The village of St Bees is just south of St Bees Head, the most westerly

point of Cumbria, 50 miles from the Scottish border.

The name St Bees is a corruption of the Norse name for the village, which
is given in the earliest charter of the Priory as "Kyrkeby becok", which can
be translated as the "Church town of Bega". It's well known for the Norman
St Bees Priory dating from 1120 dedicated to Saint Bega.

Saint Bega was reputedly a saint of the Early Middle Ages. Her life was
described in a medieval manuscript "The Life of St Bega", part of a
collection of various English saints' lives that belonged to Holmcultram
Abbey and is dated to the mid-13th century. According to this manuscript,
she was a virtuous Irish princess who valued virginity. She was promised in
marriage to a Viking prince who was "son of the king of Norway". On
hearing this, Bega, fearing for her virginity, fled across the Irish sea to land
at St. Bees on the Cumbrian coast. There she settled for a time, in a virgin
cell which she built herself in a grove, leading a life of exemplary piety.

Then, the Viking pirates started raiding the Cumbrian coast, and fearing
(again) for her virginity, she moved over to Northumbria.
The place where she fled was Bassenthwaite, only a short distance away
from St Bees peninsula, in the Lake District, where we find church
dedicated to St. Bega.

The Bassenthwaite church of St Bega's is located on the shores of

Bassenthwaite Lake. Legends tell that St Bega settled at Bassenthwaite,
and may indeed have been buried in this spot. The architectural history of
the church offers more mystery. There are large, uneven stones in the
north and east walls, which suggest a Roman building. In the interior, a
simple, rounded chancel arch supported on thick pillars certainly suggests
a pre-Norman date. The most likely foundation of the current building, then,
is about 950, but it is possible that the current church was created on the
foundations of a much earlier building. The large arch between the chancel
and north aisle is 12th century, and a later 14th century arch is located in
the nave. Sadly, Victorian restoration has done away with any earlier
evidence that might illuminate the history of the church. The simple font at
the west end of the nave dates to about 1300. Above the south doorway
hangs a royal coat of arms dating to 1745. It was erected, we are told, after
the rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and was meant to remind citizens of
where their loyalties should lie.
When Saint Bega fled the Cumbrian coast and moved to Northumbria, she
allegedly left behind her one worldly possession, a bracelet. The writer of
the Life of Saint Bega relates that St Bega was given a bracelet in Ireland
by a heavenly being. which she left behind in St Bees when she travelled to
Northumberland. It was described as having a holy cross upon it, which fits
a style of the 9th and 10th centuries. The bracelet is mentioned several
times in the charters of St Bees Priory; one instance is in the middle of the

13th century, when an oath was taken by John of Hale "having touched the
sacred things ... and upon the bracelet of St Bega". An account roll from as
late as 1516/1517 records offerings of 67s. 9d to the bracelet of St Bega;
so the cult and the relic were still a going concern at that late time.
The phraseology of the early charters indicates a pre-Norman church at St
Bees dedicated to St Bega. At the granting of the first charter of the
Benedictine priory one of the witnesses was Gillebecoc; meaning devotee
of Beghoc, indicating a Bega cult already in existence when the Normanera Priory was built in St. Bees in the 12th Century, around 1120. The
remains of a 10th century high cross from the graveyard of the St. Bees
church confirm that the Norman-era Priory was built on the site of an older
church, pre Norman church.

Cult or person?
Present day scholarship tends to treat St Bega not as a historical
personage but a cult. As one scholar states; "The discovery of
inconsistencies between these medieval texts, coupled with the
significance attached to her jewellery (said to have been left in Cumbria on
her departure for the north-east), now indicate that the abbess never
existed. ... More plausible is the suggestion that St Bega was the
personification of a Cumbrian cult centred on 'her' bracelet (Old English:
beag)". The 1999 edition of the Dictionary of National Biography includes

