"Is there any way you can make Illtud/Uther work?": An Attempt to Answer a Question from a Reader

Illtud Cross

A funny thing happens every time I write something about Illtud the magister militum/princeps militum/terriblis miles as Uther Pendragon: the hit number on that particular blog post climbs far higher than for any articles touching on other Arthurian subjects.

Having just offered this piece -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/a-final-statement-on-st-illtud-as-uther.html

- I heard from a reader who was disappointed I refused to accept Illtud as Arthur's father.  I am going to quote directly from this reader, unedited and with her permission:

"Dear Mr. Hunt: Is there any way you can make Illtud/Uther work? It seems to be you have proven the true identity of Uther Pendragon.  As he is the only father we know of for the Arthur of 5th-5th centuries AD, what do we do without him?  Without meaning any disrespect (your work is awesome!), it seems to me that if we don't have a father for Arthur then we don't have Arthur.  Or at least we don't know where he comes from and that pretty much leaves us having to resort to theories like the one you've recently flushed out for Lucius Artorius Castus.  In other words, we are forced to go to someone, anyone who is provably historical. But worse, Uther becomes just another lie of Geoffrey of Monmouth and that casts in doubt the whole idea that there really was a Dark Age hero.  Isn't it possible that there was an Arthur son of Illtud, maybe for Badon and Camlan, and that it is all the other battles that were merely attached to him later to enhance his story?  I don't know; maybe the other battles do belong to Castus.  Or to Castus and Arthur son of Aedan.  If you could find a way to keep Illtud AND tell us how the later Arthurs in the Irish-descended British kingdoms of Dyfed and Dalriada came to be, wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Sigh.  To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with this.  But it has been bothering me for days.  I've tried to shake it and just can't.  So... let me try to get my mind around this problem one last time and, hopefully, produce something coherent that might help us with what I'm going to start calling "The Illtud Problem."

The first thing for me to do, I suppose, is to admit that, yes, I do think Uther = Illtud.  

The next thing to do was to find Illtud's Llydaw - WHICH IS NOT ARMORICA/BRITTANY.

For a Llydaw that appears to have been inside Britain, here is a discussion of the place-name from P. C. Bartram's A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:

LLYDAW.

The place-name appears in old Welsh as Lettau in the Life of St.Cadog (§35) here identified 

with Armorica and also (§45) used for the immigrants to Gaul under Maximus: gens que vocatur Lettau,

glossed Brittones. The Irish form was Letha which is found applied not only to Armorica but also to 

Latium (John Rhys, Celtic Folklore, p.532). The Latinised form of the name was Letavia (e.g. the 

Breton Life of Gildas; §16, the Life of St.Illtud, §1 etc.). An inhabitant was called Lledewig, ‘Letavian’ 

(See Eneas Ledewig, Glythmyr Ledewig), plural Lledewigion, older Letewicion (HB §27 MS.C), 

Lidwicc(i)um, Lidwicingum [oblique case] in ASC s.aa. 885(6), 915(8). A.W.Wade-Evans spelt 

Llydewig (WCO 163, 198). See also s.n. Cynan ab Eudaf.

Llydaw is the regular Welsh name for Armorica, Brittany. But the name also occurs in Wales, 

e.g. Llyn Llydaw in Snowdonia, and there are several cases of the use of the name in the older literature 

which suggest that it was used for some region in Wales. Just as Devon [Dumnonia] and Cornwall gave 

their names to Domnonée and Cornouaille in Brittany, so Llydaw [Brittany] seems to have had its 

duplicate in Britain. John Rhys gave reasons for suggesting that a place named Llydaw was in the region 

of Llangorse Lake in Brycheiniog (Celtic Folklore, pp.531-6). In the story of the hunting of the boar, 

Trwyth, in the tale of ‘Culhwch and Olwen’, the men of Llydaw, gwyr Llydaw, are represented as 

assembling in Ystrad Yw, a cwmwd on the south-east border of Brycheiniog (RM 140). In the Life of 

St.Padarn (§22) it is said that Caradog Freichfras extended his boundaries of Britannia [Wales] so as to 

include Letavia. This can be interpreted as extending his kingdom from Radnorshire into Brycheiniog. 

See s.n. Caradog Freichfras. Again in the Life of St.Illtud (§1) it is said that his father was a man of 

Letavia, and implies that Illtud was born there. Later we are told that he returned to Letavia to die, but 

there is a tradition that he was buried in the parish of Defynnog in Brycheiniog. See s.n. Illtud, note to 

§1 of the Life.

Many Welsh saints are said to be descended from Emyr Llydaw, and this has led to the

assumption that they migrated from Brittany. But there is no good reason for supposing that any of these 

saints actually came from Brittany. All the evidence points to the contrary, and the movement was 

almost wholly in the opposite direction. See Emyr Llydaw. It seems therefore that, in many cases when 

Llydaw is mentioned in a context of the sixth century or earlier, Llydaw could mean a district 

somewhere in the boundaries of Brycheiniog.

See also WCO 102, 111-2, 133, 135. 151; E.G.Bowen, The Settlements of the Celtic Saints in 

Wales, 1954, pp.55, 94.

A curious passage in the Life of St.Oswald printed by John Capgrave says that ‘[Oswald] was 

killed in the place called in the English tongue Maserfeld ... That place [Oswestry] moreover is adjacent 

to the boundaries of Armorice Wallie - because anciently the greatest part of Wales was named 

Armorica.’ (Nova Legenda Anglie, ed. C. Horstman, II.204)."

The answer to that mystery is the Leadon Vale, a river-name conforming to Celtic *Litano- and hence a perfect candidate for a British 'Llydaw.' I'd written many pieces on the Leadon and Illtud's possible origin there. Here are just a couple:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/10/uther-pendragon-was-born-in-vale-of.html?m=1

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-galfridian-genealogy-for-arthur-and.html?m=1

Alas, if Leadon Vale is Illtud's Llydaw, then the Irish connection to his son Arthur is lost. 

Our second and biggest problem is, of course, the battles of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM and ANNALES CAMBRIAE:

Mouth of the River Glein

Dubglas River in Linnuis

Bassas River

Celidon Wood

City of the Legion

Tribruit Shore

Hills of Breguoin

Hill of Agned

Hill of Badon

Camlann

If Badon is Bath, as it seems to be (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/badon-as-bath-final-proof.html?m=1), there's no problem with an Arthur based in the old Dobunni lands fighting there. 

Without resorting to trying to identify them with English place-names, we can say that a couple more of the battles could be put in the South.  The City of the Legion could be Caerleon - something that has long been suggested by various Arthurian scholars, professional and amateur alike. 

The Tribruit, because this is a Welsh substitute for the Latin trajectus, a crossing, may well be the one recorded in Roman records at or near Bitton - which itself it quite close to Bath.  Such a location also would put this battle practically right at the Dyrham site of the ASC.

But after that, things get hopelessly mirky.  It is interesting that in the ASC that after the battle of Dyrham, three cities are captured - Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester. Three cities in the ASC, and three hills in the HB.  But, perhaps more interesting is that there are three hillforts at Bath: Little Solsbury, Bathampton and Little Down.  Might there be some correspondence between one group of three and the other?

The Celidon Wood is quite impossible. Try as we might there is really nothing we can do with it unless we try to make it conform to some similar looking or sounding English name.  Any identification reached by that method will not satisfy anyone other than people who lack all knowledge of place-name development and the various languages involved.  We could have fun with it: there is a Chilton hard by Cadbury Castle in Devon.  Yet there is really no way to escape the fact that the Celidon Wood is the Celidon Wood.  If it's something else, we can't possibly prove what that is.  

Bassas forces us in one of two directions: we look for an English Bassa stream, like that of Bassingbourn in Cambridgeshire, or we accept an impossible to locate 'shallow' (W. bas) stream or shallow of a stream.  

The Glein, followed immediately by a Dubglas in Linnuis, does seem to suggest that whoever compiled the list may have been thinking of the Lincolnshire Glen (in the region of the Roman period Lindum).  Alas, there is no Dubglas in Lindsey and, so far as we know, never has been. There is a Blackwater at Witham in Essex, and a Witham River in Lincolnshire. The earliest forms of the two Witham names are not identical (see Ekwall, Watts, etc.), but I suppose it's possible they were confused and so the Essex Blackwater was placed accidentally in Lindsey.  But, again, this is relying on English place-names.  And there are other Glens (although not always deriving from W. glein) and Douglas (some being Gaelic) rivers around.  There was a Lindinis Roman town at Ilchester in Somerset. 

Camlann, because of the Gallic St. Medard of Noviomagus's intrusion into the AC entry, looks to be the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE'S Cymenesora (a site near the British Noviomagus/Chichester). However, we have the odd presence of an early Llanelltyd church near the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales. The Afon Gamlan is the Camlann of later Welsh tradition. It is possible the Afon Gamlan is a relocation of Cymenesora and the church of Illtud was put there in the mistaken belief Arthur really had perished in Merionethshire.

