Cambridgeshire is awash with strange tales and local folklore, from the immortal Fen Tiger and Black Shuck to the spooky lantern men. But one of its oddest legends comes from a 12th-century history of the kings of Britain.
Long ago many people in Europe believed that the British Isles, which they called Albion, was a mythical place. It was supposedly ruled by giants and had many other fantastical creatures and beings. Many of those stories have leaked into English folklore, and the most famous of those tales is the story of King Arthur and his knights.
One lesser-known story is that of Gogmagog, and if you know your Cambridgeshire landmarks, you'll already recognise that name. The Gog Magog Hills are a famous beauty spot south of Cambridge. They are a distinctive part of the county because, unlike the rest of Cambridgeshire, the Gogs are actually hilly, at least by East Anglian standards. According to 12th-century history, called the Historia Regum Britanniae , the hills are actually the final resting place of the last giant in England.
The somewhat unique name of Gog Magog has some disputes over its origin, as some believe it relates back to Gog and Magog, two characters in the Bible. However, others believe it is in fact a corruption in translation from the Welsh Gawr Madoc to Old English. Gawr Madoc would mean Madoc the Great, who was supposedly a giant who once ruled in Albion. If you think the story is bizarre enough so far, it only gets weirder from here.
In Historia Regum Britanniae, the ancient city of Troy (the same one besieged by the Ancient Greeks in Homer's Iliad or that movie with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom) was actually where the Gog Magogs are now. When the Trojans invaded Albion they fought with the giant Madoc the Great for control of what is now modern-day Cambridgeshire.
The Trojans supposedly had begun to build Troy on the hills of the Gogs, and excavations do show that there were defences at at Copley Hill, which date back to the Iron Age with evidence of an earlier Bronze Age settlement as well. Of course, these were not actually Trojans and would not later fall for the wooden horse trick.
But Madoc and 20 of his giant companions attacked the settlement, slaughtering many of the people who had been living there. Madoc is said to have fought using an oak tree he had pulled up from the ground, which he used as a club.
But the Trojans rallied and fought back against the giants, and Madoc was eventually slain. In the tale, his death comes after he is pushed from a cliff, and where his enormous body crashed into the ground is where the Gog hills are now. Of course, this cliff (that would must have been taller than the Gogs hills are today) has since vanished. The tale is repeated in a number of later texts and was still believed to be a true history of England by the 17th century.
Gogmagog himself also appears in the tales of King Arthur but is known as the giant Gargantua.
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