Tour 1 – Genesis

Gododdin, gomynaf oth blegyt
yg gwyd cant en aryal en emwyt: ...
Er pan want maws mur trin,
er pan aeth daear ar Aneirin,
nu neut ysgaras nat a Gododdin.

 FOR MOST of its long history Scotland was a Celtic country and from the 6th century onwards increasingly a Gaelic one. This tour provides an insight into the world of the early Celtic peoples of Scotland from the great fortress site of the Goddodin (the Votadini of the Roman occupation) in Edinburgh to the marsh girt rock of Dun Add in Argyll.

Learn the significance of the archaeological and cultural landscape, visit signficant monuments such as Edinburgh Castle, Stirling and Scone, and understand the descriptions and explanations of the names that our Celtic ancestors gave to the land they proudly held in defiance first of the Roman Empire and later Anglian/English incursions.

These momentous struggles will be illustrated by the earliest British epic poem (predating Beowulf), The Goddodin. Locations visited will also include Rough Castle on the Antonine Wall to allow you to understand Scotland’s internal "frontier" – a division which lasted until the 19th century. 

Gododdin, I make claim on thy behalf
In the presence of the throng boldly in the court: ...
Since the gentle one, the wall of battle, was slain,
Since the earth covered Aneirin,
Poetry is now parted from the Gododdin