"GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL" AND AN ARTHUR OF THE UI LIATHAIN

Glastonbury

"For when great was the power of the Irish over the British they divided Alba amongst them in districts, and each of them knew his friend's habitation, and the Irish dwelt on the east of the sea no less than in Scotia [Ireland], and their mansions and their royal forts were built there.  Inde dicitur Dinn Tradui, i.e. Dun Tredue, i.e. the three-fossed fort of Crimthann Mar mac Fidaig, king of Ireland and Alba and down to the Ictian Sea [the Sea of the Isle of Wight], et minde Glasimpere na nGaedel [Glastonbury of the Irish], a church on the border of the Ictian Sea. In that part is Dind Map Lethain in the lands of the Cornish Britons, i.e. Dun Maic Lethain, for mac is the same as map in British.  Thus did each tribe of them divide, for there was an equal proportion of the east, and they possessed that power long after the coming of Patrick."

from Francis J. Byrne's IRISH KING AND HIGH KINGS

(For the Irish text from this passage of SANAS CORMAIC, see 

https://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/irishglossaries/texts.php?versionID=9&page=45&perPage=20&ref=.)

What I'm about to propose is, well, revolutionary.  It will also doubtless be extremely controversial.  Yet I think there is enough to it for me to risk "putting it out there."  In this brief post I wish to show that Glastonbury was founded by the Irish.  And not just the Irish, but a sept of the Ui Liathain tribe.

In the above-quoted section from Cormac's Glossary, a few statement are noteworthy.  First, Crimthann Mar is singled out.  His father, Fidach, was brother to Eochu Liathan, the eponymous head of the Ui Liathain.  The same Ui Liathain who are known to have been in southern Wales and Cornwall.

Second, the Sons of Liathain are specifically said to have had a fortress (unidentified) in Cornwall.

And, third, Glastonbury, said to be "of the Irish", is listed as a holy place central to the area where the Ui Liathain raided and established settlements.  

For quite awhile now the etymology of Glastonbury has been known.  Ekwall and many other authorities discuss this in some detail.  Essentially, the place-name can be derived from OCelt glasto-, Gaul glastum, 'woad.' Due to a confusion over Latin vitrum, 'woad', and vitrum, 'glass', the Welsh began to call the island (for such it was in the Dark Ages, when the Somerset Levels were marshland) Ynys [G]wytrin or the 'Glass Island.' As Glass Castle (Caer [G]wydr) was a designation for the Otherworld, it did not take long before Glastonbury became identified with Avalon.

But what scholars have not noticed is that there was an Irish tribal group called the Ui Glaisin, a sub-sept of the Ui Meic Caille, themselves a sub-set of the Ui Liathain.  Here is the meaning of glaisin from the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language:

1 glaisín

Cite this: eDIL s.v. 1 glaisín or dil.ie/25959

n woad , see glasen.

glasen

Cite this: eDIL s.v. glasen or dil.ie/26010

Forms: gla(i)sín, glaisine, glainsine

n (n s. also gla(i)sín and glaisine, see Cáin Ad. § 52 . Laws iv 276.6 ). ā,f.

