Gogmagog and Godmerock

When Brutus and the Trojans landed at Totnes, they were assailed by giants led by the fearsome Gogmagog. It was Corineus who wrestled with Gogmagog on the Hoe at Plymouth and though he was nearly overcome, he managed to throw his gigantic adversary to his death over the cliff and onto the rocks below. There are records of two turf cut figures in limestone, formerly existing on Plymouth Hoe, being of both Corineus and Gogmagot, or of two giants Gog and Magog. An audit book of 1514 states 'John Lucas, sergeant, paid 8d for cutting Gogmagog. (C W Bracken A History of Plymouth and its neighbours 1931 Plymouth p4) These records postdate Geoffrey's Historia, but as there is now evidence of a Bronze Age ( c1500 BC) dating for the White Horse of Uffington and perhaps of similar chalk cut figures like the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset and The Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex; it is possible that these mythic characters date from a similar remote time period, that is from 1100 BC, after the Trojan war.
There was clearly another version to this myth, at one time, because at the entrance to the River Dart, where the Trojans first entered Albion, is a place called Godmerock. Godmer was another giant whose story is told  by Sir Edmund Spencer in his Faerie Queene, expanding on Geoffrey's version:
                          'The western Hogh, besprinkled with the gore of mighty                                         Goemot                            
                           Whom stout fray Corineus conquered and cruelly did slay
                           And eke that ample pit, yet farre renowned
                           For the large leape, which Debon did compell
                           Coulin to make, being eight lugs of ground
                           Into the which returning, backe he fell !
                           But those three monstrous stones doe most excel !
                           Whiche that huge sonne of hideous Albion
                           Whose father Hercules in Fraunce did quell
                           Great Godmer, threw in fierce contention
                           At bold Canutus, but of him was slain.'
                                                                   Sir Edmund Spenser
                                                                   The Faerie Queene II canto 10
Spenser goes on to reveal that these Trojans; Corineus and two unknown to Geoffrey, Debon and Canutus, were rewarded with the lands of Cornwall, Devon and Kent respectively. Furthermore, Spenser tells us that the wife of Brutus was called Inogene of Italy. This name may be cited as another possible Indo-European goddess based name. Inogene could resolve as *Iuno genos  which would broadly mean 'born of (the goddess) Juno, the consort of Jupiter or Zeus to whom the oaks of Dodona were sacred (cf Totnes/Dodonesse elsewhere in this series of articles). The exact location of this pit, which would be 44 yards long (a lug is 5.5 yards) is unknown, but Spenser indicates that it was famous in his day. Assuming that soil was then heaped over giant Coulin's body, then it would be a reasonable length for a long barrow; often called a giant's grave. If so, then it would be an unusual  long barrow dating from the later Bronze Age rather than the Neolithic. Such a long mound exists measuring 42m long ( IE 45.93 yards), at SX706371 west of Bolt Head. This is an impressive site which would be ideal for such a mythic struggle.


Furthermore, Welsh tradition, though vague, makes reference to Britain as the Island of Gomer. This derives from a tradition of the sons of Noah; Shem in Asia, Ham in Africa and Gomer in Europe; an Indo-European tri-partite myth which Abraham must have brought with him to Israel from Ur, which is Harran in South Turkey and close to the possible Indo-European homeland centred on Gobleki Tepi c9500BC..Incidentally, Gobleki Tepi has artwork which depicts, for instance, a bull below a crane, reminiscent of the far later Gaulish depiction of the bull and three cranes at Paris and Trier, which, if it isn't coincidence, reveals just how ancient Indo- European cosmology could be.
Gogmagog appears to be a more recent spelling of an ancient British deity known as Gogyfran, Ogryfan and other variant spellings. In Gaulish, he was called Ogmios and in Irish he was Ogma. Our modern word ogre is rooted in the same giant concept and as giants usually lived in caves, Welsh ogof meaning cave shares similar origins. Gogyfran was the father of the three Guinevere's, whose mythology is Arthurian but stretches back and forth in time way beyond the usual 6th century AD time period. The fortresses of Gogyfran on the Welsh borders feature young Guinevere meeting Arthur; at Old Oswestry Hillfort and at the hill fort by Cnuclas. but significantly, in the Medieval legend of Payn Peverill, his name is given at Old Oswestry (inferred from the geographical setting) as Gogmagog.
Gogmagog himself, is based on the reference to giant King Og of Bashan in the Old Testament; again revealing his Indo-European roots, while later he emerges as two giants Gog and Magog. The implied threat of such giants is well known in Greek and Biblical myth, where similar intermarriage between divine beings and humans engenders a giant race. In the British version, the earliest incursion into Britain is made by Lady Albina and her 33 or 50 sisters. This legend is found in several medieval manuscripts but only one of these, specifies that Lady Albina landed at Dartmouth, as it then was. This is the Mohun Manuscript which belonged to the Champernowne family at Haccombe, near Newton Abbot (cf Devon Notes and Queries Vol.4 pp17-22).
