wihtwara

The Fourth and Final book in the Wihtwara Trilogy.

This final narrative builds a wonderful love story between King Arwald and Queen Wihtflǣd of Wihtland. Both physical and deeply spiritual, they mirror the Pagan people of the island. Peaceful and very aware of their enduring relationship to the Gods and Goddesses, always nurturing Nerthus, the Earth Mother.
Yet, the power of the Roman Catholic church is focused on destroying Paganism at all costs. In 686 C.E., Wessex invaders led by Cædwalla and supported by Bishop Wilfrid, took the island by force, and point of the sword, killing nearly 1,200 Wihtwara, including the royal family. They died holding their faith true to their heart and soul.
Bede (the monk with a pen) writes: Cædwalla came with an army, and he took the Isle of Wight, destroying nearly all the inhabitants thereof, and to place in their stead, twelve hundred Christian families from his own province. There is no doubt, Bede wrote with a great religious bias. Much of the pagan beliefs have been subsumed by religious over-thought and biased rantings.
The pagan god Wōden, was named Mercurius by the Romans for his skills in debate and negotiations. He was a living god. There are over seventy places in England citing Wōden. Yet so many have been subsumed into the prefix ‘devil’.
We have two on the inland, the devil’s punchbowl in Brading. It is an Ancestor burial mound. And most uniquely, the re-discovered Wōden’s ‘golden-eye’ Sanctuary in Ventnor, subsumed into the name ‘the devil’s chimney’. Here we can see his face clearly within the rockface and multiple ‘golden eyes’ in faces around.
I have spent over seven years researching this forgotten and subsumed history of this race of people who migrated to our shores at a much earlier time than the ‘monks with pens’ would have us believe. In fact, new archaeological DNA profiling, has sent much of this biased rhetoric into the ‘long grass’ where it belongs. The Suevii, (their true name) came to farm and not fight. Very recent archaeological finds near Sutton Hoo has gifted us amazing knowledge of a cultured, sophisticated, and wealthy race of people. The word penned by the monks calling them all ‘barbarians’ is a slur and a downright lie!
The archaeological finds on the island mirror that wealth too, giving the Wihtwara a high-status race of people.
This DNA profiling has also shown a mixed-race component of immigration to Engla-londe, with far-reaching melding of cultural and linguistic characteristics. Frieslanders hold a higher proportion of inhabitants within Suevii numbers, than first thought. And I have expanded the narrative to respect this.

And, I give my respect to Tacitus, who gives us an honest, unbiased chronicle that we can trust.

When I put my hand to the ancient standing stone we have on the island, I was shown the terrible day of that massacre. It was horrific. Truly alarming. And it took a few years in fact for me to face it, research it and find the wonderful peoples of the Wihtwara, the Meonwara and the Cantwara. And they are truly my ancestors as I found by birth name in ancient Suevii is Wahl, meaning guardian of the stones. I am a Pagan, and this trilogy is a Pagan narrative, which is exactly as it should be!
This book ends with the massacre but has a message of hope for us all.
Genocide never truly succeeds. The 2021 Census shows for the first time in 1,300 years, the Isle of Wight no longer has a Christian majority.

Bletsunga Beorhte
Bright Blessings
Jan Harper Whale (Wahl)

Ancient DNA research: The Truth

Now, after several years research on my part for the Wihtwara Trilogy series, the ground-breaking documentary, broadcast on the BBC in 2018, led by Professor Alice Roberts and who heads a team of eminent archaeologists, historians, DNA profile experts and scientists, prove the Anglo-Saxon Dark Age invasion never happened. This is science over myth at its very best. Myth busting. It gives fresh humanist evidence to a quieter, steadier migration of our ancestors. The Anglo Saxons, that I name Suevii, did not rampage with bloodthirsty cries intent on killing. They came to be farmers!
I would like to offer a commentary to the stills of this marvelous documentary, which can be viewed in its entirety by clicking on the link.
It proved a Eureka moment for me after all the years of my research and a confirmation also. Many thanks to Professor Alice Roberts and all the team that presented such definitive evidence to the true nature and purpose of the Suevii, our ancestors. And to the exciting evidence of our ancestors in the West.

