THE BEAR KING:
ARTHUR AND THE IRISH IN
IN WALES AND SOUTHERN ENGLAND
THE
BEAR KING: ARTHUR AND THE IRISH IN
WALES
AND SOUTHERN ENGLAND
Copyright
© August Hunt January 12, 2018
Cover
Photo: Photographer Andy Van den Eynde. The subject of the photo is Jef Pinceel, who
is portraying a Roman vexillarius (or vexillifer) wearing a bear pelt.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
August
Hunt has a lifelong passion for the Arthurian stories and has been studying
them since his youth. He has lectured extensively on King Arthur at colleges
and for re-enactment organizations. His articles on British Dark Age topics are
also featured on various award-winning websites.
Drawing
on his considerable knowledge of folklore, heroic legend and myth, as well as
place-name studies, history and archaeology, August is providing new and
challenging material which illuminates many of the previously shadowy areas of
the Arthurian tradition.
August
holds a degree in Celtic and Germanic Studies, and is a member of the
International Arthurian Society. When he is not engaged in research and
writing, he enjoys designing and building stone circles and other monuments
that reproduce the celestial alignments of their ancient European counterparts.
His
other Arthurian books and blogs include:
The
Mysteries of Avalon: A Primer on Arthurian Druidism
The
Arthur of History: A Reinterpretion of the Evidence
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/
THE BEAR KING:
ARTHUR AND THE
IRISH IN
WALES AND
SOUTHERN ENGLAND
AUGUST HUNT
FOR HILLARIE
ON HER BIRTHDAY
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
A
NOTE TO THE READER 9
MAP 11
INTRODUCTION 12
CHAPTER
ONE 14
CHAPTER
TWO 19
CHAPTER
THREE 30
CHAPTER
FOUR 37
CHAPTER
FIVE 41
APPENDIX
ONE 60
APPENDIX
TWO 64
APPENDIX
THREE 79
APPENDIX
FOUR 87
APPENDIX
FIVE 91
APPENDIX
SIX 97
APPENDIX
SEVEN 105
APPENDIX
EIGHT 108
APPENDIX
NINE 114
APPENDIX
TEN 125
APPENDIX
ELEVEN 128
APPENDIX
TWELVE 139
APPENDIX
THIRTEEN 150
APPENDIX
FOURTEEN 157
APPENDIX
FIFTEEN 176
APPENDIX
SIXTEEN 179
APPENDIX
SEVENTEEN 181
AFTERWORD 186
And
Arthur and his knighthood for a space
Were
all one will, and through that strength the King
Drew
in the petty princedoms under him,
Fought,
and in twelve great battles overcame
The
heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned.
‘The
Coming of Arthur’ from Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson
A NOTE TO THE
READER:
My
previous books on Arthuriana have all been overly academic. This was necessary for me, but did the casual
reader no favor at all. While I'm not
particularly interested in producing a popular title, I also do not wish to
present merely a rehash of all my previous blog posts, pastiched together in an
unabsorbable and unpalatable form. I've decided, therefore, on a very different
kind of approach, where I "tell" the story of Arthur as I've come to
understand it. Many proofs will be
lacking, and most source citations omitted (although the Appendices will
contain some "denser" material). Anyone who needs to access
additional details such can find them in my previous blog posts. This kind of
account may seem odd to those expecting either more or less in terms of scholarly
explication or creative expression. It
is not my goal to be entertaining, but neither do I want to continue being
dreadfully dull or, worse, impenetrable.
Sometimes
I think that we Arthurian researchers and writers are little better off than
Sir Thomas Malory, who supposedly penned the great and ponderous (and
occasionally tiresome) Le Morte D'Arthur while in prison. Whatever scant sources he had at hand - like
his 'French books' - he cobbled together as best he could, producing a rather
amazing synthesis of a series of adventures which themselves often lacked
cohesion and even coherence, or were even contradictory.
So,
too, we modern writers are circumscribed by our limited extant materials, our
scientific or spiritual biases, our nationalistic tendencies, our egos. We all write from prisons of our own making,
or that have been made for us others. This
book an attempt to escape from such a prison.
Whether or not doing so will actually free me in any important sense
remains to be seen. But if it does, a
new and more vibrant Arthur may emerge from behind the bars and walls that have
for so long kept him moribund.
Arthurian Sites Mentioned in the
Text
INTRODUCTION:
EVERYTHING IS COMING UP IRISH
Several years ago I wrote and published my book THE
ARTHUR OF HISTORY: A REINTERPRETATION OF THE EVIDENCE. While I remain proud of the work – the end
result of many years of intensive research - do not regret producing it, and
still believe there is much of value to be found therein, I was from the outset
dissatisfied with the conclusions I had reached. Why? Because I had failed to solve two
nagging mysteries: 1) who was Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, really and 2)
why were all the Dark Age Arthurs who were subsequent to the more famous man of
that name hail from Irish-descended dynasties in Britain?
As
it turns out, No. 1 above is not at all important. For as we shall see, Uther Pendragon was most
certainly not Arthur’s father. No. 2, however, contains the clue we need to
finally solve the Arthurian mystery.
At
the very end of this book I will include my most recent findings on Uther. There, too, will present my case against
Ambrosius Aurelianus as Arthur – an equation still fashionable in some circles.
First, though, I need to devote several chapters and appendices to the Irish
Question.
We will see that the real Arthur has been known for
some time, and that his battles can be identified with those belonging to
another famous Celtic figure.
CHAPTER ONE:
THE CUNORIX STONE
A 5th century memorial stone was ploughed up at the
site of the Roman city of Viroconium near Wroxeter, Shropshire, England. This stone is unusual in two respects. First, it almost certainly bears the name of
an important, perhaps high-ranking Irishman of the period. Second, the name of the person in question is
Cunorix son of Maquicoline.*
So far as I know, no one prior to myself had
realized just how remarkable a name this was.
I’ve already mentioned in the Introduction that a second name of the
Irish Chuinnedha, who in the British language was called Cunedda, was Mac
Cuilinn. As it happens, Mac Cuilinn
corresponds exactly in meaning with Maquicoline. Thus I proposed that the Maquicoline on the
Cunorix Stone was none other than Cunedda himself.
Yet again, though, we are struck with a rather
serious discrepancy. For if Maquicoline
on this stone is Cunedda, Cunorix is probably the Cynyr known from the Welsh
sources as a grandson of Cunedda.
The names (Maqui)coline and Cunorix are associated in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There were find Ceawlin (in Bede called Coelin), one
of the Bretwaldas or Britain-rulers, and Cynric. While the ASC gets the order of generations
wrong, making Cynric the son of Cerdic and Ceawlin the son (or at least
successor) of Cynric, I’ve been able to show that both personages do, in fact,
belong to the Gewissei, the ‘Sure/Certain/Reliable Ones’ who fought alongside
the West Saxons against Britons and helped found Wessex. Indeed, the tribal or group name Gewissei or
Gewissae is found preserved in the genealogy for the kingdom of Ceredigion,
where it occurs as Iusay, son of Ceredig son of Cunedda.
The names of the earliest members of the Gewessei
have long been suspected to be of Celtic origin. My research suggests they were
Irish or Hiberno-British.
What were the Gewessei from Gwynedd doing in both
Viroconium in central Wales and in southern England?
My working theory is fairly simple and
straight-forward, although I admit that things “on the ground” may have been
much more complicated. When the Romans withdrew from Britain, Irish raids on
Gwynedd intensified. Eventually, Cunedda
and his sons (or warband) were able to found a number of petty kingdoms in the
region. In a typical Roman-style
acknowledgement of this situation, these Irish conquerors were offered federate
status by the Welsh high-king who was ruling at Viroconium.
I should not neglect to point out, however, that the
high-king in question may himself have been half Irish and half British. Certainly, this was true of Vortigern. There is also a confusion in the Welsh
tradition between Vortigern and another chieftain named Catel, later Welsh
Cadell. It has been thought that because
Vortigern had been so thoroughly vilified, it was thought preferable to trace
the princes of Powys through Catel instead.
The true trace to Vortigern was, therefore, suppressed.
My idea here is a bit different. The best etymology for the name Catel/Cadell
is Latin catellus, ‘puppy, whelp, little dog.”
Two such princes are found in the Powys dynasty bearing this name. Both
had sons named Cyngen, ‘Hound-born.’ I think it is possible, given these names,
that Catel/Cadell was a pet-name for Cunorix. ‘Hound-king.’ If so, then Cunorix son of Cunedda may have
either usurped the Powys kingship for a generation or even have started an
entirely new dynasty. That Catel or
Cadell is said to have begun his reign in Ial of northern Powys fits with what
we know about Cunedda’s sons and their settlement of northwestern Wales.
In any case, the high-king at Powys had formed a
federate relationship with Cunedda and his sons. The earliest source tells us
that these federates drove the Irish out of Wales. This statement may seem highly ironic, but at
the core it may be correct. Additional
service to the high-king seems to have involved allying themselves with the
Saxons against enemies of Powys to the southeast. It is tempting to view the
Gewissei as fighting the Saxons themselves, but the ASC does not support such a
patriotic picture of the politics of the time.
Vortigern is said to have brought in Saxons as mercenary federates to
help him against his enemies. There is
no reason to assume, knowing what we do about intertribal warfare among the
Celts, that his enemies did not also include other Britons. In later centuries, when it became necessary
to invent a nationalistic resistance against the barbaric, pagan, Germanic
invaders for the usual propagandist reasons, we rarely find Britons fighting
Britons.
If this general sketch of what may have been
happening in 5th century Britain has any bearing on reality at all, what are we
to make of the phenomenon called Arthur?
Well, to begin with we must “disenthrall ourselves” of the notion that
this greatest of all Dark Age British heroes was fighting the Saxons. If he were son of Cunedda and one of the
Gewissei, clearly he was not. Rather, he
was fighting with the Saxons against the Britons in the name of the Welsh
high-king.
Furthermore, he might well be known to us already
under another name – a name which is found not only the English sources, but in
the Welsh as well.
*
Cunorix/Cynric is known in the early Welsh sources as Cynyr, and he is wrongly
made the son of Gwron son of Cunedda.
From P. C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:
"GWRON
ap CUNEDDA WLEDIG. (Legendary). (420)
He
appears in the legends of Anglesey as the father of Cynyr, Meilir and Yneigr
who aided their cousin Cadwallon Lawhir in expelling the Gwyddyl from the island.
The story occurs in the expanded ‘Hanesyn Hen’ tract (ByA §29(15) in EWGT
pp.92-93). See s.nn. Cadwallon Lawhir and Meilir Meilirion.
Gwron
is not mentioned in the older lists of the sons of Cunedda and therefore his
historical existence is doubtful. He might, perhaps, have been too young to
take part in the conquests which the other sons of Cunedda are supposed to have
made. Another suggestion is that his name Gwron, ‘hero’ is really a cognomen
and that he is actually to be identified with Ysfael (q.v.) ap Cunedda, who
gave his name to a part of Anglesey and presumably ruled there. This was
suggested by Owen Rhoscomyl."
Gwron
as a heroic epithet here must have belonged either to Cynyr himself or to his
real father, Cunedda.
CHAPTER TWO:
CEREDIG SON OF CUNEDDA
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most
famous of Cunedda’s sons was Cerdic (Welsh Ceredig). This man founded the kingdom of Ceredigion in
west Wales. If we compare the military
careers of Cerdic with that of Arthur, some amazing correspondences quickly
manifest themselves.
The departure point for our exploration of this
subject is a comparison of the relevant chronologies. When making such a
comparison, we must bear in mind that the ASC reverse the order of the Gewessei
generations. In other words, Cynric or
Cunorix, properly the son of Cunedda, is made to be the son of Cerdic/Ceredig
son of Cunedda. And Ceawlin/Mac
Cuilinn/Maquicoline or Cunedda is made to succeed Cynric. There is good reason to believe, therefore,
that some or all of the later Gewessei battles have been temporally
displaced.
To proceed, Cerdic of Wessex appears on the scene
(according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) in 495 A.D. His death is marked in 534.
Arthur's floruit is nicely bracketed from some time
shortly after the accession of Aesc (ASC) to the kingdom of Kent in 488 (or
Octha, according to the Historia Brittonum account) to the time of Ida, who
according to the ASC succeeded to the kingship of Northumbria in 547. The Welsh Annals give Arthur's death at
Camlan at c. 537.
We can see that according to the two sources cited,
Cerdic and Arthur were near perfect contemporaries.
Years ago I played around with trying to equate some
or all of the battles of Arthur and those of Cerdic of Wessex. Alas, my knowledge of place-name development
and of the languages involved was insufficient to the task. Having once again brought up the very real
possibility that Arthur = Cerdic in my previous blog post here, it occurred to
me that I should take a second look at the battles listed in the Historia
Brittonum and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
First, those of Arthur:
Mouth of the river Glein
4 battles on the Dubglas River in the Linnuis region
River Bassas
Celyddon Wood
Castle Guinnion
City of the Legion
Tribruit river-bank
Mt. Agned/Mt. Breguoin (and other variants)
Mt. Badon c. 516
Camlann c. 537
And, secondly, those of Cerdic (interposed battles
by other Saxon chieftains are in brackets):
495 - Certicesora (Cerdic and Cynric arrive in
Britain)
[Bieda of Bedenham, Maegla, Port of Portsmouth]
Certicesford - Natanleod or Nazanleog killed
[Stuf, Wihtgar - Certicesora]
Cerdicesford - Cerdic and Cynric take the kingdom of
the West Saxons
Cerdicesford or Cerdicesleag
Wihtgarasburh
537 - Cerdic dies, Cynric takes the kingship, Isle
of Wight given to Stuf (of Stubbington near Port and opposite Wight) and
Wihtgar
As Celtic linguist Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson pointed
out long ago, 'Glein' means 'pure, clean.'
It is Welsh glân. However, there
is also a Welsh glan, river-bank, brink, edge; shore; slope, bank. This word would nicely match in meaning the
-ora of Certicesora, which is from AS. óra, a border, edge, margin, bank. If we allow for Glein/glân being an error or
substitution for glan, then the mouth of the Glein and Certicesora may be one
and the same place.
Ceredicesora or "Cerdic's shore" has been
thought to be the Ower near Calshot.
This is a very good possibility for a landing place. However, the Ower further north by
Southampton must be considered a leading contender, as it is quite close to
some of the other battles.
Natanleod or Nazanleog is Netley Marsh in
Hampshire. The parish is bounded by
Bartley Water to the south and the River Blackwater to the north. Dubglas is, of course, 'Black-stream/rivulet.'
Linnuis contains the British root for lake or pool, preserved in modern Welsh
llyn. Netley is believed now to mean
'wet wood or clearing', and this meaning combined with the 'marsh' that was
present probably accounts for the Linnuis region descriptor of the Historia
Brittonum.
W. bas, believed to underlie the supposed river-name
Bassas, meant a shallow, fordable place in a river. We can associate this easily with
Certicesford/Cerdicesford, modern Charford on the Avon. Just a little south of
North and South Charford is a stretch of the river called “The Shallows” at
Shallow Farm. These are also called the Breamore Shallows and can be as little
as a foot deep. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery was recently uncovered at Shallow Farm:
“A Byzantine pail, datable to the sixth century AD,
was discovered in 1999, in a field near the River Avon in Breamore, Hampshire.
Subsequent fieldwork confirmed the presence there of an early Anglo-Saxon
cemetery. In 2001, limited excavation located graves that were unusual, both
for their accompanying goods and for the number of double and triple burials.
This evidence suggests that Breamore was the location of a well-supplied
‘frontier’ community which may have had a relatively brief existence during the
sixth century. It seems likely to have had strong connections with the Isle of
Wight and Kent to the south and south-east, rather than with communities
up-river to the north and north-east.” [An Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery and
Archaeological Survey at Breamore, Hampshire, 1999–2006, The Archaeological
Journal
Volume 174, 2017 - Issue 1, David A. Hinton and
Sally Worrell]
Cerdicesleag contains -leag, a word which originally
designated a wood or a woodland, and only later came to mean a place that had
been cleared of trees and converted into a clearing or meadow. I suspect the
Celyddon Wood was plugged in for this site. Celyddon contains the word later
found in Welsh as called, ‘hard.’.
Cerdicesleag or "Cerdic's wood" I would
identify with Hardley on Southhampton Water. I pick this location not only because it
originally meant ‘Hard Wood’, but because of the mention of Stuf (= Stub/b)
both before and after the Cerdicesleag battle. Hardley is just across
Southhampton Water from Stubbington, the settlement of the descendents of
Stuf/Stubb. It is also just across the
Solent from the Isle of Wight, which was given to both Wihtgar and Stuf.
Castle Guinnion is composed of the Welsh word for
'white', plus a typical locative suffix (cf. Latin -ium). Wihtgar as a personage is an eponym for the
Isle of Wight. Wihtgarasburh is, then,
the Fort of Wihtgar. But it is quite
possible Wiht- was mistaken for OE hwit, 'white', and so Castellum Guinnion
would merely be a clumsy attempt at substituting the Welsh for the
English. /-gar/-garas/ may well have
been linked to Welsh caer, 'fort, fortified city', although the presence of
-burh, 'fort, fortified town' in the name may have been enough to generate
Castellum. Wihtgara is properly
Wihtwara, 'people of Wight', the name of the tribal hidage. Wihtgarasburh is traditionally situated at
Carisbrooke.
Arthur's City of the Legion battle may well be an
attempt at the ASC's Limbury of 571, whose early forms are Lygean-, Liggean-
and the like. The Waulud’s Bank
earthwork is at Limbury.
Tribruit is a Welsh substitute for the Latin word
trajectus (see my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY for the full etymology). Rivet and Smith (The Place-Names of Roman
Britain, p. 178) discuss the term, saying that in some cases "it seems to
indicate a ferry or ford..." The Welsh rendered 'litore' of the Tribruit
description in Nennius as 'traeth', demanding a river estuary emptying into the
sea. However, in Latin litore could also mean simply a river-bank.
If I were to look at Tribruit in this light, and
provisionally accepted the City of the Legion as Limbury, and Badon as Bath
(which the spelling demands, and which appears in a group of cities captured by
Cerdic's father Ceawlin/Maquicoline/Cunedda), then the location of the
Tribruit/Trajectus in question may well be determined by the locations of
Mounts Agned and Breguoin. These last
two battle-sites fall between those of the City of the Legion and Bath, and
after that of the Tribruit.
I decided to take a fresh look at Agned, which has
continud to vex Arthurian scholars. I
noticed that in the ASC 571 entry there was an Egonesham, modern Eynsham. Early forms of this place-name include
Egenes-, Egnes-, Eghenes-, Einegs-.
According to both Ekwall and Mills, this comes from an Old English
personal name *Aegen. Welsh commonly
adds -edd to make regular nominative i:-stem plurals of nouns (information
courtesy Dr. Simon Rodway, who cites several examples). Personal names could also be made into
place-names by adding the -ydd suffix. –ed1
(see the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru) is the suffix in the kingdom name Rheged. The
genitive of Agnes in Latin is Agnetus, which could have become Agned in Welsh -
as long as <d> stands for /d/, which would be exceptional in Old Welsh
(normally it stands for what is, in Modern Welsh, spelled as <dd>). I'd
long ago shown that it was possible for Welsh to substitute initial /A-/ for
/E-/. What this all tells me is that
Agned could conceivably be an attempt at the hill-fort named for Aegen.
But what of Mount Breguoin? Well, I had remembered that prior to his
later piece on Breguoin ('Arthur's Battle of Breguoin', Antiquity 23 (1949)
48—9), Jackson had argued (in 'Once Again Arthur's Battles') that the
place-name might come from a tribal name based on the Welsh word breuan, 'quern.' The idea dropped out of favor when Jackson
ended up preferring Brewyn/Bremenium in Northumberland for Breguoin.
So how does seeing breuan in Breguoin help us?
In the 571 ASC entry we find Aylesbury as another
town that fell to the Gewessei. This is
Aegelesburg in Old English. I would
point to Quarrendon, a civil parish and a deserted medieval village on the
outskirts of Aylesbury. The name means
"hill where mill-tones [querns] were got". Thus if we allow for
Breguoin as deriving from the Welsh word for quern, we can identify this hill
with Quarrendon at Aylesbury.
All of which brings us back, rather circuitously, to
Tribruit. This can only be the Romano-British
Trajectus on the Avon of the city of Bath.
Rivet and Smith locate this provisionally at Bitton at the mouth of the
Boyd tributary. The Boyd runs past
Dyrham, scene of the ASC battle featuring Ceawlin which led to the capture of
Bath.
If we accept all this, then we cannot very easily
reject Badon as Bath. In truth, with
Bath listed in the ASC entry for 577, and made into a town captured by Ceawlin,
we simply are no longer justified in trying to make a case for the
linguistically impossible Badbury, such as the one at Liddington Castle in
Wiltshire.
However, the chronology problem is significant. If
we accept Arthur’s death at Camlan (see below) as happening c. 537 (= Cerdic’s
death at 534 in the ASC), then Badon must
have been fought c. 500 A.D. +/- 20 years.
The Welsh Annals give us 516.
I would call attention to the fact that the ASC
mentions a certain Bieda as fighting at Portsmouth with the eponymous Port c.
501. The battle entry is placed between
the first and second entries concerning Cerdic and Cynric.
The problem with the c. 500 dating is this: at the
time in question, we have no evidence whatsoever that the English and/or their
Gewissei allies had penetrated far enough into England to have accessed either
Bath in Somerset or a Badbury.
This fact has made pinning down the location and
significance of a Badon battle impossible, and all kinds of wild theories have
been proposed to account for it happening c. 500 A.D.
Now, there is a slight chance the torturous Latin in
the Gildas passage on Badon has been mistranslated. While the majority of scholars render it in
the traditional fashion, some have offered other interpretations. At least one top Latinist I consulted
(Professor Michael Herren) claims the Latin states Badon was fought in Gildas's
44th year - not on the day of his birth.
However, even he resorts to the c. 500 date for the battle itself, thus
putting Gildas's day of birth around 470.
He does this because the Welsh Annals insist the battle was fought in
516 or thereabouts. Thus even if we
alter the meaning of the Latin, we are still stuck with a Badon fought c. 500 -
when it would seem no such decisive battle at the locations in question was
possible.
But suppose Badon was actually not an important
battle at all. It was merely
"glorified" because it supposedly happened to fall on the day of the
birth of the famous St. Gildas. Over
time its rather insignificant nature was exaggerated until it became the most
famous battle of sub-Roman Britain. If
this is true, then it could easily have been the Portsmouth battle in
Hampshire, which had a combatant named Bieda, whose name in different Saxon
dialects could be spelled Beda or Baeda.
If this personal name were transmitted to the Welsh in a form such a
Baeda, this could then later have become confused with the spelling for the
Bath battle of 577. The spelling Badon was
then substituted for what was originally Biedan-/Beden-.
It is entirely conceivable that it was this battle
that became, through the usual process of legend-building, the famous Battle of
Badon.
Incidentally, I would make Bieda the eponym for Bedenham
between Portsmouth and Portchester.
CHAPTER THREE:
THE ARTHUR NAME
Which brings us back, of course, to a consideration
of the name Arthur and how this could possibly relate to that of Cerdic. Obviously, we can simply state that Ceredig
son of Cunedda had been given the usual three-part Roman style name and that
one of these name elements was none other than Artorius. My problem with this idea is two-fold. First, Artorius was a very rare name even
among the Romans. We know of only one in
Britain, the 2nd or 3rd century camp prefect at York. We have no reason for seeing Lucius Artorius
Castus of York as being any more famous than any other soldier serving in Roman
Britain. Second, why would an
Irish-descended dynasty in the extreme north and west of Wales take the name
Artorius from York?
An interesting fact I've called attention to before
in Ceredig son of Cunedda's kingdom of Ceredigion is the presence there of the
Afon Arth or Bear River, as well as its tributary the Nant Erthig or Little
Bear Stream, and the Castell Dinerth or Castle of the Fort of the Bear
(possibly the site of an earlier sub-Roman fortification). In addition, these geographical bear-names
seem to have spawned bear-names in the early genealogy of the Ceredigion
princes as these are found listed in the Harleian MS.:
[G]uocaun map Mouric map Dumnguallaun map Arthgen
map Seissil map Clitauc Artgloys map Artbodgu map Bodgu map Serguil map Iusay
map Ceretic map Cuneda.
Artbodgu or Arthfoddw is 'Bear-Crow' (more
precisely, the ‘Bear of the Crow’, as his father is named Bodgu), Artgloys or
Arthlwys is 'Beautiful or Holy Bear' and Arthgen (perhaps the most interesting
of them all) is 'Bear-Born' or 'Born of the Bear.' There is the very real possibility that the
bear in question from which Arthgen was born is the Afon Arth itself, conceived
of as a water deity.
