Explorations in Arthurian
History
The Importance of Geography
Part 7: Dinas Emrys
Dinas Emrys means "Fort of
Ambrosius." Geoffrey
of Monmouth tells us that
Merlin
was also called Ambrosius. Hence the Merlin connection. Let us
revisit Geoffrey for just a bit:
Merlin enters the scene as a
prophet, uttering the Prophecies that foretell the death of
Vortigern,
the kingship and death of Uther,
and the success of Arthur in driving the Saxons
from the shores of Britain. Merlin's most famous utterance in this
series of prophecies is the tale of the two dragons. Vortigern,
worried about the encroachment of the Saxons (whom, ironically, he
invited to the Cliffs of Dover), is trying to build a fortress on a
hill. The fortress will not stay up. His seers cannot tell him why.
They tell him that he needs to spill on the hilltop
the
blood of a boy with no
father. Merlin fits the bill but turns the tables on his
would-be assassins when he predicts the location of a pool
beneath the fortress and in that pool two dragons. The red
dragon and the white dragon fight to the death, it would
seem, before the white dragon turns tail and runs. The red
dragon is, of course, the Pendragon, the "head dragon" of
the leaders of Powys,
Vortigern's land. The white dragon is the Saxons. Merlin
saves himself and becomes an advisor to Vortigern and then
later Ambrosius,
Uther, and Arthur.
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But is this story true? And if so,
where was Vortigern's Tower? Historians believe that it was Dinas
Emrys. We have already mentioned the name connection. Excavations at
Dinas Emrys have uncovered a Roman building and near it a man-made
pool. Geoffrey tells us that two dragons fought; this could very well
have been true, dragons being described as all manner of large
lizards in those days. The pool is there, and there is a Roman
connection. The story of Merlin and Vortigern and the dragons and the
prophecies could very well have been just another example of local
history's being transformed into national history.
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