AHC: The Exodus of the Britons.

[libbrit]

So, of all the random things to watch, i was watching a film about the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, Moses etc etc.

It got me thinking about creating an alternate national history for a nation based on an exodus of peoples and their settlement.

So the challenge is this.

At some point in the ancient world, perhaps the year 50-0 BC, have Britain settled by the participants of some sort of Exodus style event, and have that become one of the seminal founding myths of some eventual nation on the British isles.

The only potential idea i can come up with is a massive slave revolt in Roman Gaul or Spain, and many of the slaves flee north and end up crossing the water to Britannia.

Thoughts?

 

[Tjakari]

Slaves don't just happen to go to Britain, boats cost money and slaves tend to be dirt broke.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

Didn't that already happen with the Anglo-Saxons leaving their homeland in Denmark to settle in the ashes of post-Roman Britain?

But if you do insist on having your wishes fulfilled, how about Vercingetorix makes a split second decision to leave Alesia before he and his men would be trapped and eventually surrender to Caesar's Roman army? He puts command of Alesia under his lieutenant Lucterius and goes with a smaller army to gather reinforcements from the Belgic tribes north of Gaul. Alesia falls to Rome and Vercingetorix sees that the remaining Gaulish resistance's days are numbered. He secures passage of himself and whatever men and women are willing to stick with him to the island of Britain via the Veneti. He lives the remainder of his days exiled in one of Britain's kingdoms (You can pick the tribe). He marries the daughter of a prominent British tribal king and upon that man's death, he succeeds to the throne and his followers, intermarrying with the Britons, create a new group of people mixed with Gaulish and British roots.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

AND technicaly and around the same time or perhaps a bit before, it's how Bretagne and the Bretons came to be - brythonic peoples went to the sea, and settled Armorica.

 

[larpsidekick]

Wales. Along with Cumbria and Cornwall, the last remnants of an island spanning set of kingdoms, holding on in their high fastnesses against the invaders they initially invited in, speaking the invaders language and even having given up their greatest hero to their foe.

Definitely some exodus stories there.

 

[JennyB]

Make the British Israelite thing actually be true? Supposedly, the prophet Jeremiah is buried on Devenish Island, and they built all the round towers, because the Irish, of course, didn't know about masonry until the Norman came.

 

[KarneeKarnay]

Britain is kinda already that. Most of our history up-to and including William The Conquer was Britain being repeatedly invaded, by large migrations of peoples. The earliest one I can think of was the Celtic Tribes that came to Europe. They eventually took over Britain.

That said a mass exodus to Britain along the lines of the Jews from Egypt, I don't think has been done. That said it is possible.

I suppose a good time for this would be the fall of Rome. Britain for the longest time was considered a state far removed from the affairs of the Empire, but even with the threat of barbarians, stable. If the downfall of Rome was accelerated to the point that Rome itself was to fall to an invading force, you could see a mass migration of Italians, to any place that looked friendly. Britain being far removed, could seem like a bleak, but better than most alternative.