Given these bear names of the Ceredigion dynasty, is
there any way in which Ceredig, the founder of the kingdom, may have been
designated by 'Arthur?' That is, by a
name or title whose first element was taken from the name of the divine Bear
River, the apparent ruling center of the dynasty?
The problem is coming up with a name that will
satisfy linguists. As things stand right
now, they will allow nothing other than a derivation from Roman/Latin Artorius.
This despite the fact that such a derivation makes little or no geographical or
historical sense. Granted, some names
such as *Artori:x, 'Bear-king', or *Arto-wiros, 'Bear-man', may have been
replaced early on with the purely Latin Artorius. But this begs the question of WHY? And it requires knowledge of the name
Artorius, which as I've already mentioned was a very rare name even among the
Romans.
What complicates the issue for us is the presence of
the Irish language early on in western Wales.
It is possible that a British name became Arthur by being taken over
into Irish and then, at a later date, being re-borrowed by the British in its
new, Gaelic form. The problem is coming
up with a satisfactory explanation of how this may have happened. Alternately, Ceredig may have been called
Artur for 'Bear-king', for example, in Irish.
And this form of the name was retained in Welsh. I would cite the example of the name
Beccur(us), found on a 6th century memorial stone near Penmorfa in
Gwynedd. Patrick Sims-Williams has this
as deriving from *Bikkori:x, 'small king'. Professor Peter Schrijver of Utrecht
University says that *Bikko-wiro, 'little man', is also possible. The Irish
Annals has a Bicoir father of a 7th century Arthur, and some have thought this
Bicoir may be Beccur.
Unfortunately, the Celtic linguists will not allow
for anything like this to have taken place.
Dr. Simon Rodway of the University of Wales states
that
"If we were to allow regular *Bikkori:x >
Beccur-, it would still not follow that *Artori:x would give Arthur - it would
give **Arthwr, just as Beccur- would now be spelled *Bychwr or *Bechwr. In
fact, of course, as has been well established, *Artori:x would give *Erthyr."
Schrijver adds
"By no stretch of the imagination could
*artorix become MW Arthur. Beccur- is not comparable because it is early and
inscriptional and could therefore conceivably reflect*bikkorix (Beccur- = late
Proto-British /bExür/, with E = shwa and ü as the intermediate stage between *o
and MW y). The difference between Welsh w and Irish u is purely graphic.
If a Brittonic written form was the input for Irish,
*arthgur would be it. But if the input was a spoken form, it would be /arthur/
(with/u/ = Welsh written <w>). Both would have Irish –th- rather than
–t-. It therefore seems that the Irish form with –t- reflects the Latinate form
Artorius or the early Romance (French) Artür."
And so it goes.
We are forced to accept that if Cerdic were called a bear-name because
of a sacred bear river at the heart of his kingdom, the name that was used was
the Roman Artorius, which was ASSUMED TO BE A BEAR-NAME OF THE KIND FOUND IN
IRISH AND WELSH WITH *ARTO-/ART-/ARTH- FORMS. Ironically, Professor Stefan
Zimmer of the University of Bonn has proposed that the Roman name Artorius
derives from a Celtic original meaning 'Bear-king' (see THE NAME OF ARTHUR - A
NEW ETYMOLOGY, Journal of Celtic Linguistics 13(1):131-136 ·March 2009).
On his WORDPRESS blogsite "In the Name of
Arthur", Malcolm Wilson (The Arthurs of Ireland – kith and kin of the
‘Kernyw Kid’? – PART V) nicely summarizes such a use of Artorius as a Latin
substitute for an earlier Celtic name:
"The name Arthur is generally argued to be from
Brythonic or Latin. I would suggest that the only way in which it could
possibly come from Gaelic is the same way in which it could have possibly come
from Brythonic, and that is through the Latin decknamen[18] (pseudonym) of
Artōrius for the Celtic name Artorix (from *Arto-rig(i)os = ‘Bear King’). The
recipient of the name would then have to have become known by this Latin
decknamen, which would morph to Insular Latin Artūrius – which is what Adomnán
called Artúr mac Áedán in the Vita Sancti Columbae (The Life of St. Columba/Colm
Cille) – and then contract to Artúr/Arthur.[19] It’s a complicated morphology,
but not impossible. There could be an argument given that a Gael or
Gaelo-Briton warrior might use a Latin decknamen instead of his own Celtic one,
especially if fighting for more Latinised Britons."
When I discussed this possibility with Dr. Rodway
his response was simply "This sounds perfectly plausible."
Professor Stefan Zimmer, in his “The Name of
Arthur”, comments thusly regarding this concept:
“Simple names like Artos, Artus, Irish Art;
derivatives such as patronyms, e.g. Galatian Artiknos, and hypocoristica of the
type Artillus, Artilla. A fine example of the latter has been found in Trier
(CIL XIII/1.1, no. 3909): HIC QUIESCIT IN PACE URSULA . . . ARTULA MATER TIT(ULUM)
POSUIT. Mother and daughter bear the same name, the mother still in Celtic, the
daughter already in the Roman tongue. This is typical for the language switch
implied in Romanization throughout the empire.”
There is ample evidence for the substitution of
Roman/Latin names for earlier Irish names in the various genealogies belonging
to the Dessi-descended princes of Dyfed, as well as to the Ciannachta-descended
princes of Gwynedd. I personally have no
trouble accepting an Irish or Hiberno-British *Artori:x (cf. Old Irish Artri)
being replaced by Latin Artorius. And if
this did happen, the only Arthur we have who is early enough for the
established dates, and whose father could be Uther Pendragon, is Ceredig son of
Cunedda.
For a good precedent that would allow us to view
Ceredig as "king of the Arth [river]", we might look at Ceredig
Wledig of Strathclyde, who in the early Irish sources is called Coroticus
'regis Aloo/regem Aloo', or 'King of the Rock.' Aloo is here an abbreviated form
of Alclud, the Rock of the Clyde, the capital of the early Strathclyde kingdom.
The
Roman Bear-Soldiers
Those with a knowledge of Roman military history
will recognize the image on the cover of this book as a signifer (more
technically a vexillarius or vexillifer) wearing a bear pelt.
Cunedda as the Terrible Chief-dragon or Uther
Pendragon seems to have associated himself with the shield pattern of
Segontium, viz. two crossed serpents.
Later legend confused this standard for the draco, and I once thought
that Pendragon was literally a Welsh translation of the late Roman rank of
magister draconum, the superior of the draconarii.
Given that the Artri Ceredig assumed the Roman name
Artorius, it is not impossible that he donned a bear pelt in a manner meant to
mimic that of a signifer. His father was
the dragon, while he was the bear.
CHAPTER FOUR:
THE RULING CENTER OF ARTHUR
If the name Arthur or Artorius is a Latin decknamen
on an Irish name meaning "Bear-king", and the king in question is
Ceredig son of Cunedda of Ceredigion, known in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as
Cerdic of the Gewessei, where might we find his ruling center?
Well, as we have seen above, the bear personal names
in the Ceredigion genealogy can best be explained by the fact that in
mid-Ceredigion there was an Arth or 'Bear' River, right next to the Afon
Aeron. Aeron or *Agrona, 'Slaughter
goddess', suggests to me that the "Bear" might also have been a
divine river. If so, the bear names of
Ceredig and his descendants were due to the fact that the ruling center of the
kingdom was somewhere on the Afon Arth.
Subsequent research to find this ruling center of
Ceredig/Arthur revealed only two possible sites. One is Dineirth, and the other
Llandewi Aberarth. What I needed to
determine is which of the two places showed potential for sub-Roman or early
medieval habitation.
According to Frances Foster, Archive & Library
Assistant, Archive and Library Team, Royal Commission on the Ancient and
Historical Monuments of Wales:
"I have checked the information we hold on the
above site [Dineirth] and have not found any mention of Roman occupation or
activity. The description on the
Ordnance Survey National Archaeological Record card states that the site was
originally a Clare Castle (Richard de Clare) founded prior to 1136.
In R.E. Kay’s description he suggests that ‘the
first Norman adventurers may have found the earthworks of a small promontory
fort at their chosen site which they heightened and strengthened’. He also says that ‘the Castle of Dineirth (or
Dinarth) was probably founded by Richard de la Mare and follower of Richard de
Clare in 1110.
Again in Cadw’s scheduling description there is no
mention of sub-Roman occupation of this site."
Llandewi Aberarth may be different. On the possible
ruling center of the kingdom of Ceredigion, Toby Driver, Senior Investigator
(Aerial Survey) for the RCAHMW and author of HILLFORTS OF CARDIGAN BAY, says
"I would find it very difficult to decide on a
place for a ‘ruling centre’, although a coastal position may be better
connected than one inland [emphasis mine]... The Arth has a very restricted
catchment, and I am not aware of any other major archaeological sites along its
reaches. That said the presence of a major castle at Dinerth, the Viking
hog-back stone at Llanddewi-Aberarth and the coastal hillfort, along with the
ancient fish traps on the foreshore at Aberarth, all add up to a high
concentration of interesting sites. Certainly it is an interesting locale along
the Cardigan Bay coastline."
Lynne Moore, Enquiries and Library Officer with the
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales regarding the
hill-fort at Llandewi Aberarth, which I've tentatively suggested might have
been the main fortress of Ceredig son of Cunedda:
"As suggested by Dyfed Archaeological Trust,
the hilltop enclosure (a possible Iron Age hillfort) was noted by ourselves
(RCAHMW) during a flight to take aerial photographs of the area. Please note
that the RAF APs, and the earlier RCAHMW APs, exist only in hard-copy
form."
Here is the description of the hill fort at Llandewi
Aberarth from COFLEIN:
“Period Iron Age
Site Description - The church of St Davids sits
below and to the east of the triangular summit of a prominent coastal hill which
has been suggested as a possible Iron Age hillfort by the Dyfed Archaeological
Trust, citing both its general shape and the presence of Bronze Age finds just
below the summit.
Royal Commission aerial photographs of the hilltop
taken during the drought summer of 2++++++++++013 (on 12th July) appear to
clarify parched banks and ditches of a large triangular or pear-shaped hilltop
enclosure, generally following the lines of present field boundaries and walls
but of more massive construction, suggesting a prehistoric origin. This main
hilltop enclosure measures approximately 278m x 110m, enclosing 2.7 hectares.
On the east side of the ridge is a discrete, smaller rectangular earthwork
enclosure within the larger one, following the line of the ridge but with a
rounded southern end, into which the cemetery of St Davids Church encroaches.
It is possible that this is also a prehistoric or early medieval enclosure
[emphasis mine], perhaps representing a first phase, or a contraction of a
larger site. Recorded during RCAHMW aerial reconnaissance (frames
AP_2013_2951-53) and also during winter conditions on 26th February 2014,
highlighting the earthworks (frames AP_2014_0311-12, 319, 324-5).”
If I'm right about the Arth River being the location
of the Dark Age ruling center belonging to Ceredig and his descendants, then
the hill fort at Llandewi Aberarth must be considered the primary
contender. Of course, only excavation of
the site, and in particular of the smaller enclosure on the east side of the
ridge, would be able to demonstrate whether sub-Roman or early medieval
habitation occurred there.
CHAPTER FIVE:
THE DEATH OF ARTHUR
I.
The Site of Camlan
The purpose of this sub-chapter is to prove, once
and for all, where Arthur’s Camlann battle site was located. Or, more
accurately, where Welsh tradition happens to place it! I once opted for the Roman fort of
Camboglanna at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall as the place. I was fairly certain of the identification,
for the story of Arthur’s being taken to Avalon may have been influenced by the
presence only a few miles west of Camboglanna of another Roman fort named
Aballava or Avalana, the place of the Apple Orchard. Alas, at the time I was not aware that Arthur
was Ceredig of Ceredigion. As the three Camlans
in Wales are all in Merionethshire, once a kingdom called Meirionnydd that
bordered on Ceredigion, my focus came back to the Welsh tradition. [NOTE: see
Appendix IX for the very real possibility that Arthur’s Camlan may have been in
extreme south-central England.]
It is fairly well known that the Welsh record seven
survivors of Camlann. Yet, to my knowledge, no one has sought to plot these
personages out on a map. To do so may help us pinpoint a geographical region in
which Camlann was believed to be situated.
One of the seven – Geneid Hir – it a difficult and
otherwise unknown name. P.C. Bartram (in “A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People
in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000) suggests the name may be corrupt
and offers an unlikely identification with a personage named Eueyd or Euehyd
Hir (often rendered Hefeydd). However, I would see in Geneid ‘Cannaid’, “white,
bright, shining, pure, clean, radiant,” an epithet substituted for the original
title Ceimiad, ‘Pilgrim’, of St. Elian. Elian had churches on Mon/Anglesey and
in Rhos, Gwynedd.
Sandde Bryd Angel looks to be a pun for the Afon
Angell, Aberangell, etc., places immediately to the south of the Camlan on the
Afon Dyfi in Merionethshire.
Morfran son of Tegid is from Llyn Tegid, now Bala
Lake in Gwynedd.
St. Cynfelyn is of Llancynfelyn in Ceredigion just
below the Afon Dyfi.
St. Cedwyn of Llangedwyn in Powys, while somewhat
further removed than the rest, is still in NW Wales.
St. Pedrog of Llanbedrog is on the Lleyn Peninsula
in Gwynedd, just opposite the three Camlans in Merionethshire.
St. Derfel Gadarn is at Llandderfel near Bala Lake
in Gwynedd.
Needless to say, if we “triangulate” with all these
names/places, we find at the center the three
Merionethshire Camlans.
So which one is the right one?
Only one way to know for sure: we must find the
Camlann that is claimed as the gravesite of Osfran’s son. This reference comes
from the ‘Stanzas of the Graves:’
Bet mab Ossvran yg Camlan,
Gvydi llauer kywlavan…
The grave of Osfran’s son is at Camlan,
After many a slaughter…
[“The Black Books of Carmarthen ‘Stanzas of the
Graves’, Thomas Jones, Sir John Rhys Memorial
Lecture, 1967, Critical Text and Translation.]
While –fran of Osfran looks like Bran or ‘Raven’,
the Os- does not look at all right for a Welsh name. I suspected Ys- and after
a first search failed, I defaulted to bryn or ‘hill’ as the original of –bran.
Thus I was looking for an Ysbryn.
And I actually found him – or, rather, it - in “An
Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire: VI – County of
Merioneth”, p. 98, RCAHMW, 1921.
On the Mawddach River in Merionethshire there is a
Foel Ispri. It used to be Moel Ysbryn and was the legendary residence of Ysbryn
Gawr or Ysbryn the Giant. If we go north on the Mawddach we run into its
tributary the Afon Gamlan, i.e. the Water of the Crooked Bank.
According to David Hopewell, Senior Archaeologist
with the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust,
"As far as we know the Roman road runs to the
east of the Mawddach. It is well-preserved
and easy to trace from Tomen-y-Mur to Penystryd (just E of Bronaber) after that
it presumably runs to Brithdir but its line is somewhat debatable. On current evidence I don’t know of anything
crossing the Gamlan."
II.
Arthur’s Opponent at Camlan
In Welsh tradition (whether due to Geoffrey of
Monmouth or not!), Medraut, Latin Moderatus, was the son of Lleu - the very god
who was anciently claimed as Lord of Gwynedd in the Mabinogion. Lleu’s fortress
was Mur Castle, now Tomen y Mur. The
Roman settlement here, which continued into the medieval period, is only 15
kilometers or so north of the Afon Gamlan. A chieftain based at Tomen y Mur
would be in a position to fight at the Camlann which lay between his kingdom
and that of Ceredigion. At that battle he and Arthur/Ceredig both fell.
However, there may be a better candidate for
Medraut’s headquarters.
Here is the definition of moderatus from the online
Perseus dictionary:
moderātus adj. with comp. and sup.
P. of moderor, within bounds, observing moderation,
moderate : senes: Catone moderatior: consul moderatissimus: cupidine victoriae
haud moderatus animus, S.—Plur m . as subst: cupidos moderatis anteferre.—
Within bounds, moderate, modest, restrained : oratio: convivium: doctrina:
ventus, O.: amor, O.: parum moderatum guttur, O.
The reader will note 'modest' is one meaning
assigned to this word.
I will now turn to the pages of Gildas, where we are
told Ambrosius Aurelianus was a 'viro modesto', a MODEST man.
For the sake of comparison, here is the same
dictionary's definition for modestus:
modestus adj. with comp. and sup.
modus, keeping due measure, moderate, modest,
gentle, forbearing, temperate, sober, discreet : sermo, S.: adulescentis
modestissimi pudor: plebs modestissima: epistula modestior: voltus, T.: verba,
O.: mulier, modest , T.: modestissimi mores: voltus modesto sanguine fervens,
Iu.—As subst: modestus Occupat obscuri speciem, the reserved man passes for
gloomy , H.
Both Latin modestus and moderatus are found the
Indo-European root med-,'to measure, to allot, to mete out':
3. Suffixed form *med-es-.
a. modest; immodest from Latin modestus,
"keeping to the appropriate measure" moderate;
b. moderate; immoderate from Latin moderārī,
"to keep within measure" to moderate, control. Both a and b from
Latin *modes-, replacing *medes- by influence of modus
Thus the words modestus and moderatus are consonant
in meaning.
Could it be that the ruler at Dark Age Dinas Emrys
was originally called Moderatus, and that this name became confused with that
of the modest man Ambrosius? If so, we
would have a chieftain named Medraut whose main citadel was Dinas Emrys, and
who claimed descent from the god Lleu, Lord of Gwynedd. This chieftain fought at the Camlann which
lay between his kingdom and that of Ceredigion and at that battle he and
Arthur/Ceredig both fell. [Technically, the Afon Gamlan is in Ardudwy, the
southern half of the earlier kingdom of Dunoding. Meirionnydd lay between Ardudwy and
Ceredigion.]
For another view on the possible identify of
Moderatus, see Appendix XI below.
III.
Arthur’s Grave
The Welsh sources record two separate traditions for
an Arthurian grave in the vicinity of the Afon Gamlan. One is fairly early, the other one late.
In the Welsh 'Stanzas of the Graves', we are told
'anoeth bin u bedd arthur'. This has
been translated in various ways. But
some (myself included) have noticed that anoeth in this line may be an oblique
reference to both the teulu (household
warriors) of oeth and anoeth and Cair ('fort') Oeth and Anoeth. In Triad 52 we
are told Arthur was a prisoner in Caer Oeth and Anoeth.
We know where a military force from Caer Oeth and
Anoeth ended up: Gwanas, a mountainous region situated exactly between the
Welsh Camlanns. They had gone there in order to rob the rich graves of, we must
presume, their “anoetheu” or “wonders.”
A detailed investigation of the Gwanas region
reveals an interesting candidate for the so-called 'beddau hir' or long graves
of the place. The best account of this candidate is found on the COFLEIN site:
"A small square earthwork set upon a ridge
summit has been identified as a possible Roman military tower. It is set on the
crest of a south-facing ridge, commanding extensive views across the upland
basin below Pen-y-Brynnfforchog and the course of the Roman road between Caer
Gai and Brithdir.
A range of alternative interpretations can be
advanced, notably that this is a Roman or early Medieval square ditched barrow,
such as are found at Druid beyond Bala (NPRN 404711), and Croes Faen near Tywyn
(NPRN 310263). As such it would, with Tomen-y-Mur (NPRN 89420), be a rare
surviving earthwork example, most sites being known only from cropmarks. This
monument might be compared to the small practice work at Llyn Hiraethllyn (NPRN
89703), otherwise the smallest example of its type known in Wales.
It is a square platform about 5.0m across with a
shallow ditch up to 2.8m across on the south-east, 1.1m wide on the north-east
and south-west and not discernable on the north-west. The platform has low
banks on the north-east and south-west sides. As a Roman work the earthwork has
been associated with a road or track passing below the ridge to the south-east
(NPRN 91903), suggested as part of the Roman road between Caer Gai and Brithdir
(Rigg & Toller 1983, 165; Britannia XXVIII (1997), 399), although this has
been disputed as it is a modern feature (Browne 1986) and is depicted on the
1st edition OS 1" map of 1837 (sheet 59 north-east). A tower on this site
would command extensive views of the tributary valley to the south-east, but
not of the main Wnion valley on the north-west and the Brithdir military
settlement (NPRN 95480) may be out of sight. The earthwork is intervisible with
the 'Rhyd Sarn' works 11.5km to the north-east towards Bala Lake (NPRN
303162-3)."
The 'low banks' of this monument (if that is what it
really is!) nicely answer for the 'long graves' of Gwanas.
There are no other candidates for the beddau
hir. Of course, time and the combined
ravages of Man and Nature may long since have destroyed any other such
monuments in the region.
But what of Caer Oeth and Anoeth itself? The site has not been identified.
I think, though, that the clue is in the name. Rachel Bronwich in her TRIADS suggests that
the fortress was “of difficult access”, which is one possible meaning of the
word oeth. Anoeth would in this context
merely have an amplified sense. But the important thing to remember here is
that anoeth could be a wonderful, strange treasure or Otherworld object. Or the word can refer to the process of
obtaining such an object, this being a difficult task to accomplish. Such is
made plain in the MABINOGION story “Culhwch and Olwen.” Fiona Dehghani discusses anoetheu in her
article “The Anoetheu Dialogue in Culhwch ac Olwen” (Proceedings of the Harvard
Celtic Colloquium, Vol. 26/27 (2006/2007), pp. 291-305). Other scholars have
discussed the word at some length, including Rachel Bromwich in the notes to
her TRIADS.
Arthur is released from the prison of Caer Oeth and
Anoeth by one Goreu son of Custennin, who plays an important role in “Culhwch
and Olwen.” I believe this point has been overlooked. There is even a point near the end of the
tale in which Culhwch and Goreu return to the castle of Ysbaddaden the Giant with the anoetheu. Goreu slays the giant and Culhwch takes the
fort, marring the giant’s daughter Olwen. There is no mention of the anoetheu
(here the objects of the difficult tasks the giant had laid upon Culhwch)
leaving the place.
It seems fairly obvious to me, therefore, that
Ysbaddaden’s castle is Caer Oeth and Anoeth.
This is the only fort of anoetheu that we know of, and the only one
directly involving Arthur and his men. It is true that Arthur and his warriors raid
various Otherworld castles in the poem “The Spoils of Annwm”, but these actions
are not defined as anoetheu and we are not told of a castle where stolen
Otherworld objects are stored.
Can we determine where Caer Oeth and Anoeth is
located? I believe we can. If the fort is, in fact, that of Ysbaddaden, I
successfully identified the site years ago (see http://secretsavalon.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-mysteries-of-avalon-chapter-seven.html). It is none other than The Wrekin hillfort in
Shropshire.
Wrekin is a form of the Romano-British name Viroconium (see Rivet and Smith’s THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN for an extensive discussion of this). The Romans built the city of Viroconium after they had destroyed the hillfort of the Cornovii.
Wrekin is a form of the Romano-British name Viroconium (see Rivet and Smith’s THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN for an extensive discussion of this). The Romans built the city of Viroconium after they had destroyed the hillfort of the Cornovii.
Why is it significant that Arthur features in a
story involving the Wrekin, is said to have been a prisoner there and that his
grave is “anoeth?” Because, in all
likelihood, he was buried in the Roman cemetery of Viroconium next to his
brother, Cunorix son of Maquicoline/Cunedda. It is possible that The Wrekin,
otherwise known to the Welsh as Cair Guricon/Gwrygon, was given the poetic name
of Oeth and Anoeth as a cipher designed specifically to prevent the English and
Normans from discovering the whereabouts of Arthur's final resting place.
The modern champions of the notion that Arthur was
buried in northwest Wales are Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd, whose book
PENDRAGON: THE DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINS OF KING ARTHUR, was released
in 2003 by Lyons press.
Blake and Lloyd place their trust in a very late
medieval source, the VERA HISTORIA MORTE DE ARTHURI, a work dated in extant
MSS. to c. 1300, although perhaps to originals dating between 1199 and 1203.
According to Blake and Lloyd, the VERA HISTORIA probably was written in
Gwynedd. I will not contest this point, as it may well be correct.
The importance of the VERA HISTORIA lies in its
placement of Arthur’s interment – and thus of Avalon – in Gwynedd. Although
Blake and Lloyd are familiar with the Gwynedd tradition which places Arthur’s
grave at Carnedd Arthur near Cwm-y-llan or Cym Llan (an error for Cwm Llem, the
Valley of the river Llem), they choose to ignore this bit of folklore and
instead settle on Tre
Beddau near Llanfair, well to the east on the Conwy
River, as the actual burial place of the king. They deduce this from the fact
that the VERA HISTORIA states that the grave is near a church of St. Mary (in
Welsh, Llan-fair), and that archaeologists have recently uncovered a Dark Age
or 6th century cemetery at Tre Beddau.