(a) woad; a plant yielding a blue dye; the dye extracted from woad. Cf. Quandam enim herbam orten- sem antiqui habebant, nomine glassen, ex cuius succo tincturam pannorum ... faciebant , V. SS. Hib. i 95 § 27 . n s. Angelica ┐ anagailicus .i. glasen coille, Arch. i 335.88 ; 61 . in ghlaisin coille (gl. barba silvana), ib. 341.40 . asara .i. glasin lena (= gariofila agrestis), ib. 330.7 . ásfaid in glassen, RC xiii 462 § 63 . ni dernad ... glaisin bhudh commaith ria, ar cidh edach Ceniuil Fiachrach uili doberthi ina hiarcain (leg. iarcaui? after-cup?) nos-gormfadh (of the dye), Lism. L. 4079 . lin ocus glaisin, Laws ii 370.30 Comm. glainsine (sic), iv 276.8 Comm. fasta[d] iarcae in datha .i. corcair no glaisin, O'Dav. 1295 . fri bratt ngorm, | glan a glaissin, Bruchst. i § 23 . d s. and a s. dofeotar cáircha glassin na rigna ate the queen's woad, RC xiii 460 § 63 . na mill umam ... in nglaisin, Lism. L. 4078 . rug L. in ngúbreith isin glaisin, Dinds. i § 35 ( RC xv 283 ). fon roid ┐ glaisīne ┐ sep, Cáin Ad. § 52 . guirmidir gas do glaisin blue as a sprig of woad, Ériu iv 96 § 14 . g s. trian a cruib glaisne, Laws ii 372.17 . i n-aimsir buana na glaisni, 418.5 Comm. oc denumh glaisne, Lism. L. 4063 . lomrad na cairech il-lomrad na glasne, RC xiii 462.2 .

Compd. ¤gort a field of woad: hi llomrad glassenguirt na rīgna, ZCP viii 311.30 .

(b) By extension a dye (in general); glasen (gl. sandyx), Sg. 69a28 .

I would say, then, that the legendary Glast [1] who founded Glastonbury was, in fact, a member of the Ui Glaisin.  Glast is said to come to Glastonbury from "Loytcoyt", Welsh Llwydcoed, the "Grey Wood".  This is sometimes identified with the Romano-British Letocetum (Lichfield), although there are plenty of Llwydcoeds in Wales.  However, the ancient seat of the Ui Glaisin was Killeagh in Co. Cork, and I find this place-name parsed as follows:

An Choill Liath

genitive: na Coille Léithe

validated name

(Irish)

Killeagh

(English)

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Glossary

coill(also: coillidh, coillte, coille) wood

liath(also: léith) grey, grey place, grey horse

(see https://www.logainm.ie/en/12484)

In other words, 'Loytcoyt' or Grey Wood is an exact Welsh translation of Killeagh. 

Now, can we conclude from all this that Arthur really was buried at Glastonbury?  No, of course not.  The many political and financial reasons for claiming his grave is to be found there have been written about in considerable detail.  However, we can say that if he did descend from the Ui Liathain through his father Uther/Illtud, and the Ui Liathain were in southern Wales and Cornwall, and the Ui Glaisin of the Ui Liathain founded a religious house at Glastonbury, it is eminently possible that he was buried there.  

[1]

Here is the legendary material on Glast from P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY.  Ironically, the prevailing tradition concerning Glast connected him to Cunedda, who was of the Ciannachta.  Cunedda and his sons were the enemies of the Ui Liathain, according to the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.  

