Goram and Vincent

The earliest accounts of the story explain the ascendancy of Bristol over the port of Sea Mills (the earlier Roman settlement Portus Abonae).

[1][2] It also belongs to the genus of myths which explain the origin of local geographical features by supernatural activity, and trade on existing place-names to do so.

Unfortunately for Goram, he overheated while hard at work, drank a giant quantity of ale, and fell asleep in his favourite stone chair, whilst Vincent paced himself better and completed his channel.

The Story makes these to have been mighty Gyants, and that they contended which way the Rivers Avon and Frome should vent themselves into the Severn: If the Port of Say-Mills had been judged more convenient, then Goram had prevailed; because his Hermitage was in Westbury, on the side of the Brook Trim, which runs down to Say-Mills: But the Port of Frome being thought more advantageous, therefore the Miracle relates that St. Vincent did cleave St. Vincent's Rocks asunder, and so gave Passage to the Rivers, because those Rocks derive their Name from a Chapel dedicated to St.

Having completed the job, he carelessly fell over a barrow called Maes Knoll, on Dundry Hill south of Bristol, and plunged into the Severn estuary, as above.

Vincent finished the Avon Gorge out of remorse and did some other major construction work like the Stanton Drew stone circles and even Stonehenge.

The Henbury giant, called Goram or Gorm, threw a large one at his rival, but it fell short of its target; this accounts for the capstone of a formerly visible megalithic monument at Druid Stoke.

[better source needed][7] One or the other giant is said to have created Maes Knoll hillfort and the pre-Anglo-Saxon period linear earthwork Wansdyke, south-east of Bristol, more or less accidentally with his digging tools.

Another (apparently modern) version of the story calls the Clifton giant Ghyston, which is in fact the name, of obscure origin, for the whole of the cliff-face of the Avon Gorge at least as early as the mid-fifteenth century, in the detailed description of the Bristol area by William Worcestre.

St Vincent might also have been known in Bristol relatively early through the city's wine trade with Portugal and Spain (he was born in Huesca, lived and worked in Zaragoza, and is patron saint of Lisbon and of vintners).