THE 'ROTWYD ARDERYDD' OF MERLIN/MYRDDIN

River Esk Near Arthuret

In my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON, I included the following section on the 'rotwyd arderydd' where Myrddin/Merlin fought and went mad:

"The ‘Rotwyd’ (Rhodwydd) of Arderys (Arderydd)

The early Welsh poetry on Arfderydd mentions something called the ‘rotwyd’ or rhodwydd.  Scholars cannot say exactly what this was, but they have made a good guess.  According to Rachel Bromwich (see her text, translation and commentary on the Triads of the Island of Britain):

“… Rhodwydd can mean either a ford or an earthen dyke; the latter was frequently constructed on rising ground above a ford, and would be held instead of the ford itself.  This was often the place where the fiercest battles were fought.”

Sir Ifor Williams (in his notes to The Poems of Taliesin) adds:

“… these examples show that rhyd (ford) and rhodwydd occur together often, and Loth suggested that rhodwydd was synonymous with rhyd… Rhodwydd may be from rhawd [cognate with Irish rath, ‘ringfort, earthen fortification’; cf. beddrod, bed + rhawd] and gwydd, cf. gwydd-fa [height, eminence, promontory; seat, throne, mound, burial ground, grave, burial mound, etc., where gwydd = grave, burial mound, grave, burial mound, tumulus].”

As Arthuret in Cumbria is an esker/ridge that anciently was much closer the Esk, and there was once an ancient earthwork atop this ridge, we could assume the ‘rotwyd’ of Arderydd is a reference to this very earthwork which may have once stood guard over a ford on the river."

Subsequent to this piece I attempted various etymologies for Arthuret in Cumbria, found as Arderydd in early Welsh, but also in the poetically altered Arfderydd ("weapon-fierce").  I wanted to link Arderydd or Arthuret to a couple of personal names that are to be found in the Myrddin poetry (Gurrith, i.e. Gwrrith, and Errith).  But none of the experts I consulted were satisfied with my solution the dilemma posed by Arthuret, whose derivation has remained obscure.

Because place-names often have disappointingly prosaic explanations, I went back to Arthuret on the map, and to its situation over time.  What I learned was that there was an important ford in this location, and that the ridge of Arthuret (an esker, or glacially deposited elevation) was in a position to have defended such a ford.  I, therefore, wondered if Arthuret and Arderydd could not come from a Cumbric form of a Welsh Ardd-y(r)-rhyd, 'Height of the Ford.'

In the words of Alan James, an expect on the Brittonic place-names of the North:

"I don’t have a problem with it being a ‘height’, it’s hardly towering, but viewed from the Solway Plain – indeed from the likely ford – it’s quite an impressive bluff at the end of a ridge, a defensible point on the Roman road north, as well as dominating the river-crossing.

There’s the lost and obscure Artemawh in the Lanercost Cartulary that may be ardd-ir- something and if so would be a parallel for ardd > art, and the equally obscure Talahret in the Inquisition of David that might parallel rid > ret. Penrith might parallel the several early forms with -th.  These are all pretty tenuous support, but I must say it’s a more sensible suggestion than most I’ve come across!

I pretty much agree with you about 'rotwyd', and also about the likely difference in the course of the Esk and general geography of the Solway Mosses 1500 years ago - apart from many other considerations, the sea would have been a good bit closer, I think there could have been flooding right up to Arthuret quite frequently.

As to Arthuret, I think *ardd-ir-rid is quite a defensible proposal. Maybe I'm just prosaic, but Ardd-y-rhyd is at least a plausible Welsh/ Cumbric name formation, and, as I said, parallels can be found for the phonological changes between that and Art(h)uret. Granted those parallels are tenuous, I'm not saying it's at all certain. And I am only saying it's a possible origin for the known, 'real' name Arthuret with its fairly well-documented early forms."

Having read the history of the site of Arthuret, I know feel pretty strongly that the "prosaic" reading of the place-name as 'Height of the Ford' is probably correct.  If it is correct, this means that the famous battle of Arderydd (again, the variant Armterid or Arf-derydd, 'weapon-fierce', is a poetic perversion of the original place-name) definitely happened at the ford on the Esk at Arthuret, and not elsewhere (as at the Moat of Liddel further north).

