Basic Information
The Gog Magog Downs, aka Gog Magog Hills, aka The Gogs, are a series of hills near Cambridge in England. The highest points are about 75m (250 ft) above sea level. Today, part of the area is a public trust, and another part is a golf course.
From 1820 to 1850, one of the hills was a station in the Semaphore Line, an optical telegraph.
In 1574, students were forbidden by decree to enter the Gog Magog Hills, and would be fined if they broke that order.
Prehistory and other strangeness
How the names of Gog and Magog became linked to these hills is unknown. It seems a little strange that a location should be named for Mythological Characters, and have no surviving tale of why those characters are associated with the place.
Charles Thomas Lethbridge, a dowser and archaeologist claims to have pinpointed Hill Figures of a Sun God, a Moon Goddess, and a Warrior God beneath the surface at the site.
Other archaeologists have definitely found Iron Age fortifications, and a Bronze Age Hill Fort with earthen ramparts and wooden Pallisades. Just north of the hills, between them and an old war ditch called Devil's Dyke, have been found many mutilated human corpses and Bronze Age weapons.
In his book Where Troy Once Stood, Iman Wilkens argues that the famous city of Troy was not in Turkey but instead in the Gog Magog hills (and thus the Trojan War was fought between Bronze Age Proto-Celtic peoples).
Sources
Game and Story Use
- The Wikipedia article doesn't say why students were forbidden to go to the hills in 1574, so GMs are free to come up with their own explanation. I vote for an uneasy truce with Giants, as Gog and Magog are Giants in British folklore.
- Wilken's Celtic Troy theory is really interesting, and would make a great game setting. One of these days, I'll get around to making a page that summarizes the theory and how you could use it in an RPG.
- Trying to prove or disprove such a theory could be a good goal for an Adventurer Archaeologist.
- In the 19th Century, the PCs are sent by the Crown to find out what manner of beast or monster keeps killing the Semaphore operators and disrupting communications throughout the Empire.