Rather than trying to identify the battles which seem to belong firmly in the North with southern sites, it might be better to accept them as an attempt by the author of the HB to further glorify Arthur by placing him all over Britain.

The real Dark Age war-leader may have been based in Dobunni lands.  How the name Artorius came to be transmitted there would remain unknown. 

I realize none of that will sit very well with my readers.  It does feel, well, unfulfilling.  But if we are going to keep an Arthur son of Illtud, this is the best I can do, I'm afraid.  We end up with an Arthur disassociated from several of his battles and with no discernible Irish ties.

 

The Transmission of the Name Arthur from Strathclyde to Dalriada - and Thence to Dyfed?

                      Rock of Clyde

Over the past few weeks I've written a number of pieces on my ideas for the possibility of a Dark Age British Arthur in the North. Such an elusive figure may have existed, despite my preference for seeing in a northern Arthur a mythical construction built upon the attested historical entity Lucius Artorius Castus.

Two of my most recent blog posts on the subject:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/a-final-statement-on-st-illtud-as-uther.html?m=1

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-northern-battles-of-arthur-with-no.html?m=1

Here I wish to explore a problem which continues to bother me.

While it is easy to account for the transmission of the Arthur name from Strathclyde to Dalriada (as Aedan married the niece of the British king), it is not an easy matter to account for the presence of the name Arthur in Dyfed. 

In the following article -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html?m=1

- I did try and provide some possible explanations for the Arthur son of Pedr of the Irish-descended dynasty in SW Wales. But are any of those explanations satisfactory? 

I have, in my exploration of a Dark Age northern Arthur candidate, focused on two possible Arthurian centers: Alclud/Dumbarton and Uxellodunum/Petrianis/Stanwix. The problem is not so much whether either is a decent choice, but rather whether the Arthurian battles - as I've laid them out - actually represent those of a Roman general or can be assigned to just one Dark Age chieftain or mercenary (without resorting to a composite figure). And it seems to me that Dyfed's Arthur may hold the clue to answering this question.

To begin, discounting the suggestions I made in the "Stones and Horsez" article above, I've been unable to establish a link between the Deissi and Strathclyde or Dalriada (other than their shared "Irishness", of course). We know of no marriage ties existing between Dyfed and either Strathclyde or Dalriada. Nor is there a hint in our records of a military alliance. Lastly, I could not find anything convincing to tie the tribal groups together prior to their respective folk migrations to Britain.

But could there be an interesting religious connection between SW Wales and Northern Britain?

St. Kentigern/Mungo of Strathclyde is said to have fled to Menevia/St. David's prior to returning home under the kingship of Rhydderch. 

Could the name of a famous northern Arthur have come to be known to the Dyfed royal house through Kentigern?

Unfortunately, no.

Scholars have shown that Kentigern's sojourn in Wales and his etablishment of religious houses there which are well-known to have been founded by Welsh saints was a Norman period creation of Jocelyn of Furness. Jocelyn invented the story to bolster the primacy of the Glasgow archbishopric. Instead, actual early Mungo place-names are clustered in Cumbria and if the saint did flee anywhere, it was to there. Not to Wales.

That all leaves us, I'm afraid, with nothing substantial of a true historical nature to help us account for how the Arthur name got to Dyfed.

I keep coming back to the marked horse culture present in both Dyfed and Dalriada. 

Interestingly, I've had confirmed for me that the Petriana unit name, possibly deriving from that of its first cimmander, Titus Pomponius Petra, would still have taken the form Petriana had Petrus been that commander's cognomen. From Dr. Roger Tomlin on the Petriana name and the cavalry garrisoned at Stanwix:

"It's only a good guess that the unit took its name from Pomponius Petra. Petrus or even Petrius would be perfectly possible. And after centuries at Stanwix, with hundreds of horses housed there, it is bound to have produced 'civilian' horses, too."

And this brings us back once more to Petr(us), later Welsh Pedr, the father of the Dyfed Arthur. Such a man may have seen in the Cumbric Arthur, a war-leader who descended from the Ala Petriana - a famous cavalry unit he may have associated with his own name - a good name for his own son.

The only other Petra that could be involved is that of Petra Cloithe, a Latin rendering of Alclud, capital of Strathclyde. Although, so far as I know, that Latin form is used only in Adomnan's Life of St. Columba. All the Welsh sources have Alclut/Alclud.

We also have the questionable 18th century testimony of a couple of antiquarians that Stanwix was known anciently as "Arthur's fort." While it is easy to dismiss this claim, the site is the only one in the North to have been referred to as Arthur's headquarters 

[The romance-derived Carlisle is a modern misinterpretation, something I long ago made clear: see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/02/pinning-down-arthur-his-most-likely.html?m=1.]

The Petrianis fort has always been ideally situated for an Arthurian command post. It is close to Camboglanna/Castlesteads, to Aballava/Avalana/"Avalon" (Burgh By Sands), to Dea Latis/"Lake Goddess" dedications and to a prototypical Grail fort (Concavata/Drumburgh). In the Roman period it was the most important fort on the Wall, housing the largest cavalry unit in all of Britain. It could respond quickly to points North and East.

I've pointed out before that as the Ala Petriana was a Gallic unit, the horse goddess Epona would have been worshipped by its members. Scholars of Celtic religion believe that the Dyfed horse goddess Rhiannon was a manifestation of Epona.

Finally, it is believed (although reports have yet to be published) that wooden structures excavated there might prove sub-Roman reuse of the fort.

If there were ever a perfect place for a Dark Age British Arthur, fighting in the old Brigantian territory and north into the territory of the Votadini against the Saxons (and maybe the Picts - unless the Miathi/Maeatae and Caledonii belong to Lucius Artorius Castus and/or Arthur son of Aedan)), Petrianis is it.

We would have to postulate that the same man was well-known at Alclud and his name passed from there to Dalriada. If Kentigern really was in Cumbria, he may have learned of Arthur while there. Or there may gave been marriage ties and/or a military alliance between Strathclyde and Cumbria.

We must remember, though, that Castus was of the equites. If Petr father of Arthur is not properly to be related to the cultural remnant of the Ala Petriana (which, after all, had been withdrawn from Britain in the early 5th century), and we thus lose that viable means of transmission of the Arthur name, the mythical ghost of Castus must be allowed to come back into play.

And - this is very important! - if Uther Pendragon was really the famous Northern British Arthur's father, Strathclyde is still a contender through Ceredig the 'cruel tyrant.' [But it must be admitted that the Welsh would probably have used their own teryn for a L. tyrannus.  Pendragon instead perfectly matches the magister militum title of St. Illtud.]

Should we care to allow the dragon as a Welsh poetic metaphor for a warrior originating in the dragon that was the Roman draco or, in particular, the ethnic draco of the Dacians, we might still look towards Banna/Birdoswald, in the Irthing ('Little Bear') Valley near Camboglanna Castlesteads. I'm still fairly confident that Banna went by the nickname the 'Aelian Dragon' because of the special significance of the Dacian draco. Banna's garrison for centuries, including in the late period, was a Dacian one. For more on this, see

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-scholarly-support-for-my-reading.html?m=1

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-wolf-serpent-standard-of-dacians.html?m=1

Granted, we don't have the clear link between Banna with its infantry garrison and either Strathclyde and Dalriada or Dyfed. We would have to postulate merely that an Arthur at Banna was famous and those Irish in Britain who wanted to be British took the name for their own sons. There may have been no need for the native Britons to do the same, as Arthur already belonged to them.

While I personally love the idea of an Arthur at Birdoswald, I'm not sure the idea is supportable.

I once tried to make the Dark Age Arthur a son of Sawyl of Ribchester, a Roman fort known for its Sarmatian cavalry. But I abandoned the theory as it was based solely on my own clever and valid emendations of opaque poetic terms in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN and a new and intriguing etymology of the name Eliwlad in THE DIALOGUE OF ARTHUR AND THE EAGLE. The latter collapsed when the Eli- element could not be shown to be a loan-translation from the Irish. Thus the argument did not have the weight to support a sound argument for a historical Arthur candidate.  This was a shame, as Sawyl had married a Dal Fiatach princess - the same Dal Fiatach tribe we know the Dalriadans married into. A Hiberno-British Arthur descended in part from Sarmatian cavalry might well have seemed attractive to the Dalriadan and Dyfed monarchs seeking a name for their sons.

A FINAL STATEMENT ON ST. ILLTUD AS UTHER PENDRAGON (IN LIGHT OF MORE RECENT RESEARCH)

The ground swallowed them, never to return to earth;

Illtud believed when he had seen such acts;

"He who had been a soldier, subduing many strongholds,

Changed his warfare, seizing the highest crown;

Becoming a monk, he profited in diverse ways."

