship of his grandson. This is where the term Anglo-Saxon is very useful. Some liberal scholars in America don’t like it because of the term WASP, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

There’s a tension in A between the kindly Christian king and the warlord. His biography is written by Asser the Welsh bishop. That’s where we read about burning the cakes. (During The return of the king episode )

P.S. Lothian speaks English because it was part of Northumbria (which initially was Danish speaking).

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London-Holyhead Mail in Anglesey

The very earliest "Mail" system started during the reign of Henry VIII taking official documents from London via Chester and the coast road to the port of Holyhead. This was crucial for maintaining communication between the English court and officials in Wales and Ireland. The post road ran over Lavan Sands and through Beaumaris at first, and thus it was in 1675 when John Ogilby made a map of it. Later its line was changed a little, the post road ceased to cross Lavan Sands, and went from the Porthaethwy Ferry through Penmynydd.

Various Postmasters were appointed a stages along the route who had to supply the horses for the Royal Messenger and a Postboy to show him the way and return the horses from the next staging post. The Post Masters were often Innkeepers. By the time of Charles I demand was such from the public that the Royal Mail was made available to all, or at least those who could afford to pay. When a public postal service was first introduced along these routes in 1635, letters were carried between ��posts’ by mounted post-boys and delivered to the local postmaster. The postmaster would then take out the letters for his area and hand the rest to another post-boy to carry them on to the next ‘post’. This was a slow process and the post-boys were an easy target for robbers, but the system remained unchanged for almost 150 years.

In 1720, one Ralph Allen from Bath took contracts for parts of this system, made it more efficient, and made a lot of money.

The next stage of development came with John Palmer, also from Bath, who persuaded the then Chancellor William Pitt that it would be a good idea to carry the Mail by stagecoach. Safer also as the Postboys were always at risk of attack. Although the Post Office were against the idea, Palmer went ahead on his own and developed a network of routes to carry the Mail by specially designed coaches. The London Holyhead route was one such. In 1785 the Post agreed to take over the running of the service. Each Mail coach had priority on the route, paid no Turnpike dues and the Mail was protected by an armed Royal Mail Guard. Mail Coaches left the Swan with Two Necks Inn in London promptly at 8.00pm every evening and arrived at Holyhead 45.5 hours later. Nantwich and Tarporley were stopping points for the team of four horses to be changed as was Chester but there the stop included a meal break.

Over time the route was changed to miss out the dangerous crossing of the River Conway and the mountainous North Wales coast to an easier one via Shrewsbury thus the Mail coaches no longer came through Cheshire. It also shortened the journey to about 25 hours.

The Act of Union 1800, which unified Great Britain and Ireland, gave rise to a need to improve communication links between London and Dublin. A parliamentary committee led to an Act of Parliament of 1815 that authorised the purchase of existing turnpike road interests and, where necessary, the construction of new road, to complete the route between the two capitals. This made it the first major civilian state-funded road building project in Britain since Roman times. Responsibility for establishing the new route was awarded to the famous engineer, Thomas Telford.

Through England, the road largely took over existing turnpike roads and mainly following the route of the Anglo-Saxon Wæcelinga Stræt (Watling Street), much of which had been historically the Roman road. However Telford's Holyhead Road leaves Watling Street, picking up instead the major cities of Coventry, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton; this routing being far more useful for communications. The London-Holyhead Mail Coach then ran along the A5 until the introduction of the railways later in the nineteenth century.

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Carnyx

A large horn called a carnyx was sounded before kick-off at the Wales v Iceland football game on Tuesday night in Cardiff. The ancient carnyx was a wind instrument used by the Celts during the Iron Age, between c. 200 BCE and c. 200 CE. It was a type of trumpet made of bronze with an elongated S shape, held so that the long straight central portion was vertical and the short mouthpiece end section and the much wider bell were horizontal in opposed directions. The bell was styled in the shape of the head of an open-mouthed boar or other animal.

The carnyx sounded on Tuesday night is a replica of one found in Deskford, Scotland. In Iron Age Britain, animal symbolism deliberately conveys aggressiveness and ferociousness.

