Hill of Uisneach
Many years ago I pointed out that the story of Emrys ( = Ambrosius, 'the divine/immortal one') shared an important motif with that of the Irish youthful god, Oengus Mac Og. Here are the two relevant passages on these characters, drawn from the British and Irish sources:
From the "Historia Brittonum":
[§41] Following the advice of his wizards, the king sent envoys through the
whole of Britain to find a child without a father. And examining all the
provinces and many regions, they came to the Field of Elletus, which is
in the region that is called Gleguising. And some boys were playing a
game of ball; and, look, two were arguing among themselves and one said
to the other “O man without a father, you will have nothing good.” But
they carefully asked the boys about the boy, and asking the mother if he
might have a father, she denied it and said “I do not know how he was
conceived in my womb. But I know one thing: that I have not ever known a
man.” And she swore to them that he did not have a father. And they led
him away with them up to King Guorthigirn and brought him before the
king...
And the king said to the youth “By what name are you called?” He replied
“I am Ambrosius,” that is he was seen to be Embreis Guletic. And the king said
“From what family are you sprung?” And he, “My father is one of the consuls
of the Roman people.”And the king gave him the citadel with all the provinces
of the western zone of Britain.
From "The Wooing of Etain":
2. The Dagda meanwhile brought his son to Midir's house in Bri Leith in Tethba, to be fostered. There Aengus was reared for the space of nine years. Midir had a great playing-field in Bri Leith. Thrice fifty lads of the young nobles of Ireland were there and thrice fifty maidens of the land of Ireland. Aengus was the leader of them all, because of Midir's great love for him, and the beauty of his form and the nobility of his race. He was also called in Mac Oc (the Young Son), for his mother said: "Young is the son who was begotten at the break of day and born betwixt it and evening."
3. Now Aengus quarreled with Triath son of Febal (or Gobor) of the Fir Bolg, who was one of the two leaders in the game, and a fosterling of Midir. It was no matter of pride with Aengus that Triath should speak to him, and he said: "It irks me that the son of a serf should hold speech with me," for Aengus had believed until then that Midir was his father, and the kingship of Bri Leith his heritage, and he knew not of his kinship with the Dagda.
4. Triath made answer and said: "I take it no less ill that a hireling whose mother and father are unknown should hold speech with me." Thereupon Aengus went to Midir weeping and sorrowful at having been put to shame by Triath. "What is this?" said Midir. "Triath has defamed me and cast in my face that I have neither mother nor father." "Tis false," said Midir. "Who is my mother, from whence is my father" "No hard matter. Thy father is Eochaid Ollathair," said Midir, "and Eithne, wife of Elcmar of the Brug, is thy mother. It is I that have reared thee unknown to Elcmar, lest it should cause him pain that thou wast begotten in his despite." "Come thou with me," said Aengus, "that my father may acknowledge me, and that I may no longer be kept hidden away under the insults of the Fir Bolg."
5. Then Midir set out with his fosterling to have speech with Eochaid, and they came to Uisnech of Meath in the center of Ireland, for 'tis there that was Eochaid's house, Ireland stretching equally far from on every side, south and north, to east and west. "Before them in the assembly they found Eochaid. Midir called the king aside to have speech with the lad. "What does he desire, this youth who has not come until now?" "His desire is to be acknowledged by his father, and for land to be given to him," said Midir, "for it is not meet that thy son should be landless while thou art king of Ireland." "He is welcome," said the Eochaid, "he is my son. But the land I wish him to have is not yet vacant." "What land is that?" said Midir. "The Brug, to the north of the Boyne," said Eochaid. "Who is there?" said Midir. "Elcmar," said Eochaid, "is the man who is there I have no wish to annoy him further."
6. "Pray, what counsel dost thou give this lad?" said Midir. "I have this for him," said Eochaid. "On the day of Samain let him go into the Brug, and let him go armed. That is a day of peace and amity among the men of Ireland, on which none is at enmity with his fellow. And Elcmar will be in Cnoc Side in Borga unarmed save for a fork of white hazel in his hand, his cloak folded around him and a gold brooch in his cloak, and three fifties playing before him in the playing-field; and let Aengus go to him and threaten to kill him. But it is meet that he slay him not, provided he promise him his will. And let this be the will of Aengus, that he be king for a day and a night in the Brug; and see that thou not yield the land to Elcmar till he submit himself to my decision; and when he comes let Aengus plea be that the land has fallen to him, and that he in fee simple for sparing Elcmar and not slaying him, and that what he had asked for is kingship of day and night, and" said he, "it is in days and nights that the world is spent."