[Note: Cwm Llan is a very clumsy attempt at
rendering Camlan, and is obviously spurious tradition.]
Unfortunately, the authors of PENDRAGON also choose
to ignore the description of the burial place of Arthur as preserved in the
VERA HISTORIA. In their own words, the burial of Arthur after Camlan is told as
follows:
“ …the VERA HISTORIA describes the funeral of Arthur
as taking place at a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, the entrance to which was
so narrow that the mourners had to enter by first forcing their shoulder into
the gap and then dragging the rest of their body through the opening. While the
funeral took place inside the chapel, a large storm blew up and a mist
descended, so thick that is was impossible to see the body of Arthur – which
had been left outside, as it would not fit into the chapel. Following the storm
the mourners came out to find that the body had gone and the tomb prepared for
Arthur was sealed shut, ‘such that it rather seemed to be one single stone’.”
Now, this passage quite obviously DOES NOT portray a
6th century Christian cemetery. Rather, it is a fitting description of a
‘chapel’ comparable to the “Green Chapel’ of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT.
In other words, the said ‘chapel’ is a Neolithic chambered tomb, whose passage
is so tight as to barely allow the entrance of the mourners.
Furthermore, we are talking about TWO conjoined
passage tombs – one that is the chapel of the Virgin, and the other which
mysteriously receives the body of King Arthur. In all of Gwynedd, there is only
one such ancient monument: that of the double chamber tomb of Dyffryn Ardudwy
not far west of the Afon Gamlan.
One of the two chambers of Dyffryn Ardudwy is
actually known as Coetan Arthur or Arthur’s Quoit. The “Virgin” is here a
Christian embellishment on what would have been a pagan goddess associated with
the Otherworld site.
The grave of Arthur discussed in the VERA HISTORIA
is thus a product of folklore only. It can thus be dismissed as an actual grave
of Arthur.
Granted, we cannot so easily dismiss the
Camlans/Gamlans in northwestern Wales. Since writing this, Dr. Jessica Hughes
of CADW has sent me information via snail-mail that adds important details to
the description of the Dyffryn Ardudwy chambered tombs. To quote Dr. Hughes:
“The Chambered tomb at Dyffryn Ardudwy has been known
as Coetan Arthur in the past, indeed antiquarian reports of the site refer to
Dyffryn as ‘Coetan Arthur’. However, the name appears to refer to the whole of
the monument as opposed to a particular chamber. Interestingly (and maybe
somewhat confusingly), one mile to the east of Dyffryn lies another chambered
tomb known as ‘Cors-y-Gedal’. This was also known in the past as ‘Coetan
Arthur’… Regarding whether there is a church of St. Mary in proximity to
Dyffryn Ardudwy, I have found a church 4 miles north of Dyffryn in the village
of Llanfair. “
The enclosed Detail Report on this Church of St.
Mary states that Llanfair was dedicated to Mary “by at least the 12c when
Gerald of Wales and Archbishop Baldwin stayed there in 1188…”
Here is the COFLEIN listing for the second chambered
cairn:
“A rather tapering rectilinear cairn, c.31m NESW by
14.5m, showing at its eastern end a number of orthostats, partly supporting a
tipped capstone, c.3.6m by 3.0m & 0.45m thick: a spindlewhorl, thought to
be IA, is said to have come from under the capstone.”
Both of these chambered tombs are directly west of
the Afon Gamlan.
IV.
The Real Grave of Arthur
My own opinion is that Arthur is not buried near the
Afon Gamlan.
I suspect he was interred in one of two places:
either at his capital in Ceredigion (the hillfort above Llanddewi Aberarth?) or
at Viroconium. This last is the most
likely candidate given his association in Welsh tradition with Caer Oeth and
Anoeth or The Wrekin. Cunorix son of Cunedda was buried at Viroconium, and if
the records are any indication Ceredig was far more famous than his brother.
I suppose that if Camlan were the kind of disaster
that tradition claims, a hasty battlefield burial could have occurred. Still, that would be odd, for no one wants
their great leader to be left on enemy territory or even in a disputed border
region the enemy may exhume and desecrate the body. Rather, he would have been
carried off and laid to rest in a place of honor.
Pastscape briefly discusses the whereabouts of the
Roman cemetery at Viroconium under its discussion of the Cunorix Stone:
“Roman cemetery identified from finds of inscribed
tombstones and excavations. The cemetery may be the principal cemetery for the
Roman town of Virconium Cornovirum and probably occupied both sides of the
road. The tombstone of Cunorix was ploughed up here in 1967. He was Irish and
possible leader of group of mercenaries. The tombstone is dated to around 470
AD.
SJ 5711 0925. Site of Roman burial ground.
This appears to have been the site of the principal
cemetery of the Roman town. It probably occupied both sides of the road, but it
is only on the east side that any important discoveries have been made.
Inscribed tombstones were first discovered here by workmen in 1752, and others
have been found subsequently.
Excavations were begun on the Cemetery site in 1923,
but with somewhat disappointing results, very few and ill-preserved interments
being found.
The exact location of the Roman Burial Ground could
not be determined and there is no trace on the ground.”
According to Professor Roger White, an archaeologist
at The Universirty of Birmingham who carried out field work at Wroxeter,
"No plan was made of the [Cunorix Stone]
findspot – it was recovered by the farmer and reported by Dr John Houghton.
Houghton took the earliest photos of it showing the fresh ploughmarks on it. My
best estimate of the find spot is likely to be the field immediately south and
east of Watling Street as it comes into the city on its north-east corner. This
was the location, on both sides of the road, of the Wroxeter eastern cemetery.
The best plan of this can be found in the this article: H. Johnson ‘The
excavations at the cemetery, Uriconium’ Gentleman’s Magazine 132:1 (1862),
398-405." [For which see Figure 2 above]
The following Website (which has a thorough
bibliography on sources of information for the stone) gives some important
additional details on the findspot:
http://search.shropshirehistory.org.uk/collections/getrecord/CCS_MSA13087/
"Description: A tombstone was ploughed up just
outside the town defences, 35-40 yards (35-40m) south of the Horseshoe Lane.
<1>
CMHTS Comment:- Note that the earliest accounts
[<3>,<4>] give the findspot as being inside the town wall. This is
incorrect. The stone is, in effect, an outlier of the Middle Crows Green
Cemetery. <2>
Houghton's account mentions the tombstone. <3>
The inscription, dated to about 460-475 was cut on
an earlier tombstone which had been re-used as a part of a building. <4>
CMHTS Comment:- This find lies outside defined
post-Roman/early medieval urban area (cf. PRN 06495). <5>"
As Cunorix/Cynyr/Cynric was deemed important enough
to have been given a memorial stone outside Viriconium, the presumed capital of
the Welsh High King, it stands to reason that his even more impressive brother,
Ceredig, would have been afforded a similar honor. If so, his stone - assuming it survived the
combined destructive energies of Nature and Man - is even now lying under the
turf in this same burial ground.
What would its inscription read, I wonder? Would it say merely Ceredig son of
Maquicoline? Or would we find chiseled
into the stone Ceredig's more famous appellation, Artorius?
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I:
THE IRISH IN BRITAIN
Sometime after the Roman withdrew from Britain, the
Irish founded several kingdoms there. The Deissi established a ruling dynasty
in Dyfed. Brycheiniog was of Irish foundation. Cunedda Chuinnedha/Mac Cuilinn
and his sons took Gwynedd. As federates
of the high-king at Viroconoum, they chased the Irish Ui Liathain out of
Anglesey, Dyfed, Gower and Kidwelly. The Laigin were at Dinllaen and in the
Lleyn Peninsula, and there is the possibility that Dinevor in Ystrad Tywi was
named for an Efwr Llwydon, i.e. of the Irish Laithain. The Irish mercenary son
of Cunedda, Cunorix, was buried in the heart of Powys at Viroconium. Further north, in Scotland, Dalriada was
founded by invaders from northeastern Ireland.
In this book I have outlined my fairly detailed case
for the famous Arthur being Cerdic of Wessex, himself a mercenary chieftain who
can be identified with Ceredig son of Cunedda of western Wales. This Cerdic/Ceredig was Irish or perhaps
Hiberno-British.
Here I wish to briefly discuss the Irish literary
"evidence" for the presence of Irish raiders and even Irish kings in
that part of England where Cerdic of Wessex was most active.
In the SANAS CORMAIC (c. 900 A.D.), we are told that
the Irish during the time of the
half-legendary 4th century king Crimthann Mar mac Fidaig, held "Ireland
and Alba [Britain]... down to the Ictian Sea [English Channel, named for the
Isle of Wight, ancient Vectis]..." Cerdic of Wessex, of course, is billed
as the conqueror of the Isle of Wight, while his other recorded victorious
battles were in southern Hampshire opposite Wight. If, according to Cormac's Glossary, the Irish
held this area during the 4th century, might it not also be true that they came
to control it in alliance with the Saxons in the 5th-6th centuries under
Cerdic/Ceredig?
The famous Njal of the Nine Hostages (probably 5th
century) is also brought into connection with the English Channel - and in a
most peculiar, even perhaps, suspicious way.
The 10th century poet Cinaed ua hArtacain tells us that Njal engaged in
seven raids of Britain (Alba being in other accounts confused with the European
Alps!). In the last he was slain by
Eochu or Eochaid the Leinsterman "above the surf of the Ictian
Sea." My question when I read this
account focused on the name of Najl's killer.
For both Eochu and Eochaid contain the ancient Irish word for 'horse'. The following is from the thesis on the names
prepared by Professor Jurgen Uhlich, Professor of Irish and Celtic Languages,
Trinity College, Dublin:
EOCHAID [and many variants]:
z.B. 'dem Pferd(egott) dienend/genehm' = e.g.
‘serving the horse(-god)’ or ‘acceptable to the horse(-god)'
EOCHU:
z.B. [Bv.] ‚pferdeäugig‘ oder „‘Qui a la voix du
Cheval (prophétique)’ = qui parle selon les indications fournies par le Cheval
prophétique“ = e.g. ‘horse-eyed’ or ‘having a Horse’s (prophetic) voice’ = ‘he
who speaks according to the insights provided by the Horse-prophet'
As we all know, Kent, named for the ancient British
tribe of the Cantiaci, was a kingdom on the English Channel. The supposed founders of Kent for Hengest
('Stallion') and Horse ('Horse'). Could
it possibly be that Eochu/Eochaid in the story of the slaying of Njal on the
English Channel is an Irish substitute for one of these English horse names?
That Njal was, in reality, slain by Hengest and/or Horsa? The idea is not as absurd as it may seem, for
Eochu/Eochaid is said to have killed Njal "in concert with the violent
grasping Saxons."
Hengest and Horsa, in turn, have before been
associated with an ancient British king named Eppilus. There were one or two
kings of this name, one of the Atrebates and the other of the Cantiaci. The
name contains the word for 'horse', i.e. epo- (epos), as is made clear by the
authoritative CELTIC PERSONAL NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN website.
Eppilus minted coins with horses on them. His brother was one Tincomarus, 'Great Peace'
or the like. However, one cannot help but wonder if the -marus element in this
last name did not remind the Saxons of their own early word mearh; g. meares;
m. A horse, steed? We now have this word as mare, a female horse, but that was
not its original meaning. Words from the
same Indo-European root are found in the Celtic languages, e.g. Welsh
march. However, Old English also had eoh
for 'horse, steed', and this word is cognate with the Irish ech, itself the
basis for names such as Eochu and Eochaid.
If Eppilus and Tincomarus were interpreted as
divinely ruling horse-brothers, could it be that the Saxon brothers Hengist and
Horsa are merely later reflections of these earlier Celtic kings, adopted by
the Germanic federates or invaders? Or that two Saxons who were credited with
conquering Kent were actually named for their famous British predecessors?
Scholars have tried to form a connection between
Hengist and Horsa and the Alcis, twin gods of the Naharnavali tribe in
Silesia. This is a stretch,
however. Of the several etymologies
proposed for the word Alcis, one does relate it to "elks". But elks, needless to say, are not
horses. Rudolf Simek (in his DICTIONARY
OF NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY), points out the presence of a horse-shaped variant of
the Germanic twin god motif in Migration Era illustrations.
APPENDIX II:
VORTIGERN
The name Vortigern or Gwrtheyrn, as found in the HB
of Nennius, was once held to be a ruling title. It was thought to be
represented by Gildas' Latin pun 'superbus tyrannus' or ‘Proud Tyrant’.
However, we now know that Vortigern was a proper name and not a title. It is
found recorded not only in several localities in Wales, but in Ireland as well.
Aside from the British Vortigern, whose name means
‘Over-lord’, we have records for the following Dark Age Irish Vortigerns or
‘Fortcherns’:
1) Fortchern, the smith of St. Patrick (Annals of
the Four Masters Year Entry 448); as this Fortchern is paired with another
smith, Laebhan, i.e. St. Lomman (?), this Fortchern may be:
2) Foirtchern son of Fedelmid, who was for a short
time bishop of St. Lomman's Trim. Fortchern of Trim, who was of mixed Irish and
British blood, is said to have later retired to Killoughterane/Cill Fortchern
in the parish of Muinebeag, Co. Carlow. However, we are told in the ancient
Irish sources that Fortchern the smith is the same as Foirtchern of Rath
Seimhne (see below). It may not be a coincidence that there is a Gobbin's
Cliff, the Cliffs of the divine smith Goban Saor, in Seimhne/Island Magee.
3) Vortigern of Ballyhank, East Muskerry, Co. Cork
(inscribed stone).
4) Vortigern of Knockboy in Decies Without Drum, Co.
Waterford (inscribed stone dated c. 700-900 CE).
5) Foirtchern of Monte Cainle (probably the Hill of
Conlig/Coinleac in north Co. Down), a contemporary of St. Columba.
6)Foirtchern of Rath Seimhne (Island Magee, south
Co. Antrim).
7)Fortchern, brother of Cathchern (a name cognate
with British Cattigern, a supposed son of Vortigern in the HB narrative), son
of Tigernach of the Meic Carthind of the Lough Foyle region.
8)Fortcheirn son of Mael Rubae of the Ui Dicholla of
the Dessi
9)Fortchern son of Iarlaith of the Ui Brigte of the
Dessi
10)Fortchern son of Tigernach of the Ui Brigte of
the Dessi
11)Clan Foirtchern in the Breadach genealogy on
Inishowen, near the Lough Foyle Meic Carthind
These examples, some ‘in stone’, should be sufficient
to dispell the notion that Vortigern is merely a title. Instead, Vortigern is a
genuine Brythonic personal name.
In Wales, Radnorshire or Maesyfed (the ‘field of
Hyfaidd’) was once known as Gwrtheyrnion, i.e. the kingdom of Gwrtheyrn.
Gwrtheyrnion, roughly between the Wye and Ithon rivers, was a relatively small
kingdom in southwestern Powys. Other places in Wales where Vortigern's name is
preserved are Nant Gwrtheyrn in Lleyn, close to Gwyniasa (and surrounding
Gwynus placenames), and a Craig Gwrtheyrn on the Teifi.
These three places are mentioned in Nennius's
narrative, but only Gwrtheyrnion carries weight. The Lleyn and Teifi sites may
represent the presence in these places of other Vortigerns, but in all
likelihood it is merely the proximity to them of St. Garmon place-names that
accounts for the ‘Over-lord’s’ association with them. In Nennius's story of
Vortigern, the poor chieftain is literally hounded all over Wales by the saint.
Thus wherever there was a known St. Garmon site, Vortigern was placed there. In
my opinion, Vortigern was probably not in Lleyn, nor was he on the Teifi
(despite the presence at nearby Nevern of a Vitalinus Stone; see below). He
belonged instead to Gwrtheyrnion, which was merely one of several Welsh Dark
Age sub-kingdoms.
Vortigern of Wales, who is said to have been the son
of Guitaul (= Roman Vitalis) son of Guitolin (= Roman Vitalinus, a name found
on a stone at Nevern dated by Charles Thomas between 466 and 533 CE – too late
for Vortigern’s grandfather) son of Gloiu (Gloyw, the eponym of Welsh Caerloyw,
modern Gloucester), is actually the British-Irish Fortchern son of Fedelmid son
of Laeghaire. This Fortchern son of Fedelmid was of the right time to be the
Vortigern of Nennius. Both Guitaul and Guitolin are substituted for the name
Fedel-mid.
It was Robert Vermaat who first called my attention
to the details surrounding this particular Fortchern. To quote extensively from
his Vortigern Studies website article,
‘Scotnoe & Foirtgirn, the Irish Branch’:
“Foirtchern was the son of Fedelmid, son of Loguire,
who was High King of Ireland throughout the period of the mission of St.
Patrick (whose dates may be 428-462). Foirtchern’s mother was a daughter of the
King of the Britons. The story goes that when St. Patrick’s nephew Lomman
visited Trim (in Ireland), the boy Foirtchernn took him home to Fedelmid and
his mother, who both spoke British and were delighted to see a visitor from his
mother’s country. They made Lomman stay, who then subsequently converted the
whole family. The mother might have been a Christian in the first place, for
she ‘welcomed’ the saint. Maybe the fact that Lomman was a Christian made him
more welcome than his being from Britain. Fedelmid may have embraced
Christianity because the saint had just come from Tara Hill, where St. Patrick
had defeated the druids of Fedelmid’s father the High King Loguire.
Foirtchern's date may be confirmed by the Annala
Rioghachta Eirann:
Annals of the Four Masters, M432.0 – 4
The Age of Christ, 432. The fourth year of Laeghaire.
Patrick came to Ireland this year, and proceeded to baptize and bless the
Irish, men, women, sons, and daughters, except a few who did not consent to
receive faith or baptism from him, as his Life relates. Ath Truim was founded
by Patrick, it having been granted by Fedhlim, son of Laeghaire, son of Niall,
to God and to him, Loman, and Fortchern.
These annals, though dating to 1616 in their
youngest version, date back at least to 1172.
In any case, Fedelmid enthrusted Foirtchirnn to
Lomman and founded the church of Trim, making St Patrick, Lomman and
Foirtchirnn his heirs. But Foirtchernn was obdurate and did not want to accept
his heritage, after which Lomman had to threaten him with taking away the
blessing of the church, which is tantamount to incurring its curse. After
Lomman's death, though, Foirtchirnn gave away his church within three days.
This may be apocryphal, for Foirtchirnn was listed afterwards as the first
episcopus (abbot) after Fedelmid and Lomman. He might have given it up later though,
for he is also listed as a plebilis, a lay successor.”
Now, the question on my mind, after reading this
account, was "Who succeeded Lomman at Trim?" The answer is in the
Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh:
He [Foirtchernn] held the abbacy for three days
after his master's death until he came to Ath Truim, and then immediately
handed his church over to the foreigner Cathlaid [Cathlaido perigrino].
I immediately recognized this ‘Cathlaid the
Foreigner’ as a doublet for Catel Durnluc, the traditional founder of Powys,
the kingdom that succeeded that of the Roman-period Cornovii. In the book above I suggested Catel or Cadel
might be a pet-name for Cunorix son of Cunedda.
The only objection to a Gwrtherynion ruled by a
chieftain of mixed British-Irish ancestry would be that such a king, with such
a small sub-kingdom, could not possibly be the ‘superbus tyrannus’ of Gildas.
But I offer this argument to account for how such a confusion could have taken
place: any chieftain possessing a name such Vor-tigern, ‘the
over-/super-/great- lord’ could easily have been misinterpreted as an over-king
similar to the ardrigh or ‘high-king’ of Ireland. If I am right and Fortchern
son of Fedelmid son of Laeghaire the high king is the British Vortigern of
Gwrtheyrnion, then this kind of royal descent from an ardrigh could also have
contributed to Gildas's misinterpretation of Vortigern's status in Britain.
In summary, then, what may have happened is this: a
chieftain named Vortigern (or Fortchern), who was of mixed Irish-British
ancestry, and whose grandfather was the ardrigh of Ireland, had established a
small sub-kingdom in southwestern Powys in the 5th century. Gildas, attracted
to the name because it seemed to denote a sort of British high king, laid the
blame for the Saxon ‘invitation’ (i.e. the use of Germanic barbarian federates)
in this presumed high king's lap. Further vilification continued after this
identification of Vortigern as the offending monarch was made, until by the 9th
century we have a fully developed story of Vortigern in the HB of Nennius.
Alternately, given that the Eliseg Pillar in what
was the kingdom of Powys traces the descent of the Powys dynasty from
Vortigern, and Catel Durnluc is in the various genealogies confused with
Vortigern or made his near-descendent, it is possible that Fortchern son of
Fedelmid, at least partly through his wife’s British blood, had managed to lay
claim to the throne of Powys itself. His sub-kingdom of Gwrtheyrnion was, after
all, part of Powys.
A final possibility, and one which calls into some
doubt the notion that Vortigern was related to the Irish high king, is the
proximity of Gwrtheyrnion to Brycheiniog.
The latter, as Charles Thomas has shown in his ‘And Shall These Mute
Stones Speak?”, was likely founded by the Irish-descended Dessi dynasty of
Dyfed. We have seen above that fully
three of the Irish Vortigerns hailed from the Dessi.
The Bodvoc Stone and Vortigern
On Mynydd Margam in southern Wales, there is an
interesting inscribed stone dated either 500-599 or 400-550 A.D.. Interesting chiefly because it bears the name
Catotigirnus, a name we know from the Historia Brittonum of Nennius and the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A Cattigern,
modern Caderyn, is said according to competing genealogies to be either the son
of the great Vortigern or of Cadell Dyrnllwg.
While Catotigirnus may well have been a relatively common name in the
period, the fact that we find it on a stone means that at least his son Bodvoc
must have been someone of considerable importance. Could the father of Bodvoc also have been an
important man? Could he have actually
been THE Cattigern?
Here is the relevant inscription:
BODVOC{I}HICI{A}CIT | F/IL/IVSC{A}TOTIGIRNI |
PRONEPVSETERN{A}L/I | VEDOM{A}V{I}
Expansion:
BODVOCI HIC IACIT FILIVS CATOTIGIRNI PRONEPVS
ETERNALI VEDOMAVI
Translation:
Of Bodvocus (PN) -- he lies here, the son of
Catotigirnus (PN) and great-grandson of Eternalis (PN) Vedomavus (PN).
RCAHMW/1976 37 reading only
We learn more about this stone from the CADW Web
page:
"The earliest and perhaps most visual features
of the pre-industrial landscape throughout the area are funerary monuments
located within the uplands dating to the Bronze Age (2300-800BC); these
features are arranged in two main clusters or groups; one towards the western
end of the Mynydd Margam ridge including two Bronze Age Cairns, or round
barrows at Ergyd Isaf (SAM Gm 160; PRNs 741 and 742; HLCA 004), and nearby at
Ergyd Uchaf (SAM Gm 159; PRN 749w; HLCA 010), and a second grouping at the head
of Cwm Cynffig, including a two cairns near Llyndwr Fawr (PRNs 751w and 752w;
HLCA 010), a ring cairn (PRN 753w; HLCA 010), the 'supposed' original site of
the early medieval inscribed Bodvoc stone (SAM Gm 443; HLCA 010), to the south
the so called Port Talbot Tumulus (PRN 763w; HLCA 013) and at Waun Lluest-wen
another ring cairn (PRN 115m; HLCA 013), and Twmpath Diwlith (PRN 00754w;
excavation in 1921 revealed a cist burial; HLCA 013). Outliers include the
possible barrow of Mynydd Margam Beacon (NPRN 307,286; HLCA 010), also
considered to be a maritime defensive feature of medieval date, and to the
south west the near destroyed Rhyd Llechws round barrow, just south east of the
summit and the round barrow on Moel Ton mawr (PRN 00755w; HLCA 014). Several of
these sites were excavated on behalf of the National Museum of Wales by Dr RE
Mortimer Wheeler in 1921 (RCAHMW. Glamorgan Inventory, Volume 1, Part 1); the
Royal Commission record that all of the barrows and cairns excavated had been
previously damaged and that 'some of the the mounds had been built of
irregularly cut turves, and yielded a few flint flakes during excavation.
Of particular interest is the barrow of Twmpath
Diwlith (PRN 00754w; SS 8322 8879; HLCA 013), this was found to have been
constructed of turf over a rough cist-burial containing fragmentary burnt
bones', the site had later been enlarged with earth and a secondary interment
(disturbed) inserted. The important 6th century Bodvoc stone (ECM 229; PRN
809w; replica, original in NMW) inscribed BODVOC-HIC IACIT / FILIVIS
CATOTIGIRNI / PRONEPVS ETERNALI VEDOMAV ('the stone of Bodvocus-he lies here,
the son of Catotigirnus and great grandson of Eternalis Vedomavus') is set into
the adjacent ringcairn (PRN 753w; SAM Gm 443; SS 8306 8878; HLCA 010). The 1st
edition 6'' OS map of 1884 shows the then location of the stone on the
'tumulus' immediately east of the ancient ridgeway route of Heol-y-moch (an
extention of Ffordd-y-gyfraith), and names it as careg-lythrog (inscribed
stone). There is a possibility that the Bodvoc stone may have originally have
been associated with Twmpath Diwlith, especially in the light of the secondary
burial; this is, however, largely speculative.