King Arthur The Truth Unearthed

Professor Alice Roberts is exploring the most misunderstood periods in British history.
For 200 years after the Romans left our island from 410 C.E. our country was plunged into what has become known as ‘The Dark Ages’.
The turmoil transformed the nation. But we know almost nothing about it.
The legends tell of a lawless land with warring tribes and a legendary King Arthur

is there in these stories and what was Dark age Britain really like?

Over on the coastline of Cornwall

lies the remains of a huge building complex: Tintagel, the seat of power.

Tintagel excavation

Alice Roberts is going to discover what we really know of ‘Dark Age Britain’. She has exclusive access to the Tintagel excavation

Combining archaeology with the latest scientific analysis ground-breaking including landscape archaeology that is phenomenal

They discover continuous occupation all along the huge stretch of British countryside. Examining the 'wallpaper'

Genetic mapping

that provided a eureka moment

physics spin-off

And an incredible spin-off in particle physics.
And that is the power of modern of archaeology

pivotal 5th and 6th centuries

She discovers just how pivotal the 5th and 6th centuries are in creating the Britain we know today

We are not looking at abandoned landscape of desperate poverty.
It is not necessarily the truth

Modern archaeology

is finally writing the true story of King Arthur’s Britain.
The truth unearthed

This is what we think we know

In 410 C.E. Britain suffered a cataclysm.
After 400 years of Roman rule,
the soldiers, aristocracy, bureaucrats simply upped and left.
‘The Days are as Dark as Night’
“This is an evocative way of saying ‘Welcome to the Dark Ages’”

After the Romans

Alice Roberts comments, ‘and that is it really, After the Romans’ left,
recorded history simply stopped.’

damaged records

200 years, that is possibly 8-10 generations so people we know of. We can count on the fingers of two hands. And the records we do have are badly damaged and hard to read.

writing fragments

We have two or three people we have fragments of writing

Within a decade according to these fragments, the Angles Saxons and Suevii invaded the country, swept into our island from Northern Europe, destroying everything in their path. Blood and thunder stuff. Plagues, civil war, hunger

Archaeology, discovering the truth

The written histories are patchy and unreliable. It is archaeology that is discovering the truth about Britain in the Dark Ages. Archaeology is uncovering the secrets hidden in our landscape

Challenge for historians

In the histories a figure emerges of a hero, the great
King Arthur who unifies his people against the invaders.
The challenge for historians is to know if it is indeed true.
The excavation at Tintagel might provide a breakthrough

The legend of King Arthur has filled the gap in our history, but no physical evidence of him has ever been found

Now discoveries made here may help to separate hard facts from fiction, to reveal the truth about Dark Age Britain

Extensive area

There are at least 100 stone buildings at the
excavation site at Tintagel, dated to the 5th and 6th centuries

Excavations

It is a settlement of over a hundred people, and they are
hard at work uncovering an even larger settlement
near the cliff edge. It has been 5 weeks of gathering
detailed evidence of life 1400 years ago

This is bringing Tintagel the Citadel of the 5th century
out of the dark ages and back to life

This is not the environment of ordinary people.
This is showing high-class status and someone important must have lived here.
Yet it is a huge leap to say he was King Arthur.
There is no proof

De gestis Britonum

This large rock is known as ‘Arthurs’ chair’ who has
become synonymous with Tintagel due to one legend penned by
medieval writer, a monk named Geoffrey of Monmouth

British library

The written sources lie within the walls of the British library

Written 660 years later

Arthur is mentioned in the history of the
Kings of Great Britain, written by Geoffrey of Monmouth
660 years after the time of the dark ages.
A copy of a 12th century best seller.
This is first mention of Arthur attached to Tintagel

Action movie, Sex and Violence

Full of sex and violence, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account
plays out like a Hollywood action movie

Anglo-Saxons 'the bad guys'

Every story needs a bad guy and Geoffrey of Monmouth
has the perfect villain.
Anglo-Saxons swarm in from the North Sea.
Ready to kill everything in their path

