A NEW THEORY ON THE IDENTITY OF KING LUCIUS OF BRITAIN

The hill of Lugdunum, modern Fourvière Hill (Colline de Fourvière), Lyon, France

Various theories have been proposed to account for the legend of King Lucius of Britain, who supposedly sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius of the late 2nd century asking to be converted to Christianity.  None of them are particularly convincing.  I would urge my readers to explore those, regardless.  I do not feel sufficiently motivated to do so here.

To me, the solution to the mystery is fairly simple and straight-forward.  To begin, we might take a look at two relevant entries from P.C. Bartrum's A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:

LLEUFER MAWR.

‘The Great Light’. A gloss to §22 of the Historia Brittonum in the ‘Cambridge’ group of 

manuscripts (Mommsen: C, L) says of Lucius, the fictitious king of Britain: Lucius, agnomine Leuer-

maur, id est, ‘magni splendoris’ propter fidem que in eius tempore venit. This was mentioned by Lewis 

Morris in his Celtic Remains (p.270 s.n. Lles ap Coel), and he says “none of our writers in the British 

tongue mention this cognomen of Lleufer Mawr”. But it was taken up later by Iolo Morganwg. See s.n. 

Lucius.

[NOTE:  The GPC entry for lleufer has the derivation of the word's first element as lleu(1), "light, brightness; bright." Lleu in Welsh is the god who corresponds to the Irish Lugh and the Gaulish Lugus.  Lucius probably derives from Latin word lux (gen. lucis), meaning "light" (<PIE *leuk-, "brightness"), related to the Latin verb lucere ("to shine").]

LUCIUS, fictitious king of Britain. (A.D.165-208 PCB)

The earliest trace of Lucius as a king of Britain appears in an extract from the Liber Pontificalis

(known as the Catalogus Felicianus) drawn up between A.D.483 and 492 in which a letter is mentioned 

from Lucius of Britain to pope Eleutherius. Under Eleutherius it says: A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY

487

Hic accepit epistolam a Lucio Britannio rege ut Christianus efficeretur per ejus 

mandatum.

(LBS III.353). It seems to have been clearly proved by Dr.Harnach (Sitzungsberichte d. 

k. Preuss. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, 19 Mai 1904) that this was a blunder caused by a confusion between 

the local names Britannia and Britium, for the letter from Lucius to pope Eleutherius seems genuine, but 

Lucius ruled in Edessa, not in Britain, and Birtha (Britium) was his citadel. His full name was Lucius 

Aelius Septimius Megas Abgarus IX, king of Britium of the Edessenes, A.D.174-9. See also The English 

Historical Review, xxii (1907), pp.767-70, OP II.670, LBS III.360, Oman pp.177-8, HW 103). The 

mention in the Catalogus Felicianus looks like a late interpolation, as the earliest extant manuscript is of 

the ninth century (LBS III.353-4). The story appears again more fully in the Liber Pontificalis about 

A.D.685 (LBS III.356-7).

The story was unknown to Bede when he wrote his ‘De Temporibus’ in 702. Not until 

725 when he wrote his ‘Chronicle’ does Bede show knowledge of it. He wrote:

A.161-180. M. Antoninus Verus [Marcus Aurelius] with his brother Aurelius 

Commodus [Lucius Verus], for ten years and one month. ... His brother Commodus being dead, he 

made Antoninus Commodus his son co-regent of the kingdom. ... Lucius king of Britannia sent a 

letter to Eleutherus bishop of Rome asking that he might be made a Christian.

(LBS III.352). Lucius Verus died in 169, so that the implied date of the supposed letter is between 

A.D.169 and 180. Eleutherius was bishop of Rome from 174/5 to 192. This narrows down the date of 

the letter to the period 175-180 (LBS III.352). Later in 731 when Bede wrote his ‘Ecclesiastical History’ 

he entered (I.4):

In the year from our Lord's incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus ... was made emperor, 

together with his brother, Aurelius Commodus. In their time whilst Eleutherius, a holy man, 

presided over the Roman church, Lucius, king of the Britons, sent a letter entreating that by his 

command he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his pious request, and the Britons 

preserved the faith which they had received, uncorupted and entire, in peace and tranquility until 

the time of the emperor Diocletian.

Again in his chronological summary at the end of his history he wrote (V.24):

In the year from the incarnation of our Lord, 167, Eleutherius, being made bishop of Rome, 

governed the church most gloriously fifteen years. Lucius king of Britain, writing to him, requested 

to be made a Christian, and succeeded in obtaining his request.

Note the discrepancy in date which is explained in LBS III.353.

This was copied in the Historia Brittonum (§22):

After one hundred and sixty-seven years from the advent of Christ, Lucius, the British king, with 

all the rulers of the whole of the British race, received baptism, an embassy having been sent by the 

emperor of the Romans and by the Roman pope Eucharistus (so H, but Evaristus M, Eleutherius 

CGLQ and Lebor Bretnach).

There is a gloss in C and L as follows:

Lucius, agnomine Leuer-maur, id est, 'magni splendoris', propter fidem que in eius tempore 

venit (Mommsen, p.164, l.23, n.6).

On this name see s.n. Lleufer Mawr.

Between the years 1125 and 1130 the Chapter of St.Andrew and St.David (at Menevia) 

addressed an extraordinary letter to pope Honorius II, asserting that their church had been the seat of an A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY

488

archbishop since the first beginnings of Christianity in Britain, i.e. the days of pope Eleutherius, who 

had sent to king Lucius the preachers Fagan and Duvian and founded three archbishoprics and 27 

bishoprics in the kingdom. (The only source of this letter is Giraldus Cambrensis, De Invectionibus,

II.10, ed. W.S.Davies, in Cy. 30 (1920) pp.143-6). (This is not in the Rolls edition, No.21 Vol.3). It 

seems to be the first to mention Fagan and Duvian. Giraldus wrote De Invectionibus in about 1203. 

(Christopher Brooke in Studies in the Early British Church, ed. Nora K.Chadwick, 1958, pp.207-8).

Geoffrey of Monmouth began to clothe the bare legend with detail in his Historia Regum 

Britanniae (c.1136). We are told that Coillus [Coel] had but one son, Lucius [Lles], who obtained the 

crown after his father's death, and imitated all his acts of goodness. He sent letters to pope Eleutherius, 

desiring to be instructed by him in the Christian religion, and obtained the accomplishment of his pious 

request. For the pope sent him two most religious doctors, Faganus [Ffagan] and Duvianus [Dwywan], 

who preached the Word of God, and baptized him. Then people from all countries assembled together 

and followed the king's example. The holy doctors, having almost extinguished paganism over the whole 

island, dedicated the temples, that had been founded in honour of many gods, to the one only God and 

his saints. The twenty-eight pagan flamens were replaced by twenty-eight bishops, and the three 

archflamens were replaced by three archbishops at London, York and Caerleon [Caerllion ar Wysg] 

(HRB IV.19). Lucius permitted the possessions and territories which formerly belonged to the temples 

to be appropriated to Christian churches, and gave them all kinds of privileges. He died in Gloucester 

and was buried there in the cathedral church in the year 156. He had no issue to succeed him (HRB V.1).

