BANNA AND ARTHUR'S CORNWALL: A SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP

Birdoswald Roman Fort

An odd coincidence here - or maybe not!

The Banna or Birdoswald Roman fort derives from a British word meaning "horn" or "peak", which according to David J. Breeze (in HANDBOOK TO THE ROMAN WALL, 14TH Edition) is "an appropriate name for this fort sitting on its promontory."

As it happens, Cornwall, where Arthur is often placed in Welsh and Galfridian tradition, derives from another Celtic word that also means 'horn.'

horn *korno-, SEMANTIC CLASS: body, Early Irish corn ‘drinking horn’, Scottish Gaelic còrn ‘drinking horn’, Welsh corn ‘horn, antler, tentacle, antenna; corn, callus’, Cornish corn (Old Cornish), korn ‘horn’, Breton corn ‘(drinking) horn’

horn *bennā-, SEMANTIC CLASS: body, Gaulish Bēnacos, -benna ‘summit (?)’, Early Irish benn ‘horn, summit’, Scottish Gaelic beann ‘top, horn, peak’, Welsh ban ‘top, tip, point, summit, lord, peak, mountain, height; horn; corner, part, region, place; arm, branch, beam; verse, stanza’, Breton bann ‘height, summit; rising, high’

An excellent discussion of both the name Cornwall and Banna can be found in the following links, which contain material excerpted from Rivet and Smith's THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN:

http://marikavel.org/personnes/cornovii1/accueil.htm 

http://marikavel.org/angleterre/birdoswald/accueil.htm

While we need not seek justification for the relocating of Arthur from the North to the South in legend and romance, I do find the semantic relationship that exists between the place-names Banna and Cornwall to be intriguing, if not compelling.  If I'm right about Arthur's father belonging at Banna, 'the Horn', and he and his son are situated in story in 'the Horn' that is Cornwall, we may have in this match of meanings at least a partial reason why such a migration of the Arthurian tale took place.