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Julius Caesar/Mabinogion

Julius Caesar invaded Britain twice in 55 and 54 BC. The only surviving texts from this truly ancient era are the records from Caesar himself, which were written later in Gaul and with the benefit of consideration and hindsight. In ‘De Bello Gallico’ (his account of the Gallic Wars), Caesar states that on his first invasion he was forced to flee Prittan and leave a great deal of booty and many slaves on the beach, due to a ‘threatening and impending storm’. During his second invasion Celtic tribes buried their differences and united together under Cassivellaunus, the king of the Catuvellauni tribe. Cassivellaunus made an impact on the British consciousness. He appears in British legend as Cassibelanus, one of Geoffrey of Monmouth's kings of Britain, and in the Mabinogi, Brut y Brenhinedd and the Welsh Triads as Caswallawn, son of Beli Mawr. Unfortunately things did not go well for the Britons. Five Celtic tribes surrendered to Caesar and revealed the location of Cassivellaunus's stronghold. On hearing of the defeat and the devastation of his territories, Cassivellaunus surrendered. Hostages were given and a tribute agreed. Caesar returned to Gaul where a poor harvest had caused unrest. The Roman legions did not return to Britain for another 97 years.

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Cŵn Annwn

Cŵn Annwn (the hounds of Annwn) are spirit beings associated with the Welsh lord of the otherworld, Arawn. He appears in the Mabinogi, a medieval literary cycle. Welsh mythology suggests that the twilight landscape of Cader Idris was the hunting ground of the hounds of Annwn. 

The Cŵn Annwn are associated with the Wild Hunt. They are supposed to hunt on specific nights (the eves of New Year, Saint Agnes (21 January), Saint David  (1 March) , and Good Friday) St. Martin, (8 November) All Saints (1  November). Also on the eves of the following quarter days:

�� Midsummer Day (24 June, the Nativity of St John the Baptist)

• Michaelmas (29 September, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels)

• Christmas (25 December)

According to Welsh folklore, their growling is loudest when they are at a distance, and as they draw nearer, it grows softer and softer. Their coming is generally seen as a death portent. 

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Trip to Britain 325BC

Pytheas of Massalia was a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer from the Greek colony of Massalia. He made a voyage of exploration to Northern Europe in about 325 BC, but his account of it, known widely in antiquity, has not survived and is now known only through the writings of others. On this voyage, he visited the British Isles. This is the first time Britain is mentioned in any historical sources. The map above was created from his description in the thirteenth century. Apparently he travelled extensively around the 'isles', making notes of what he saw, and also provided what may be the earliest written report of Stonehenge. He names the promontory of Kantion (land of the Cantii - modern Kent), the promontory of Belerion (land of the Cornovii - modern Cornwall), and Orkas (the Orkneys). To ascertain these names he must have visited each location, and probably many others besides. Belerion, he recorded, was home to a civilised people who were especially hospitable to strangers, apparently due to their dealings with foreign merchants who were involved in the tin trade. His name for the British Isles themselves the 'Prettanic isles is close to the Welsh, Prydain (Britain). The spelling of 'Prettanic' can vary. It can be shown with one 't' or two, and the final 'k' sound can either be written as a 'k' or as a 'c'. This is due only to different alphabets used by Romans and Greeks. Pretan to the Celts became Britannia to the Romans.

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Dennis the Short

BC/AD The BC/AD system of numbering years was invented in 532 AD by Dennis the Short. Also known as Dionysius Exiguus, he is best known as the inventor of the Anno Domini era. He didn’t know it was 532 AD. If anything it was 287 After Diocletian. He reckoned that 532 years had passed since the incarnation, and so began the years of the Christian calendar. 

