EN060.12 Gola
Ott 2025
K. Era of Tunis
3. At Waraburg and Stavia
The Idolatrous Gola
60.12 What became of these things:
In the northernmost corner of the Middle Sea lies an island near the coast. The Tyrians now came and asked to buy it. A general assembly was called to discuss the matter, and the mother’s advice was sought. She preferred them to be far away and therefore gave her blessing.[1] But when we later saw what a mistake we had made, we named the island Missellia (Massalia) — ‘bad deal’!
The following will explain what reason we had for this:
The Gola,[2] as the missionary priests of Sidon were called, were well aware that the land in this southern region was sparsly populated and far from the mother’s reach. To appear benign, they made themselves known in our language as Tro-wids (Druids) — ‘adherents of truth and loyalty’. But a more fitting name would have been ‘abhorrers of truth and loyalty’ — [061] in short, Tro-wends — as our navigators later called them.
When they were well settled, their merchants traded fancy copper weapons and all variety of jewelry for our iron weapons and hides of wild animals, which were plentiful in our southern lands. But the Gola celebrated many vile idolatrous rites, attracting the coast-dwellers with their whorish girls and the sweetness of their venomous wine.
If one of our folk committed an offense so bad that his life was in danger, the Gola afforded him refuge and shelter, and brought him to Phoenicia — that is ‘Palmland’. When settled there, they instructed him to write his family, friends, and allies about how the land was so good and the people so happy that one could hardly imagine.
In Britannia, there were plenty of men, but few women. When the Gola realized this, they abducted girls from everywhere and gave them to the banished men for free. But all of these girls were devotees of the Gola and offered up the children of Wralda to their false gods.
Notes
- ↑ ‘gave her blessing’ (MÉNDE ... THAT ER NÉN KWÁ AN STEK) — more literally: ‘thought it would do no harm’.
- ↑ ‘Gola’ (GOLA, elsewhere also GOLUM, singular GOL) — possibly related to Hebrew 'galut' (exile); Ashkenazic/Yiddish pronunciation 'golus'. Later fragments also suggest a relation to Gauls and Gaels; compare ‘Gaal Sciot Iber’ in “Chronicles of Eri” (1822) by Roger O’Connor.
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Chapter K: Sandbach 1876