URIEN AND UTHER PENDRAGON: THE 'VERY BLUE (OR 'VERY GREEN'?)' CHIEFTAINS

Annandale, Dumfriesshire, Scotland

I and other Arthurian writers have pointed out that the rare Welsh word gorlas(s)ar is used as a descriptor of only two ancient chieftains, viz. Urien of Rheged and Uther [Pen]dragon.  There has been conjecture by scholars as notable as Professor John Koch (see his CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPENDIA) that the 'terrible dragon's head' may be a poetic designation for the god Bran's head.  None that I was aware of had thought instead to associate the epithet with the head of the slain Urien, mentioned prominently in one of the Llywarch Hen poems.

GORLASSAR

'Gorlassar' means, literally, 'very blue (or 'very green').' The GPC has "bright blue, having glinting weapons."  Other sources listing definitions for this word and the cognate Irish word forglass are listed here:

very blue/green *wor-glatso-, SEMANTIC CLASS: sensation, Early Irish forglass ‘having a blue/green face, very blue/green’, Welsh gorlas ‘bright (or deep) green or blue, verdant’

from

University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies (2004) English–Proto-Celtic Word-list with attested comparanda

forglass

Cite this: eDIL s.v. forglass or dil.ie/23669

adj o-ā green-surfaced (`oben-graulich' Thurn., ZCP xvii 302.4 ); very green: l. torc ... at e foliath forglasa Ériu xii 176.9 . dar in fairggi fírdomain forglais LL 235a x ( TTr. 1363 ; cf. ind ḟ.¤ úani ochorgorm 1364 ). ar ferand forglas fírdomain ... a ndéé ... Neptúin LL 224b8 ( TTr. 535 ). fér f.¤ LU 5325 ( TBC 1512 ). co lár Maige Find forglaiss, Met. Dinds. iii 452 . bruitt forglassa TBC 177 . Name of the letter n in `Mucogam,' Auraic. 5669 , 5939 . orc a cru forglaisi (letter i) 5676 . indoth forglaisi `litter of a blue ... sow' (letter r) 5673 . Cf. brec oc forglais 5934 .

from

eDIL

The Irish and Welsh dictionaries both give a range of colors including green and blue or mixed versions of these two colors or, more specifically, the range or spectrum of colors between green and blue:

2 glas

o,ā adj. descriptive of various shades of light green and blue, passing from grass-green to grey , opposed on the one hand to uaine green and on the other to gorm blue.

eDIL

glas1 

[Crn. glas, Llyd. glas ‘glas, gwyrdd, llwyd’, e.p. Brth. Cuneglase (> Cynlas), H. Wydd. glas ‘glas, gwyrdd’, Gal. glastum ‘llysiau’r lliw, glesin, S. woad’: < Clt. *glasto- o’r gwr. *ĝhel-, ĝhlə- ‘disgleirio’] 

a. ll. gleision, a hefyd fel eg. ll. glasiau.

1.  O liw wyneb y môr neu’r awyr ar ddiwrnod clir digwmwl, asur, gwyrddlas (am fôr):

blue, azure, sky-blue, greenish blue, sea-green; 

green, grass-coloured, bluish green, verdant; unripe (of fruit); covered with green grass, clothed with verdure or foliage; 

light blue, pale-blue or pale-green, greyish-blue, slate-coloured, livid, pallid, pale; ?transparent (of water, glass, rain), crystal grey (of frost and ice), grey; silver or silver-coloured; greyish white, steel-coloured, iron grey, etc.

GPC

Sir Ifor Williams, in his THE POEMS OF TALIESIN (Notes VIII, 17) cites J. Lloyd-Jones GEIRFA BARDDONIAETH GYMRAEG 1931):

gorlassar, according to G 569 'gloywlas', i.e. 'bright blue (grey, green)'; and glassar G 532 'tir glas' 'green land'.

Marged Haycock, in her note to gorlassar in the 'Death-Song of Uthr Pen', has:

gorlassar Cf. PT V.28 Gorgoryawc gorlassawc gorlassar, rhyming with escar,
as here; again PT VIII.17 goryawc gorlassawc gorlassar. Both passages are
corrupt. PT 98 suggests ‘clad in blue-grey armour’ or ‘armed with blue-grey
weapons’, following G and GPC who derive it from glassar ‘sward, turf, sod’
rather than llassar ‘azure’, etc. (see GPC s.v. llasar), presumably because one
would expect *gorllasar. That may indeed have been present, with l representing
developed [ɬ]. Llassar is rhymed with casnar, Casnar (cf. line 10 casnur) in CBT
III 16.55, VII 52.14-5. On the personal names Llasar Llaes Gygnwyd, OIr
Lasa(i)r, calch llassar ‘lime of azure’, etc., see Patrick Sims-Williams, The Iron
House in Ireland, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 16 (Cambridge 2005), 11-
16; IIMWL 250-7.

