CEREDIG SON OF CUNEDDA AS ARTHUR or HOW TO GET TO ARTHUR WITHOUT ARTORIUS

From Koch, Celtic Culture

Aberarth, Afon Arth and Nant Erthig in Ceredigion

I've noted before that in the center of Ceredig's Ceredigion is the Afon Arth, with its tributary the Nant Erthig ('Little Bear').  There was a promontory fort at Aberarth Llandewi, and the medieval castle at Dinerth (confluence of the Afon Arth and the Nant Erthig) may well have had an ancient precursor. 

https://coflein.gov.uk/en/sites/419561

Site of Aberarth Promontory Fort

https://www.castlewales.com/dinerth.html

Dinerth Castle

This river and its forts are significant, given that three bear-names appear among Ceredig's descendants:

Ceredigion

[G]uocaun map Mouric map Dumnguallaun map Arthgen map Seissil map Clitauc Artgloys map Artbodgu map Bodgu map Serguil map Iusay map Ceretic map Cuneda.

 

https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/genealogies.html

This is rather amazing, as there only a few bear-names in the remainder of the Harleian pedigrees, e.g. Arthur son of Pedr (Dyfed), Arthgal (Ystrad Clud), Artmail (Gwent) and Artan (Powys).

Arthgen is 'Bear-born' or "Born of the Bear', Artgloys is either 'Beautiful Bear' or 'Pure or Holy Bear' and Artbodgu is 'Bear-crow', the second element being inherited from the name of Artbodgu's father.

With a name like Arthgen, we must naturally ask what bear it was this King of Ceredigion was born from. I've suggested we are talking about the river itself, as such bodies of water are often deified.  The mythological Math and Mathonwy names of Caer Dathal, where Uther Pendragon had kin and from which Arthur took a wife, are Irish bear-names.

When it comes to attaching Arthur to Cerdic/Ceredig, we are left with really only one possibility, recently detailed for me by Dr. Simon Rodway:

"As for *Artorīx ['Bear-king'], Marged Haycock is absolutely right to say that it would give *Erthyr. The composition vowel /o/ (short) would become y through final i-affection. Then the final syllable would be lost, and the /a/ would become /e/ through internal i-affection (in which y took part). This is all perfectly well understood from numerous names in -rīx. A comparandum would be *Carantorīx > Cerennyr with /a/ > /e/.

As for Artorius, yes, it could be a deckname for Artorix. Artorius is well-attested. Artorus is a very plausible by-form of Artorius, and that would regularly give Arthur."

Thus we could say that Ceredig of the Afon Arth, a deified river, was the King of the Arth and, by extension, the Bear King.  But that at some point Artorius was substituted for *Artorix.

I would again mention the known substitition of Roman names for Celtic ones that were of a perceived semantic match:

Trier (CIL XIII/1.1, no. 3909)

HIC QUIESCIT IN PACE URSULA . . . ARTULA MATER TIT(ULUM) POSUIT

In this case the mother (Artula, Little Bear) and the daughter (Ursula, Little Bear) have the same name, the mother still in Celtic, the daughter already in the Roman tongue. 

Among specialists of ancient Italic languages, Artorius is said to be derived as follows (this from Blanca Maria Prosper Perez discussing ARTORRES):

"The most promising etymology would derive artor- in Latin and Messapic from the root meaning "adjust", "assemble", "fit", though it is impossible to reach a really specific meaning."

Professor Stefan Zimmer actually attempted to derive Artorius itself from the Celtic (see 

https://www.academia.edu/3255782/2010_The_name_of_Arthur_a_new_etymology), but this theory is frowned upon by those who study Messapic.  Still, it shows how easy it would be for, say, a sub-Roman Briton, to see in Roman Artorius a rendering of his own *Artorix. 

However, Blanca Maria Prosper Perez made an interesting comment regarding Zimmer's theory:

"It could perhaps explain the origin of Arthur's name, but neither the Latin nor the Messapic names."

Here is what Zimmer has to say:

"Recently, Ch. Gwinn (apud Delamarre 2003: 56) has proposed to

understand Artorius directly as a Latinized version of *Arto-rīχs. This

cannot be excluded categorically, but is highly unlikely. The Romans used

to treat all the many Celtic names in -rīχs, well known at least since

Caesar’s commentaries on his Gaulish wars, like their own word rex, regis

because the close relation of the two lexemes (in fact, their etymological

identity) was obvious to them. So, a Celtic *Arto-rīχs should

automatically appear in a Latin context as *Artorix – but it never does.

With due caution, I propose to understand Artorius –

exclusively used as gentilicium as mentioned above – as the Latinized

version of a Celtic patronym *Arto-rīg-i̯os. This is nowhere attested in the

Celtic world. But the basic *Arto-rīχs is, see above OIr. Artrí; the British

forms with second member *-maglos are but a variant of the same.