- Vita Sancti Cadoci

Illtud on the Samson Cross

Deep down, almost secretly, I've never relinquished the strong feeling (conviction?) that Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, is St. Illtud.  By now my readers are doubtless tired of my constantly bringing this up.  Most recently I wrote the following piece on the subject:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-terrible-ghost-of-illtud-soldier.html

As I've just admitted in my newest article (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/badon-as-bath-final-proof.html) that I've been wrong in trying so hard to push the Liddington Badbury as Arthur's Badon, I thought I should take a look at Illtud in light of what seems a much more certain identification of Badon with Bath in Avon.  And I had also not considered Illtud in light of the revelation that the Annales Cambriae's Camlann entry betrays major contamination in the person of Medraut (a metathesis of St. Medard of Noviomagus in Gaul; see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/05/a-selection-from-my-revised-making.html).  This, too, needed to be considered in in connection with Illtud, as a very early church to the saint is found close to the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales, the traditional site of Arthur's last battle in later Welsh tradition.

But before I do any of that...

A quick summary of what I think the best candidate for Uther Pendragon remains St. Illtud - as long as we remember that Uther P. was later identified by Geoffrey of Monmouth with the 'terrible soldier' of the Irish COMPERT MONGAN, an act that gave us the entire marvelous story of Arthur's birth.  I have elsewhere treated exhaustively of how this all worked out, with Gorlois of Cornwall being originally the gorlassar epithet Uther gives himself in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN and Igerna being a mere truncation of Irish Caintigerna (and not Geoffrey's Latin form of Welsh Eigr, which is itself an adaption of Igerna), etc.

The Welsh PA GUR poem places Mabon servant of Uther Pendragon in the valley of the River Ely in Glamorgan.  This was where Pawl Penychen ruled, and we know that Illtud commanded that prince's troops prior to becoming a saint.  Illtud has Latin military titles/ranks applied to him in the hagiography that translated directly into Pendragon (magister militum, princeps militum), and appears after his death in spectral form as a 'terrible soldier.'  These terms were easily combined at some point to form Uther ('the terrible') Pendragon (chief of warriors; see Bromwich's notes in her TRIADS).

Now the trick is accepting that at some point Uther Pendragon as a poetic descriptor for Illtud was wrongly taken as an entirely separate personage.  This kind of thing could rather easily have happened over time, especially as the saint's martial attributes were considered undesirable from a Christian point of view.  In the end, it was found necessary to convert (pun strictly intended) Uther Pendragon from being Arthur's father to being his uncle.  Illtud thus became Arthur's cousin.  The Bicanus made Illtud's father is a false patronymic derived from the Welsh Bicknor place-name, a site which like the Lydbrook, the real "Letavia/Llydaw" origin point of Illtud, is actually or English etymology. Everything about that Lydbrook origin point suggests Illtud hailed from the kingdom of Ercing, not from Brittany.  Ercing is replete with early Arthurian associations.

Now, when I was fixated on the Liddington Badbury, I had supported my argument with what seemed a remarkable coincidence: the same English Bican- place-name and Lyd-/Lud- stream-name was present at Liddington.  To me, this was sure and certain "evidence" that Illtud's localization in Ercing was itself a relocation from Liddington Castle.  And, of course, in this line of reasoning, Badon could scarcely be anything other that the Liddington Badbury.  The Liddington fort had been called Durocornovium in the Roman period, a name containing the tribal name Cornovii, identical with the later Welsh Cernyw, their word for Cornwall.  Even better, just a short distance from Liddington along the ancient Ridgeway as Barbury Castle, the 'Bear's fort', a site I had often thought might have been named by the English for the 'bear' that was Arthur (W. arth = bear).

Of course, this all seemed too good to be true.  And, as it turns out, that appears to be the case.  If, that is, we accept my new findings regarding Badon as Bath.

In brief, Badon is absolutely beyond any doubt the Welsh form of English Bathum, and I've not found a single top Celtic or English linguist who disagrees with that verdict.  I have in the piece cited above discussed the Sulis/Sulim hillfort at a Gildas/Gweltas site in Brittany, and that I now hold to my identification of Posentesbyrig as Pascent's fort (something approved of by Dr. Richard Coates) as a doublet for William of Malmesbury's Vortigern's burg, i.e. Bradford on Avon.  The latter town is, of course, hard by Bath.  Solsbury hillfort at Bath, despite the misgivings of some toponym experts, can be shown through a number of different developmental stages to have been named for Sulis, the presiding deity of Bath.  My guess is that Gweltas at Sulis is a folk association of Gildas with Badon/Bath.  This is especially so as most authorities see Gweltas as originally an entirely different saint with whome Gildas was wrongly identified. 

Given these two apparent facts, it is supremely difficult to accept Badon as anything other than Bath.

However...

We modern scholars are always judging these matters on our own criteria.  There is no reason why British peoples of the Dark Ages might not have accidentally or intentionally substituted a Bathum name for a Baddan- name (itself claimed to be from an otherwise unattested/proposed and difficult, if not impossible, to etymologize English Badda personal name).  If this did happen at some point, perhaps due to influence from early English records on Bath like the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, then the Liddington Badbury might be able to be provisionally allowed to stand as Illtud's true home.

If we permit such an unprovable philological transgression, we still have two major problems to deal with: the HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S battle list (minus Badon) and the Annales Cambriae's Camlann battle.

The first is easy enough to dispense with.  It would be either a totally fictional creation - a possibility that even believers cannot not wholly gainsay - or a reflection of the legendary campaigns of the Roman general Lucius Artorius Castus. Some of them could also have been taken from actions fought by Arthur son of Aedan.  In any case, if we are talking about an Arthur who comes from either Ercing or Durocornovium, the northern battles do not work for him.  And I am as certain as I can be that my identifications for the HB battles are quite valid.  To date, no one has found better candidates for the HB battles, nor have they been able to come close to disproving my identifications.  

Camlan of 537, if we go by the Medard intrusion into the AC entry, is the ASC's Cynemesora.  This place was directly across The Solent from the Isle of Wight.  Cerdic of Wessex had died in 534 right after conquering that island.  It is not impossible that if an Arthur based at Liddington Castle were fighting the English in the SW that a deep thrust to the south into Hampshire did occur and that Arthur perished fighting not Medraut, but Cerdic.  At least according to the rather dubious testimony of the ASC, Cerdic had made it up partway up the Hampshire Avon before continuing with battles farther to the south.  Could we postulate that he was driven back down the Avon Valley and then killed at Cymenesora as he tried to make his way north a bit farther to the east? 

Llanelltyd or the Church of Illtud near the Afon Gamlan in Merionethshire might tell us that a tradition grew up in the area that the Gamlan was the Camlann and so a church to Arthur's famous saintly father was erected there.  If Cymenesora is not the right place, and the Afon Gamlan is, then we are dealing with the wrong Arthur.  An Arthur perishing at the Gamlan looks to be the 7th century Arthur son of Petr of Dyfed.  This makes a great deal of sense, as there was always warfare going on between Dyfed and Gwynedd.  This is found in early stories in the Mabinogion and in later history.  

Needless to say, the Camboglanna Roman fort not too far from the west end of Hadrian's Wall could have no bearing on an Arthur son of Illtud. It may have belonged to a Northern Arthur. The 537 date is suspect because of the Medard intrusion. As Badon's 516 in the AC looks to be wrong (with c. 490-500 being a better estimate), it is quite possible the real Camlann happened at a different time.

And that's about as good as I can do when it comes to Illtud as Arthur's father.

The problem with the theory is that it does not help us with the subsequent Arthurs, all of whom belonged to Irish-descended dynasties in western Britain (Dyfed and Dalriada).  There is very good reason to believe that the Arthur name first came into the Dalriadan royal family through the Strathclyde Britons.  We have no way of explaining how an Arthur son of Illtud from either Ercing or Liddington Castle would have been of any interest to the royal families of Dalriada and Dyfed.  We would be stuck with saying, "Well, Arthur of Ercing or Liddington became famous fighting the English in southern or southwestern England and so the Strathclyde Britons quickly took up the name among themselves and passed it on through marriage to the Dalriadans. The Dyfed kingdom, who so far as we know had nothing to do with the Dalriadans, wanted to use a famous British name, so it took Arthur."  

Unfortunately, that explanation is beyond lame, in my opinion. Instead, the preservation of the Arthur name in the North, and in particular in Strathclyde, can be traceable to a famous Artorius in the North, like the Roman general of that name from the early 3rd century.  Had he achieved a mythical status by the 5th century, his name may well have been current in Strathclyde.  

Given all of that, I'm more inclined at this point to let go of Uther Pendragon, assigning his identification as father of the famous Arthur to Geoffrey of Monmouth. For we must remember that nowhere in the pre-Galfridian Welsh sources is Arthur's father named, and Uther, in his few occurrences, is not described as Arthur's father.  

If we must have all the northern battles together with Badon and Camlan, and are going to push a Dark Age hero, there are only a couple of ways I can think of to do this.  I've outlined both in this recent blog post:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-northern-battles-of-arthur-with-no.html

I would like to be able to favor Ceredig Wledig of Strathclyde as Arthur's father. As the 'cruel tyrant' he could have yielded an Uther Pendragon independent of the Illtud identification.  Still, the Latin word tyrannus has its obvious counterpart in Welsh teryn, so it is difficult to abandon the perfect equation of Pendragon with Illtud's magister militum. It may simply be that Geoffrey of Monmouth chose to use Uther as Arthur's father.  That no contemporary authority (that we know of) objected to this may be because the real father of the Dark Age hero wasn't known.  

