they call Jagiouge and Magiouge; and the Caucasian wall, said to be built by Alexander the Great from the Caspian to the Black Sea, in order to cover the frontiers of his dominion, and to prevent the incursions of the Scythians, is called by the orientals the WALL of GOG and MAGOG. One of the d Compare M. Petit de la Croix, Hist. Genghizcan, l. iv. c. 9. once in every week mounted on horseback with ten others on horseback, comes Herbelot. Bibl. Oriental. p. 157. to this gate, and striking it three times 291. 318. 438. 470. 528. 795. 796. 811, with a hammer weighing five pounds, &c. They call Tartary the land of Ja- and then listening, hears a murmuring giouge and Magiouge. This wall, some noise from within. This noise is supfew fragments of which still remain, they posed to proceed from the Jagiouge and pretend to have been built with all sorts Magiouge confined there. Salam was of metals. See Abulfaraj Hist. Dynast. told that they often appeared on the batedit. Pococke, p. 62. A. D. 1673. It tlements of the bulwark. He returned was an old tradition among the Tartars, after passing twenty-eight months in this that the people of Jagiouge and Magiouge extraordinary expedition. See Mod. were perpetually endeavouring to make Univ. Hist. vol. iv. B. i. § 2. pag. 15, a passage through this fortress; but that 16, 17. And Anc. vol. xx. pag. 23. they would not succeed in their attempt [It is by no means improbable that the till the day of judgment. See Hist. mention of Gog and Magog in the Apo Geneal. des Tartars, d'Abulgazi Baha- calypse gave rise to their general notoriety dut Khân, p. 43. About the year 808, both in the East and West. This prothe caliph Al Amin having heard won- phecy must have been applied to the derful reports concerning this wall or Huns under Attila at a very early pebarrier, sent his interpreter Salam, with riod; for in the Anonymous Chronicle a guard of fifty men, to view it. After of Hungary, published by Schwandtner a dangerous journey of near two months, (Scriptor. Rer. Hungar. Tom. I.) we Salam and his party arrived in a deso- find it making a part of the national his lated country, where they beheld the tory. Attila is there said to be a deruins of many cities destroyed by the scendant of Magog, the son of Japhet, people of Jagiouge and Magiouge. In (Genesis ch. x. ver. 2.) from whom the six days more they reached the castles Hungarians are also called Moger. This near the mountain Kokaiya or Caucasus. is evidently not the production of the This mountain is inaccessibly steep, per- writer's own imagination, but the simple petually covered with snows and thick record of a tradition, which had obtained clouds, and encompasses the country of a currency among his countrymen, and Jagiouge and Magiouge, which is full of which, combined with the subsequent hiscultivated fields and cities. At an open- tory of Almus and Arpad, wears the aping of this mountain the fortress ap- pearance of being extracted from some popears and travelling forwards, at the di- etic narrative of the events.-EDIT.] Pliny, stance of two stages, they found another speaking of the PORTE CAUCASIÆ, menmountain, with a ditch cut through it tions, "ingens naturæ opus, montibus oze hundred and fifty cubits wide: and interruptis repente, ubi fores obditæ ferwithin the aperture an iron gate fifty ratis trabibus," &c. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. cubits high, supported by vast buttresses, c. 2. Czar Peter the First, in his expehaving an iron bulwark crowned with dition into Persia, had the curiosity to iron turrets, reaching to the summit of survey the ruins of this wall: and some the mountain itself, which is too high to leagues within the mountain he found a be seen. The valves, lintels, threshold, skirt of it which seemed entire, and was bolts, lock and key, are all represented about fifteen feet high. In some other of proportionable magnitude. The go- parts it is still six or seven feet in height. vernor of the castle, above mentioned, It seems at first sight to be built of stone: most formidable giants, according to our Armorican romance, which opposed the landing of Brutus in Britain, was Goemagot. He was twelve cubits high, and would unroot an oak as easily as an hazel wand: but after a most obstinate encounter with Corineus, he was tumbled into the sea from the summit of a steep cliff on the rocky shores of Cornwall, and dashed in pieces against the huge crags of the declivity. The place where he fell, adds our historian, taking its name from the giant's fall, is called LAM-GOEMAGOT, or GOEMAGOT's Leap, to this day. A no less monstrous giant, whom king Arthur slew on Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall*, is said by this fabler to have come from Spain. Here the origin of these stories is evidently betrayed. The Arabians, or Saracens, as I have hinted