DINAS EMRYS AND UTHER PENDRAGON

Segontium Crossed Serpents from the Notitia Dignitatum

In past publications I have detailed my reasons for doubting the veracity of ANY ASPECT of the Dinas Emrys story.  I have not changed my mind on this matter.  But there is one thing that is very important to bear in mind when reading about Vortigern's "giving" of Dinas Emrys to another king: this is a reflection of an actual historical event, i.e. the transfer of that stronghold, either by conquest and de facto recognition and/or through a federate arrangement, from British authority to that of a chieftain of an Irish fian. The fian in question (see eDIL under the entry for fian, and that for Gwynedd in John Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA) is probably the one that gave its name to Gwynedd.

In my book THE BEAR KING, I provided the instances in which dragons/serpents/snakes were associated with Gwynedd in the early sources.  These may be summarized as follows:

1) Dragons of Dinas Emrys – with Emrys and Vortigern

2) Crossed serpent standard of Segontium military unit in Notitia Dignitatum.  Segontium has strong associations with a Constantine. 

3) Maglocunus/Maelgwn as the ‘dragon of the isle’ (draco insularis)

4) The Pharoah’s (i.e. Vortigern’s) Red Dragon (standard? Metaphor for the Britons?) in the Gwarchan Maeldderw

5) In the Gorchan of Tudfwlch, the hero – from Eifionydd in Gwynedd, an area in north-west Wales covering the south-eastern part of the Llŷn Peninsula from Porthmadog to just east of Pwllheli  – is called the serpent with a terrible sting, and his place of origin is alluded to as the snakes’ lair.  Eifionydd, named for Ebiaun son of Dunod son of Cunedda, is the northern half of the kingdom of Dunoding and is hard by Dinas Emrys in Arfon.  

6) Owen Gwynedd is referred to by the poet Gwalchmai as the 'dragon of Mona' 

So all of these ‘dragons’ cluster in Gwynedd.  And that means that Gwynedd is of potential interest in our search for a valid candidate for Uther Pendragon.  Uther is, of course, associated with Dinas Emrys. even though the place was confused/conflated with Amesbury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

Long ago, I discussed several different facets of the serpents/dragons motif associated with Dinas Emrys.  While the story is complex, there are three primary elements that appear to have come together in the folktale.  First, funeral urns containing chieftains, i.e. 'dragons', were discovered in a pool within the fort (a feature confirmed by archaeology).  Second, the cloth with which these urns were sealed (or which wrapped the cremated bones of the said dragons) were decorated with the crossed serpents of the nearby Segontium/Caernarfon garrison.  [These were perhaps symbolic of the two serpents of the Herakles birth myth - a birth myth which also includes the transformation of the father into the guise of another man's wife, as in the tales of the begetting of Mongan by Manannan Mac Lir and Arthur by Uther.  The Hercules Saegon- or Hercules 'the Strong' of Silchester bears a Celtic name or epithet which contains the same root as that of Segontium.] And, three, the dragons "morphed" into the respective genii of the Britons and the Saxons.

Complicating all of this is the storyteller's misunderstanding of the significance of red and white animals in Welsh tradition.  The mix of colors designated creatures whose origin lay in the Celtic Otherworld.  As far as snakes in Gwynedd are concerned, I provided a naturalist's explanation in an earlier article (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/01/red-and-white-otherworld-animals-in.html).  The differentiation of a white snake and a red snake into the genii of the Saxons and Britons would, therefore, have been an invention of the storyteller.

[For those interested in watching a combat between two male adders, watch the last portion of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TF7d4jvays.]

The association of Ambrosius with this place is due solely to the presence of Lleu at Caer Dathal.  I've shown that Ambrosius, the 'divine/immortal one', was used as a poetic descriptor for the god.  The historical A. was a conflation of St. Ambrose and his Gallic governor father.  Neither were ever in Wales.  Nor were they at Amesbury in Wiltshire.  Thus, originally, the serpents of Dinas Emrys had nothing whatsoever to do with Ambrosius.  

Uther was said to have come from Brittany or Llydaw in Welsh.  There are only a couple places called Llydaw in Wales.  One is under 6 kilometers north of Dinas Emrys: Llyn Llydaw.

Even better, the Afon Glaslyn starts at Glaslyn and flows via Llyn Llydaw to Llyn Dinas, the 'Lake of the Fort [of Emrys].'