532 years in the Julian calendar had a certain significance which was discovered by a friend of his, Victorious of Aquitaine. A period of 532 years covers a complete cycle of New Moons (19 years, known as the Metonic cycle, is a period between phases of the moon on the same date because calendars based on the moon and those based on the sun do not match. They only line up once every 19 years) and correspondence between days of the week and of the month, which recur every 28 years. The product of 19 and 28 is the interval in years (532) between recurrences of a given phase of the Moon on the same day of the week and month. So 532 years is sometimes called a Victorian period after the astronomer Victorius of Aquitaine, its first calculator; and sometimes Dionysian after Dionysius Exiguus, who applied this number when he calculated the year of Christ’s birth. Dionysius Dennis the Short was born about the year 470 in Scythia Minor, now the area Dobruja that is shared by Romania and Bulgaria. He became a monk at a community of Scythian monks in Tomis, now Constanta. About 500, he moved to Rome where he led a monastery as abbot and was a member of the Roman Curia. EASTER Dionysius Dennis the Short also developed tables for future dates of Pascha that returned the Christian West to the use of the principles used by the Church of Alexandria for observing the feast of Pascha. Pascha is a transliteration of the Greek word, which is itself a transliteration of the Aramaic pascha, from the Hebrew pesach meaning Passover. Pascha normally falls either one or five weeks later than the feast as observed by Christians who follow the Gregorian calendar. However, occasionally the two observances coincide, and on occasion they can be four weeks apart. The reason for the difference is that, though the two calendars use the same underlying formula to determine the festival, they compute from different starting points. The older Julian calendar's solar calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian's and its lunar calendar is four to five days behind the Gregorian's.

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Martin Luther, Atheism, Secularism and Individualism.

Martin Luther, without realising it, gave us 3 -isms. Atheism, Secularism and Individualism. He was the first to give us the idea of thinking for yourself- not being told- a profound scepticism against the religious tradition. Luther’s great argument is sola scriptura, if it's not in the Bible, get rid of it. The logical implication of that is why only scripture? Why not get rid of scripture as well? And essentially that is the kind of the end point that Protestant countries arrived at. The process of the reformation logically ends with atheism, which is why so many prominent atheists and humanists sound so Protestant. They are evangelical, eg Richard Dawkins.

Luther would be scandalised to see what has happened. He was very angry when 2 of his faithful followers Karlstadt and Müntzer took things much further than he wished, even though they remained within what we would recognise as Protestantism. Karlstadt, an early supporter of Luther, went on to press for more extensive reforms in theology and church life. Müntzer believed that the Bible states that all people are equal- an inspiring message to those who lived as peasants. After the Battle of Frankhausen Luther published a tract entitled “Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants”

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Mara bar Serapion

He is noted for a letter he wrote in Aramaic to his son, who was named Serapion. The letter may be an early non-Christian reference to the crucifixion of Jesus. Mara bar Serapion was a Stoic philosopher from the Roman province of Syria. The letter was composed sometime after 73 AD but before the 3rd century, and most scholars date it to shortly after 73 AD during the first century. The letter is now in the possession of the British Museum.

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Dairthech, Clonmacnoise, Co.Offaly

In Gaelic Ireland, between the 5th and 9th centuries AD, a dairthech (literally "oak-house") was a type of oratory or church built of oak-wood. This is a reconstruction of a dairthech, a typical small oak church, such as the ones that may have stood at Clonmacnoise prior to their reconstruction in stone.

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The Red Dragon- where does it come from?

Vortigern and the Dragons

The illustration is from a fifteenth century manuscript which contains Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘Historia Regum Brittonum’, written in the early 12th century. This part tells the story of the two dragons whose fighting toppled Vortigern’s castle. Merlin interprets the Red Dragon as representing the Britons and the White Dragon represented the Saxons. It’s a version of the 9th century tale included in the ‘Historia Brittonum’, though in this earlier version, the prophet is Ambrosius. This Red Dragon was adopted by Owen Tudor as his badge and used by Henry Tudor on his banner at Bosworth. Henceforward, it was designated one of the King’s Beasts, eventually officially recognised as the flag of Wales in the 1950s.

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Houelt Cross

This has been identified with Hywel ap Rhys who was a king of Glywysing (either in part or in its entirety) in South Wales (ruled c. 840–886). The Houelt Cross has a Latin inscription written in half-uncial Latin which has consistently been interpreted as a memorial cross raised by Hywel for his father.