This legend is interesting because Dartmouth lies opposite to Godmerock. Lady Albina was said to have the giant Gogmagog as consort in medieval chronicles, but we should note that Spenser tells us that giant Godmer was son of Albion the giant whom Hercules quelled in France (on the Plain of Crau near Arles). Clearly, giant Albion and Lady Albina were the original consorts of the kingdom of Albion and as Rome was originally called Alba Longa with Trojan origins, we can discern Indo-European origins once more. The River Dart, in tradition the most sacred of all the sacred rivers of Dartmoor. would have good reason to be if we follow the rhyme and reason of these legendary matters, for this river was the scene of the first incursions into Albion. As with the Lebor Gabala (Book of Invasions) in Ireland where Lady Cessair was the first to enter  Ireland; likewise here in Britain, Lady Albina was first to enter these islands. Albina gave her name to Albion, meaning both white and world, while Cessair was said to be daughter of Bith, likewise meaning world,  Cessair also came with 50 maidens, which again agrees with the matriarchal nature of Albina and her sister's incursion. We may also discern classic Indo-European origins for the legend in the Greek myth of the 50 daughters of Danaus who murdered their husbands, especially as the latter myth states that their ancestry was from Egypt , because the twin brother of Danaus was Aegyptus.
The fact that Geoffrey claimed Brutus entered Albion up the River Dart to land at Totnes, would simply be a male version of an earlier incursion. In 1205, Layamon wrote that Brutus landed at Dertemuthe in Tottenes, due to the old name of Tottenes litonesse; shore of Totnes, which may apply to a wider area than the mouth of the River Dart and possibly all the coast from Berry Head to Start Point. There is no intrinsic reason why Brutus wouldn't first land at Dartmouth and then land at Totnes and it would further agree with the Lady Albina myth and Godmerock on the  opposite bank of the Dart. Layamon, incidentally, states that he has consulted 'books', that is, sources that are now lost to us, when discussing Dunwallo Molmutius, another pre-Roman king. Eilert Ekwall in Antiquity 1930, discussed the early names of Britain. The Periplus of Avienus quotes a c6th BC source which calls these islands Ierne and Albion and Ekwall  notes that Proto-Celtic albien, is cognate with Welsh elfydd, means earth or world. Such a meaning, again implies Indo-European roots. Eriu, the goddess who gave her name to Ierne, was married to Mac Greine, son of the Sun, a name which supports this meaning of world for Albion.
Another piece of supporting evidence for the incursion of Trojans up the River  Dart, comes in the guise of a lost turf maze site which once existed at Gallants Bower, Civil War fort by Dartmouth, opposite Gommerock. In 1463 this was Galions Boure, virtually identical to the Gelyans/Gilians Boure of Julians Bower turf mazes in Lincolnshire and elsewhere. Another Gallantry Bower in north Devon west of Clovelly had a local tradition of being once a maze; but again, no  trace of this survives. Turf mazes were called Walls of Troy and Julians Bower, from Trojan Julius son of Aeneas. The name derives from the tradition that the city of Troy had maze-like walls. To have such a Trojan name at the mouth of the River Dart would be stretching coincidence if Geoffrey had faked his history of the Trojans landing here, unless of course, the turf maze had post-dated the time of Geoffrey.
Originally it was the goddess Diana/Artemis who instructed Brutus to travel to Albion/Britain. The bear was sacred to Artemis/Diana, so it must be significant that the old name for Bayards Cove in Dartmouth was Bears Cove and an island known as The Bears Arse lay in the sea nearby on old maps. Hardenesse was the name of the ridge between Townstal and the ferry. In the Welsh Book of Taliesin, Ynir of Gwent fought a battle at Harddenwys, which has been identified with Hardenhuish near Chippenham in Wiltshire (Marged Haycock Legendary Poems in the Book of Taliesin p375). This would resolve as ard height of the Iwys, the Welsh rendering of Wessex. Hardenesse here in Dartmouth is therefore likely to be a British name, featuring ard height, which it certainly is, and another meaning for the ending of the name. In the context of Artemis, the goddess Arduinna in the Ardennes of Belgium was a byname for Artemis, so like Brigit, heights were sacred to her. Art meaning bear is clearly linked to ard meaning height and both sacred to her name.  This would imply that the mouth of the River Dart was sacred to Diana/Artemis; hence Brutus arriving here was partly because South Devon is especially close to Cherbourg and partly because the area was sacred to her name.
Locally, place names which may derive from Gogyfran or Ogryfan are found at Ugborough which was 1086 Ulgeberge, East and West Ogwell, Ogbeare west of Tavistock, Eggworthy Farm west of Princetown, Ugbrooke House north of Newton Abbot and possibly Occombe near Torquay. Godwell near Ivybridge, could be Godmer, or indeed Gogyfran/Gogmagog.
Of itself, these various og names would not be considered significant, but taken together with the various brut/bretona/corn and other names; their concentration in such numbers in South Devon appears to confirm Geoffrey's version of the Brutus myth to a considerable degree. Doubtless some of the root forms  as proposed in these articles will never be proven, but their sheer number is thought provoking, to say the very least. When this is complimented by the presence of such items as a turf maze with a Trojan name at the very mouth of the River Dart and a legend of Albina landing opposite Godmerock and so on, even if those are given in later sources than Geoffrey, it would seem that we should treat this myth with a little more seriousness than has been hitherto been the case amongst historians.