THE ARTHURIAN BATTLES OF THE NORTH

Bremenium (High Rochester), Western Gateway of the Roman Fort

In going over Arthur's battles ONE MORE TIME (!!!), I was struck by what is unmistakably the traditional placement of several of the sites in the North.  

Nowhere, perhaps, is this more evident than in the 'Pa Gur' poem's localization of the Tribruit battle.  In my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I treated in great detail of this place-name and was able to show, quite conclusively, that as far as the author of the poem was concerned, the Tribruit was the trajectus over the Firth of Forth at Queensferry.  For my treatment of the Tribruit battle-site, see

http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/08/arthurs-tenth-battle-shore-of-river.html

In my book THE BEAR KING, wherein I attempt to identify Arthur with Ceredig son of Cunedda/Cerdic of the Gewessei, I opted intead to place the Tribruit/Trajectus between Bath and Caerwent, as such a site is named in the Antonine Itinerary.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: if the very early 'Pa Gur' poem insists that the Tribruit was at North Queensferry, what possible justification do we have for situating the battle-site at/near Bitton in South Gloucestershire? Sure, there were doubtless trajecti all over the place, either called such officially or referred to as a common descriptor. Thus a battle that originally belonged at/near Bitton could have been transferred in tradition to the one at North Queensferry.

But if this, in fact, what happened?  The only thing we can say with certainty is that the earliest extant tradition on the location of the Tribruit battle-site places it at North Queensferry.

There are some other problems with Arthurian battle-sites in the south.  In the 'Cerdic/Arthur scenario', I cleverly identified the Celidon Wood battle with that of a "hard" wood that could, conceivably, have been Cerdic's wood.  But this identification relies on two suppositions.  First, that the hard wood was, in fact, Cerdic's wood, and that the author of the Arthurian battle-list in the Historia Brittonum happened to know that the root of the word Celidon was the same as the Welsh word for "hard", viz. caled.

Instead, we can opt for the relocated Caledonian Wood in the Scottish Lowlands, which almost certainly was centered on the Caddon Water.  See

http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/08/arthurs-seventh-battle-celidon-wood.html

If we apply the principle of Occam's Razor rather ruthlessly, there really is no contest here.  The Celidon Wood is the Celidon Wood, not a substitute name for a hard wood in extreme southern England.

A similar issue needs to be addressed concerning the Breguion and Agned hill battles.  Yes, Breguoin was at first etymologized by Kenneth Jackson as containing the British word for quern, and thus the quern hill in southern England looks attractive.  But, Jackson later changed his mind and said that Breguoin was a perfect rendering for the Bremenium Roman fort in Northumberland.

Wade-Evans, in his translation of Nennius, thought that the apparent identification of Breguoin and Agned was due solely to a "shuffling" or, rather, condensing of the battle list, something made necessary by the addition of Badon (which for him was not, properly, an Arthurian battle).  And in THE BEAR KING, I do made a case for Agned being derived from an English personal name contained in a battle-site name found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  In other words, in the southern scheme, Breguoin and Agned are two separate sites.

Yet if we opt for Bremenium, then the identification of both hill battles is easy, for Agned can be shown to derive straight across from the Roman/Latin name Egnatius.  The latter was a governor and a rebuilder of the Bremenium fort.  We have his name recorded there in a stone inscription.

Another problematic battle is that of the Bassas, supposedly a river-name or a descriptor used for a shallow place in a river.  Any shallow place could have been so designated.  And as Welsh bas can be used of a ford, I saw no difficulty in applying the term to Charford/Cerdic's ford.  This despite the fact that the usual word for ford in Welsh is rhyd and it is extremely odd that ford in this instance would have translated as bas-.

On the other hand, if we want the actual name Bassas, preserved as such to this day, then Dunipace in Scotland works nicely.

As for the remainder of the battle names I can say only this:  yes, they can be made to fit into the southern scheme.  However, to do so we have to assume that most are Welsh errors in translation for English place-names or are close approximations of English place-names.  Castle Guinnion is a good example.  In THE BEAR KING, I propose that the Wiht- of an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Isle of Wight place-name was wrongly interpreted as being English hwit, 'white', and so Guinnion, with its presumed gwyn/'white' element was substituted.  Again, this is not impossible.  However, Celtic linguists now allow for Vinovium/Binchester being Guinnion and while the equation is not perfect (see Rivet and Smith's discussion of the name in THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN), it is far more suitable than resorting to the Isle of Wight.

If we accept the River Glen in the North we do not have to look to a similar sounding word that allows us to connect this Arthurian battle-site name with an ora in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  The City of the Legion need not be for Lygean-, but for the York where we know a Roman period Artorius was camp prefect.  Dubglas need not be for the English Blackwater near Netley Marsh, but for an actual Dubglas at Linnels on Hadrian's Wall.  And even Badon is not confined to the south, for we know Buxton in Derbyshire was anciently called this by the English.  I had demonstrated that the Welsh tradition (as evinced in the Mabinogion tale "Rhonabwy's Dream") seems to identify Buxton with Badon. Keep in mind that if Cerdic is Arthur, only the first six battle sites belong to him.  The rest were lifted from other Gewissei battles and used to pad out the list to its Herculean total of  twelve.

