THE SCENE: According to legend, Brutus, an exiled Trojan prince, once found refuge in a mysterious abandoned temple. While there, he had an encounter with the Goddess Diana, where she told him he would one day become a king of a mighty island. That island would eventually bear his name: Britain.
THE TEXT: Meanwhile the Trojans sailed on for two days and one night, with a favourable wind blowing. Then they touched land at a certain island called Leogetia, which had remained uninhabited since it was laid waste by a piratical attack in ancient times. They came to a deserted city and there they found a temple of Diana. In the city there was a statue of the goddess which gave answers if by chance it was questioned by anyone. Brutus stood before the altar of the goddess, holding in his right hand a vessel full of sacrificial wine mixed with the blood of a white hind, and with his face upturned towards the statue of the godhead he broke the silence with these words: “O powerful goddess, terror of the forest glades, yet hope of the wild woodlands, you who have the power to go into orbit through the airy heavens and the halls of hell, pronounce a judgement which concerns the earth. Tell me which lands you wish us to inhabit. Tell me of a safe dwelling-place where I am to worship you down the ages, and where, to the chanting of maidens, I shall dedicate temples to you.”
Having sought for slumber, he at length fell asleep. It was then about the third hour of the night, when being mortal he succumb to the sweetest rest. It seemed to him that the goddess stood before him and spoke these words to him: “Brutus, beyond the setting of the sun, past the realms of Gaul, there lies an island in the sea, once occupied by giants. Now it is empty and ready for your folk. Down the years this will prove an abode suited to you and to your people; and for your descendants it will be a second Troy. A race of kings will be born there from your stock and the round circle of the while earth will be subject to them.”
– De Gestis Britonum, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 12 Century AD
