Anglesey, the island
on the far west of Wales, was one of the last vestiges of Celtic
religion in Roman times. But whereas it is assumed that the Romans
wiped out the druid religion… did it somehow survive? And
is nearby Bardsey Island linked with it?
invisible to any modern traveller, the north-west of Wales remains
an island. Several islands, in fact. In bygone days, it was a
natural barrier. Furthermore, the mountain chain of the Snowdonia
National Park forms a virtual wall that shields the first of these
two islands, Anglesey, from the rest of mainland Britain. Reaching
altitudes of up to 3000 feet, it provides spectacular scenery,
so much so that it is difficult to perceive Anglesey as an island,
even though the Menai Strait makes it as such. And contrary to
what the landscape of Snowdonia would suggest, Anglesey is very
to relatively flat, making it an ideal location for agriculture.
A second island, west off Anglesey, is Holy Island, with Holyhead
being its most important town. It is an interesting name, suggesting
that at some point the sacred nature of the island was not in
is known as the “Mother of Wales”: it is considered
to be its centre, though geographically, it is anything but. Anglesey,
in Gaelic “Ynys Mon”, is derived from the Roman Mona
– hence the name Menai Strait for the stretch of water that
separates it from mainland Britain. Its name in Celtic times,
before the Roman invasion, is not known.
Some have argued that it possibly might have been Avalon, a name
well-known in Grail mythology. Avalon itself is derived from the
ancient Welsh name Afallach, which means “rich in apples”
– to which needs to be added that in Roman times, Anglesey
was indeed known for its apple production. Geoffrey of Monmouth,
one of the best-known chroniclers of Britain’s history,
called the island Insule Ponorum, “the island of the apples”
– suggesting it does qualify for the name Avalon, though
this should not automatically lead to any associations with the
the Romans, however, “Mona” was the island of the
Celts and their priests, the druids. The druids controlled the
trade in gold that passed through Wales on its way from the Wicklow
Hills in Ireland to the east and thence over the North Sea to
Europe. Being in charge of this key economic trade made them a
Roman invasion of Western Europe resulted in the termination of
the Celtic culture as the dominant force in the region. First
to fall was France, then Great-Britain. The “Celtic tradition”
survived in Scotland as that nation only saw brief Roman incursions,
whereas Ireland was never invaded. In general, the further away
from Rome, the more likely the chance your Celtic roots had of
Rome might not have been interested in conquering Anglesey, if
only it had not been the last bastion of rebellion. The Romans
vehemently opposed the Celtic druids, whom they did not see as
pious priests, but as ferocious freedom fighters – terrorists.
The druids continuously tried to rally the local population to
take up the arms against the Romans. The Roman invasion of Britain
had set these men on the run, with the centre of the druid cult
becoming, or possibly always being Anglesey, which thus, in the
first century AD, was the centre of the Celtic religion in Britain.
This situation is confirmed by the Roman historian Tacitus and
Emperor Nero, who specifically identified Anglesey as an island
that needed to be conquered. Many troops were relocated from other
British locations towards Wales in an effort to do so. However,
this power vacuum elsewhere resulted in certain insurrections,
such as that of Queen Boudica.
Realising the Roman troops could not maintain order and attack
Anglesey at the same time, the Empire forsook a final attack on
Anglesey – the conquest of Anglesey was insignificant against
the loss of London and the rest of Britain. Hence, it is claimed
that the Roman general Paulinus tore up Nero’s orders, returned
to London via the newly constructed Watling Street, to meet the
army that had been scrambled by Queen Boudica, which had left
London, in search of a Roman army they could fight. In the end,
the battle occurred in Atherstone, Warwickshire, where the Romans
attained an easy victory. Enthusiasm lost against well-oiled organisation.
fact that “druid terrorists” lived in Anglesey meant
that in 61 AD, Suetonius Paulinus managed to get his army across
the Menai Strait and massacred the druids and burnt their sacred
groves. The Romans remained aware, however, that the druids might
continue to pose a problem and hence they constructed the fortress
of Segontium, present Caernarfon, on the edge of the Menai Strait,
to make sure that what little remained of an intact Celtic culture
remained on Anglesey – and did not try to seed dissent in
Tacitus wrote how the battle occurred on the coastline of the
Menai Strait: “On the coastline, a line of warriors of the
opposition was stationed, mainly made up of armed men, amongst
them women, with their hair blowing in the wind, while they were
carrying torches. Druids were amongst them, shouting terrifying
spells, their hands raised towards the heavens, which scared our
soldiers so much that their limbs became paralysed. As a result,
they remained stationary and were injured. At the end of the battle,
the Romans were victorious, and the holy oaks of the druids were
victorious Romans provided little if any detail on druidism in
their writings and hence, the cult of the druids remains mysterious,
and often appealing. It probably developed from prehistoric cultures
– and religions, specifically the Megalithic Culture. For
a long time, it was believed that the megalithic monuments of
Western Europe were actually constructed by the druids, but advances
in archaeology destroyed popular tales that linked the likes of
Merlin with Stonehenge.