So there you have it: my own systematic, brutally honest critical comments levied against the theory I presented in my own book THE BEAR KING!

When you add these to what I wrote recently in http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/04/further-discussion-on-possible.html, and then take another look at my first book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I cannot help but admit that an argument seeking to identify Cerdic of the Gewessei with Arthur may be seriously flawed.

Does it necessarily follow, though, that Cerdic is now completely out of the picture?

Well, I think we must decide whether it is more likely Arthur was of the North, and his battle-sites are easily identifiable places in that region of Britain, or if Arthur was of the South, with his battles being Cymracized versions of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle battles.  The clincher for me is the Arthur name itself.  I simply cannot account for how the Hiberno-British Ceredig son of Cunedda, heralding from extreme western Wales, could have been given the name Artorius.  And I say this despite the presence of the Arth River in Ceredigion and of the bear-names in Ceredig's royal pedigree.

The Artorius name, so far as we know, belonged to the North. My own feeling (I won't dignify this by calling it a "belief" - itself a tricky and dangerous enough word) is that Arthur was a Northern phenomenon who was "doing his thing" at the same time the Southern Ceredig/Cerdic of the Gewissei was doing his.  Precisely because they were contemporaries, they may have become somewhat confused in tradition.

Beyond this, I am unable to say.

COMING SOON: Why at Least Some of the Arthurian Battles Truly Belong in the North

North Queensferry, Forth of Firth, Scotland

FURTHER DISCUSSION ON THE POSSIBLE CONFUSION OF UTHER PENDRAGON OF ELEI/ELY WITH THE MIL UATHMAR OF LIDDESDALE

Liddesdale, photo courtesy http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4149070

In past blog articles, I've a) definitively identified Uther Pendragon with St. Illtud and b) have shown how this personage could have been wrongly associated by Geoffrey of Monmouth with the mil uathmar/fer uathmar of the Irish  'Conception of Mongan' story.  In turn, this mil uathmar or Terrible Warrior is, transparently, an Irish attempt at rendering a common corruption of the Degsastan place-name (viz. Egasan-stan).  

My first attempt to treat of a historical Arthur - THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY - sought to place this famous war-leader in Northern Britain.  However, I felt that my argument in that book fell short of being completely convincing.  I had not yet been able to discover the true identity of Uther, and could not demonstrate a more than tenuous genealogical link with the Irish (via the Fergus Mor intrusion into the pedigrees of some of the Men of the North).  The best I could do was suggest that Arthur might be Ceidio son of Arthwys (of the Irthing Valley, wherein we find Camboglanna and the Dark Age hall at Birdoswald).  Ceidio is a hypocoristic form of a longer name which, in all likelihood, meant the same thing as the 'dux erat bellorum' title given to Arthur in Nennius.  A connection with Eliffer of York was a great deal less satisfactory chronologically and was, in any case, based on a corrupt Triad.

THE BEAR KING, a sort of sequel to THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, looked to Southern Britain for a viable candidate.  I found what seemed to be good textual evidence for equating Arthur with Cerdic of the Gewissei/Ceredig son of Cunedda. In settling on Cerdic, I was finally able to account for the indisputable fact that all subsequent Arthurs belong to Irish-founded dynasties in Britain.  Cerdic's descendants also bore several bear-names, and the Arth or Bear river was in the midst of his kingdom in western Wales. Other less conclusive clues pointed in the same direction. At the same time, Uther revealed himself to be Illtud.  While this was a first an exciting discovery, it became obvious upon closer inspection that Illtud had nothing whatsoever to do with Arthur.  His being made the latter's father was yet another fiction imposed upon the tradition by Geoffrey.  

After completing THE BEAR KING, I thought my work was done.  Yet something was still nagging at me.  For some time, I've not been able to put my finger on it.  Now, though, after considerable reflection, I feel that I may be able to articulate this final doubt and what it might mean for anyone going forward with a more finalized Arthurian theory.  What follows is a bit complicated (or convulated!), but bear with me (pun strictly intended).  Hopefully, what I'm getting at will become clear by the end.

Mabon as the servant of Uther Pendragon/Illtud is situated in the Elei/Ely Valley.  I had connected this location in Glywysing (a kingdom name based on the Welsh eponym for Glevum/Gloucester) with Mabon's placement in Gloucester, according to CULHWCH AND OLWEN.  But the truth is, Mabon's center of worship was in Dumfries, not far at all from the Irthing Valley and from Dawston in Liddesdale.  The Clochmabonstane is near Gretna Green, while Lochmaben lies somewhat further to the NW.  The territory in question was that of the ancient Anavonienses, themselves apparently part of the larger tribal group the Novantii.  

