Revisiting the Fathers of the Three Guineveres

Lancelot and Guinevere by Herbert James Draper

For Gwythyr son of Greidol, one of the fathers of the three Guineveres according to TRIAD 56, see my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON (see Chapter Six).  I still hold that my earlier identification of Gwythyr with the popular northern god Vitires of the Romano-British period is correct, even though from a purely etymological standpoint the scholars continue to favor Victor.

I have, however, changed my mind on the true natures of both Cywryd of Gwent and Gogfran the Giant.

Cywryd cannot be a corruption, as I once thought.  Bromwich in her notes to her revised version of the TRIADS notes that the name is found for other personages.  Furthermore, she explains that 'Gwent' is in this instance for the Afon Caint/Ceint on Anglesey.  This fact meant nothing to me until I went and looked at the Ceint on the map.  It is a small tributary of the Cefni, but lies very close to the Afon Braint.  The Braint, in turn, preserves the name of the goddess Brigantia.  Her name means 'the exalted one' and has been linked to Welsh brenin, Early Welsh breenhin, 'king.' Welsh has also brenhines, 'queen'.  Could it be that Guinevere (= the Irish Find[si]abair, "White Phantom") as one of the three chief (pref) queens (riein) of Arthur is here being identified with Brigantia?  

Gogfran is the most difficult of the three names to analyze.  Why?  Well, here are the discussions of his name from both P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY and from Bromwich's note:

The first thing we can do is dispense with R. J. Thomas's idea that the giant's name should be related to the Ogran in Monmouthshire.  This stream is called the Ochram Brook and there are several Ochran place-names associated with it.  The derivation is rather simple and straight-forward, though; it is from Welsh Gochrwm or Gogrwm (with the G- lost through the usual process of mutation), "bent, crooked, curved."  I have this suggestion from James January-McCann of Historic Place-Names with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales.

Thomas also proproses for Ogrfan a meaning of 'keen-horse', with the first element being similar to Irish ochair and the second one from Celtic *mandu-.  I note in the eDIL entry for ochair that Whitley Stokes sees the word in some contexts as meaning 'swift', which might make more sense than keen or sharp.  The Welsh cognate of Irish ochair, viz. ochr, does not have the same range of definitions.  

Some of the places linked to Gogfran are interesting, even if they are instances of late, spurious tradition.  Aberyscir is very near to Nant Bran, indicating that the name was thought of as containing -bran, "raven."  However, the Powell's of Castle Madoc on the Honddu River near the Yscir have long had the chough in their coat of arms. For why this may be important, please see below. The unlocated castle between or immediately adjacent to Penmaenmawr in Arfon and the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula points to Nefyn, which I long ago showed was the Caer Nefenhir of the 'Cad Goddeu' poem, in which the god Bran plays a leading role.

The castle near Abbeycwmhir is probably meant to be the motte called Tomen Bedd Ugre, with Ugre being mistaken for the Ogr- of Ogrfan.  

Perhaps more interesting for our purposes are Old Oswestry hillfort and Knucklas Castle.  Why?  The first is on Wat's Dyke, while the second is close to Offa's Dyke.  Gogfran, if taken as is (all the other forms can be explained on the basis of a lost initial G- and/or a metathesis of -vran to -rvan), is the common Welsh word (see the GPC) for "chough, jackdaw, Cornish chough, crow, redshank." In Cornish folklore, Arthur's spirit left his body after he died at Camlan in the form of a chough.  The Cornish word for the chough is palores (or balores; apparently the difference has to do with the gender of the bird), 'digger.' Welsh has a cognate word palwr, "digger, miner, builder of a bank of mud wall, hedger, excavator", to which may be compared cloddiwr, claddwr. 

The chough's habit of digging for prey is well known.  Here is a photo of this behavior in action:

What I'm wondering is whether Gogfran was thought of as a sort of giant supernatural digger of trenches?  In Irish tradition, the god Dagda is forced to become a digger in the story "The Second Battle of Mag Tured:"

"Now when Bres had assumed the kingship, the Fomorians, --Indech son of Dea Domnann, and Elotha son of Delbaeth, and Tethra, three Fomorian kings, laid tribute upon Ireland so that there was not a smoke from a roof in Ireland that was not under tribute to them. The champions were also reduced to their service; to wit, Ogma had to carry a bundle of firewood, and the Dagda became a rath builder, and had to dig the trenches about Rath Bresse."

Interestingly, the Dagda is the father of Brigit, the Irish form of the British goddess Brigantia whose name is preserved in that of the Afon Braint.  It would seem to be a stretch indeed to claim that Gogfran the Digger was a nickname for the Dagda, and that it was being claimed that he was the one responsible for digging both Wat's and Offa's Dykes!  Yet there may be a relationship between Gogfran and the Dagda.  In my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON, I referred to the well-known association of the god Lugh with ravens, and went so far as to identify the Welsh Bran with Lugh.

Regardless of any certain or even nebulous connection between Gogfran and another known divine figure, I'm at least satisfied - finally! - that the name itself as a designation for the chough is correct.  

NOTE: While it may be of no significance, the territory of the Brigantes, the people of Brigantia, embraced the locations where dedications to the god Vitires were found. The Carvetii are usually considered part of the Brigantian confederacy who were later recognized as a separate civitas (see Rivet and Smith's THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN).  Viteres (and variants) was actually a Germanic deity whose name meant something like 'The White One.'  Again, see my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON for details.  There are Vitires inscriptions at the Roman fort of Ebchester or Vindomora, and I had earlier put forward the notion that a Latin spelling of Guinevere such as Geoffrey of Monmouths' Guanhumara may have been associated with the fort name.

An interesting article by Michelle Ziegler in THE HEROIC AGE compares the Brigantian queen Cartimandua and Guinevere (http://www.heroicage.org/issues/1/habcg.htm).