“Edas was of the blood of Hu the Mighty; he was glorious to look upon; fair was his countenance, even as the light of the morning; he was sturdy of stature as the oak; he was fleet of foot as the deer; his eye was as the eye of the eagle; men fell before him in the battle.”
“He gave his heart to Nesta the Fair. She was the fairest maid in all Britain. The Gods had need of her.”
“The Romans came, who are brave men. But the Britons are still braver. Every Briton is a warrior.”
“Edas, the son of Atli, led his men to the battle. The battle raged, and the war song of Edas arose. Many brave men died, but the Britons still fought on. Edas, son of Atli, led the way; he led his warriors through the gates of death.”
“The battle ended. The Romans won. But the Land of Ghosts welcomed the souls of Edas and his brave Britons.”
“The men sleep beneath the cairns amid the heather. But their spirits sail upon the wind. And they shall watch over Britain until new heroes shall arise. And the fame of the Eagles shall grow dim before their fame, and Britain shall conquer, and shall be mightier than Rome.”
Such was the song of Caswallon the bard.
It is said that at certain seasons of the year, when the moonlight falls upon the Coombs Rocks, the ghosts of the ancient heroes marshall on the battlefield, waving in phantom hands their phantom axes, as though ready for the coming of the Roman foe. Thus they keep eternal vigil over the wild land they loved of old.
Author’s Note.
The foregoing story is founded upon one of the earliest traditions of the neighbourhood, which states that a great battle between the ancient Britons and the Romans was fought upon the elevated ground in the vicinity of “Coombs Tor.” Several writers of local history have included this battle in their accounts of actual events. Butterworth, the historian, gives an elaborate account of it in his description of the Coombs Cairns. He first mentions the conflict as having taken place between the Romans, “who were inspired by conquest and the thirst for military glory,” and the Britons, who “fought for their country’s independence”; and then he continues as follows: “Though the poet and other historians are silent upon the great engagement—for such I consider it to have been—yet two prodigious mounds, barrows or tumuli, at from a quarter to half a mile distant from each other, on the field of battle, remain to attest the magnitude and consequence of the action. I have been upon them both, and observed that they each consist of some hundred tons of stone heaped together in a circular or rather an oval form, covered with the effect of time. One of them has furze or dwarf gorse growing upon it, and I have seen cows in hot weather standing on their summits for the purpose of inhaling the cooling breezes.” The same writer then goes on to record the erection of a Roman trophy stone at some short distance from the field, and also deduces evidence of the Druids once existing near.