Ambrosius (the 'divine/immortal one') of Campus Elleti (Llanilid in Glamorgan) was in legend strongly associated with Mabon/Lleu.  Lleu is said in the Mabinogion to become Lord of Gwynedd, and his death-place in Nantlle is the same location as Mabon's grave. 

Illtud was said to hail from Brittany or Letavia/Llydaw.  The real 'Letavia/Llydaw' in this case appears to have been the Vale of Leadon.  These names are related to the Welsh words lled, lledaf, lledu, llydan.

Now Liddesdale (citing Ekwall) is from Hlydan-dael 'the valley of R Hlyde [the loud one]'.  

What I'm proposing here - very tentatively - is that originally it was known that Arthur's father belonged not in the south, but in the north.  And, specifically, in the area in or near the River Liddel.  Now, Arthwys's son Ceidio is said to have a son named Gwenddolau (Myrddin's lord).  This last is almost certainly a personification of a place-name.  It is preserved in Carwinley, earlier Caer Gwenddolau, a place hard by where the Liddel empties in the Esk.  If Arthur's family once controlled this region, then his father could have been mistakenly linked to the mil uathmar of Dawston.  And this mil uathmar was himself wrongly identified with Uther Pendragon/Illtud!

Yes, that implies quite a mess - a real mangling of historical fact.  But that is exactly the kind of thing that happened in the early sources, many of which stemmed ultimately from oral tradition.  

If we assume, for a moment, that Arthur did hail from the Irthing Valley, how would we account for his relocation to Ceredigion?  Why would he have been identified with Ceredig son of Cunedda/Cerdic of the Gewissei?

Well, the Irthing River is probably from a Cumbric word meaning Little Bear (according to place-name expert Dr. Andrew Breeze), and as such is quite similar to the River Arth is Ceredigion.  As mentioned already, there are bear-names in the royal line of Ceredigion.  And if I am right about Ceredig = Cerdic, then this man was quite a famous war-leader.  The trouble with saying that the name Arthur, from a Roman/Latin Artorius, was used as a decknamen for an Artri or Arthr(h)i ("Bear-king") title or name given to Ceredig is just this: Artorius is a rare name even among the Romans, and so far as we know it was born in Britain only by a camp prefect at York.  Therefore, we can easily imagine that the name continued in the North.  And as Arthwys is said to be related to Eliffer of York, any problem with an Arthur in or near the Irthing Valley is easily overcome. However, we cannot so readily account for its use for the Hiberno-British Ceredig in western Wales.  We are forced to asked the painful question: where did they get the name Arthur/Artorius for Ceredig?

In my two books, I presented two completely different arenas for Arthur's famous battles, as these are found listed in Nennius.  THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY finds the battle-names in the North, and does not have to rely on any linguistic trickery to "make them fit."  Some fairly early poetic traditions (like those present in the 'Pa Gur' poem) supply proof that some of the battles (e.g. that of the Tribruit) were thought to have been in the North. In THE BEAR KING, I attempt to indicate, with varying degrees of success, that the battle-names in the "Historia Brittonum" are Welsh "translations", as it were, of battles recorded in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle."  Unfortunately, only some of the battles credited to Arthur may belong to Cerdic.  Others have to be gleaned from battles fought by other members of Cerdic's family. 

Could it be that at some point in Welsh tradition a famous Northern Arthur was identified with Ceredig?  This may have been done in error, or intentionally for some regional propagandist reason.

In passing, I would remind the reader that Cunedda was claimed to be from the far North - when in reality he was from Ireland.  His essential "Irishness" was removed from history. In an early Welsh elegy on Cunedda, the chieftain is made to fight battles against the Bernicians.  One of the locations listed is Carlisle/Luguvalium hard by the Stanwix I had proposed in THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY as the Northern Arthurian center.

So where do we go from here? 

I'm not quite sure.  My "gut" tells me Arthur belongs in the North.  That he fought battles ranging from Buxton and York up into the Scottish Lowlands, mostly all along the Roman road known as Dere Street.  That he fought and died at Camboglanna/Castlesteads and that his real or mythical burial place is the Aballava/Avalana Roman fort at Burgh-By-Sands (where there was actually a Roman period Goddess of the Lake and a vast marshland).  But the fame of this man does seem to have been co-opted by Ceredig of Ceredigion.  This uncomfortable possibility brings up an additional problem, a sort of chicken and the egg conundrum: if the battles of the "Historia Brittonum" did, originally, belong in the North, why do these seem to dovetail so well with those of Ceredig in southern England?  Is it possible that the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's" Cerdic battles are English "translations" of the Arthurian battles found in Nennius, and not the other way around?

I must confess to not being able to see my way forward to reconciling these two very opposing views on historical Arthurian candidates.  In the near future, I will give this all some more serious thought and see what I can do to clarify matters.