GWYTHYR/VICTOR, NWYTHON/NECHTON AND PEN SON OF NETHAWC (FATHER OF ARTHUR)

Gask Ridge (Map Courtesy Wikipedia)

My readers have seen me try to identify the Gwythyr or 'Victor' who features in the CULHWCH AND OLWEN story as an opponent of Gwyn son of Nudd.  I've tried to see in Gwythyr/Victor a substitute for the god Veteres on Hadrian's Wall.  Unfortunately, I've come to believe this idea just doesn't work.

Gwythyr has on his side both the Dalriadans Fergus Mor and his son Domangart, as well as the Pictish king Nechton.  As Nechton's 'son' is called Cyledyr, a Welsh personification of the Irish spelling for Kildare, we know that this is the Nechton who was associated with Abernethy and its Dark Age St. Brighid establishment.  What, then, of Gwythyr/Victor?

Victor is here probably a personification of the Roman fort of Victoria.  While the location of the site is still being debated, with several of the Gask Ridge forts being proposed, Rivet and Smith (see the entry in their THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN) are still probably right in choosing the Inchtuthil legionary fortress.[1]  The Twentieth Legion Victrix ('Victorious') garrisoned the fort and we must presume the name of the place was derived from that of the legion.

And Gwyn son of Nudd?  Why would he be in Highland Scotland at Victoria with Dalriadans and Picts?

Because his Irish, or in this case, Scottish, counterpart Finn ( = Fingal) mac Cool, supposedly resided in Glencoe and was buried at Killin.  Other stories put Finn, his son Ossian and the Fenians in this part of this part of Scotland.  There is, for example, an Ossian's Stone near the Fendoch Roman fort.  If we assume that these traditions were flourishing when CULHWCH AND OLWEN was written, then we have our 'Gwyn' near Inchtuthil and right between the Abernethy Picts and the Dalriadans.

I would hastily add, however, that the Hill of Finavon ('White Water') hillfort is not far to the north of Dunnichen, the Fort of Nechtan.  It may be that the former place-name came to be associated with Gwyn/Finn. 

THE PROBLEM OF PEN SON OF NETHAWC IN THE FAR NORTH

As I feel fairly confident that the identities of Victor and Gwyn as I have outlined them above are correct.  If so, this would seem to create a problem in regards to my theory that the Uther Pen, father of Arthur, who fights with Gwythur in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN is the Pen son of Nethawc who fights for Gwythyr in CULHWCH AND OLWEN.  For it is improbable, if not entirely impossible, that the name Arthur, indisputably from Roman Latin Artorius, would have been given to a son of Nechton of Abernethy.  Instead, the name Arthur clearly belongs to Northern England and southern Scotland, where we find all the Arthurian battles and the Arthurian sites on Hadrian's Wall.

So how do we account for the discrepancy?

In the same way we account for Uther Pen's relocation to Tintagel in Cornwall.  I've shown in a previous post that either Tintagel or nearby Hartland Point was the Classical period Promontory of Herakles.  The very popular Saint Nechtan belonged to Hartland Point.  Thus Uther Pen son of Nethawc (the diminutive of Nechton/Nechtan) was transferred in late legend (Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source) from the North to the South.

It is quite conceivable, therefore, that the opposite had also occurred.  That is, Pen son of  Neithon/Neidaon/Nethawc (itself perhaps a corruption of Nudd Hael, according to authorities like Rachel Bromwich) son of Senyllt Liberalis of the Yarrow Stone in the Scottish Lowlands was wrongly associated with Nechton of Abernethy.  We then have Uther Pen fighting for Victor, i.e. at Victoria/Inchtuthil, against Finn/Fingal/Gwyn.  

The various Nechtons were further confused in Welsh tradition.  One of them was genealogically linked with the Kings of Strathclyde.  But, the origin of the name Arthur with the Dark Age inheritors of the Roman period Dumnonii tribe makes little sense.  In fact, we are very hard-pressed to explain the use of the name by chieftains ruling from the Clyde. The suggestion has been made in the past that Arthur was relocated from the Dumnonii in the North to those of the South, whose territory included Cornwall of Tintagel fame.  Yet we really need no more than the name of Arthur's grandfather and the presence of St. Nechtan near Tintagel to justify the geographical shift.

[1]  NOTE that this is NOT Arthur's City of the Legion battle.  This last is certainly York, the base of the 2nd century Lucius Artorius Castus, Arthur's namesake.  The inclusion of his father Uther Pen in a purely mythological battle in the far North, in a place where he did not even belong in a historical sense, should not be allowed to encourage those Arthurian theorists who prefer to put Arthur mostly if not entirely north of the Antonine Wall.