My identification of Arthuret at the Height of the Ford does not fit with my earlier notion that the place-name contained the personal names Gwrrith and/or Errith.  In addition, Dr. Simon Rodway, a noted expert on the Welsh language, has just informed me that "Those derivations for Arthuret/Arderydd are impossible – the consonants are all wrong."  Alan James of BLITON agrees, saying "Not very likely. They look vaguely similar, but there’s neither rr nor th in -uret nor in -erydd, r and dd are different phonemes." 

Fortunately, examination of these personal names has led to another conclusion.  Some scholars have sought to trace them to Dyfed (e.g. "The conversation of Myrddin and Taliesin: A translation of A.O.H. Jarman’s Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin", 2nd edition, Cardiff 1967, Master thesis Celtic languages and culture, University of Utrecht, Marlou van den Bovenkamp, 2007). But the 'Nevtur' they are said to come from, a place-name also said to be the birthplace of St. Patrick, is a corruption of the venta element of Bannaventa Taburinae, a site I've shown conclusively to be the Banna Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall.*

* Banna as the Home of St. Patrick

A great deal of controversy still exists over the whereabouts of the home of the famous Saint Patrick.  I will not here go over the various candidates, none of which have convinced the scholarly community.  Instead, I will make my case for just one of these candidates, as I think new evidence can be provided in support of it.

We are told that the saint was born at ‘uico [vico – “town”] bannauem taburniae (variants taberniae, thaburinde), ‘where three roads meet’ and that this place is ‘near the western sea’.  This town is otherwise known as Uentre (variants Nentriae, Nemthur).

It has long been recognized that the form ‘bannauem taberniae’, i.e. bannaven taberniae, shows an incorrect division of this place-name.  Instead, it should read

Banna Venta Berniae

Venta is best defined thusly (from “Brittonic Language in the Old North”, The Scottish Place-Name Society):

“In all the cases mentioned, a sense ‘a market, a trading-place’ is quite plausible, but the apparent similarity to Latin vendere, ‘to sell’ and its Vernacular Latin and Romance derivatives is probably misleading. Both *Bannaventa and *Glannoventa, as topographical names, might incorporate the suffix seen in the river-names above, or be based on lost river-names with that suffix. Nevertheless, Sims-Williams in APN p119 includes *Bannaventa and *Glannoventa along with the Venta group, under the sense ‘market’.”

Banna’s etymology is as follows (also from “Brittonic Language in the Old North”):

“Non-IE *ban-, *ben- > Early Celtic *banno/ā- > Brittonic, Gaulish banno/ā-, also Gaulish benno- (in place-names) > Old Welsh bann- > (in place-name Banngolau AC s.s. 874) > middle - modern Welsh ban > middle Cornish ba[d]n > Cornish ban (see CPNE p. 16), Old Breton bann > modern Breton ban; Irish, Gaelic benn > (and Gaelic, manx beinn).

Primarily, 'a horn, prong, antler-time', so also 'a drinking-horn, a sounding-horn'. In Celtic place-names generally 'a point, promontary, spur', and in Brittonic and Pritenic place-names 'summit, top', a use which shaped the Gaelic and manx development of the dative (locative) singular beinn to an independent noun, especially in hill-names.: see G. Barrow in Uses, p. 56 (however, given the rarity of ban[n] in surviving hill-names, the influence of unrelated pen[n] may also have been a factor).

To me, it is fairly obvious that 'Uentre', first found in the Life by Muirchu, is merely a duplication in slightly corrupt form of Venta.  Venta as 'market town' is a sort of Celtic substitution for Latin vicus, which has come down to us through Anglo-Saxon as wic or wick, 'market town'.

The Roman fort of Banna on the western end of Hadrian's Wall has often been pointed to as this particular Bannaventa (since the one in central England is not near the sea).  The vicus or civilian settlement that surrounded the fort was quite large, so there is no problem with the vicus/venta portion of the name.

The problem is the 'Berniae', which no one has been able to make anything sensible out of.  This is plainly a reference to the Tyne Gap,  a narrow but distinct corridor running east-west through a lowlying gap between the uplands of the Pennines visible to north and south.  The Gap spans the distance from the Tyne in the east to the Irthing in the west, and Banna/Birdoswald is right there at the western end of the Gap.

