CAN THE IDENTIFICATION OF A HISTORICAL ARTHUR ALL HANG ON ONE NAME?

Golden Eagle Perched in an Oak Tree

My readers may remember my conniption fits regarding how to properly etymologize the name Eliwlad, a supposed son of Madog son of Uther.  There were only two possible derivations.  

One sought to link the name to an early Welsh Eiliw-(g)wlad, meaning 'Grief-lord' or the like.  While this proposed form could be made to work with enough "allowable" developments, there was a problem with seeing the second element, gwlad, as being lord or prince.  This is because there is only slight evidence of gwlad being used in the Irish sense of prince in the earliest Welsh sources.  Otherwise, it is ONLY used to mean land or kingdom.  Prince or lord is gwledig in Welsh.

My first theory - which sees in Eliwlad son of Madog a reflection of Matoc Ailithir, son of Sawyl of Ribchester (of the Sarmatian veterans) - had gathered significant support from top Celtic linguists, both from the Welsh and Irish side of the argument.  Other factors came into play that seemed to support the Eliwlad-Ailithir equation. I wrote about these in detail in several articles and included them in my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER.

While I eventually decided to abandon the Ailithir idea, I've since received yet more positive feedback from scholars on the plausible nature of Eliwlad as a Welsh adaption of St. Madog's epithet.

Why did I opt to discard the Eliwlad-Ailithir comparison to begin with?

Principally three reasons:

1) The aforementioned alternative etymology of *Eiliw-(g)wlad.

2) I had traced Eliwlad son of Madog as an eagle in an oak tree from the Cornish site where he is placed in the 'Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle' poem to an identically named Madog place in Nantlle, where the god Lleu appears as a spectral eagle in an oak in the MABINOGION.  However, while the Lleu story may well have contributed to the motif, I was able to show that Matoc Ailithir's feast day was April 25 and that matched Luke's feast day.  According to Irenaeus, Luke was the eagle.  

3) I received major, emphasized consensus from Roman historians and epigraphers on the preferred reading of ARMENIOS for the Lucius Artorius Castus memorial stone.  None - not one - would accept the ARMATOS reading proposed by Dr. Linda Malcor and her colleagues.  Well, there were a couple who thought it possible, even preferred it, but in face of the evidence for Armenia, they forsook that position.  I am not willing to accept ARMATOS - but not in reference to some ill-defined foe in Britain when we have nothing in the sources to support that notion.  Instead, I would see LAC as being sent by the legionary legates (Dio's "lieutenants") as leader of three legionary detachments (the 1500 spearmen) to demand Perennis be handed over.  Why this could happen (where was the governor Marcus Antius Crescens Calpurnianus or the acting-governor, Lucius Ulpius Marcellus?) is something I shall have to return to in the near future.

In this context, ARMATOS, armed men or soldiers, would be a deliberately vague reference to the Praetorians.  Perennis was given up to the British soldiers and killed. Truth is, while LAC could have gone to Armenia when the Roman governor of Britain was sent there, we have no record of three legionary detachments being used in that war.

So where to go from here?

Well, in the next week or so I will be deciding, once and for all, which argument to settle on.  Either I will end up with an Arthur based at Ribchester or I will end up with an Arthur who appears to have had nothing to do with Sarmatians.

I will post my conclusion here, of course.