The significance of the Bodvoc stone is enhanced by
its location close to a well-established civil and ecclesiastic boundary; the
boundary between the parishes of Margam and Llangynwyd ('yr Hen Blwyf') and the
boundary of main monastic lands of Margam during the medieval period (Rees
1932; Williams 1990), the stone's location is thought to reflect the even
earlier boundary between the early medieval parochiae of Margam and Llangynnd
(Knight 1995)."
Let us first tackle the name Vedomav-. Celtic language specialists are in agreement
that the second component is "servant." To quote again from the CISP site:
"MAU is attested as the second element in the
name Tutamau (CR no. 281), and also probably in Wormawi in ch. 14 of the Vita
of Paul Aurelian), unless that is Uurm-/Uorm- `brown' plus the suffix -(i)au.
Cornish has a common noun maw `young man, servant' from British *magus. Magu-
is attested as a name element in Gaulish. These forms correspond to the OIr.
common noun mug `slave, servant'. The same root is found in Breton maouez
`woman', corresponding to Cornish mowes `girl', and probably in Breton mevel
`domestic servant'. The Early Welsh collective maon (two syllables) is used
with the meaning `subjects, a king's warband' (GPC sn.). The singular occurs in
the Welsh fossilized phrase meudwy `hermit, monk', as if from *magus Dewi:
`servant of God'. The same element occurs in two compound names in Late
Romano-British spellings in inscriptions from Wales: MAVOHE[N-] from
*Magu-senos (Llanboidy: ECMW no. 149) and VEDOMAV- (Margam: ECMW no. 229). If
Gallmau is not simply a name that is servile in origin, it may contain the
sense of meudwy as a name in faith, i.e. `Gallo-Roman Servant [of God]'."
Vedo- is from some word which in modern Welsh would
appear as gwydd (information courtesy Dr. Simon Rodway). I will present my reason below for choosing
gwydd, 'tree(s), branches, twigs' (see Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru).
The second thing we notice about the Bodvoc Stone
inscription is that the name of the father of Catotigirnus is left out. We thus must be satisfied with the
great-grandfather of Bodvoc, Eternalis Vedomavus. Now, long ago I suggested that Vortigern was
at least part Irish.
At the time, I had not plugged the Bodvoc Stone into
the equation. As a result, I did not
bother to check into the etymologies for Lomman and Fedelmid (Feidilmidh and
other variants).
Lomman, as it turns out, means (see the eDIL) 'tree
(or branch) stripped of its bark and/or leaves and/or twigs.' He is given an epithet lainnech, meaning 'the
Scaly' (perhaps for the appearance of bark?).
Ath Truim, his church, means "ford of the elder trees."
According to a traditional account, Foirtchern son of Fedelmid was a follower
of Lomman.
This reminded me immediately of Vedomavus as
"Tree-servant."
Could Eternalis be a Latin rendering of
Fedelmid? We have examples in stone and in
MSS. of Latin being used as "translations" of Celtic names. In Dyfed we have the Voteporigas Protictoris
stone, while Gildas wrongly renders Cuneglasus as 'tawny butcher'.
I went to look for an etymology for Fedelmid. One possibility, supplied by Christopher
Gwinn, wasn't helpful:
“Fedelm is the Irish equivalent of the Gaulish name
Uidluia (for *Uidlmia). The first element is based on the root ‘to see’ (Uid-).
The name likely means ‘seeress.’”
According to Professor Jurgen Uhlich of Trinity
College, a derivation from a word similar to Gaulish Uidluia is not possible:
"And finally ref. the connection you propose
with Gaulish Uidluia, even IF < *vidlmia (which, however, seems a
phonotactically impossible formation). Be that as it may, such a preform could
not possible lead to the vocalism of the first syllable of Fedelm(-id), where
the e must either be original or the result of Primitive Irish lowering, which
however only happens before *a or *o in the following syllable. Also, a group
*dl could not have survived into Old Irish, but would regularly lose the d with
ensuing compensatory lengthening, thus yielding something like *file, or if
really with an original *m, *fílme (all of this a purely formal exercise, of
course). So while words beginning with, or containing, the sequence <vid>
make one think of the IE root ‘to see’ (though there are other formal
possibilities), one can still not be sure that even the apparently appellative
Gaulish word containing this must have meant ‘seer(ess)’, unless it can be
argued plausibly have that meaning in its transmitted Larzac context. But this
would still do nothing for Fedelm etc., unless the formal concerns could be
addressed, and even then it is attested as a context-free name, not an
appellative noun."
The second possibility for Fedlemid, however, was
quite remarkable:
Sabine Ziegler derives Fedelm and Fedelmid from the
adjective feidil "enduring, lasting".
I went to the eDIL for feidil (or fedil) and
derivatives and found these meanings:
lasting, enduring, long-lived, constant, continuous,
perpetual
Prof. Jurgen's opinion on this derivation is as
follows:
"...the only formal connection available indeed
appears to be the Irish word feidil... All of this leaves us at best with
feidil, for no other reason that this is the most similar word the Irish
dictionary can come up with (albeit a very similar one in the present case,
admittedly)... I will restate that that connection with feidil seems more
suggestive than some other, shorter, root-etymologies... "
What I propose is this: whoever carved the Bodvoc
Stone had rightly or wrongly interpreted Fedelmid to mean the same as Latin
Eternalis and so he "translated" the name.
Prof. Jurgen commented on this idea thusly:
"...the
latter “meaning” would only have been the one that the translator assumed the
name to have by his own reinterpretation (which may have been historically
“correct” or incorrect), not the actual meaning of the name at the time, which
again would have been limited to denoting a particular person. This is the
realm of folk-etymology (usually called that only when the contemporary
interpretation of a form can be shown by modern linguists to be historically
wrong, but the approach is the exact same when the explanation happens to be
“correct”, a criterion that would have made no sense to the
folk-etymologiser)."
Eternalis = Fedelmid
Vedomavus = Tree-servant (i.e. Fedelmid, who was, as
is made plain in the hagiographical account, a follower of the "tree"
Lomman)
If I'm right about this, the Vortigern of Wales was
indeed Foirtchern son of Fedelmid by a British wife. This Foirtchern eventually carved out a
kingdom for himself called Gwrtheyrnion, located in southern Powys.
I realize some may challenge my reading of this
stone. Still, I feel that what I have
come up with is more than merely provocative.
In truth, it may point to the actual historical existence of Vortigern
and allow us to trace his ancestry back to an Irish king.
APPENDIX III:
IUSAY SON OF CEREDIG
Many years ago I floated the idea that Iusay, son of
Ceredig son of Cunedda, may be a form of the family/tribal designation Gewissae
or Gewissei. While a proposed relationship between these names was not
well-received (or, rather, for the most part ignored!), I would like to briefly
revisit the possibility here.
The forms Gewissei and Gewissae are attested (see
Richard Coates "On some controversy surrounding Gewissae / Gewissei,
Cerdic and Ceawlin").
The later Welsh forms Iwys or Iwis for the Gewissae
would appear to derive from the Anglo-Saxon form of this word. Simon Rodway has confirmed for me that
"Iwys is the Welsh form of Gewissae (Armes Prydein, ed. Ifor Williams,
English version by Rachel Bromwich (Cardiff, 1972), pp. 49-50)."
Alfred is king of the "giuoys", i.e.
Gewissae, in Welsh Annal entry AD 900.
Asser says in his LIFE OF ALFRED: "Cerdic, who was the son of
Elesa, who was the son of Geuuis, from whom the Britons name all that nation
Geguuis [Gewissae]."
Iusay (variant Usai) has not been successfully etymologized
by the Celtic linguists. Recently, I
sent queries to several, all of whom were forced to admit that they could not
come up with an acceptable derivation. I
myself have tried everything I could think of, including Classical and Biblical
names. This attempt ended in failure.
Although there are some forms of Biblical names as recorded in Irish
texts (like Usai), the initial /I-/ of Iusay prohibits us from identifying such
with the Welsh name. A Ius- might
suggest a Roman name like Justus, but then we cannot account for the ending of
Iusay/Usai.
Of course, it is possible Iusay and Usai are corrupt
or that they represent some Welsh mangling of an Irish name. Neither I nor the
language experts have been able to find such an Irish analog. This is not to say it does not exist, merely
that we have been unable to find it.
All of which brings me back to this:
I have shown in previous research that the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's Cerdic is Ceredig son of Cunedda, that the same
source's Cynric is Cunorix son of Cunedda (as Maquicoline) and that Ceawlin,
supposed son or successor of Cynric is, in fact, Cunedda (Maquicoline). Sisam and Dumville have aptly proven that
Elesa (= the metathesis Esla) is a borrowing from the Bernician pedigree. Omitting Elesa, then, permits us to see
Gewis, eponym of the Gewissei/Gewissae, as the immediate ancestor of
Cerdic/Ceredig. As the genealogy in the
ASC in the main runs backwards, it may be that Gewis/Gewissae/Gewissei is
properly the son of Ceredig.
If so, we might be able to account for Iusay after
all. It is well known that the /G-/ of
Gewis or Gewissei/Gewissae came to be pronounced as a /Y-/. This is what accounts for the Welsh forms
beginning in /I-/. /W/ and /U/ regularly
substitute for each other, especially when going from Welsh to Latin (cf. gwyn
and guin). If the terminal diphthong in
Iusay/Usai represents the /-ei/-ae/ of Gewissae/Gewissei, then we need only
allow for a lost medial small vowel /-i-/.
Iusay would then be a Welsh form of not Gewis, but of the group
designation Gewissae/Gewissei.
I feel this is a rather elegant solution to the
problem posed by the name Iusay.
Additional support of this idea has come from the following top
Celticists:
From Professor Oliver Padel Honorary Research Fellow
in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge -
"In fact I think your suggestion is not only
ingenious but also quite convincing. The only difficult bit, I suppose, is how
a tribal name came to be thought of as an individual personal name.
The I- for OE Ge- is fine, of course; as for its
loss (Iu- becoming U-), one might think
of the wider Welsh loss of I- in words beginning Iu-, such that original iudd
(`lord') became udd (I'm using Modern Welsh spellings for clarity), and personal
names containing that word as an element did likewise. (You will find details
in Jackson's Language & History in Early Britain -- sorry I haven't got it
to hand)."
From Dr Ben Guy, Research Associate, Latin Lives of
the Welsh Saints Project, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic,
University of Cambridge -
"Your email was forwarded to me by Professor
Russell, because I specialise in early Welsh genealogies (I completed a PhD on
the subject last year). I'm happy to help if I'm able.
I think you're right that no etymology has been
proposed for 'Iusay/Usai' before. What you propose is certainly an intriguing
suggestion, but I think that you may encounter a couple of difficulties with
it. Firstly, as you point out below, there appears to be one too few minims in
Iusay for it to equate to Gewisse/Iwys. Welsh forms of Gewisse, of which the
best known is in Armes Prydein Vawr, always appear as Iwis or Iwys (compare the
examples listed in GPC online). There are also earlier forms that point to the
same thing: 'Giuoys' in Annales Cambriae A, s.a. 899, and Asser's 'Geguuis'.
But as you suggest, this is not an insurmountable problem - though the loss
would be more readily explained on a palaeographical rather than phonological
level. The greater problem is the '-ay/-ai' ending. Comparable endings appear
in the English forms because they survive in Latinate contexts - chiefly Bede's
nominative plural form 'Geuissae' and a genitive plural 'Gewisorum' (implying a
Latin nom. pl. 'Gewisi') in some Anglo-Saxon charters (as mentioned in the
Keynes-Lapidge Asser book, p. 229). I don't think that that kind of ending
would be expected in an OE context, and it certainly wouldn't in Welsh - GPC
takes Iwys as a plural or collective noun whose ending has been influenced by the
plural noun ending -wys (< Lat. -enses) found in words like 'Gwennwys'. So
in other words, for your proposed derivation to work, Iusay would have to be a
version of a Latinate form such as Bede's 'Geuissae'. The question of how that
got into the Ceredigion genealogy in the form 'Iusay' would then be all the
more complex, and wouldn't be solely a matter of linguistics! That's not to say
that you're necessarily incorrect, of course, but it would require a more
elaborate, and therefore more speculative, theory of derivation.
There is one further thing you might consider
though, if you wanted to pursue this further: the genealogy of St Cadog. This
survives in two versions, one appended to the Life of St Cadog, the other in
the Jesus College 20 genealogies. The former calls Cadog's great-grandfather
'Solor', the latter 'Filur'. Both of these names were probably copied
ultimately from 'Silur' or the like. Given where St Cadog's cult centre is
(Llancarfan), this can't be anything other than a representation of the
pre-Roman tribe 'Silures', who were resident in that area. But the form 'Silur'
is not the result of regular linguistic development from the 1st century AD; it
is a form taken at a later stage from a Latin text, with the '-res' ending
lopped off. This might help you envisage the kind of process that might have
led to a Latinate form such as Bede's 'Geuissae' being included in the
Ceredigion pedigree, but one has to make rather more leaps to get there!"
From Professor Doctor P.C.H. Schrijver, Department of
Languages, Literature and Communication - Celtic, Institute for Cultural
Inquiry, University of Utrecht -
"Linguistically, the first thing that comes to
mind regarding the initial alternation Usai /Iusay is the pair OW iud, MW udd
'lord' < *iüdd. So OW word-initial j- disappears in front of ü (= MW u). As
to your assumption that Iusay may be connected to Gewissae if there is a rule
that states that medial -i- is lost, I can tell you that there is indeed such a
rule: *wi > ü in non-final syllables (as in *wikanti: > MW ugeint, see my
Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology 159-60). This generates the ü
that we need in order to later get rid of the initial j. The only remaining
problem is connecting OE Ge- /je/ with OW j-. Barring that, I would say, yes,
what you suggest is possible. That still leaves the origin and etymology of the
name in the dark (the reconstruction leads to something like *iwissai- or
*g/jewissai-), but first things first."
From Professor Doctor Stefan Zimmer, Department of
Celtic, University of Bonn -
"Spontaneaously, your idea of interpreting
"Iusay" as a W form of OE Gewisse seems quite attractive. One must,
of course, check meticulously the palaeographic details. As I am, alas, not a
palaeograher myself, I cannot say more. I see no "LINGUISTIC"
problems."
From Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, Department of
Welsh and Celtic Studies, The University of Wales, Aberystwyth -
"I suppose Ius- is the older form and became
Us- like Iustic in Culhwch which becomes Usic. Forms of Gewissae are noted by
Williams/Bromwich Armes Prydein pp. xv-xvi. One Welsh form is Iwys, which
rhymes as I-wys, and as the diphthong wy can become w, you could get I-ws-
which could be written Ius- in Old Welsh and then add -ae from Latin which almost gets you to
Iusay."
From Professor Doctor P.C.H. Schrijver, Department
of Languages, Literature and Communication, Celtic, Institute for Cultural
Inquiry, University of Utrecht -
"Linguistically, the first thing that comes to
mind regarding the initial alternation Usai /Iusay is the pair OW iud, MW udd
'lord' < *iüdd. So OW word-initial j- disappears in front of ü (= MW u). As
to your assumption that Iusay may be connected to Gewissae if there is a rule
that states that medial -i- is lost, I can tell you that there is indeed such a
rule: *wi > ü in non-final syllables (as in *wikanti: > MW ugeint, see my
Studies in British Celtic Historical Phonology 159-60). This generates the ü
that we need in order to later get rid of the initial j. The only remaining
problem is connecting OE Ge- /je/ with OW j-. Barring that, I would say, yes,
what you suggest is possible. That still leaves the origin and etymology of the
name in the dark (the reconstruction leads to something like *iwissai- or
*g/jewissai-), but first things first."
From Professor Doctor Stefan Zimmer, Department of
Celtic, University of Bonn -
"Spontaneaously, your idea of interpreting
"Iusay" as a W form of OE Gewisse seems quite attractive. One must,
of course, check meticulously the palaeographic details. As I am, alas, not a
palaeograher myself, I cannot say more. I see no "LINGUISTIC"
problems."
From Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, Department of
Welsh and Celtic Studies, The University of Wales, Aberystwyth -
"I suppose Ius- is the older form and became
Us- like Iustic in Culhwch which becomes Usic. Forms of Gewissae are noted by
Williams/Bromwich Armes Prydein pp. xv-xvi. One Welsh form is Iwys, which
rhymes as I-wys, and as the diphthong wy can become w, you could get I-ws-
which could be written Ius- in Old Welsh and then add -ae from Latin which almost gets you to
Iusay."
APPENDIX IV:
CUNEDDA
The great Cunedda, called Cunedag (supposedly from
*Cunodagos, ‘Good Hound’) in the Historia Brittonum and Cunedaf in the MARWNAD
CUNEDDA, is said to have come down (or been brought down) from Manau Gododdin,
a region around the head of the Firth of Forth, to Gwynedd. This chieftain and
his sons then, according to the account found in the HB, proceeded to repulse
Irish invaders. Unfortunately, this tradition is largely mistaken.
Cunedda of Manau Gododdin, the reputed founder of
Gwynedd, was himself actually Irish. There was an early St. Cuindid (d. c. 497
CE) son of Cathbad, who founded a monastery at Lusk, ancient Lusca. In the year
entry 498 CE of the Ulster Annals, his name is spelled in the genitive as
Chuinnedha. In Tigernach 496 CE, the name is Cuindedha.
The Irish sources also have the following additional
information concerning St. Cuindid:
Mac Cuilind - Cunnid proprium nomen - m. Cathmoga m.
Cathbath m Cattain m Fergossa m. Findchada m Feic m. Findchain m Imchada Ulaig
m. Condlai m Taide m. Cein m Ailella Olum.
U496.2 Quies M. Cuilinn episcopi Luscan. (Repose of
Mac Cuilinn, bishop of Lusca).
D.viii. idus Septembris. 993] Luscai la Macc Cuilinn
994] caín decheng ad-rannai, 995] féil Scéthe sund
linni, 996] Coluimb Roiss gil Glandai.
trans: 'With Macc cuilinn of Luscae thou
apportionest (?) a fair couple: the feast of Sciath here we have, (and that) of
Columb of bright Ross Glandae'
The (later-dated) notes to this entry read: 'Lusk,
i.e. in Fingall, i.e. a house that was built of weeds (lusrad) was there
formerly, and hence the place is named Lusca ........Macc cuilinn, i.e. Luachan
mac cuilinn, ut alii putant. Cuinnid was his name at first, Cathmog his
father's name'.
Significantly, Lusk or Lusca is a very short
distance from the huge promontory fort at Drumanagh, the Bruidhne Forgall
Manach of the ancient Irish tales. Manau is an error for this Manach (see
Appendix IX).
Aeternus, Cunedda's father, is none other than
Aithirne of Dun and Ben Etair just south of Lusca. Paternus Pesrudd
(‘Red-Cloak’), Cunedda's grandfather, is probably not derived from Mac Badairn
of Es Ruad (‘Red Waterfall’), since Es Ruad is in northwest Ireland (Ballyshannon
in Co. Donegal). I think Paternus, from the L. word for ‘father’, is Da Derga,
the Red God; Da, god, being interpreted as W. tad (cf. L. tata, ‘father’). The
Da Derga's hostel was just a little south of the Liffey. Cunedda's
great-great-grandfather is said to be one Tegid (Tacitus), while his
great-great-great grandfather is called Cein. These two chieftains are clearly
Taig/Tadhg and his father Cian. Cian was the founder of the Irish tribe the
Ciannachta, who ruled Mag Breg, a region situated between the Liffey and either
Duleek or Drumiskin (depending on the authority consulted). The Lusca and
Manapia of Chuinnedha are located in Mag Breg.
According to the genealogy edited in Corpus
Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae, the name of Chuinnedha’s father was Cathmug.
He belonged to the descendants of Tadc mac Cian, otherwise called the
Cianachta. There was a concentration of the saints of this family in the
Dublin/Louth/ Meath area, corresponding roughly to the teritory of the
Cianachta Breg.
It is surely not a coincidence that according to the
Irish Annals Chuinnedha's other name was Mac Cuilinn. We’ve seen above that Mac
Cuilinn and the Maqui-Coline of the Wroxeter Stone in Wales are not only the
same name, but the same person. Gwynedd was thus founded by Chuinnedha alias
Mac Cuilinn of the Manapii in Ireland, not by a chieftain of Manau Gododdin in
Britain.
The Irish origin of Cunedda should not be a surprise
to us, as there is the well-documented case of the Welsh genealogy of the royal
house of Dyfed, which was altered to hide the fact that Dyfed was founded by
the Irish Deisi. We know this because we have the corresponding Irish genealogy
from a saga which tells of the expulsion of the Deisi from Ireland and their
settlement in Dyfed. As is true of Cunedda's pedigree, in the Welsh Dyfed
pedigree we find Roman names substituted for Irish names.
APPENDIX V:
THE GEWISSEI
Quite a few years ago now Dr. Richard Coates (see "On
Some Controversy Surrounding Gewissae / Gewissei, Cerdic and Ceawlin",
Nomina 13 1989–90, 1–11) clarified the etymological origin of the tribal name
Gewissei or Gewissae. He linked the
name, correctly, to Old English ge-wis.
Here are the listings for the proper name Gewis (itself concocted from
the word) and ge-wis from the Bosworth and Toller dictionary:
Gewis, Giwis, es; m. Gewis, the great grandfather of
Cerdic :-- Se Cerdic wæs Elesing, Elesa Esling, Esla Gewising, Gewis Wiging
Cerdic was the son of Elesa, Elesa the son of Esla, Elsa the son of Gewis,
Gewis the son of Wig, Chr. 495; Erl. 2, 5: 597; Erl. 20, 7. Giwis, 552; Erl.
16, 19. According to Asset it was from this name that the term Gevissæ, applied
by Bede to the West Saxons, was derived. 'Gewis, a quo Britone totam illam
gentem Gegwis nominant,' see Grmm. Gesch. D. S. 458. For the use by Bede, see
Bd. 3, 7-'Gens Occidentalium Saxonum qui antiquitus Gevissæ vocabantur ...
primum Gevissorum gentem ingrediens,' where the translation has 'West Seaxna
þeód ... Ðá com he æ-acute;rest upp on West Seaxum.' See also 4, 15, 16.
Smith's note on the word is 'Gevissæ. Saxonicum est pro Occidentalium. Sic
Visigothi præposita tantum Saxonica expletiva Ge.' See Thorpe's Lappenberg i.
109, note.
ge-wis, -wiss; adj. Certain, sure, knowing,
foreknowing; certus :-- Gewis be heora gerihtnesse certus de illorum
correctione, Bd. 5, 22; S. 644, 45. Ðæt is gesægd ðæt he wæ-acute;re gewis his
sylfes forþfóre qui præscius sui obitus exstitisse videtur, 4, 24; S. 599, 14.
Wite ðæt érest gewiss ðæt ðæt mód byþ ðære sáwle æ-acute;ge know first that as
certain, that the mind is the soul's eye, Shrn. 178, 2. Gewis is constat, Hpt.
Gl. 419. Ða úþwitan ðe sæ-acute;don ðæt næ-acute;fre nán wiht gewisses
næ-acute;re búton twæónunga the philosophers that said that there was no certainty
without doubt, Shrn. 174, 25. Swá litel gewis funden found so little certain,
Bt. 41, 4; Fox 250, 20. Gewis andgit intelligence, 5; Fox 252, 20, 30. We
syndon gewisse ðínes lífes we are acquainted with thy life, Guthl. 5; Gdwin.
30, 18. He hí gewisse gedyde and gelæ-acute;rde be ingonge ðæs écan ríces de
ingressu regni æterni certos reddidit, Bd. 4, 16; S. 584, 35. On gewissum tídum
at certain times, R. Ben. interl. 48. Of gewissum intingan of certain causes,
R. Ben. interl. 63. Myd gewyssum gesceáde with certain reason, wherefore;
propter certam rationem, quapropter, Nicod. 3; Thw. 2, 6. [O. H. Ger. giwis:
Ger. gewiss certus.]
It has been thought (including by the present
author) that the term was meant to be a way of distinguishing "good"
Britons from "bad", the bad ones being, of course, the wealas or
Welsh. Your enemy is a foreigner and
strange to you. Your friend or ally is
known and you can be sure and certain of him.
