Celtic reconstruction

The Queen Boadicea AD 60
Also called: Boudicca

Author unknown

 

"It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom, my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. Roman lust has gone so far that not our very persons, nor even age or virginity are left unpolluted."

"But heaven is on the side of the righteous vengeance; a legion which dared to fight has perished; the rest are hidigng themsleves in their camp, or are thinking anxiously of flight. They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows.

"If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve. As for the men, they may live and be slaves!"

Queen Boadicea, of the Iceni

A reconstruction of the Iceni village at an original site may be visited near Swaffham. It includes the fortifications, very good explanations on tablets, the snake pit, and a chariot as used and one as described (note the difference), but also some rather weird puppets sleeping in hay.
The name of the Iceni lives on in the place names starting with Ick, Ik, and Ix.

Boadicea, who is thought to have lived in a village similar to the one shown here, avenged her father's treachorous murder and actually managed to gather several celtic tribes, raid Londinium, but she was then killed by traitors from her own ranks, though some sources say she committed suicide.

One of the various gravesites of Queen Boadicea is near the Devil's Ditch in Garboldisham Heath (OS 144, TL 991820). The round barrow is an impressive tumulus, high and covered with trees, though unfortunately being eroded by horses' hooves and trail bikes.


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