MATOC AILITHIR AND ELIWLAD SON OF MADOG: WHY I'M COMMITTING TO AN ARTHUR AT RIBCHESTER

Ribchester Roman Fort, Lancashire

"Arthur learns, by rather stolid questioning, that the eagle is his nephew Eliwlad, son of Madog son of Uther - a rare instance of a paternal relative for Arthur."

- Oliver Padel in ARTHUR IN MEDIEVAL WELSH LITERATURE

It's been several months since I first made a preliminary identification of Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther with Matoc Ailithir son of Sawyl Benisel. Since then, I've continued my Arthurian research, always striving to precisely pinpoint Arthur geographically.  As none of my efforts were yielding what I thought to be truly significant results, I continued to explore the apparent Eliwlad-Ailithir connection in the hopes of strengthening my argument.  The result was a revision of an earlier post, which my readers may find here: 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-fairly-radical-revision-on-my-earlier.html

In this piece I will avoid rehashing what I consider to be the linguistic evidence for the identification of the two names.  Instead, I wish to concentrate on providing a philosophical explanation for why I feel compelled to take such a stance on this particular theory.

1) Given the acknowledged fraudulent nature of the Galfridian genealogy, and the associated dislocation of Arthur from the North to the South of Britain, I've long realized that unless we were able to a legitimate ancestral trace someone in the early Welsh material that any attempt to find either the real birthplace or power center of Arthur was doomed to failure. Arthur can be put just about anywhere, but unless we can prove the veracity of where we place him based upon the known location of his father, we are merely guessing and cannot expect anyone to take our theory seriously.  Certainly, no established academic will pay any attention to it.  The search for such a genuine line of descent is complicated by the fact that we don't know if a) Uther Pendragon was really Arthur's father prior to the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth or b) whether Uther Pendragon is a name + epithet or merely a title meaning 'Terrible Chief-warrior/dragon.'  The only thing that is evident to anyone who has studied the Arthurian corpus is that any family link other than that claimed by Geoffrey of Monmouth seems nonexistent.

2) Over the years I've south to put Arthur in both the North and the South.  Gradually, I came to accept the very high probability that he should be assigned to the North.  After plotting out the HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S Arthurian battles, two hypothetical genealogical ties seemed to suggest that Arthur belonged either to the Irthing Valley on Hadrian's Wall (a territory perhaps denoted by the eponym Arthwys, 'man of the Arth', which happens to contain Camboglanna/Camlann) or to York (as a corrupt TRIAD makes Arthur the son of Eliffer of that city, and York was the base for the Roman period Lucius Artorius Castus).  

Alas, while the Dacian draco was present at Banna/Birdoswald in the Irthing Valley, and we can thus imaginatively concoct a ruler who was called after this venerated battle standard/mythological creature, there's no literary or archaeological evidence for such a person there.  I could not, therefore, in good conscience, predicate a historical Arthur's presence in that region.  And this is true even though it seems certain he died fighting at Camboglanna.  For we know two sons of Eliffer of York fought at Arthuret just north of the western end of the Wall, and died fighting along the middle section of the Wall at Carrawburgh.  

Further study of the corrupt TRIAD which mentions an Arthur Penuchel son of Eliffer proved profoundly disappointing.  Not only was there no honest way to confirm the reference as an addition to or correction of the original TRIAD, but a son of Eliffer, being a contemporary of Urien of Rheged - who's sister Eliffer married - was a chronological impossibility for our Arthur.

3) And so I circled back around to Eliwlad.  Having, to the best of my ability, confirmed that this name was a Welsh version of Irish Ailithir, there was simply no ignoring the obvious implication of such an identification.  That is, Eliwlad son of Madog was a garbled/mangled attempt at Matoc Ailither.  This revelation - for I do not know what else to call it! - intellectually forced me to accommodate the notion that Arthur was a son of Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester, the Roman fort of the Sarmatian veterans. Ribchester during the Roman period had a very close relationship with the York of LAC, and the Sarmatians themselves, like the Dacians at Banna, were known for their draco standard.  Thus it was distinctly possible for Sawyl to have been referred to as the Terrible Chief-dragon.  Furthermore, Ribchester was in the North, where Arthur had to be, and could easily have been the base of a man who was fighting up and down Dere Street to the east.  

4) I long struggled with major caveat: even if I were right about Eliwlad = Ailithir, was it not conceivable that whoever wrote 'The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle' had merely found a reference to Matoc Ailithir and had decided to associate him in a fictional story with Madog son of Uther?  That the author took it upon himself to create the name Eliwlad out of Ailithir?  And that, as a result, there was no real relationship whatsoever between Arthur and Sawyl Benisel?

Well, this possibility must remain a concern.  I cannot deny it.  Still, one might wonder why anyone would go to the bother to so conjure another member of Uther's family.  I mean, Madog was already there.  Why not simply make him into a spectral eagle in an oak tree?  Or use anyone else in this role, for that matter?  Granted, Matoc Ailithir was a saint, and it makes sense to have a saint's spirit dispense homely Christian wisdom to the ignorant secular king. But if the author of the poem knew who Matoc Ailithir was, and that his father was Sawyl Benisel, why take him away from his real father and make him a false son/grandson of Uther?  Why, in the context of a didactic englyn, risk having your intended audience cry foul over the inclusion of such a deception?  Yes, I'm well aware of the depths to which pious fraud can stoop, and am quite familiar with the often outrageous fantasies manifested in hagiography.  Yet this doesn't seem to be an instance of either. 

It seems to me (and I understand completely if others disagree with me) that Eliwlad son of Madog, i.e. Matoc Ailithir, betrays an authenticate genealogical link to Uther Pendragon.  And that would mean, once again, that Uther = Sawyl. 

5) According to Rachel Bromwich (see Sawyl Ben Uchel in her TRIADS, p. 496), "The genealogies assert that Sawyl was a contemporary of Urien Rheged, and that like Urien he was fourth in descent from Coel Hen."  If this is true, then we have the same chronological issue with Sawyl that I discussed above in the context of Eliffer father of Arthur Penuchel.  However, I have checked the genealogies in Bartram, Harleian, etc., and this statement on the part of Bromwich is incorrect.  

Sawyl - Pabo Post Prydain - Ceneu - Coel Hen

Urien - Cynfarch - Meirchiaun - [Gwrwst Ledlwm] - Ceneu - Coel Hen

Sawyl is third in descent from Coel Hen.  

Urien is (skipping Gwrwst Ledlwm/Fergus Mor, a Dalriadan intrusion into the pedigree) fourth in descent from Coel Hen. 

When we take this in account, and remember that these royal genealogies in all likelihood merely reflect a very rough approximation of actual generations, and given that relationships were certainly manipulated for political and social purposes, I do not think that it is unreasonable to suppose that Sawyl could have been the father of the Arthur who fought at Badon (Bathum/Batham-Aquae Arnemetia-Buxton) c. 516 and at Camlann (Camboglanna-Castlesteads) c. 537.

6) Eliwlad could be a hopeless corruption of another name.  If so, no one seems to have any idea what that original name might be.  Or Eliwlad could be a Cornish name that a Welshman has tried to render into his own tongue.  Again, an exhaustive search of Cornish names (and Cornish name-elements) has failed to produce a viable derivation.  

CONCLUSION

That pretty much sums up what I believe to be my justification for opting for Sawyl Benisel as Uther Pendragon, the father of the famous 6th century Arthur.  As always, should I discover valuable new information in the future, I reserve the right to change my mind.  Provisionally, though, this is the absolute best I can do in my quest for a historical Arthur candidate.