Shadows in the Mist: The Quest for a Historical King Arthur: THE DISCOVERY OF UTHER PENDRAGON'S MOUNT DAMEN BATTLE SITE

Map of the Kingdom of Elmet (from Koch), Showing

Location of Mount Damen

Quite some time ago, I came to the conclusion that Damems near Keighley was the site of Uther Pendragon's Mount Damen battle:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/09/damems-confirmed-as-site-of-uthers.html

Unfortunately, I had missed a nearby site that, as it turns out, may be a clue to the location of the real Mount Damen.

As I always do when completing a phase of research, I double-check all my findings. Then I double-check methods that went into producing those findings. In the past, this process, though tiresome and time-consuming, helps me avoid passing along a great many errors to my readers.

I had once settled on Damen as Geoffrey of Monmouth's attempt at the Welsh word tomen/domen, which could mean a mound or castle motte. If we go with this instead of the late place-name Damems, then we find Wingate Hill on the Cock Beck. Wingate Hill was an important English site, and was on the Roman road from York. See http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10777/1/ImpactAndChange.pdf. Thus the Wingates at the head of Chochem description for Mount Damen's location would seem to fit perfectly.

Except for one major problem! Geoffrey of Monmouth describes Mount Damen as being very steep, with jagged rocks well suited to be the lairs of wild animals. This portrayal does not fit either Damems or Wingate Hill on the Cock Beck.

Wingate is, however, the place-name that points us in the right direction to find Damen. The name is from something like Windegatum or Windegat and means 'Gate for the Wind' or 'pass where the wind drives through' (see Ekwall). And there is a Windygates at The Roaches, Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks near the Roman road in Staffordshire. This remarkable rock formation is close to the River Dane, which anciently was Dauen, from a Welsh Dafn. As u/w/v can become m fairly easily, I would propose that Damen = Dauen.

The Roaches were within the parish of Leekfrith, whose borders were the River Dane and its tributary the Black Brook (shown in the upper right quadrant of the map posted below). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leekfrith.

Geoffrey of Monmouth first mentions Gorlois (a name he got from the gorlassar epithet applied to Uther in the Welsh MARWNAT VTHYR PEN) in the context of Mount Damen. I've always wondered why he did so. The most obvious explanation is that he found it necessary to introduce Gorlois as a warrior chieftain serving under Uther, whose council was decisive in bringing about the victory at Mt. Damen. As Damen was a prelude to the whole Igerna episode, I didn't feel as if any other explanation was necessary.

However, gorlassar means, literally, the 'very blue.' Right along the Ramshaw Rocks is BLUE HILLS

BLUE HILLS 1 mile north of Upper Hulme (SK 0162). blew-Hills 1686 Plot 98, Blue Hill 1747Bowen, Blue Hills 1842 O. S. Perhaps from ME blew 'blue', but also'dark coloured, variegated',perhaps here `the dark or variegated hills', or from the streams coloured by coal deposits mined here from at least the early 15th century, as suggested in VCH VII 33. Or possibly from Northern dialect blae `cheerless, cold, exposed' (VEPN I 109), perhaps influenced by ME blou 'blast of wind':the gritstone hills here are particularly exposed and windswept. See also PN Ch 111145.

[https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33564787.pdf]

Ramshaw contains as its second element Old English scaga, 'a copse, a grove, a small wood', which may well answer for Geoffrey of Monmouth's hazel wood on Mount Damen.