The patronymic type in *-i̯os is well known, cf. Gaulish names such as

Tarbeisonios ‘son of Tarbeisu’; and of course, outside Celtic, especially

in Greek. It should be safe to assume as a working hypothesis that the *-gunderwent

a kind of early lenition (whether a Latin or Celtic phenomenon

need not detain us) to the spirant -ʒ -/-j-, giving, with subsequent

assimilation of [ʒj] > [jj] > [j], *Artorījos.7 The Latinization implied two

simple adaptations to Latin:8

3.1. According to Latin writing conventions, *[artori:ʒjos] or

*[artori:jos] was spelled, with automatic replacement of the Celtic ending

by Latin -us, as Artorius.

3.2. Following the obvious and frequent pattern of Latin nouns in

-ōrius, -a, -um, regular derivative adjectives to agent nouns (including

proper names) in -tōr, the short -ŏ- in *Artŏrius was replaced by -ō-, and

the long -ī- shortened, thus producing a totally Latin-sounding Artōrius.

3.3. The subsequent phonetic development from Latin Artōrius to

Early Welsh Arthur is perfectly regular (cf. L labōrem > W llafur, etc.)."

However, I had an idea: what if we allow for a standard Latinization of a British *Arto-rīg-i̯os to Artorius?  If we could do this, then we don't have to propose that Artorius was substituted as a deckname.  We could look at Arthur merely as a natural development of *Arto-rīg-i̯os through early Latinization.

I took this idea to Dr. Simon Rodway (Welsh expert), Professor Ranko Matasovic (Proto-Celtic/Celtic expert) and Alan James (Brythonic expert).  [As I hear back from more linguists, I will add their contributions below.] Their responses?

Rodway:

"You can only get Arthur from *Arto-rig-ios by supposing conflation with Latin Artorius. This is not impossible, but is uneconomical, and it is easier to derive it straight from *Artorus, an unattested but quite plausible byform of Artorius."

Matasovic:

"I agree with you that there may have been an early British name *Artori:gyos, and it may have been Latinized in Britain at an early date."

James:

"The short answer is, yes, Arthur could be a regular reflex of *Arto-rīg-i̯os. I don't know that I 'favour' a Celtic origin for the name, only that I see no problem with it being one.

Patrick S-W has a typically detailed and thorough discussion of names in -orios in The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain, pp. 33-4, where he supports the view that that suffix is a 'by-form' of -orīx, Latinized as -orius, at an early date (pre-200). But he does note that - unlike in several Brittonic names of this type, and more like Roman ones such as Victōria - the vowel is long, *Artōrius."

In other words, the Latin Artorius need not come from some Roman era man of that name (like L. Artorius Castus), nor do we need to see Artorius so much as a substitition for an earlier British 'Bear-king" name, but instead merely as a natural product of Latinization, which brought *Arto-rīg-i̯os in line with Artorius. 

Arthur, then, could be, essentially, *Arto-rīg-i̯os pronounced like Latin Artorius and, hence, indistinguishable from Artorius. 

While ordinarily it would be impossible to make anything other than a highly speculative and somewhat weak case for such development, if Ceredig of the Arth Water and the Arth- personal names is Arthur, the argument becomes considerably stronger for an original *Arto-rīg-i̯os.

Elafius (Elesa?) and His Crippled Son (Arthur?) - One More Time!

Statue of Saint Germanus of Auxerre

Before I can fully settle on 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/badon-at-liddington-and-two-arthurs-my.html

as my final Arthurian theory (three decades or more in the making!), I do need to address one old piece that continues to nag at me.  In the following blog -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-i-ultimately-decided-on-ceredig-son.html

- I suggested, quite plausibly, that the crippled boy of the St. Germanus story may well be an oblique reference to Arthur.  

The way this works, quite simply, is that the description of the boy's lameness may well have been arrived at fancifully by the hagiographer, who was attempting in the process to account for the boy's name.  To him Arthur looked/sounded an awful lot like various Latin words derived from arto or artus.

Some experts I consulted on the idea liked it, or at least saw nothing wrong with it.  To them, this was exactly how a medieval author would set about to concoct an etiological tale. 

Of course, it has long been proposed by some scholars that Elafius, the chief man of the region (regionis illius primus) and father of the boy, was a reflection of the Elesa, father of Cerdic of Wessex, of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. 

This all seemed too good to be true.  Was this yet more evidence (loosely defined) that Arthur was Cerdic of Wessex?

Well, it depends on two things.

1) The crippled boy, with a contraction disease of his knee joint, is an Isidorian play on the name Arthur

and

2) Elafius = Elesa

Both are debatable, yet both are quite possible.  If I decide to lend enough weight to these two points, then I must opt for Cerdic son of Cunedda as Arthur, and not a son of St. Illtud.  

  

Badon at Liddington and Two Arthurs: My Final Choice

Did Arthur actually fight at Badon?

That's one of the many questions that continue to bedevil Arthurian researchers.

I used to think there was a very good possibility that Arthur was assigned to Badon in heroic legend because he was already a famous war-leader and the name of the commander of the victory wasn't known.

