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Albion, a son of the sea-god Poseidon. Albion and the other giants were the children of a band of
fifty women who arrived in the empty land having been banished for killing their husbands. There
being no men, the fifty women mated with demons to conceive their giant offspring. The demise of
Albion came about when he joined forces with two of his brothers to steal, from Hercules, the herd
of cattle he had been sent to capture in Spain as the tenth of his twelve labours. Albion and his
giants ambushed Hercules as he was passing through the south of France on his way home to
Greece with the cattle. Hercules fought off Albion, aided by his father Zeus who arranged for a
shower of rocks to fall from the sky at just the right moment, and slew the giants. After that defeat,
though the giants continued to inhabit Britain for the next 600 years, their numbers dwindled until
only a few remained.
Already this is a rich history, firmly linked for the benefit of the readership to the classical
mythology of Zeus, Poseidon and Hercules. The next arrivals were no less well connected to the
classical world and came to Britain as a direct result of the Trojan War. When Troy fell to the
Greeks, Aeneas and a group of his followers escaped and made their way to Italy, where they
established the settlement that was to become Rome. The link between Troy and Britain begins
with the birth of Aeneas’s grandson, Brutus. The soothsayers, indispensable contributors to all
good mythologies, predict that he will cause the death of his parents. Which, of course, comes to
pass. His mother dies in childbirth and he accidentally shoots his father. A deer runs between the
young Brutus and his father while they are out hunting. Brutus fires the arrow, which glances off the
deer’s back and hits his father in the chest. After this misfortune Brutus is banished. His
wanderings take him to Greece, where he precipitates a revolt by slaves descended from Trojan
prisoners of war, and liberates them. Looking for a new home, they sail to a small deserted island,
where Brutus finds a temple dedicated to the goddess Diana. In a dream Diana reveals to Brutus
the existence of a great island past the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar) and out into the
ocean towards the setting sun.
Brutus, there lies in the west, beyond the realms of Gaul, an island surrounded by the
waters of the ocean, once inhabited by giants, but now deserted. Thither go thou, for it is
fated to be a second Troy to thee and thy posterity; and from thee shall Kings descend who
shall subdue the whole world to their power.
Though the island is inhabited by giants, Diana reassures Brutus that, following their defeat by
Hercules, they are few in number and easily overcome. Once there, Diana promises him, Brutus
will build a new Troy and found a dynasty of kings that will eventually become the most powerful
on earth. You can already see how Geoffrey has cleverly sculpted his History to make it
irresistible for any British king to claim this mantle for himself.
Now on a divine mission, Brutus sets sail for Albion with his Trojans. All ancestors, whether
mythical or entirely real, must place their first foot on dry land somewhere. Brutus chose Totnes in
Devon, a few miles up the River Dart from the open sea. The rock on which his foot first made
contact with Albion is still there. Brutus and his men made short work of the giants and set about
exploring the virgin country. Their chosen site for New Troy was on the River Thames. New Troy,
or Troia Nova, became Trinovantum and, later, London. Another stone, still visible today in
Cannon Street near the City’s financial quarter, was the altar that Brutus built to honour Diana