If we are insisting on the North, but don't like Strathclyde, an unnamed chieftain at Petrianis on Hadrian's Wall is not a bad idea - although this last is supported only by very late, local folk belief.  

Beyond this I am unable to go at the present time.  

ELAFIUS, HIS CRIPPLED SON AND ARTHUR

St. Germanus of Auxerre

Some time ago I posted a blog article on a radical idea, i.e. that the crippled boy in the c. 446-7 A.D. story of St. Germanus and Elafius , as found in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was a reference to Arthur/Artorius. 

But Bede got Elafius from a character found Constantius of Lyons' Vita of St. Germanus:

[21] NEC multo interposito tempore nuntiatur ex eadem insula Pelagianam peruersitatem iterato paucis auctoribus dilatari; rursusque ad beatissimum uirum preces sacerdotum omnium deferuntur, ut causam Dei, quam prius obtinuerat, tutaretur. Quorum petitioni festinus obtemperat. Namque adiuncto sibi Seuero, totius sanctitatis uiro, qui erat discipulus beatissimi patris Lupi Trecasenorum episcopi, et tunc Treuiris ordinatus episcopus, gentibus primae Germaniae uerbum praedicabat, mare conscendit, et consentientibus elementis, tranquillo nauigio Brittanias petit.

Interea sinistri spiritus peruolantes totam insulam Germanum uenire inuitis uaticinationibus nuntiabant; in tantum, ut Elafius quidam, regionis illius primus, in occursu sanctorum sine ulla manifesti nuntii relatione properaret, exhibens secum filium, quem in ipso flore adulescentiae debilitas dolenda damnauerat. Erat enim arescentibus neruis contracto poplite, cui per siccitatem cruris usus uestigii negabatur. Hunc Elafium prouincia tota subsequitur; ueniunt sacerdotes, occurrit inscia multitudo, confestim benedictio et sermonis diuini doctrina profunditur. Recognoscunt populum in ea, qua reliquerat, credulitate durantem; intellegunt culpam esse paucorum, inquirunt auctores, inuentosque condemnant. Cum subito Elafius pedibus aduoluitur sacerdotum, offerens filium, cuius necessitatem ipsa debilitas etiam sine precibus adlegabat; fit communis omnium dolor, praecipue sacerdotum, qui conceptam misericordiam ad diuinam clementiam contulerunt; statimque adulescentem beatus Germanus sedere conpulit, adtrectat poplitem debilitate curuatum, et per tota infirmitatis spatia medicabilis dextera percurrit, salubremque tactum sanitas festina subsequitur. Ariditas sucum, nerui officia receperunt, et in conspectu omnium filio incolumitas, patri filius restituitur...

Chapter XXI

Meanwhile evil spirits, flying over the whole island, made known through the involuntary prophecies of their victims the coming of Germanus, with the result that one of the leading men in the country, Elafius by name, came hurrying to meet the holy men without having had any news of them through any regular messenger. He brought with him his son who had been crippled in early youth by a grievous malady. His sinews had withered and the tendons of the knee had contracted and his withered leg made it impossible for him to stand on his feet.

The whole province came along with Elafius. The bishops arrived and the crowds came upon them unexpectedly. At once blessings and the words of God were showered upon them. Germanus could see that the people as a whole had persevered in the faith in which he had left them and the bishops realized that the fallings-away had been the work only of a few. These were identified and formally condemned.

At this point Elafius approached to make obeisance to the bishops and presented to them his son, whose youth and helplessness made his need clear without words. Everyone felt acutely for him, the bishops most of all, and in their pity they had recourse to the mercy of God. The blessed Germanus at once made the boy sit down, then felt the bent knee and ran his healing hand over all the diseased parts. Health speedily followed the life-giving touch. What was withered became supple, the sinews resumed their proper work, and, before the eyes of all, the son got back a sound body and the father got back a son...

When I read the description carefully of Elafius's son's lameness, I happened to think of the following words (from Lewis and Short's Latin dictionary):

arto (not arcto ), āvi, ātum, 1, v. a. 1. artus,

I.to draw or press close together, to compress, contract (not found in Cic.).

I. A.. Lit.: omnia conciliatu artari possunt, * Lucr. 1, 576: “libros,” Mart. 1, 3, 3; Col. 12, 44, 2: “vitis contineri debet vimine, non artari,” Plin. 17, 23, 35, § 209: “angustias eas artantibusinsulis parvis, quae etc.,” id. 3, 6, 13, § 83.—

B. Trop., to contract, straiten, limit, curtail: “fortuna humana fingit artatque ut lubet, i. e. in angustias redigit,” Plaut. Capt. 2, 2, 54 Lind.; Liv. 45, 56: “tempus,” to limit, circumscribe, Dig. 42, 1, 2; 38, 9, 1: “se,” to limit one's self, to retrench, ib. 1, 11, 2 al. —

II. In gen., to finish, conclude, Petr. 85, 4.—Hence, artātus , a, um, P. a., contracted into a small compass; hence, narrow, close; and of time, short: “pontus,” Luc. 5, 234: “tempus,” Vell. 1, 16.

artus , ūs, m. id., mostly plur. (artua, n., Plaut. Men. 5, 2, 102; quoted in Non. p. 191, 12.—Hence, dat. acc. to Vel. Long. p. 2229 P. and Ter. Scaur. p. 2260 P. artibus; yet the ancient grammarians give their decision in favor of artubus, which form is also supported by the best MSS.; cf. arcus.—The singular is found only in Luc. 6, 754; Val. Fl. 4, 310, and Prisc. p. 1219 P.).

I. A.. Lit., a joint: “molles commissurae et artus (digitorum),” Cic. N. D. 2, 60, 150: “suffraginum artus,” Plin. 11, 45, 101, § 248: “elapsi in pravum artus,” Tac. H. 4, 81: “dolorartuum,” gout, Cic. Brut. 60, 217.—Sometimes connected with membra, Plaut. Men. 5, 2, 102: “copia materiaï Cogitur interdum flecti per membra, per artus,” in every joint and limb,Lucr. 2, 282; 3, 703 al.; Suet. Calig. 28; cf. “Baumg.-Crus., Clavis ad Suet.: cernere lacerosartus, truncata membra,” Plin. Pan. 52, 5.—

B. Trop., the muscular strength in the joints; hence, in gen., strength, power: Ἐπιχαρμεῖον illud teneto; “nervos atque artus esse sapientiae, non temere credere,” Q. Cic. Petit. Cons. 10.—More freq.,

II. The limbs in gen. (very freq., esp. in the poets; in Lucr. about sixty times): cum tremulis anus attulit artubus lumen, Enn. ap. Cic. Div. 1, 20, 40 (Ann. v. 36 Vahl.); so Lucr. 3, 7; cf. id. 3, 488; 6, 1189: “artubus omnibus contremiscam,” Cic. de Or. 1, 26, 121: dum nati (sc. Absyrti) dissupatos artus captaret parens, vet. poet. ap. Cic. N. D. 3, 26, 67: “copia concita per artusOmnīs,” Lucr. 2, 267: “moribundi artus,” id. 3, 129 al.: “rogumque parari Vidit et arsurossupremis ignibus artus, etc.,” Ov. M. 2, 620 al.: “salsusque per artus Sudor iit,” Verg. A. 2, 173; 1, 173 al.: “veste strictā et singulos artus exprimente,” and showing each limb, Tac. G. 17: “artusin frusta concident,” Vulg. Lev. 1, 6; 8, 20; “ib. Job, 16, 8.—Of plants: stat per se vitis sine ullopedamento, artus suos in se colligens,” its tendrils, Plin. 14, 1, 3, § 13, where Jahn reads arcus.

artus (not arctus ), a, um, adj. v. arma, prop.