an article (by Professor Robert Bartlett) that treats St Bega as a

mythical figure. A 1980 paper by John Todd offers a comprehensive
review of the historical references to that date, including a discussion on
her existence. He finishes with the words "We must search for the historical
St Bega, not in the glorious years of the Northumbrian Kingdom, but the
dark years of its fall. But our search may well be disappointed".
So cult or person?
I would suggest person, or even better persons.
In Serbian we have this word cluster:
beg, begstvo, bijeg, bjeanje, bianje - escape, running away
begaj, bje, bi - go away, run away, escape
begati, beati, biati - to escape, to run away
beganje, beanje, bianje - escaping, running away
bega, bei, bii - runs away
bega, pobegulja - the one (feminine) who ran away
beganija, beanija - exodus, refuge
izbegati, izbegnuti, izbei - avoid, to find refuge
odbegnuti, odbei - to run away from
pobegnuti, pobei - to escape, to be safe
So lets go back now to the legend about Saint Bega. She run away from
Ireland and she was a refugee in Cumbria. She was the one who is on the
run, which is in Serbian the one who "bega, bei, bii (beei)". She landed
on a peninsula which is now called Bees (beez) and the place where she
originally lived was called Bega and Bees (beez).
Do you think that this is a Coincidence? Is it possible that the legend of
Saint Bega actually records an exodus from Ireland of a group of people
who ran away (bega, bei, bii) across the see to Cumbria? The question
here is who in this scenario would have used the word "bega, bei, bii" to
describe the refugees? Refugees themselves or the locals from Cumbria?
Origin of the Anglo Saxon race is a book published in 1906 by Thomas
William Shore, author of 'a history of Hampshire,' etc, Honorary secretary
London and Middlesex archaeological society; honorary Organizing
secretary of the Hampshire field club and Archaeological society. In it the
author gives detailed analysis of the Anglo Saxons, and shows us that
both Angles and Saxons were just terms used for complex federations of
south Baltic Germanic, Norse and West Slavic tribes. He describes the late
Iron Age and early medieval northern central Europe as a melting pot

where future great nations of Franks, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Norse,

Slavs, were being created from tribal federations of mixed Germanic and
Slavic ethnic, linguistic and cultural origin. I presented all the parts
regarding the Slavic tribes in my post about this book.
If you read this post you will see that one of the tribes which comprised the
Anglian confederation forces were Wends, and among them Sorbs, the
Baltic Serbs. These same Serbs were also part of the later Danish Viking
confederation forces which included a lot of South Baltic Slavs. I believe
that later the Serbs were also part of the Norse forces which were a direct
descendants of the Danish West Slavic Viking confederation. Serbs were
always described as darker than the other Slavs, and the book "Origin of
the Anglo-Saxon race" says this about them among the Angles and the
Danes of the Early Medieval time:
"...This consideration of the probable origin of the great proportion of brunettes in
two of the south midland counties of England leads us to that of the colour-names
as surnames and place-names, which may probably have been derived from their
origin settlers. For example, there is the common name Brown. This has been
derived from the Anglo-Saxon brun, signifying brown. It is not reasonable to doubt
that when our forefathers called a man Brun or Brown, they gave him this name as
descriptive of his brown complexion. The probability that the brunettes were
common is supported by the frequent references to persons named Brun in AngloSaxon literature. Brun was a name not confined to England in the Anglo-Saxon
and later periods. On the contrary, we find that it was common name in ancient
Germany. The typical place-name Bruninga-feld occurs in a charter of AEthelstan
dated A. D. 938, `in loco qui Bruninga-feld dicitur.` Bruesham, hants, is mentioned
in a charter of Edward `the Elder` about 900. Brunesford is another suggestive
name. Bruman is mentioned as a personal name in Anglo-Saxon records of the
eleventh century, and examples of the name Bruning are somewhat numerous in
documents of the same period. At the present time old place-names, such as
Braunschweig or Brunswick, are common in Germany. The custom of calling
people by colour-names from their personal appearance, or places after them, was
clearly not peculiar to our own country. It is probable that the name Brunswick
was derived from the brown complexion of its original inhabitants. The map
published by Ripley, based on the official ethnological survey of Germany, shows
that parts of the country near Brunswick have a higher percentage of brunettes
than the districts further north. Beddoe also made observations on a number of
Brunswick peasantry, and records some remarkable facts relating to the
proportion of brunettes among those who came under his observation.
The name Brunswick appears to be one of significance, and the Wendish names in
that part of Germany, Wendeburg, Wendhausen,and Wenden, may be compared
with the Buckinghamshire Domesday names Wendovre, Weneslai, and Wandene,

