05 - Of Vortigerns Tower and the two Dragons

At that time, Britannia was ruled by a powerful man named Vortigern son of Vitalis. A descendant of a Cambrian noble family and the son of a Christian episcopus, he had earned his prominent position not with the sword but with wisdom, cunning and skill. When the Romans handed Britannia over to themselves and the Episcopus of Londinium summoned the heads of the civitates to the legislative assembly, it was he on whose advice the heads of the great families, in order to keep the peace among themselves, elected a High King according to the oldest custom, a pious man without claims to power named Constans, who was the son of Constantinus III, one of the last Western Roman emperors, whom Vortigern himself had visited in his secluded Christian community and convinced to hold the new important office. At the same time Vortigern's own rise had begun, first lord of the flourishing valley of Glevensia, then soon the neighboring tribal territories of Ventia and Tigernleuc, and soon large parts of Siluria, he gathered petty kings, local princes and clan chiefs around him, for he was a skillful and shrewd man and Britannia was at that time beset by raids of Picts and Scots as well as threatened from the Saxon coast and across the sea by Saxonian invaders from Germania. With great cunning he attracted some of the Hibernian chieftains who had settled western Cambria to his side, divided the southern Picts with clever alliances and territorial promises, and won over parts of the Saxons already settled in Britannia as allies against their own countrymen, as chief advisor, he was able to unite the heads of the Britannic civitates as far as possible under Constans and thus forge a powerful alliance which allowed the Britannians to defend themselves even without the support of Rome and many princes gained personal power, soon rising to princes and petty kings. After the assassination of the old High King by enemy assassins, he himself became his successor and tried to defend the Britannic alliance, which was threatened on all sides. But Vortigern was also a haughty and vain man. He had married Sevira, a daughter of the deceased Western Roman emperor Magnus Maximus, and sought to make Britannia militarily strong with the help of the Saxones, but the mostly pagan faith of the Saxones made him enemies among the Christian and Roman-friendly lords as far as the mainland of Gaul, and his allies from Germania pursued their own plans. At that time, prophecy and superstition dominated Britannia, christian mostly in name only, and in all of his steps the people thought to envision omens. If the king won and was able to pacify another civitas and beat off an enemy, the people cheered him, but if he lost a battle or a petty king left the confederation, the prophets of doom murmured about curses and damnation.

In this difficult situation, Vortigern built a great fortress on Erirosia, the Eagle Mountain on the borders of Venedotia, as a symbol of power to ward off Hibernian pirates and impress his allies, but this time the signs seemed to have turned against him, for the walls of his fortress collapsed regularly and soon there began to be whispers among the people that the fortress construction was cursed and that the favor of God had turned against the High King. Vortigern, in his wisdom, now ruled in name, but for his counsel he had gathered around him twelve of the wisest and most learned men, men who came from the school of the ancient Druids and were versed in many sciences. Those twelve profoundly learned men now met, as they were wont to, in the sacred grove of Diviniocella to deliberate, for the favor of the people and their superstitious chiefs threatened to slip away from the High King at the slightest sign of weakness. In their distress, the twelve sages remembered the old customs of their forefathers, for although they were Christians by law, they were all still deeply acquainted with the knowledge of their pagan teachers. It must have been the spirits of the mountain and of the earth themselves who demanded homage and tribute from the king, and one of them, Iorcoramus by name, came forward and said that the supreme sacrifice which would satisfy the mountain must be a fatherless child, not of human blood, since one must not abandon a very human being to the old gods. Mattius, the advisor from Moridunum, remained silent, but his cousin Eleaus had heard of the rumors about that inhuman boy from his city, and so the Twelve quickly agreed that the appearance of that inhuman child must also be a sign, and that it had undoubtedly only appeared for this purpose. Thus informed, the High King chose among his followers two trustworthy men, Lamogenus the Gaul and Rudiorix the Briton, to find the demonic child. The knights set out on their journey, but among the solitary ones they did not find a child to whom the description applied. Mattius the Praetor showed them two other fatherless boys who had recently been taken in by the brides of Christ, and thought that one of them would probably be the boy they were looking for. Satisfied, the servants of the Twelve returned to the royal court, only the twoknights Lamogenus and Rudiorix were dissatisfied and continued to ask around among the townspeople, and so they actually found out that the child had left the house of St. Peter in Moridunum with the Episcopus of the solitary ones to an unknown destination. Unwilling to return to their master with an unfulfilled task, they wandered through the countryside, inquiring about the Christian preacher and his eerie boy, hearing this and that, and were almost ready to give up the search until they met a Hibernian knight named Rigardwos, who had been a guest of Placidus in Portus Felix for a short period, and thus unwillingly put them on my trail. There they found an impertinent noble-born boy named Dinabutius, son of the chief Osmund, who scoffed at a cursed and fatherless bastard and directed them to our little community. When they appeared on the threshold of our house, I freely placed myself in their care and began the journey to Erirosia, where I met my mother Optima, whom the king's servants had already brought to his court. In their presence were also two other little boys unbeknowst to me when the high king arrived with his twelve advisors and entered ignorantly, asking the eldest child his name. In his place I stepped forward and presented to the king what my mind saw, the boy was not a fatherless child, which his servants, since I had not been found, had chosen in my place, he and his young brother were in truth Ambrosius and Uter, the two youngest sons of Constantinus, the younger brother of High King Constans, and in dark words I announced to the High King that I knew that I saw that not a Pictish rebel but a hired Saxon assassin had put aside his predecessor in office and also at whose behest. I spoke more, also, without saying it, that I knew who were in truth father and mother of Vortigern's grandson and second son Catigern and if the High King had been uncertain so far whether he should follow the advice of the Druids or not, then in this moment his death sentence had fallen on me.The druid Maugantius came forward and questioned my mother about the circumstances of my conception and birth and announced that it was true and that spirits, called Dusii, existed which could take possession of humans and impregnate human women, without doubt I was a being of the other world and not a human soul. I was brought to the mountain by the druids on the appointed day at the predetermined time and the preparations for my death were being made when I laughed out loud and spoke to Vortigern one more time and told him this story:

Long ago, when the old gods still walked the earth in human-like form, there lived two brothers named Vroicos and Rictos, who were giants and mighty sorcerers, and because of their high standing were entrusted with tending the magical pigs of the gods. This position was held in high esteem at all times and each of the two was praised by all for his wisdom, wisdom, strength and beauty, but there were some among the gods who thought that Vroicos was the more powerful and stronger of the two, while others declared that without a doubt Rictos was much stronger and more beautiful. Great love reigned among both brothers, but the voices that always spoke to one and praised the other, or to the second and praised the first, soon grew louder and louder, and whispers turned into mockery and scorn, and so both brothers came into conflict and changed from friends to bitter rivals and enemies. In many shapes and forms they fought each other first as sea creatures until the earth was almost swallowed up by floods, as great birds of prey until storms threatened to tear the sky apart, as mighty warriors drenching the world with blood, as mighty deer until almost all the forests were bare and empty, as two terrible spirit beings who threw the incorporeal world of the gods into chaos and finally as two immense dragons whose fire threatened to destroy everything. Now, as both the deities and their creation was in dire need, two gods joined forces, the Britannic god Nodons and the Gaulish god Lugobelinos brewed a magical beer in a huge cauldron whose smell the dragons could not resist, they feasted on the cauldron, exhausted from the battle, and soon fell into a deep sleep. Nodons and Lugobelinos did not hesitate any further, but created a large cave in the underworld where they put the dragons to sleep and built a mountain on top of it, the one that people later called Erirosia. I told the king that the battle between two powerful peoples had awakened the dragons, and I made an image rise from the depths in which the two demonic worms wrestled with each other, and the ground of the fortress we had begun to build shook under our feet. One of the twelve druids, Proximus by name, stepped forward and declared everything to be a mirage and a witchcraft trick, when he was struck dead by a falling stone. I said that the dragons had chosen sides, the red dragon the Britannian people and his brother the Saxon people, and would both take possession of their tribes and drive them into a terrible war until they devoured each other, which would last until the Day of Judgment, since both forces were equal. Vortigern promised to unite both peoples in peace and to atone for his past sins, first releasing the boys Ambrosius and Uter and promising to name the new castle Ambrosiodunum and to bequeath it to the elder of the two nephews of the man whom he had so wickedly misled. He also promised to give the Saxons their rights and to reconcile both dragons with both peoples.

The earth calmed down and soon the castle was built and seemed strong and powerful.The peoples of the island gave Vortigern their favor again and their rulers listened to his words and seemed favorable to him. In those days my mother and I, and with us the boys Ambrosius and Uter, lived in peace and prosperity at Vortigern's court in Viroconium in Tigernleuc, and I entertained the king with many a magical spectacle and foretold him many things, but I already knew that Vortigern's fate could no longer be changed, for in his immeasurable greed for power he had set his mind on controlling both dragons with my help and using them for his own purposes.