But Arthur comes out of the West and leads the resistance.
The result is a country divided. Embattled Britons in the west and Saxon overlords in the East

There is this frontier between these constantly warring factions.
It is us against them. It is Britain against the Anglo-Saxons

Good vs Evil

Britain is defending everything that is good, and the
Anglo-Saxons are everything that is evil. The Anglo-Saxons
are forces of evil that needed to be destroyed

He went berserk

Arthur’s sword is a weapon of mass destruction. In a single day, Arthur with his sword killed 470 men single-handed. He went berserk. 470 victims in a single rush is just too extraordinary to believe. He is portrayed as a superhero

The Arthur we know, is not this depiction

The round table and holy grail gets added to in the 14th and 15th centuries.
To make Arthur a more likeable person

The story of the Anglo-Saxon invasion goes back even further. The earliest account was by a monk called Gildas. And only a few fragments are still legible. Gildas is writing in the 5th century not as a history but a polemic against the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons are a punishment from God. It is all very political, and we just don’t know how accurate these fragment histories really are

Subjective accounts

‘It is not necessarily the truth not accurate objectivity
and it is not the academic approach we would have now.

Alice Roberts comments that she had hoped to find something tangible, dependable, especially in those earlier sources. But it turns out there were problems with all these accounts. They are all so subjective. But I think there is a better way of getting to the truth of the Dark Ages. And that is Archaeology

archaeology tests

So, Alice Roberts is going to test these earlier sources
with modern archaeology

Must be evidence

If there were battles against the Anglo-Saxons and Britons
along the dividing line marking east and west,
there must be some archaeological evidence

It took 40 years

Archaeologist Dominic Powlesland has been flying, digging, and mapping a vast area around the East Yorkshire end of the line. Near the village of West Heslerton. For the last forty years

Does his work provide any evidence of an invasion?
Dominic saw in a big archaeological landscape, you need
big technological solutions. You needed geophysics,
aerial photography, you needed a totally different approach

Reveal the hidden secrets

Dominic’s vision was to use modern technology to map
the Anglo-Saxon landscape, over 70 square kilometres.
It took 40 years.
But with an army of volunteers, he was able to reveal
the hidden secrets in the landscape

3D locate every artefact

Dominic’s idea of mapping an entire landscape through time,
that you would individually 3D locate every single artefact,
it’s almost madness, but its brilliant madness

The secret of the success is geophysical survey using ground penetrating radar showing traces of buried structures and phenomenal finds numbering one million altogether. Dominic has been across this landscape with a fine tooth-comb

No signs of a battle or conquest

What he has found is extraordinary.
But what is even more amazing is what he hasn’t found.
There are no graves of defeated warriors.
No signs of a battle or conquest.
In the peaceful landscape in the vale of Pickering,
life seemed to carry on without a break

Dominic states, “I have never seen any evidence of an invasion.”
Dominic’s findings seem to be at odds with the traditional view.
That the Britons were routed by an Anglo-Saxon invasion force

"Once you start killing people in large numbers
they tend to remain lying around..
We don’t see loads of Anglo-Saxons with major injuries.
There is a very low incidence of weapon injury and swords cuts"

It is such a departure from our idea of an epic battle
between native Britons and Anglo-Saxons.
Of all dead bodies dug up, and there are thousands of them,
just 2% have serious weapon injury.
The archaeology is bringing into question the idea of a
countrywide conflict.
The data comes together in what Dominic calls the ‘wallpaper’.
It shows exactly what Anglo-Saxon people were doing during this period

Whoever lived here were farmers

It gives a clear picture of a huge area that is
so densely settled.
Whoever lived here in the 5th and 6th centuries,
they were not rampaging warriors.
They were farmers

Population

A large area became densely populated with hamlets and
settlements more than 270 strong.
In the East there is not much evidence of invasion and conflict

In the West they are also unearthing a peaceful lifestyle, but one that is far more extravagant than in the East. There is a larger quantity of high-end pottery found at Tintagel than any other site. This was certainly not a backwater

Culture East & West

The culture in the West is clearly different form the
Anglo-Saxon culture in the East.
West of the line stays largely British speaking.
Archaeologically speaking Britain looks like a divided country.
But if the Anglo-Saxons did not arrive en masse to kill,
what did happen? Why did the culture change?

