The Border Reiver

THE BORDER REIVER Volume 11, Number 4 Voice of Clan Hall Society December 2004 Origins - Border Reiver Riding Families Horsemanship and combat ders, was the peace and tran- was such an integral part of quility shattered by the arrival of the Border Reiver’s world the Roman army. As of the that it lent its name— political geography is under- stood, the Votadini tribe inhab- chivalry— to its ideological ited a swathe of country in the core. eastern Borders, from the Lo- The peoples of the Border thian plain down into Northum- Reiver’s time, who had the berland, while the hills to the deepest and most intimate west were occupied by the Sel- relations with horses, were nei- govae. From the Roman ther Celts nor Romans. They [Trimontium] garrisons near Septs of Clan Hall were, instead, descendants of Newstead, which are almost the first horse riders. absent from the country east of Collingwood Lauderdale, it is generally sur- Around 700 BC, several thou- Crispin mised that the Votadini were a sand years after the Old People peaceful tribe, whereas the De Aula came, groups of horse-riding lands of the warlike Selgovae warriors were seen in the Fitz Williams had to be held at some Tweed valley. They came from Hal Sarmatians in Roman Service 175 - 410AD strength. continental Europe and they with draconarius banner Hale spoke a language called P- Under the Emperor Marcus Haile Celtic. Tall, fair-headed and river-folk they found in southern Aurelius (161-180AD), the Ro- vigorous, they brought a military Scotland. man Army campaigned for eight Haul technology based on the horse Not until 79 AD, when Gnaeus years in the central and north- Haule and chariot which must have Julius Agricola, the governor of ern parts of the Carpathian Haw given them an immediate and Britannia, marched his legions Basin, north and east of the terrifying dominance over the (continued pg 3) Mac Hall over the Cheviot Hills into the Bor- Inside this issue: Teviotdale — Battle Harden / Romantic Reiver Country The romance of the Borders heart of the Cheviot massif. As improvement have not always President’s Desk 2 comes alive in the ruined you go westward to the Teviot, succeeded in removing patches abbeys and fortifications the hills become lower and of marsh and rank sedges or King Arthur - Movie that punctuate the land- more gentle. Beyond the Teviot small pools and lochans. presents the Sarmar- and to the north of the Tweed, 2 scape, river vistas and The soil of the lower part of the the landscape is lower but roll- Terviot valley forms good arable splendid views from Sir Wal- ing, with innumerable oval land in many places, but the Search for your Scot- ter Scott’s “delectable mounds, or ‘drumlins’, of boul- moorland is never far away. A tish Roots - “Reiver 6 mountains.” der clay laid down under a mas- small rise in altitude soon roots may not be Scot- sive ice sheet from the Ice Age. The countryside in the area brings you into the domain of tish at all” These drumlins, often a mile or where Tweed and Teviot rivers the sturdy Blackface and the more in length, are frequently meet is some of the most varied Cheviot. This low country is topped by farmsteads and Clan Hall Society Offi- 7 in the Borders. To the east broken up by isolated higher, sometimes small villages such around Morebattle are high, (continued pg 4) as Samailholm. They are sepa- bold hills and deep-cut valleys rated by wetter hollows where Editor’s Notes 8 like those of the Bowmont and even centuries of agricultural Kale Waters leading into the 1 THE BORDER REIVER President’s Desk the upcoming holiday season. Meeting, which will be held in conjunc- As I begin this column, I note that the tion with the Glasgow Highland Games, year has nearly ended, and has been I have been a bit behind in getting things in Glasgow, Kentucky, on 3-5 June 2005. quite a busy one for me. I want to take done due to illness. I had surgery again Please make reservations to attend this this time to wish each of you the best in in late November to repair the sternum year. Your clan society will also be repre- wires which have ruptured and left my sented at a number of festivals during sternum detached. Hopefully, this will be the coming year, and you are encour- the last surgery I will need. I know how a aged to attend. turkey feels as I have been "carved" quite a bit this year. I will make this article brief, as I am in the process of relocating, and also pre- I have recently retired, and will be mov- paring for the upcoming surgery. In the ing to North Carolina prior to Christmas. March 2005 issue of "The Border Judy and I had planned to move to North Reiver," I will provide you with