Uther is also said by Geoffrey of Monmouth (and no one disputed this) to be the son of a Constantine - one who seems vaguely modeled on the usurper Constantine III.  This brings to mind the fact that Segontium was referred to as Caer Custoeint or the 'Fort of Constantine' in Welsh tradition.  Here is Bartram's information on this subject:

"In the Historia Brittonum §25 we are told that the fifth Roman emperor to visit Britain was ‘Constantine son of Constantine the Great, and there he dies and his tomb is shown near the city which is called Cair Segeint [Caernarfon], as letters tell which are on the stone of his tumulus. And he sowed three seeds, that is of gold, silver and bronze, in the pavement of the aforesaid city, that no poor person might ever dwell in it, and it is called by another name, Minmanton.’ From this we cannot doubt that there existed an inscribed tombstone to an imperial person of the name Constantine. Some learned person early “corrected” the Contantinus, Constantini magni filius of the above text into Constantius, Constantini magni filius (Vatican MS.) and at least one learned copyist changed this to Constantius, Constantini magni pater, and there was added to Cair Segeint the words vel Cair Costain (The Cambridge MSS, and Durham MS.). In Hanes Gruffudd ap Cynan we read that Earl Hugh built a castle ‘in Arfon in the old fortress of Constantine, emperor, son of Constans the Great’. (Ed.Arthur Jones p.7). Again in Flores Historiarum (ed. Rolls iii.59) we are told that in the year 1283 ‘at Carnarvon the body of a great prince (var.emperor) father of the noble Constantine was found, and it was honourably interred in the church by the joyful king [Edward I]’. From the above evidence Wade-Evans concluded (1) that on a tombstone near Segontium there appeared the name Constantinus and also forms of the words princeps or imperator, and magnus or maximus (or both); (2) that the format of the epitaph was unfamiliar to the author of the passage in the Historia Brittonum, much more so to the men of the thirteenth century; and (3) that since Maximus (Macsen Wledig), his wife Elen, and his son Peblig are associated with that locality, there is a strong presumption that the Constantinus of the tombstone was the son of the emperor Maximus, that is, Custennin ap Macsen Wledig of the pedigrees. See Arch.Camb., 85 (1930), pp.334-5. It should be noted, however, that Constantine was the name of the eldest son of Constantine the Great. He was emperor 337-340 and received Gaul, Britain and part of Africa at his father's death. He made war on his brother, Constans, who governed Italy, but was defeated and slain near Aquileia (Smith's Classical Dictionary). Of over 1000 Roman coins discovered in the neighbourhood of Segontium there are 12 of Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, 74 of Constantine the Great, and 43 of his son Constantine II. See Cy. 33 p.123, Arch.Camb., 77 pp.314f. R.S.Loomis suggested that the large number of coins inscribed with the name of Constantine was perhaps the reason for the legend concerning the seeds of gold, silver and brass mentioned in the Historia Brittonum (Wales and the Arthurian Legend, pp.2-4)."

In the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN ('Elegy of Uther Pen'), one of the men linked in battle to the dead hero is one Gwythyr or 'Victor.'  I once thought this to be the Gwythyr son of  Greidiol of CULHWCH AND OLWEN, who is placed in the North [1].  But as Magnus Maximus was also placed at Segontium by the Welsh, we might speculate that the Victor in question is meant to be Flavius Victor, son of Magnus Maximus and another usurping emperor.  [I should add that a unit of Seguntienses thought to be from the Gwynedd Segontium served near Aquileia in Italy, where Maximus was executed.  Maximus, of course, had dealings with St. Ambrose.]

Owain Finddu (= Eugenius), claimed as another son of Magnus Maximus, fought and was slain by a giant at Dinas Emrys.  His grave is called Bedd Owen (see Beudy Bedd-Owen on the map below).  The 'Finddu' or "black-lip" epithet may seem strange until we remember that the usurper Eugenius had been a magister scriniorum.  Thus his lips were black from licking his quill pen.  This particular Eugenius was not in any sense British, so his placement at Dinas Emrys is merely another folktale.

A couple other names in the elegy are worth investigating more closely, as they seem to point to locations in Gwynedd.  

Henpen is someone who probably belongs in Gwynedd.  Here is the note on the name from Marged Haycock's edition of the poem:

"Henpen is a personal name, or possibly a nickname, as in LlDC 18.219

Bed Hennin Henben yn aelwyt Dinorben (Abergele, Denbighshire), presumably

the same character as Hennin father of Garwen (em.) LlDC 18.217, and Henin

Hen, father of Garwen in Triad 57 (see TYP3 397), and possibly to be equated

with Heinin Vardd, chief poet at the Degannwy court of Maelgwn Gwynedd in

YT line 374, 380; and 200 Henin. See further on §8.24."