I.fitted; hence,

I. Lit., close, strait, narrow, confined, short, brief: “exierunt regionibus artis,” Lucr. 6, 120: “claustra,” id. 1, 70; so id. 3, 808: “nec tamen haec ita sunt arta et astricta, ut ea laxarenequeamus,” Cic. Or. 65, 220: “artioribus apud populum Romanum laqueis tenebitur,” Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 5: “nullum vinculum ad astringendam fidem jure jurando majores artius essevoluerunt,” id. Off. 3, 31, 111: “compages,” Verg. A. 1, 293: “nexus,” Ov. M. 6, 242: “artostipata theatro,” pressed together in a contracted theatre, Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 60: “toga,” a narrow toga without folds, id. ib. 1, 18, 30 (cf. exigua toga, id. ib. 1, 19, 13): “nimis arta convivia,” i. e. with too many guests, who are therefore compelled to sit close together, id. ib. 1, 5, 29 et saep.—Hence, subst.: artum , i, n., a narrow place or passage: “ventus cum confercit, franguntur in artomontes nimborum,” Lucr. 6, 158 Lachm.: “multiplicatis in arto ordinibus,” Liv. 2, 50; so id. 34, 15: “nec desilies imitator in artum,” nor, by imitating, leap into a close place, Hor. A. P. 134.—

II. Trop., strict, severe, scanty, brief, small: “sponte suā cecidit sub leges artaque jura,” subjected himself to the severity of the laws, Lucr. 5, 1147: “Additae leges artae et ideo superbae quasqueetc.,” Plin. 16, 4, 5, § 12: “vincula amoris artissima,” Cic. Att. 6, 2: artior somnus, a sounder or deeper sleep, id. Rep. 6, 10: “arti commeatus,” Liv. 2, 34; Tac. H. 4, 26; cf.: “in artocommeatus,” id. ib. 3, 13: “artissimae tenebrae,” very thick darkness, Suet. Ner. 46 (for which, in class. Lat., densus, v. Bremi ad h. l., and cf. densus) al.—So, colligere in artum, to compress, abridge: “quae (volumina) a me collecta in artum,” Plin. 8, 16, 17, § 44.—Of hope, small, scanty: “spes artior aquae manantis,” Col. 1, 5, 2: ne spem sibi ponat in arto, diminish hope, expectation, Ov. M. 9, 683: “quia plus quam unum ex patriciis creari non licebat, artior petitioquattuor petentibus erat,” i. e. was harder, had less ground of hope, Liv. 39, 32; and of circumstances in life, etc., straitened, distressing, wretched, needy, indigent (so in and after the Aug. per. for the class. angustus): “rebus in artis,” Ov. P. 3, 2, 25: “artas res nuntiaret,” Tac. H. 3, 69: “tam artis afflictisque rebus,” Flor. 2, 6, 31; so Sil. 7, 310: “fortuna artior expensis,” Stat. S. 5, 3, 117: “ne in arto res esset,” Liv. 26, 17.—Adv.: artē (not arcte ), closely, close, fast, firmly.

I. Lit.: “arte (manus) conliga,” Plaut. Ep. 5, 2, 29: “boves arte ad stipites religare,” Col. 6, 2, 5: “arte continere aliquid,” Caes. B. G. 7, 23: “aciem arte statuere,” Sall. J. 52, 6: “arte accubare,”Plaut. Stich. 4, 2, 39.—Comp.: “calorem artius continere,” Cic. N. D. 2, 9, 25: “artiusastringi,” Hor. Epod. 15, 5: “signa artius conlocare,” Sall. C. 59, 2: “artius ire,” Curt. 4, 13, 34: “artius pressiusque conflictari,” Gell. 10, 6.—Sup.: “milites quam artissime ire jubet,” Sall. J. 68, 4: “artissime plantas serere,” Plin. 12, 3, 7, § 16.—

II. Trop.: “arte contenteque aliquem habere,” Plaut. As. 1, 1, 63; id. Merc. prol. 64: “arte etgraviter dormire,” soundly, Cic. Div. 1, 28, 59: “arte appellare aliquem,” briefly, by shortening his name, Ov. P. 4, 12, 10: “artius adstringere rationem,” Cic. Fat. 14, 32: “abstinentiamartissime constringere,” Val. Max. 2, 2, 8.—

III. Transf.: “arte diligere aliquem,” strongly, deeply, Plin. Ep. 6, 8; so also id. ib. 2, 13.

arthrītis , ĭdis, f., = ἀρθρῖτις,

I.a lameness in the joints, gout (in pure Lat., articularis morbus), Vitr. 1, 6.

From Greek ἄρθρον, arthron "joint," from PIE *ar(ə)-dhro-, suffixed form of root *ar- "to fit together."

The reader will note that these words contain among their meanings "joint", "contract", "lameness" and the like. The lameness of the boy was due in part to the contraction of the tendons of the knee joint.

Could it not be that the author of the vita had fancifully derived his story of lameness from the name Arthur/Artorius?  These names could well have been wrongly etymologized by drawing on Latin words like artus and arto.  In this way Arthur was thought to mean a boy whose knee joint had suffered contraction of the tendons.

The idea is not as crazy as it sounds.  Professor Stefan Zimmer, in his paper ‘The Name of Arthur’, includes among the formal possibilities for explaining the name Artorius the following:

“Artorius as a genuine Latin formation may belong to the word family of ars ‘art, skill, craftmanship’, and be a derivative of artus, -ūs (masculine substantive) ‘structure, joints’, or, less likely, from artus (adjective) ‘structured, tight’. Artorius might have been a substantivized adjective meaning ‘joiner’ (not necessarily in the restricted sense of the modern English word).”

Professor Joseph Pucci, one of the world’s top experts in Late and Medieval Latin, said in response to my query on this issue:

“I think it is possible for a Latin author to connect the name Arthur to the Latin words you discuss. That sort of etymologizing, in fact, strikes me as foundational to the way early medieval thinkers on language and/or literate people thought about the relationship of words to ideas. Two sources that might be useful: Robert Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies, which will give a sense of this sort of thinking in an earlier context (earlier for your interests); the other is a contemporary, and perhaps more immediately useful, source: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, in many editions and several translations, including English.”

Professor Gregory Hayes, another expert in Late and Medieval Latin, added:

“Medieval writers are pretty flexible when they start etymologizing and it wouldn't surprise me to see one connecting the name Artorius with artus (noun or adj.), if there was some advantage to be gained in a particular context by doing so.”

If this confusion of the name Arthur/Artorius for the Latin artus or similar did happen, then the son of Elafius was quite possibly Arthur! 

BADON AS BATH: A FINAL PROOF

             Little Solsbury Hill, Bath

    

Just a short time ago, I wrote this piece:

          

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/07/sulis-of-bath-and-sulis-of-castennec.html?m=1

What I hadn't thought about was something that had been off my radar for many years - Little Solsbury Hill fort at Bath.

The name of this hillfort is believed to preserve the goddess Sulis name. She was the presiding deity at Bath.

Now, while there is some consensus that the Breton St. Gweltas may not originally have been St. Gildas, even if this were true it would be remarkable if a saint identified with Gildas in Brittany had been associated early on with a fortified Sulis hill. For such a hill would be a perfect counterpart to the British Solsbury.

It does not matter that Solsbury has so far failed to show sub-Roman use and appears to have been abandoned in the Iron Age. Any old hillfort might well have been repurposed for a single battle.

Badon and W. Caer Faddon are both Bath, linguistically speaking. They cannot be any other British or English place-name. Amateur historians who have not consulted the world's top Celtic language specialists continue to put forward new or old candidates. A good example is Mynydd Baeddan, which may derive from W. Baedd, "boar." These same amateurs are not aware of the fact that baedd has a diphthong /ai/, not the /a/ we see in Badon (Dr. Simon Rodway) or that even if we suggest that a Baedd-ON that went into Latin could have ended up Badon, ae could not come across as a. We would expect either Latin ae or Latin e (Prof. Peter Schrijver).

If we, then, finally accept Badon as Bath, we have only two problems remaining to consider. 

The first is easy to resolve, and I long ago proposed the solution. Why would Gildas, who addressed King Maelgwn prior to the latter's death in 547, call the British victory by an English name?

Surely his parents would have told him about the battle that was fought when he was born. As the AC date of 516 has to be wrong (given Maelgwn's obit and Gildas's age of 44 years 1 month), and the proper date of Badon was probably between 490 and 500, and Bath was very far to the west, it could not possibly have yet been known by its English name. 

I have suggested the work of Gildas originally had the British name, the hill of Sulis, but that at some point later a monkish copyist who found the pagan goddess name objectionable, substituted what was at his time the then English name of the place: Bathum, which regularly becomes Badon in the British.

Simple enough. Can't be demonstrated, of course, but it is a reasonable explanation.

Of more serious concern to us, of course, is the very early date for a battle against the Saxons at Little Solsbury Hill. And to that I shall return shortly.

But first, a bit on how the location of the AC's Second Battle of Badon (fought in 665) helps support my identification of the first Badon battle as an action at Bath.

The actual year entry for this Second Battle of Badon reads as follows:

665 The first celebration of Easter among the Saxons. The second battle of Badon. Morgan dies.

The "first celebration of Easter among the Saxons" is a reference to the Synod of Whitby of c. 664. While not directly mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, nor the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede, there is an indirect reference to this event:

664 … Colman with his companions went to his native land…

This is, of course, a reference to Colman's resigning of his see and leaving Lindisfarne with his monks for Iona. He did so because the Roman date for Easter had been accepted at the synod over the Celtic date.  

While there is nothing in the ASC year entry 664 that helps with identifying Badon, if we go to the year entry 661, which is the entry found immediately prior to 664, an interesting passage occurs:

661 In this year, at Easter, Cenwalh [King of Wessex] fought at Posentesburh, and Wulfhere, son of Penda [King of Mercia], ravaged as far as [or "in", or "from"] Ashdown…

The regular northern boundary of Wessex in the west was the Bristol Avon. The Thames was the northern bounday farther east. I once used Penda's Ashdown near Liddington Castle/Badbury to identify Badon with the latter. But that ignores linguistics and Bradford On Avon's significance (see below).