informa- Carolina when we retired, and we will be tion relative to the Glasgow Highland moving a bit earlier than previously Games and our AGBM. planned. We have children living in North Carolina at this time, so that will make You are encouraged to submit articles the transition easy. for inclusion in the newsletter which will make it entertaining and informative. I would like to request that each of you notify the Membership Secretary and I look forward to meeting all of you dur- Newsletter Editor of any changes of ad- ing the upcoming year. dresses, phones, etc., which will make it easy for us to contact you, and to ensure Sincerely, Aye! that you receive your newsletter and other correspondence. TàÄtá WA [tÄÄ It isn't too early to start making plans for Atlas D. Hall, FSA (Scot.) President Atlas and Mrs. Judy E. Hall our 2005 Annual General Business President King Arthur — Movie Presents the Sarmatian Story A £70 MILLION Disney blockbuster portraying King Arthur as a Roman soldier is the true story — or as close as we will ever get. In King Arthur Clive Owen played Lucius Artorius Castus, a warrior from the Caspian Sea who allied himself with the Roman cause and was posted to Hadrian’s Wall in the second century AD. Disney marketed the Jerry Bruckheimer epic, released this last summer, as the definitive version of the Ar- thur legend, stripped of fantasy and based on historical research. Disney told the authority that its film depicted Arthur as Artorius, leader of a band of Sarmatians, warriors from eastern Europe who joined the Roman army after they were defeated by the Romans in battle. The film has Artorius and his warriors joining forces with the woad-wearing rebel Britons to battle the invading Saxons. There is historical evidence that Artorius was a military commander born in AD140 and posted to Northern England by the Roman Army. Disney argued that this was the figure on whom the King Arthur legends were based. The Sarmatians influenced the legends because they revered a sword stuck point downwards in the earth and ate at round tables. John Matthews, author of King Arthur: Dark Age Warrior And Mythic Hero, said: “Our Arthur Castus is a fictional character who we say is a half-Roman, half-British descendant of the original. The idea is that the story of the real Lucius is the seed from which later Arthurian legends grew.” The advertising authority noted that “scholars’ opinions were divided on whether Lucius Artorius Castus was the man on whom the figure of King Ar- thur was based.” But it considered that viewers would “understand that the film was a work of fiction and were likely to interpret the claim as differentiat- ing between events that could have happened and myths.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1382280,00.html http://video.movies.go.com/kingarthur/mainsite.html 2 Volume 11, Number 4 Origins - Border Reiver Riding Families (con’t) Roman lines along the Danube Sarmatian Homeland new generations of cavalrymen, River against the Quadi, a Ger- and passed their skills, knowl- man tribe, and Sarmatians edge and customs into the Brit- [’lizard people’ - clothed fully in ish mainstream. scale armor], Iranian speaking barbarians who came from They were still called Sarmatians east of the Carpathians, from after 250 years. The semi- the south Russian steppe and historic Arthur lived about 500 from the Lower Danube Plains AD. He was very probably a de- near the Black Sea. After hard scendant of those Sarmatian but victorious battles, the Sar- horsemen, a battle leader of the matian tribe Lazyges’ king Romanized Celts and Britons Zanticus agreed to hand over against the Anglo-Saxons, who 8,000 horsemen as hostages, invaded Britain after the Roman with 5,500 Sarmatian cavalry army had withdrawn. Arthur and consisting of prisoners of war. his military leaders trained the They were posted to Britain in natives as armored horseman 175 AD. Marcus Aurelius sent these after Iranian patterns used Not only did these men add to the sum warriors to Britannia, the first steppe against the attacks of Angles and Saxons of native horse and cavalry knowledge, nomads fighting on foot, until their victory at Badon but also their terrifying standard gave us with Hill. a peculiarly British name for a cavalry maybe trooper, a dragoon. The Draconarius 15,000 standard and colors have a curious reso- tough nance in the Red Dragon of Wales. steppe war- Sarmatians were stationed in permanent horses, camps outside the Roman forts at Rib- stallions chester in Lancashire, Chester, at Ha- and drian's Wall and forward in the frontier mares garrisons (i.e.

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