Land of the Summer People

Where does the name 'Somerset' come from ?

The 'Sumorsaete' recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and remembered in the motto of Somerset County Council were, so the language experts tell us, 'the people of the summer lands'. The Welsh/Celts, who were here before the Saxons, called it Gwlad yr haf, which means 'land of summer'. So the Saxons invading these parts in the later 7th century described the area as the native Celts described it before them.

The sun shining on the bright green Spring grass of the Levels can be seen clearly from across the Bristol Channel, and is perhaps that which so struck those who lived here so long ago. Acres of green marshlands spreading deep inland meant that winter floods were over and rich summer grazing would soon be available. It was the land which came into its own in the summer, and the name the new owners gave to their principal settlement was appropriately the summer town, Somerton

The Coat of Arms was granted to Somerset County Council in December 1911 and was transferred to the present Council in 1974.

The heraldic description or blazon of the Arms is: 'Or', a Dragon Rampant Gules holding in the claws a Mace erect Azure. 'Or' in the language of Heraldry is gold, Gules is red, and Azure blue. The Golden Dragon was said to have been the emblem of the Royal House of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex, of which Somerset was a part; the Mace is the symbol of Government.

The Arms recall dramatic days in the history of Wessex and England when early in 878 Danish invaders threatened to overwhelm the kingdom and Alfred, the young king of Wessex, was forced to take refuge on the island of Athelney in the 'fen fastnesses' of the Somerset Levels.

"And afterwards at Easter . . . he and the section of the people of Somerset which was nearest to it proceeded to fight . . . against the enemy.

Then in the seventh week after Easter he rode to Egbert's Stone east of Selwood, and there came to meet him all the people of Somerset (Sumorsaete ealle) and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which was on the side of the sea, and they rejoiced to see him."

This passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continues by recording Alfred's defeat of the Danes at Edington in Wiltshire and the baptism at Aller, near Athelney, of the Danish leader.

It was appropriate that when Somerset County Council was granted a Coat of Arms the Golden Dragon should have been chosen as the centrepiece of its emblem, and that its motto should be 'Sumorsaete ealle', recalling those crucial events in national history when Somerset and its people were first mentioned.