I've recently identified Posentesbyrig as "Pascent's Burg". Leading English place-name authority Dr. Richard Coates had this to say when I asked him if this etymology worked:

"I see no absolute barrier to Posent – Pascent. Welsh <sc> is the cluster [sk], which would be rendered in OE as “esh” since OE had no cluster [sk] before a front vowel, even in the earliest times. “Esh” would normally also be spelt <sc>, but that’s a coincidence. It’s possible for “esh” to appear very occasionally as <s>, even before the conquest, as in Ryssebroc for Rushbrooke (Suffolk) in the mid-10th century."

William of Malmesbury seems to suggest that Bradford on Avon was once called Vortigern's Burg.

From https://www.dot-domesday.me.uk/wessex.htm:

"William of Malmesbury, however, writes that Cenwalh: “totally defeated in two actions the Britons, furious with the recollection of their ancient liberty, and in consequence perpetually meditating resistance; first at a place called Wirtgernesburg [meaning “Vortigern’s stronghold”], and then at a mountain named Penne” (GR I §19). This seems to imply that Wirtgernesburg is synonymous with Bradford-on-Avon, and that the enemy was, therefore, the Britons. Æthelweard, though, in his rendition of the event (II, 7), uses the phrase “civil war”, which presumably means that he believed the battle to be an internal dispute, or, at least, against other Anglo-Saxons."

       Bradford On Avon Near Bath

As Pascent was Vortigern's son, it makes sense to see Posentesbyrig or Pascent's fort as another nickname for the Vortigern's fort that was at or immediately adjacent to Bradford On Avon.

It is now thought possible that Vortigern's fort is the Budbury Hill camp at Bradford On Avon (see https://www.bradfordonavonmuseum.co.uk/iron-age).

Obviously, given all that, the best candidate for the Second Badon is Bath.

With Bath now convincingly identified as Badon, we need to return to our consideration of the chronology problem. To state that problem in succinct form, how can we account for a battle between Britons and Saxons at Bath as early as 490-500?

What comes to mind is the Gewissei battle at Dyrham in the ASC at 577. As a result of this victory, Bath was taken in the same year.

Well, I've proven pretty conclusively that the Gewissei were Irish or Hiberno-British federates from NW Wales. As some top historians like Barbara York have recently suggested, they may have been fighting for the Britons, not the Saxons. They might  later have been co-opted by the English and converted into the founders of Wessex.

An alternative interpretation would be to see a high king at Viroconium employing both Saxon and Irish mercenaries against his fellow Britons in the South. Intertribal warfare certainly occurred once the Romans were gone.

I've also shown that the early Gewissei generations are reversed in the ASC. Ceawlin and Cynric of the ASC are to be identified with Cunedda Maquicoline and Cunorix, found on the famous Wroxeter Stone:

https://linkedopenogham.github.io/cisp-recovery/cisp/database/stone/wrxtr_1.html#i1

Cunorix/Cynric son of Cunedda Macquicoline/Ceawlin is dated 460 - 475.

My identification of Ceawlin with Cunedda goes way back, beginning with pieces like this:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-irish-cunedda-selection-from-my.html?m=1

This theory was developed more fully and correctly over several years on this blog. The end result was the published book CEREDIG SON OF CUNEDDA AND THE FOUNDING OF WESSEX:

https://a.co/d/09SegnEU

Now, if Cunorix/Cynric is dated 460-475, and we allow him to have predeceased his father, it is possible for Ceawlin to have fought at Bath c. 490-500. Or at least some member of his immediate family might have done so. Cerdic of Wessex, presented as coming before Ceawlin in the ASC, is Cunedda's/Ceawlin's son in the Welsh sources. Specifically, he is the founder of the Welsh kingdom of Ceredigion.

In this revised scenario, of course, the dates of the ASC are seriously out of whack. But if I'm right about the Wroxeter Stone, we have archaeological proof to support such a contention.

Before I conclude this essay, given that Bath does appear to be Badon and that the battle was fought a decade or two prior to the AC date of 516, might we find a way to allow Arthur to have been at least one of the victors there?

Well, the only way in the past that I managed to place Arthur in the South was to identify him with Cerdic of Wessex. There were several reasons for attempting this, but I ultimately abandoned the notion. Still, there remains a slight possibility that the crippled son of Elafus/Elaphus in the Vita of St. Germanus of Auxerre may still be a reference to Arthur. 

I refer my readers to the following old blog, advising them to ignore the references to Cerdic as Arthur:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-i-ultimately-decided-on-ceredig-son.html?m=1

And then check out this excellent study on Elafus:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23969887

If Elafus has properly been brought into connection with the ASC's Elesa, father of Cerdic, we are looking at a connection with the Gewissei. As has been known for some time (see Kenneth Sisam's Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies, for example), Elesa is a link inserted to bring the Wessex genealogy into accordance with northern AS genealogies. In reality, Cerdic is son of Cunedda/Ceawlin.

But it is not impossible that Elafus is someone else entirely - viz., an actual chieftain somewhere in Southern Britain.

We just can't prove his son was Arthur, and have no independent early testimony for Arthur at Badon other than the HB and AC battle lists. I'm still of the very strong opinion that as all the battles other than Badon are British place-names and all are decidedly in the North (even Camlan, if we allow for that site to be Camboglanna on Hadrian's Wall) that Badon was not originally an Arthurian battle.

Correcting Dr. Linda A. Malcor's Misstatements Regarding the Relative Size of the L. Artorius Castus Memorial Stone

Note: I have over a dozen queries regarding the following post still out to scholars whose expertise centers on Roman funeral architecture and art. As more responses from them come in, I will add to those to the end of the article.

This vitally important private communication from the late John Wilkes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_) describes his own excavation of the now famous (or infamous!) L. Artorius Castus stone:

"In the matter of historical context most people would appear to believe that a date in the reign of Commodus proposed for this career by H.-G. Pflaum (catalogue of equestrian procurators) was too early and his career better fits in the the third century AD, not least because of the use of the term dux in what one assumes to be an official description of his status in command of detachments of the legions stationed in Britain. Moreover, since there are several records of Artorii from Dalmatia, it seems probable that his military career was honoured in his native land. In 1962, in company with my old friend Tony Birley, I travelled from Split a few miles south along the coast where we located the two halves of the text still incorporated in the roadside field wall at Podstrana di Jesenice. The part of the stone with the key letters ARM[...] was buried but we managed to excavate it from the grass verge and confirm that there were no traces of further letters to be seen. Since then both parts of the stone have been removed to the Archaeological Museum in Split and subsequently there has appeared a full study of Castus and his career in the Vjesnik za Arheologiu I Historiju Dalmatinsku."

Why is this letter so important?

Because Dr. Linda A. Malcor, proponent of the ARMATOS reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna on the Castus stone, has often presented - as if it were an extant archaeological setting - an imaginary portrait of the tomb of Castus.

For example, at 5:55 in her rebuttal of August Hunt's talk (https://youtu.be/dyLHmqhN5Ak?si=00TpVia1vkEtBSwV), Dr. Linda A. Malcor says that L. Artorius Castus could not have made his stone larger because it was a memorial stone on a tomb, that is was found in a necropolis, and that the stone couldn't be bigger because it would extend beyond the roofline of the tomb.

This entire assessment of the LAC stone is wrong and based on assumptions devoid of an evidentiary context.  

To begin with, the stone (as described by Wilkes) was found built into a modern road's low wall.  There is no necropolis (a term used, in any case, for a large cemetery associated with a city; at Podstrana we are talking about a family tomb or a solitary plaque).  There is no tomb.  And we have no way of knowing how large the tomb was, so to say that its roofline had not been large enough to support a larger stone is an absurd statement.  Dr. Malcor is, literally, conjuring an edifice that we have no evidence for, whatsoever.  She has no way of determining dimensions for any of the structures affiliated with the memorial stone. 

Our first record of the LAC stone (or, rather, it's left half) is found in De' scavi di Salona, 1850, by Francesco Carrara. He is often cited for claiming that an E was ligatured to M, which will fill in part of the lacuna and more easily allow for the reading to be ARMENIOS. But his rendering of that portion of the inscription that he could make out is pretty poor:

Also, he is less than helpful in telling us what the stone was like in situ. In fact, his only reference to the find reads as follows:

"Frammento di un sarcofago, ornatissimo, in marmo bianco, presso la chiesa di San Martino di Postrana alla strada nuova di Almissa.

Fragment of a highly decorated white marble sarcophagus, near the church of St. Martin of Postrana on the new road in Almissa."

It is likely, then, that Wilkes, the excavator of both halves of the stone, preserves more reliable testimony when it comes to whether an E ligatured to the M was visible or not.