***

GLAST. (470?) The name of the eponym of Glastonbury, his descendants being called Glaestings and their city Glestingaburg, whence Glastonbury. The genealogy of the descendants of Glast is given in the ‘Harleian’ genealogies (HG 25 in EWGT p.12). Here he is the father of Morfael and eleventh in descent from him is Idnerth ap Morien, the last of the line. The pedigree ends: Unum [read unde] sunt Glastenic qui uenerunt [per villam] que vocatur Loytcoyt, Whence are the Glaestings(?) who came [through the town] which is called Lichfield. A later version of the pedigree is found in the expanded ‘Hanesyn Hen’ tract, one version of which (in Peniarth MS.177 p.217 by Gruffudd Hiraethog) ends: Oddyna y Glastyniaid a dyfodd o Gaer Lwydkoed i Gaer a elwir yr awr honn Aldüd. Whence the Glastonians who came from Lichfield to the city called Aldüd today. See ABT §19 in EWGT pp.106-7. A confused story of Glast and his founding of Glastonbury is told in an interpolation in William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, (ed. Thomas Hearne p.16). Here Glast is incorrectly called Glasteing and his eleven descendants (whose names are correctly given except for minor differences) are wrongly said to be his brothers, great-grandsons of Cunedda. Then it says: Hic est ille Glasteing, qui [venit] per mediterraneos Anglos, secus villam quae dicitur Escebtiorne. This is that Glasteing, who [came] through the midland Angles, otherwise the town which is called Escebtiorne. The correspondence with the earlier text is close if we accept the words in [ ] and cut out the words ‘mediterraneos Anglos, secus’ in the second version. The other differences are 'Glasteing' for 'Glastenic', Escebtiorne for Loytcoyt, and treating Glasteing as a personal name. Esceb = 'bishop' (modern Welsh esgob), and may well refer to Lichfield which was a bishop's See (A.W.Wade-Evans in Notes and Queries, 193 (1948) p.134). Here we are told that Glast was a great-grandson of Cunedda and it is interesting to note that Glas (q.v.) ab Elno, of the line of Dogfeiling, was also a great-grandson of Cunedda. The identity of the two was suggested by E.W.B.Nicholson (Cy. 21 (1908) pp.100-3). The interpolation goes on to say: [Glasteing], following his pigs as far as Wellis [Wells] and from there through a pathless and watery way, called Sugewege, that is ‘Sow's Way’, he found his sow near the church of which we are speaking [Glastonbury], suckling under an apple tree, whence it has reached us that the apples of that apple tree are called Ealdcyrcenas epple, that is ‘Old Church Apples’. For that reason, also, the sow was called Ealdecyrce Suge [Old Church Sow], which, wonderful to relate, had eight feet, whereas other sows have four. Here, therefore, Glasteing, after entering that island, saw it abounding in many ways with good things, came to live in it with all his family, and spent the course of his life there. And from his progeny and family which succeeded him, that place is said to have been populated. It is seen that the simple statement of the Harleian pedigree has been supplemented by a legend conerning a sow, and the introduction of an apple-tree. The latter is probably connected with the late identification of Glastonbury as the Isle of Avallon, and the explanation of Avallon as the Isle of Apple-trees [Welsh afall, ‘apple-tree’]. The introduction of pigs suggested to R.Thurneysen that the story was developed from an incident in the legend of St.Patrick (Zs. f. rom. Ph. XX (1896) pp.316 ff). For in the ‘Glossary’ attributed to Cormac mac Cuilenáin, the bishop-prince of Cashel, c.900, s.n. Mugeime, Glastonbury is referred to as follows: Glassdimber .... That is the abode wherein dwelt Glass the son of Cass, the swineherd of the king of Iruath, with his swine a-feeding, and he it is whom Patrick brought to life afterwards, that is, six-score years after he had been slain by MacCon's champions. This is probably an interpolation (Whitley Stokes, Three Irish Glossaries, p.xlviii n.2). The story is apparently taken from Tirechán's Memoirs (c.670) which say that during his travels in Connacht Patrick came upon a huge grave, 120 feet in length. His followers were amazed and inclined to doubt that a man of such size had really existed. To satisfy them, Patrick recalled the dead man to life. He arose and in reply to their question told them: I am the son of Cas son of Glas, and I was swineherd to Lugar, king of Hirot. The war-band of MacCon slew me in the reign of Coirpre Nia Fer. (Ed. Whitley Stokes, The Tripartite Life of St.Patrick, pp.324-5). Here Glas is the father of Cas. Similarly in the Tripartite Life (loc.cit. pp.122-3). But in the Dindshenchas of ‘Loch nDechet’ [in Connacht] we are told that Dechet son of Dergor was the servant of Glass mac Caiss in the time of Áed Ruad grandson of Mane Milscoth (Revue Celtique, 15 pp.475-6; Royal Irish Academny, Todd Lecture Series No.10 pp.410-3). The monks of Glastonbury adopted Patrick into their propaganda. Then it seems that the son of Cas son of Glas, the swineherd in the legend of St.Patrick, became Glas the son of Cas, the swineherd, and then was identified with Glast, the founder of Glastonbury. Whence Cormac's ‘Glossary’. So Glast(eing) with his pigs came into being (PCB).