- Rowena
Rowena was the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon leader
Hengest and a wife of the Briton High KingVortigern , according to British legend. Described as a beautifulfemme fatale , she won her people theKingdom of Kent through her scheming seduction of Vortigern. Rowena is unknown in contemporary records, causing modern historians to regard her story as fictional.tory
She is first mentioned without name as the beautiful Saxon daughter of Hengist in the Latin "
Historia Brittonum ". Following the arrival of Hengest andHorsa at Ynys Ruym, now known asThanet , Hengest negotiated with the British High KingVortigern for more land. At her father's orders Rowena gets Vortigern drunk at a feast, and he is so enchanted by her that he agrees to give Hengist whatever he wants if he allowed her to marry him as his second wife. (The fate of Vortigern’s first wife Sevira is unclear). The text makes clear this desire for a pagan woman is a prompting by theDevil . Hengest demands theKingdom of Kent , which Vortigern foolishly grants him. This agreement is a disaster for the Britons and allows the Saxons to strengthen their foothold in Britain considerably.Geoffrey of Monmouth 's work "Historia Regum Britanniae " ("The History of the Kings of Britain"), ca. 1138, was the first to give Hengest's daughter a name: Rowena though the spelling varies widely. In Geoffrey Vortigern usurps the throne of Britain from the rightful king Constans. Geoffrey claims the drunken seduction of Vortigern created the tradition of toasting in Britain. Vortigern's friendly dealings with the Saxons, especially his allowing even more settlers to join them, causes his sons by his first wife to rebel. His eldest sonVortimer takes the British throne and drives out the Saxons, but he is poisoned by Rowena, who assumes awicked stepmother role. Later the Saxons kill all the British leaders at the Night of Long Knives, sparing Vortigern because of Rowena. According to the "Historia Brittonum", Vortimer "and his wives" were burned alive by heavenly fire in the fortress of "Craig Gwrtheyrn" ("Vortigern's Rock"), "in north Wales", but Rowena/Rhonwen is not named directly in the passage. ["Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals", ed. John Morris (Phillimore, 1980), p. 33.]In the
Welsh Triads and medieval Welsh poetry, Rhonwen, "the Mother of the English Nation" is an everlasting example of English treachery and paganism.Vermaat, Robert. [http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artfam/rowena.htm "Rowena, wife of Vortigern"] . From Vortigernstudies.org.uk. RetrievedSeptember 29 ,2007 .] Geoffrey's Rowena with her use of seduction and potions probably forms one basis for female villains in laterArthurian legend likeMorgan le Fay and can be compared with his portrayal of good British Queens likeCordelia andMarcia . There are also connections with the story ofQueen Gwendolen andEstrildis , another beautiful German princess. She is also a character inWilliam Henry Ireland 's play "Vortigern and Rowena ".Historical basis
Modern historians regard Rowena's story as mythical. She and her story are not mentioned in Anglo-Saxon sources such as
Bede 's "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum " or the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ". The various differing spellings of Rowena's name make its origin unclear, and it may very well come from Welsh, making the story even more unlikely. Her Welsh name "Rhonwen" means "Bright Spear"; alternately, the name might be related to "rhawn" (horsehair), which might be significant given her father and uncle's association with horses. The name itself was unrecorded before Geoffrey used it and he may have invented it.Friedemann, Sara L.; and Mittleman, Josh (1999). [http://medievalscotland.org/problem/names/rowan.shtml "Concerning the Names Rowena, Rowan, and Rhonwen"] . Medievalscotland.org. RetrievedJanuary 16 ,2008 .] The story may have been created by Welsh writers based on Biblical examples of female villains such asSalome orDelilah as a warning against intermarriage between the Britons and Saxons.If Rowena did exist, she would have been a Jute, as her father was said to have been.
Name
The name "Rowena" does not appear before Geoffrey's "Historia", and neither it nor its cognates "Rowan" and "Rhonwen" were widely used given names before modern times, likely because Rowena was considered a negative character.
Walter Scott used the name for the beautiful Saxon heroine of his novel "Ivanhoe " in 1819, the love interest of the title character, and by 1850 the name was in use in theUnited States .Possible explanations for its meaning include a
Latin ized form of anOld English name meaning "fame and joy", formed from the words "hroð" (fame) and "wynn" (joy). [ [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=rowena "Rowena"] . Behind the Name.] Another suggestion is that it might have derived from the Welsh, where the name is "Rhonwen" ("rhon" + "wen" meaning "fair lance"), but this is possibly only a guess based on similarity of pronunciation.References
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