Brut y Brenhinedd tells much the same story, but omits mention of the ‘flamens and 

archflamens’. Corresponding names are shown in [ ].

At about the same time (c.1150) the compilers of the Book of Llandaf produced a somewhat 

different story (BLD 68):

In the year of our Lord 156 Lucius Britannorum rex sent his ambassadors Eluanus and 

Meduuinus to Eleutherius ... imploring that he might be made a Christian, according to his 

admonition; to which request he acceded; for giving thanks to God that the nation, which from the 

first inhabiting by Brutus had been heathens, so ardently desired to embrace the faith of Christ, he, 

with the advice of the elders of the Roman city, was pleased to cause the ambassadors to be 

baptized. On their embracing the Catholic faith, Eluanus was ordained a bishop, and Meduuinus a 

doctor. Through their eloquence and the knowledge which they had acquired in the holy scriptures, 

they returned as preachers to Lucius in Britain. By their holy preaching Lucius and the nobles of 

all Britain received baptism.

See further s.nn. Elfan and Medwin.

It is noteworthy that this is the first introduction of Christianity to Britain known to Geoffrey of 

Monmouth or to the compilers of the Book of Llandaf. Soon after they wrote, however, legends were 

beginning to grow concerning earlier preachings of the Gospel. As a result it was said that the request by 

Lucius to pope Eleutherius was rather to revive the faith than to introduce it for the first time. See s.n. 

Joseph of Arimathea.

FURTHER FICTIONS

Many details were added later to the fable. John Stow said that the Church of St.Peter, Cornhill, 

London, was founded by Lucius, and he mentions a ‘table’ in that church testifying to this. He also said 

that according to Jocelyn of Furness the church of St.Peter, Cornhill, was built by Thean, first 

archbishop of London, with the aid of Ciran, chief butler to king Lucius (The Annales of England, 1600 

edition, p.37). Francis Godwin called the chief butler Cyranus (De Praesulibus, 1616, p.226).

Another fable became attached to Lucius, by mis-identification with a legendary saint Lucius of 

Chur or Coire in Switzerland. The earliest ‘Life’ (8-9th cent.) is edited in MGH Hist.Rerum 

Merovingicarum, III.1-7. See outline in LBS III.358-9. He is there said to have been a pagan king of A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY

489

Britain, converted by Timothy, disciple of St.Paul. Migrated to Gaul and then to Chur. Later accounts 

say that he died there on December 3. Finally he is said to have been martyred there. See LBS III.359. 

When he was identified with the British king Lucius of Bede, his conversion by Timothy had to be 

dropped.

John Bale (Scriptorum ... Catalogus, 1557, p.23) said that Lucius, king of Britain, was 

accompanied by his sister Emerita. They were both killed near Curia [Chur] and were commemorated on 

December 3 and 4 respectively. See James Usher, Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, 1687, 

Chapters 3 and 6; Hugh Cressy, Church History, 1668, pp.67-70. On Emerita see also Thomas 

Dempster, Hist.Eccles. Gentis Scotorum, 1627, no.482 = p.261.

A unique pedigree in Peniarth MS.128 (late 16th century), p.61, pretends that Coel of Colchester 

(who is mis-identified with Coel Godebog) had a claim to the crown of Lloegr through Emerita. 

‘Namely Coel ap Tegfan ap Dehevraint [Deheuwaint] ab Emerita ferch Coel ap Meurig, sister and 

heiress of Lles, king of Britain.’ The implication is that Emerita was the wife of Telpwyll (q.v.). This is 

a tour de force without any merit (PCB).

Iolo Morganwg introduced a further layer of fiction by re-naming Lucius as Lleirwg or Lleurwg 

and giving him a new pedigree, making him son of Coel ap Cyllin (q.v.) ap Caradog ap Brân (e.g. Iolo 

MSS p.115).

For some inexplicable reason, those seeking to identify King Lucius have not considered the following historical bit concerning Eleutherius:

"The early Christian writer St. Hegesippus says that Eleutherius was deacon of the Roman church under Pope St. Anicetus (c. 155–c. 166). Succeeding St. Soter as pope, Eleutherius ruled during the reign of Commodus (Roman emperor 180–192; coruler with his father, Marcus Aurelius, 176–180), who was relatively tolerant of the Christians. Eleutherius had been devoting close attention to the Montanist controversy when, in 177, Christians in the Lyon area wrote him expressing their opinion of the teachings of the prophet Montanus. Although the letter has been lost, it is believed to have asked Eleutherius to show mercy but not to compromise with followers of the movement. The churches of Lyon and Vienne, France, sent the letter by Bishop St. Irenaeus of Lyon, who was delegated to advise Eleutherius."  [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Eleutherius]

Now, Lyon is the ancient Roman Lugdunum.  The most likely etymology for the Lugdunum place-name is "the fort of Lugus."  Lugdunum was the capital of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis, which included in its territory Armorica/Brittany (https://www.britannica.com/place/Lugdunensis).  

I would add in passing that the original name of the Roman Arbeia fort at South Shields in Northern England was Lugudunum (https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1054).  Wales has its own Dinas Dinlleu (the city of the fort of Lleu) and a couple other sites in Britain may have similar or identical names (including, in my opinion, Lothian and Loudon).  

To me, then, it is a rather simple matter to see in the 6th century mention of Lucius of Britain sending a letter to Pope Eleutherius the people of the Fort of Lugus/Lyon sending their letter to the same pope.  Brittany of Gallia Lugdunensis was mistaken for Britain.  It is also possible that some folk memory of the pan-Celtic deity Lugus/Lleu/Lugh helped fuse Britain and Brittany into this slightly garbled account of Christian intervention in the spread of the Monanist heresy. 

Lucius might well be a Christian substitution for Lugus.

The letters 'c' and 'g' are frequently interchangeable in early medieval manuscripts. This phonetic and scribal blurring is a direct result of how the Latin language evolved into Romance languages and how local vernacular languages adapted the Latin alphabet.

Why 'C' and 'G' interchanged:

1) Visual Similarity: In late Roman cursive and early medieval scripts (like Merovingian, Visigothic, or Insular minuscule), an uncial or lowercase 'c' and 'g' could look remarkably alike. A slight slip of the pen or a faint stroke could easily turn a c into a g (or vice versa) during transcription.

2) Shared Phonetic Origins: Both letters represent velar consonants. In Classical Latin, 'C' originally represented both the /k/ and /g/ sounds (which is why the abbreviation for the Roman name Gaius is written as C.). While the Romans later added a stroke to 'C' to create 'G' for the voiced sound, the two remained tightly linked phonetically.

3) Palatalization: As Latin transitioned into early medieval Romance dialects, both 'c' and 'g' underwent "palatalization" when placed before the vowels e and i. This softened their sounds (e.g., 'c' sounding like "ch" or "ts", and 'g' sounding like "j" or "y"), making them sound much closer to one another than they did in classical times.