However, that could be looking at things "ass-backwards." For it is just as conceivable - if not more so - that Arthur was only remembered as a great war-leader precisely because he was the victorious commander at Badon.

For the remainder of this blog post, I will, for the sake of argument, assume that Arthur was, in fact, the general of the British troops at Badon. And that Badon was (as both the Welsh Annals and Dream of Rhonabwy insist it was) the Badbury hillfort at Liddington in Wiltshire.

[Let me emphasize here, before going forward, that for what it's worth, I'm personally convinced that Badon IS Liddington Castle, despite the linguistics of Badon, which point rather to a Bath site. Scribal confusion in spelling for the Badbury place-name with that of the Bath of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and possibly even with the earlier Bieda/Bedenham of that same source, is not difficult to accept. The sub-Roman and early medieval chroniclers were not modern philologists, after all.]

So here is the bear in the room (barely a decent pun, granted!):

If Arthur fought at Badon and led the Britons to victory there over the Saxons, why were all Arthurs in the succeeding generation members of Irish-descended dynasties in Britain?

This is a question I have been forced to consider over and over again.

To begin, the "Irish Problem" may be all in my head.

After all, the brother (or father) of the Dalriadan Arthur was named Conaing, from the English word for "king." The Dyfed Dessi altered the Irish names in their pedigree to good Roman ones. Both these examples demonstrate that the Irish settling in Britain wanted, ultimately, to be seen as belonging to the British race.

In this context, then, their choosing the name of a Briton who had within living memory been perceived as a famous military man should not surprise us.

Nor should it be interpreted - as I have long done - as "proof" that the original Arthur himself must have been at least part Irish.

In any case (but bearing that last point in mind), for an Arthur at Liddington I've been able to discern only two possible historical candidates: Cerdic of Wessex/Ceredig son of the Irish Cunedda, and a son of St. Illtud. I will briefly summarize the case for both before going on to the pros and cons of each argument.

Ironically, deciding between the two candidates for Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, comes down to two different interpretations of a few critical lines in the Welsh elegiac poem MARWNAT VTHYR PEN.

One reading would have Uther transformed by God into a second Sawyl (Biblical Samuel). This rendering allows for an identification of Uther with St. Illtud, who is brought into connection with Sawyl/Samuel several times. The name of Illtud's father and his place of origin permit us to situate that father either in Ercing or at Liddington Castle. Possibly both places, as Ercing smacks of a folklore relocation. The Bicknor site was once the Church of Constantine. Galfridian tradition makes Uther a son of a Constantine.

The Cunedda trace is more straight-forward. I long ago showed that Cunedda is not from Manau Gododdin, but from Drumanagh in Ireland. He is to be equated with the Coline of the Wroxeter Stone and Ceawlin of the Gewissei. The Ceawl- of Ceawlin means "basket" in AS, and Pen Kawell of the MARWNAT means "Chief Basket."  Geoffrey of Monmouth has Uther transform into Gorlois, Uther's gorlassar epithet in the elegy. Gorlassar means "very blue" or "very blue-green", colors associated with the tails of comets. If the kawyl of the elegy is emended to kanwyl, a word that can mean "star", then Uther transforms into that rather than into Samuel. In the Galfridian account of the twin-tailed star ( = comet), the celestial body is said to be Uther himself.

WHAT I LIKE AND DON'T LIKE ABOUT ILLTUD AS UTHER

The reference in the Welsh PA GUR to Mabon servant of Uther at the River Ely in Glamorgan points to Gileston, the old Church of Mabon in the Vale. That town is directly across the Thaw from the Penychen kingdom of Paul. And it was under Paul that Illtud, the terribilis miles, was magister/princeps militum.

These Latin ranks and descriptors, as I've demonstrated, perfectly match the name/epithet of Uther Pendragon.

Now, it is true that I may be merely reading Uther into the Mabon line in the PA GUR. That line could have nothing to do with Uther being at the River Ely (at either Dinas Powis or Caerau). And, indeed, Uther is associated with a site in NW Wales, as we shall see below. A site which, incidentally, has its own Mabon association (through a conflation of the youthful divinity with the boy Ambrosius; the Elleti of Ambrosius was on the other side of the Thaw from Gileston, and the story of Ambrosius at Elleti was taken from the tale of the Irish Mac Og, "Young Son", at Bri Leith).

Just because Mabon, who became a servant of Uther, happens to hail from Ely doesn't mean Uther himself has to belong to the same place. Uther's son Arthur, after all, gathered champions from all over.

The hagiography (which always presents Arthur in a bad light) makes Illtud out to be the hero's cousin. When Illtud becomes a religious he puts his wife away and is not said to have any children.

It is possible that as with Uther and gorlassar, it was forgotten at some point that Uther and Illtud were one and the same person.

WHAT I LIKE AND DON'T LIKE ABOUT CUNEDDA AS UTHER

In CULHWCH AND OLWEN, Uther is said to have kin at Caer Dathal. I have identified this lost Arfon fort with Dinas Emrys. It may well have been the main fortress of Cunedda.

