The Dreams of Magnus Maximus

Adapted from The Dream of Macsen Wledig in The Mabinogion

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Magnus Maximus reigned as master of the Western Roman Empire in the mid-380s. One summer's day he went out hunting with his lieutenants in the hills to the north of Rome. It was a successful but tiring business and in the afternoon the Emperor grew weary. He lay down to rest beside a sparkling stream. He had a dream and in that dream he was walking on his own, following the stream until it joined a mighty river, which curved and twisted through a country of rocks and boulders and fallen temples to the old gods. He came to the sea and saw on the shore a glittering city of towers and spires with a wide harbour and a thousand ships lined up along it, all looking splendid in the sunlight - banners streaming, heraldic beasts emblazoned on the sails, and shields of all colours and designs blazing out from the bulwarks.

One ship in the middle of the harbour stood out above the rest. It shone like silver, and Magnus saw a golden orb and sceptre imprinted on the it's white sail. 'That's the one for me,' he thought, so he walked through the city, down to the harbour and onto the ship. As soon as he was onboard it moved off of its own volition and nine days and nine nights later pulled in to land. Magnus stepped out onto a land of mist and rain, shot through with bursts of brilliant sunshine. He walked and walked until he came to a mountain higher than any he had seen before. He climbed to the top and spied a noble castle in a nearby valley. He came down from the peak, walked through the valley, passed through the castle's courtyard and found himself in a magnificent hall with jewelled pillars and a ceiling of solid gold with a dais at the far end. On the left of this dais sat two young men with auburn hair, clad in black satin and absorbed in a game of chess. Magnus observed how finely wrought the pieces were. 'The work not just of a craftsman,' he said to himself, 'but an artist.' Then, on the other side of the dais, he saw a muscular, weatherbeaten man sat at a little table, holding a chisel and lathe and engaged in the work of carving out a truly royal-looking King.

The Emperor's eyes did not stay on him long, however. He wondered how he had not noticed her as soon as he came in - the radiant, wonderful woman sat facing the carver. She gathered up the shavings in her hands as he worked, but when she saw Magnus she gave a shout of joy and ran down the steps and across the marble floor to greet him. He felt a shock of recognition. It was like coming home - like he had always known her. They wrapped their arms around each other and were about to kiss when he was jolted out of his dream by his lieutenants, who were prodding him with sticks and trying to wake him up. 'You must hurry, Sire,' they said. 'You have slept long and deeply and have been well nigh impossible to awaken. It is late-afternoon and matters of state await you. You must return at once or you will miss your appointments.' But Magnus cared no more about matters of state or appointments. He returned to the city out of duty but from that day forth all his direction and focus was directed towards the woman in the jewelled hall. He had to find her; had to be with her. But how? What to do? Where and how to start?

He tried the conventional way first, sending messengers to the four corners of the Empire in search of the castle and the lady. But they all had nothing to report. After a year and a day and with the ship of state listing and nobles and generals grumbling, Maxentius called his friend, Constantius, who was a Christian priest, to his side. 'I should have confided in you straightaway' he said, 'but I felt bound by the official channels and the time-honoured ways. The world is changing though. The old ways have lost their force. They don't make things happen any more. Call down your Holy Spirit then, I beg you, and ask him to show us the way to the woman of my dream.'

Constantius went away and prayed and when he came back he said, 'Let us go to the spot where you had your dream.' So Magnus took him to the bank of the stream. Constantius entered deeply into silence, and the Holy Spirit came to him in a vision and showed him the secret path he needed to take. 'Return to the city,' he told the Emperor. 'Await me there.' Then he followed the hidden track the Spirit had revealed to him - exactly the same way Magnus had walked, with exactly the same landmarks and an identical sequence of events: the stream, the river, the glittering city, the ship, and the mist-strewn land at the end of the voyage. Finally, he arrived at the castle. He knew what and whom he would find there, and so he did - the chess-playing youths, the weatherbeaten carver, and the woman of the Emperor's dream. 

She dod not rise to greet him. She looked at him with surprise. But when he said, 'Hail, Empress of Rome,' she stood up and replied, 'Sir, I know not that title. I am Elen, daughter of Eudaf the Maker, lord of this castle. I am also sister to Adiyon and Kyneon, the chess-players yonder. Why then do you call me Empress of Rome?'