7. Then Midir sets out for his land, and his foster-son along with him, and on the Samain following, Aengus having armed himself came into the Brug and made a feint at Elcmar, so that he promised him in return for his life kingship of day and night in his land. The Mac Oc straightway abode there that day and night as king of the land, Elcmar's household being subject to him. On the morrow Elcmar came to claim his land from the Mac Oc, and therewith threatened him mightily. The Mac Oc said that he would not yield up his land until he should put it to the decision of the Dagda in the presence of the men of Ireland.
8. Then they appeal to the Dagda, who adjudged each man's contract in accordance with his undertaking. "So then this land accordingly belongs henceforth to this youth," said Elcmar. "It is fitting," said the Dagda. "Thou was taken unawares on a day of peace and amity. Thou gavest thy land for mercy shown thee, for thy life was dearer to thee than thy land, yet thou shalt have land from me that will be no less profitable to thee than the Brug." "Where is that?" said Elcmar. "Cleitech," said the Dagda, "with the three lands that are round about it, thy youths playing before thee every day in the Brug, and thou shalt enjoy the fruits of the Boyne from this land." "It is well," said Elcmar; "so shall it be accomplished." And he made a flitting to Cleitech, and built a stronghold there, and Mac Oc abode in the Brug in his land.
This interesting correspondence between Emrys and Oengus took on a new importance when I learned that Gileston in Glamorgan, which was just across the River Thaw from the Elleti place-name (more on this below; for I will rest content with relaying the Book of Llandaf's description, which situates Elleti between the Penmark estate and the River Thaw), had originall been called the Church of Mabon in the Vale (Bro, or the Vale of Glamorgan).
St. Giles Church, Gileston
Now the Mabon saint at Gileston was quite possibly a Christianized version of the god Mabon, possibly being presented originally as a sort of nickname for Christ as the Divine Son of God. But the proximity of the name to Elleti did not seem to be a coincidence. Especially as the Welsh PA GUR poem has Mabon as one of the raptors of Elai, i.e. the Ely River just to the east of Penmark. So, quite literally, Elleti was sandwiched between two locations sacred to Mabon.
Mabon, of course, is often viewed as the Welsh equivalent of the Irish god Mac Og, "Young Son."
We should notice that Oengus is taken from Bri Leith (or Liath) to the Hill of Uisneach. This is also known as the Hill of Killare and is the location from which Geoffrey of Monmouth claims the stones of Stonehenge near Amesbury were taken by his Merlin Ambrosius. Thus when we read the HISTORIA BRITTONUM story we know that Dinas Emrys in Eryri/Snowdonia is a relocation of Amesbury. And this makes sense, as we know the HB also has Ambrosius/Emrys as Wallop in Hampshire not far to the SE of Amesbury. We can assume, then, that what was given to Emrys was not western Wales, but lands west of Amesbury. Dinas Emrys itself probably replaced Vespasian's Camp hillfort at Amesbury.
This still leaves open the question of why the story was relocated to Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd. And, certainly, what appears to be an identification of Emrys with Mabon complicates the actual historical nature of Ambrosius, whom I've shown in other contexts to be a folk conflation of St. Ambrose and his father, a 4th century prefect of Gaul.
I once proposed that Vortigern had been, in the usual folkloris sense, linked falsely to Magnus the Tyrant, who had met with St. Ambrose at Aquileia. Now while Aquilea is not said to derive from the Latin word for eagle - aquila - it may well have been associated with that word. The same was true of Eryri, the mountainous region wherein Dinas Emrys is found. This name does not, in fact, come from the W. eryr, 'eagle', but the presence in Nantlle of the god Lleu as death-eagle may well suggest that common belief interpreted Snowdonia as being named for eagles. If so, then Magnus the Tyrant and St. Ambrose at Aquileia may well have been transported in story to Eryri.
The same process might tell us why Emrys was at Elleti. While this last is a campus or plain in the HB, in the Book of Llandaf we find it as a palud, i.e. a "a swamp, marsh, morass, bog, fen, pool" (palus via Lewis and Short). This suggested to be the Continental Arelate, capital of Magnus the Tyrant, a Gaulish place-name meaning "by or next to [Are-) the marsh" (cf. W llaid and llaith in the GPC). Elleti may also have been fancifully linked to Oengus Mac Og's Bri Leith/Liath.
But while this supplies us with part of the rationale we need for explaining why Emrys was placed at Dinas Emrys, there may well be more to the story. This is especially true is I'm right about Emrys 'the Divine/Immortal One' being conflated with Mabon son of Modron.
We possess a 'Stanza of the Grave' that places the grave of Mabon the Swift, son of Modron, in Nantlle - yes, the same place where Lleu (another sun god) is found dead in eagle form. Did the Welsh identify Lleu and Mabon?