What I would like to do now for the remainder of this blog post is to list statements from several leading experts in Roman funeral architecture and art.  Fronting their statements is my original, unedited email query to them, the same query that elicited the statements.

"Dear X:

I'm assuming that sarcophagi of the Severan period in Dalmatia, and specifically in Salona, would be of varying sizes. Size may well be determined by the relative wealth of those people paying to have the sarcophagi made. Although, I imagine other factors could come into play. But, in brief, there was no standardized size?

No standard size for the memorial plaques either, I presume?

Where would a plaque such as the following one for L. Artorius Castus be placed? 

https://lupa.at/24235?query=764015336

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Most sincere best wishes, and respectfully,

Daniel Hunt"

Here is what Professor Michael Koortbojian, M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton and expert on Roman sarcophagi, had to say on the LAC memorial stone:

"No standardized size for sarcophagi. But at least big enough for a body (those for children were often small). 

Not very many sarcophagi were inscribed. The few texts we have are short. In the tomb itself, there was no standardization.

I don’t think that there is any way to know whether the Castus stone accompanied a sarcophagus. It’s a very standard plaque with a commemorative text. The body might well have been cremated. Unless you knew more about the findspot, there is no way to know for sure.

I’m not so sure the diminishing height of the inscription’s letter forms necessarily prove that it was hung up high.  The last line is a convention, and often small; the name is larger for obvious reasons. Again, I doubt it accompanied a sarcophagus.

At the same time, it would not have rested on the ground; too hard to see there. Often this sort of plaque was immured on the outside of a tomb precinct, where passersby could see it."

Prof. Jas Elsner:

"There is no standard size for sarcophagi or plaques.  The plaques are heavy and were not hung but immured — in front of tombs, or over burial spaces within tombs, or as memorials. Could be in association with a sarcophagus directly or not.  Part of the problem is that despite the numbers of such things, their archaeology as a record of specific siting and context (rather than treasure hunt for stuff) has historically been very poor, so we have much less detailed information than you’d expect."

Nino Švonja, Senior curator, Epigraphic Collection, Archaeological Museum of Split:

"The sarcophagi vary in size. This depended both on individual commissions and on the price. In Dalmatia, most sarcophagi are of local production, carved from limestone, although there were also imported examples. These were products of Attic, Roman, and Asia Minor workshops and were carved from marble. This means that they must also have been more expensive than locally produced sarcophagi.

Likewise, the stone slabs bearing other inscriptions do not have standardized dimensions, but rather depend on the wishes and means of the person commissioning them.

As for the inscription of Lucius Artorius Castus, it must have been built into either his mausoleum or the enclosure surrounding his funerary plot (hortus)."

Professor Nenad Cambi:

 "Dear colleague Hunt, there are not standardised size of sarcophagi in the whole Roman world. Normal sizes vary from specimen to specimen. There are vrious dimensions for one or more persons. Local limestone was cheaper than marble one. As concerns the fragments of Lucius Artorius Castus sarcophagus it was made of Proconnesian marble probably cut in Salona.   The bigger plaque also with the similar inscription is from local stone and it was intended for the entrance of the precinct as the main monument in the centre. It was common type of a smaller type of the luxury graveyard. That is the reason why we have two almost identical inscriptions. Anyway the costs of chests depend on the marble and the size."

Professor Carrie Weaver:

"Yes, there would be variation in the sizes of Severan sarcophagi, and much of the variation would be based on cost. A sarcophagus would be a more expensive burial container to begin with, but the greater the size and more elaborate the sculptural embellishments, the greater the cost. There wasn't much in the way of standardization, but the sarcophagi also would not have all been made-to-order. There would be mostly complete sarcophagi in a workshop, and someone could pick one of those out and then pay for additional customization, such as carving a portion onto pre-existing figures or purchasing an inscribed plaque. The plaques would also be varying sizes, so no standardization there either.

The placement of plaques could vary. Because the sarcophagi would be on display in a family tomb, the inscriptions are mostly placed in the center, but I've also seen them in the niches in which sarcophagi sit. Are you sure this is from a sarcophagus? I think it might have been on the outside of a tomb. Also, cremation was still being practiced during this period, so it could have been covering a niche that contained an urn.

Looking closer at the inscription--particularly the end--I think it's from a family tomb and not a sarcophagus. Sounds like you've been in touch with an epigrapher, but "vi/vus ipse sibi et suis [--- ex te]st(amento)" --> "Set this up for himself and his own in [his] will", is the type of statement that typically refers to multiple inhumation. Essentially, he establishes the tomb for his immediate family members and household members (i.e., enslaved people and freedmen) after his death. This was a very common Roman practice and it's commonly seen (or variations of it) in Roman funerary inscriptions."

Professor Drazen Marzic, Department of Archaeology, University of Zadar:

"The Severan period was certainly an era of a certain standardization of sarcophagi, in style/form and not so much in size. Though not all phenomena of this type have been sufficiently studied. This standardization is most clearly visible on the sarcophagi front through the shape of the inscription panel (tabula ansata), the side panels featuring various depictions, and the filling of the acroteria with busts of the deceased. However, no one has studied the dimensions of the chests and lids or what governs them. I would say their dimensions relate more to whether a single person was being buried or, for instance, a married couple (bisomi, which was common in Salona). But who knows—perhaps a study of dimensions would reveal that standardization extended to size as well? Still, we have clear cases where one sarcophagus for a couple is of average size while another is massive, so wealth and self-presentation certainly play a role.

As for memorial plaques, I wouldn't say we have anything as tangible as we do with sarcophagi.

Regarding the large "tabula ansata" inscription of L. Artorius Castus, you yourself mentioned some possibilities for its contextualization, as well as some that are out of the question. It is impossible that it stood above the burial within the tomb, because the burial was definitely in the form of a sarcophagus that had its own inscription—hence the question: why two inscriptions in the vicinity? Nor could the inscription have stood independently; the channels for metal clamps at its upper corners indicate it was immured into a structure, almost certainly serving as a doorway/passageway. Now, whether it’s an entrance to the burial area or to a tomb/mausoleum—who knows? Small mausoleums containing sarcophagi began appearing in Dalmatia in the 3rd / 4th centuries, and this could be an early example of that type, though they became more common in the 4th and 5th centuries."

 

 

 

THE NORTHERN BATTLES OF AN ARTHUR WITH NO KNOWN ORIGIN POINT

The Arthurian Battles (when confined to the North)

My readers will be more than familiar by now with my seemingly futile quest to nail down the origin point of a Northern Arthur.  While all the HB and AC battles can very nicely be found in the North (see map above), and this "arrangement" has always been my "fantasy portrait" of the Arthurian campaigns, it must remain perpetually deficient if we can't find determine where a 5th-6th century battle-leader came from.

Of course, we can default to L. Artorius Castus, the 3rd century Roman prefect of the Sixth legion at York, who may have led legionary vexillations against the Maeatae and Caledonii confederations during the Emperor Septimius Severus' invasion of northern Britain.  But if we want to keep Badon and Camlan in the mix, we must have our sub-Roman/Dark Age chieftain.  

And, as I never get tired of reminding my readers, the list could be a composite one, made up of the exploits of several Arthurs.  I remain very unhappy with the far Northern battles when it comes to seeing them as belonging to a Dark Age chieftain based on the Wall or in Northern England.  They look to be either battles belonging to Aedan son of Dalriada or L. Artorius Castus. Only Castus really works for those battles plus the southern ones, minus Badon.  If Castus fought at Camboglanna (which is quite possible, as Septimius Severus and Caracalla are attested there), he obviously didn't die there.  The idea that an Arthur based in northern England or on the Wall might have been fighting for or in alliance with the Gododdin against Picts is not impossible, but also not particularly attractive. 

I'm quite content letting go of Uther Pendragon, a.k.a. St. Illtud, for the reasons I've discussed in the past (more recently here: https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-terrible-ghost-of-illtud-soldier.html). I think it is highly likely that Geoffrey of Monmouth or a predecessor had merely adopted the Uther name for the sake of poetic assonance or because a splendid story could be made out of Uther's epithet Pendragon.  It is important to note, however, that if this were done it could only be because the father of the famous Arthur was not known.  Had it been known (and, again, we don't find Uther attached to Arthur until we reach the Galfridian material), we would either have a record of it in the Welsh poems, stories and hagiography or someone post-Galfridian would have objected to the identification and sought to set it right.

If for the sake of argument we take out Uther, and we take out L. Artorius Castus, we are left with a group of men generally referred to as the genuine historical Arthurs.  I'm here posting an image of p. 48 in CONCEPTS OF ARTHUR by Thomas Green, wherein these men are described:

The consensus view is that the first of the historical Arthurs is Artur son of Aedan of Dalriada.  I have written about him before, most recently in the following piece, where I bring attention to the alternate father provided for him in the Irish sources, viz Conaing, the Irish form of the English word for "king":

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-fatherless-welsh-arthur-and-case.html

The name Arthur, being British, had to come into the Dalriadan royal family via the Britons, and most likely through Strathclyde.  It is known that Aedan married the niece of a British king (Rhydderch of Alclud, Aedan's contemporary?) and that he had a daughter named Maithgemma ("Bear" in the Irish). We all know that Artur may well have been associated with the Irish art, 'bear", cognate with the British arth.

