The Germanic Hero Wade and Wat's Dyke, Wales

Abstract

Wat's Dyke is an earthwork running along the border of England and Wales, like its western neighbour Offa's Dyke. But it is the shorter of the two, stretching a mere thirty-eight miles (62 kilometres) from the coast of the Dee Estuary to the environs of Old Oswestry, an Iron Age fortress in Shropshire, England. Although Wat's Dyke is now dated to the early ninth century (some decades later than Offa's Dyke), its name has remained obscure. A solution is yet possible. It can be related to the legendary Germanic hero Wade, who figures in Old and Middle English verse (including that of Chaucer), Old Norse, Middle High German, and even (as 'Wat') medieval Welsh. Wat's Dyke thus has unexpected links with poetry in Wales and beyond. There is another surprise: for Wade will be the mysterious warrior appearing on Maen Achwyfan, a tenth-century cross near Whitford, a Welsh village neighbouring the Dyke. The arguments for all this can be set out in four parts. We start with accounts of Wat's Dyke; move on to Chaucer and others on Wade; discuss the 'Wat' praised by Welsh bards; and end with Wade as the hero of both Maen Achwyfan and a lost monument to the west of it at Meliden (near Prestatyn) recorded by Edward Lhuyd (1660-1709), pioneer Oxford archaeologist. Plenty to say, then, on the past (Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian) of this region, where north-east Wales borders the English counties of Cheshire and Shropshire.