Men of the North

Laid low yesterday by a mild virus (that will teach me to go anywhere),I have been re-reading Tim Clarkson's Men of the North, which is rather a depressing wakeup call about how very little can be known for certain - as opposed to romantically wished or guessed - about the British kingdom of Strathclyde. This British kingdom was ruled from Dumbarton Rock, until it dwindled and faded from about 1085 onwards until the last reference to 'Brets' in a law sorting out customary penalties for killing someone or the price to be paid on marriage during the reign of Edward I in 1305 , and would probably have included Moffat from time to time when the kingdom's fortunes waxed. It is a curious fact that while the Scotti were Irish, the 'Welsh' ( an Anglian word meaning 'the other lot' ie the original inhabitants of these islands) were British. The Brits themselves referred to each other as 'Cumbrogi' (fellow countrymen), in the course of history coming to mean people who lived in Cumberland/Cumbria. More later.