However, while reading through different MSS. of THE
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE and related early sources, I happened to notice that the
name Cerdic, which belongs to the founder of the Gewissei, is often spelled
CERT-. A /t/ for /d/ substitution is common for the period, so such a change
need not seem at all surprising. But what
was surprising is that I happened to think of Latin
certus, certa, certi, etc.
For certi, we have the following in William
Whitaker's WORDS:
cert.i
N 2 2 GEN S N
cert.i
N 2 2 LOC S N
certum, certi
N N [XXXBO]
that which is
fixed/regular/definite/specified/certain/fact/reliable/settled;
cert.i
ADJ 1 1 GEN S M POS
cert.i
ADJ 1 1 GEN S N POS
cert.i
ADJ 1 1 NOM P M POS
cert.i
ADJ 1 1 VOC P M POS
certus, certa -um, certior -or -us, certissimus -a
-um ADJ
[XXXAO]
fixed, settled, firm; certain; trusty/reliable;
sure; resolved, determined;
What I'm going to propose, here and now, is that
Gewissei was a term conjured by the English, who instead of interpreting
Cerdic's name properly, as deriving from
caredig, ceredig [GPC]
[bôn y f. caraf: caru+-edig: < Clt. *karatīcos]
kind, loving, friendly; beloved, dear; diligent.
beloved one, kinsman; lover, friend, benefactor.
itself from
câr [GPC]
[Crn. car, ll. kerens, Llyd. kar, ll. kerent, H.
Wydd. car(a)e ‘cyfaill’: < Clt. *karants o’r gwr. *kā- ‘annwyl,
trachwantus’]
*kar-o- 'love' [Vb] [Matasovic's ETYMOLOGICAL
DICTIONARY OF PROTO-CELTIC]
GOlD: OIr. caraid, -eara; cechraid [Fut]; carais
[Pret.]
W:MWcaru
BRET: MBret. caret, MoBret. kared
CO: Co. care
GAUL: Caro- [PN]
CELTIB: Kara [PN]
PIE: *keh2-ro- 'love' (IEW: 515)
COGN: Lat. ciirus, OHG huor 'prostitute', Latv.
kiirs 'lustful'
SEE: *karant- 'friend'
ETYM: This is a deadjectival verb formed from
unattested *karo- 'dear,
beloved' < PIE *kh2-ro-. The root is PIE *keh2-
(Skt. kdma- 'love', etc.).
REF: LEIA C-36, GPC I: 422, LIV 306, Ellis Evans
1967: 162, Delamarre
107,Deshayes 2003: 370, MLH V.l: l60f.
they related it to Latin certus.
If this is so - and I'm pretty sure (pun strictly
intended) it can't be merely a coincidence - then we can no longer view the
Gewissei as "allies" based on nothing more than an applied meaning of
their name. Instead, the Gewissei are
the descendants of Cerdic/Certic, and can no no longer be defined as allies of
the English. At this point I'm not
certain (sorry!) what they were, exactly.
Via private communication, Dr. Richard Coates
responded to this idea by saying:
"I hadn’t thought of that but it’s
intriguing."
APPENDIX VI:
THE REAL FAMILY OF ARTHUR
(CEREDIG SON OF CUNEDDA)
The family of Arthur as found in the early sources
is a fairly late fabrication. I have
discussed Guinevere and Igraine in some depth in my book THE MYSTERIES OF
AVALON. The first is an Irish goddess,
while the second is a deity associated with the Tintagel headland. Some of his sons are actually personified
streams. Other supposed blood connections are equally fraudulent, the products
of folklore or literary invention.
Lucky for us, once we accept Arthur as merely another
name for Ceredig of Ceredigion, a very prosaic and mostly acceptable nuclear
family can be can be fleshed out.
Gwawl,
mother of Ceredig son of Cunedda
According to the early Welsh genealogies, the mother
of Ceredig son of Cunedda (in a later source called the mother of Cunedda) was
named Gwawl. She was supposedly a
daughter of Coel Hen of the North, a common progenitor of early princely
lines. Although some have disagreed,
Coel himself is likely a eponym created for the Kyle region of South Ayrshire
in southern Scotland.
Gwawl is though to mean (GPC) 'light, brightness,
radiance, splendour; bright'. This would
be a very pretty name for a woman, and an especially apt one for a queen. Unfortunately, there is a another word in
Welsh spelled exactly the same which leads us to a different conclusion
regarding Ceredig's mother.
Gwawl is 'wall' in Welsh and Welsh tradition records
a 'Gwawl son of Clud.'. Gwawl son of
Clud (Clud being an eponym for the Clyde) is a personification of the Antonine
Wall. As Cunedda was wrongly said to
have come from Manau Gododdin, a region which stretched to both sides of the
same Roman defensive barrier, it seems pretty obvious to me that Gwawl was
chosen as the name of Ceredig's mother for exactly this reason, i.e he and his
father were said to have originated or were "born" from the eastern
end of the Antonine Wall.
An ancient Welsh poem called MARWNAD CUNEDDA, or the
"Death-Song of Cunedda", places the Terrible Cheif-Dragon at Northern
battle sites. Cunedda is said to have
fought at Carlisle and Durham. These
locations are interesting, as they designate sites not far to the south of
Hadrian's Wall, at both the western and eastern ends, respectively. But what are we to make of this claim in the
panegyric?
Carlisle, the earlier Roman fort of Luguvalium, is
directly between the Camboglanna and Aballava forts. If Cunedda really were fighting here, and his
sons (or teulu) were with him at the time, then it is certainly conceivable
that Ceredig/Arthur fought and died at Camboglanna. This would appear to be in contradistinction
to Ceredig (or Cerdic) fighting in the extreme south of England and perishing
at a Camlan in NW Wales.
There are two possibilities, as I see it. First, as a mercenary chieftain (or federate
in the old Roman style), Ceredig/Arthur was literally fighting all over the
place. There is nothing wrong with this
notion and it cannot, on the face of things, be objected to. We do have to remember, though, that Cunedda
himself was falsely associated with the Far North when he was converted from an
Irishman into a Briton with bogus Roman ancestry. The same death-song, for example, has him
being militarily active in Bernicia, which at its maximum extent eventually bordered
right on Manau Gododdin, the region substituted for that around Drumanagh in
Ireland. Thus it could well be that
these northern locations with which Cunedda became associated represent
fictional elements in his exploits. In
other words, as he came to be seen as a great British chieftain of the North,
who at some point in his career came down and conquered or settled in NW Wales,
it was deemed necessary to provide a "history" for him that preceded
his actions in Gwynedd.
Meleri,
Wife of Ceredig Son of Cunedda
According to Dr. Simon Rodway of the University of
Wales, Meleri is a hypocoristic form of Eleri.
'My', which means the same as our word my, is affixed to the front of
the name as a term of endearment, viz. 'My Eleri.' Some sources have Eleri as a Welsh form of
the Latin name Hilarius, from hilaris, 'cheerful, merry.' However, this is wrong. According to Dr.
Simon Rodway of The University of Wales,
"Meleri is a hypocoristic form of Eleri,
following a very well-recognized insular Celtic pattern. It literally means ‘my
Eleri’, cf. Teleri ‘your Eleri’. Eleri has nothing to do with the name
Hillary. The name comes from the Afon
Eleri (modern Leri) in Ceredigion and was, perhaps, a goddess name."
In Richard JamesThomas's Enwau afonydd a nentydd
Cymru (1938;p. 142), the stream Eleri is associated with Welsh alar ‘excess,
too much’.
Meleri is one of the many daughters of Brychan, the
eponymous IRISH founder of the kingdom of Brycheiniog. which lay to the
southeast of Ceredigion.
Children
of Meleri and Ceredig
Regarding the progeny of Ceredig, I would refer the
reader to the relevant entry in P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY. He
lists the following sons and daughters according to various sources:
Iusay (whom I've discussed in an Appendix above)
Sant father of Dewi
Cedig
Corun
Carannog
Annun
Cynon, father of Cynidr Gell
Samson, father of Gwgon
Ithel, father of St. Dogfael
Garthog, father of Cyngar
Hydwn, ancestor of Teilo
Ina
Gwawr, wife of Glywys and mother of Gwynllyw
Gwen, mother of St. Padarn
To me the most interesting person among Ceredig's
children is the daughter Gwawr, mother of Gwynllyw. On my blog site I discussed the Coedkernyw in
Gwynllwg, a petty kingdom named for Gwynllyw, as well as the Celliwig located
in the same vicinity. Arthur in Welsh
tradition is always strongly associated with a Kernyw and also with a
Celliwig.
Arthur features largely in the Life of St.
Carannog. There we meet with both a
dragon (a reflection of Uther Pendragon, as I showed in my book THE MYSTERIES
OF AVALON) and a magical alter/table.
Here is the story as provided in the translation from the Latin by A.W.
Wade Evans (1944):
Vita Sancti Carantoci (Version 1)
4. In those times Cadwy and Arthur were reigning in
that country, dwelling in Dindraithov. And Arthur came wandering about that he
might find a most formidable serpent, huge and terrible, which had been
ravaging twelve portions of the land of Carrum (i.e., locus, monastery). And
Carannog came and greeted Arthur, who joyfully received a blessing from him.
And Carannog asked Arthur, whether he had heard where his altar had landed. And
Arthur replied, ‘If I shall have a reward, I will tell thee.’ And he said,’
What reward dost thou ask?’ He answered, ‘That if thou art a servant of God,
thou shouldst bring forth the serpent, which is near to thee, that we may see
it.’ Then the blessed Carannog went and prayed to the Lord, and immediately the
serpent came with a great noise like a calf running to its mother, and it bent
its head before the servant of God like a slave obeying his lord with humble
heart and with sidelong glance. And he placed his stole about its neck and led
it like a lamb, nor did it raise its wings or claws. And its neck was like the
neck of a bull of seven years, which the stole could scarcely go round. Then
they went together to the citadel and greeted Cadwy, and they were welcomed by
him. And he led that serpent down the middle of the hail and fed it in the
presence of the people, and they tried to kill it. He did not allow it to be
killed because he said that it had come at the word of God to destroy the
sinners who were in Carrum, and to show the power of God through him. And after
this he went outside the gate of the citadel and Carannog loosed it and bade it
to depart and not to hurt anyone nor to return any more. And it went forth and
remained as he had foretold, according to God’s ordinance. And he received the
altar which Arthur had thought to convert into a table, but whatever was placed
upon it was thrown to a distance. And the king asked of him that he should
accept Carrum for ever by a written deed. And after this he built a church
there.
5. Afterwards a voice came to him from heaven to
cast the altar into the sea. Then he sent Cadwy [and] Arthur to enquire
concerning the altar, and it was told them that it had landed at the mouth of
the Guellit. And the king said, ‘Again give him twelve parts of the land where
the altar was found.’ Afterwards Carannog came and built a church there, and
the monastery was called Carrov.
English
Relatives?
Cerdic and Cynric are said to have as nefan bolth
Stuff and Wihtgar. This last, as many
have discussed before, is a rendering of a word used originally to designate
the men of Wight. It is here an eponym,
in other words. But Stuff appears to be
a real personal name, and is found in Stubbington just across The Solent from
Wight. Nefan is the plural of nefa. Here is the relevant listing from Bosworth
and Toller:
nefa
an; m.
I. a nephew; nepos
Bróder sune vel suster sune ðæt is nefa, Wrt. Voc.
i. 51, 71.
Neva nepos, 72, 35.
Hlóþhere Ægelbrhytes nefa (cf. hé him onsende
Leutherium his nefan (nepotem ), Bd. 3,7; S. 530. 29), Chr. 670; Erl. 34, 29:
789; Erl. 57, 34: Ælfc. Gr. 9, 31 : Som. 11, 69.
Eám and nefa, Exon. Th. 431. 35; Rä. 47, 6.
Heó wæs Édwines nefan (nepotis ) dohtor, Bd. 4. 23 ;
S. 593, 2.
Hé swylces hwæt secgan wolde eám his nefan, Beo. Th.
1766; B. 881.
II. a grandson
Nefena bearnum pronepotibus, filiis nepotum, Hpt.
Gl. 426, 50.
Ealdra nefena pronepotum, 445, 56.
III. a step-son
Nefa prifignus, Wülck. Gl. 41, 28.
[Icel. nefi a cognate kinsman, a nephew : O. Frs.
neva : O. H. Ger. nefo nepos, sobrinus : Ger. neffe.]
v. for-, ge-nefa.
The use of such a term implies a familiar
relationship. If the Gewissei had
actually intermarried with the Saxons, then they were much more than just
mercenaries.
APPENDIX VII:
ARTHUR ‘DUX ERAT
BELLORUM’ AND CERDIC THE EALDORMAN
Much has been made of the 'dux erat bellorum' or
'leader of battles' title given to Arthur in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM. For the most part, scholars have been led
astray into thinking this was an indication that Arthur held a true Roman rank
(or one patterned after an earlier Roman rank).
The majority hold to something like Dux Britanniarum, the military
leader in the north of Britain. Early
Welsh sources refer to Arthur as 'miles', 'soldier', and this has seemed to
lend support to the the Dux Britanniarum idea.
If I'm right and Arthur is Cerdic of Wessex, another
possibility presents itself. In the
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, Cerdic first appears in the annal entry for the year 495
A.D. He is referred to as an aldorman,
according to the translator Garmonsway "perhaps a translation of
principes." The Latin version of
the ASC uses duces duo when referring to Cerdic and Cynric.
Here is the definition of alderman or ealdorman as
found in the Bosworth and Toller dictionary.
The reader will note the meaning does include that of duke and often
denoted a military leader. In my
opinion, then, dux erat bellorum is merely a Latin rendering for ealdorman.
EALDORMAN
I. an elderman, ALDERMAN, senator, chief, duke, a
nobleman of the highest rank, and holding an office inferior only to that of
the king; mājor nātu, sĕnātor, prŏcer, princeps, prīmas, dux, præfectus,
trĭbūnus, quīcunque est aliis grădu aut nātu mājor. The title of Ealdorman or
Aldorman denoted civil as well as military pre-eminence. The word ealdor or
aldor in Anglo-Saxon denotes princely dignity: in Beowulf it is used as a
synonym for cyning, þeóden, and other words applied to royal personages. Like
many other titles of rank in the various Teutonic languages, it, strictly
speaking, implies age, though practically this idea does not survive in it any
more than it does in the word Senior, the original of the feudal term Seigneur.
Every shire had its ealdorman, who was the principal judicial officer of the
shire, and also the leader of its armed force. The internal regulations of the
shire, as well as its political relation to the whole kingdom, were under his
immediate guidance and supervision,—the scír-geréfa, or sheriff, being little
more than his deputy, and under his control. The dignity of the ealdorman was
supported by lands within his district, which appear to have passed with the
office,—hence the phrases, ðæs ealdormonnes lond, mearc, gemǽro, etc. which so
often occur. The ealdorman had also a share of the fines and other monies
levied to the king's use; though, as he was invariably appointed from among the
higher nobles, he must always have possessed lands of his own to the extent of
forty hides, v. Hist. Eliens. ii. 40. The ealdormen of the several shires seem
to have been appointed by the king, with the assent of the higher nobles, if
not of the whole witena gemót, and to have been taken from the most
trustworthy, powerful, and wealthy of the nobles of the shire. The office and
dignity of ealdorman was held for life,—though sometimes forfeited for treason
and other grave offences; but it was not strictly hereditary
APPENDIX VIII:
DRUMANAGH, THE
BIRTHPLACE OF ARTHUR?
I
have previously demonstrated that the Manau Gododdin associated with Cunedda
(or Uther Pendragon, the father of Ceredig/Arthur) is an error or intentional
substitution for a place in Ireland that resembles Manau. As Cunedda hailed from Lusk and its environs,
the natural conclusion was to look towards the nearby promontory fort of
Drumanagh.
Some
of the possible etymologies for Drumanagh are discussed here, in Chapter 3 of
Sean Daffy's thesis:
https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/bitstream/handle/10379/4450/SeanDaffyPhD.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
To
this we may add:
https://www.logainm.ie/en/16890?s=Drumanagh
While
I once leaned towards a possible connection with the Menapii of Ptolemy's map
of Ireland, I no longer think that is a feasible theory. Instead, we should take a closer look at the
legendary figure Forgall Monach, who has two forts (or one bearing two names?)
in this region.
To
begin with, Forgall's name is not really a name. It instead designates a rank, as is made
clear by the entry in the eDIL for this word:
forgell,
forgal(l)
Aire
forgill a landed proprietor next in rank to a `ri': aire forggaill cid ara
n-eperr? Ar is hé fortgella for na gráda doruirmisem, Críth G. 417 ( Laws iv
326 ) `testifies to [the character of] the grades'; `makes affirmation above
the grades' Mac Neill, Law of Status 29 (see Críth G. p. 72 , B. Crólige p. 70
§ 46 ). aire forgill, Críth G. 11 ( Laws iv 298 ). a. forggaill LL 29b22 .
Called also: fer forgaill ZCP v 499 § 5 .
His
epithet Monach is what I now believe lies behind the name of the Drumanagh fort. Again from the eDIL:
monach
adj
o, ā. (mon) able to perform feats or tricks; dexterous, skilled. cach clessach
na chanad cheilg | manach sein [i]sin Gædilg, LL 144b27 . ? fer manach
craftsman (?), Hib. Min. 55.12 = f. manath, IT i 104.10 (see manath). n p.
monaig ` equestrians' (= trick-riders?), Laws v 108.20 , with gl.: .i. bid ar
monaib a n-each isna haenaigib `who stand on the backs of their horses (?
perform feats of riding) in the fairs', 27 . As sobriquet: Forgall m.¤ the
trickster (?), LL 144b26 . Forgull M.¤ .i. cleasuch ro bhoí, Cóir An. 205.
ingen Forgaill manaich, LU 10176.
Forgall
Monach is thus the 'skillful, high-ranking landed proprietor' or some
such. As for his proper name, well, that
is not difficult to determine. His fort
at or near Lusk was called Luglochta Loga or Luglochtaib Loga. While the first part of this place-name has
eluded specialists, Loga here is for the god Lugh.
I
would render the place-name not as the 'Garden' of Lugh, which is suggested by
an early gloss, but as Loc (log, lag, luic, lucc, etc.) + lucht, giving us a
meaning of 'The Place of Those Belonging to Lugh.' However, Professor Jurgen Uhlich of Trinity
College had the following to say about my proposed etymology:
“While Loga is indeed the regular gen. sg. of Lug and lochtaib may be connected to lucht - although the -o- herer does not prove this, since being unstressed in is not a proper /o/ but may also represent a schwa slightly rounded by the the neighbouring guttural and can thus represent ANY original vowel short or long, including diphthongs, I do not think it is possible to state ‘lug- for loc’, since while <g> could stand for an earlier spelling <c> for underlying /g/m the stressed vowel u in the paradigm of loc is limited to specific cases and due to Primitive Irish raising of the original o, thus strictly nom./acc. sg./gen.pl. loc, dat.pl. locaib as against gen.sg./nom.pl. luic, dat.sg. luc, acc.pl. lucu, with nothing approaching free interchange between these cases, and since the composition form of loc is strictly loc-, lug- cannot be it, but seems rather like belonging to Lug itself. Formally it seems more like a plural, the lochta (lachta? lechta?…) of Lug, [namely] of Lug, with the idea ‘of Lug’ originally expressed in Lug- and then reinforced secondarily by adding Loga.”
“While Loga is indeed the regular gen. sg. of Lug and lochtaib may be connected to lucht - although the -o- herer does not prove this, since being unstressed in is not a proper /o/ but may also represent a schwa slightly rounded by the the neighbouring guttural and can thus represent ANY original vowel short or long, including diphthongs, I do not think it is possible to state ‘lug- for loc’, since while <g> could stand for an earlier spelling <c> for underlying /g/m the stressed vowel u in the paradigm of loc is limited to specific cases and due to Primitive Irish raising of the original o, thus strictly nom./acc. sg./gen.pl. loc, dat.pl. locaib as against gen.sg./nom.pl. luic, dat.sg. luc, acc.pl. lucu, with nothing approaching free interchange between these cases, and since the composition form of loc is strictly loc-, lug- cannot be it, but seems rather like belonging to Lug itself. Formally it seems more like a plural, the lochta (lachta? lechta?…) of Lug, [namely] of Lug, with the idea ‘of Lug’ originally expressed in Lug- and then reinforced secondarily by adding Loga.”
As
Lugh was the skillful god and master crafsman in both Irish and Welsh
tradition, it is fairly obvious to me that the Skillful, High-Ranking
Proprietor is none other than Lugh himself.
The
god Lugh was known as Lleu in Wales, and he was traditionally referred to as
the Lord of Gwynedd. And it was Gwynedd
which Cunedda and his sons (or teulu) came to control sometime after the Roman
withdrawal.
Forgall
Monach is credited with having another great fort, this one called the Bruidne
Forgall Monach. Now, we can't know if
this bruidne or 'hostel' is merely another name for Luglochta(ib) Loga or if it
designates another nearby site. But I'm
guessing the Ridge of Monach or the Drumanagh fort is this place.
As
the HISTORIA BRITTONUM ascribed to the monk Nennius claims that Cunedda came
with his sons from Manau, i.e. the Ridge of [Forgall] Monach, and as Arthur was
later said to have been born on a promontory fort at Tintagel in England, I
would propose that the most likely birthplace for Ceredig son of Cunedda was,
in fact, Drumanagh.
Of
course, we must wait for an actual excavation of Drumanagh before we can
substantiate this kind of claim. If we
can't definitively show sub-Roman occupation of Drumanagh, then the notion that
Ceredig/Arthur was actually born there cannot be proven. According to Dr. Ger Dowling, "No
evidence [of early medieval re-use of the site] - features identified by
geophysical survey cannot be directly dated. This requires excavation."
For now, we must rely on the thesis quoted above by Sean Daffy, as well as on
the following more recent survey:
Dowling,
G. 2014. Geophysical investigations at Drumanagh and Loughshinny, north County
Dublin. Late Iron Age and 'Roman' Ireland, Discovery Programme Reports 8, 59–90
(Dublin: Wordwell)
A Note on Lambay
Island
According
to Sean Daffy's thesis,
"...just
over 6km to the southeast of Drumanagh lies Lambay Island, where at least two
crouched inhumations dating to the late 1st century AD were uncovered in 1927.
The burial rite of crouched inhumation, and the presence of Roman brooches and
Iron Age objects that have very close parallels in Wales and Northern England,
would indicate that these individuals had strong links with communities in
post-conquest Britain and are very likely to have come originally from Britain
themselves (Rynne 1976; O’Brien 1990)... It is therefore possible that the
burials on Lambay Island may belong to the wealthy members of a similar trading
community that was settled just off the east coast of Ireland during the Late Iron
Age (Waddell, 1998, 375-7)... recent geophysical survey on Lambay Island has
revealed the presence of a promontory fort (consisting of an earthen bank and
ditch) with two ring-barrows located immediately outside the ramparts. Traces
of numerous circular huts in the interior also suggest that this site may have
been a significant settlement (Cooney 2009). Another much smaller promontory
fort a short distance to the east consists of three sets of banks and ditches
that are closely spaced like the defences at Drumanagh."
APPENDIX IX:
THE BEAR-CULT OF
ARTHUR: A DIVINE RIVER AND THE 'BEARS' OF CEREDIGION
My
identification of Arthur with Cerdic of Wessex and then with Ceredig son of
Cunedda naturally led me to a consideration of the Arthur name. Ceredig, I discovered, had three descendants
with Art- or "Bear" names.
This seemed promising, but I at first could not account for why bears
were so important among the early members of this princely line. Then I turned to the geography of their
kingdom in western Wales, viz. Ceredigion.
There I noticed a river called the Arth - literally, the Bear River - in
the very heartland of the region over which they ruled.
I
went on to surmise that the name Arthur, indisputably from the Roman/Latin
Artorius, was a decknamen that had replaced an earlier Irish or Hiberno-British
'bear-king' title or name. As Ceredig
was the founder of the kingdom, he would have been the first of his line to be
given a bear designation. Aerial archaeology has only recently found what is
believed to be a hillfort at Llandewi Aberarth and this defensive work may well
have been built or re-used by Ceredig.
http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/419561/details/hillfort-st-davids-church-llanddewi-aberarth
Having
established all this (at least in theory!), my next question had to do with the
nature of the original 'Bear-king' name/title.
Was this merely a territorial honorific, one which did no more than
identify Ceredig as the King of the Arth [River]? Or was some totemic element
present? The Aeron River hard by the
Arth is from a Proto-Celtic *Agrona, meaning 'Carnage-goddess'. Divine rivers are plentiful in Celtic lands
and Wales is no exception. Several
examples are known. Might the Arth, too,
have been a divine stream? And, if so,
was it worshiped by Ceredig/Arthur?
