Allitio
The Devil's Water at Linnels Near Corbridge
The following source (which discusses the Book of Llandaff) suggests that the Welsh Campus Elleti (my candidate for Camelot) is to be found near Llanilid:
https://journals.library.wales/view/1277425/1284464/29#?xywh=120%2C2197%2C3168%2C2071
Ilid is supposedly an otherwise unknown saint. He (or she) was later misidentified with St Julitta.
I would make the case for Llanilid itself be a relocation of a site that belongs properly in the North. To explain why I believe this to be so, we need to start with the name Elleti. Dr. Graham Isaac, now with the National University of Ireland, Galway, commented as follows on this place-name:
"The form of the name Elleti is corroborated by the instance of 'palude [Latin for “marsh” or “swamp”] Elleti' in Book of Llan Dav (148). But since both that and HB’s campum Elleti are in Latin contexts, we cannot see whether the name is OW Elleti (= Elledi) or OW Ellet (= Elled) with a Latin genitive ending. Both are possible. My guess would be that OW Elleti is right. As the W suffix -i would motivate affection, so allowing the base to be posited as all-, the same as in W ar-all 'other', all-tud 'exile', Gaulish allo-, etc. Elleti would be 'other-place, place of the other side (of something)'."
If Isaac is right, we are fortunate in that Elleti may be found in the form of a personal name at the Corbridge Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall. A fragment of a large grey urn was found there bearing the name ‘ALLIITIO’ (Fascicule 8, RIB 2502.9; information courtesy Georgina Plowright, Curator, English Heritage Hadrian’s Wall Museums). This could be the potter’s name, perhaps a form of the nomen Alletius, or the name of the god portrayed on the fragment. J. Leach (in “The Smith God in Roman Britain”, Archaeologia Aeliana, 40, 1962, pp. 171-184) made a case for the god in question being a divine smith, primarily due to the presence on the urn fragment of what appears to be an anvil in relief, although there were also metal workings in the neighborhood of Corbridge. Anne Ross (in her Pagan Celtic Britain, p. 253) associates the name Allitio with the same all-, “other”, root Dr. Isaac linked to Elleti. She thinks Allitio may have been a warrior/smith-god and very tentatively offers “God of the Otherworld” for this theonym.
On the name ‘ALLIITIO’, Dr. Isaac agrees with Ross:
“Taking the double -ll- at face value, as I would be inclined to do as a working hypothesis,that would be connected the W all- that I have mentioned before.”
The possibility that 'Camelot' was originally Corbridge is exciting, as several of Arthur's battle were fought on the Devil's Water at Linnels very near this Roman fort.
Furthermore, Maponus the Divine Son was worshipped at Corbridge, and this god (identifed with Lleu) was associated by the Welsh in legend with the Emrys of Campus Elleti.
Treating more fully of ‘ALLIITIO’ in a private communication, Georgina Plowright, Curator, English Heritage Hadrian’s Wall Museums, says that the name
“…occurs twice on one piece of pottery showing feet and a base. This is always assumed to be the base of an anvil, with the feet being those of a smith god. There are a number of sherds of grey pottery from Corbridge with very distinctive applied decoration, with two recognisable themes, the smith god shown with hammer and anvil, and a wheel god who is shown with wheel and club. The fact that the wheel god is depicted by a mould suggests that this type of pottery was being made at Corbridge, though it appears on a number of other sites. The reading occurs twice on this piece of pottery, once in the frame created by the anvil base, and then on the pot below the feet of the standing figure. Another sherd showing the smith god does not have any inscription. John Dore and Stephen Johnson, who did the captions for the Corbridge gallery, have assumed that the name might be that of a potter, though RIB seems to go for either god or potter. I haven’t got a copy of the Leach reference easily to hand, but my memory tells me the item should be illustrated there.”
For an online article that mentions the 'Allitio' found at Corbridge, please see:
While a construction Campus Allitio may be doubted, we can point to the Heaven-field of Bede, said to be close to Hexham, and thus quite possibly near Corbridge. Bede has this as Hefenfelth or 'caelistis campus'. The name is unlikely to be of Christain origin. Instead, we should look to the Roman period dedication (RIB 1131) at Corbridge to Caelistis Brigantia, the 'Heavenly Brigantia'. Caelistis campus would then be a field sacred to the pagan goddess of the Brigantes. In this light, a field sacred to Allitios at or near Corbridge is more plausible.
In passing, it may be worth noting that the ( ? ) divine name Allitio, again according to Dr. Isaac, can be associated with Myrddin's/Merlin's Welsh nickname, Llallogan or Llallawc. This last derives from Proto-Celtic *alal( I )yo- 'another, other', cf. Old Irish arail, Middle Welsh arall (OW and MW), Middle Breton al( l )all, arall, Cornish arall. This is a reduplicated, intensive variant of Proto-Celtic *al( I )yo- 'other', cf. Old Irish aile [io], Middle Welsh eil, all-, Middle Breton eil, Cornish yl, Gaulish Allo-broges, allos, Proto-Indo-European *h2elyo- 'other', Latin alius, Go. aljis. Celtic-Iberian ailam, which has been interpreted as the Acc. of this pronoun, has also been taken to mean something like 'place, abode'.
NOTE:
In my opinion, Campus Elleti, with Latin Campus rendered as French Champ (the p of which is silent), became Camelot:
Cham(p) ellet(i) > Camelot
The place was already famous as the boyhood home of Ambrosius, styled the brother of Arthur's father, Uther. There was an early ringwork or castle at Llanilid:
The notion that one of the Camulodunum forts is Camelot is simply wrong. This is made obvious in the French romances, which locate Camelot quite precisely.
The first clue as to the whereabouts of Camelot is found in Chretien de Troyes’ Knight of the Cart, which is the earliest romance to mention this site. According to Chretien, Camelot is ‘in the region near Caerleon’. For some reason, most authorities have seen fit to ignore this statement, insisting that Camelot was placed near Caerleon simply because of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s glorified description of the latter site as a major Arthurian center. If we do take Chretien’s statement seriously, we can for the first time arrive at a satisfactory identification of this most magical of royal cities.
The second clue to the location of Camelot is from the later romance The Quest for the Holy Grail, wherein Arthur escorts the Grail questers from Camelot to a point just shy of Castle Vagan. A third clue, from the prose Tristan, places Camelot either on or very near the sea. The last clue is from the Morte Artu; in this source, the castle of Camelot is on a river.
Castle Vagan is St. Fagan’s Castle (Welsh Ffagan). Llanilid is only 15 kilometers (approximately 9 miles) to the ENE of St. Fagan's.
Campus Elleti/Camelot and St. Fagan's
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