Still, there are two things I'm not particularly happy about when it comes to seeing Arthur as Ceredig son of Cunedda/Cerdic of the Gewissei.

First, obviously, the Gewissei are supposedly allies of the Saxons against the Britons. This is not as damaging an issue as we may think. Some top AS historians, like Barbara Yorke, think it might be possible for the Gewissei to originally have been on the side of the Britons. In this sense they would have been co-ppted in the early tradition of the Saxons, being effectively converted in an ironic twist of fate into the founders of the nucleus of Wessex.

The second problem bothers me more. While it may have been forgotten that Pen Kawell/Ceawlin was Cunneda, it is difficult to account for why Cerdic was called Arthur, rather than simply Ceredig. 

That would seem to be a fatal strike against the identification.

Except for one unusual coincidence. An Arth or Bear river lies in the middle of Ceredigion, and there was a promontory fort at its mouth. And three of Ceredig's immediate descendants sport bear names. Arthur most assuredly comes from Artorius (or the less formal form Artor, according to Dr. Simon Rodway) and it could have been adopted as a decknamen for an earlier British *Artorix, "Bear-king." 

Furthermore, we have extant examples of Roman era and Dark Age people who had hybrid Celtic-Latin names.

Ceredig is a British name. The Irish form is Carthach. The Cynric of the ASC is from the Irish Cunorix, found preserved on the Wroxeter Stone.  Ceawlin, from Coline/Cuilenn, is also Irish, as is Cunedda (from Cuindid, etc.). So it may be that either Ceredig, though a member of Cunedda's teulu or warband, was either throughly British or Hiberno-British. 

I've discussed before the curious reversal of generations found in the ASC when compared with the Welsh sources. Such a reversal betrays some kind of chronological corruption or manipulation.

The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to Cerdic is that his floruit matches that of Arthur to an uncanny degree. They even die within 3 years of each other (although neither the ASC nor the AC dates are beyong reproach).

THE DECIDING FACTOR BETWEEN ILLTUD'S SON AND CUNEDDA'S SON

Cornwall, Barbury Castle.

Those two place-names sum it up for me.

Arthur is primarily associated with Cornwall, W. Cernyw. The name is preserved in British Durocornovium, which appears to be the original name for the Liddington Badbury.

Barbury is the Bear's fort. If I'm right and the English called it thus because to the British the name Arthur began with their word for bear, then it does not make sense for it to be called such if Cerdic merely fought there.

Instead, it would have to belong to Arthur.

For these two reasons, mainly, and because I feel the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN contains pen kawell and eil kanwyl ('chief basket' and 'like a candle', transf. 'star'), I've decided my candidate for Uther going forward from this day will be Illtud.

A FORMAL RETRACTION OF A PREVIOUS ARTICLE

NOTE: Since writing the following piece, I've learned that the information supplied by Dr. John Bannerman pertaining to Cairell of the Dal Fiatach is incorrect.  Cairell was not grandson of Muiredach Muinderg, but his son.  This takes away the extra generation needed to make the theory on the Arthur name coming into the Dalriadan family via the Dal Fiatach unworkable.  Thus the idea that Sawyl was the father of the more famous British Arthur has to be abandoned.

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-startling-discovery-brings-back-sawyl.html?m=1

To quote from private correspondence on the issue from Prof. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, MRIA, FSA, Department of History, School of Humanities, National University of Ireland, Galway,

Editor, Peritia, Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland,

Chair, Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources,

Chair, RIA/IBA/Brepols Scriptores Celtigenae [CCSL] series,

Member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission,

Dir. Foundations of Irish Culture [PRTLI] Project:

"My first response to your question is to agree with you that the Cairell you asked about was son of Muiredach Muinderg. That's what my teacher & mentor, Francis John Byrne, has in his Irish Kings & High-Kings, p. 285, in his genealogy of the Dál Fiatach & again in the New History of Ireland, vol. IX ('Maps, Genealogies, Lists') p. 132. The genealogies in Michael O'Brien's Corpus are no different (see index, p. 529). There's nothing at all unlikely about Áedán mac Gabráin's mother having been a British woman, but that's a different matter altogether.

   Somewhere here at home I have the 1st fascicule of the German Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages published by the Artemis Verlag in Munich back in the 70s & for which Francis John & others (myself included) wrote numerous articles, which might have a different take on those details about Áedán, but I somehow doubt that the story is any different there.

   I'm afraid I don't have a copy of Ben Hudson' s ed. of Berchán's Prophecy, so cannot help you with that. Generally speaking, however, I always found John Bannerman's stuff very sound, so the detail that you referred to may be a simple slip on his part. It happens us all!"

THE PROBLEM OF THE IRISH ARTHURS (with a proposed solution)

The Distribution of Ogam Inscriptions in the British Isles

Over the years I have hammered away at what I call the 'Irish Arthur' problem.  In brief, no one has been able to satisfactorily account for why all the Arthurs of the Dark Ages who are in the generation immediately following the famous Arthur of the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae belong to Irish-descended dynasties in Britain.