4) Vernacular Influences: Scribes in regions like Ireland, Britain, and Germany were adapting Latin letters to spell entirely different native Germanic or Celtic sounds. In Insular script, for instance, the lenition (softening) of consonants meant that 'c' and 'g' often represented a spectrum of shifting guttural or aspirate sounds, leading to highly variable spellings in both local languages and regional Latin.

One quick example of Luc- for Lug- is found in going from Irish Lugh to Welsh Llwch. This is from P.C. Bartrum's A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:

"LLWCH LLAW-WYNNIOG. (Legendary).

He is mentioned twice in the tale of ‘Culhwch and Olwen’, first as Lloch Llaw-wynnyawc, one 

of the chiefs at Arthur's Court (WM 461, RM 107), and later as Llwch Llaw-wynnyawc, the father of un-

named sons ‘from beyond the Tyrrhene Sea’, also apparently at Arthur's Court (WM 466, RM 110).

He is also mentioned in the poem ‘Who is the Porter?’, a dialogue between Arthur, Cai and 

Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr in the Black Book of Carmarthen (BBC 94) as Lluch llauynnauc, ‘Llwch of the 

Striking Hand(?)’ who was ‘defending Eidyn on the border(?)’ (Trans. Rachel Bromwich in The Figure 

of Arthur by Richard Barber, 1972, p.70).

The translation of the cognomen by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones is 'Windy-hand' (The 

Mabinogion, Everyman edition, pp.101, 104), but Idris Foster suggested ‘of the striking hand’ 

(Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. R.S.Loomis, 1959, p.34). The name equates to that of the 

Irish god, Lug, one of whose epithets was lonnbémnech, ‘of the fierce blows’."

A Gaulish Lucudeca in Ranko Matasovic's AN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF PROTO-CELTIC:

"*Lugu- ‘god Lug’, perhaps originally ‘the shiny one’ [Noun]

GOID: OIr. Lug [PN], Ogam L UGU-DECCAS W: MW Llew

GAUL: Lugus (e.g. RIG G-159)

CELTIB: LUGUEI [Dat. s] ( Penalba)

ETYM: Cf. the parallelism of the compound PNs OIr. Lugaid (Gen Luigdech ), Ogam LUGUDECCAS (CIIC no. 263) and Gaul. Lucudeca ‘serving the god Lug’ < PCelt. *Lugu-dek-s (Uhlich 2002: 409). For the second element of this compound see PCelt. *dekos.

REF: EIEC 97, Delamarre 211, Jordan Colera 1998: 63, 207ff, Uhlich 2002: 409, Ziegler 1994: 112, Kalygin 2006: 102ff., Sims-Williams 2006: 86, MLH V.l: 235f."

I've found Lucdunum for Lugdunum:

"https://net.lib.byu.edu/~catalog/people/rlm/latin/l/lugduni.htm

https://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html

Lugdunum

Peddie: Lyon

Graesse II:424 (Lugdunum, Augusta Lugdunensis, Laudunensis, Leo, Leudunum, Leunum, Lugdinum, Lugdona, Lugdonensis, Lugdonon, Lugdunensis, Lugduninsis, Lugdunum Celtarum, Lugdunum Galliae, Lugdunum Galliarum, Lugdunum Segusianorum, Lugudinum, Lugudunum

=Lyon, Hst. d. Dép. Rhône, Frankreich.)

Graesse II:433 (Lutum, Lugdunensis, Lugdunum, Lugium, Lugum, Luvensis

=Louth sw. Dundalk, Co. Louth (Lubhaidh), Rep. Irland, (Eire).)

Graesse II:354 (Laudunum, Laudensis, Laudunensis, Laudunum Clavatum, Laonensis civ., LUCDUNUM, Ludunensium castrum, Lugdunum, Lugdunum Clavatum, Lugdunum Glavatum, Lugdunum Cloade, Mons Lauduni

=Laon, Hst. d. Dép. Aisne (Ile de France), Frankreich.)"

"Another early medieval folk-etymology of the name, found in gloss on the Latin poet Juvenal [in William of Conches (c. 1090 – c. 1154) Glosae in Iuvenalem] connects the element Lugu- to the Latin word for "light", lux (luci- in compounds) and translates the name as "Shining Hill" (lucidus mons).[11]"

[11]"Lugdunum est civitas Gallie quasi lucidum dunam, id est lucidus mons, dunam enim in Greco mons." in Andreas Hofeneder, Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen: Sammlung, Übersetzung und Kommentierung, Volume 2, Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2008, pp. 571–572 (in German).

Other examples can doubtless be found that adequately demonstrate how Lugdunum could have come to be perceived as Lucius' fort/hill.

Whenever we can link legend to history, rather than to some wholly imaginary construct, the principle of Occam's Razor demands that we adopt the former method and not the latter.

THE 'M' OF THE L. ARTORIUS CASTUS INSCRIPTION: A NOTE ON A FUTURE APPROACH

NOTE: AFTER READING THE FOLLOWING POST, DR. ROGER TOMLIN SENT ME THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS:

"I think there are only two repeated ligatures on the stone, ET/TE and RO; and this is the only NI sequence. Even if it occurred twice, it would not necessarily be ligatured each time. Ligatures are only to save space, notably at the end of the ARMENIOS line which ligatures the last three letters. This line is full of ligatures – the muddle of M at the very beginning, AD and RO for sure – so they must have been pressed for space. Either ME or NI ligatured would do, but I prefer NI for being more economical of space."

https://lupa.at/24235?query=1824236709

NI Ligature

https://christophergwinn.com/arthuriana/lac-sourcebook/

ME Ligature

Among the few Arthurian who care about the original reading of the L. Artorius Castus stone, the argument rages on as to whether the /M/ of the ARM[...]S lacuna was or was not ligatured to an /E/. 

The argument for ARMENIOS as a proper reading for the lacuna is currently preferred by some top epigraphers. While it is not necessary to have a ME ligature to allow for ARMENIOS, the alternative - an NI ligature - is not elsewhere evinced on the stone.

But, then, neither is an ME.

Of the 12 Ms on the stone (2 of which are partially or mostly reconstructed in other lacunae), none exhibit ligatures. The 2 reconstructed Ms do not require ligatures for the words of which they are presumed to be a component.

THE PROBLEM OF THE M/E LIGATURE IN THE HISTORICAL RECORDS

It is fairly well-known that the only early scholar to record an M/E ligature for the Castus ARM[...]S lacuna was Francesco Carrara. But his reading is so replete with errors that we must wonder what he was really looking at. Was the inscription at the time encrusted over with compressed dirt or crushed rock or other agents?

The next authority to record the inscription, Theodore Mommsen, did not observe a M/E ligature and his rendering is much more accurate

https://books.google.com/books?id=XtLqUJEa-DIC&pg=PA303&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false:

Following Mommsen, we had Frane Bulik

https://books.google.com/books?id=fWBLAAAAMAAJ&q=166#v=snippet&q=166&f=false:

My own feeling is that Carrara cannot be given much credence, given that descriptions of the inscription not long after his time are much better and suggest no hint of a M/E ligature.