As to the nature of the cult, it is widely assumed that it was
a nature religion: that they worshipped the sun, the moon and
nature. They held lakes to be especially sacred and many offerings
have been retrieved from lake beds, specifically in Anglesey.
As they worshipped nature deities, most sacred sites were natural,
such as sacred groves, caves, lakes, etc. It is known that they
had some temples constructed, but little to nothing remains of
Over time, their religion became integrated in a hierarchical
society, the druids being placed in charge of the religious life
of the community. But they were not merely priests, but also teachers,
doctors, poets and possibly even judges.
Romans wrote little about the druids. The druids wrote nothing
at all about their own religion: they had an oral tradition. Possibly,
their stories resembled those that found their way in the Mabinogi,
a series of Welsh stories, which was only written down in the
14th century, even though some of its content is accepted as dating
back to the Iron Age. Many of this story’s characters were
originally Celtic gods, whose accounts occurred in the realm of
life and death, providing us with a glimpse of Annwfn, the Celtic
It is known that druids were widely respected within the community,
no doubt due to the fact that there was a preparatory period of
twenty years before one was a genuine druid. And it seems that
Anglesey was an important – if not the most important –
site where this preparation occurred: the location of a druidic
Anglesey is quite rich in megalithic remains, they may, on first
impression, not show the density or appeal one would expect to
find. But, as mentioned, the druids were far removed from the
megalithic civilisation and their sacred precincts were nature
itself: sacred oak groves and other natural features make it very
hard for archaeology to uncover their sacred areas.
Still, in 1942, the dried lake of Llyn Cerrig Bach, at the mouth
of the Alaw river (now under the runway at RAF Valley), revealed
more than 150 artefacts that had been thrown in the holy water
as a tribute to the gods. The recovered artefacts were not trinkets;
each was a valuable item, making it the most important find of
its kind in the British Isles. Archaeologists concluded that the
offerings occurred over a period of 250 years, until the end of
the 1st century AD – the timeframe in which Anglesey was
considered to be the site of the druid college(s).
The find is of interest as it is known that the druids made sacrifices,
normally in the form of animals, though Roman authors (perhaps
as part of a vilification campaign) stated that humans were offered
also. Still, there is some evidence to suggest the druids did
perform human sacrifice. The famous “Lindow Man” is
believed to have been a Celtic prince from Ireland who crossed
the sea to offer himself as a sacrifice when the Romans were threatening
Anglesey. He arrived too late, but was smuggled to Lindow, an
important point on the gold route, also under threat from the
Romans, where he was sacrificed to protect the druids’ interests.
But it is thought that human sacrifice is rare and that more often
wooden depictions were used as sacrifices for the gods –
a theme well explored in the film “The Wicker Man”.
Whereas the sacrifice in that movie is a police officer, the Roman
author Diodorus stated that those who were sacrificed were normally
people that had broken the law. As the druids were the people
in charge of these sacrifices, their role as judges might have
played a role in the selection process.
– and perhaps too little – attention has been paid
to that part of Anglesey that is actually not part of the island,
but is a separate island: Holy Island. The name is very intriguing,
as it suggests that the island was sacred – and in fact
its sacredness seems to have been its main characteristic, as
the name has survived throughout the ages. Still, it is not known
why it was deemed to be holy. The name has nothing to do with
Christianity, suggesting that its sacredness has all to do with
the Celtic religion – bringing us back to the druids.
But Holy Island is not the only sacred island in this area. On
a fine day, you can see Bardsey Island in the distance, an island
whose very name is linked with the “bards” –
the druids. And it is an island that is equally held to be sacred,
and even identified as the real Avalon. Legends state that Bardsey
Island, also known as Ynys Enlli, is identified as the last resting
place of Merlin the Magician, the archetypal druid. The legends
state that he slept in a magical glass castle, surrounded by the
Thirteen Treasures of Britain, and constantly attended to by nine
Ynys Enlli is usually interpreted as "Isle of the Currents"
or "Tide-Race Island", in reference to the treacherous
waters of Bardsey Sound that can make for a perilous and sometimes
impossible crossing. It may, however, also be a corrupted form
of Ynys Fenlli, "Benlli's Island", a reference to the
giant Benlli Gawr, who was an Irish warlord that conquered the
Kingdom of Powys.
Holy Island, Ynys Enlli’s religious associations predate
the Christian era, as it were the raiding Vikings that labelled
it the "Bards' Island". But though its sacred nature
predates Christianity, its sacred nature is now commonly seen
within a Christian context, some labelling it the Iona of Wales,
which seems to be indeed the case.
