MAESWIG GLOFF AND MAR OF THE NORTH

In the past, I wondered about the Northern chieftain Mar being a sort of eponym for the Moringas of Westmorland.  P.C. Bartram (see the relevant entries in his A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY) thought that Mar and Maeswig Gloff were one and the same person.  But I came to think - and still do - that it is extremely unlikely that Mar would have been used by the early Welsh in this way.  The Moringas, after all, were English.

As I've mentioned before, Mar is a common alternate spelling of Irish Mor.  It probably represents, therefore, the Mor/Mar epithet of Fergus Mor, who otherwise occurs in the early genealogies of the Men of the North as Gwrwst Ledlwm, the father of Meirchiaun Gul of Cumbria and Eliffer Gosgorddfawr of York.  Eliffer's father is also given as Arthwys son of Mar.

Both Mar and Maeswig Gloff ('the Lame') are given as the father of Lleenog, himself father of Gwallog of Elmet.

If Mar = Fergus Mar, then who was Maeswig?  His name, properly etymologized, means "Plain-fighter."  In my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I suggested that he be linked to the Magis Roman fort at Burrow Walls, Cumbria.  According to Rivet and Smith (THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN), Magis is "the fossilised Latin locative plural of a name formed on British *magos... The sense then seems to be 'at the plains.'"  It is possible Maeswig as 'Plain-fighter' was derived from a tribal designation for a group at the fort called the Magovices, Plain-Fighters or, perhaps, Fighters of Magis.

 Other Northern chieftains were likewise placed at Roman forts.  Pabo Post Prydain, for example, belongs at Papcastle. west of Burrow Walls on the River Derwent.  Pabo is variously the son of Ceneu or of Arthwys son of Mar.

A NOTE ON GARBANIAUN (Garmonion, Gorbonion, Gorwynion)

In the Strathclyde genealogy proper, we find a Garbaniaun son of [Ceneu son of] Coel Hen. This Garbaniaun has a son named Dumngual Moilmut or Dyfnwal Moelmul.  Both names are, rather transparently, forms of the Dalriadan prince Gabran (Garbaniaun shows a metathesis of Gabran, plus a territorial suffix, as in Gwrtheyrniaun, a region named for Gwrtheyrn/Vortigern; cf. with Garban for Gabran in the Irish Book of Lecan) and his son Domnall.  The Bran son of Dumngual/Domnall of the British pedigree is probably the attested Bran son of Aedan son of Gabran.

I should note that scholars have preferred to see in Garbaniaun the Roman Germanianus.  However, Germanianus is a rare Latin name, and why it should have appeared among the Starthclyde Britons at this time is very hard to explain.  There was a 4th century Prefect of Gaul bearing this name, but no one else of any note, so far as our records tell us.

While we need not take these apparent intrusions of Irish Dalriadan royal names into the British Strathclyde genealogy at face value, they probably do indicate the existence of marriage ties between the Strathclyde Britons and their neighbors, the Dalriadans.  Such marriage ties are hinted at in the records which pertain to the history of Scottish Dalriada (see John Bannerman’s Studies in the History of Dalriada, Edinburgh and London, 1974).