I myself once tried to make a case for the gorlassar of Urien and Uther referring not to blue-glinting weapons (or armor?), but to blue woad used for dyed clothing or skin tattoos. We can cite Caeser in this context:

omnes se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridiores sunt in pugnā aspectu

all of whom made Britains, indeed, dye themselves, which occasions a bluish color, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight

But I now wish to put forward another idea which is think my readers will find quite compelling.

Let us suppose gorlas(s)ar as it is used of/for Urien is not to be read 'very blue', but instead as 'very green.' And that as such it is an oblique poetic reference to the Novantae tribe, who inhabited the area of Urien's kingdom in the Roman period.  

The Novantae tribal name can be etymologized thusly:

DERIVATION. The base is Celtic *nouio-'new', found in British Noviomagus and the two river-names, and in many names abroad. Old Irish naue and Latin novus are cognates, and a derivative is Welsh newydd 'new'. The present ethnicon can hardly derive from the tribe's dwelling near the river Novius, as Rhys (1904) 222 proposed, for the Trinovantes with a similarly-formed name had no such river in their lands, and this cannot have been the process involved. Watson CPNS 27, following Holder II. 778, thinks that *nouio- had further senses such as 'fresh; lively, vigorous', which applies well to a people and is pertinent also to the river-names. He mentions *Novantium (> Nogent, many in France) in support, with the meaning 'fresh, green place', but Dauzat and Rostaing (1963) prefer to derive the Nogent names from *Novientum (*nouios with suffix -entum) which 'a désigné à l'époque gauloise les agglomérations nouvelles, correspondant en somme aux Neuville et Villeneuve de l'époque médiévale.' Since there are no really ancient forms for these Gallic names, one can hardly judge between these two opinions. For the suffix *-ant- in the British ethnicon, see DECANTAE.

From A.L.F RIVET & Colin SMITH : The place-names of Roman Britain, p 425.

There is another possibility built into the name Urien itself.  The usual etymology proposed for Urien's name is as follows (from John Koch in CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA):

The name Urien occurs as Old Welsh Urbgen and trisyllabic

Urbagen. The second element is clearly Celtic

*geno- ‘to be born’. If the first element corresponds to

Old Irish orbae ‘legacy’ < Celtic *orbiom, then the form

Urien rather than the expected Yrien (which is attested)

has been affected by lip-rounding from the lost -b and/

or influenced by U- in the old spellings.

But let us suppose that the Ur- in Urien (or the Yr-?) was at some point fancifully associated with the Irish word ur, 'fresh, new', but also 'green.' The Welsh cognate is ir and I've listed the various forms below.  

From Ranko Matasovic's Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic

*furo- 'fresh' [Adj]

GOlD: MIr. ur [0] 'fresh, fair, bright, green'

W: MW ir 'verdant, green, sappy'

PIE: *puhz-ro- 'pure, clean' (IEW: 827)

COGN: Lat. purus, Skt. pilta- 'purified', pavate 'becomes clean', OHG

fouwen 'to sieve, sift'

ETYM: The PIE root is presumably the same as in *pehzwr 'fire' (Hitt.

pahhur, Gr. pyr, etc.), so the original meaning of *puhzro- would have been

'purified by fire'; however, many linguists doubt the connection and

reconstruct the root as *pewH- 'purify' (e.g. Mayrhofer, s. v. PAY). Note,

however, that adjectives in *-ro- were usually end-stressed in PIE, so we

would expect PCelt. *piiro- > *furo- (MIr. **ur) by Dybo's law.

REF: LP 26, LIV 432, LEIA U-26f., EIEC 109, de Bernardo Stempel 1999:

135, 138,229.

GPC -

ir 

[Gwydd. ûr ‘ffres, newydd, gwyrdd’, cf. Llad. pūrus] 

a. ll. irion, weithiau gyda grym enwol.

a  Iraidd, gwyrddlas, glas, llawn sudd, noddlyd, llaith, tirf, di-grin, heb grino neu geulo, ffres, heb ei sychu (e.e. am ffrwyth(au)), hefyd yn ffig.; tyner, mwyn, tirion (am y tywydd); byw, llewyrchus, llawn bywyd, bywiog, dilesg; newydd, ffres, newydd ei wneuthur, ieuanc, anaeddfed:

verdant, green, juicy, sappy, moist, succulent, not withered, not dried up or coagulated, fresh, undried (e.g. of fruit), also fig.; mild (of the weather); alive, thriving, flourishing, full of life, lively, vigorous; new, fresh, freshly made, young, unripe. 