above, had conquered Spain, and were settled there. Arthur having killed this redoubted giant, declares, that he had combated with none of equal strength and prowess, since he overcame the mighty giant Ritho, on the mountain but it consists of petrified earth, sand, and shells, which compose a substance of great solidity. It has been chiefly destroyed by the neighbouring inhabitants, for the sake of its materials: and most of the adjacent towns and villages are built outof its ruins. Bentinck's Notes on Abulgazi, p. 722. Engl. edit. See Chardin's Travels, p. 176. And Struys's Voyage, B. iii. c. 20. p. 226. Olearius's Travels of the Holstein Ambassad. B. vii. p. 403. Geograph. Nubiens. vi. c. 9. And Act. Petropolit. vol. i. p. 405. By the way, this work probably preceded the time of Alexander: it does not appear, from the course of his victories, that he ever came near the Caspian gates. The first and fabulous history of the eastern nations, will perhaps be found to begin with the exploits of this Grecian hero. f Lib. i. c. 16. [Mr. Roberts in his extreme zeal for stripping the British History of all its fictions, and every romantic allusion, conceives this name a fabrication from the mint of Geoffrey. The Welsh copies read Gogmagog; yet as Ponticus Virunnius, who lived in the fifteenth cen tury, reads Goermagog, Mr. Roberts has "little doubt but that the original was Cawr-Madog, i. e. the giant or great warrior." Beliagog is the name of a giant in Sir Tristram.-EDIT.] [But there is a Saint Michael's Mount in Normandy, which is called Tombelaine, and Geoffrey of Monmouth says the place was called Tumba Helene, to which the combat is said to have related.-DOUCE.] 8 L. x. c. 3. [It is very certain that the tales of Arthur and his Knights, which have appeared in so many forms, and under the various titles of the St. Graal, Tristam de Leonnois, Lancelot du Lac, &c., were not immediately borrowed from the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but from his Armoric originals. The St. Graal is a work of great antiquity, probably of the eighth century. There are Welsh MSS. of it still existing, which, though not very old, were probably copied from earlier ones, and are, it is to be presumed, more genuine copies of the ancient romance, than any other extant. DOUCE.] Arabius, who had made himself a robe of the beards of the kings whom he had killed. This tale is in Spenser's Faerie Queene. A magician brought from Spain is called to the assistance of Edwin, a prince of Northumberland", educated under Solomon king of the Armoricans. In the prophecy of Merlin, delivered to Vortigern after the battle of the dragons, forged perhaps by the translator Geoffrey, yet apparently in the spirit and manner of the rest, we have the Arabians named, and their situations in Spain and Africa. "From Conau shall come forth a wild boar, whose tusks shall destroy the oaks of the forests of France. The ARABIANS and AFRICANS shall dread him; and he shall continue his rapid course into the most distant parts of Spain." This is king Arthur. In the same prophecy, mention is made of the "Woods of Africa." In another place Gormund king of the Africans occurs'. In a battle which Arthur fights against the Romans, some of the principal leaders in the Roman army are, Alifantinam king of Spain, Pandrasus king of Egypt, Boccus king of the Medes, Evander king of Syria, Micipsa king of Babylon, and a duke of Phrygiam. It is obvious to suppose how these countries became so familiar to the bard of our chronicle. The old fictions about Stonehenge were derived from the same inexhaustible source of extravagant imagination. We are told in this romance, that the giants conveyed the stones which compose this miraculous monument from the farthest coasts of Africa. Every one of these stones is supposed to be mystical, and to contain a medicinal virtue: an idea drawn from the medical skill of the Arabians", and more particularly from the Arabian doctrine of attributing healing qualities, and other occult properties, to stones". Merlin's transformation of Uther into Gorlois, and The Cumbrian and Northumbrian Britons, as powerful opponents of the Saxons, were strongly allied to the Welsh and Cornish. i Lib. xii. c. 1. 4, 5, 6. 1 Lib. xii. 2. xi. 8. 10. authentic history was a king of the Danes who infested England in the ninth century, and was defeated and baptized by Alfred." Dissertation on Romance, &c. p. 23.-PARK.] m Lib. x. c. 5. 8. 