Albion
The derivation from a word for 'white' is thought to refer perhaps to the white Cliffs of Dover in the southeast, visible from mainland Europe and a landmark at the narrowest crossing point.
[7] Likewise, Pytheas (c. 320 BC), as directly or indirectly quoted in the surviving excerpts of his works in later writers, speaks of Albiōn and Iernē (Great Britain and Ireland).
[10] Describing the ocean beyond the Mediterranean Basin, the Pseudo-Aristotelian text On the Universe (Ancient Greek: Περὶ Κόσμου, romanized: Perì Kósmou; Latin: De Mundo) mentions the British Isles, naming the two largest islands Albion and Ierne: —Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Universe, 393b[11]Pliny the Elder, in the fourth book of his Natural History (Latin: Naturalis historia) likewise calls Great Britain Albion.
John Milton told the story in his History of Britain (1670) In Book I he recounts that the land was “subdu’d by Albion a Giant, Son of Neptune; who call’d the Iland after his own name, and rul’d it 44 Years.
Notwithstanding this, the pleasant situation of the places, the plenty of rivers abounding with fish, and the engaging prospect of its woods, made Brutus and his company very desirous to fix their habitation in it."
In this version the giants were descended from Corneus, and survived until the time of King Arthur, when they fought alongside the Saracens against the Britons during the Saxon invasion of Britain.
In the story, they are eventually defeated by Arthur and his knights, and flee to a forest "that noon ne a-bode other"; Merlin warns not to chase them, "ffor soone shull thei mete with folke that shall do hem I-nough of sorowe and care.
[22][a][23][24][b][26] According to the poem, in the 3970th year of the creation of the world,[c] a king of Greece married his thirty daughters into royalty, but the haughty brides colluded to eliminate their husbands so they would be subservient to no one.
The youngest would not be party to the crime and divulged the plot, so the other princesses were confined to an unsteerable rudderless ship and set adrift, and after three days reached an uninhabited land later to be known as "Britain".
As no other humans inhabited the land, they mated with evil spirits called "incubi", and subsequently with the sons they begot, engendering a race of giants.
The Syrian king who was her father sounds much like a Roman emperor,[33] though Diocletian (3rd century) would be anachronistic, and Holinshed explains this as a bungling of the legend of Danaus and his fifty daughters who founded Argos.
Wace, Layamon, Raphael Holinshed, William Camden and John Milton repeat the legend and it appears in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
(Quotation needed) In 2010, artist Mark Sheeky donated the 2008 painting "Two Roman Legionaries Discovering The God-King Albion Turned Into Stone" to the Grosvenor Museum collection.
