"Perceptions"
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Copyright © 2005 Ray
Dickenson
Where's Oswestry?
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EVIDENCE Up-date]
"Perceptions"
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Old Wild West
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Welsh Border Country (map) Way back, this was border country. Oswestry was 'Welsh'. The nearest English town was Shrewsbury, about twenty odd miles away. In between was 'no-mans' land. The "King" was only interested in subjugating the Welsh - and we were an independent bunch. So he gave over all control - of the military, of the courts and of the infrastructure in the border area - to a bunch of sadistic psycho's: the "Lords" of the Marches The English Lords were corrupt, evil and rich. They used this untrammelled power for generations to imprison, torture and murder the people of the Marches, in a perverted and long-lasting campaign to oppress the people. We - the people then called "Welsh" - had many talents, mostly declared illegal, but we were also the best breeders of horse, cattle and sheep. When the English merchants wanted to buy the best meat, skins, woolens or flannel - (a heavy cloth made from wool) - they had to come to Oswestry - over the border in Cymru. The fat merchant's baggage-trains had to pass through the no-man's land between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, past Nesscliffe where outlaws waited (our more adventurous lads). Later, when the soldiery ruled more of the area, they would hang our 'outlaw' lads in chains atop Gibbet Holt - name gradually changed to present 'Gibraltar' - a long lightly-wooded hill facing the Wolf's Head Inn across the highway . [They did that to dishearten the 'outlaws,' who used the Wolf's Head - now a farm-house - as headquarters.] We, the Cymric* - had long before decided that the incoming 'Saxons' were "cowardly, incestuous and godless" and not worth fighting. [*'Welsh' - is originally a pejorative word for "foreigners" used by Saxon others - as is "Eskimo" and "Paki" and "Abo". Ie. 'Walcot' = 'house of the foreigner'] So we just took their women - and the resulting mixture is the people of North-West Shropshire: The Marcher People. [ Note: Cymru = pronounced Komree - Cymric = Khumrig ] [ "Welsh Marches" = Border area between Wales and England ] We did fight the Romans - they were the hardest bastards in the world at that time. And - against enormous odds - we nearly won ! Our Chieftain - captured and taken to Rome - was welcomed as an equal by Caesar and granted Roman freedom, for himself and his family. [Subsequently many a descendant 'Roman' was actually a 'Welshman' (you might ask Welsh girls what that means)]
That last great battle, ending when Caradoc was finally captured, was fought
for a long time, all around Llanymynech Hill - the Britons'
last redoubt - near Oswestry.
Eventually our language was swamped (but only in 'England'), by the tide of incoming Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and many more since. [ But, as they were often all-male bands we kept our genes alive, so much so that Britain and Ireland still have mainly Celtic DNA ] |
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