URIEN, PEN AND DRAGON: A REPOST OF "UDD DRAGONAWL: The Head of Urien, 'Dragon-like Lord'"

In light of my recent identification of Uther Pen/'the Terrible Head' with the decapitated head of Urien Rheged, I though I would repost the following article.  Again, I now am fairly certain Urien was the original Uther Pen[dragon].  Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source took this title and applied it to St. Illtud, who was called terribilis miles, magister militum and the like in his Life.  For a more detailed description of this process, please see me last few articles here on the blog site.

In the scenario first presented in my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, Ceidio brother of Eliffer of York is the Arthur.  Urien's sister Efrddyl was Eliffer's queen.

The placement of Mabon servant of Uther Pendragon in the Ely River valley (where Illtud's Dinas Powys is to be found, and where Llanfabon, the Church of Mabon, is not far distant up the River Taff) is a reflection of the fact that Mabon's center of worship was in Urien's kingdom.  And, indeed, Welsh tradition tells us that Urien's wife was none other than Modron, the name of the mother of Mabon.  The poetry appears to allude to Urien's son Owain as Mabon.

Everything is pointing to Uther, i.e. Urien, being relocated to Wales, probably by a misidentification of his title with Latin descriptors given to Illtud.  This might seem an improbable development to some, but P.C. Bartram in his A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY demonstrates that Urien under his real name and territorial designation was relocated to Wales:

URIEN IN WALES

The first hint of some association between the family of Urien and South Wales is in certain genealogies which make Henninni the sister of Urien ancestress of the kings of Glywysing (Vita
Cadoci §46b, JC 5 + 9 in EWGT pp.25, 44, 45). These are somewhat corrupt and seem to be chronologically impossible as they stand. See s.n. Enynny. Later we find the following statement from Ieuan Brechfa (c.1500) in Peniarth MS.131 p.295 where he is giving the ancestry of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, who claimed descent from Pasgen ab Urien Rheged:

Urien Rheged, earl of Rheged, and after that he was king in Scotland, and he ossessed Cedweli and Carnwyllion and Is Cennen and the whole of Gower and its appurtenances and he made all the castles within those boundaries.

This is copied in later MSS. See PP §24(1). The places are all in Ystrad Tywi. Iolo Morganwg expanded on this theme. See e.g. Iolo MSS. pp.70, 71, 77-79. Meanwhile another legend associated Urien Rheged with Mid-Wales. In Llanstephan MS.56 p.1 by Dr.John David Rhys (d.1609?) we find:

C[astell] Tinbod a wnaeth Vryen Rheged
‘Urien Rheged made Castell Tinbod’

This is Castell Dinbod in the parish of Llananno, Maelienydd, Radnorshire (WATU) which enters into
the legend of Urien and his bard Tristfardd (q.v.).

http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/09/udd-dragonawl-head-of-urien-dragon-like.html

Celtic Stone Head, St. Michael's Church, Burgh By Sands

In some MSS. of the CANU LLYWARCH HEN (see note on page 122 of Sir Ifor Williams' edition), the following strophe is found in the 'Pen Urien' section of 'Marwnad Urien Reged':

Pen a borthav o du pawl,

Pen Urien, udd dragonawl;

A chyd dêl dydd brawd, ni'm tawr.

Translated by Dr. Simon Rodway, this reads:

‘I bear a head beside a stake/ the head of Urien, a dragon-like lord/ and although Doomsday come, it is not important to me [beside the death of Urien]’.

Professor Jenny Rowlands wrote to me with details on this strophe:

"Information on this can be found in Early Welsh Saga Poetry, 557.  Since it's not readily available I'll summarize. The verse comes from NLW 4973, an early modern ms. of John Davies, Mallwyd. It includes two copies of the englynion. One is a copy of the Red Book of Hergest, the other an independent copy of part of the englynion which was not noticed before I checked it. This is closer to the White Book copies, but has independent readings. Corrections and marginalia were added to the RB copy from this earlier copy, and that is probably the source for the Myvyrian verse. Since Ifor Williams did not have a reliable source it was put in the notes. O du means 'from around, beside', so probably not on a stake."

Dragonol can be translated as Dr. Rodway renders it, although more metaphorical meanings are offered by the GPC:

dragonol

[dragon+-ol]

a. a hefyd fel eg.

Ffyrnig, dewr, gwrol; rhyfelwr, ymladdwr dewr:

ferocious, brave, valiant; warrior, brave fighter. 

And udd in the GPC:

udd

[< *iudd (cf. e. prs. H. Gym. Iudhail (> Ithel), Gripiud (> Gruffudd), e. prs. H. Grn. Iudprost, Bleidiud, e. prs. H. Lyd. Iudcant) ?< *i̯oudh-, ?cf. Llad. iubeō ‘gorchmynnaf’]

eg. ll. (prin) uddydd, a hefyd gyda grym ansoddeiriol.

Arglwydd, pennaeth, brenin, hefyd am Dduw ac yn ffig.:

lord, chief, king, also of God and fig. 

What we have in 'udd dragonawl', then, is an honorific very much like Pendragon.  The strophe in question is also interesting in that the head of a dragon-like lord on a pole is eerily reminiscent of the dragon-head carried by Uther in Geoffrey of Monmouth's HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE.

I've not been able to find Welsh uthr or aruthr being applied to Urien.  However, there is the epithet 'oruchel wledig' for Urien (see http://testunau.org/testunau/taliesin/llt57_urien_vrechwydd.htm).  The GPC has aruchel as meaning "(very) high, tall, lofty, elevated; exalted, supreme, splendid, majestic; lofty (of language, style, feeling, &c.), sublime, noble."  According to John Koch, "uthr means ‘awful’ or ‘awesome’, originally something ‘high, lofty’; cf. Old Irish úachtar ‘height’ < Celtic *ouctro-, Modern Irish meanings include ‘cream’ (note also uachtarán ‘president’)."  With uchel being Welsh for 'high, tall', etc., it may be that Uthr as a name should be seen as a rough equivalent of aruchel.

In fact, the root for uchel and uthr may be the same:

higher *ouxtero-, SEMANTIC CLASS: measure, Early Irish óchtar, úachtar ‘higher part’, Welsh uthr ‘fearful, dreadful, awful, terrible, tremendous, mighty, overbearing, cruel; wonderful, wondrous, astonishing, excellent’, Cornish euth (??) (Pok.: not cogn.) ‘dread, horror, terror’, Breton euz (Middle Breton), euzh ‘abomination, atrocity, horror’

high *ouxselo-, SEMANTIC CLASS: measure, British Uxel(l)a ‘high place’, Gaulish Uxello- ‘high’, Early Irish úasal ‘high, noble’, Scottish Gaelic uasal ‘noble, proud’, Welsh uchel ‘high, tall; high(-ranking), exalted, important, solemn, sublime, splendid, excellent, noble, stately, respectable, commendable’, Cornish huhel- (Old Cornish), ughel ‘high’, Breton uchel, uhel (Old Breton), uhel ‘high’

over *ouxs(V) (?), SEMANTIC CLASS: measure, Early Irish ós, úas ‘over’, Scottish Gaelic os ‘above’, Welsh uwch ‘above, on top of, over, on, beyond, also fig., ?after, in front of; above, more than; higher, farther up, taller, higher(-ranking), better, greater’, Cornish a-ugh ‘over’, Breton a-uc’h ‘above’