and with Wenriga or Wenrige in hartfordshire. The probable connection of the

Wends some tribes of whom, such as the Sorbs, are known to have been dark
with parts of Germany near Brunswick, and with parts of Herts and Bucks, is
shown by these names. Domesday Book tells us of huscarls in Buckinghamshire,
and of people who bore such names as Suarting, Suiert, Suen, Suert, and Suiuard,
among its land- owners, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that such names
refer to people of dark complexions. Among the lahmens of Lincoln, a very Danish
town, there were also apparently some so-called Danes of a dark complexion, for
Domesday Book mentions Suartin, son of Gribold ; Suardine, son of Hardenut ;
and Suartine Sortsbrand, son of Ulf.
In view of this, and the evidence relating to the use of the Anglo-Saxon word brun
in English place-names,we are not, I think, justified in deciding that all English
names which begin with brun, modernized into burn in many cases by the wellknown shifting of the r sound, have been derived from burn, a bourn or stream,
rather than from brun, brown. Such names as Bruninga-feld and Brunesham point
to the opposite conclusion, that Brun in such names refers to people, probably so
named from their complexions. If a large proportion of the settlers in the counties
of Buckingham and Hertford were of a brown complexion, it is clear that they
would have been less likely to have been called Brun or brown by their neighbours
than brunettes would in other counties, where such a complexion may have been
rarer, and consequently more likely to have attracted the notice of the people
around them. It is not probable that people who were originally designated by the
colour-names Brown, Black, Gray, or the like, gave themselves these names. They
most likely received them from others.
The evidence concerning brown people in England during the Anglo-Saxon period
which can be derived from the place-names Brun is supplemented by that supplied
in at least some of the old place-names beginning with dun and duning. Dun is an
Old English word denoting a colour partaking of brown and black, and where it
occurs at the beginning of words in such a combination as Duningland, It is
possible that it refers to brown people or their children, rather than to the AngloCeltic word dun, a hill or fortified place.
As regards the ancient brown race or races of North Europe, there can be no
doubt of their existence in the south-east of Norway and in the east of Friesland.
There can be no doubt about the important influence which the old Wendish race
has had in the north-eastern parts of Germany in transmitting to their descendants
a more brunette complexion than prevails among the people of Hanover, Holstein,
and Westphalia, of more pure Teutonic descent. We cannot reasonably doubt that,
in view of such a survival of brown people as we find at the present time in the
provinces of North Holland, Drenthe and Overijssel, which form the hinterland of
the ancient Frisian country, numerous brunettes must have come into England
among the Frisians. It would be as unreasonable to doubt this as it would to think