This assessment is buttressed by my following brief analysis of the errors in the Carrara reading. I'm using the following reconstruction of the stone from Christopher Gwinn for comparison:

Line 1

LATRORIS

A /RT/ transposition to /TR/, which can only be due to carelessness. V omitted (because obscured?). A presently nonexistent S supplied. Did Carrara here assume the personal name must end in an S and so added the letter for this reason alone?

Line 2

Correct.

Line 3

After ligatured AD for abbreviation ADIVT, the now missing I is supplied, but it is followed by an incorrect L. 

Line 4

His first E should be a TE ligature, and the following TE ligature should be just an E. This looks like a sort of dyslexic transposition.

Line 5

The final M exists only partially on the stone now.

Line 6

The second G of LEGG is separated from the abbreviation and recognized wrongly as a C.  This error could have been caused both by Carrara not being able to clearly make out the second G and by his thinking such a reading as LEGG could not be correct in the context.

Line 7

The ligatured ME appears. 

Line 8

The L of LI is missing, unless the L was partially obscured and the I entirely obscured. 

Line 9

Essentially correct, but with separation spacing issues.

What's most important there are the line ending errors - 4 in all. NOT COUNTING THE SUPPOSED ME LIGATURE OF LINE 7.

In my opinion, Carrara thought he saw the remnant of a ligatured E in the stone break edge at M. And so he inserted the E into his reading of the line ending. If so, the presence of the E is based upon supposition only, not on direct visual evidence.

MY FINAL POST ON THE MISTSHADOWS BLOG

The Lucius Artorius Castus Memorial Stone with 'GENTES' Reconstruction

During recent private conversations with Richard Johnson of the YouTube Channel O'R GOLWG

(https://www.youtube.com/@orgolwg), I've systematically gone through all my old attempts to identify a Dark Age British Arthur in the North.  In each and every case I've concluded that I was right to abandon past theories and that I have failed to produce a viable candidate.

I'm herewith formally abjuring all three of the chief candidates: an Arthur son of Sawyl Benisel, an Arthur placed at Stanwix on the western end of Hadrian's Wall and an Arthur son of Eliffer (who was perhaps a king at York).

The faults of the theory which sought to identify Uther Pendragon with Sawyl Benisel have been detailed in recent blog posts and I don't need to repeat those here.  The Arthur at Stanwix relies upon a very late local folk tradition and thus must be discounted.  Other factors in favor of it (see, for example, 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html) 

rely upon extremely tenuous associations (one of which can just as easily be applied to the eques L. Artorius Castus).  Uther himself looks to be a creation, conjured from the 'terrible warrior' of the Irish Compert Mongan.  Or the name was invented because something with good poetic assonance was needed for a chieftain whose father was otherwise unknown. Arthur Penuchel son of Eliffer is a corrupt reading for Ardun Pen Askell.  But even if Arthur Penuchel is to be preferred (perhaps as the original form of the name, or as a substitution of another genuine traditional name), his chronology does not allow us to idenity him with the Arthur of the Annales Cambriae.  The latter Arthur fought at Badon in 516 (actually closer to 490-500, given the date of Badon according to Gildas) and died in 537, while his supposed brothers Gwrgi and Peredur died fighting at Carrawburgh in 580.  So even if we accept 537 as the correct date for Camlan, an Arthur Penuchel is dying 43 years before his brothers.  

I'm left then, with this honest confession: if there were an actual Dark Age British Arthur in the North (and the battle sites demand that he be put in the North) I have not been able to find him.  

As per my talk on L. Artorius Castus on O'R GOLWG 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICS0cyB8bqg), the only attested historical Arthur in the North was an early 3rd century Roman legionary prefect at York.  I still like my proposed reading of ARM.GENTES for the famous lacuna in his memorial text, but am okay with the more traditional ARMENIOS.  If the former, Castus took part in the major invasion of Northern Britain under Septimius Severus. If the latter, Castus was active in Britain during a period of major turmoil in the North that involved losing the Antonine Wall and withdrawing to Hadrian's.  Either scenario supports the notion that Castus could have become a legendary figure in the North, although it is far more difficult to account for such happening if he, in fact, led legionary detachments in Armenia, rather than in Britain. 

Historians and archaelogists, who have not benefited from a good knowledge of other disciplines such as folklore and mythology, are united in their belief that a late 2nd or early 3rd century Roman commander could not possibly be the prototypical Arthur.  This despite the fact that our hero appears in the Historia Brittonum with a Herculean 12 battles and already displays a mythical status by the time he shows up in the Mirabilia and early Welsh heroic poetry.  

For an argument against the recalcitrance that has coelesced around Castus as Arthur I would point to the Greek Herakles.  Herodotus, whose floruit was c. 484-425 B.C.E., dated Herakles to approximately 1300-1250 B.C.E.  That is a gap of some 800 years (give or take several in either direction of either date).  Despite the heavy mythologization of Herakles, the Greeks very much believed he had been a real historical entity. 

In the case of Castus, from the early 3rd century to the 8th or 9th century (the date of the HB), we have around 600 years. But if we measure to the supposed dates of Arthur - which are the first half of the 6th century - we are talking about only a few centuries. The GODODDIN, which contains our earliest reference to Arthur (assuming this is not a later interpolation), has been traced back by John  Koch to a 6th century original text. 

Thus there is no difficulty in allowing for a mythologized British figure of the early 3rd century being utilized first by Irish who were establishing kingdoms in Scotland and southwestern Wales and who were being assimilated by native culture, and then for Nennius's employment of the same character for the usual propagandist reasons.  The AC Arthurian entries, written a century or more after the HB, merely inserted Camlan (either a reference to a legendary Castus battle on Hadrian's Wall or a record of the death of Arthur son of Pedr of Dyfed at the Afon Gamlan in Merionethshire) and accepted the fiction of an Arthur at Badon.  

Of course, I keep coming back to the other battles - the ones which I am pretty confident were in the North, with some in the far North.  I cannot reconcile these locations with a Dark Age Arthur, and neither can the experts (Roman Britain and sub-Roman Britain historians and archaelogists).  The battles look Roman and point to only one man: L. Artorius Castus.

THE NONVIABILITY OF THE UTHER REFERENCES IN THE 'PA GUR' AND 'CULHWCH AC OLWEN' (with a note on my last Dark Age Arthur candidate)

In one of my most recent blog articles (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/as-i-transition-away-from-arthur-to.html?m=1) I said the following:

"The probable death-knell for Uther as Sawyl concerns my attempt to etymologize Uther's grandson Eliwlad as an Irish compound composed of aile + flaith. No such compound exists, and a search of Irish records failed to produce a single example of aile flaith. An ala flaith in the eDIL means 'another lord', and flaith aile is found in the Brehon laws.

It's also not impossible that the whole Uther = Illtud identification may be due to the PA GUR poet's TOTALLY FANCIFUL association of Uther with Illtud. In other words, originally Uther was not Illtud at all, but someone else."

The second paragraph there deserves a more thorough treatment.

What made me rethink the identification of Uther with Illtud  - something that seems to be implied in the PA GUR - is the very nature of the PA GUR itself.  My work on places mentioned in the poem showed that it could not possibly be as early a composition as is sometimes claimed. 

