"On his way to the battle, Uther saw a most remarkable spectacle in the skies. There appeared a star of such magnitude and brilliance that it was seen both day and night. The star emitted a single ray of light that created a fiery mass resembling the body and head of a dragon. Shining from the mouth of the dragon came two rays of light [actually the typical two tails of a comet]. One extended out across the skies of Britain and over Gaul. The other extended out over the Irish Sea culminating in seven lesser beams of light. Such was its magnitude, it could be seen all across Britain and beyond, and filled the people with fear and dread not knowing what it might portend."
Merlin tells the king this about the star:
"For the star, and the fiery dragon under it, signifies yourself, and the ray extending towards the Gallic coast, portends that you shall have a most potent son [Arthur], to whose power all those kingdoms shall be subject over which the ray reaches. But the other ray signifies a daughter, whose sons and grandsons shall successively enjoy the kingdom of Britain.”
If there is any truth to the comet story, we may be talking about the comet of 442 A.D. As the name Arthur was associated with the Welsh word for 'bear', it is significant that the 442 comet appeared in Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The constellation Draco passes between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
In the elegy of Uther, he calls himself gorlassar - a word that Geoffrey of Monmouth made into a separate personage called Gorlois. In the past it has been fashionable to interpret gorlassar, which means literally 'the very blue' or 'the very blue-green', with blue-enameled armor or weapons. But, given that the line of the poem containing gorlassar is soon followed by two lines that place Uther 'in the darkness' as a leader, and 'in the gloom' as a second Samuel, I would maintain that gorlassar is the name or descriptor of the comet with which Uther identifies himself. For as we've seen, Geoffrey did say that "the star, and the fiery dragon under it, signifies yourself."
As I've mentioned before, comets often appear to the naked eye observer as being blueish or greenish or both.
However, there appears to be considerable confusion over the word gorlassar. The GPC consistently relates it to Old Irish lasa(i)r, Irish lasar, 'flame, fire', and to forlas(s)ar, 'a great blaze, great radiance.' When I discussed this with Dafydd Price Jones and Andrew Hawke, they mentioned Old Irish forlas(s)ar, "fire, conflagration" or, as an adjective, "shining, fiery". The problem is that in Welsh glasar means 'greensward, earth.' Even Patrick Sims-Williams links gorlassar to OIr Lasa(i)r (The Iron House in Ireland, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 16 (Cambridge 2005), 11-16; IIMWL 250-7). The calch llassar made by Llassar Llaes Gyfnewid in the MABINOGION is usually rendered 'azure lime', but for llassar to be a 'blue' word in Welsh we need (g)lassar, i.e one initial /l/, not two.
On the other hand, Irish does have forglass - 'very green.' And gorlassar, if like Irish forlassar, should take the form gorllassar, as ll does not mutate after r. However, as Dr. Simon Rodway has informed me:
"One could invoke Old Welsh orthography here in which ll is represented by l. Alternatively, glasar could have developed as a hypercorrect variant of llasar due to a folk etymology connection with glas ‘blue’.
Llasar could be a borrowing of Irish lasair, as GPC says. I suspect that we have a number of different items which have become mixed together here – Latin lazur, Irish lasar + perhaps Med. Latin lazarus ‘beggar, leper’ < the Biblical Lazarus.
Patrick Sims-Williams discusses this in chapter 9 of his Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford, 2011)."
This last reference cited by Rodway has an excellent discussion on the confusion that reigns over these similar-appearing words.
When it comes to gorlassar in the Uther elegy, we must again look to the following two lines which represents Uther as being prominent in darkness or gloom. We must also look to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who does not describe the comet as blue or green or blue-green, but merely emphasizes its bright, fiery nature. With gorlassar as 'great fire' or the like, we would have a description of the comet that matches that provided for us in THE HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.
However, there appears to be considerable confusion over the word gorlassar. The GPC consistently relates it to Old Irish lasa(i)r, Irish lasar, 'flame, fire', and to forlas(s)ar, 'a great blaze, great radiance.' When I discussed this with Dafydd Price Jones and Andrew Hawke, they mentioned Old Irish forlas(s)ar, "fire, conflagration" or, as an adjective, "shining, fiery". The problem is that in Welsh glasar means 'greensward, earth.' Even Patrick Sims-Williams links gorlassar to OIr Lasa(i)r (The Iron House in Ireland, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 16 (Cambridge 2005), 11-16; IIMWL 250-7). The calch llassar made by Llassar Llaes Gyfnewid in the MABINOGION is usually rendered 'azure lime', but for llassar to be a 'blue' word in Welsh we need (g)lassar, i.e one initial /l/, not two.
On the other hand, Irish does have forglass - 'very green.' And gorlassar, if like Irish forlassar, should take the form gorllassar, as ll does not mutate after r. However, as Dr. Simon Rodway has informed me:
"One could invoke Old Welsh orthography here in which ll is represented by l. Alternatively, glasar could have developed as a hypercorrect variant of llasar due to a folk etymology connection with glas ‘blue’.
Llasar could be a borrowing of Irish lasair, as GPC says. I suspect that we have a number of different items which have become mixed together here – Latin lazur, Irish lasar + perhaps Med. Latin lazarus ‘beggar, leper’ < the Biblical Lazarus.
Patrick Sims-Williams discusses this in chapter 9 of his Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford, 2011)."
This last reference cited by Rodway has an excellent discussion on the confusion that reigns over these similar-appearing words.
When it comes to gorlassar in the Uther elegy, we must again look to the following two lines which represents Uther as being prominent in darkness or gloom. We must also look to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who does not describe the comet as blue or green or blue-green, but merely emphasizes its bright, fiery nature. With gorlassar as 'great fire' or the like, we would have a description of the comet that matches that provided for us in THE HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.
And the same described in http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.22.8795&rep=rep1&type=pdf:
"442
A star which is called a comet shone for a long time - Marcellinus 442 + AI 442. Ho Peng-Yoke (1962, p.163) cites as follows: ‘10th November 442 “... a comet appeared at Thien Lao [Ursa Major] ... More than a hundred days later it disappeared in the W.”’, making identification quite certain, but AI has clearly borrowed it from the chronicle of Marcellinus of Constantinople, see Mommsen (1894, p.37-108)."
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