Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts - Rodney Castleden - Страница 99

“Coel the Old” lived around 350–430. According to one tradition he was Coel Godebog’s successor as Lord of Colchester, and was the last ruler there, under Rome, at the time when the Romans left. He earned his nickname because he was long-lived.

But there was an early tradition, which therefore may be more authentic, that Coel Hen was a powerful king in the north of England. According to this version, he ruled the kingdom of York and perhaps the whole of the north, south of Hadrian’s Wall.

Coel’s mother went by the extraordinary name of Stradwawl, “Street Wall.” He named his daughter simply Wawl, “Wall.”

Apart from this, we know very little about the real Coel. He lives on, just, in a children’s nursery rhyme:

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,

and a merry old soul was he;

he called for his pipe,

and called for his bowl

and he called for his fiddlers three.

This is a reminder that the Celtic inheritance is a strange one, sometimes more colorful than its origin, but sometimes a paler and weaker wraith. The nursery rhyme really tells us nothing about the flesh-and-blood King Coel.