For the best recent discussion of this particular stanza, I quote the entire section from THE MEDIEVAL WELSH ENGLYNION Y BEDDAU THE ‘STANZAS OF THE GRAVES’, OR ‘GRAVES OF THE WARRIORS OF THE ISLAND OF BRITAIN’, ATTRIBUTED TO TALIESIN, Edited and Translated from the Black Book of Carmarthen and Other Manuscripts, with an Archaeological, Historical, Linguistic, and Literary Commentary by PATRICK SIMS-WILLIAMS:
For the best recent discussion of this particular stanza, I quote the entire section from THE MEDIEVAL WELSH ENGLYNION Y BEDDAU THE ‘STANZAS OF THE GRAVES’, OR ‘GRAVES OF THE WARRIORS OF THE ISLAND OF BRITAIN’, ATTRIBUTED TO TALIESIN, Edited and Translated from the Black Book of Carmarthen and Other Manuscripts, with an Archaeological, Historical, Linguistic, and Literary Commentary by PATRICK SIMS-WILLIAMS:
III.16 Mabon son of Madron in Nantlle, Crn.
W Y Bedd y gorthir Nanllaû*
ni wyr neb i gyneddvau
Mabon vab Madron glau.
*an crudely formed, resembling cm, em, im; û altered from n.
N Y bedd ygorthir Nanllaû
Ni wyr neb i gyneddvaû
Mabon vap Madron glaû
T Y Bedh yngorthir nanllaû ny wyr nep y gynnedhfeû
Mabon vap madron glaû.*
*a altered to e in different ink.
Y bedd y gorthir Nanllav
ni wyr neb i gyneddfav
Mabon vap Mydron* glav
*y altered from a.
B Y bed yngorthir* Nanḷau
89 Ni uyr neb i gyneḍfau+
Mabon vap Madron glau.
*o deleted between h and i. +y over c or beginnings of an a.
Index col. 3 Mabon ab Madron bd at Nant λay. – 87.
To make 7 syllables in line c Bedd could be supplied before Mabon, as suggested by
Thomas Jones, comparing Series IV; but perhaps the 6-syllable lines are effectively
dramatic as they stand in both cases.295 The four manuscripts of Series III are in basic
agreement in this stanza. The variants of the proper names given in the Myvyrian
Archaiology text derive from late misreadings and emendations. Cwm Llau in line
a is first found in NLW 2020ii, 91v, where it is Ieuan Fardd’s rationalisation of Ncm
lhaû296 in the copy of W in NLW 1506, Book III, 73r. Mydron in line c originates with
the alteration of a to y by P, which was followed by the derivatives of P, including Dr
Davies in Peniarth 98ii. The only other occurrence of this Mydron outside derivatives
of P is, as far as I know, ‘Mabon am Mydron’ in the poem Pa gur in the Black Book
of Carmarthen.297 This is probably the source of P’s emendation, for a transcript of
it, with the reading mydron, appears earlier in the same manuscript (Peniarth 111, p.
54), just before Series I on p. 56. The variant Modron first appears in another text of
Series III by Evan Evans in NLW 2040, p. 155, which is ultimately derived from P.
It is probably an emendation of Mydron made in the light of the regular form of the
name, which is Modron.
Mabon and his mother Modron are the well-attested characters in Culhwch
and Olwen and elsewhere, generally supposed to be euhemerised Celtic divinities,
Maponos and *Mātrŏna.298 The form Madron here looks like a corruption of Modron
(< Mātrŏna) under the influence of the name Madrun (< VL Mătrōna), the name of a
Welsh saint.299 Influence from the adjective madron ‘dizzy’ is also possible.
Nanllaû is Nantlleu in Arfon (SH 5053), colloquially Nanlle/Nanlla, which plays
a prominent part in the Four Branches in the story of Lleu, who is clearly its eponym
there.300 No Welsh literary source associates Mabon with this area, and there are no
known dedications to Maponos here or in any other part of Wales. A Rhiwabon (SH
4841) in Llanystymdwy, Crn., about seven miles south of Nantlleu, is presumably
from *Rhiwfabon,301 and it is possible that Moel Faban in Llanllechid (SH 6368),
on the other side of Eryri, also contains the name Mabon,302 perhaps assimilated to
maban, baban, ‘baby’. As Mabon occurred as an ordinary Brittonic personal name,
however,303 the original eponyms of Rhiwabon and Moel Faban need not be Mabon
ap Modron. Yet they may have got associated with him subsequently, which might
lead to the localisation of stories about Mabon in Gwynedd. There is a prominent
Carn Fadryn/Fadrun304 in Llŷn (SH 2735), which may have influenced the corruption
to Mabon vab Madron in the englyn. A rare hint of a possible association between
Modron and Arfon comes from the Arfon poet Gruffudd ap Tudur Goch of Dinlle (fl.