If this is the right Henben, then the speaker of the relevant line may be Taliesin himself, and not Uther.  But it still an important reference to NW Wales.

The location of pen mynyd may also be important.  Here is the note from Haycock:

"Pen mynydd simply ‘on the mountain top’; although a reference to

Penmynydd, Anglesey, a house of the Tudur family in the 14c (see GGM I, 14-

15) cannot be ruled out. Cynddelw refers to Penmynydd in his praise-poem to St

Tysilio who had connections with Anglesey as well as with Meifod in Powys

(CBT III 3.196)."

Henry Tudor is known to have used the red dragon in battle.  When we look on a modern map of Penmynydd, we note a curious adjacent place-name: DRAGON.  Earlier maps show a cluster of dragon names at the site, including a Dragon-wen and Dragon-goch - the red and white dragons of Dinas Emrys.  

A folktale on a dragon exists for this place, one that clearly sounds a lot like the one that much earlier became attached to Dinas Emrys.

https://www.anglesey-today.com/the-giant-snake-of-penhesgyn-an-old-anglesey-legend.html

There are Norse and Russian parallels to this folktale. But the elegy's pen mynyd must certainly be this place on Anglesey.  

Mabon is made the 'gwas' of Uther Pendragon, and this god, though as a 'predatory bird' is said to be of Elei, is also found in death at Nantlle in Arfon.  It is at Nantlle that we find Lleu in the form of a death-eagle.  This should be considered evidence that Welsh tradition tended to identity the two sun gods.  

I've several times treated of the very important, yet very troublesome lines -

Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:

It’s I who’s styled ‘Armed in Blue’:

vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.

my ferocity snared my enemy.

5 Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:

It is I who’s a leader in darkness:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.

. . . . .

Neu vi eil Sawyl5 yn ardu:

It’s I who’s a second Sawyl in the gloom:

Given the context, Sawyl as an emendation is plainly wrong.  The MS. original word kawyl is for kan(n)wyl, a word meaning not only candle, luminary, transf. of star, sun, moon, lamp, but also fig. of leader, hero.  Thus "It's I who's a second luminary/leader in the gloom" matches the line "It's I who's a leader in darkness."  Gorlassar remains a problem.  I've suggested several possible meanings, drawing on the work of previous scholars as well as some of my own original ideas.  It's literal meaning is "very blue", "very green" or "very blue/green".  The word translated 'styled' here is more generally rendered 'called' or 'named', sometimes 'known as'.  

And then there is Line 6, which seems to describe Uther (or Taliesin?) assuming a form or appearance, something that sounds suspiciously like his becoming Gorlois (derived by Geoffrey of Monmouth from Uther's own gorlassar title) through the magic of Merlin.

Here again is Haycock's note to the line:

"6 a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell G emends am dwy > an Dwy(w) ‘our Lord’,

understood as the subject of 3sg. subjunct. rithwy ‘transform’ etc., but yn adwy

‘in the breach’ or yn ardwy ‘as a defence’ would give a more regular three

syllables in the central section. Kawell ‘basket, pannier; cradle; fish-trap; creel,

cage; quiver; belly, breast’ (GPC) seems unlikely, as do cowyll ‘maidenhood-fee;

clothing, covering’ (with G s.v. coŵyll), sawell ‘chimney, kiln’ (see on §4.246),

or nawell ‘nine times better’. Cannwyll is sometimes a rhyme partner for tywyll

(e.g. AP line 88 cannwyll yn tywyll; CC 18.13; R1056.15), and would yield full

rhyme. ‘May our Lord, the guiding/chief light, transform me’ is a possibility; or

(with yn adwy) ‘May the guiding/chief light (i.e. God) transform me in the

breach’. Or is pen kawell a basket to collect up the heads he cuts off (line 18)? If

Uthr is the speaker, is vb rithaw to be connected with his transformation through

disguise (see introduction)? Obscure."

What Uther tranforms into in this context is not in question; it is the 'second luminary/leader' referred to in the following line.  Presumably, God himself is the first or primary light.  There are really only two good possibilities for kawell: 1) cawell, i.e. basket, pannier, cradle, fish-trap, creel, cage; quiver; fig. belly, breast or 2) cafell (related to cawell), 'sanctuary, temple, chancel, choir, cell, chamber'. If cawell, we might have Taliesin speaking here and not Uther, for Taliesin with his bright forehead first appeared at night in the hide-covered basket or coracle in the fish-weir of Gwyddno on the River Conwy at Degannwy.  If cafell, then the pen cafell would mean 'chief of the sanctuary' and here designates God.