'The Emperor Magnus met you in a dream and ever since he has thought of nothing else and will know no peace until you consent to be his bride and sit beside him on the Roman throne.'

'Tell him that if his love is as great as you say then he needs must come in person. With his army and navy too. Sixteen years ago the wild men of the North poured down over the Wall and laid Britannia waste. The eagles of Rome departed and now Beli the tyrant has almost conquered all. Our days in this fair house are numbered. Beli's forces harass us from the East while Hibernian pirates ravage our shores from the West. Tell the Emperor to come with all speed and bring the light of Rome back to this island. We have been cut off too long.'

So Constantius returned to Rome and Magnus rejoiced at his news. He gathered an army and marched north through Italy and Gaul. His fleet sailed west, through the Pillars of Hercules, then up to the North and the narrow straits that separate Britannia from Gaul. Magnus crossed the sea. Once on land he gave battle to Beli. His victory was swift and Britain was restored to Roman rule. His ships, meanwhile, harried the pirate vessels and sent them scuttling back to their Irish ports. His victory assured, Magnus made his way in triumph to Eudaf's castle, where Elen awaited him. There was joy unbounded at their meeting and they were married that afternoon. The next day Constantius arrived unexpectedly from Rome to declare that Gratianus, a high-ranking general, had assumed the purple and declared Magnus persona non grata. The provinces of the East had gone over to him en masse and he was already preparing a campaign to conquer the West and finish with Magnus once and for all. 

So Magnus handed over the rulership of Britain to his wife while he busied himself strengthening the other two provinces he controlled - Gaul and Hispania. Elen ordered the building of three mighty castles in the West of the island - in Caernarfon, close to her family home, in Caerleon and in Caermarthen. She then constructed a network of roads which connected these castles to the old Roman cities of Londinium and Verulanium in the South and Deva and Eboracum in the North. She was dubbed 'Elen of the Ways' by the common people for this and as 'Elen of the Hosts' after she raised a huge standing army which stood ready to be deployed as soon as Magnus gave the word.

After seven years Magnus did give the word and his men pushed Gratianus all the way back to Rome. He laid siege to the city for two years but was unable to take it. He sent a messenger to Elen in Caernarfon for advice and the messenger returned with her chess-playing brothers, Adeon and Cyneon. Their strategic guile unlocked the city for Magnus and the men of Britain gave him the victory. He journeyed in triumph to Byzantium then, and the city of Constantine acclaimed him as master of all the Empire, both East and West. For ten years the glory of Rome shone forth over the world as in the days of Trajan and Augustus. On the first anniversary of his reconquest, Magnus stood on top of the Capitoline Hill and declared that from henceforth he would be known as Aeneas. He had had another dream, he said, where he had seen himself as father of an endless line of kings and the instigator of a never-ending Roman golden age. But his second dream was not as prophetic as his first - not in the short term at least.

After Aeneas's death, such was the pressure of the barbarian attacks and the disruption caused by squabbling generals that his son, Constantine, was forced to retreat to Britain.The island was then stripped of its garrison by a rival emperor whose only concern was the defence of Rome. The Empire was once again divided and Britain cut off, but Constantine rallied the men of the land and the Saxons, Picts and Scots were successfully held off for thirty years. But Constantine was betrayed and killed by the traitor Vortigern and Britannia fell into ruin. His two young sons, Uther and Ambrosius, were smuggled away by his supporters to the mountains of North Wales, to the ancestral lands of their grandmother. From there, in time, Ambrosius led a counter-attack which pushed the invaders back to the Eastern fringes. Uther fell in battle but he left behind a son, Artorius, who succeeded Ambrosius as High King and after his crushing victory over the Saxons at Mons Badonicus was proclaimed Emperor of the West by his troops.

For the twenty-five years of Artorius's reign Britain was the Empire in the West. But after his death the land slipped back into sleep and no man has donned the purple there from that day to this. It is said by many that Artorius sleeps with the sleeping land - the Sleeping Lord, they call him. But there are others who say something different, something not recorded in any of the countless stories written about him - that he fathered a child in secret and that a line of hidden kings continues to this day. When the time is right, so they say, the heir of Artorius will appear, the Empire will be restored, and the second dream of Magnus Maximus will be seen by everyone as just as prophetic and heaven-sent as his first.