ELIWLAD FLIES AGAIN or IS THERE STILL HOPE FOR A NORTHERN ARTHUR CANDIDATE?

Tremabyn Near Cutmadoc and Castle Canyke/Kelliwic

Years ago now, I first proposed that the name Eliwlad was a substitute for Irish Ailithir, an epithet given to Matoc (Madog) son of Sawyl Benisel (or Benuchel).  This particular Sawyl I had managed to place at the Ribchester Roman fort.  I abandoned the idea, despite significant academic backing on my linguistic argument from several world-renowned Celticists.  The reason I did so came down to one simple point: I could not justify the use of Welsh -(g)wlad for Irish -thir (= tir).  Welsh from very early on had tir, with exactly the same meaning as Irish tir.  Why, then, would gwlad have been substituted for tir? So while my solution seemed clever, it also appeared to be fatally flawed.

But should Eliwlad be dispensed with so summarily?  I recalled what Professor Stefen Zimmer had told me about the name:

"We have to consider an alternative to 'pilgrim', however, viz. that the 'other land'/Ailithir referred to might be the 'Otherworld' , so that the bearer of the epithet may have been named so for assumed/desired magical qualities." 

I and others had long recognized that the nature of Eliwlad favored an identification with either the god Lleu or Mabon.  Both gods took eagle form, like Eliwlad, with Lleu and Madog's son both perching in oaks. Lleu and Mabon were said to be buried at Nantlle in Gwynedd.  This implied an identification of the two gods in Welsh tradition.  What I had to do, then, was show that Sawyl father of Matoc Ailithir was connected to Mabon somehow.  It is true that the Roman period Maponus is attested at the Ribchester of the northern Sawyl.  But I didn't find this to be a sufficiently strong match to Uther's association with Mabon. 

Maponus at Ribchester 

(https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/583)

There was a Sawyl in southern Wales who appears to have been confused in tradition with the Northern chieftain of the same name.  This southern Sawyl left his name at Llansawel in Carmarthenshire.  His traditional burial place was Banc Benisel on Allt Cunedda (see http://www.kidwellyhistory.co.uk/Articles/AlltCunedda/AlltCunedda.htm). I had found it very strange that a man who bore the name Sawyl, which belonged to one of my candidates for the father of a Northern Arthur, just happened to be buried at a place named for Cunedda.  The latter is the father of Ceredig ( = Cerdic of the Gewissei), my candidate for a Southern Arthur.  And here they were together in the same place!

In http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/giants_wales.html we find the following:

"And in the land of Caerfyrddin in Llan Sawel were four giants, and these were four brothers, namely Mabon Gawr, and the place where this giant dwelt is called today by the name Castell Fabon; and the second is called Dinas Gawr, and the place he dwelt is still called Caer Dinas Gawr. And the third is called Chwilcin or Wilcin Gawr, and the place he dwelt in is still called Caer Wilcin. And the fourth is called Celgan Gawr, and the place he lived in is still called Caer Celgan."

Castell Fabon is probably a reference to the hillfort that once stood atop Pen y Dinas near Llansawel.  It has been hauled off during quarrying in the modern period.

What we have, then, is a tradition of Mabon (in this folklore context being converted into a giant) at a place named for a Sawyl who was confused with a man of that name in the north who had a son named Madog. And who himself lived at a place where Maponus worship is attested. 

This gives me enough to be able to float the following idea, although I know it will seem far-fetched to some:

Eliwlad was originally a Welsh "translation" or substitution for Ailithir.  But Matoc's/Madog's epithet was transformed into a second person and made the son of Madog.  In addition, because the "name" was interpreted as meaning 'Other world', this newly created character was identified with the Mabon/Maponus with whom Sawyl was already associated in legend.

That the pilgrim meaning of Ailithir was also known at some point is demonstrated by what Oliver J. Padel had to say about the Eliwlad poem:

“Barry Lewis has pointed out that a sixteenth-century dialogue between a creiriwr [crair + -iwr in the GPC] (‘pilgrim’) and Mary Magdalene of Brynbuga (the town of Usk) is remarkably similar in both form and content to the dialogue with the Eagle…”

What to do now with  Ceredig son of Cunedda?

If I revert to Sawyl Benisel/Benuchel of Ribchester as the Terrible Chief-warrior/Uther Pendragon, what to make of my argument for Cerdic of the Gewissei as the southern Arthur?

Well, I would say that particular theory is in some jeopardy.  Despite there being much to recommend it (my case is both complex and comprehensive, and many might say convincing), it still suffers from the same shortcoming evinced in all prior theories: a real, tangible, non-Galfridian genealogical link for Uther and Arthur - preserved in the early Welsh sources - cannot be found to support it.  This problem has haunted me now for years.  If we adopt the Eliwlad (= Ailithir) son of Madog son of Uther (= Sawyl) pedigree, everything is nicely resolved. Pendragon, if we dare relate the epithet to the draco, would be right at home at Ribchester, which is where the retired Sarmatian soldiers were settled.  Sawyl's queen was an Irish princess and this may help account for the fact that all subsequent Arthurs in the Dark Age belonged to Irish-descended dynasties in Britain.    

Madog is the sticking point here for me, personally.  The name is rare in the early period.  It is not attached to Cunedda or to his son Ceredig. 

It is certainly possible that Arthur, though he belonged to the North, was intended as a counter to the southern Cerdic of Wessex.  Or that the former was misidentified with the latter. I have struggled with the role of the Gewissei, as English sources claim they were fighting with the English against the Britons.  The Welsh, however, insist that Arthur was fighting with the Britons against the English.

Geoffrey of Monmouth did us no favor when he attached Arthur to a Breton-Cornish family.  This served only to permanently relocate Arthur to the extreme Southwest, a location most legitimate scholars no longer support as viable in a geographical sense.

My arrangement of Arthurian military battles in the North, as it happens, fits perfectly with a war-leader based in what was the kingdom of the ancient Setantii.  So that, at least, is not an incongruity.

In the near future I will take yet another look at my Ceredig = Arthur theory to see if there are any discrepancies or logical blunders in its composition.  Until then, I must carefully reexamine the possible presence in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN of the name Sawyl (something I had previously discounted) and once again contend with the dragon-star/draco.