I flirted with the idea that pen kawell was for a Pen Cawell, an actual place-name.  But there was only one such place - Kingscavil in West Lothian.  Kingscavil as it stands is Gaelic, but place-name expert John Wilkinson thinks it may be from the British.  Kingscavil, as it happens, appears to lie in the Manau Gododdin from which Cunedda and his sons were erroneously said to have hailed.

It is not impossible that cannwyll could mean 'star' in Line 7, and this suggested to me that we could be referring here to the dragon-comet of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was said to represent Uther himself.  But, in truth, the earliest Welsh tradition derives the Ddraig Goch or Red Dragon from the monster who appears in the Dinas Emrys story.  Geoffrey's story of the comet is, in any case, wrong in a very obvious sense: comets marked the deaths of kings.  Thus the dragon-star's appearance on the death of Ambrosius should properly point to Ambrosius as the dragon, and not to Uther.  It is worth noting that in the French Arthurian romances, Ambrosius is called Pendragon.  I had once tried to make the case that Uther Pendragon was merely a title applied to Ambrosius of dragon fame, especially as Vortigern was said to be in dread (timore) of him.  Uthr in Welsh has as two primary meanings 'fearful, dreadful.'

Now, if the red dragon (see the  "Gwarchan Maeldderw", G.R. Isaac's translation and commentary in CAMBRIAN MEDIEVAL CELTIC STUDIES 44, Winter 2002) even belonged to Vortigern, we are tempted to dispense even with the Dinas Emrys story and fall back on the more common explanation for the dragon's origin, i.e. that it evolved from the draco standard of the Roman army.  But if we do this, what to make of the red dragon of Dinas Emrys?

An important thing to remember is that Geoffrey claimed Uther was buried at Amesbury.  As Amesbury was confused with Dinas Emrys, we might reasonably ask whether one of the dragons dug up in the cremation urns at this latter fort was, in fact, the charred bones of Uther himself.  This idea may seem strange, but cannot be discounted.  Of course, we are talking about Geoffrey here, whose "history" is almost exclusively a work of fiction.   For St. Ambrose's exhumation of a saint named Celsus (the meaning of which matches that of the original form of Uther, according to Professor John Koch), see the latter portion of 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/01/st-ambrose-and-exhumation-of-saints.html.

Geoffrey has Ambrosius buried at Stonehenge, as well as Arthur's supposed successor, Constantine, believed to be in this instance the Constantine of Dumnonia castigated in the pages of Gildas.  But we have seen that Caernarfon/Segontium with its insignum of two red crossed snakes was thought of as the City of Constantine. 

According to COFLEIN (https://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/95284/details/dinas-emrys), 

"Excavations [at Dinas Emrys], in 1910 and 1954-6, have produced evidence for Iron Age, Roman and early Medieval (Dark Age) occupation, whilst some of the surviving stone work is also thought to be medieval in date."  

Thus we KNOW that there was a Dark Age/Sub-Roman chieftain ruling at the fort.  Furthermore, we might reasonably postulate that whoever this was may have dug up funeral bones wrapped in cloth that bore the crossed red dragons of Segontium.  With proven Roman use, the command of the fort might well have been entrusted to members of the Segontium garrison.  There may even have been descendants of these troops present in the 5th century.  But whether through continuity of habitation or reoccupation following the Roman withdrawal, the Dark Age ruler of Dinas Emrys might well be expected to keep or adopt the Red Dragon(s) standard of his predecessors.  

As the crossed serpents represented two male vipers locked in a typical battle over a female, it was only natural to separate them out into two warring genii of the Britons and the Saxons.  Confusion over the battles of males and the breeding of white males with red females, as well as the Welsh penchant for red and white Otherworld animals, may have contributed to the alteration of the Segontium insignum.  So instead of two red dragons we ended up with one.  

If this is indeed what happened, it is impossible to disentangle Uther Pendragon from Dinas Emrys.  We would not be able to theorize that Uther actually belonged somewhere in the North, and that he had been relocated in legend to Wales.  His use of the Ddraig Goch would be proof that he belongs in Gwynedd, and specifically in Arfon.

At the beginning of this blog post, I mentioned that the Irish chieftain who received Dinas Emrys and all of western Wales from Vortigern the High King was leader of the fian for whom Gwynedd was named.  The question then naturally becomes, who was this chieftain?

