Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc)

[cagwinn]

Hello Conal. I am not sure. Never really thought about it, to be honest. I tend to use Bachrach as a source and can check back through that. The Alans were hated in areas of Armorica,,as per cutting out the tongues of the Alan wimmin.

I have found Bachrach to be very unreliable - I caution anyone using him to check (and then double check) his sources, because he often plays fast and loose with the facts.

The foundation legend about the cutting off the tongues of the native women of Armorica (the original text says nothing about them being Alans!! That is plain and simple modern revisionism, with no textual support) is derived from a Breton pun on the alternate name of the region, Letauia, which in Old Welsh and Breton could be parsed as Let-tau "half-silent", ie "mute" (of course, this is a folk etymology - the name is actually Gaulish and means "The Broad One", the name of an old Celtic earth goddess).

By the way, the tongue-cutting was allegedly done by Conan Meriadoc and his men in the 4th century - well before the Alans were settled in Armorica.