Ma Gog, The Wandlebury Giants and T C Lethbridge
“Ma Gog” by Lizzie Ault, Drypoint Etching on paper
Available for sale through Babylon Gallery.
The Gog Magog Hills In South Cambridgeshire are firmly lodged in the hearts of many local people for their status as the county’s only hills, its popularity with dog walkers and its beautiful, yellow carpet of Cowslips that adorn the hillside every spring.
From mysterious knights, jousting matches at midnight to the burial of ancient giants the area encompassing Wandlebury country park and the Gog Magogs is steeped in mystery and ancient history. There are also alleged accounts of chalk giants, not dissimilar to the Cerne Abbas Giant, being visible on the hills from the village of Sawston nearby. In 1959 T C Lethbridge, a highly controversial figure and once honorary keeper of Anglo Saxon antiquities at Cambridge University, set out to excavate this area in search of the mysterious chalk giant.
Lethbridge’s excavation is largely dismissed by the establishment as Lethbridge used a method apparently similar to divination rather than approved methods for archaeological excavation. However after a lengthy “excavation” Lethbridge claimed to reveal not just one but two chalk giants, as well as a horse and carriage. His explanation of the image he produced from his efforts was that it would have originally been a single figure “Ma Gog” the pagan goddess of an ancient Cambridgeshire tribe. The other figures, according to Lethbridge, would have been added to reflect a famous story of a ghostly knights’ jousting match.
Figure 1. The goddess figure excavated by Lethbridge but now obscured (postcard supplied to Lethbridge by Aero Pictorial Ltd; © English Heritage (Aerofilms Collection)).
While I would love to believe that there was an ancient chalk figure in the Cambridgeshire hills, there is, unfortunately, not enough proof. However I was very taken with the idea of the pagan goddess Ma Gog. I hopefully googled this concept but hit a brick wall. T C Lethbridge perhaps just made this idea up? Gog and Magog are two giants from British Folklore who are said to have founded the city of London and are said to be male.
Whether or not it has any basis in truth the idea of an ancient pagan female deity that could represent the South Cambridgeshire landscape captured my heart and has never let go.
I drew “Ma Gog” as a hag or crone archetype. An older woman with a lined face and wise eyes adorned in fresh spring flowers with cowslips growing from a golden crown of hair which fades into a rich green. I chose drypoint etching for this piece because I wanted to keep the fine detail of the drawing. The colours reflect the Gog Magog hills in springtime with their carpet of yellow cowslips and lush green grass. I like to think of her as a mother earth figure merged with or born from the land itself.
References
T. C. Lethbridge (1956) The Wandlebury Giants, Folklore, 67:4, 193-203, DOI: 10.1080/0015587X.1956.9717561 https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1956.9717561
Peter Meadows. 2015. Gogmagog. Antiquity Project Gallery 89(343): http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/meadows343