I've written many pieces on the subject.  One of the better ones, which is a sort of summary of the problem, can be read here:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/11/arthur-son-of-bicoir-of-kintyre.html

The main focal point of "The Problem" does not lie in Dessi-founded Dyfed in SW Wales.  We might be able to allow for the name Arthur being brought there not only because, like the Dalriadans in the North, the Dessi were Irish, but because one of the members of the Dyfed pedigree (in the Irish version; the Welsh version substituted Roman names) was named Artchorp, 'Bear-body' (name etymologized by Professor Jurgen Uhlich). The Dyfed Arthur, son of Pedr, is also dated after Arthur of Dalriada, although before Arthur son of Bicoir 'the Briton' (who probably does not belong in Kintyre, but in NW Wales; see the Beccurus Stone at Gesail Cyfarch).  

To tackle The Problem head-on, we have to look at Dalriada, where the earliest historically attested Arthur occurs, viz. Arthur son of Aedan (or of Conaing, Aedan's son, a man bearing a name derived from English cyning, 'king, ruler, emperor').

We have fairly decent records for a British wife being taken by Aedan son of Gabran.  As all efforts to parse the name Arthur as Celtic (including my own) rather than as being derived from the Latin/Roman Artorius have failed, we must presume that the name Arthur came into the Dalriadan royal family via a British wife.  

Maithgemma or 'Gemma' (a hypocoristic form of the name) was a daughter of Aedan and a niece of a British king. However, her name, meaning "Bear", is Irish, not British.  But it is interesting, nonthesless, given the propensity among Cumbric speakers to view Arthur as containing arth, their word for bear.

The only British kingdom worth considering when it comes to intermarriage for the Dalriadans is, of course, Strathclyde, with its center at Alclud.  

I've made a case before for seeing Uther Pendragon, the Cruel (see GPC for the maenings of uthr, and the reference to Arthur son of Uter being cruel in a gloss to a Historia Brittonum MS.) Leader of Warriors as Ceredig Wledig of Alclud, who is called the 'cruel tyrant' in a St. Patrick source.  A letter by Patrick is addressed to his rapacious soldiers. Ceredig's floruit is perfect in terms of chronology.  Patrick's life is treated of in the section just before that of Arthur in the HB.  This Strathclyde ruler was vilified to the extreme, so it would not be unexpected for a poetic term for him to have been substituted, as otherwise Arthur's reputation would be tarnished.

As the Strathclyde kingdom was the earlier territory of the Dumnonii tribe, and a tribe of the identical name inhabited Cornwall in the Roman period, would could easily account for the tradition which tended to situate Arthur in Cornwall.   

But if we take this easy way out of The Problem, we are faced with the following two questions:

1) How/why did the name Arthur find its way into the elite of the Strathclyde kingdom?

and

2) If Arthur was son of Ceredig of Alclud, is it plausible to have the former fight the English in the east as Rhydderch Hael, King of Strathclyde. (b. c. 540), (d. 614?) would later on?

We can tackle the second question first, as it is rather easy to answer.

The HB account literally says that Arthur was a leader in war and that he fought with the British kings against the Saxons.  This sounds either like a sort of overlord or, just as plausibly, a mercenary captain.

As Strathclyde was a powerful kingdom early on, there is no reason why one of its royal sons could not have taken on either role.  

The first question is quite a bit harder.

We pretty much have to evoke the ghost of good, old L. Artorius Castus, and accept that he did participate in campaigns in the North.  And that whatever he did there made his name famous enough among the Northern British that it was preserved, handed down and, ultimately resurfaced as the name of a son of Ceredig of Alclud.  And this is true despite the bulk of the evidence supporting the view that Castus went to Armenia and was not involved in any of the later major Roman campaigns in northern Britain.  We would have to adopt one of my proposed readings for the ARM[...]S lacuna on his memorial stone: "arm(atas) gentes". 

PETRA CLOITHE AND PETRIANA/'ARTHURIBURGUM'

Bartrum says of Ceredig Wledig: "He appears in the unique pedigree of the kings of Strathclyde in the ‘Harleian Genealogies’..."

To quote the relevant section for the Harleian:

Ystrad Clud

[R]un map Arthgal map Dumnagual map Riderch map Eugein map Dumnagual map Teudebur map Beli map Elfin map Eugein map Beli map Neithon map Guipno map Dumngual hen map Cinuit map Ceritic guletic map Cynloyp map Cinhil map Cluim map Cursalem map Fer map Confer, ipse est uero olitauc dimor meton uenditus est.

Gwyr y Gogledd

[R]iderch hen map Tutagual map Clinoch map Dumgual hen.