EDIL -

2 úr

Cite this: eDIL s.v. 2 úr or dil.ie/43210

Forms: úr-colann

adj o-ā fresh, new

3 úr

Cite this: eDIL s.v. 3 úr or dil.ie/43211

n (substantival use of 2 úr) the fresh or green part of a tree , etc.: in crand eter chrín is úr, LL 27b18 . Cf. Arch. i 336.117 . Affodillus ... as mó ḟognus a húr na a críon, 23 K 42, 334.10 . Altemesia adeir P. gurab é úr ┐ duilleabar na luibhe si as fearr, ib. 363.22 . [cui]lenn loisc a úr. cuilenn loisc a críon, SG 245.36 . Rí na ndúl an rí do-roighni | do-ní úr don coinnli chríon, IGT, Decl. ex. 31 (= Dán Dé xxxi 10 ). a meoir leabra ag lúdh in croinn, | gu nderna úr don abhoill, Ériu iv 116 § 20 . Metaph.: go dtí dhíom túr an tighe (i.e. Heaven) | do chríon nó d'úr m'aimsire `in the sere or the bloom of my years,' Dán Dé v 31 .

IS URIEN THE TERRIBLE DRAGON'S HEAD?

A question I've often asked myself is whether Urien the gorlassar and Uther the gorlassar should be seen as one and the same person.  The standard argument against this identification is the one from chronology.  Simply put, Urien is too late to be Arthur's father.  

However, at least one (Breguoin/Brewyn/Bremenium) of Arthur's battles also belonged to Urien.  And if Arthur's Agned is an error for agued, a word used to describe the situation at Catterick in the GODODDIN (see my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY), we can point to Urien's title in the poetry of Taliesin as lord of that town.

We know that Urien's son Owain succeeded his father to the kingdom of Rheged.  There is no reference anywhere to Urien having a son named Arthur.

The 'gorlassar' title for Uther is found in the Marwnat Vthyr Pen. Marged Haycock's text, translation and commentary furnishes us with her view on the mention of Arthur in this poem:

"Uthr is not mentioned in the poem, although Arthur is, in line 14 in which the

speaker seems to rate his own valour as nine times more powerful than Arthur’s..."

nawuetran yg gwrhyt Arthur.

Arthur has a [mere] ninth of my valour.

14 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.

Thus the elegy of Uther Pen does not state that Arthur is Uther's son.  Instead, we seem to merely have a comparison of Uther with Arthur, much as we find in the GODODDIN poem where the warrior Gwawrddur is praised, "Though he was no Arthur [line 972]." 

Urien is featured as a great warrior chieftain of the North not only in the poems of Taliesin and Llywarch Hen, but in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM as well:

Against them four kings fought: Urien, and

Rhydderch the Old, and Gwallawg, and Morgan.

Theodoric used to fight bravely against that Urien

with his sons, yet at that time sometimes the

enemies, sometimes the citizens used to be

vanquished. And he [Urien] shut them [the enemies]

up for three days and three nights in the

island of Lindisfarne and, while he was on [this?]

campaign, he was slain at the instigation of Morgan

out of jealousy, because beyond all other kings

he [Urien] had the greatest skill in renewing war.

(trans. Sims-Williams, CMCS 32.33)

"It is often maintained that Urien died while fighting

Theodoric (r. 572–9), but Sims-Williams proposes

that the synchronism could be as late as King Hussa

(r. 585–92) or could even post-date the arrival of

Augustine of Canterbury in 597. The wording of

the passage intentionally echoes Gildas’s account of

the great victory of Badonicus mons and Historia

Brittonum’s own account of Gwerthefyr’s untimely

death following his victories which swept the Saxons

back to the sea in Kent."

From John Koch in CELTIC CULTURE: A CULTURAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

Efrddyl, daughter of Cynfarch and brother to Urien, wife to Eliffer of York (and mother of Arthur Penuchel according to the corrupt Triad), is said to have mourned her brother's death:

Sad is Efrddyl because of her loss tonight

And because of the fate ordained her.

At Aber Lleu her brother was slain.

(Translated by Ifor Williams, Proceedings of the British Academy, 18 (1932) p.24).

Or, as Bromwich in her TRIADS translates the passage:

Aber Lleu is now Ross Low opposite Lindisfarne.

Alas, none of this helps us determine whether Urien is Uther Pen[dragon]. We are left with a single question to ponder: if Uther is not Urien, why was the former called gorlassar - a title given to no one other than Urien in all of Welsh heroic tradition?

And, as a natural corollary, if Uther is Urien, who, then, was the real father of our sub-Roman/Dark Age Arthur?

In my previous blog post (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-dark-agesub-roman-arthur-from-york.html) I compared a 'Southern' pedigree for Arthur with a 'Northern' version.  The Northern one looked like this:

                                                                        Cynfarch

                                                     Efrddyl - Eleutherius/”Constantine”

                                                                         [Uther?]

                                                                          Arthur

If we assume Uther = Urien, I would now amend this genealogical tree in the following way:

                                                                        Cynfarch

                                                     Efrddyl - Eleutherius/”Constantine”

                                                       [Uther/Urien, brother of Efrddyl]

                                                                          Arthur

In other words, if Arthur were a son of Eliffer of York, then Uther Pen[dragon]/Urien was his uncle, not his father.