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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Llan Druidion Burial Chamber is in Ffynnon Druidion, Fishguard, Prehistoric Wales Neolithic Burials.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 1872 Pages 81-143. Within a short distance is a place called "Ffynnon Druidion [Map]," and another "Llan Druidion [Map]," whence Fenton draws the conclusion that these names, as well as the numerous megalithic monuments there, prove that this was a favourite residence of the Druids. But has the word "Druidion" anything to do with Druids? The Welsh for a Druid is "Derwydd." "Ceryg y Druidion," in Merioneth, popularly translated stones of the Druids, is said by Welsh scholars to be rather stones of brave or strong men. "Druidion" seems to be the English word Druid with a Welsh plural suffix; and it is difficult to conceive how such a barbarous word can be of such antiquity as might be assigned to names of places in Wales. The assigning of it in these two instances, where megaliths abound, only shews that these stones were thought, in later times, to be Druidical by those who gave the names. But then remains the difficulty, how such a hybrid word as "Druidion" could have come into existence in a district where English is hardly to this day understood. "Drudion" means "heroes" or "brave men."
Near Ffynnon Druidion was once a small dolmen, now so entirely demolished that only one or two of its stones are left to mark where it stood; but it was here that five flint celts were discovered, and which had, no doubt, been buried with the corpse.
A little lower, to the westward, was in Fenton's time a circle of stones, in the centre of which was discovered a stone hammer. One of the flint celts and hammer are figured by Fenton. He does not state the kind of stone of which the hammer is made. The flint weapons are well worked, and must have been brought from a great distance.