Eidol The Knight of the Round Table

The Romans invaded Gaul in the 1st century CE and the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Claudius actively suppressed the Druid culture. By the 2nd century it had disappeared from Gaul. Supposedly the Druids fled to Britain and other places of refuge. By 400 CE the Samothrace mysteries of a warrior Goddess which had been founded by Amazon Sarmatian women were replaced by the Eleusinian mysteries of a Goddess of fertility and love. It is possible that they went to Britain with the Druids or later. There is no way to know for certain. What we can say is that the Samothrace mysteries were conducted in Gaul for almost a thousand years and suddenly they disappeared.

The Romans had several brushes with the Sarmatians, a horse riding nomadic people of the Pontic Steppe. These skirmishes were so troublesome that by the late 2nd and 3rd centuries Rome found it necessary to develop its own mounted warriors and even used some of the Sarmatian horsemen as mercenaries.

In 175 CE some 5,500 Sarmatian horsemen were posted in Britain where they served in the Roman army. More than a century later a unit of 500 were still stationed at what is now modern Ribchester near Lancaster. These horsemen flew a dragon standard as was customary for Sarmatian warriors who held the dragon symbol as sacred. Traces of these Sarmatians remain in Britain until 400CE. These Sarmatians also worshiped a sword that was plunged into an earthen mound possibly giving rise to the legend of King Arthur. [The Sarmatians 600 BC- AD 450 by R Brzezinski & M Mielczarek published 2002]

It is likely that the legendary Uther Pendragon was associated with this remaining remnant of highly trained Sarmatian horse warriors. I can’t find a direct link between Eidol, the Earl of Gloucester, and Uther Pendragon but one author spoke of Eidol as having a troublesome lineage that made him be considered a foreigner compared to the other nobility. I think it likely that he belonged to this lineage as well.

In 472 CE Hengist, the Saxon King of Kent,brought his army onto the British coast, after the death of Vortimer, they found that the inhabitants, under the command of Vortigern, were fully determined to oppose their landing. The Saxon chief Hengist made it clear to Vortigern that he had no intention of invading the country and that his fight was with Vortimer, son of Vortigern. Pretending as if he thought Vortimer was still alive.

Hengist suggested that they should both meet in May at Stonehenge on Salisbury plain with their highest officers and nobility and he also suggested that in a show of good faith everyone should come unarmed. 

Eidol, the Earl of Gloucester, is described as High Priest, President of the Circle and Knight of the Inclosure. His job was to act as host distributing the liquor at the feast. He was probably the only one at the feast that was sober.

Meanwhile Hengist had his people secretly wear long knives in their sleeves and arranged the seating so that at each table friend and foe sat side by side alternating. At a given signal they were to take their long knives and kill the person sitting next to them sparing only King Vortigern. In the middle of the feasting when all were drunk the signal was given and 360 of Vortigern’s nobles and chieftains were savagely murdered.

King Vortigern was captured and surrendered his own properties as well as Norfolk and Sussex to Hengist and his army.

Eidol was the only one who survived and escaped after killing seventy men. He returned to the place of the massacre to bury his dead countrymen and women. He later helped capture Hengist and beheaded him.

We know him not as High Priest,  President of the Circle or Knight of the Inclosure, but as King Arthur, Knight of the Round Table which was the feast at Stonehenge where 360 unarmed people were treacherously murdered. I will be taking a more detailed look at this piece of treachery in my next post as it was chronicled in the Gododin and translated by Edward Davies.