To gaze vpon wide heauen.
And this article of faith had then long been popular. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, says: “Moreover, vpon the Hawe at Plymmouth, there is cut out in ground the pourtrayture of two men, the one bigger, the one lesser, with clubbes in their hands (whom they terme Gogmagog), and (as I have learned) it is renewed by order of the Townesmen when cause requireth, which should inferre the same to be a monument of some moment.” Westcote, writing some half a century later, states of the Hoe—“in the side whereof is cut the portraiture of two men of the largest volume, yet the one surpassing the other every way; these they name to be Corinæus and Gogmagog.” And there these figures remained until the Citadel was built in 1671—a remarkable witness of the local belief that Plymouth had played a prominent part in the affairs of Brutus and his fellows.
We know when these figures ceased to be. Can we form any idea as to when they originated? Their earliest extant mention occurs in the Receiver’s Accounts of the borough of Plymouth, under date 1494–5:—
It. paid to Cotewyll for ye renewying of ye pyctur of Gogmagog a pon ye howe. vijd.
Previous to this date there only remain complete accounts of two years—those for 1493–4 and those for 1486—with a few fragmentary entries; and as the Gogmagog did not come to be “renewed” every year, there are no conclusions to be drawn from the absence of earlier notices. The next entry is in 1500–1, when 8d. was paid for “makying clene of gogmagog.” In 1514–15, John Lucas, sergeant, had the like sum for “cuttyng of Gogmagog”; and in the following year we read of its “new dyggyng.” In 1526–7, the entry runs: “Itm pd. for Clensying and ryddyng of gogmagog a pon ye howe viijd.”; and about this time it was renewed almost yearly. In 1541–2, the entry is: “Itm pd. to William Hawkyns, baker (evidently to distinguish him from William Hawkyns, father of Sir John), for cuttynge of Gogmagog the pycture of the Gyaunt at hawe viij.” In 1566–7, the price had gone up to twenty pence. Probably this ancient monument had been neglected for some years before the last vestiges disappeared in 1671. It is not likely to have been renewed under the Commonwealth, nor do I think it was revived under the Restoration. It is noteworthy that the official entries apparently refer to one figure only, though we know from Carew and Westcote that there were two. Fourpence a day was about an average wage for labourers at Plymouth in the opening years of the sixteenth century, so that the “pyctur” probably took about two days to cleanse, and therefore must, indeed, have been of gigantic dimensions.
Some years ago I threw out the suggestion that as Geoffrey made no allusion to these figures, “it must be assumed either that he did not know of their existence, or that they did not then exist.” Believing the latter the more reasonable conclusion, I suggested, further, “that they were first cut in the latter half of the twelfth century, soon after Geoffrey’s chronicle became current, or not long subsequently; unless, as is possible, they had a different origin, and were associated with the wrestling story in later days.” Finally, I put forward the hypothesis, “that the legend, in the first place, did refer to something that occurred in the fifth century at or near the Hoe, and with which the Armorican allies, whom Ambrosius called to his aid about the year 438, were associated; that the Armoricans, on their return to Brittany, between the fifth and twelfth centuries, under the mingled influence of half-understood classical history and of religious sentiment working through the romantic mind, it developed into the full-blown myth of Brutus the Trojan; and that when it returned to England, and was made known under the auspices of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Plymouthians of that day, to perpetuate the memory of what they undoubtedly believed to be sterling fact, cut the figures of the two champions on the greensward of the Hoe.”
I am not inclined now to adopt this hypothesis so broadly as it was then suggested. Probably the story did take shape in Brittany in some such fashion, but I now believe we must look far beyond the fifth century for its origin. There seems, however, little reason to doubt that the “Brutus stone” of Totnes and the Gogmagog of Plymouth originated, like the Gog and Magog of London City, in the popularity of Geoffrey’s book. The name, of course, linked Totnes with the legend, but we have absolutely no knowledge whatever of the reason why Plymouth (any more than Dover) came into the story. Dover, indeed, has no case what-ever—not even a “Gogmagog.”
What, then, are the claims of Totnes?
Now, as to Totnes, it is important, in the first place, to observe that in all the early works, Totnes is generally alluded to as the name of a district, and not of a town. For example, in the story of Brutus, as given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, his hero “set sail with a fair wind towards the promised island, and arrived on the coast of Totnes.” Nennius does not mention any place of debarkation. Geoffrey makes Vespasian arrive at the shore of Totnes, and, in quoting Merlin’s prophecy to Vortigern concerning his own fate, says of the threatened invasion of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon, “to-morrow they will be on the shore of Totnes.” Later in the same chronicle, the Saxons whom Arthur had allowed to depart “tacked about again towards Britain, and went on shore at Totnes.” Though the town seems rather to be indicated here, it is not necessarily so.
However, it is certain that we are to understand the landing to have taken place somewhere upon the south coast, for the invaders made an “utter devastation of the country as far as the Severn sea.” Constantine is said to have landed at the port of Totnes, which again may mean a place so called, or the principal harbour of a district of that name. It is clear, then, all things considered, that we are not dealing in these older chronicles with the present Totnes, great as is its antiquity, though the “Brut Tysilio” does go so far as to specify the place of Constantine’s landing as “Totnais in Loegria.”