From the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language on the Irish word for 'gap':

bern
berna beirn berne bearn Bernai bernad bearnaidh bearna

Keywords: Gap; breach; pass; defile; position; defence; attack; refuge; breach; occupied; warrior; undefended; weak; position; defence; attack; position; danger; strait; fight; gap; break; flaw; drinking-horn; ungapped
Letter: B
COLUMN: 83
Line: 014
bern
ā, f. also berna iā, d and n. as. B. Chon Culaind,  RC viii 54.20  ( LL 13397 ). ds. b.¤,  Sitzb. , v 93 § 30 , beirn,  LL 17995 , gs. berne,  FM v 1636.9 . bearn f.,  IGT Decl. § 39.  as. Bernai,  Corp. Gen. 206.17
gs. cacha bernad,  LL 8030.  berna f., IGT Decl. § 4.  as. bearnaidh,  Éigse xiv 98 § 29.  gs. bearna,  § 28 .

gap, breach; pass, defile; hence weak position in defence or attack: dot luid i mbernai (ar berna, v.l. ) ar-mo chenn-sa thou camest into the breach against me ,  Sc. M² 13.  is b.¤ ina coṅgaib catha a breach in their battle position ,  CRR 57.
do coimét na mbernd cumung robui ag techt aran slia[bh],  ZCP vi 56.10 . annsa mbeirn = in the gap ,  Ez. xxii 30.  aon- fhear faire re seasamh gach beárnan,  Keat. Poems 463.  nī fhūicēb-sa an b.¤ (bern-, v.l. ) sin dom c[h]onāch gan caithem,  ML² 1412.  bearna as mo ré `a part of my life-span ',  Dán Dé xvii 8 . ar bearna an bháis,  DDána 30.6 . ? berna a eric,  Laws ii 98.6  .i. ar in fechiumh nos gaibh, uair do rochuir ní di,  13 Comm.  b.¤ na ngrás gur daingen duid refuge,  IGT Decl. ex. 411.
In phrr. b.¤, berna churad, ¤míled etc.  breach made or occupied by a warrior, etc.: ruc beirnd curad . . . dar cath na nAnmarcach,  Cog. 188.23 . ra briss beirn míled i cath naṅGréc,  LL 32300  ( TTr. 1488 ). do bris b.¤ céit isin cath i n-urc[h]omair a aigthi `made a breach of a hundred ',  Fianaig. 90.30 . berna cēt,  TBC² 3672.  Phr. b.¤ báegail undefended or weak position in defence or attack: aḟágbáil ar bernadaib bǽgail nó ar doirrsib aideda,  Mer. Uil.² 99.  ni b.¤ bægail in læch fuil and `no easy victim ',  Aen. 750.  See G 7.27 . Hence b.¤ position of danger, strait; fight: iarṁbrath na mb.¤,  Rawl. 69 a 27 . suan ón bheirn `from fight ' (Vocab.),  O'Hara 2609.  re ndul san mbeirn,  Dán Dé xxv 21 . gap; break, flaw in general: (expl. Bernán Brigte, name of saint's bell) foceirt forru co mmebaid ass a bernn `its gap broke out of it ' (i.e.  a piece broke off),  Trip. 114.14 . (of a drinking-horn) sēt blāith cen beirn `ungapped',  Measgra Uí Chl. 150 § 19.  an bhearn do-cháidh san chloinnse `the gap thus broken in her family ' (by a death),  Aithd. D. 13.10 . dar bernadaib in inair sin,  Acall. 5808 n . tar beirn na luirige,  BB 435 b 46 . Compds. trias na beilgibh bernbriste dorónadh las an ordanas broken into gaps ,  FM vi 2300.2 . See berrbróc. beilge berncairrgidhe na banBhoirne,  Hugh Roe 242.13 .

Just as importantly, the early name of Patrick in Tirechan is Magonus.  The god Mogons (and variants) is found on Hadrian's Wall, especially the western half/end - where the Banna Roman fort is located.  According to Celticist John Koch, the alternative name of Patrick, Magonus, might be related to this god name.

Finally, thanks to the paper by Dr. Andrew Breeze of Pamplona ("St.Patrick's Birthplace", Welsh Journal of Religious History, 3, 2008, pp. 58-67), I have learned of the 3rd century (?) inscription, apparently from Corbridge but now at Hexham Abbey, by a Q. Calpurnius Concessinius.  Martin Charlesworth of Cambridge noticed that this Roman-period name contained both the family names of St. Patrick, whose father was Calpurnius and mother Conchessa.  Q. was a prefect of an unnamed cavalry unit celebrating the slaughter of a tribal group called the Corionototae.  This stone thus places both of the names of Patrick's parents near the Wall, where Banna/Birdoswald is located.