Why is this so?

Because there were Cymracized forms of both Gaelic and English place-names present.

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-pa-gur-battle-sites-revision.html?m=1

As this was the case, and given that purely folkloristic or mythological motifs are also manifest, it seemed more reasonable to suggest that the author of the poem had chosen to identify Uther Pendragon with the Latin military titles belonging to St. Illtud than it did to assume that Uther Pendragon - a perfectly acceptable Welsh name + epithet formula - was a native rendering of those titles that indicated actual identification of the two figures. And that once he had made his false association of Uther with Illtud he put the former's servant Mabon in the Ely Valley, a river region that dominates the center of Penychen where Illtud served as Master of the Soldiers under Pawl. A claim that Uther's servant was the youthful Sun God does not lend credence to the PA GUR account.

The same kind of unreliable localization of Uther occurs in CULHWCH AC OLWEN, where we are told the kin of Arthur's father are at Caer Dathal. As I've shown that Caer Dathal = Dinas Emrys, the Fort of Ambrosius, it is obvious that Ambrosius' brother Uther should be linked to the place. While CULHWCH AC OLWEN is considered pre-Galfridian, it is possible that elements of Galfridian tradition crept into the text during later copying. Or, as I've theorized before, the Terrible Chief- warrior of Dinas Emrys/Caer Dathal has his origin in Emrys himself, who was made lord of Dinas Emrys of the Red Dragon and in whom (as we are told in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM) Vortigern lived in dread. 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-creation-of-uther-pendragon-two.html?m=1

None of these Welsh sources, it seems to me, are valuable as historical documents. While I've often tried to find encoded history within them, I must confess to having been occasionally clever and to have concocted some compelling theory -  but to have never succeeded in convincing myself or others of the validity of such ideas.

A NOTE ON THE LAST POSSIBLE BASTION OF A NORTHERN DARK AGE ARTHUR

Have I abandoned all belief in a Northern Dark Age Arthur?

Pretty much.

While I cannot confirm a true genealogical trace (as I was trying to do with Uther = Sawyl Benisel), the location of the HB and AC battles and associated locations (like the 'Avalon' that is Burgh-By-Sands), coupled with an admittedly late tradition placing Arthur at the Stanwix Roman cavalry fort (Uxellodunum/Petriana), as well as that placement's possible significance to the horse cultures of Dalriada and Dyfed, once lead me to accept the possibility our hero could have been based on the west end of Hadrian's Wall.

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-northern-battles-of-arthur-with-no.html?m=1

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html?m=1

And that really is the best that I can offer. 

But the book I had out there on a 5th-6th century Arthur based at Stanwix has been unpublished. It just feels safe and, indeed, wiser, to go with the historically attested L. Artorius Castus as the prototypical Arthur. 

Sure, it may be that a Dark Age battle-leader existed, a descendant of members of the Ala Petriana, the largest cavalry group in all of Britain whose fort was the command center of the Wall. But the concept is wholly an imaginary construct, with no supportive evidence other than extremely late local tradition and arguments (like the equine correspondence) that can better be applied to the undeniably historical early 3rd century Roman prefect.

My New YouTube Talk on Myrddin/Merlin at O'R GOLWG

https://youtu.be/oQ6a8VFQJvY?si=q4ZjUorhhcEnBFKF

AS I TRANSITION AWAY FROM ARTHUR TO OTHER THINGS IN MY RETIREMENT...

Lidar Image for the Camboglanna (Castlesteads)Roman Fort in Cumbria

Other then giving a few more talks on Arthur-related subjects on Richard Johnson's O'R GOLWG YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@orgolwg), I'm suspending my overly long Arthurian quest.  Once you reach a certain age and you come to realize that 1) I'm beginning to rehash old theories due to a lack of new, original thinking and 2) my interests, frankly, are changing, it's time to let go of certain cherished ways of being - and to release the ego-driven identity that fueled and preserved them.

But before I move on to less demanding, less rancor-filled endeavors, I did want to touch upon three matters that have absorbed most of my attention during my decades of research: Uther, Arthur's father, Badon and Camboglanna.  Yes, I've discussed all three subjects exhaustively already and even produced published books that drew upon this or that theory concerning them.  But I remain undecided whether I have managed to "crack the code" in any satisfactory manner.

Let's begin with the battle of Badon.  I tried pretty much everything for the word and the place.  But, in the end, everything from etymology to the Welsh sources indicates that this is Bath (probably, given the Breton Sulis/Sulim at a Gildas site, Little Solsbury Hill fort).  While we can come out and say, well, okay, fine, but maybe Bath was only later wrongly identified with a Baddan- hillfort and that we should instead look to the Liddington Badbury as the best candidate. Unfortunately, that is an unsustainable viewpoint based on unprovable and unnecessary speculation.  

Badon is Bath.

My idea that this could be a Bathum at Buxton is possible, but has difficulties.  First, the British name of Buxton was Aquae Arnemetia and then the place took on the name of Buxton, recorded before 1108 (according to Victor Watts). More critically, there is no hillfort at Buxton. Nor was there a Roman fort, so far as we know, as the place appears to have been a civilian settlement built around a sacred thermal spring.  Just like Bath in Somerset.  Yes, we have an old Bathamgate name preserved for the Roman road that ran to Buxton, but we otherwise have no evidence that Bathum (which would naturally becomes British Badon) was ever used for the place.  

If we want to put the famous Arthur of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM and ANNALES CAMBRIAE at Bath, we have to allow for a battle there c. 500 against the Saxons. Most authorities think that is way too early for a battle so far east.  But as many of our dates are uncertain (especially those of sources like the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONCLE, where I've shown the early generations of the Gewissei have been reversed), there is nothing wrong, really, with the idea of a deep penetration to Bath c. 500, or at least in the possibility of a series of raids that were ultimately repelled by the British.  

But was Arthur really there?

If all of the battles as I've identified them - minus Badon - are, indeed, in the North (even probably Camboglanna; see below), then trying to justify an Arthur at Bath is impossible.  We would have to be content with saying he was attached to the place in the course of the development of legend precisely because the real commander there was unknown or not remembered and a famous hero was needed for what had come to be seen as a famous battle.

And now for Camboglanna...

I've discussed in detail why I no longer trust the Camlann entry in the AC.  This has to do with the entry's link to Irish annal entries featuring a Dalriadan name that is the same as the name born by a brother of the Dalriadan Arthur.  This brother died with Arthur son of Aedan in battle.  Made worse, the duplicated Irish entry matching the plague reference in the AC entry that allows us to identify Medra(u)t with the St. Medard of Gallic Noviomagus who died in that year.  The place-name Noviomagus is found in Britain as well, being the Roman period name of Chichester.  Chichester's founder, an eponym, Cissa, is said in the ASC to have fought at Cymenesora near Chichester.  Cymenesora could easily have been rendered by the Welsh Camlann or merely associated with a Welsh Camlann.