Well,
it goes without saying these questions cannot be answered definitively. Bears were sacred animals among the Celtic
peoples prior to the coming of Christianity.
Of this we have plentiful evidence. See, for example, the following
excellent sources:
Anne
Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, pp. 434-5
Miranda
Green’s Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, pp. 217-8
http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/lyon2/2009/beck_n#p=0&a=top
from http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/getpart.php?id=lyon2.2009.beck_n&part=159143
Bears
and Coins: The Iconography of Protection in Late Roman Infant Burials, by Nina
Crummy, in Britannia 41 (2010), 37-93
My
main problem with Arthur/Ceredig being a pagan has to do precisely with his
decknamen Artorius. Such Latin names
were assumed because the chieftain in question wished to be perceived as a
civilized Briton who looked back upon the Roman period with nostalgic longing.
Connections with famous Romans of the past were constantly being sought and
genealogies forced to reflect family relationships with such Romans. The Romans
of the later period were, of course, thoroughly Christian. Hence it makes little sense to propose pagan
worship of a divine Bear River by a Bear-king of Ceredigion who had taken a
Roman name!
Furthermore,
Irish sources insists Cunedda himself was a saint. While this sainthood could well have been
bestowed on Ceredig's father only by later and, possibly, spurious tradition,
it is true that Ireland itself became fully Christian fairly early on. We must
consider the possibility, then, that when Cunedda and his sons (or teulu) came
over to Wales they were already Christian.
We
cannot judge whether Arthur/Ceredig worshipped a divine Bear River based on a
source like the Welsh Mabinogion. In the tale 'Culhwch and Olwen', for example,
we are told Arthur had relatives at Caer Dathal. This would appear significant, as the early
legendary lord of that fort was none other than Math son of Mathonwy. Math is based on an ancient taboo word for
'bear.' While Rachel Bromwich in her notes to the TRIADS mentions some possible
etymologies for Mathonwy, I would propose that this name is actually the same
bear word plus the male divine suffix, with a territorial suffix -wy appended. There are some other possibilities for
Mathonwy, as Rachel Bromwich discusses in a note to her TRIADS (see below).
In
the past I tried to make a case for Caer Dathal being related to
Dindaethwy. But a recent discussion with
one of the world's top experts in early Irish, Professor Jurgen Uhlich of
Trinity College, Dublin, has dissuaded me from further defense of this
argument. He is less than enthusiastic
about the idea, as is made clear by his most comments:
"I
am not aware of any proven case of cutting of -al in particular for the purpose
of forming a hypocoristic. One problem aside, namely that hypocoristics are
more usually formed with a dedicated suffix (such as frequently -án, if not the
older -u), another difficulty is that after “shortening”, it is generally
impossible to ascertain what the lost second part was, unless there happens to
be only one name in existence with that first part. A typical case to
illustrate my point is Cathán, which in view of the popularity of cath in names
could formally represent any one of Cathal, Cathgal, Cathgus, etc. And on top
of that there is also the unshortened Cathalán, which could suggest (a full and
much more time-consuming analysis of the material pending) that hypocoristic
loss of -al was actually avoided.
And
for the present case, an added difficulty is that Welsh Daeth is actually a
poor fit even for *Dath/*Daith by itself because of the diphthong -ae-."
If
a case cannot be made for Caer Dathal being another name for Din Daethwy, where
is the former fort?
One
clue remains. Arthur is said to be
related to the sons of Iaen, who occupy Caer Dathal. But Iaen is not a true personal name. It is, instead, the Welsh word for ice or,
more specifically, an ice sheet and, by extension, a glacier. While it is certainly possible Iaen is a
corruption of a real personal name (perhaps an Irish one), the Mabinogion
stories are replete with such made-up personal names. If we go with Iaen as a designation for
someplace in Arfon dominated by ice, then we must look to that part of Arfon
that included Snowdonia/Eryri.
In
previous blog posts and in an appendix to the current book, I showed that there
never was an Ambrosius at Dinas Emrys.
Nor is it likely the hillfort was ever really called after Vortigern as
the "Fiery Pharoah". The story
of the High King giving Dinas Emrys and Gwynedd to Ambrosius was clearly
substituted for what really happened, i.e. the northwestern part of Wales was
given to or taken by the Irish. There is
ample evidence to support this claim, from Laigin place-names to the advent of
Cunedda (a chieftain of the Ciannachta).
Snippets of Welsh tradition suggest that Cunedda’s grandson Cadwallon
Llawhir cleared the Irish out of Arfon and Mon – a true irony, given that
Cunedda’s descendants were all Hiberno-British.
Dinas
Emrys is not only in Arfon, but in Eryri.
It lies in a location that, during hard winters, becomes an ice-laden
landscape. A fort in such a place might
well have been poetically termed the home of the "Sons of Ice". Dinas Emrys is also well-situated in regards
to the other places that figure in the Math Son of Mathonwy tale.
Could
it be, then, that the reason Caer Dathal - such a famous place in the ancient
lore of Wales - became lost is solely because its Irish nature had been
concealed beneath the name of the legendary Ambrosius, last of the Romans in
Britain? Was it an Irish chieftain by
the name of Dathal who was responsible for the proven sub-Roman occupation of
Dinas Emrys?
I've
long been frustrated with the Emrys story.
I knew that something else was there - but I couldn't find anything
beneath the folklore accretions. But if
we accept as fact that it was not Ambrosius who took or was granted Gwynedd,
but instead the Irish, then it stands to reason that Dinas Emrys itself must
once have had an Irish name.
And
the Dathal of Caer Dathal is just such a name.
If
Iaen ("ice") is indeed an indicator that the fort was in the
mountains of Arfon, then all the various lowland forts that have been proposed
for it can no longer be considered. While other forts exist in Snowdonia, none
- to my knowledge - display evidence of Dark Age occupation.
THE
SONS OF IAEN
Here
is the entry on Iaen from P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:
IAEN.
(Legendary).
A
list of the sons of Iaen, supposed to be present at Arthur's Court, is given in
the tale of
‘Culhwch
and Olwen’ (WM 461, RM 107). Their names are:
Teregud,
Sulien, Bradwen, Morien, Siawn, and Caradog,
and
they are said to be men of Caer Dathal, kindred to Arthur on his father's side,
or perhaps ‘on their
father's
side’ (CO(2) p.77).
In
the ‘Hanesyn Hen’ tract there is a list of the children of Iaen as follows (ByA
§2 in EWGT
p.85):
Dirmig
Corneu, Gwyn Goluthon, Siawn, Caradog, Ievannwy, Llychlyn, and a daughter, Eleirch*,
mother
of Cydfan ab Arthur.
Note
that only two names, Siawn and Caradog, are common to the two lists.
Garthiaen**
is a township in the parish of Llandrillo-yn-Edeirnion (WATU). Caer Dathal is
presumably
Caer Dathyl in Arfon mentioned in the Mabinogi branch of ‘Math’ (WM 81, RM 59).
On the site see W.J.Gruffudd, Math vab Mathonwy, 1928, pp.343-4; PKM p.251.
*
There is a town called Eleirch (now Elerch) on the Afon [E]Leri in
Ceredigion. The wife of Ceredig son of
Cunedda, my candidate for Arthur, is one Meleri, or 'My Eleri', which I've
suggested is the divinized form of the river.
**I
would add that there is an Afon Iaen in Montgomeryshire.
MATH
SON OF MATHONWY
Math
son of Mathonwy is ‘Bear son of the Tribe of the Divine Bear.” This alone would be enough reason for Caer
Dathal/Dinas Emrys to have become associated with Arthur in legend (as arth =
“bear”). In the Roman period, Dinas
Emrys was in the territory of the Ordovices or “Hammer-fighters.” We might assume a bear deity was worshipped
here prior to the advent of the Irishman Dathal.
A
BEAR-KING IN IRELAND?
But
as Ceredig and his father came from Ireland, might there have been a legendary
Irish bear hero who may have inspired or influenced the bear worship of the
princes of Ceredigion? Is it possible,
perhaps, that the Afon Arth was named such by the Irish settlers themselves?
Most
students of early Irish history (or heroic mythology) are familiar with the
king Art ("Bear") son of Conn.
This 2nd century high-king of Ireland was famous in story
(http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/art.html). But more importantly, he is brought
into close connection with one Tadg son of Cian. And Cian is the eponymous founder of the
Ciannachta, to whom Cunedda belonged.
From
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/suineill.htm:
"Ciannachta
Breagh and Fir Arda Cianachta
The
annals record for 226, Cormac mac Art, king of Ireland, defeated the Ulster
forces under Fearghus Duibhdeadach with the assistance of Tadg (or Teige), son
of Cian. For this service the king bestowed on Tadg a large territory in Magh
Breagh which extended from the Liffey (in Dublin) northwards to Drumskin in Co.
Louth. Tadg's descendants were called Cianachta, "the race of Cian",
from his father and the territory was afterwards known by this name. The sons
of Tadgc mac Céin (of the 3rd century) were Condla (a quo Ciannacht) and Cormac
Gaileng (a quo Sil Cormaic Gaileng). The ancient territory of Fir Ard Cianachta
in modern co. Louth became known as the barony of Ferrard."
Could
Art son of Conn, the great benefactor of Tadg son of Cian, have somehow been
brought into connection with the Afon Arth?
Should the bear-names in the Ceredigion genealogy be seen in this light?
Lastly,
we should consider the etymologies for the three remaining bear-names in the
Ceredigion royal pedigree. Artbodgu or
Arthfoddw is 'Bear-Crow'. While the name
may seem odd, we must remember that Artbodgu's father was Bodgu, making Artbodgu
the 'Bear of the Crow.' Artgloys or
Arthlwys is 'Beautiful or Holy Bear' and Arthgen (perhaps the most interesting
of them all!) is 'Bear-Born' or 'Born of the Bear.' Arthgen's father is named
Seissil. Is Arthgen's human mother here
being referred to as a bear? Bear in
Welsh poetic usage can be a metaphor for a warrior, so we cannot always be sure
that a bear-name necessarily derives from an association with the sacred
river. Still, the most logical
explanation for Arthgen is that he was thought of as being born from the mother
goddess that was the Afon Arth.
In
the nebulous period following the Roman withdrawal from Britain, religion was
surely not so black and white as we would like to think it was. There must have
been an admixture of pagan and Christian among some individuals and
groups. The worship of Christ and a sacred
river may not, for awhile at least, have been seen as mutually exclusive. We have instances of pagan gods and goddesses
being 'converted' into Christian saints, of churches being built atop temples,
of pagan holy wells being co-opted by their Christian successors. Folk beliefs are often a curious amalgam of
the supposedly extirpated pagan religion and Christian practice. Pagan myths
or, at least, motifs, were faithfully copied and preserved by Christian
scribes. Ancient Celtic tales were
transmogrified by troubadours and writers into chivalric romance. Given that all this is demonstrably true,
perhaps it is not too difficult to provisionally accept the idea that Arthur
and his bear-named descendants had, indeed, worshiped the Afon Arth.
APPENDIX X:
A REVERSAL OF
GENERATIONS
Ever
since I was able to identify the the leaders of the Gewissei with Cunedda and
his son, I was aware of the strange and somewhat unaccountable fact that the
line of descent for these Irish or Hiberno-British "federates" was
reversed in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.
Until now, however, I'd not really had the chance to consider what this
reversal might actually mean. Obviously,
it creates a major chronological problem for the list of ASC battles featuring
the Gewissei.
Precedence
must be given to the order established in the early British sources. It is impossible, as far as I'm concerned,
for the Welsh to have gotten the order of the Cunedda dynasty backwards. That they did not is supported by the
inscription of the Cunorix Stone at Wroxeter, where Cunorix/Cynric is the son
of Cunedda/Maquicoline/Ceawlin (for my identification of Ceawlin with Cunedda
Maquicoline, see my book THE BEAR KING and related blog posts). In the ASC, it is implied that Ceawlin is the
son of Cynric.
Here
is the order of the princes of the Gewissei, from both the Welsh and English
sources:
Welsh: Hyddwyn (from hydd, stag, hart) son of Cerdic
son of Cunedda Maquicoline
Iusay
(= Gewis/sei/sae) son of Cerdic son of Cunedda M.
Cunorix
son of Cunedda M.
English:
Ceawlin (=Cunedda) son of (?) Cynric son of Cerdic son of Elesa/Esla (conflated
with Aluca/Aloc from the Bernician pedigree), also Elafius, 'stag, hart', son
of Gewis (eponym for the Gewissei)
The
question that faces us, given this reversal of the Gewissei peidgree, is quite
simply (and profoundly!) this: if Cunedda and his sons appear in reverse order
in the ASC, are we to rearrange them in accordance with the order of the
battles set down in that source or, even more radically, should the battle
order itself be flipped on its head? In other words, do we maintain the battles
as they are presented to us, and suggest only that the wrong leaders are
assigned to them? Do we assume Cunedda and his sons all fought together and
that some were present at various battles, even if their names are not to be
found in this or that year entry? Or do we go even further and propose that
some or all of the battles from 495 (the advent of Cerdic) to 593 (the death of
Ceawlin) should be considered an incorrect and possibly artificial arrangement?
We
must bear in mind that it is Ceawlin/Maquicoline/Cunedda who took Bath,
according to the ASC. P.C. Bartram
places the "migration" of Cunedda and his sons to NW Wales at c. 430.
More recently, John Koch has suggested c. 400 as the migration date, or a
"heyday" for Cunedda in the later 5th century. Other dates have been
proposed, but the consensus is that Cunedda's floruit was the 5th century NOT,
AS THE ASC WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE, THE 6TH CENTURY. The Cunorix Stone was dated
by Wright and Jackson between 460-475 A.D., although they also added that it
could belong anywhere between the beginning of the 5th century and the middle
of the 6th.
APPENDIX XI:
A CAMLAN IN
SOUTHERN ENGLAND?
My
readers will know that over the years I selected two primary locations for
Arthur's battle of Camlan, a word supposedly derived from either *Cambolanda,
'crooked enclosure', or *Camboglanna, 'crooked bank/shore.' There is the Camboglanna Roman fort on
Hadrian's Wall and the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales (the favored spot in Welsh
tradition.
Unfortunately,
I've only now realized I missed something.
And, once again, this something has been hiding in plain view in the
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE all along.
The
death-date for Arthur at Camlan in the Welsh Annals is 537. This dovetails very nicely with Cerdic's
passing in 534. Just prior to Cerdic's
death, he and Cynric had taken the Isle of Wight. In the entry on his death, we are told that
he and Cynric gave all of Wight to Stuf and Wihtgar.
Why
is this last reference important?
Because Stuf (eponym for Stubbington) and Wihtgar (a slight corruption
of a word meaning the "men of Wight") were first mentioned in 514 as
arriving at Cerdicesora/Certisesora, 'Cerdic's bank or shore.'
I
have shown that the Glein battle of Arthur was for Cerdicesora, the first
battle of Cerdic and Cynric. The word
Glein has been improperly derived from
W.
glân
[Crn.
C. glan, Llyd. C. glan, H. Wydd. glan ‘pur, clir, disglair’: < Clt. *glano-,
fel yn enwau’r afonydd Gal. Glana, Glanis ar y Cyfandir, o’r gwr. *ĝhel-, ĝhlə- ‘disgleirio’]
clean,
cleansed, neat; clear of sin, pure, good, virtuous, uncorrupted, undefiled,
fair, honest, sincere.
when
it should instead be related to
W.
glan
[H.
Grn. glan, gl. ripa, Crn. C. glan ‘glan (afon); ochr, llechwedd’, Llyd. glann:
< Clt. *glanno-]
river-bank,
brink, edge; shore
It
will be noted that the glan of Camboglanna as 'crooked bank/shore' is the same
word as this second glan.
Now,
Cerdicesora was either the Ower near Southhampton or the one near Calshot. But there were other owers in the
region. In 477, Cymen is a combatant in
the battle of Cymenesora. It is not known for certain where this particular ora
was located, but the generally accepted opinion is that it is The Owers south
of Selsey Bill. These are offshore
rocks, but may once have been part of the mainland. The questionable authority
for this identification is a forged charter which lists "Cumeneshora".
I
do not think this identification is correct. Aelle of Sussex's sons are
all being used as eponyms in the ASC to map out the early boundaries of
Sussex. Cissa is for Chichester (although see also Cissbury Ring not far
north of Lancing), Wlencing for Lancing. The unknown Mearcredesburna or
'Mearcred's Burn' I make out to be the Adur's tributary, the Rother, once
called the Limen, a British river-name. Limen was probably connected to
Latin limen, 'a limit', from limes, and so the name Mearcred (containing mearc,
'boundary') was substituted. It marks the eastern boundary of early
Sussex. Aderitum or Pevensey, another Aelle conquest, is a bit
further east.
Cymen
is no different. The name is from Welsh cyman, meaning a host or
army. It here stands for Wittering, the
place of Wihthere’s people. Wihthere,
rather than being ‘creatuyre/being-host’, as Wittering sits right across The
Solent from Wight, is probably ‘Wight-host.’ In other words, the here, ‘host’ =
cyman, ‘host.’ One word is English, the
other Welsh. As the meaning of the Welsh
word was forgotten, it was personified into a son of the equally fictitious
Port.
It
is not at all impossible that Cymen's ora - or Cymen's glan - became corrupted
over time by the Welsh (possibly by association with real Camlan place-names)
to Camlan.
However,
there is another, perhaps better possibility than Keynor for Arthur's
Camlan.
There
is a place on Portsmouth Harbour called Cams Hall. Ekwall's listing for this place reads as
follows:
[Kamays
1242 Fees, Cammeys 1282 Ep, Cams 1412 FA] The place is on Portsmouth Harbour.
The name is no doubt the British name of the bay and identical with CAMBOIS.
Under
CAMBOIS he has:
Identical
with Welsh CEMMAES, KEMEYS and Ir camus, 'a bay.' The name is a derivative of
OCelt
*kambo-
'crooked', Welsh cam. It is British in
origin...
Mills
confirms the etymology of Cambois in his place-name study:
A
Celtic name, a derivative of Celtic *camm 'crooked'...
From
the GPC:
camas,
cemais
[cf.
Gwydd. cambas, cambus ‘tro mewn afon, fforch, plygiad’, yn aml mewn e. lleoedd,
e.e. Athan-chamais ‘rhyd y tro’]
eb.
?ll. cemais.
Tro
neu gongl mewn afon, cilfach o fôr, bae:
bend
or loop in a river, inlet of sea, bay.
As
this 'crooked' bay has a shore, this is a very likely spot for Camlan.
As
consulting a map reveals, Cams Hall is quite close to Stuf's Stubbington. Such a proximity suggests that a Camlan
situated here fits the context of the ASC, where Cerdic's death is entered in
the same year as his granting of Wight to Stuf and Wihtgar.
Of
course, it goes without saying that if Arthur's Camlan is on Portsmouth
Harbour, this strengthens the argument that Arthur = Cerdic of Wessex. In
addition, the date of Camlan in the Welsh Annals would be more or less correct. And that, in turn, would force us to
acknowledge that Arthur's Badon battle was, in fact, the Bieda battle of c. 501
A.D. (with Bieda being transmitted to the Welsh in its variant form of Baeda,
itself being later confused with Badon, a Welsh rendering of English bathum,
i.e. Bath in Somerset). The importance
of the Bieda battle became unduly magnified over time for no other reason than
it was said to have been fought on the day the famous St. Gildas was born.
It
has occurred to me that the Welsh Annals 'Badon' is for the Bieda battle, while
the Badon attached to the end of the battles in the Historia Brittonum is
pretty clearly for Bath. I say this
because the Badon of the latter source comes after or is grouped with other
Gewissei battles in which Cerdic is not said to have fought.
Moderatus of the
South
If
Camlan is in Hampshire, I may have solved the mystery of Medrawt (see Chapter V
above).
If
I'm right about the identification of Camlan with a shore on Portsmouth
Harbour, then I think I can now flesh out exactly whose Arthur's/Cerdic's chief
opponent was in southern England.
Many
- myself included - have discussed the interesting substitution in Welsh
tradition of Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd for Amesbury on Wiltshire Plain. Although many have held stubbornly to the
notion at the personal name component in Amesbury represents the Roman/Latin
name Ambrosius, the evidence is rather in support of this being a later English
name for the place. And, indeed, I've
supplied a great many reasons why Ambrosius Aurelianus was never even in
Britain. Instead, he seems to be a
transplant from Gaul who through the usual folkloristic processes achieved a
fair degree of fame.
Still,
there may be something to Ambrosius.
I've elsewhere pointed out the interesting coincidence that in Gildas's
DE EXCIDIO, Ambrosius is referred to as 'vir modestus', a modest man (see Still,
there may be something to Ambrosius.
I've elsewhere pointed out the interesting coincidence that in Gildas's
DE EXCIDIO, Ambrosius is referred to as 'vir modestus', a modest man
(see
http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-new-but-very-tentative-identification.html). This description of Ambrosius happens to
match the meaning of the name Moderatus - the Roman name that underlies the
Welsh Medrawt and the Cornish Modred.
This description of Ambrosius happens to match the meaning of the name
Moderatus - the Roman name that underlies the Welsh Medrawt and the Cornish
Modred.
Vespasian's
Camp at Amesbury doubles nicely for the Welsh Dinas Emrys. It even has a notable (and probably sacred)
spring associated with it. It's
proximity to Stonehenge was exploited by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his HISTORY OF
THE KINGS OF BRITAIN. The Camp is only
20 kilometers from Danebury Ring near the Wallop Brook, the likely site of the
battle between Ambrosius* and one Vitalinus (who may be a Latinized form of the
Irish name Fedelmid, father or grandather of Fortchern/Vortigern, the half
Irish-half British high king in Wales).
What
I believed happened is this:
The
ruler who held the Wiltshire area for 36-7 years
(see
http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/05/arthur-and-beranburhbarbury-critical.html)
was
one Moderatus. Or perhaps he was simply
one of the princes of this region. In
any case, his center of power was Amesbury.
Because this English place-name was fairly early on wrongly identified
with the Gaulish Ambrosius, Moderatus was taken as merely a descriptor - the
'vir modestus' of Gildas - and he was referred to, incorrectly. as A.A.
Years
ago I wrote the following about the etymology of Amesbury on Robert Vermaat's
Vortigern Studies site:
Ambresbyrig
c AD 880 charter then various spellings to Amblesberie in Domesday. Almost
certainly a personal name Ambre or Aembre cognate with the Old German Ambri,
hence Ambre's burgh. [Chris Chandler of the RCAHME.]
The
Place-Names of Wiltshire (EPNS, 1939) says this of Amesbury (on p. 359):
"It
is impossible to go beyond the suggestion . . . that we have to do with a
personal name Ambre, Æmbre [the Æ is OE aesc] cognate with the recorded OGer
[Old German] Ambri. Hence possibly 'Ambre's burh' . . . "
This
etymology is accepted by A.D. Mills in his Dictionary of English Place-Names
(Oxford, 1991).
Andrew
Deathe, Salisbury Museum, adds the following:
“From
what I can find it would appear that the earliest manuscript mention is a
document from around 1000 AD that is actually a copy of a manuscript from
around 880 AD. This gives the name Ambresbyrig. This would point to a person
known as Æmbre or similar as you know. Ekblom suggests Eammer or Eanbeorht as
other possibilities to Ambri. All are Saxon names. The idea that Amesbury
derives from Ambrosius first occurs in the late Medieval period and, to my
mind, is bound up with the Geoffrey of Monmouth story that Stonehenge is a memorial
to the Britons who fought the Saxons nearby. Personally I think that it is very
unlikely to have any foundation in truth. Medieval writers tended to look for a
story to fit the facts when writing history, rather than facts to fit the
story!”
Paul
Cavill, The English Place-Name Society, concludes:
“All
the early forms for Amesbury have the medial -b-, but no form has any extension
that would justify derivation from Ambrosius. The person., if it is one, would
seem to be Ambre, cf. Ombersley."
I
also pointed out that there is an Old English amber, the genitive singular of
which is ambres. This word means ‘a vessel with one handle, a tankard, pitcher,
pail, cask’, and is thought to be a descendent of a borrowing into Germanic as
*ambr-ia or *aimbr-ia of a Latinization of the Greek word amphoreus, ‘an
amphora, jar, urn’. According to place-name expert Professor Richard Coates of
The University of West England, “a solution [for the etymology of Ambresbyrig]
involving ambres/’vessel’ is not formally impossible.” Needless to say, this
would be significant, as the vessels of Dinas Emrys play an important part in
that place's story.
Because
the chronology of the Welsh Annals and the ASC clash in terms of the ordering
of the princely generations of the Gewissei (see Appendix X above), it is
difficult if not impossible to determine with any degree of certainty what
battle dates are right and who fought at the various battles. Yet if we do not get too caught up in this
problem, we can propose that Moderatus and possibly other princes of his line
managed to keep the Saxons and their Gewissei allies at bay for almost 40
years.