The second pedigree is the right one for Rhyddrech. From Bartrum:

"In Adamnan's Life of St.Columba (d.597) (Ed. William Reeves, Edinburgh, 1874) there is a chapter (I.8) headed De Rege Roderco filio Tothail qui in Petra Cloithe regnavit, ‘who reigned in The Rock of the Clyde’, that is Alclud = Dumbarton (HW 165)."

We notice immediately that there is a huge discrepancy between these two pedigrees for Rhydderch.  And all kinds of related chronological issues (when reckoning by the generations). At first glance it looks as if Ceredig's pedigree has been artificially merged with that of Rhydderch's or, rather, that Rhydderch's has been tagged onto Ceredig's.

And this is where a rather unusual confluence of "coincidences" may come into play.

1) In Adomnan, Alclud - the 'Aloo' of the Patrick source - is called Petra Cloithe. 

2) Arthur of Dyfed is the son of Pedr, viz. Petrus.

3) Arthur son of Bicoir is said to kill Mongan with a stone (lapide).

4) The largest Roman cavalry fort in all Britain and the command center of Hadrian's Wall at Stanwix, properly Uxellodunum, is called Petriana in the Notitia Dignitatum.  The Ala Petriana was named for Titus Pomponius Petra. Thought by some to be a mere ghost name, based on the cavalry unit that was there throughout the late period, there are some scholars who accept it as a genuine nickname for the place.  Stanwix is close to the Aballava (Avalana; Avalon?, with its Dea Latis/Lake Goddess) Roman fort, the Concavata ( = Grail?) Roman fort, and the Roman fort of Camboglanna (Camlan?). 

There is an antiquarian record of the Stanwix fort being called ARTHURIBURGUM, 'Arthur's fort.'

It is possible, I wonder, that Ceredig Wledig does not belong at Alclud, but that the Aloo of the Patrick source is an error for Petriana/Uxellodunum?

Jocelyn places Ceredig in 'Vallia.' This is thought to mean Wales and I've elsewhere suggested a possible confusion of Ceredig Wledig with Ceredig of Ceredigion. 

But Cambria and Cumbria are actually the same word used for the Britons of Wales and NW England. And given that Petriana is on Hadrian's Wall, we are reminded of Latin vallum.

Obviously, all the stone references may point instead to Alclud itself, and that is, perhaps, the more reasonable assumption.  

But... look at the map:

I would add - and this is important - that I'd long ago proven St. Patrick himself came from Birdoswald, the Banna Roman fort (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/02/banna-as-home-of-st-patrick-repost.html). This fort was in the same river-valley as Camboglanna. 

If we want an alternate explanation as to why the god Mabon is the servant of Uther Pendragon in the PA GUR, we can look to the Lochmaben Stone just a dozen kilometers NW of Petriana.  A Maponus inscription (https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/2063) is thought to come from Castlesteads/Camboglanna or its environs.  

Past research focused on Banna and the River Irthing as the possible Arthurian center. Thr People of the Bear ( = Arthwys) probably lived here, as Irthing itself has been etymologized as the Little Bear.  But it does not seem possible to place Uther at Banna unless one resorts to linking the Galfridian draco of Uther with the Dacian draco (the Dacians being the late garrison at Birdoswald). Welsh scholars are against this, pointing out that Geoffrey of Monmouth misinterpreted the Pendragon epithet and that "dragon" in that context was a well-known Welsh poetic term for warrior or warriors.

The only problem with Petriana, as I see it, is our inability to establish a link there with the Irish in terms of some kind of royal family relationship.

My recent work on the Welsh Badon as being twice fixed at Badbury/Liddington, which seems to fit with Illtud as Uther Pendragon, still ignores the linguistics of the Badon name, found in the later Welsh sources in a spelling that plainly indicated a Bath site.  And I've always known that Uther may have been fancifully identified with Illtud due to the latter's military titles.  There is a perfectly good Bathum at Buxton in the High Peak, the ancient Aquae Arnemetia, where there was a Roman road called by the early Saxons Bathamgate. 

A possible link to Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester through the Illtud identification remains a valid theory as well.  The reason I like that oneis because we have a clearly established link between Sawyl and northeastern Ireland, a link that could even have involved Dalriada.  See

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-startling-discovery-brings-back-sawyl.html

[Although, that "revelation has more recently been effectively negated: https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-formal-retraction-of-previous-article.html?m=1.]

Sawyl remains a prime candidate for Arthur's father through the possible Sawyl reading in the Welsh elegy MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, and Uther's son Madog and grandson Eliwlad.  Both these last individuals resemble to an uncanny degree the Madog Ailithir known to be a son of Sawyl Benisel.  Ailithir is 'other land', a word for a pilgrim (as Madog went to Ireland to become a saint). Welsh (g)wlad also meant 'land', and Eli- is exactly how Irish Aile would be rendered in Welsh (according to several leading Celticists).  Thus the identification of Madog and Eliwlad with Madog Ailithir remains highly attractive.

In summary, the Dalriadan Arthur, the first "historical" personage of that name we know of, has to have been named for a famous British Arthur in the previous generation.  