Like Iona and Holy Island, Bardsey Island is an island off the
west coast of the mainland, and hence associated with the setting
sun and the departure of the soul to the Otherworld. Like Iona,
it became a most important burial place for royalty and holy men;
some 20,000 saints are said to lie beneath its soil, though it
remains to be seen whether this claim is supported by any archaeological
evidence. Where precisely these thousands of remains would be
buried, is a good question – with no apparent answer. But
despite such possible exaggeration, its sacred nature is not in
doubt; the Church even proclaimed that three pilgrimages to Ynys
Enlli were equal to one to Rome; thus attaining the nickname of
being “the Rome of Britain”.
question needs to be asked whether Bardsey Island was the site
where druids and “Celtic royalty” (whatever that may
mean) were buried, or whether it was here that druids perhaps
also retired to, in preparation for their eventual death. Legend
had it that anybody buried on Bardsey was guaranteed eternal salvation.
Furthermore, the place has always been considered something of
a health spot. Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Itinerary through
Wales" of 1188 wrote: "beyond Lleyn, there is a small
island inhabited by very religious monks called Caelibes or Colidei.
This island, either from the healthiness of its climate, or rather
from some miracle and the merits of the Saints, has this wonderful
peculiarity that the oldest people die first, because diseases
are uncommon, and scarcely any die except from extreme old age.
Its name is Enlli, in the Welsh, and Berdesey, in the Saxon language."
It were such descriptions that contributed to the island’s
identification with Avalon, and the site where King Arthur was
taken to be healed after the Battle of Camlann. Barber and Pykitt
even believed that Merlin’s Glass House was a sort of early
greenhouse, attached to St. Cadfan's monastery, where apples could
grow. Though this theory may perhaps seem to be farfetched, recently,
Bardsey has again become associated with apples, and has indeed
been proven to be a health spot, if not for men, then at least
for apple trees.
1998, some windfall apples from under a gnarled old tree were
collected by someone who noticed that the fruit and the tree were
free of disease, which is a very unusual occurrence. He, nor anyone
else, was able to recognise the type of apple and hence, a specimen
was sent to the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale (Kent, UK),
where Dr Joan Morgan declared that the fruit and the tree were
unique. The media jumped on the discovery and called it "the
rarest tree in the world” and some newspapers underlined
the connection between Bardsey Island and Avalon, the “island
of apples”, to write their headlines.
Despite making headline news, few facts are known about the apple.
How the apple tree came to be there, is unknown, though the variety
is believed to date back to the 13th century, grown by monks.
Whether the tree is self fertile or requires pollen from another
apple tree, is unknown. The tree’s age is also unknown and
the last person to be born on the island, when in his seventies,
said the three had always been there. The house next to the tree
had been built by Lord Newborough in the 1870s – drawing
a rather interesting comparison to the original edition of The
Wicker Man, which focuses heavily on the apple theme and Lord
Summerisle. Equally interesting was that the hillside above the
house has a cave, known as the Hermit’s Cave, where Merlin
is reputedly buried.
druids are notorious for having left little information behind
– and the Romans seem to have gone to great pains to make
sure their fierce opponents were largely removed from the page
of history. As such, archaeology and folklore are the only means
to tell us something about the connection between Anglesey, Holy
Island and Bardsey Island beyond some very basic observations.
Like Holy Island, Bardsey Island has one hill dominating the island.
In fact, the hill on Bardsey Island is quite similar in appearance
to Holyhead Mountain. But is it merely a geographical coincidence,
or part of the reason why these islands were deemed to be sacred?
Together with two other geographical features – being an
island, and positioned west off the mainland – they were
linked with the setting sun, the dead and the dying, as illustrated
in medieval legends of the island – though no such information
seems to exist for Holy Island.
So, if the Romans wanted to wipe out the druid religion, they
were successful. Today, Anglesey and Holy Island have lost most
if not all of their sacred nature. But some things do survive.
A trip to Bardsey Island remains a perilous adventure, as the
local ferrymen will tell you. A visitor trying to connect with
the sacredness of the island will not find any large monuments,
no large cemeteries. In fact, there is nothing. And that may be
the point. In the 21st century, there is only a dirt track on
the island, which is hence void of cars, illustrating how the
island may be seen as backwards by some, but timeless by others.
One might argue that few locations in the western hemisphere have
been able to retain a primeval character, but Bardsey Island has
indeed been able to resist modernisation, and thus may have been
able to retain its sacred nature. It is ironic that an island
of the dead seems to have been the sole location which could survive.
article originally appeared in Frontier Magazine 8.1 (January-February
2002) and has been greatly revised.