Welsh tradition otherwise firmly places Camlann in Merionethshire (something I've been able to prove). If this is the real Camlann, then the only viable candidate for an Arthur who might have perished there is Arthur son of Pedr of Dyfed, a 7th century king. Dyfed was always at war with the kingdoms to its north, both in mythic contexts (see the Mabinogion) and in history.  While attempts have been made to identify Arthur son of Pedr with the Arthur, as with a war-leader fighting at Cymenesora we cannot square him with the Northern battles.  Chronology, of course, is a glaring problem with the Dyfed king.

And then we have Camboglanna Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall. 

I've gone through quite a list of the remarkable features associated with this fort.  First, that it lies in the valley of the Irthing which, if Dr. Andrew Breeze is right, may mean the "Little Bear" river. Not far to the west of Camboglanna, along the Wall, is the Aballava Roman fort, the 'apple place', with a variant Avalana that immediately suggests Avalon.  A 'lake goddess' Dea Latis was worshipped at Aballava, as well as at Birdoswald in the Irthing Valley not far from Castlesteads.  Finally, the Concavata Roman fort just west of Aballava may well have been a sort of prototypical Grail Castle.

Yes, we could say that a Dark Age Arthur based on the North fought and died at Camboglanna.  The only problem with that scenario is that we also know that Severus and Caracalla were there, even if just for rebuilding, and it is possible (if I'm right about L. Artorius Castus serving under Severus during that emperor's massive invasion of Northern Britain) that a Roman Artorius, prefect of the Sixth Legion at York and commander of three legionary detachments, was also present at Castlesteads.  As I am found of pointing out to those who insist on trying to identify Arthur's City of the Legion battle with one of the two Welsh legionary fortresses, why bother positing an unattestable historical war-leader at Chester or Caerleon when we already know there was an actual historical Arthur at York?

At this point, having dispensed with an Arthur at Bath in Somerset and knowing as I do that we have a Roman fortress on the west end of Hadrian's Wall that fits the bill for Camlann perfectly, I'm not really disposed to holding onto a Dark Age war-leader.  It is quite conceivable that Castus did something remarkable at Camboglanna, perhaps in battle.  It is also possible he was wounded and removed from the sphere of action to the nearby fort of Aballava for treatment of his wounds.  Sure, this is unapologetic speculation, and more than smacks of special pleading, but historically and geographically it is plausible.  If Castus had achieved over a couple of centuries a mythical standing among the Britons, then a tale about an exploit performed and/or misfortune suffered at Camboglanna might well have found its way into Welsh story and been used to supply a purely propagandist creation with a proper death in 537. 

I would add that as far as I'm concerned it is extremely difficult to account for a Dark Age Arthur fighting from York to Caledonia.  The scholars I've consulted agree with me on this.  The only way around the difficulty is to accept that when it comes to the Arthurian battles we are dealing with a composite Dark Age Arthur, one who is part an otherwise unknown Arthur of Northern England and part Arthur son of Aedan of Dalriada.  And we have to accept the coincidence of Arthur of Dalriada being said to fall fighting against the Miathi/Maeatae (but also in Circenn!) when know Emperor Septimius Severus invaded the North precisely because of troubles caused by that tribal confederation.

As a related aside, I continue to find it interesting that people keep proposing invalid theories. Invalid because none of them have the battles. And none have tried to show my identifications to be wrong or have attempted better candidates. Yet they keep right on talking about Arthur being this or Arthur being that WHEN ALL WE HAVE IS THE BATTLES.

I still await a rival theory with decent battle site identifications. Until there is one, I'm not going to pay much attention to what's put forward by other researchers. And I will be even less prone to engage with such researchers if they continue to utterly ignore my selected sites. 

To finish now with Uther Pendragon...

I've made much of this traditional father of Arthur being not the usual format of name + epithet - something we find extremely common in early Welsh naming practice - but being instead some kind of poetic descriptor and/or Welsh rendering of a military rank or Latin phrase.  My efforts were all over the board, utilizing such an interpretation of the name to identify our hero's father with any number of historical figures. Candidates ranged from a Dumnonian Geraint, himself confused with the earlier MM/MVM Gerontius, and the 'cruel tyrant' (one if the meanings of uthr being 'cruel') Ceredig of Strathclyde.

Eventually, for various reasons, I settled on Uther Pendragon as a manufactured character based on the Latin terms used for St. Illtud in that saint's hagiography (magister militum, princeps militum, terribilis miles).  And that, in turn, led me to what appeared to be a confusion of Uther for Sawyl Benisel of the North.  Sawyl's genealogy as found chiefly in the Irish sources, coupled with a newly proposed etymology for Uther's grandson Eliwlad and hypothetical emendations for key passages in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN allowed me to tentatively propose Sawyl as the Dark Age Arthur's father.  Sawyl's Irish connections and his placement next to the Ribchester fort of the Roman-period Sarmatian cavalry seemed to explain why the later Arthurs all belonged to Irish-descended 'horse' dynasties in Britain.  

Unfortunately, there is one major problem with that nice, neat picture: nowhere else in Welsh tradition have I been able to find a single instance of a name + epithet being used as a poetic descriptor for someone who originally had a different name. My only rationale for Illtud as Uther P. was that someone had found it necessary to hide the saint's martial past and then, at some point, it had been forgotten that Uther was Illtud and the former became a separate personage in this heroic tradition.  But Illtud's martial past was not hidden or forgotten.  While nothing detailed about his military exploits has been preserved, we know where he served as master of the soldiers, etc. Thus while the idea that Illtud = Uther is superficially attractive, it is not totally defensible.  Finally, there are several examples in the early Welsh sources of people whose first names are also adjectives, as is the case with Uther.

We can hold onto Sawyl as Arthur's father only by assuming that a Sawyl reference in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN elegy was merely a poetic metaphor, i.e. Illtud as Uther P. was being compared to the Biblical Samuel (although see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/10/an-added-measure-of-confidence-for.html?m=1). And that at some point Sawyl father of Arthur was then wrongly identified with Illtud/Uther. There is nothing really outrageous about this idea, although it does smack of special pleading. 

It doesn't help us at all that Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source then chose to identify Uther P. with the terrible soldier of the Irish COMPERT MONGAN tale, an act which permitted him to appropriate that source's birth story for Arthur.  At the same time he further muddles things by converting the gorlassar epithet Uther uses for himself in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN into the separate personage Gorlois.

This being so, I find myself once more faced with having to make an acutely uncomfortable confession: Uther Pendragon may be simply Uther Pendragon and that's that.  The name can be accepted as a standard name + epithet, and if he were Arthur's father from the very beginning, then the name may have been conjured for no other reason than it worked well in poetic assonance with that of Arthur. Otherwise, there seems to be absolutely nothing we can know about Uther other than the dubious genealogy supplied for him in the Welsh and Galfridian traditions.  A good guess is that Arthur was imaginatively linked with the W. word aruthr (aruthyr). From the GPC:

aruthr

awful, terrible, dreadful, frightful, frightening; fierce, cruel, harsh, merciless; wonderful, astonishing, strange. 

Submit

12g. GCBM i. 295, G()r oet rut y lauyn o lif gwyar, / G()r oet ruthyr aruthyr ar y esgar.