As I see it, there are three possibilities as to who that earlier British Arthur may have been:

1) son of Ceredig Wledig of Alclud

2) son of Ceredig Wledig of Petriana/Uxellodunum

3) son of Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester (remembering that Mabon was also worshipped at the Ribchester Roman fort)

The only thing keeping me from committing wholly to Sawyl is the Dyfed Arthur, son of Pedr. If Pedr did not choose his son's name because of a famous Arthur belonging to a Petra or Petriana site, we have to assume he did so only because of his Dessi Artchorp progenitor and/or because the famous Arthur was himself part-Irish (something distinctly possible with Sawyl's offspring, as he took an Irish princess as his wife). 

And the stone of the Bicoir story is no big deal, either, as that can be shown to be drawn from a folktale involving the menhir at Dun Beachaire in Kintyre.

HOWEVER, Ceredig of Alclud is said the have turned into a fox. I hypothesized that folktale may originate in his being succeded by his son Cynwyd, a name that could have been construed as Wood-hound. See 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/03/coroticus-cruel-tyrant-and-little-fox.html?m=1.

Another, perhaps better explanation for Ceredig as a little fox was discussed here:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/coroticus-little-fox-and-louernoc-place.html?m=1

Madog, a son of Uther, is a Welsh term for a fox. See https://www.ulster.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/942459/0604.pdf.

Eliwlad, Madog's grandson, could be for aile, Irish 'rock', = the Al- of Alclud, while (g)wlad could be prince, ruler, making the whole name out to be similar to Ceredig's title of 'King of Aloo.' 

The placement of Eliwlad in Cornwall would again be a relocation from the northern Dumnonia to the southern Dumnonia. We can't account for Eliwlad's location if we put Uther and Arthur at Petriana or at Ribchester.

A closer examination of Mathgemma, the "bear" daughter of Aedan by the sister of a British king, points to a connection with Aedan's contemporary, Rhydderch of Strathclyde. As Mathgemma is, as already pointed out, an Irish name, it makes sense that a son born to Aedan through a sister of Rhydderch might have been given a name that represented what the British thought of as a bear designation, i.e. Arthur.

That all tells me that the Arthur name could have come from a famous 6th century son of the cruel tyrant/Uther Pendragon Ceredig Wledig.

And that the Irish-descended Pedr of Dyfed named his son after the Petra from which the original British Arthur hailed.

The fun part of that identification, once again, is accounting for the name Artorius at Alclud.

One final point regarding the Dalriadan Arthur: might not Conaing as "king" simply have been a designation for Aedan, the title having crept into the Dalriadan tradition from an English source? If we allow for this, then Aedan and Conaing are the same person and Arthur was, therefore, Aedan's son.

So how to decide who/where Arthur's real father was?

Well, I will return to the question in a future post. But before I polish this rather scattered piece off, let me toss this into the ring, just to further muddy the waters:

The certain identification of Arthur's Badon with Liddington Castle in Wiltshire (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-final-discovery-of-king-arthurs.html?m=1) leads us to allow the Irish Gewissei back into the picture. 

ILLTUD THE TERRIBILIS MAGISTER MILITUM AND HIS SON, ARTHUR: AN OUTLINE OF A NEW/OLD THEORY

           Liddington Castle, Badbury

Illtud = terribilis [miles]

Illtud =                magister militum

                           princeps militum

             Uther    Pen           dragon

Sometimes you get lucky and things are simple. But then you make the mistake of complicating them through personal bias.

I wanted a Northern Arthur - for a variety of reasons. Thus when I came to the certain conclusion that Uther was St. Illtud, I immediately employed the Sawyl of the Uther elegy and in the tradition of the saint to move Arthur's father north to Ribchester, home of Sawyl Benisel.

I even chose to ignore the Uther-Mabon relationship.

And I did this despite some truly significant findings made concerning Illtud's father and place of origin. 

For Illtud's father Bican and his homeland of Llydaw was a distorted reference to Bicknor and Lydbrook in what had been the ancient kingdom of Ercing, a region rife with Arthurian associations. Bicknor itself, an English place-name, had earlier been the Church of Constantine and in the Galfridian tradition, a Constantine is the father of Uther.

But it didn't stop there. The Bican of Bicknor and Lydbrook had their perfectly matching counterparts at Bican Dic and Lyd Brook at Badbury in Wiltshire. Liddington Castle is the Badon mentioned in the context of the Second Battle of Badon in the Welsh Annals.

And still I clung to my Northern Arthur!

Until just a short time ago, when I realized the Cefn Digoll ("unbroken or continuous ridge") of the Welsh DREAM OF RHONABWY, where Badon is situated, was a rolocation of the Ridgeway on Wiltshire, which runs right at the foot of Liddington Castle.

The same Ridgeway connects Liddington with nearby Barbury Castle, the Fort of the Bear. The Arth- of the name Arthur was linked by the Welsh with their name for bear, 'arth.'

So two Welsh sources identified Badon as the Liddington Castle of

Illtud!

But wait - there's more!

