Albion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the archaic name for Great Britain. For other uses, see Albion (disambiguation).

The white cliffs of Dover.

Albion (in Ptolemy Alouion) is the most ancient name of Great Britain, though sometimes used (incorrectly) to refer to the United Kingdom, or specifically 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 Britain 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 and Hove Albion and West Bromwich Albion in England, and Albion Rovers and Stirling Albion in Scotland.

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.

[edit] Cultural references

In the MMORPG video game Dark Age of Camelot, Albion is one of the three battling realms. It is the land of the recently killed King Arthur, and Camelot.
The science-fiction computer game Albion borrows the name.
In the video game Destroy All Humans! 2, the British level is named Albion instead of London.
The video game Fable takes place in the land of Albion.
The final episode of The Black Adder sees Prince Edmund proclaim himself "King of Albion" in the moments after his family dies (just before he too succumbs to poisoning).
In the fictional Gundam universe, Universal Century continuity, Albion (MSC-07) is the seventh Pegasus-class assault carrier, and the first of the Albion subclass.
In the Led Zeppelin song "Achilles Last Stand", Robert Plant sings "Oh Albion remains, sleeping now to rise again".
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]}
In the Japanese novel Trinity Blood, which has manga and anime adaptations, Albion is the name of post-apocalyptic England.
In the 2005 season of Doctor Who, the cast twice visited a fictional Albion Hospital.
In the comic The Authority, in the story "Swiftships", the heroes fight off an attack from another reality, from a society named Sliding Albion.
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, all horrible monsters keeping the humans in line.
In the Robin of Sherwood television series, Albion was the name of Robin Hood's sword, one of the Seven Swords of Weyland.
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.
In BattleTech, Albion is the continent that is home to the capital of the Federated Suns, Avalon City.
The song "Draconis Albionensis" by British band Bal-Sagoth speaks of the gathering of "the last of Albion's great Dragon Lords".
In the Playstation 2 RPG Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, one of the recruitable demons is named Albion. It takes the form of a large white giant.
In the Flintloque game it is the land where the Orc race comes from.

[edit] References

^ Welsh Lexicon Forms. Cardiff University, Cardiff School of Computer Science. Retrieved 19 January 2006.
^ 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.