X-raying grave goods

This is diamond light source in Oxfordshire.
The facility for Synchrotron radiation.
This is where physics and archaeology collide!
X-raying Anglo-Saxon grave goods from the east side of the great divide.
The glass working is not Anglo-Saxon. It is a British technique of creating enamel

What archaeology is telling us.
That what looks typically Anglo-Saxon is not and is much less straightforward.
We cannot assume that these skeletons are Anglo-Saxon incomers

The skeletons needed, to go for another modern technology,
ancient DNA analysis. One skeleton turned out to have Dutch
and Danish genomes. But close by, another skeleton was much
closer to earlier Iron age Britons. The next skeleton buried
in this group was a mix of Northern European and British genomes.
A big surprise

This shows there was a gradual arrival of Northern Europeans
who mixed with the Native Britons over time.
Nation States did not exist.
They arrived and mingled with the local populace

Settlers welcomed

The stories by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of King Arthur defending the Britons against an invading horde of Saxons needs a rewrite!
The archaeology is clearly telling us there was not a sudden huge influx of Anglo-Saxons resulting in mass conflict, instead there was always contact, and migration, not invasion, just settling and becoming farmers.
In a time of great change new settlers were most likely welcomed and not seen as a threat at all

With exclusive access to a major new excavation at Tintagel,
Alice Roberts pulls together all the latest evidence to reveal what Dark Age Britain was really like.
In the fifth century, the future of Britain hung in the balance; after four centuries of straight roads and hot and cold running water the Romans upped and left, called back to support their own ailing Empire.
Watch from the very beginning
The Experts in order of Appearance.

Prof. Alice Roberts. Biological Anthropologist, Biologist, Television presenter & Author.
Max Adams, Author & Archaeologist.
Dr Miles Russell, Historian & Archaeologist at Bournemouth University.
Win Scutt, Curator at English Heritage.
Jackie Nowakowski, Principal Archaeologist at Cornwall Archaeological Unit.
Julian Harrison, Curator of Medieval Manuscripts at The British Library.
Dr Sam Lucy, Archaeologist at Newnham College - Cambridge.
Prof. Dominic Powlesland, Archaeologist & Director at Landscape Research Centre.
Christine Haughton, Archaeologist.
James Lyall, Archaeologist.
Prof. Nicky Milner, Archaeology Department at University of York.
Prof. Peter Donnelly, Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics at University of Oxford.
Dr. Maria Duggan, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Newcastle University.
James Gossip, Excavation Director at Cornwall Archaeological Unit.

The new evidence backed by science.
Our histories are in need of a re-write!
The real evidence uncovering the truth about our ancestors, the Wihtwara.
(1 ^st century C.E. -686 C.E.)

  After a many months that turned into years of research uncovering the smothered truth about our hidden race of peaceful pagan people, the Wihtwara on Wihtland (Isle of wight), I came to the extraordinary conclusion that the histories, (our only reference to that time) had been written by monks with a religious or political bias, some coming across as sheer polemic. It is myth and dramatised legend accepted as fact, taught to generations of our children, and is most certainly false. What possible facts are there are subsumed by romantic dramas fit for fiction but certainly not historical fact.
  I therefore turned to science. The first evidence I collected was an incredible accumulation of archaeological, linguistic, DNA profiling by the research scientist Stephen Oppenheimer.
  His book: The Origins of the British.
ISBN 978-1-84529-482-3

British pre-history will have to be radically re-thought” Sir Barry Cunliffe

The evidence is very compelling. Migrations from the Cimbric Peninsula occurred at a much earlier time and consistently over time to create a diverse population in early Britain. Human beings are innate travellers and explorers. Added to the evidence presented by Stephen Oppenheimer, is DNA profiling. And that evidence is clear. In a letter I wrote to a commenter on my books, admonishing the new evidence I wrote in reply:-

Thank you very much for your point of view of our ancient his-story. It is appreciated as it encouraged me to research deeper into the vast reference material I have amassed over the course of three years study.