Well, we know historically that all of northwestern Wales came into the possession of Cunedda and his son.  In my book THE BEAR KING, which proposes that Ceredig son of Cunedda/Cerdic of the Gewissei of Wessex = Arthur, the obvious conclusion is that Uther Pendragon - here not a name plus epithet, as in common in early Welsh personal names, but instead a descriptor of someone else - should be identified with Cunedda himself.  

Arfon was conquered by Cadwallon Llawhir ('Long-hand/arm'' cf. Lamhfota, an epithet for the Irish god Lugh, whose Welsh counterpart is Lleu of Gwynedd).  Cadwallon is the son of Einion Yrth son of Cunedda.  This grandson of the great Ciannachta chieftain ruled from Anglesey:

http://www.tpwilliams.co.uk/Llys_Caswallon/cas1.htm

http://www.walesher1974.org/her/groups/GAT/media/GAT_Reports/GATreport_858_compressed.pdf

https://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/406088/details/llys-caswallon-near-pengorffwysfa

So what to do with Uther Pendragon at Dinas Emrys?

I would like to make a suggestion.  Could it be that Dinas Emrys with its two serpents is simply a relocation for Segontium/Caernarfon?  

While we have no evidence that Cunedda or his immediate descendants had a court at Segontium, it would be reasonable to assume that Irish settlers seeking to dominate the region would select as their primary base of operations the most significant coastal Roman fort/town at their disposal.  The COFLEIN site says this about Roman Segontium:

"Archaeological excavations have shown that it accommodated a regiment of auxiliary infantry of up to 1,000 soldiers. Coins recovered from excavations show that it was garrisoned until about AD 394. Such a long occupation was unique in Wales, and was possibly due to the strategic position of the fort, controlling access to the fertile and mineral rich lands of Anglesey and by its later role in the defence of the Welsh coast against Irish raiders and pirates. Throughout the Roman period, Segontium was the military and administrative centre of north-west Wales."

Professor John Koch says this of Cunedda and Segontium in his CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA:

A second name for Segontium found in the Welsh sources is Mirmantun or 'Merfyn's town.'  The Merfyn in question is Merfyn Frych, king of Gwynedd in the 9th century.  Obviously at this time the main court of the country was at Caernarfon.

Archaeology has recently found evidence for early medieval occupation of Caernarfon:

http://www.heneb.co.uk/llanbeblig/llanbebligmain.html

Anglesey is not said to have been cleared of the Irish until the time of Cadwallon, so the idea that Cunedda ruled from Aberffraw on the island is not very convincing.  It is likely Aberffraw was established as a llys or court only after Cadwallon had cleared competing Irish war-bands from Mon.  Cunedda must have ruled from someplace else - and Segontium is the most logical location.  

The transfer of the serpents from Segontium, where they belonged with the garrison unit, to Dinas Emrys may have taken place for no other reason than two "dragons"/chieftains were dug up in the cremation urns at Dinas Emrys (where, as I mentioned above, there may also have been members of the Segontium garrison during the Roman period).  The actual chieftain who was given western Wales by Vortigern did not, in fact, reside at Dinas Emrys, but rather at Segontium.  

And his name was Cunedda.

[1] Gwythyr/Victor competes with Gwyn son of Nudd for the goddess Creiddylad daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint in CULHWCH AND OLWEN.  It has long been recognized that Creiddylad is Geoffrey of Monmouth's Cordelia.  While Cordelia is made the daughter of the sea god Lir, Creiddylad's father is the Welsh version of the Irish god Nuadu Silver-hand.  In Geoffrey's pseudo-history, Cunedda is inserted into the Cordelia story.  From Bartram:

"CUNEDDA ap HENWYN. (Fictitious). (805-772 B.C.) A fictitious king of Britain, called by Geoffrey of Monmouth Cunedagius son of Henuinus, Duke of Cornwall, by Regau, daughter of Leir. He and his cousin Margan made insurrection against A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY 172 Cordeilla, daughter of Leir, when she was queen of Britain, and put her in prison where she made away with herself. The two cousins then divided the island between them, Margan having the part north of the Humber and Cunedda the rest. Margan invaded the lands of Cunedda, but was defeated and slain. Cunedda then reigned over the whole island gloriously for thirty-three years, and on his death was succeeded by his son, Rivallo [Rhiwallon] (HRB II.15-16). Brut y Brenhinedd tells the same story of Cunedda ap Henwyn."

In the MARWNAD CUNEDDA, the chieftain is put in Bryneigh/Bernicia against the English, as well as at Carlisle and Caer Weir (probably Durham). Once again, this is because he was mistakenly said to come from Manau Gododdin, when in reality he came from Durmanagh in Ireland.  

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