The
irony here is not lost on the writer. As
Nennius was writing with a Gwynedd bias, and Gwynedd wasa founded by the
Irishman Cunedda and his sons, when he searched for a British hero he naturally
settled on Ceredig son of Cunedda/Arthur.
And this is true despite the fact that this Arthur was a mercenary
fighting for the High King of Wales in alliance with English against other
Britons.
The
real hero, as is so often the case in history, is the villain - 'Mordred'
himself. He died fighting the continuing
southern incursions of Cerdic/Ceredig/Arthur.
Yet the villain became hidden, in an even more ironic way, within the
purely fictional character of A.A.
Ambrosius himself, thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth's misidentification of
him with Myrddin/Merlin, became even more famous. The connection with Amesbury and nearby
Stonehenge was not forgotten. As Myrddin
is intimately bound up with the gods Lleu and Mabon, the sun god - perhaps once
a presiding deity over Stonehenge - was returned, albeit by a very strange
route, to his rightful place of worship.
*The
Ambrosius who fought at the Wallop Brook or at Danebury Ring was a sort of
imaginary title for whoever was ruling from Amesbury at the time. Ambrosius means the 'Divine or Immortal
One.' He may have been an ancestor of
Moderatus.
APPENDIX XII:
ARTHUR AND THE
CRIPPLED BOY
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 ( = Elesa, father of
Cerdic), as found in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was a
reference to Arthur/Artorius (or Artri/Arthri).
Now that I've completed THE BEAR KING, which promotes Cerdic of Wessex
as the Arthur, I thought I would go
ahead and offer this up once more.
Here
is the text and modern English translation of the relevant portion of Constantius’s
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 be that the author of the vita had not derived his story of lameness from the
eponym Gewis, but from the name Arthur/Artorius (or Artri/Arthri)? 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.”
“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.”
In
support of the idea that a word or name in a saint’s life could be used to
concoct a story, please see the following blog post on my identification of St.
Germanus’s famous Hallelujah Battle:
http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-location-of-alleluia-battle-of-st.html
If
this confusion of the name Arthur/Artorius (or Arthri/Artri) for the Latin artus
or similar did happen, then Cerdic son of Elafius/Elesa was quite possibly
Arthur! This would appear to be in direct conflict with my idea that Cerdic is
Ceredig son of Cunedda. Kenneth Sisam
(supported by David Dumville) attempts to prove that Elesa is a derivative of
Aloc/Alusa from the Bernician pedigree.* If so, there is no need to find a
Celtic prototype for Elesa/Esla.
Of
course, if this is true, then the very early St. Germanus story would have to
be dependent on the Anglo-Saxon genealogy that grafted Aloc/Alusa onto the
Gewessei line of descent.
*As
written, Elafius is a Latin name derived ultimately from Greek elaphos, ‘hind,
stag.’ A son of Ceredig son of Cunedda
is named Hyddwn, from Welsh hydd, ‘stag, hart.’
He was the grandfather of St. Teilo of the stags. It is possible, then,
that Elesa is not from Aloc/Alusa, but is a corruption of Elafius, itself a
Latin translation for Hyddwn. I've conclusively shown that the Gewissei
pedigree runs backwards in the English sources, and so the Elesa presented to
us as the father of Cerdic of Wessex would actually be the latter's son.
APPENDIX XIII:
ARTHUR’S KELLIWIC: A FINAL
IDENTIFICATION OF THE COURT OF THE FOREST-GROVE
A lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the
actual location of Arthur's Kelliwic (or Celliwig) - including by the present
author. But I was never completely
satisfied with any of the identifications offered, so have decided to treat of
the place once more.
There are many good sources which treat of the
several candidates for Kelliwic. One of
the best is Oliver J. Padel's "Some Souther-Western Sites With Arthurian
Associations" in THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH (ed. Rachel Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman
and Brunley F. Roberts). I refer my
readers to that excellent study, as it is not my intention to rehash such
material here.
In Triad 1, we are told that the chief bishop of
Kellewic is Bytwini/Bitwini/Betwini (modern Bedwenni). Some have thought this merely W. bedwenni,
'birches', a sort of pun on the meaning of Kelliwic. But others (including Bromwich) have made a
connection with Bodmin, the etymology of which is discussed by Ekwall as
deriving from Cornish bod, 'house, dwelling', and either meneich, 'monks' or
menehi, 'monsastery.' The chief elder of
Kelliwic in Cornwall is Caradoc Freichfras - which is extremely odd, as this
particular Caradoc belong to central and, perhaps, SE Wales.
What I decided to do was to see if there might be
any Caradoc place-names at or near Bodmin which could have been wrongly related
to the Welsh Caradoc. There are, in
fact, two such places. One is Tregardock roughly between Tintagel and
Bodmin. The other is Craddock Moor near
Minions on Bodmin Moor. Either or both
could have been fancifully linked to Caradoc Freichfras.
The other clue to Kelliwic's whereabouts comes from
Geoffrey of Monmouth's HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN. He converts Kelliwic into Silchester. The
following passage from John Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
discusses Silchester in the context of Kelliwic:
Celliwig in Cernyw (Kernow/Cornwall). The latter
name appears to be a combination of celli ‘wood’ and gwig, probably meaning
‘settlement’ < Latin v¼cus. There have been various attempts at identifying
the place, including proposals for Calliwith near Bodmin, the hill-fort at
Castle Killibury, the hill-fort near Domellick (Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Dimilioc), a place in Cornwall called Cællincg and also Cællwic in Anglo-Saxon
sources (possibly modern Callington). In 1302, two men were accused of
murdering a Thomas de Kellewik in west Cornwall, but this is the only
occurrence of this Cornish name that seems to correspond exactly to Welsh Celli
Wig. In considering this unresolved question, it is important to remember that
the region name Cernyw in Culhwch, and in early Welsh tradition in general, was
more extensive than the modern county. It is also not impossible that early
Welsh sources sometimes mean the old tribal lands of the Romano- British
civitas of the Cornovii in what is now Shropshire (Welsh swydd Amwythig) and
Powys, though a conclusive example of such a meaning for Cernyw has yet to be
found. A suitably important sub-Roman place with a philologically workable name
would be Calleva (Silchester), the fortified centre of the civitas of the
Atrebates, which continued to be occupied and free of Anglo-Saxon settlement
into the 5th century, but Silchester is nowhere near either Cornwall or the
Cornovii.
We have evidence of a sub-Roman Irish presence at
Silchester. This presence is discussed
in “An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons, A.D. 400-600” by Christopher A.
Snyder (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). The ogham stone found at this city is
described on the following Web page:
(http://www.archaeologyinmarlow.org.uk/2011/02/the-enigma-of-silchester%E2%80%99s-ogham-stone/;
and see below).
However, Geoffrey gives away what he or his source
believed to be the real Kelliwic by placing St. Mawgan (Maucanus) at
"Silchester." There are two Mawgan sites in Cornwall. One is across from Gweek on the Lizard
Peninsula, a candidate for Kelliwic. But
there is no significant hillfort or Roman site at this place that could have
been thought of as belonging to the great Arthur. The other is St. Mawgan and the Vale of
Mawgan only a dozen kilometers or so west of Bodmin.
The river at St. Mawgan, as it happens, has a source
at the major hillfort of Castle an Dinas, as stated here in the Wikipedia
article:
“The River Menalhyl (Cornish: Dowr Melynheyl,
meaning river of the estuary mill) is a river in Cornwall, England, that flows
through the civil parishes of St Columb Major and Mawgan-in-Pydar. Its length
is about 12 miles and it flows in a generally north-west direction. The name
comes from the Cornish words melyn meaning mill and heyl meaning estuary -
estuary mills. The name was recorded as Mellynheyl in the 19th century, but it
had been known as Glyvion.
The source of the river's longest branch is near
Nine Maidens, about 2 miles to the north of St Columb,50.447°N 4.943°W, at a
height of approximately 490 feet above mean sea level. The Menalhyl enters the
sea at Mawgan Porth on the north coast of the county, 50.465°N 5.027°W.
Tributaries to the river include one that rises
between the village of Tregonetha and Castle an Dinas, and one whose source is
south-east of Tregatillian. A smaller river, from Talskiddy, joins the Menalhyl
a short distance from its mouth.
The river flows through the settlements of St Columb
(the north part of the town, known as Bridge), St Mawgan and Mawgan Porth. Its
valley, from St Columb downstream, is called the Vale of Lanherne; it is wooded
for much of its length and is popular with walkers.”
This is one of only two possible Kelliwics in the
Bodmin region. Here are some good sites
describing this monument:
http://www.cornwallheritagetrust.org/our-sites/castle-an-dinas/
http://www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/a2m/iron_age/hillfort/castle_an_dinas/castle_an_dinas.htm
https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=430680&sort=4&search=all&criteria=castle-an-dinas&rational=q&recordsperpage=10
Very near the town of Bodmin itself is another
remarkable Cornish fortification: Castle Canyke.
https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=431339&sort=4&search=all&criteria=castle%20canyke&rational=q&recordsperpage=10
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1006660
This fort is near some Callywith place-names.
I would mention that in "The Dialogue of Arthur
and the Eagle", Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther is placed in the wooded
Glynn of Cornwall - and it is here that we find the Madoc/Madog place-name
nicely displayed.
Given this contrast and comparison of the Welsh
Triad and Geoffrey of Monmouth, I can now say with some confidence that Castle
Canyke is almost certainly the Kelliwic of Arthur.
Incidentally, Castle Canyke is quite close to the
River Camel, Geoffrey of Monmouth's choice for the site of Camlan. The etymology of Camel is Cornish Cambull,
identical with Welsh cam + pwll, 'crooked stream.' It is not related to Camlan as either
*Cambolanda or *Camboglanna, except in so far as the first elements of these
place-names are the same.
In addition, there is Tremodret, 'Modred's farm', in
Roche (a Domesday manor) only a dozen kilometers southwest of Castle
Canyke.
A couple of caveats, though; as the name Arthur
could have been construed as containing W. arth. 'bear', it may be that his
being placed in a fort called the 'forest grove' was merely an instance of
poetic license. For where else would the
bear be, if not in the woods?
Also, how much weight can we put on the claim that
Arthur was at Kelliwic in Cornwall when he is also (in the Triads) said to have
been prince in Dyfed (perhaps a reference to the later Arthur son of Pedr) and
in the Rhinns of Galloway? In other
words, the idea was to supply Arthur with three courts, each controlling a
third of Britain. Interestingly, these
courts are all in the far west of the country - a fact which doubtless
expresses the condition of the Welsh once most of the rest of the country had
been overrun by the English.
Finally, Arthur was traditionally placed in Cornwall
because he had been wrongly attached to the Dumnonian royal genealogy.
APPENDIX XIV:
THE TRUE IDENTITY OF UTHER
PENDRAGON
In my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I had treated
briefly of the Arthurian battles of the Welsh poem ‘Pa Gur.’ But what I neglected was the fairly obvious
point made by the poem's placement of the 'vythneint' ("predatory
birds", a metaphor for warriors) at Elei (valley of the River Ely in
Glamorgan). Why might this placement be
so important?
Because one of them, viz. Mabon son of Modron, is
called the servant (guas/gwas) of Uther Pendragon.
There is an implied sense in this passage that I
failed to pick up on in the past. Simply
put, if Mabon is of Elei and he is the servant of Uther, then might we not
infer that Elei belonged to Uther? In
other words, Mabon was the servant of Uther at Elei. If this is not what is meant, then it if
difficult to explain why it was felt necessary to tell us that Mabon was
Uther's servant in this particular context.
So what, exactly, is in Elei? Well, there is the impressive Caerau hillfort
(http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/94517/details/caerau-hillfortcaerau-campcaerau-ely),
an oppidum of the Silures tribe.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this site continued to be
inhabited after the Roman invasion and consolidation of the region.
However, just south of Caerau and only a couple of
kilometers from the Ely River is the Dinas Powys hillfort. The story here is completely different. We have ample evidence for early medieval use
(http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/301314/details/dinas-powys-fort-previously-cwm-george-or-cwrt-yr-ala-camp). It "may have been established as late as
the Roman period."
Now, of course, we have to be careful here. Mabon is a god - not a human servant. And the 'Pa Gur' is replete with battles
against monsters and supernatural entities.
These contests range all over Britain, and so are quite fabulous in
nature. What weight, therefore, can we
place on an oblique reference pertaining to Uther's residing at Dinas Powys in
Ely?
There is nothing in and of itself that is marvelous
about Dinas Powys - other than the fact that it was occupied during the Arthurian
period. The real question becomes
"Why would the poet have placed Uther there?"
One possible reason might be that the Cadoxton River
runs at the eastern foot of the hillfort.
This stream bears the name of St. Cadog, whose late 11th century (?) VITA
includes a story about Arthur. Still,
Arthur is nowhere in the Life said to be related to Cadog.
It would appear the only thing that can be said
about Uther at Dinas Powys is that at the time of the composing of the 'Pa Gur'
a tradition may have existed which knew of this hillfort as the fortress of
Arthur's father. If this tradition is
historically sound, then the 'Pa Gur' preserves the only extant notice of
Uther's geographical whereabouts.
For a nice summary of the excavations at and
theories regarding Dinas Powys, see
http://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/378/1/Helen%20Anderson.pdf
In the VITA of St. Illtud (cousin of Arthur), once
the saint has visited the king's court he travels to King Pawl Penychen. Penychen was that part of Glamorgan between the
Thaw and the Taff, wherein is situated Dinas Powys.
Illtud the soldier, b. c. 470 A.D. - eventually to
become the famous St. Illtud - ended up becoming Pawl’s military
commander. There is the strong
possibility that Pawl's fort was Dinas Powys in Penychen.
A surprise awaited me when I looked into St. Illtud
in more detail. He was referred to as
'farchog', "knight", and filwr, 'soldier/warrior', as well as 'princeps militie' (militum princeps) and
magister militum (https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/dnb/download/6837).
Chapter 2 of the VITA SANCTI ILTUTI calls the living
Illtud "miles magnificus." We
may compare this with Uther [Pen]dragon (where dragon has the usual
metaphorical meaning of “warrior”):
W. uthr
fearful, dreadful, awful, terrible, tremendous,
mighty, overbearing, cruel; wonderful, wondrous, astonishing, excellent.
L. magnific.us
splendid/excellent/sumptuous/magnificent/stately;
noble/eminent; proud/boastful
But, even better, at the end of his VITA we are told
of a 'terrible soldier/warrior', who though of a heavenly nature and left
unnamed, is plainly the returning spirit of the old soldier Illtud, out to
retrieve his stolen bell:
From the Life of St. Illtud:
In meridiana autem hora, dum rex quiesceret in
tentorio campestri in planicie affixo, diuidereturque maxima predatio, uisum
est regi quod quidam terribilis miles suum pectus lancea perforasset, atque post
perforationem nemini uisum. [...] Timoratus imperauit sacrilego exercitui
reddere Deo et sanctissimo Iltuto totam predationem, promittens deinceps
emendationem, atque in honore eiusdem sancti edificauit templum, et seruentibus
in templo concessit in quo stetit territorium. Hec emendation tamen profuit suo
spiritui, recessit enim ab hoc seculo .ix.no die propter nequitie uindictam.
At the hour of noon, while the king rested in a
field-tent put up on a plain, and the immense booty was being divided, it
seemed to the king that some terrible soldier had pierced his breast with a
spear, and after the piercing he was seen of none. […] Full of dread he bade
his sacrilegious army to restore to God and to the most holy Illtud all the
plunder, promising thereafter amendment, and in honour of the same saint he
built a church, and to those serving in the church he granted territory in
which it stood. This amendment, however, profited his spirit, for he departed
from this life on the ninth day as punishment for his wickedness (VI, §25).
We may thus place Illtud as the terrible warrior at
Dinas Powys - the same place Uther [Pen]dragon, the Terrible [Chief-]warrior,
is placed in the 'Pa Gur.'
[NOTE: Uther Pendragon appears to originally have
been called simply Uther Dragon. We know this is so by looking more closely at
the guide-title of the ‘Uther Pen’ poem.
After receiving false or conflicting or just plain confusing information
on this from several sources, I finally asked Dr. Maredudd ap Huw, Manuscripts
Librarian, Department of Collection Services at the National Library of Wales.
Dr. Huw’s response, in full:
“Firstly, I confirm that there is no ellipsis
indicated in the manuscript, and that the gloss (or more correctly guide-title)
reads 'mar. vthyr dragon.'
Secondly, on looking at the manuscript, it appears
that the guide-title is written by the main scribe to inform the rubricator,
who subsequently added the abbreviated title. The red ink of ‘n’ in ‘pen’
appears to cover the letter ‘d’ of ‘dragon’.
I regret that I am not in a position to speculate as
to why the rubricator did not follow the exact wording offered by the scribe in
the guide-title.”
This last is an important observation. The
rubricator (called such because he used red ink) wrote ‘marvnat vthyr pen.’ for
the main scribe’s ‘mar. vthyr dragon.’]
But how can Illtud be Arthur's father? The Welsh sources insist he was Arthur's
cousin. Their mother's were said to be
sisters, both daughters of Anblaud (later Amlawdd) Wledig of Ercing, a
character whom Brinley F. Roberts regarded as fictitious:
“Anlawdd Wledig seems to be a function rather than a
person. He is an ‘empty’ character ... who exists merely so that his daughters
may be the mothers of heroes who are all, therefore, cousins of Arthur.” (see P.C. Bartram’s A CLASSICAL WELSH
DICTIONARY)
Illtud's father was Bicanus of Letavia/Llydaw, not
here Brittany, but instead probably a designation for the Vale of Leadon between
the Wye and the Severn, bordering on Anblaud’s Ercing. The River Leadon (early
forms Ledene, Leden, from OBrit *litano-; cf. Welsh llydan) contains the same
Celtic root as Llydaw. According to the ever-unreliable Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Uther came to Ercing from Brittany.
Illtud's wife Trynihid is also said to have been from Brittany.
Traditionally, this particular Llydaw is said to be
found in Wales - and, in particular, somewhere in the vicinity of the
Brycheiniog where we find two supposed graves for Illtud. The saint was said to
have been buried in Letavia/Llydaw, so the fact that we find two prehistoric
tombs bearing his name to the west and east of Brecon is surely significant.
One grave is near Defynnog and Mynydd Illtud, the
Bedd Gwyl Illtud or Grave of Illtud's Festival, and the other is Ty Illtud or
House of Illtud north of Llanhamlach.
I decided to see how Llydaw (from a Celtic root
meaning 'broad' or 'wide') could possibly refer to this region. What I found, rather surprisingly, were many
references to the BROAD valley of the River Usk at Brecon. While I could cite all of these, I hope the
following will suffice. It is drawn from
Charles Thomas's AND SHALL THESE MUTE STONES SPEAK?, which discusses the
Irish-founded kingdom of Brycheiniog in some detail.
"The centre [of the Kingdom of Brycheiniog] is
modern Brecon, at the south end of the broad corridor between mountains running
north-north-east up to the river Wye at Glasbury."
In other words, the Usk Valley was unusually wide or
broad at this point, and the Welsh word llydaw (from a well-attested Celtic
root meaning wide or broad or extensive) may well have been applied to it as a
descriptive term, which in time came to be confused for an actual place-name.
Having read these many references to the wide valley
of the Usk at Brecon, and having viewed photos and studied topographical maps,
I'm now convinced that this location could, in fact, be the "Llydaw"
of Illtud. If this was the place, we
could say that as a man of Brycheiniog, he most likely had Irish blood in his
veins. If he were, in actuality, the
father of Arthur - as tradition insists - then we can account for the fact that
the name Arthur was later used only for royal sons of Irish-descended dynasties
in Britain.
Yet a third possibility exists for Illtud’s
Llydaw. In Cormac's Glossary, the fort
of the Ui Liathain among the Cornish Britons is called 'dind map Lethain.' Lethain is a very common early spelling given
to Irish lethan, 'broad, wide, wide-spread', the cognate of Leadon and from the
same root that yielded Llydaw, Letavia (Brittany). Cf. Welsh llydan. According to Professor Jurgen Uhlich of
Trinity College, Dublin, "lethain is simply one of several regular case
forms of lethan, i.e. gen. sg. m./n., dat/acc. sg. fem. or nom pl. m.".
I also find Liathain in Irish Latin as 'Lethani'
(Vita Sancta Columba).
That the two words were mistaken for each other in
Irish is shown in COIR ANMANN or THE FITNESS OF NAMES (H.3.18, p. 565a):
50. Fedlimith Uillethan, that is, Fedlimith
Ua-Liathain, that is in Húi Liathain he was reared. Hence he was named
Fedlimith Uillethan. Or Fedlimith Ollethan i.e. huge (oll) and broad (lethan)
was he: thence he was named.
Place-names containing these words may also have
been substituted for each other. In
Geoffrey Keating's THE HISTORY OF IRELAND FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE
ENGLISH INVASION, I find "Drom Liathain (Drum Lee-hawin), is probably Drom
Lethan (Drum Lahan), now Drumlane, co. Cavan." This is confirmed in Edmund Hogan's
ONOMASTICON GOEDELICUM: "d. liatháin Fm. i. 44; ¶ prob. for D. Leathan, now Drumlahan or
Drumlane, c. Cav.; ¶ Eochaid fought
against the Ernu and the Mairthine at D. L., Hk. 324, Lec. 63, 578, Sb. 4 a 1,
K. 131 b, Lg. 91; ¶ most prob. in
Mun." Drum/Druim Leathan is 'Broad
Ridge' (https://www.logainm.ie/en/5248).
A truly extensive search might well uncover other
examples.
Francis J. Byne, in his magisterial IRISH KINGS AND
HIGH-KINGS (p. 184) says "Lethain is the archaic form of Liathain."
Charles Thomas in AND SHALL THESE MUTE STONES SPEAK?
mentions a Liteni on an ogam stone in Co. Waterford. He says "Litenos may stand for the
tribal eponym [of the Liathan]."
The Liathain tribal name is from an epithet whose
root is the word for 'grey' in the Irish language and is not related to
lethan/lethain.
From Professor Jurgen Uhlich at the Department of
Irish and Celtic languages, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland:
"These are actually two different words that
cannot be confused: líath, gen. sg. m. léith, etc., has an original long ē,
while the -e- of lethan is short, < *i and corresponding to Gaul. litano-
etc. Ui Liathain is thus for Ui Líatháin, with the common suffix -án, and the
Primitive Irish equivalent would be, written in Ogam, *LETAGNI, i.e. nothing to
do with ‘broad’, which would have given *Ui Lethain < *LETANI lowered from
*LITANI. The reported reading in CIIC no. 273 is actually ‘LIT[ENI]’, which
could not be ‘broad’ either, and Macalister’s sketch appears to read LITOVI instead
(though perhaps meant to be damaged, i.e. two dots might be intended to be
missing for an E, and one stroke for an N). So in short, the ía strictly rules
out your proposed equation."
However, it would have been very easy to have
intentionally or accidentally used a spelling of Lethain for Liathain and thus
created a "Brittany" within Wales.
Illtud is not said to have had any children.
A
NOTE ON GWYNLLYW, BROTHER OF PAWL PENYCHEN
Pawl Penychen's brother Gwynllyw, who features
largely in the Life of St. Cadog in connection with Arthur, was also described
as terrible in a military sense. From
the Life of St. Gwynllyw:
Deinde regressi sunt onerati ad naues [...] Dum hinc
inciperent uela erigere [...] uidebant unum terribilem equitante die et nocte,
et persequentem illos ex omni parte. Eques iste terribilis sanctus erat Gunlyu,
qui celitus missus fuerat, ut obsisteret sacrilegis.
Then they returned to their ships burdened […] When
from this place they began to hoist sails […] they saw a single being, one terrible,
riding day and night, and pursuing them on every side. That terrible rider was
holy Gwynllyw, who had been sent from heaven to withstand the sacrilegious ones
(VGu §12).
However, Gwynllyw's territory lay east of the Taff,
while that of Pawl extended west of that river.
Gwynllyw, therefore, did not rule from Dinas Powys.
THE
SAWYL CONNECTION
Another argument in favor of seeing Uther Pendragon
as Illtud is found in a comparison of an early elegy poem and a passage from
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.
The poem in question, the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN or 'Death-Song
of Uther Pen[dragon]', is best treated of through Marged Haycock's recent translation.