12-13g. GLlLl 53, Duc eil ruthyr, troch aruthyr trachwres, / Tir Lleyn yr llithya() branhes.

13g. GBF 250, Aryf toruoet teruyn hep warthrut, / Aruthyr goeluein brein, Bryneich gystut.

14g. SC viii/ix. 187, ac ot oed aruthyr clybot y twryf. aruthrach oed yn ol hynny idaw gwelet y dieuyl o bop parth idaw.

The probable death-knell for Uther as Sawyl concerns my attempt to etymologize Uther's grandson Eliwlad as an Irish compound composed of aile + flaith. No such compound exists, and a search of Irish records failed to produce a single example of aile flaith. An ala flaith in the eDIL means 'another lord', and flaith aile is found in the Brehon laws.

It's also not impossible that the whole Uther = Illtud identification may be due to the PA GUR poet's TOTALLY FANCIFUL association of Uther with Illtud. In other words, originally Uther was not Illtud at all, but someone else.

For these reasons, and as per my recent talk on O'R GOLWG

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICS0cyB8bqg), our best candidate for the famous Arthur remains L. Artorius Castus.  His mythical status may well have been utilized by the writer of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM and then by the compiler of the ANNALES CAMBRIAE to effectively create a much-needed Dark Age hero.  Such a hero was needed at the time these sources were written, and the floruit provided for him dovetails with that of the Saxon founder of Wessex, Cerdic.  

Revised post: ELIWLAD FLIES AGAIN? or A NEW SOLUTION TO AN ETYMOLOGICAL PROBLEM

             An American Bald Eagle

     at My Home in Washington State

I've just received new information from Dr. Jurgen Uhlich of Trinity College Dublin which further reinforces my theory that Eliwlad son of Madog may be a Welsh reflection of Madoc Ailithir.

The added section to my original post has been put in boldface type.

Note, however, that this is all highly speculative and I, in fact, no longer necessarily champion the Sawyl = Arthur's father theory.  Is the theory still viable? Maybe. I'm just not as confident about it as I once was.  Why?

Because proposing an Irish compound composed of aile + flaith that does not exist in our records is dangerous. Made even more so by the fact that I've only been able to find one instance of 'ala flaith' (in the eDIL), and the phrase means 'another lord', not 'other land.'

I insert this material just to demonstrate that I did not intentionally leave out anything that future researchers may find of value (either in a positive or negative sense).

***

Several years ago I floated a new theory in a book about a possible Ribchester-based Dark Age Arthur. That theory has two related arguments. One, that the kawyl of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN stood for Sawyl, and second that Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther was a Welsh substitution for the Irish ailithir epithet of Madog son of Sawyl Benisel.

Surprisingly, I had obtained a considerable body of scholarly support for the idea. But, ultimately, there were a couple of linguistic problems and I opted to abandon the theory. Chief among these problems was my inability to explain why the Welsh would have substituted gwlad for Irish tir when Welsh had its own tir with the same meaning. There was also the need to propose a very rare metathesis due to a copying error when going from Ir. Aili- to W. Eli-. The only way out of that predicament was to suggest a direct phonological development of Aili- to Eli-. This was deemed quite acceptable, but left us with the gwlad-for-tir issue.

Fortunately, my attempts to come up with a couple of other decent etymologies for Eliwlad (Eiliw-gwlad, Appearance-lord, or Eiliw/Eilyw-gwlad, Grief-lord) had failed.  Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales had voiced his opposition to these:

"I don't think that eiliw [appearance, form, etc.] would regularly reduce to eliw- in composition - I can't think of a comparandum which would prove it. The same is true of eiliw/eilyw [grief, pain, sadness]."

To be honest, I deeply regreted the collapse of the Eliwlad theory. Instinctively, I felt it was right. I really didn't want to let go of it. This stubbornness on my part led me to consider another possibility for transmission of the name Eliwlad.

Supposing, I wondered, Eliwlad had somehow been brought over into Welsh entire from the Irish? This may seem like an obvious question - except that no aile + flaith compound was extant in Irish. As I'd often done when I faced such a dilemma, I contacted Prof. Jurgen Uhlich of Trinity College London and put the question to him.

His complete analysis of the Eliwlad problem from the standpoint of a possible connection with Ir. Aile + flaith follows:

"Such a compound as aile-flaith could of course have existed. Its shape (and thus its reflection in spelling), however, would not feature aili-, as e.g. in ailithir, since while the schwa /ə/ of the second syllable in alilithir is followed by a palatal consonant and needs to be spelled <i> between two palatals, what follows in your example is neutral, hence *aile(f)laith or indeed, if with regular unstressed processing, *ailelaid.

The element <f> of flaith is merely due to etymological spelling, i.e. by recognising that the second element corresponds to the simplex flaith, with an actually pronounced /f/, whereas in second position in a compound like aile(f)laith, the f is non-existent after it (or more precisely its predecessor *u̯) had been lenited to zero, and the <f> was only spelled ‘back in’ for easier etymological recognition (cf. also GOI §231.7 for purely phonetic spellings without such an <f>).

As for your question of timing, the phonetically regular spellings would be Early Old Irish a(i)le(f)laith (including with or without <f>, which is immaterial), with -th still preserved at the end of an unstressed syllable, > Classical Old Irish aile(f)laid with regular voicing in that position (cf. the pattern of cath ‘battle’ and its compound cocad ‘war’, and see further McCone in Ériu 32 (1981), 29-44). In compounds, however, the same etymological ‘recognition’ as discussed for a different feature above could always spell the -th ‘back in’ by association with the simplex flaith, all the while still pronouncing it still with voiced /δ/, or indeed even with the voiceless /θ/ introduced from the simplex. Whatever about these considerations, neither a pronounced /δ/ nor a pronounced /θ/ would correspond to Welsh /d/ in a mechanical = purely phonological loanword, so once again one has to resort to etymological recognition equating not only aile- with eli- but also –(f)laith with native gwlad, which were then put together as the corresponding Welsh compound Eli-wlad, by a process referred to as ‘’loan-translation’. This could work at any period, as long as aile(f)laith/d was understood as aile + flaith."

While that all seemed good, I sensed there was a problem remaining. For Prof. Peter Schrijver hsd told me that Eli- is EXACTLY what we would expect the Welsh to do with an Irish aile. But that is from the standpoint of phonology.  

From the Univeristy of Wales in the relevant words we're dealing with here in the Irish and Welsh:

other *allo-, SEMANTIC CLASS: measure, Gaulish alla; allos; Allo- ‘other; second’, Early Irish all- ‘other’, Welsh all- ‘other’, Breton all ‘other, next (time)’

other, second *aljo-, SEMANTIC CLASS: measure, Celtiberian ailam ‘f (As)’, Gaulish alios ‘other’, Early Irish aile ‘other’, Scottish Gaelic eile ‘other, another’, Welsh ail [often eil in the earliest attestations in the GPC] ‘second; like, similar, comparable with; son, grandson, heir; race’, Cornish eyl ‘one of two’, Breton eil, il (Old Breton), eyl (Middle Breton), eil ‘other’

So, my follow-up question for Dr. Jurgen was this:

If a possible aile + flaith had existed, or even if aile and flaith were joined by the Welsh, and they correctly did the loan-translation of Ir. flaith as W. (g)wlad, why would they do aile as Eli merely from a phonological standpoint? Wouldn't the Welsh simply have substitited all or, less properly, ail/eil? Note that I've run a thorough check for eil to eli metathesis in Welsh, and it's exceedingly rare. In fact, I was only able to find that in a couple instances in a medieval law tract.

