NOTE: The material on Dinas Emrys as Caer Dathal, maintained below, was updated later on when a good translation of a key line of the MABINOGION tale 'Math son of Mathonwy' was provided to me. The site of Uther's kindred is actually elsewhere in Arfon, and I will reveal that in a new blog post shortly.
Dinas Emrys Hillfort
Having written this post just the other day -
- it has become painfully clear to me that I have reached a major crux in my decades of Arthurian research. It is now time to, as they say, "Put up or shut up." Decision time, once and for all. Something that I have been chary to do, given the ambiguity of the source materials pertaining to Arthur and the plethora of theories those materials have spawned.
Everything comes down to how I choose to read those critical lines of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN:
May our God, the chief luminary, transform me
It's I whose a second Sawyl in the gloom
or as
May our God transform me, the Chief Basket
It's I whose like a star in the gloom
In the first case, I must see in the emendation 'Sawyl' something beyond mere poetic metaphor. I must see in it either St. Illtud (based upon a perhaps dubious placement of Uther at Dinas Powys of the River Ely in the PA GUR poem) or Sawyl Benisel of the North, himself wrongly conflated with St. Illtud due to the latter's Latin military titles. I'm not particularly happy with either of these, although in the past I have tried making much of both. The beginning of the end for the Sawyl of Ribchester idea is represented by my failure to prove the existence of the Sarmatian draco
In the second case, I can utilize kawell unemended to identify Uther with Ceawlin/Cunedda (acceptable in terms of poetic usage for the elegy in question), and I can demonstrate how Geoffrey of Monmouth came up with his dragon star by rendering kawyl as can[n]wyl (something perfectly allowable, according to Welsh language experts like Dr. Simon Rodway). Opting for this choice happens to dovetail nicely with Caer Dathal/Dinas Emrys as the site of the kin of Arthur's father according to CULHWCH AND OLWEN. The dragon connection with Uther can only be maintained if we fall back on the dragons of Dinas Emrys.
That all seems deceptively simple, doesn't it? I'm amused and not a little embarrassed that it has taken me so long to reach a conclusion that in and of itself seems self-evident. Yet odd little details can so easily derail a theory that initially seems incredibly promising. When I made the possible connection between Pen Kawell and Ceawlin - how long ago now? - I was ecstatic and thought for sure I had made a huge discovery. But then I received what appeared to be very bad news from a couple of Welsh experts, viz. that kawell did not match the required end-rhyme pattern and so the emendment to cannwyll (candle, and by extension a luminary or heavenly body) was required. Well, I believed them and abandoned the theory - and felt that to be a crushing defeat. Indeed, it took me a good long time to recover from my disappointment. Eventually, after I had gone down several other false paths of investigation, I decided to take another stab at kawell. This time I managed to find scholars who were better equipped to answer my question - including the actual modern editor of the poem, Professor Marged Haycock. And their answer literally blew me away: kawell was, in fact, allowable given the structure of the poem and the rules of composition under which it was crafted.
As a result of this revelation, I am putting forward as my favorite Arthurian theory one that identifies Uther Pendragon with the great Cunedda, and his son Ceredig ( = Cerdic of Wessex) with Arthur.
My book THE BEAR KING: ARTHUR AND THE IRISH IN WALES AND SOUTHERN ENGLAND will soon be reissued, and I will not be seeking to keep other books in print. As I have no new research on the horizon, and have no new resources at my disposal, my work on Arthur is being suspended. I may return to the hero in the future, but if so it will only be if some new discovery is made by someone else, or a better argument surfaces for a historical candidate. I'm not entirely forsaking the possibility of producing some fiction on Arthur, but for now I'm very much in need of a protracted break. My obsession with things Arthurian has taken a toll and it's time for me to move on at last.
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