“Immediately to the south of Melrose … rise those three summits of the Eildons, the ‘Tremontium’ of the Romans, which Mr Nash identifies with the Din Drei of Aneurin … These three summits … with their various weirdly appurtenants – the Windmill of Killielaw, the Lucken Hare, and Eildon Tree – mark the domes of those vast subterranean Halls, in which all the Arthurian chivalry await, in an enchanted sleep, the bugle-blast of the Adventurer who will call them at length to a new life.”
If the bend in the Tweed River at Melrose, Roxburgh County, southern Scotland, were considered as three sides of a rectangle, with Silkirk and St. Boswells at roughly the two lower points, Din Drei would not be far from the middle of the imaginary base line. Din Drei is in Rhymer’s Glen (Eildon Hills).
Arthur and all his knights asleep in Scotland seems to be a different tradition from the preserved in Malory and the Vulgate, but perhaps both Din Drei and Avilion lead to the same otherwordly plain, where distances work differently. Even before Arthur’s passing, Din Drei and Rhymer’s Glen might have been an entrance into a world of Faery.
Notes
Din is an ancient Welsh word for a fortified hill, a camp – hence we have our dinas, a fortified town or city. The English denizen probably derives from this word. Professor Rhys groups the Irish word dun, the Anglo-Saxon tun, and the English town, with the Welsh din. The Romans’ words dunum, dinum, and dinium are probably allied with it as well.
See also
Castle of Ercildoune | The Legend of King Arthur