This is what Professor Haycock has in her notes to Line 7 of this elegy:
7 eil kawyl
yn ardu G emends kawyl > Sawyl, the personal name (from Samuelis
via *Safwyl). Sawyl Ben Uchel is named with Pasgen
and Rhun as one of the
Three Arrogant Men, Triad 23, as a combative tyrant
in Vita Cadoci (VSB 58);
and in CO 344-5. Samuil Pennissel in genealogies,
EWGT 12 (later Benuchel),
Irish sources, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other
Sawyls include a son of
Llywarch, and the saint commemorated in Llansawel:
see further TYP3 496,
WCD 581 and CO 104. Ardu ‘darkness, gloom; dark,
dreadful (GPC), sometimes
collocated with afyrdwl ‘sad; sadness’ (see G, GPC).
Initially, I refused to get too excited about Uther
calling himself a 'second Samuel' (the first, presumably, being the Biblical
prophet of that name). I mean, this was,
after all, an emendation. However, I
asked Welsh language expert Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales about
the authority who made this emendation - one that was accepted by Haycock
herself. Our discussion on this matter
ran as follows:
"Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg, by John
Lloyd-Jones
Cited several times by Marged Haycock in her edition
of the Uther poem, and she adopts many
of his emendations.
A trustworthy, well-respected source, in your
opinion? Or is his work somewhat
outdated or even obsolete?"
"It’s a very good piece of work, which I often
use. It’s much more comprehensive than GPC [Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru,
'Dictionary of the Welsh Language']."
Such an unqualified, professional academic opinion
of Lloyd-Jones changed everything!
As for how the error could have occurred, Dr. Rodway
suggested the following scenario:
"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but
it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another
nearby word resulting in an error. In
this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get
the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'. Was not an uncommon error, so quite
plausible. Also, kawell and kawyl are
unlikely to be the same word. The poets
avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (v
rare) it could be scribal error."
I had tried to use this information to connect Uther
Pendragon with Sawyl Benisel (later Ben Uchel) of the North. Such an attempt ultimately proved nonviable.
But just recently I reread the ever-unreliable
Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose work cast a long shadow - even upon what had been
preexisting Welsh tradition concerning Arthur.
And I was astonished to encounter this episode:
CHAP. VII.—Hengist is beheaded by Eldol.
AURELIUS, after this victory, took the city of Conan
above-mentioned, and stayed there three days. During this time he gave orders
for the burial of the slain, for curing the wounded, and for the ease and
refreshment of his forces that were fatigued. Then he called a council of his
principal officers, to deliberate what was to be done with Hengist. There was
present at the assembly Eldad, bishop of Gloucester, and brother of Eldol, a
prelate of very great wisdom and piety. As soon as he beheld Hengist standing
in the king's presence, he demanded silence, and said, "Though all should
be unanimous for setting him at liberty, yet would I cut him to pieces. The
prophet Samuel is my warrant, who when he had Agag, king of Amalek, in his
power, hewed him in pieces, saying, As thy sword hath made women childless, so
shall thy mother be childless among women. Do the same to Hengist, who is a
second Agag." Accordingly Eldol took his sword, and drew him out of the
city, and then cut off his head. But Aurelius, who showed moderation in all his
conduct, commanded him to be buried and a heap of earth to be raised over his
body, according to the custom of the pagans.
This Eldad(us) of Gloucester is Illtud of Glywysing
(Glywys being the eponym of Caer Gloyw or Gloucester). He is here likening himself to the Biblical
Samuel, Sawyl in Welsh.
Combined with everything else I've come up with that
seems to show Uther = Illtud, this apparent correspondence of the Elegy's 'eil
Sawyl' or "second Samuel" with Illtud appearing symbolically as a
'second Samuel' is truly remarkable.
UTHER, THE
FALSE FATHER OF ARTHUR
Although I am confident of my identification of
Uther Pendragon with St. Illtud, the question remains: was he really Arthur's
father?
Information on Uther prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth's
fictional HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN is scarce. To quote from the entry on Uther in P.C.
Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:
UTHR BENDRAGON, father of Arthur. (445) ‘U. Chief
Warleader’. Evidence that Uthr Bendragon was known to the Welsh before the time
of Geoffrey of Monmouth is plentiful, but it does not tell us much about the
pre-Geoffrey legend. He is mentioned in the poem ‘Who is the porter’ in the
Black Book of Carmarthen, a dialogue between Arthur, Cai and Glewlwyd
Gafaelfawr. Mabon ap Modron, one of the companions of Arthur, was guas Uthir
Pendragon, ‘Servant of Uthr Bendragon’ (BBC 94, ll.6-7). An early triad (TYP
no.28) tells of the Enchantment of Uthr Bendragon as being one of the ‘Three
Great Enchantments’ of Ynys Prydain, and says that he taught the enchantment to
Menw ap Teirgwaedd. In the Book of Taliesin (BT 71) there is a poem entitled
Marwnat Vthyr Pen to which Dragon has been added in the margin in a later hand.
This expansion is probably justified, since, among much that is obscure, the
poem contains a reference to Arthur: ‘I have shared my refuge, a ninth share in
Arthur's valour’ (BT 71, 15-16). See AoW 53. All these references bring Uthr
into the Arthurian orbit (TYP p.521). Madog ab Uthr is mentioned in the Book of
Taliesin (BT 66) and Eliwlod ap Madog ab Uthr is described as nephew of Arthur
in a poem which shows no dependence on Geoffrey of Monmouth. See s.nn. Eliwlod,
Madog. This is evidence that Uthr was regarded as father of Arthur in
pre-Geoffrey legend. In two manuscripts of the Historia Brittonum (Mommsen's C,
L, 12th and 13th centuries), §56, which lists Arthur's battles, contains a
gloss after the words ipse dux erat bellorum: Mab Uter Britannice, id est
filius horribilis Latine, quoniam a pueritia sua crudelis fuit, ‘In British Mab
Uter, that is in Latin terrible son, because from his youth he was cruel’.
According to Professor Jarman there is here a deliberate pun on the word uthr,
which can be either an adjective (‘terrible’) or a proper name. The author of
the gloss could have been familiar with Geoffrey of Monmouth's ‘Historia’. See A.O.H.Jarman in Llên Cymru, II (1952)
p.128; J.J.Parry in Speculum, 13 (1938) pp.276 f. See further TYP pp.520-3.
The most important phrase in this entry is
"This is evidence that Uthr was regarded as father of Arthur in
pre-Geoffrey legend." The context is the 'Dialogue' poem. Unfortunately, as Professor Patrick
Sims-Williams discusses in his "The Early Welsh Arthurian Poems" (in
THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH), the 'Dialogue' is preserved only in fourteenth
century or later MSS., but may be as early as the twelfth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his HISTORY c.
1138, i.e. in the first half of the 12th century. Thus there is no way we can know whether the
'Dialogue' poem was influenced by Geoffrey's claim that Arthur's father was
Uther Pendragon.
The reference to Arthur in the Uther elegy is, like
many lines of this poem, difficult and obscure.
Here are the relevant lines and accompanying note from Marged Haycock's
recent translation:
13. Neu vi a rannwys vy echlessur:
It was I who shared my stronghold:
14. nawuetran yg gwrhyt Arthur.
Arthur has a [mere] ninth of my valour.
Note to Line14
nawuetran yg gwrhyt Arthur
Nawuetran ‘ninth part’ with yg gwrhyt understood as
‘of my valour’ (gwryt ~ gwrhyt). Arthur has a ninth part of the speaker’s
valour. This seems to have more point than ‘I have shared my refuge, a ninth
share in Arthur’s valour’, TYP3 513, AW 53. Gwrhyt ‘measure’ is not wholly
impossible — ‘one of the nine divisions [done] according to the Arthurian
measure/fathom’, etc., or ‘a ninth part is in [a place] called Arthur’s Measure
or Span’, the latter like Gwrhyt Kei discussed TYP3 311, and other Gwryd names
discussed G 709-10. The phrase is exactly the same as in §18.30 (Preideu
Annwfyn) tra Chaer Wydyr ny welsynt wrhyt Arthur.
This is no way implies Arthur is Uther's son. As I've mentioned before, Arthur here may be
the usual paragon of military virtue to whom Uther is being compared, much as
the warrior Gwawrddur is compared (unfavorably) to Arthur in Line 972 of the "Goddodin." Yet someone like Geoffrey of Monmouth may
have come across this 'death-song' and decided to use it as the exceedingly
slender basis for making Uther Arthur's father.
Nothing in the VITA of St. Illtud suggests that he
was Arthur's father. In fact, it is
pointedly stated in that hagiographical work that Illtud is Arthur's
cousin. So if Illtud were Arthur's father,
the fact was later altered in the tradition which preferred to make of this
terrible warrior a Christian saint.
All in all, the evidence in support of Uther as
Arthur's father is quite poor. Let us not forget that it was Geoffrey of
Monmouth who made Gorlois out of an epithet (the gorlassar of the “Marwnat Vthr
Ben poem) belonging to Uther. This kind
of loose, creative treatment of the material does not lend itself to the
credibility of the author when it comes to properly identifying Arthur’s sire.
APPENDIX XV:
AMBROSIUS
Over
the past several years, I've written a handful of articles on Ambrosius
Aurelianus, a geographically and temporally dislocated figure in early British
legend. Yet despite the evidence I've presented, Arthurian scholars,
professional and amateur alike, continue to mistake him for a real personage of
5th century Britain. The idea that he might even be Arthur is still out there.
I feel, therefore, that it is time for a summary treatment of this supposed
military hero.
The
easiest way for me to do this is to itemize the points of my argument.
1)
The name of A.A. matches perfectly that of the fourth century Governor of Gaul
(whose territories included those of Britain) and his famous son, St. Ambrose.
Vortigern's grandfather Vitalinus is said to have fought A.A. at Wallop in
Hampshire. Such a battle reference puts A.A. well before Vortigern and negates
the possibility that A.A. was a boy during Vortigern's reign.
2)
St. Ambrose and his father lived at Trier on the Moselle. The Campus Elleti in
Wales where
Vortigern's
men are said to have found the boy A.A. comes from a Welsh place-name Maes
Elleti
(see
the Book of Landaff’s palus Elleti, apparently in the parish of Llanilid) and
this is plainly a substitute for the Moselle (Mosella/Mosellae).
3)
Dinas Emrys is a relocation for Amesbury, the latter thought (wrongly) to
contain the name of Ambrosius. Dinas Emrys was placed in Eryri because this
mountain range was fancifully connected to the Welsh word for eagle, and both
St. Ambrose and Magnus the Tyrant (easily confused with Vor-tigern) are known
to have been at Aquileia, a place-name that could have been incorrectly linked
with the Latin word for eagle.
4)
Trier was in Gallia Belgica, 'Gaul of the Belgae', and A.A.'s Wallop in
Hampshire was in the ancient tribal territory of the British Belgae. Gallia
could be used in medieval sources for both Gaul and Wales.
5)
A.A. is said to have been given Dinas Emrys and the western kingdoms of Britain
by Vortigern. This is impossible, as Gwynedd belonged to Cunedda and his sons
(or other Irish before them; Cunedda’s grandson Cadwallon Llawhir is said to
have taken Arfon and Mon from the Irish, for example). Obviously, a mistake has
been made here for Amesbury, which was inside of what was to become Wessex, the
kingdom of the West Saxons.
6)
Ambrosius’s digging up of the two dragon-containing vases of Dinas Emrys
(originally funeral urns holding the cremated remains of chieftains) has its
parallel in St. Ambrose’s exhumation of the two pairs of saints Gervasius and
Protasius and Nazarius and Celsus.
7)
A.A appears to have been identified in folk belief with the god Lleu, styled
Lord of Gwynedd, who was himself identified by the Welsh with the god Mabon.
The Campus Elleti ballgame story is paralleled in the Irish story of Mac Og,
the 'Young Son', the Gaelic version of Mabon.
8)
A.A. was further identified with Merlin (Myrddin), himself possibly a form of
Lleu or an avatar of that god. Geoffrey of Monmouth places Merlin at the
springs of Galabes, his transparent attempt at the Guoloph/Wallop of the hero
Ambrosius.
9)
The real name of Dinas Emrys appears to have been Caer Dathal (see Appendix IX
above)
In
conclusion, the Ambrosius Aurelianus who first appears in the pages of Gildas
is a purely legendary figure, based on the known historical Ambrosii of the
Continent. He was mistakenly transferred to Britain during the normal course of
folklore development, largely due to a confusion of place-names. Once there he
was conflated with the god Lleu. We have no reason to believe that either Ambrosius
- father or son - ever set foot on British soil. To concoct some famous
war-leader of the Britons who happened to have been named after one of the Ambrosii
is to ignore points 1-9 above.
APPENDIX XVI:
THE AVALON OF
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH
Over
the years, I've written a great deal about possible locations for Arthur's
Avalon. The best candidates were the
Aballava/Avalana Roman fort at Burgh-By-Sands on the western end of Hadrian's
Wall, and the *Nemetaballa or "Sacred Apple-Grove" that is the Roman
period Lydney Park temple of Nodens. For
a good treatment of this last, see
http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-apple-bearing-ash-tree-of-mirabilia.html
http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-lydney-park-temple-of-nodens-as.html
Only
recently I decided to take another look at the problem - this time making use
of whatever extant tradition Geoffrey himself may have encountered.
It
is generally agreed that the Galfridian 'Camblam' is the Camel River in
Cornwall. I myself will not dispute this
claim.
There
is an old tradition that an inscribed stone found on or near the Camel at
Slaughterbridge/Worthyvale was 'King Arthur's Stone:'
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/site/wvale.html
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/stone/wvale_1.html
This
identification of the stone was due to a false reading of the inscription. However, the legend that this stone was
Arthur's may, indeed, be very old.
What
most Arthurian scholars and amateur enthusiasts alike appear to have missed is
that the original name of Worthyvale - preserved as early as the Domesday Book
of 1086 - was Guerdevalan/Gerdavalan (Cornish auallen, 'apple-tree', plus
garth, "enclosure" - or is guerd/gerd here similar to Welsh garth,
"mountain ridge, promontory, hill, wooded slope, woodland, brushwood,
thicket, uncultivated land"?). Thus we might surmise that Geoffrey had
simply picked up this place-name as the location of the supposed King Arthur's
Stone. If so, the happy coincidence that
the site bore an apple place-name would immediately have conjured up all kinds
of otherworldly connotations.
So,
in Geoffrey's mind, Arthur was merely ferried across the Camel from the
battlefield to Worthyvale. There is no
need to look for Avalon elsewhere.
APPENDIX XVII:
DINDRAITHOU =
DART'S CASTLE AT WATCHET
Directly
between the Williton and Carhampton locations of the Life of St. Carannog is
Daw's or Dane's or Dart's Castle
(http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=188490). Excavations here show the fort to be of Saxon
origin (http://sanhs.org/Documents/130/03McAvoy.pdf). The name Daw(e) is supposedly from a
landowner in the 16th century. Dane's
Castle is self-explanatory - and, in fact, the archaeologists believe this fort
was built to defend the coastline from Viking marauders.
The
fort is built right on the cliff edge and is actually missing a large portion
that has fallen or eroded away onto the shore below. Fairly extensive mud and sand extend below it
and to its east and west. It thus qualifies particularly well as a Din, fort,
plus OCo. plur. *traitou, 'beaches, strands' (see Charles Thomas, Note 24, p.
325, And Shall These Mute Stones Speak?) or 'Dindraithou.'
Dart
could be another family name, perhaps based on the name of the River Dart of Dartmoor
fame in Devon. However, it could also
represent a simple metathesis of trait, 'beach, shore': Trait > Dra(i)t > Dart. I'm now
checking with all the relevant authorities in Somerset regarding the Dart name
and if any new information is forthcoming from those sources, I will add it to
this blog post.
http://www.somersetheritage.org.uk/record/34164
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol5/pp143-171
When
on reads the story of Carannog's floating altar, which Arthur wishes to use as
a table, one is struck by the fact that it washes up first at Carhampton and
then at the Guellit stream (Williton).
Arthur's interaction with the saint and this altar demands that
Dindraithou be close to these places AND on the shore of the sea, flanked by
sands associated with the mouths of rivers.
The only fort that fits this description is Dart's Castle.
We
need not insist on finding an actual sub-Roman or early medieval site for
Arthur in this instance. Obviously, we
are dealing with a story found in a saint's life. Hagiography can hardly be considered
historical and, indeed, we must expect more than a little poetic license. It is quite possible the author of St.
Carannog's Life knew of this fort near the Carannog sites and simply decided
for dramatic effect to insert Arthur into the fiction. He may have been ignorant of the fact that
the fort went back no further than the Anglo-Saxon period.
And
interesting point about the altar/table:
"whatever was placed upon it was thrown to a distance." This suggests a confusion on the part of the
author. Dolmens (Breton dolmen means
'table stone')/cromlechs are, in folklore, often referred to as quoits. This is because it was believed that giants
(or great heroes) had flung the rocks that made up the funeral monuments,
including their capstones, during such a game.
So the notion that objects were "thrown" from the table is a
reference to the table itself - or the table's legs (= orthostats) - being
thrown, thus creating a quoit.
There
appear to have been such monuments near Williton. The following is from An Exploration of
Exmoor and the Hill Country of West Somerset by John Lloyd Warden Page (1890):
"A
mile inland, close to Wiliton, is a field, or rather several fields, known as
Battlegore, traditionally, as its name implies, the scene of a battle. In them
are the remains of three large mounds, though one is now ploughed nearly level
with the field, and another has been reduced by one-half by a hedgerow. The
largest is close to the road.
From
time immemorial the tale has been handed down that here the Danes fought with
the Wessex men. A tradition, also unfortunately dating from time immemorial,
states that much armour and many weapons have been discovered in these fields.
But who found them, and what became of them, is as unknown as their period and
fashion. The only weapon taken from the spot that I have seen is a remarkably
fine bronze celt which would go some way to show that it was a British rather
than a Danish battleground.
Collinson
refers to 'several cells composed of flat stones, and containing relics,' as
having been found in these tumuli, to which he gives the name of Grab-barrows.
From this it would appear that they were chambered tumuli. I venture to think,
however, that he is mistaken, except perhaps with regard to the mound now
nearly levelled, inasmuch as neither of the existing barrows have been properly
explored.
Close
to the barrow near the road are two enormous stones, the one lying on its side,
the other leaning against the hedge, as well as a third and smaller block,
nearly concealed by brambles. As there are no similar blocks in the vicinity,
they must have been brought here for some definite purpose, perhaps to mark the
grave of some notable chieftain. Or, perchance, they are, as certain antiquaries
opine, the supports of a British cromlech. The local story is that they were
cast there from the Quantocks by the devil and a giant, who had engaged in a
throwing match. The print of Satan's hand still marks the leaning stone.
This
stone was upright some forty or fifty years since. It was toppled against the
hedge by some young men anxious to test the truth of the legend that it was
immovable."
[For
additional information on this barrow cemetery, see the Pastscape entry at
http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=188542]
AFTERWORD:
THE UNENVIABLE FATE
OF A REVISIONIST or THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCES OF DIMINISHING A HERO
The
legendary King Arthur is a magnificently glamorous figure. Like pretty much every scholar out there, I
was first attracted to this archetypical hero through my exposure to Sir Thomas
Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur or, at least, its adaptations. At the time, Arthur and his Knights of the
Round Table were creatures of fantasy and represented desirable if unattainable
ideals. It was only much later that I
became aware of the fact that at least Arthur himself may have been a real,
living person. This revelation had a profound
impact on the way I perceived the entire Arthurian mythos.
Eventually,
after I became imbued with the knowledge of various disciplines a college
education bestowed upon me, I dared to wonder if I might find the historical
Arthur. Upon investigating the possibility, I was both delighted and
disappointed to find that many had preceded me in such an endeavor. And although a few of these intrepid (or
foolish?) sleuths were far more qualified than I would ever be to properly deal
with the question of Arthur’s historicity, very little progress had been made
in solving the mystery. What I did
discover was a plethora of nonsense theories based on ignorance or wishful
thinking or both.
But
could I do any better? How much would I have to learn first? How many blind leads would I follow, and how
many dead ends would I arrive at? Was
this quest going to be relatively quick or would I be at it for years? Maybe a lifetime? Would it become something
obsessive that ended up dominating any nonessential, impractical aspects of my
life? And was it really, in any sense,
important? What possible value would the
discovery of a historical Arthur have for us?
In
this modern age of youth Snapchat addiction, I’m afraid I can’t provide any
positive answer to the last couple of questions. In fact, I was chagrined to read an analysis
of the recent major box office flop KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD. One of the reasons listed by the author of
that piece for the film’s failure was that people no longer cared about King
Arthur. And beyond this, their education was now so universally deficient that
most had no idea who even the legendary Arthur was! The professional academics had long ago
forsaken Arthur as a historical entity.
This left only a handful of isolated and distinctly fringe independent
Arthurian enthusiasts (present company included) to carry the torch and to give
a damn.
So
I have no excuse to offer for my dogged determinism in this regard. I have pursued a historical Arthur out of
selfish interest alone. Sure, there may
be an Arthurian Cult lurking out there who might find my work to be of some
interest, even if they (as is all too often) vociferously disagree with my
findings. But its membership is rather insignificant and declining. Given enough time – say, the passing of the
current generation – and it will be extinct.
Montaigne
said “Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.” This is especially true of Arthur. For years I’ve wrestled with those who
started out with a preconceived belief and then went forward to prove that
belief. One also thinks of St. Augustine,
who said “I believe, so that I may know.”
My credo has always been instead, “I know, so that I may believe.” And this shift in emphasis, this different
mode of thinking, has run me afoul of a great many close-minded or, frankly,
crazy individuals. The New Age and
Neopagan communities, while well-meaning, have done their fair share of
obfuscating the truth. I’ve flirted with
their intoxicating world view more than once, but have always found their
tenets and practices to be unwarranted and unjustifiable.
As
if all that were not bad enough, I have already been accused of diminishing,
nay, dismantling the great King Arthur. In seeking to make him a real
historical person, I’ve inadvertently stripped him of his magical, otherworldly
nature or, perhaps worse yet, have so denigrated him as to remove him entirely
from the Hall of Pagan or Christian Worthies.
I’ve shown him to be a man, and not necessarily a respectable one at
that. From the Savior of Britain to a
mercenary-federate fighting against Britons, I’ve brought him full circle. To
add insult to injury, I’ve made him into an Irishman or, only somewhat less
detestable, a personage of mixed Irish and British ancestry.
Should
I apologize for doing so? Well, the part
of me that so badly wanted to believe in the Savior of Britain says YES. I mean, go read my first book, THE ARTHUR OF
HISTORY. I so badly wanted to subscribe
to the notion that Arthur had, for a while, stemmed the tide of barbaric
Germanic invasion that I was willing to overlook the nagging questions I could
not answer – questions which I alluded to in the Introduction to this book.
This is the level to which our own personal biases or subconscious drives or
nationalistic or religious/spiritual tendencies or whatever will take us.
Yet
when I admitted to myself that I was wrong in my first book, when I managed to
overcome the constraints of ego, I simply had to go on. I could not accept the shortcomings of my own
prior arguments, and I could not abide a defeatist posture. There was only one
thing to do: go once more on an
Adventure into the Perilous Forest.
Surely I had missed something, either out of ineptitude or willful
resistance. The Grail was to be found, and not just in a dream. I would not be quiet this time as it passed
before me in the grand progression.
This
book is a result of that Adventure. A
letting go, a trusting in Fate or Providence as a guiding force, a traversing
of the trackless waste in no particular direction whatsoever. At the end of the movie INDIANA JONES AND THE
LAST CRUSADE, we learn that the Grail is not some spectacular jeweled golden
cup. Instead, it is the simple, rather crude wooden cup of a carpenter’s
son. The Arthur I have revealed herein
is like that.
Was
he any less stalwart than his romance counterpart? Surely not.
The latter is the stuff of myth and fantasy. The former is a real man, driven by all the
usual needs of a leader trying to preserve his people. We tend to glorify the desperate. Heroic actions, at root, are generally brought
about by those seeking a better life elsewhere.
Who are we to say that a British Arthur credited with staving off the
Saxon invasion for a generation is somehow superior to an Irish-descended
Arthur who carved out a kingdom for himself in Wales and managed to keep it by
fighting battles in southern England in alliance with the Saxons for the
British high-king? This is all a matter
of perspective. What the British lose,
the Irish and the Welsh gain. And, in
what is perhaps the most profound irony, the English gain by it also. For was it not Ceredig the Bear-king who
spear-headed the foundation of Wessex?
I
feel I can now rest content with having done everything in my power to reveal a
truly viable candidate for a historical King Arthur. Indeed, I have no remaining compulsion to
again set forth on an Adventure in that Perilous Wood. What fellow Arthurians make of my work I
cannot predict. It is entirely up to
them what to make of “my Arthur”, as opposed to their own Arthurs. For as we all know, and too well, there are a
legion of Arthurs out there, and doubtless many more to come.
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