1352), who alludes obscurely to gwlad Gwydion (Arfon?) and Modron (MS medron),
in two adjacent lines.305
In the French romance Le Bel Inconnu and its Middle English version Libeaus
Desconus, an enchanter Mabon (ME Maboun) appears as the oppressor of the ‘cité de
Sinaudon’, which is clearly somewhere in Snowdonia.306 Roger Loomis identified it
with Segontium, the Roman site near Caernarfon (Caer Saint, SH 4862), but there is
no solid evidence for this,307 and Leland, listing ‘Castelles in Cair Arvonshire’, refers
to what is clearly the hillfort (SH 7604 7784) on Conway mountain308 as ‘Sinnodune
a mile from Conwey. The fundation of a greate thing yet remayne there’.309 While it
is possible that the association of Mabon and Snowdonia is part of the development
of the Mabon story outside Wales,310 it may have been taken over from a Welsh
tradition about Mabon which is also reflected in the grave-stanza. The appearance
of ‘Rey mabun’ among the titles of lost French lays in a thirteenth-century list from
Chester311 shows that more material about Mabon circulated than now survives.
There are a number of early remains, including a small Iron Age fort, in the
Nantlle area which may have been associated with Mabon.312 In 1849 John Jones
(‘Cilmyn’), rector of Llanllyfni, stated that the remains ‘of Mabon, on the uplands of
Nanlley, were discovered in an urn, imbedded in a carnedd, near a Druidical circle’,
and in 1853 he referred to
the grave of Bedwin the Brave, on the sloping side of Moel Tryfan, and that of Mabon
the son of Madron, further on, on the uplands of Mantlef [sic], both of which were
accidently discovered a few years ago imbedded in a carnedd.
The same year, he expanded this report:
On the uplands of Nantllef several Druidical remains were to be seen a few years ago,
which, together with the grave of Mabon, have disappeared under an accumulation of
refuse from the slate quarries, and an interesting circle of upright stones sacrilegiously
appropriated towards the erection of fences, and for other agricultural purposes. Between
these uplands and Caernarvon Bay may be seen the slopes of Tryfan … .313
This is geographically vague, and the forms of the proper names are based on those
in Peter Bailey Williams’s translation of Englynion y Beddau, to which he refers. It
must be regarded as very doubtful whether the carneddi referred to were traditionally
known as the graves of Mabon and Bedwyr.
In early Welsh story, cynneddf (line b) is frequently used to refer to the magical or
supernatural attribute or peculiarity of an object, place, or person.314 The peculiarities
of graves and tumuli are a common feature of the mirabilia genre. The author of the
englyn probably has in mind such things as the graves which change size or remove
lethargy in the mirabilia section of the Historia Brittonum, §§73–74, the gorsedd at
Arberth in the Four Branches,315 and the Irish graves which cause onlookers to laugh
aloud.316 By ‘ni wyr neb i gyneddfav’ he presumably means either that no one knows
all the properties Mabon’s grave may have, or that the grave may be presumed to
have special properties, even though no one in fact knows what they are. Perhaps the
reason for this remark is that already in Welsh tradition Mabon was regarded as a
magician, as in foreign romance.
Translation
The grave in the upland of Nantlleu
whose attributes no one knows
(is the grave of) Mabon son of Modron the swift.
Dinas Emrys (SH 6049) and Nantlle are only half a dozen
miles apart – and note that the lands of Beddgelert Priory reached as far north as the
headwaters of Dyffryn Nantlle at Drws-y-coed (SH 5453)...
I would add only that according to the MABINOGION tale "Math Son of Mathonwy", the god Lleu become ruler of all Gwynedd, much as it would appear Emrys does in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.
The 'clau' or "swift" epithet supplied for Mabon in this stanza may also be significant. I say this because I've successfully identified the famous - but long lost - fortress of Caer Dathal with Dinas Emrys (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/01/dinas-emrys-as-caer-dathal-late.html). My identification of the two forts relies on Dathal, a presumed Irish name containing a stem meaning 'swift', lying behind the Latin Celeritas, which we find preserved as Celert/Gelert at Beddgelert hard by Dinas Emrys. Could Mabon's 'swift' epithet have been linked to these other two names?
All of this became even more seriously muddled when Geoffrey of Monmouth decided to bring his northern Myrddin (as Merlin) down to Eryri and identify him with Emrys of Dinas Emrys. I've written extensively on the nature of Myrddin. While he does have Lleu attributes, and I once considered him a sort of human avatar of the god, eventually I came to the conclusion that his characteristics as they are found in the earliest Welsh sources and Irish analogs suggested a deified spirit of a warrior slain in battle (or one who perished through a goddess produced battle-panic). For only a few of my pieces on this possibility, see
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