Albion

 

(ăl'bēən) , ancient and literary name of Britain. It is usually restricted to England and is perhaps derived from the Latin albus meaning “white,” referring to the chalk cliffs of S England.

Albion (called Alouion by Ptolemy) is the most ancient name of Great Britain, though sometimes used to refer to the United Kingdom, or specifically (incorrectly) to England.

Occasionally it instead refers to only Scotland, whose name in Gaelic is Alba (and similarly, in Irish, and Yr Alban in Welsh^[1]). Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (iv.xvi.102) applies it unequivocally to Great Britain: "It was itself named Albion, while all the islands about which we shall soon briefly speak were called the Britanniae." The name Great Britain originates with the Picts, a people present in the British Isles before the Celts.^[2] The Britons and early Welsh of the south knew them, in the P-Celtic form of "Cruithne", as Prydyn; the terms "Britain" and "Briton" come from the same root. The name Albion was taken by medieval writers from Pliny and Ptolemy.

The name is of Celtic origin, with an exact cognate in Welsh elfydd "earth, world" (in fact, the personal name Albiorix means 'world king' or 'king of the world'), from the Proto-Indo-European root that denotes both "white" and "mountain", but the Romans took it as connected with albus (white), in reference to the chalk "White Cliffs of Dover", and Alfred Holder's Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz (1896) unhesitatingly translates it Weissland ("white-land"). The early writer (6th century BC) whose periplus was translated by Avienus at the end of the 4th century AD (see Massaliote Periplus) does not use the name Britannia; he speaks of nesos 'Iernon kai 'Albionon (island of the Ierni and the Albiones). So Pytheas of Massilia (4th century BC) speaks of Albion and 'Ierne. From the fact that there was a tribe called the Albiones on the north coast of Spain in Asturias, some scholars have placed Albion in that neighbourhood (see G. F. Unger, Rhein. Mus. xxxviii., 1883, pp. 156-196).

The pejorative sobriquet perfidious Albion takes its meaning from this old name for Britain.

Various British football clubs bear the name Albion, not least Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., based on the south coast, Burton Albion F.C., based in Burton upon Trent, Plymouth Albion R.F.C., based in Plymouth, Stirling Albion F.C. and Albion Rovers F.C. in Scotland and West Bromwich Albion F.C., based in the West Midlands.

The original lyrics to Advance Australia Fair contain a reference to Albion in the second verse:

When gallant Cook from Albion sail'd,

To trace wide oceans o'er,

True British courage bore him on,

Till he landed on our shore.

In literature, multimedia and music

• In the highly acclaimed MMORPG "Dark Age of Camelot", Albion refers to ancient Great Britian just after the time of Arthurs death and along with Hibernia and Midgard is one of three realms at war with one another which player characters can choose to originate from. Playable 'races' from the realm of Albion are Briton, Highlander, Saracen, Avalonian, Inconnu, and Half-Ogre.
• In the Led Zeppelin song "Achilles Last Stand", Robert Plant sings "Oh Albion remains, sleeping now to rise again".
• The song "The Spirit Lives" from Roy Harper's 1975 Album HQ refers to "The Celt of Albion".
• During the Second World War the fascist propaganda was used to call Great Britain "Perfida Albione" (Evil Albion)
• There is a Babyshambles album named Down in Albion, with the title song naming towns and cities in Great Britain as part of the chorus. Pete Doherty is a believer of Albion as a form of Arcadia.^{[citation needed]} He often makes references to it in his songs, such as in the Libertines song "the Good Old Days".
• In the Japanese novel Trinity Blood, which has manga and anime adaptations, Albion is the name of post-apocalyptic England.
• In Children of Men, a propaganda radio station is named Radio Albion.
• In the Tom Holt book Grailblazers, Great Britain is referred to as Albion by one of the main characters.
• In "A Study in Emerald", a short story by Neil Gaiman, Albion refers to the country which was once England, now ruled by the Queen of Albion and her royal family.
• William Blake refers to Albion and, sometimes, the Giant Albion in his geopolitical prophetic poems.
• In his 1989 book Albion's Seed, David Hackett Fischer defines the four waves of "Anglo" immigrants to America.
• In the Rudyard Kipling tale "How the Whale Got His Throat", the Mariner is from Albion. ('Nay, nay!' said the Mariner. 'Not so, but far otherwise. Take me to my natal-shore and the white-cliffs-of-Albion, and I'll think about it.' And he began to dance more than ever. )
• The "St Albion Parish News" is a column in Private Eye lampooning Tony Blair.
• The song "Draconis Albionensis" by British band Bal-Sagoth speaks of the gathering of "the last of Albion's great Dragon Lords".
• The epic poem by Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, references Albion as the home of the "Childe Harold". “Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth”
• In the novel "Kings of Albion", Julian Rathbone uses the Wars of the Roses as a backdrop to his tale of exotic travelers from the Middle East visiting a savage and insular England in the mid-15th century.
• The video game Fable, released by Lionhead Studios on September 14, 2004 for the original X-box and the PC, is set in the fictional world of Albion. The setting resembles medieval England, or in some ways, Wales.
• Albion is the title of a 1995 computer role-playing game by Blue Byte Software.
• In Caryl Churchill's Serious Money, Albion is the name of the British company that corporate raider Billy Corman plans to takeover.
• In Ebenezer Cooke's "The Sot-Weed Factor" he declares "I took my leave of Albion's Rocks", referring to the fact he was immigrating to America.

References

1. ^ Welsh Lexicon Forms. Cardiff University, Cardiff School of Computer Science. Retrieved 19 January 2006.
2. ^ Old Irish cruth and Welsh pryd are the Q- and P-Celtic forms respectively of a word meaning "form" or "shape": taken to be a reference to the Picts' practice of tattooing their bodies. See The Scottish Place-Name Society and MacBain's Dictionary.

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