Olaf And His Allies

Olaf, with his allies, Owain and Constantine, supported by a large fleet and host

of his Dublin Vikings, met Athelstan, the English king at Brunanburh, thought by some scholars to be Burnswark, on the north eastern side of the Solway, where Athelstan won a resounding victory. Owain is reputed to have become a hermit after the battle. Now the caves of Isis Parlis or the Giant's Caves near Edenhall are traditionally regarded as the abode of hermits from the time of St Ninian and later. So that it is quite feasible that Owain or the Giant Hugh Caesario ended his life there. He is also associated with Arthurian romance, not only as in the Dream of Rhonabwy, but in other northern poems as the giant lord of Castle Ewain, north west of Penrith. These stories will be related in a later chapter.

Owairi's son Duvenald corrupted to Dunmail succeeded as . King of Strathclyde and continued the British resistance to the Eng lish by supporting the Norsemen. This caused Edmund, who had succeeded his brother Athelstan in 939, to invade the northwest and the chronicler states that 'Edmund ravaged all Cumbraland' and gave it to Malcolm, King of Scots. Edmund's order for the blinding of Dunmail's two sons indicates the English king's fury at this resurgence of British nationalism under the 'giant' Owain's son. The cairn on Dunmail Raise, north of Grasmere, is traditionally regarded as the symbol of this effort of the Cumbri against their ancient foes, for Dunmail was not buried under the cairn at this time, as is often stated, but ruled Strathclyde again for many years, dying at last in Rome when on pilgrimage.

There is a tradition that the king's crown lies beneath the waters of Grisedale Tarn in the shadow of Helvelyn. Symbolic gestures were commonly used in medieval times, so perhaps Dunmail ceremonially cast away this insignia of royalty before exchanging it for a pilgrim's staff. Machell in 1692 visited the cairn and drew it as a huge heap of stones with a wall over the top to mark the boundary between 'Cumbraland' and Westmorland. He stated it was seventy two yards in circumference. By 1860 M.E.C. Walcot reported the cairn was so small and unshaped as to need to be pointed out. Today, after the construction of new roads, the cairn stands out clearly on the bank between the double carriageways on the summit. But Dunmail's name given to the Raise by our distant forbears testifies to their remembrance of Hugh Cesario the Giant and his son, as heroes of British and Norse resistance to the English.

by: Adrian Vultur

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