that during the Norwegian immigration into England all the brown people of
Norway were precluded from leaving their country because they were brunettes, or
that the Wends, who undoubtedly settled in England in considerable numbers, were
none of them of a brunette type.
The survival of some people with broad heads and of a brown type in parts of
Drenthe, Gelderland, and Overijssel appears unmistakable. They present a
remarkable contrast in appearance to their Frisian neighbours, who are of a
different complexion in regard to hair and skin, and are specially characterized as
long-headed.
It was in Gelderland that ancient Thiel was situated, and the men of Thiel and
those of Brune were apparently recognised as different people from the real
Frisians, for in the later Anglo-Saxon laws relating to the sojourn of strangers
within the City of London it is stated that `the men of the Emperor may lodge
within the city wherever they please, except those of Tiesle and of Brune.
The consideration of the evidence that people of Brunette complexions were among
the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England leads on to that of people of a still darker hue,
the dark, black, or brown-black settlers. Probably there must have been some of
these among the Anglo-Saxons, for we meet with the personal names Blacman,
Blaecman, Blakeman, Blacaman, Blac`sunu, Blaecca, and Blachman, in various
documents of the period. The same kind of evidence is met with among the oldest
place-names. Blacmannebergh is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter;
Blachemanestone was the name of a place in Dorset, and Blachemenstone that of a
place in Kent. Blacheshale and Blachenhale are Domesday names of places in
Somerset, and Blachingelei occurs in the Domesday record of Surrey. The name
Blachemone occurs in the Hertfordshire survey and Blachene in Lincoln. Among
the earliest names of the same kind in the charters we find Blacanden in Hants and
Blacandon in Dorset. The places called Blachemanestone in Dorset and
Blachemenestone in Kent were on or quite close to the coast, a circumstance which
points to the settlers having come to these places by water rather than to a survival
of black people of the Celtic race having been left in them.
Among old place-names of the same kind in various counties, some of which are
met with in later, but still old, records, we find Blakeney in Glouceatershire ;
Blakeney in Norfolk; Blakenham in Suffolk; Blakemere, an ancient hamlet, and
Blakesware, near Ware in Hertfordshire. This Hertford name is worthy of note in
reference to what has been said concerning the brunettes in that county at the
present time. Another circumstance connected with these names which it is
desirable to remember is the absence of evidence to show that the Old English ever
called any of the darker-complexioned Britons brown men or black men. Their
name for them was Wealas. So far as I am aware, not a single instance occurs in
which the Welsh are mentioned in any Anglo-Saxon document as black or brown
people ; on the contrary, the Welsh annals mention black Vikings on the coast, as if
they were men of unusual personal appearance.

There is another old word used by the Anglo-Saxons to denote black or brownblack the word sweart. The personal names Stuart and Sueart may have been
derived from this word, and may have originally denoted people of a darker-brown
or black complexion. Some names of this kind are mentioned in the Domesday
record of Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire. These may be of Scandinavian
origin, for the ekename or nickname Svarti is found in the Northern sagas. Halfden
`the Black` was the name of a King of Norway who died in 863. The so-called
black men of the Anglo-Saxon period probably included some of the darker
Wendish people among them, immigrants or descendants of people of the same
race as the ancestors of the Sorbs of Lausatia on the border of Saxony and Prussia
at the present day.
Some of the darker Wends may well have been among the Black Vikings referred to
in the Irish annals, as well as in those of Wales, and may have been the people who
have left the Anglo-Saxon name Blavmanne-berghe, which occurs in one of the
charters, Blachemenestone on the Kentish coast, and Blachemanstone on the
Dorset coast. As late as the time of the Domesday Survey we meet with records of
people apparently named after their dark complexions. In Buckinghamshire,
blacheman, Suartinus, and othersare mentioned; in Sussex, one named Blac; in
Suffolk, Blakeemannus and Saurtingus; and others at Lincoln. The invasion of the
coast of the British Isles by Viking of a dark or brown complexion rests on
historical evidence which is too circumstantial to admit of doubt. In the Irish
annals the Black Vikings are called Dubh-Ghenti, or Black Gentiles. These Black
Gentiles on some occasions fought against other plunderers of the Irish coasts
known as the Fair Gentiles, who can hardly have been others than the fair Danes
or Northmen. In the year 851 the Black Gentiles came to Athcliath i.e., Dublin.
In 852 we are told that eight ships of the Finn-Ghenti arrived and fought against
the Dubh-Ghenti for three days, and that the Dubh-Ghenti were victorious. The
black Vikings appear at this time to have had a settlement in or close to Dublin,
and during the ninth century were much in evidence on the Irish coast. In 877 a
great battle was fought at Loch-Cuan between them and the Fair Gentiles, in
which Albann, Chief of the black Gentiles, fell. He may well have beena chieftain
of the race of the Northern Sorbs of the Mecklenburg coast.
The Danes and Norse, having the general race characteristics of tall, fair men,
must have been sharply distinguished in appearance from Vikings, such as those of
Jomborg, for many of these were probably of a dark complexion. There is an
interesting record of the descent of dark sea-rovers on the coast of North Wales in
the `Annales Cambriae,` under the year 987, which tells us that Gothrit, son of
Harald, with black men, devastated Anglesea, and captured two thousand men.
Another entry in the same record tells us that Meredut redeemed the captives from
the black men. This account in the Welsh annals receives some confirmation in the
Sagas of the Norse kings, one of which tells us that Olav Trygvesson was for three
years, 982-985, king in Vindland i.e., Wendland where he resided with his

