Why
Gewessi? It is a real word, I found it while following a geas (or gessa).
My Gods have been creating an unease in me for months if not years about
using any of the existing labels for pagan sects. Every so often I get
the itch to go looking for a label.
I
was sitting talking in a pagan chat-room (and offering up sillier &
sillier Welsh words), when the rooms resident atheist asked if I could
look up geas (which isn't a Welsh word). So I pulled out Celtic Myth
& Legend (Mike Dixon Kennedy pub: Blandford ISBN 0 7137-2571-) and after
gessa found this:
"Gewessei
An ancient people who inhabited the Southeast of Wales and who were
at one time ruled by Octavius who made himself king of Britain,
and chose Mascen as his successor"
It intrigued me as it was the Silures who I've always known of as the
Pre-Roman tribe living in Southeast Wales. You may need to know at this
point that Mascen (Maximus) married Sarn Elen a Celtic goddess (or British
princess) So I started to try and find out more about the Gewessi and
what I've found is interesting most of it can be found on the web at:
http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/vortigernhomepage.htm
(be warned it's a large site and helps if you have an understanding
of early British history)
The
Gewessi were a British people on the cusp of the dark ages who were
probably a mix of pagan & Christian, and possibly Welsh & Saxon. They
(through some interesting routes) seem to have been involved in the
founding of Gwynedd, Gwent, Wessex (and later with Hwicca leading, them
Mercia). It was from Wessex that the first kings of England came , and
from Gwynedd that the Prince of Wales came. Elen's brother settled in
Armorcia (Brittany) and when the Norman's conquered Britain they brought
back with then a large number of Bretons.
This
isn't intended to stand up to historical dissection, I'm not trying
to claim any sort of unbroken tradition just to show that at one time
the Gewessi helped to shape this land, (and I'm not even touching the
Cerdic of the Gewessi=Caradoc=Arthur theory). The name has mutated and
fallen out of use in its original form.
So I'm claiming it and offering it up to like-minded pagans. Alernative
spellings that I've spotted so far: Gewessei Guunessi Gueneri
How
do you pronounce it? The 'Gw' sound in Gwent flowing seemlessly into
the 'wesse' in Wessex.
