subject: Cumbria Caves [print this page] We are not told whether this stranger visited the caves where in 1914 the Rev. A. J. Heelis reported: .. A carved figure on the rock, perfect to this day, with the exception that the head has disappeared. (It) was supposed to record the tradition of a maiden, who, straying too near the caves, was surprised by the giant, but escaped by a long leap across a chasm.
I visited the caves in March, 1973, descending the steep bank by a series of steps cut in the rock, and examined the two caves to the right. They are situated at a height of some 20 feet above the river. The path beyond has partially fallen into the stream. The third cave is some 100 yards in the opposite direction and perhaps six feet above the river. Neither in nor near the caves could I find any 'carved figure'. The red sandstone weathers easily, so perhaps in the intervening 60 years from 1914 it has been worn away.
There are three versions of this giant's name, one gives it as Sir Ewen or Sir Hugh Cesario, another, 'One Isis, a giant', while a third calls him 'Tarquin, a giant', which is probably a late variant of the Norse name Thorfinn. W. G. Collingwood has suggested a partial solution of this problem. An authority on early northern crosses, he dates the wheelheaded cross in Penrith churchyard known as the Giant's Thumb to the period when Eugenius or Owain was king (c. 92037) of the revived British Kingdom of Strathclyde, of which north Cumbria was a part. Now Owain's name was in old Cumbrian, Eugein; to the Scots, Eog(h)an, pronounced when Anglicized, like Hughan; in Cymric it became Ewain, or Owain.
There was, however, an earlier Owain who, with his father, Urien of Rheged the kingdom corresponding roughly to modern Cumbria became during the sixth and early seventh centuries, heroes of the British resistance to the Picts, Scots and Angles. These two, with other native rulers in the north and west were regarded as carrying on the Caesarian power during the centuries after the Romans had left Britain. Hence, the legendary giant of Penrith Sir Hugh or Owen Caesarius is the outcome of a mingling in popular folk memory over the centuries of two heroic British champions, Owain Caesarius, son of Urien of the fifth and sixth centuries and that of Eugenius or Owain of Cumbria and Strathclyde, during the revival of British combined with Irish Norse resistance to the English in the tenth century.
The confusion in popular memory of the seventh century Owain, son of Urien, with the tenth century Owain is demonstrated in The Dream of Rhonabwy in the Mabinogion. The Dream was probably written in the twelfth century and tells of the battle of Caer Badon (traditional date 516) when in the dream the hosts of King Arthur were allied with the Ravens of Owain ab Urien. The Ravens were obviously the Norse who aided the latest Owain against Athelstan at Brunaburh (937). By the time The Dream was written the two Owains had become merged in folk memory and around Penrith both were remembered as the mythical hero Sir Hugh Caesarius.
J. Walker, in 1858, pointed out that the place name Kemp is often applied to graves and howes in Cumbria. The word from the AngloSaxon cempa means a warrior or champion. The brow and road leading from Penrith towards King Arthur's Round Table is known as Kempley. Bishop Nicolson also records 'One little close nigh the churchyard (in Penrith) is called Kempgarth'. Then, within the churchyard itself are the 'Giant's Grave and Thumb' and Owain or Hugh Caesarius was known to Camden as 'a marchall man, like a knight errant'. In 1671 Sir Daniel Fleming calls him Sir Owen Caesarius and Sandford about 1675 refers to Sir Hugh Caesario. Collingwood suggested that the figure on the east face of the Thumb may represent the 10th. century Owain's father. The later Owain's cousin, daughter of Constantine, King of Scots, married the Viking Olaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, who, though a historic character like Owain, also became a legendary hero.