To which he responded:

"I do not think it out of the question that in a loan translation, or perhaps adaptation, the two parts of a compound could end up receiving different treatments. (Folk-)etymological recognition can have made them translate flaith directly into gwlad, but the same recognition may not have felt workable for aile-i /al´ə/ in not sufficiently resembling native eil, so it needed to be adapted more ‘literally’ by its sound shape."

Now, this revelation was pretty exciting to me. But it wouldn't do me much good unless I could arrive at a consensus view by involving other Celtic language specialists in the discussion.

So I sent Jurgen's treatment on Eliwlad and aile-flaith first to Prof. Peter Schrijver. His response?

"Yes, that might work."

While not exactly a ringing endorsement, I take this to be a victory as the top linguists are notoriously difficult to satisfy (language laws being by definition quite rigid in their applications). Furthermore, his opinion was followed by agreement on the possibility by Dr. Simon Rodway, Dr. Richard Coates, Prof. Ranko Matasovic and Dr. Alan James.

What was I to do now?

Well, the Uther = Sawyl equation was the only good identification I had for Arthur's father. Otherwise, I was forced to interpret Uther Pendragon as a conjured name. And as Sawyl had Irish connections (his wife was a Dal Fiatach princess) and resided where Sarmatian cavalry had been in garrison for a couple centuries, I could easily account for the later Arthurs in the horse-loving, Irish-founded kingdoms of Dyfed and Dalriada.

It does not matter that Eliwlad is placed by the "Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle" in Cornwall in a 15th century MS. (which Sir Ifor Williams traced back to the 12th century), or that the dead eagle in an oak motif was taken from the Lleu story (the Madoc place-names in Cornwall match those in Nantlle). All of that would have been subsequent story and is not reflective of the earliest tradition. However, Eliwlad as instructor of Christian virtues to Arthur is perfectly paralleled by another medieval didactic poem in which a pilgrim (W. creiriwr; cf. Ir. ailithir) is instructed by Mary Magdalene of Brynbuga. And Prof. Stefan Zimmer has told me that an "other land" designation for Eliwlad may well have contributed to the notion that the other land in question was the Otherworld, i.e. Heaven. Hence Eliwlad appearing in spectral form.

There is an element of the Uther identification with Sawyl that I don't like, of course: the Sarmatian connection. I'm quite sure of that connection because I'd earlier proven that Sawyl Benisel belongs at Samlesbury in Lancashire near Ribchester. And that means the epithet Pendragon will once again be claimed as a reference to the Sarmatian draco.

As my readers know by now, I did a lot of research on the draco standard. My conclusion was that we utterly lacked textual or archaeological evidence for the existence of the Sarmatian draco. The Dacians had one, as did the Alans. So while it would be safe to assume the Sarmatians had their own flying dragon standard, we can't prove that they did. We can say that rather than adhering to strict Welsh poetic usage of the word dragon as a metaphor for "warrior", Sawyl might have been referred to as the "Chief Dragon" of an ethnic group whose totem was the dragon. 

We cannot relate Sawyl's epithet Benisel to Pendragon. Benisel or "Low-head" meant someone who was humble. Penuchel, sometimes substitited for Benisel, conversely meant "High-head", i.e. one who was prideful or arrogant.

Where does this all leave us?

I'm not sure yet. Certainly, if the preferred emendation of Sawyl for kawyl in the Uther elegy is correct - and that does make for a good contextual fit - and we can allow for Eliwlad to have come from Ir. aile-flaith as an epithet identical in meaning to Ailithir (an epithet originally attached to St. Matoc that was wrongly made into Matoc's/Madog's son), then we have a historical candidate for Uther Pendragon. 

I should remind my readers that Uther says in the elegy that God transforms him into a "second kawyl", or rather "second Sawyl." That is to say, a second Samuel, the first being, presumably, the Biblical prophet of that name. The /k/ of kawyl would be due to the common scribal error of eye-skip, the /k/ being dropped down from the /k/ of kawell in the previous line. Kawyl has no meaning in Welsh. It's unlikely to be an error for cannwyll, "candle', for reasons of scribal practice [1] and poetic convention [2], facts made plain by Dr. Simon Rodway and Prof. Marged Haycock (editor of the MARWNAT VTHYR HEN). 

[1]

"1) This requires positing an n-suspension. These do occur occasionally in medieval Welsh MSS, but they are very rare." [NOTE: cannwyll in 4 out of the 5 earliest attestations in GPC is spelled with only one /n/. Simon Rodway told me that n-suspension could account for a missing single /n/ in kawyl, but again, "they are rare in Welsh manuscripts."]

2) The single l would mean suggesting an Old Welsh exemplar, for which there is no other clear evidence in the poem. Elsewhere the scribe has ll where needed, so if he was copying from an examplar with l for ll, then this would be the only occasion on which he didn’t correctly modernize.

Overall, emendation to Sawyl, while totally speculative, involves less issues (eye-skip to kawell), and eil Sawyl, ‘a second Samuel’ gives plausible sense." - SR

[2]

"Kawyl (or Sawyl) is not at the end of the line so is not in this case involved in any prescribed rhyme (tywyll, kawell are proest rhymes)." - MH This is significant because tywyll and cannwyll are found paired in the poetry, but a poet would not pair them unless both were at the ends of their respective lines.

Haycock was also kind enough to approve my reading of kafell ("temple, sanctuary") for kawell (which as it stands would appear to mean "basket"):

"The cafell variant of cawell < Late Latin cauella may already have developed before the first attestation in GPC."

She then concluded with a discussion of end-rhyme: 

"The tywyll and kawell do not form a full rhyme, and are not strictly speaking a normal type of proest (which is a half rhyme where the vowels vary, but consonants match). This is because tywyll contains a diphthong -wy- whereas kawell just has simple vowel. However, some -wy- sounds can morph into a clear -y, in which case tywyll might form a sort of proest with kawell. It seems near enough to pass muster. However, the slight irregularity might suggest to some an emendation to a word ending in -wyll, or alternatively the fem. form of tywyll which is tawell (that would give you full rhyme)."

Needless to say, kawell from cannwyll evinces the same /nn/ problem as we just encountered trying to derive cannwyll from kawyl.

All in all, after applying Occam's Razor to the rather opaque Uther elegy, we have these key lines:

Our God, Chief of the Sanctuary, transforms me;

It's I who's a second Samuel in the gloom

This may well be an allusion to the Biblical Samuel in the darkness of the sanctuary at Shiloh.

Amazon book link:

https://a.co/d/03OFxceq