Coel (mythology)

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Coel , also Coel Hen ("Coel the Old"), English King Cole , is the name of characters from British legends and British literature since the Middle Ages . It is believed that the legendary figure of the Old King Cole is based on the memory of a late ancient Roman commander named Coelius .

mythology

Early Welsh traditions (such as the Bonedd Gwŷr y Gogledd , "The Descendants of the Men of the North") name a Coel Hen , around AD 400, "King" in Roman Britain, as the alleged ancestor of some royal dynasties in Hen Ogledd ("the old north "). This is the British speaking area of ​​northern England and southern Scotland . Coelius or Coelestinus is not a Celtic, but a common Roman name, which is why it is assumed that the myth hides the historical memory of a Roman military leader or warlord who might have established his own rule after the end of the imperial rule over Britain. Because of his success, his name lived on in myth. The late Roman commanding rank Dux Britanniarum then became the "Duke of the British" in the tradition.

The Coel Hen of medieval Welsh legends is named as the progenitor of Uriens of Rheged and the knight of the round table Peredur fab Efrawg , as well as rulers in Gwynedd , Elmet and Edinburgh . With his nickname or title Godebog ("protector", "patron") he is mentioned as the ancestor of the "sons of Godebog" in Y Gododdin . The Mount Coylton in Argyll to be named after him, according to legend, because there located his grave.

The prestige that was associated with the name of Coelius or Coel for a long time is also attested by other legends. A later mentioned Coel Hen , King of Colchester , is said to have been the father of St. Helena and thus the grandfather of Constantine the Great . He is mentioned as such in Geoffrey of Monmouth ’s Historia Regum Britanniae in connection with his competitor King Asclepiodotus ( Welsh Alyssglapitwlws ). After his death, Constantius I is said to have married Coel's daughter Helena while still a senator . A mistake Helena for Elen Luyddawg occurred frequently.

In the Brut y Brenhinedd ("History of the Kings") by Geoffrey of Monmouth , this Coel is mentioned as the brother of Trahern, the opponent of King Eudaf Hen in the fight for the crown of Britain.

"Old King Cole"

The traditional English nursery rhyme "Old King Cole" probably has King Coel as its historical background. The song was first recorded in 1708/09 by William King in Useful Transactions in Philosophy .

"Old King Cole", illustration by William Wallace Denslow (1902)

Good King Cole,
And he call'd for his Bowle,
And he call'd for Fiddler's three;
And there was Fiddle, Fiddle,
And twice Fiddle, Fiddle,
For 'twas my Lady's Birth-day,
Therefore we keep Holy-day
And come to be merry.

There are a few modern versions of the text, including Genesis and Queen . The Jazz -Pianist and singer Nat King 'Cole deduced his nickname of "Old King Cole". A marching version of the song has been used by the US Army since 1980 .

There is a reference to the song in James Joyce ’s novel Finnegans Wake :

  • With pipe on bowl. Terce for a fiddler, sixt for makmerriers, none for a Cole. (P. 619.27 f.)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See John R. Martindale: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire . Volume 2: AD 395-525. CUP, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , p. 304.
    John Vanderspoel: From Empire to Kingdoms in the Late Antique West . In: Philip Rousseau (Ed.): A Companion to Late Antiquity. Blackwell, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-1-4051-1980-1 , pp. 433 f.
  2. ^ Iona Opie, Peter Opie: The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. OUP, Oxford 1997, ISBN 978-0-19-860088-6 (EA London 1951), p. 134 f.

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