Now, as always, our real problem here is dating.  The HB and the AC nicely sandwiches Arthur between 488 and 547.  The AC provides dates for Badon and Camlan at c. 516 and c. 537.  This is way too early for any of the historical Arthurs, and way too late for the early 3rd century L. Artorius Castus.  An intentional backdating of Arthur in order to place him at Gildas' Badon is certainly possible (although purists hate the idea, quite naturally!).  But if we want to allow for the Northern battles as they appear on the map above (with Badon = Buxton of Aquae Arnemetia and the Bathamgate and Camlan as Camboglanna/Castlesteads [1]), and we must accept the provided chronology, we are forced to seek another solution to the problem.

It would be wonderful if we could accept the dubious testimony of Nicholson and Burns who, in the late 1700s/early 1800s recorded a local tradition that Etterby hard by the Stanwix/Uxellodunum/Petriana Roman fort on the west end of Hadrian's Wall was known as Arthur's burg.  But the tradition is quite late, and we have no independent confirmation of such a tradition. Improbable that Etter- was wrongly interpreted as a corruption of Arthur. But, the first element of the Etterby place-name (from OFr. Etard) features in Arthurian romance (see ETTARD in Christopher W. Bruce's THE ARTHURIAN NAME DICTIONARY). Thus we must view this potential power center with some suspicion (although, see more on Petriana below). 

I've tried to make circumstantial cases for Birdoswald and Ribchester as well, but both collapsed under a sea of empty suppositions, often based on unreliable Welsh tradition (such as genealogies) and Roman period history and archaeology.

All of these efforts, although they can be made superficially attractive, even compelling on occasion, cannot prove the presence of a Dark Age Arthur in any of the proposed locations.

The real question is: why, prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth, do we not possess a father or a kingdom for Arthur? Why, from the 9th century HISTORIA BRITTONUM on, is he lacking a patronymic? 

Why was this Arthur left as a ghost for so long?  I've been racking my brain over this for some time. None of the explanations offered by other Arthurian researchers stand up to scrutiny. I can resort to the Dalriadan Conaing being mistaken for just the noun "king", rather than being seen as a personal name. But this idea does nothing to resolve our chronological inconsistency.

Well, I keep coming back to this article:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html?m=1

In that piece, I examined two prominent motifs found in the historical and traditional material relating to Dalriada and Dyfed. The first concerned a prevalent equine association, while the second displayed a propensity for rocks.

Now, we have to be very careful here, for the Ala Petriana would have been withdrawn from Uxellodunum in the early 5th century. It is not unreasonable, however, to assume that some relic or attempted preservation (duplication?) of a martial horse culture might have remained at the fort.

The Gallic cavalry's predilection for the worship of Epona is historical fact, and the Petriana was originally formed in Gaul. Most scholars of Celtic religion think that the Dyfed Rhiannon is a manifestation of Epona. If so, then the name of a great sub-Roman war-leader in the North who traced his descent to a member of the Ala Petriana (named for a Petra) might well have appealed to a chieftain of Dyfed named Petrus. This is especially true given the Eochaid and Artchoirp at the head of the Deissi genealogy.

Similarly, a Scottish group whose tribal name (Dal Riada) and ancestor Eochaid bore names related to riding and horses, who had settled in the Kintyre of the Epidii or Horse-tribe, might also find the name Arthur attractive. Especially if the name came from British Petra Cloithe/Alclud/"Aloo".

Yes, it is true there were other Roman cavalry units stationed in Britain over the centuries. And if we wish to see such a horse connection for Arthur (other than the obvious fact that Castus was of the equestrian class), we could look to those.  But if the goddess Epona is significant in this regard, we must confine ourselves, it seems to me, to Gallic groups - like the Ala Petriana.

We would not be talking about the Sarmatian horse at Ribchester, for example.

Sheppard Frere nicely sums up the strategic importance of the Petriana fort in his Britannia: A History of Roman Britain:

“The western sector of the Wall was the most dangerous… both on account of the nature of the ground and because of the hostile population beyond it. It is not surprising to find, then, that at Stanwix near Carlisle was stationed the Ala Petriana… Such regiments are always found on the post of danger; and the prefect of this Ala was the senior officer in the whole of the wall garrison. Here, then, lay Command headquarters, and it has been shown that a signaling system existed along the road from Carlisle to

York, which would enable the prefect at Stanwix to communicate with the legionary legate at York in a matter of minutes.”

Dr. Roger Tomlin commented on this passage (personal communication):

"Stanwix was certainly the base of the ala Petriana, the only milliary ala in Britain, so its prefect would have been senior to the other prefects and tribunes on the Wall. Its geographical location also is significant, as Frere says."

Without knowledge of a 5th-6th century Northern Arthur's father's name, and lacking a point of origin for our theoretical hero, my placement of the HB and AC battles, along with the shared characteristics of the Dyfed and Dalriadan Irish-descended dynasties impels me to point very tentatively to Petriana as the sub-Roman Arthurian power center.

P.S. I won't lie; I rather like the proximity of Petriana to Camboglanna, as well as to Roman Aballava/Avalana (modern Burgh-By-Sands) with its Dea Latis/"Lake Goddess" and Concavata (modern Drumburgh), a possible prototypical Grail Castle.

[1]

Both Badon and Camlan are highly problematic battles. Badon as a decidedly English name does not fit with the otherwise British names of the HB list. And Camlan is made suspect by the intrusion into the AC entry of the Gallic Medard, metathasized into Medrat, as well as the other strand of Welsh tradition which locates the site at the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales.

I've written elsewhere that Maelgwn's death in 547 or 549 forces a chronological shift of the Badon date from c. 516 to the ASC Bieda battle in 501. It is my belief this last (given the variant spellings of Bieda), found preserved at Bedenham on Portsmouth Harbour, was mistakenly replaced with Badon in the Gildas MS. by a copyist.

In any case, there is no reason to suppose that Arthur was at Badon.

Camlan may still be a dim folk memory of LAC's presence at Camboglanna, a site subjected to later relocations in heroic legend.

NOTE:

There remains one other possibility for a northern Arthur - and this one provides him with a known father of a mighty kingdom.

The idea I'm referring to was first floated in 2019:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/09/crudelisque-tyranni-and-uther-pendragon.html?m=1

In brief, I suggested that the Latin descriptive title given to Ceredig Wledig of Strathclyde - crudelisque tyrranni - had been rendered in Welsh as Uther Pendragon. This was done to avoid using the king's name, as he was considered evil by St. Patrick.

Ceredig's floruit was correct for him to be Arthur's father and the Dumnonii of Strathclyde might well have been confused in later legend for the identically named tribe in SW England whose territory included Cornwall). Furthermore, the name Arthur most likely came from the Strathclyde Britons and its use by Aedan of Dalriada for his son is the earliest historical evidence we have for such use.

As Strathclyde controlled extensive territory and was still active against the Angles in Rhydderch's time and beyond (in fact, of all the British kingdoms, Strathclyde was the only one NOT to fall to the English), there is no reason why a prince of the Alclud royal house could not have been fighting the Germanic invaders in the east.

In Welsh heroic tradition (Culhwch ac Olwen), Arthur's father is said to have kin at Caer Dathal in Arfon. This is the only Welsh localization of Uther. While I've suggested a different etymology for Dathal, Patrick Sims-Williams allows for the possibility that Dathal stands for Irish Tuathal. We find this last as Tothail, father of Roderc (Rhydderch), in the Life of Saint Columba, a 7th-century Latin hagiography written by Adomnán of Iona. It is quite conceivable that Caer Dathal, if Caer Tuathal, is a Welsh relocation of Alclud, nicknamed at some point Tothail's fort.

Utilizing such a figure, we could even keep Camboglanna as Arthur's death-site and Buxton of Bathamgate as Badon, scene of his greatest victory. While evidence heavily supports the Avon Bath as Badon (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/09/badon-as-bath-final-proof.html?m=1), as Aquae Arnemetia also contained the name of a pagan goddess there is no reason why at a later date in legend building Bath could not have been substituted for Buxton. The probable early date for Badon of c. 490-500 tends to support the Buxton location better than that of Bath.

The strange "stone" motif present in the stories of the more historical Arthurs (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/01/stones-and-horses-on-reaching-final.html?m=1) can just as easily be attached to Alclud as Petrianis. The "horse" motif, which also seems to be present, would not be due to the Roman cavalry garrison of Petrianis, but to the eques class of Lucius Artorius Castus, from whom the name Arthur originated.

While it still remains true that there might be some overlap in the battles with Arthur son of Aedan and Castus, there is no reason why we can't allow for an Arthur son of Ceredig the Cruel Tyrant to have been a Dark Age British champion against the Angles.