With respect I would like to draw your attention to the finding made by the DNA study of our Ancestor’s lineage in Britain, published in 2015 in the New Scientist. 2,039 Caucasians took part with the proviso that four of their grandparents were born within 80 miles of each other, thereby fixing a date approx. to 1885 before immigration occurred.

  The team found that the genetic profiles of the participants formed 17 distinct clusters. When they mapped this information based on where the participants lived they were surprised to see the clusters mapped almost exactly to geographical location.
  The largest cluster accounted for half the participants and occupies almost the whole of eastern and southern England and most of the Midlands. This turned out to be the genetic legacy of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Even so, at least 60 per cent of the DNA in the cluster had survived from earlier migrants ( Nature , DOI: 10.1038/nature14230 ).
  In fact, all 17 clusters are dominated by DNA from settlers that arrived prior to the Anglo-Saxons. By comparing the clusters with genomes from modern-day continental Europe, the team was able to piece together the general migration pattern that took place.
  The first wave of arrivals crossed by land bridges, when sea levels were so low that Britain was attached to what is now northern Germany. This wave was dominated by people with genomes most like modern-day inhabitants of northern Germany and Belgium. In parallel, migrants from the west coast of France were arriving by boat. Traces of the combined DNA from all these three pioneer settlers forms the basis for the genetic-make up of all white Britons.”

This undoubtedly supports the growing evidence that gradual migration to Britain’s shores occurred over a prolonged period. Before the now disputed ‘mass invasion’ of warring Saxons.

And it is a to the Roman chronicler Tacitus that I would like to refer you to. He was of the time, beyond the biased writings of Bede who was deeply Christian, and his account created centuries afterwards. Tacitus traveled to Germania, his father-in-law Agricola was a governor of Britannia. Tacitus wrote as a reporter and his narrative is descriptive and enlightening.

It is his accuracy in naming the tribes he encountered, to paint a diverse picture of the people that are our ancestors.

"They celebrate the Tuisto sprung from the earth, and his son Mannus, as the fathers and founder of the race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names the people bordering on the ocean are called Ingaevones: the rest, Istaevones. Some, however, assuming the license of antiquity, affirm that there were more descendants of the god, from whom more appellations were derived: as those of the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, and Vandali: and that these are the genuine and original names.
That of Germany, on the other hand, they assert to be a modern addition: for that the people who first crossed the Rhine, and expelled the Gauls, and are now called Tungri, were then named Germans: which appellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually prevailed: so that the title of Germans, first assumed by the victors, to excite terror, was afterwards adopted by the nation in general.”

I would like to draw your attention to the confederacy of seven tribes: the Suevi. Just as the rich tapestry of many tribal societies became euphemised as ‘German,’ so the inhabitants of and very migratory people in the Cimbric Peninsular, became euphemised as “Jutlanders” or Jutes, an over simplified version of their lives has been painted.

Within the Suevi, there were: Eudose, Anglii (Anglo), Aviones Reudigni, Warini, Suarini and Nuitones, a confederacy of seven tribes who unite to worship Nerthus, (Hertha) the Earth Mother, in equal standing to the male gods Woden, Tiw, Thor.
They unite in the worship of Hertha, Mother Earth: and suppose her to interfere in the affairs of men, and to visit the different nations. In an island of the ocean stands a sacred and unviolated grove, in which is a consecrated chariot, covered with a veil, which the priest alone is permitted to touch. He becomes conscious of the entrance of the goddess into this secret recess, and with profound veneration attends the vehicle, which is drawn by yoked cows. At this season all is joy: and every place the goddess deigns to visit is a scene of festivity. No wars are undertaken arms are untouched: and every hostile weapon is shut up. Peace abroad and at home are then only known then only loved: until at length the same priest reconducts the goddess back to her temple.”

May I recommend you read The Wihtwara, a fictional story based on years of this research. And you will find that nearly 50% of the story is devoted to Woden and the patriarchal gods.

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Nerthus ... The Earth Mother