10: "See infr. p. 11. And vol. ii. p. 214. • This chronicle was evidently com b of Ulfin into Bricel, by the power of some medical preparation, is a species of Arabian magic, which professed to work the most wonderful deceptions of this kind, and is mentioned at large hereafter, in tracing the inventions of Chaucer's poetry. The attribution of prophetical language to birds was common among the orientals: and an eagle is supposed to speak at building the walls of the city of Paladur, now Shaftesbury P. The Arabians cultivated the study of philosophy, particularly astronomy, with amazing ardour. Hence arose the tradition, reported by our historian, that in king Arthur's reign, there subsisted at Caer-leon in Glamorganshire a college of two hundred philosophers, who studied astronomy and other sciences; and who were particularly employed in watching the courses of the stars, and predicting events to the king from their observations'. Edwin's Spanish magician above mentioned, by his knowledge of the flight of birds, and the courses of the stars, is said to foretell future disasters. In the same strain Merlin prognosticates Uther's success in battle by the appearance of a comets. The same enchanter's wonderfull skill in mechanical powers, by which he removes the giant's Dance, or Stonehenge, from Ireland into England, and the notion that this stupendous structure was raised by a PROFOUND PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE MECHANICAL ARTS, are founded on the Arabic literature. To which we may add king Bladud's magical operations". Dragons are a sure mark of orientalism*. One of these in our romance is a "terrible dragon flying from the piled to do honour to the Britons and their affairs, and especially in opposition to the Saxons. Now the importance with which these romancers seem to speak of Stonehenge, and the many beautiful fictions with which they have been so studious to embellish its origin, and to aggrandise its history, appear to me strongly to favour the hypothesis, that Stonehenge is a British monument; and indeed to prove, that it was really erected in memory of the three hundred British nobles massacred by the Saxon Hengist. See SECT. ii. infr. p. 57. NO DRUIDICAL monument, of which so many remains 1 t west, breathing fire, and illuminating all the country with the brightness of his eyes." In another place we have a giant mounted on a winged dragon: the dragon erects his scaly tail, and wafts his rider to the clouds with great rapidity ". Arthur and Charlemagne are the first and original heroes of romance. And as Geoffrey's history is the grand repository of the acts of Arthur, so a fabulous history ascribed to Turpin is the ground-work of all the chimerical legends which have been related concerning the conquests of Charlemagne and his twelve peers*. Its subject is the expulsion of the Saracens from Spain: and it is filled with fictions evidently congenial with those which characterise Geoffrey's history *. Some suppose, as I have hinted above, this romance to have been written by Turpin, a monk of the eighth century; who, for his knowledge of the Latin language, his sanctity, and gal tribes at an early period, and was borne on the banner of Pendragon, who from that circumstance derived his name. A dragon was also the standard of the renowned Arthur. A description of this banner, the magical work of Merlin, occurs in the romance of Arthur and Merlin in the Auchinleck MS. Merlin bar her gonfanoun; Upon the top stode a dragoun, Swithe griseliche a litel croune, Fast him biheld al tho in the toune, For the mouth he had grinninge And the tong out flatlinge That out kest sparkes of fer, Into the skies that flowen cler; &c. In the Welsh triads (adds the same authority) I find the dragon repeatedly mentioned and in a battle fought at Bedford, about 752, betwixt Ethelbald king of Mercia and Cuthred king of Wessex, a golden dragon, the banner of the latter, was borne in the front of the combat by Edelheim or Edelhun, a chief of the West Saxons. Notes on Sir Tristram, p. 290.-PARK.] [Among the Celtic tribes, as among the Finns and Sclavonians, the serpent appears to have been held in sacred estimation; and the early traditions of the North abound in fables relative to dragons who lay slumbering upon the gol den "hoard" by day, and wandered *["But this," says Ritson, "requires it to have been written before the year 1066, when the adventures and exploits of Charlemagne, Rowland and Oliver were chaunted at the battle of Hastings; whereas there is strong internal proof that this romance was written long after the time of Charlemagne." Dissert. on Rom. and Minst. p. 47.-PARK.] * I will mention only one among many others. The christians under Charlemagne are said to have found in Spain a golden idol, or image of Mahomet, as high as a bird can fly. It was framed by Mahomet himself of the purest metal, who by his knowledge in necromancy had sealed up within it a legion of diabolical spirits. It held in its hand a prodigious club; and the Saracens had a prophetic tradition, that this club should fall from the hand of the image in that year when a certain king should be born in France, &c. J. Turpini Hist. de Vit. Carol. Magn. et Rolandi. cap. iv. f. 2. a. |