Queen, to whom he was much attached ; but on her death, whoses loss he greatly
felt, he had no more pleasure in Vindland. He therefore provided himself with
ships and went on a Viking expedition, first plundering Friesland and the coast all
the way to Flanders. Thence he sailed to Northumberland, plundered its coast and
those of Scotland, Man, Cumberland, and Bretland i.e., Wales during the years
985-988, calling himself a Russian under the name of Ode. From these two
separate accounts there can be but little doubt, notwithstanding the differences in
the names, of the descent on the coast of North Wales at this time of dark searovers under a Scandinavian leader, and it is difficult to see who they were if not
dark-complexioned Wends or other allies of the Norsemen. It is possible some of
these dark Vikings may have been allies or mercenaries from the south of Europe,
where the Norse made conquests..."
So at the time of the arrival of the Saint Bega to Cumbria, Dark Vikings,
probably of Danish Slavic (Serbian) origin, were in Controll of Dublin, but
they were at war with the White Vikings, probably of Norse origin. These
Dark Vikings were also the ones who attacked Cumbria during the same
period and Settled there as well. At the same time when these Dark Danish
Slavic Vikings were in the East of Ireland and plundering Cumbria, Cumbria
was part of the Angle kingdom which, according to the Origin of the AngloSaxon race, had a large Dark Wendish (Serbian) minority population.
This is what we can find in the history of Cumbria and Northumbria:
"At the end of the period of British history known as Roman Britain (c. A.D. 410)
the inhabitants of Cumberland were Cumbric-speaking native "Romano-Britons"
who were probably descendants of the Brigantes and Carvetii (sometimes
considered to be a sub-tribe of the Brigantes) that the Roman Empire had
conquered in about A.D. 85. Based on inscriptional evidence from the area, the
Roman civitas of the Carvetii seems to have covered portions of Cumbria. The
names "Cumbria", "Cymru" (the native Welsh name for Wales), "Cambria" (the
medieval Latinization of Welsh Cymru) and "Cumberland" are derived from the
name these people gave themselves, *kombroges in Brittonic, which originally
meant 'compatriots'. During the Early Middle Ages Cumberland formed the core of
the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged. By the end of the 7th century most of
Cumberland had been incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of
Northumbria. The Kingdom of Northumbria was a medieval Anglian kingdom in
what is now northern England and south-east Scotland, which subsequently
became an earldom in a unified English kingdom. The name reflects the
approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber estuary. In 867
Northumbria became the northern kingdom of the Danelaw, after its conquest by
the brothers Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless who installed an
Englishman, Ecgberht, as a puppet king. Despite the pillaging of the kingdom,
Viking rule brought lucrative trade to Northumbria, especially at their capital