The Roman period name of the Liddington Badbury, according to Rivet and Smith (in THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN) was...

DUROCORNOVIUM

A name that contained the same British word that yields Cernyw, i.e. Cornwall. Yes - the very Cornwall were Arthur was traditionally placed.

Now, combine all that with the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE's account of a nonvictorius battle by the Gewissei at Barbury near Liddington, followed by a 36 year gap before another unsuccessful incursion into Wiltshire, and we have what appears to be the Arthur story. 

And the only good place for the Battle of Badon in that narrative is right after the failed attempt by the Saxons and their allies to take the Bear's Fort.

Chronological questions abound, of course. I've discussed those in the past and may treat of them again in the near future.

As for the Arthurian battles, I've shown that they are Cymracized versions of the ASC's Gewissei battles. Meaning that Arthur was the chief military leader against those Saxons who would eventually found the Kingdom of Wessex.

Seems that I will definitely be writing a new book on Arthur sometime in the future. Maybe a good project for my retirement?

ARTHUR AND BARBURY CASTLE: EVIDENCE AND THE LITTLE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD

                      Barbury Castle

When I wrote this piece just a week or so ago -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-two-candidates-for-southern-arthur.html?m=1

- I was leaning towards Ceredig son of Cunedda as the best candidate for Arthur. However, I could only do this by viewing the Welsh PA GUR's identification of Uther as Illtud, and the whole Uther and Illtud business with Samuel/Sawyl as spurious tradition. 

Despite the fact that a little voice in the back of my head kept insisting that I was making a mistake. That I was willfully ignoring the only evidence we had for the identity of Arthur's father for the sake of reading the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN's pen kawell as a reference to Ceawlin/Cunedda. And that I was doing this solely because I liked the latter theory better.

Only the other day I had cause to revisit my dilemma. I had been ignorant of the fact the Barbury Castle, the 'Bear's fort', appears to show Dark Age activity, if not reuse:

From

https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/7292/BarburyCastle_anarchaeologicalsurveybytheRoyalCommissionontheHistoricalMonumentsofEngland:

"Early medieval There is considerable evidence for early medieval activity in and around Barbury Castle in the form of artefacts and, possibly, human remains. At the hillfort itself a scramasax of 6th- or 7th-century date was found before 1934 with fragments of several others, smaller single-edged knives and a spearhead; in 1939-45 human skeletons buried in the rampart were found by American troops and these have been assigned an early medieval date (Meaney 1964, 265) though on what evidence is unclear. Colonel Burne recorded that: `To the consternation of the archaeologists ... [US Army] soldiers brought up bulldozers to Barbury Castle and began deliberately to demolish the vallum. When human bones were found in the excavating bucket, they deemed it time to report an unusual occurrence. Mr Alexander Keiller went out at once to the site and was in time to photograph a section of the vallum which showed that the parapet had at some time been heightened by a few feet' (1950, 399). Burne argued that this heightening of the rampart was done by the Britons prior to the Battle of Beranburgh, so the dating of the skeletons to the same period may be due to his influence. Some (but apparently not all) of Keiller's photographs survive (Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, No 20000584), showing that it was on the north side of the west entrance that the skeletons were found; these surviving photographs do not show evidence for the heightening of the rampart, however. It should also be noted that a fragment of human skull has been found more recently on the outer rampart to the south of the east entrance (Lynne Simpson pers comm). Barbury Castle, the lower ground to the north or the ridge to the south-east, is the traditional site of the Battle of Beranburgh in 556, a possibly indecisive encounter between the Saxons under Ceawlin and Cynric, and the Britons. The battle was

discussed by Maskelyne (1886, 191-3) who believed it to have been a great Saxon victory, but later writers have emphasised that victory was not achieved until Dyrham in 577 (e.g. Entwistle 1994, 77). There seems to be general agreement, however, that the battle was fought near, not at, the hillfort. The OS have placed it at SU 147 768, 500m north of the fort, while Burne argues that it took place 750m south-east of the fort on Smeath's Ridge (1950, 402). The Battle of Ellandun, decisive victory of Egbert of Wessex over Beornwulf of Mercia in 825, is also believed to have taken place at Wroughton (Smurthwaite 1984, 36-7)."

Now, the word "indecisive" there pretty much says it all. For I once discussed the 36 year Wiltshire gap in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/03/arthur-and-beranburhbarbury-repost-of.html?m=1

Southern England was the most heavily Romanized part of the island. There is no problem with the Artorius name having been preserved there into the sub-Roman. The name was not rare and we need not restrict its origin to the northern 2nd century L. Artorius Castus.

But, there is a real problem with claiming it as a second name for Cerdic of Wessex. There is no problem suggesting it belonged to a war prince at Barbury whose father hailed from Durocornovium at the Liddington Badon. And that the Arthur name, taken by the Britons as a bear name, caused the English to name the fort for the Bear who ruled there.

It may well be that I shall have to write yet another book. One that places the great Arthur in Wiltshire.