R. A. Stewart Macalister read the inscription as:

"NINOMINEDIPATRISE/TS | PERETUSSANTDIANC | --]UCEMHOUELTPROPE | --]BITPROANIMARESPA | --]ESEUS"

In 1950 Victor Erle Nash-Williams translated it as "In the Name of God the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This cross Houelt (PN) prepared for the soul of Res (PN) his father" while in 1976 the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales translated it as "In the name of God, the Father and the Holy Spirit, Houelt (PN) prepared this cross for the soul of Res (PN) his father".

The Cross itself is a striking example of a Celtic wheel cross and features interlacing carvings, and the work is a lasting reminder of Hywel's wealth and influence.

The Houelt Cross can be seen in Llantwit Major - Llanilltud Fawr. The Llanilltud collection of Celtic Christian stones, housed in the Galilee Chapel, includes the Houelt Cross, the Samson or Illtud Cross and the Samson Pillar, all dating from the 9th to 11th century.

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Tara of the Kings

The Hill of Tara is Ireland's most revered ancient landscape, a place where monuments, myths and memories combine to create an icon of national identity. Tara was the chief pagan sanctuary of early Ireland, an arena for ceremony, burial and ritual. Twenty-five monuments are visible as earthworks on the Hill of Tara today; archaeologists have detected a further 50 buried beneath the soil. The five principal roads of ancient Ireland converged on this place and Tara's influence radiated into the surrounding countryside, where many related monuments are to be found. Eventually the prestige of Tara's past was harnessed as a symbol of a national kingship; to be crowned king of Tara was to be accepted as king of Ireland. Among the 25 monuments of Tara we have; the Mound of the Hostages, Raith of the synods, banquet hall, Raith na Ríg (this in circles, the crown of the hill of Tara to form a huge, ceremonial sanctuary. Excavations have revealed that it was built in the iron age.), Forrad, Tech Cormaic, Raith Loegaire, the sloping trenches (Clenfherta), Raith Grainne and Rath Maeve henge (2500-2000 BC).

The story of Tara starts in the late fourth millennium before the birth of Christ, when a communal burial place (passage tomb), Duma na ngiall, was constructed on the hill. So began Tara's role as a place of burial, a role that was to endure for over three millennia. Generation after generation added their imprint, each reflecting and referencing the monuments that had gone before. In so doing, communities engaged with the sacred world by erecting some of the most spectacular ceremonial monuments of prehistoric Ireland. It is likely that the great processional avenue (cursus) known as the Tech Midchüarta and the large ceremonial enclosure (henge) Rath Maeve were constructed towards the end of the Stone Age. The Irish names given to each monument are derived from the eleventh-century AD Dindanai Temrach, 'The remarkable places of Tara'. This forms part of a series of medieval texts entitled Dindshenchas Érenn. Funerary barrows like the Clenfherta are Bronze Age and Iron Age burial places. Perhaps they hold the remains of those who constructed the vast ceremonial sanctuary of Raith na Rig, which crowns the Hill of Tara, and prestigious dwellings such as Raith na Senad.

A visit to Tara around the time of the birth of Christ may have begun by journeying up Tech Midchuarta towards the sacred summit sanctuary at Raith na Rig. We can still follow this route today and immerse ourselves in this hallowed landscape. Tara is one of the 'royal sites' of Ireland, which served as the seats of the Gaelic kings. Historical sources associate these sites with various medieval Irish kingdoms, and archaeological investigations have shown that many of them were culturally significant. Each Irish kingdom is thought to have had its own royal site but six such sites are considered to be the most important. Four of these are associated with the four major provinces of Ireland - Cashel for Munster, Emain Macha (Navan Fort) for Ulster, Dún Ailinne for Leinster and Rathcroghan for Connacht. The Hill of Tara served as the seat of the kings of Meath and as the seat of the high king of Ireland.

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Kells Market Cross

The Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise

Muiredach's Cross, Monasterboice

Above are three of the very best Celtic high crosses, all still standing in Ireland where they were carved, all dating from around the 9th century.

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Sonnet 116: love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.