York. The kingdom passed between English, Norse and Norse-Gaelic kings until it
was finally absorbed by King Eadred after the death of the last independent
Northumbrian monarch, Erik Bloodaxe, in 954. After the English regained the
territory of the former kingdom, Scots invasions reduced Northumbria to an
earldom stretching from the Humber to the Tweed. Northumbria was disputed
between the emerging kingdoms of England and Scotland. The land north of the
Tweed was finally ceded to Scotland in 1018 as a result of the battle of Carham.
Yorkshire and Northumberland were first mentioned as separate in the AngloSaxon Chronicle in 1065. In 1092 Cumberland was invaded by William II and
incorporated into England."
So it is possible that the "Irish" princess which fled (bega) to Cumbria was
one of the Dark Vikings (Wends, Serbs?) of Dublinia. It is also possible that
she was a Gaelic princess from Leinster who fled the Viking invasion and
who arrived to Anglian coast populated by the Dark Angles (Wends,
Serbs?). It is also possible that it could have been both? Either one of
these people could have used the word "bega, bei, bii" to describe
someone who is escaping, running away, hiding, taking refuge. In this case
the dialectic version "bei" of the word "bega" would have produced "bees"
(originally pronounced "bez"). So bees would have been "be", the place of
refuge, and "bega" would have been the one who ran away to "be", the
place of refuge.
What is very interesting is that the Norman church of Saint Bega contains
several grave stones and grave slabs with a "Serbian cross".
This is a Serbian cross. It is an ancient symbol first time found among the
Vina symbols. It then inermittentnly pops out in Evroasia and Egypt
throughout then next 7000 years until it finally appears on the Serbian
medieval heraldry. It is still disputed what the meaning of the four arcs in
the symbol is. I will dedicate a whole post to resolving this dispute
(hopefully once and for all).

This one is the symbol of Serbia, from Koreni-Neori Armorial (1595).

What is very interesting about this drawing, from the point of view of this
story, is what is written above the symbol: Cimeri, Serbian Lands...Serbian
medieval royal familly claimed descent from "Pleme Cimeri" meaning "The
tribe of Cimeri". Cimeri? Cymru? Serbs? What is the link here?

And these are carved grave stones and grave slabs from the St Bees
priory.

The above stone shows an elaborate version of a "Serbian cross", with at

the centre, a six-petalled flower (Perunika, Perun's flower). The slab has
been re-used at a later date and a much cruder design was superimposed.

The above stone also has a "Serbian cross", with looped objects, which
have been identified as stirrups, in the two upper quadrants of the head
centre. Below, a bowman stands on the left of the shaft, with on the right a
sword. The bowman, has a quiver slung over his shoulder.

The above stone has a "Serbian cross" formed by four sunk quadrants
within a circle, with a cross pate at the centre; on the left of the incised
cross shaft is a clasped book, possibly signifying the Gospels.

The above stone has a "Serbian cross" formed by four embossed arcs tied
together to form a cross, with lozenge-shaped buds breaking the circle. On
the right of the cross shaft, carved in relief within a sunk panel, is a sword.
The stone is chamfered.

The above stone has a "Serbian cross" formed by four embossed closed
arcs tied together to form a cross, with lozenge-shaped buds breaking the
circle. Sword on right of shaft, with down-curved quillons.

The above stone has a cross formed by four overlaping embosed arcs.
This is basically a deformed "Serbian cross". This is also a representation
of a solar year which is confirmed by the fact that the cross shaft has an
overlay with a small disc or ring, which symbolises a solar year, sun circle.
This is an interesting "solar" cross built into the structure of the Norman
church. I have no information what period this cross was dated to, but it
definitely postdates the Norman church.

Again you see the four arcs (formed by deep gouges) radiating from the
center of the cross formed by the line connecting the five circles.

Coincidence? It is possible that whoever escaped from Ireland and settled

in this area of Cumbria and Northumberland, whover was the "bega", used
and venerated the "Serbian cross". It is therefore possible that the story
about the misterious St Bega's bracelet is a misunderstanding of this old
symbol by the later settlers who even called the crosses on the above
stones "bracelet heads" and the misunderstanding stemmed from the fact
that the old English word for bracelet was "beag". Curiously, this is not the
only Norman Basilica which is linked to the "Serbian cross". More curiously
the "Serbian cross" is found at the core of the oldest "AngloSaxon" crosses. And even more curiously, the "Serbian cross" is found at
the core of the oldest "Celtic crosses", both in Britain and in Ireland. These
oldest "Celtic crosses" were said to have been "stone coppies of much
older wooden originals". Funny that wooden high crosses of both the so
called "Serbian cross" type and "Celtic cross" type are found as village
crosses in Serbia even today. So what is exactly going on here? I will write
about all of this in my future posts.
Until the next time, have fun, stay happy :)