NOTE: Auchter of Auchter Water is not from uachdar... The following is from place-name expert Peter Drummond (The Scottish Place-Name Society):
"You will be familiar with W J Watson’s few observations on Nechtan in place-names (CPNS p.239). I do not believe Cambusnethan contains that personal name - the old forms lack the letter c in the medial position.
The first record of Auchter Water is: ethkar 1193 x 1210 Arbroath Liber i no. 99 ; which may reflect Gaelic àth carr, 'ford or causeway at the bog’, or it may be a Brittonic name of puzzling meaning.
The first record of Auchterhead Moor is Athkarmour 1478, and of Auchterhead 1590s Pont."
The Cambusnethan Stone
THE NECTAN CONNECTION
My readers will be well aware of my quandary when it comes to establishing a genuine genealogical link for Arthur. Unless one is willing to conjure such (which I have done on more than one occasion), we have only two options. The first is highly undesirable: remain faithful to the bogus pedigree thrust upon the hero by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The second would appear to be problematic, until we look at it a bit more closely. I'm talking, of course, about my proposal to identify Uther Pen, who in the elegy fights on the side of Gwythur, with Pen son of Nethawc (= Nectan), who fights for the same champion in CULHWCH AND OLWEN.
In past blog posts, I investigated this possible identification from various angles. The two most important pieces I wrote on the subject can be found at the following URLs:
Penn son of Nethawc in CULHWCH AND OLWEN
What I keep coming back to is the remarkable correspondence between the begetting of Mongan by Manannan mac Lir (M. 'son of the Sea') and the begetting of Arthur by Uther Pen/Pen son of Nethawc/Nectan. Nectan is the cognate of Latin Neptune, the sea god. And Nectan is not only found in the Strathclyde of the Northern Dumnonii tribe, but in the Cornwall of the Southern Dumnonii. St. Nectan belonged to Hartland Point not far from Tintagel, and some say also at Trethevy next to Tintagel.[1] Most scholars believe Hartland Point to the be Promontory of Herakles of the Classical sources, although a case could also be made for the headland of Tintagel. The birth story of Arthur not only parallels that of the Irish Mongan, but also that of the Greek Herakles.
What would it take for us to accept Pen son of Nethawc of Strathclyde as the father of Arthur?
ARTHUR WAS NOT A KING
Well, for starters, we have to let go of the idea that Arthur was a king who should be found in a royal genealogy. I have been guilty for years of trying to make this work. But the truth is, until Geoffrey of Monmouth's story Arthur is not represented as a king. If he were not a king who succeeded another king, we would not expect to find him in any of the early Welsh genealogies. Looking for him there would be exercise in futility. That we all want him to be a king does not make it so. Granted, he may have been of a princely line, perishing before he could begin to rule. Were this to have happened, he would have been omitted from a genealogy whose express purpose was to show only the line of succession for a kingdom.
Nectan himself is a nebulous figure. He may have been a god, specifically a river deity. I have discussed the head of St. Nechtan of Hartland as being symbolic of the source of a stream. For comparison, the Irish god Nechtain was associated with the sacred Well of Segais. So the Nethawc said to be Uther Pen's father may simply have designated Pen as a warrior who came from the area of the Nethan Water or Cambusnethan in Strathclyde. Or, given the motif of Nectan of Cornwall carrying his severed head back to create the source of the stream, Uther Pen could originally have been not the 'Terrible Chieftain' but, literally, the 'Terrible Head'. In this latter case, the meaning of the term was at some point misinterpreted and then transformed into the son of Nectan, rather than the head of Nectan.
The motif of some part of a man becoming the source of a stream is found also in that of the story of Amr (or Amhar), son of Arthur. Arthur is said to have killed this son and to have buried him at Llygad Amr, 'the eye of Amr', the source of the river Gamber in Herefordshire. Another son, Llacheu, is found as the stream Lechou near Caerlean (see P.C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY). These streams make well hearken back to Nechtan's stream and show that this mythological element became attached to Arthur's descendants. In other words, two deified streams came to be referred to as his sons.
I've also pointed out before that Auchterhead, the name of the source of the Auchter Water, which is hard by Cambusnethan and in Cambusnethan parish, can be viewed as an exact hybrid Gaelic-English rendering of the Welsh Uther Pen. [Uther is said to be from an earlier British form of Irish uachtar, meaning 'high, lofty.'] If Uther Pen is to be seen as a personalized place-name, then we would look for Arthur's birthplace on the Auchter near Cambusnethan. English -head may be presumed to have replaced an earlier Gaelic ceann, the cognate of Welsh pen.
River Nethan, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
What I like about this schema is that we can both have our Northern Arthur, and account for the Southern one. In addition, we can readily account for why the Dalriadans - who intermarried with the Strathclyde Britons - would have named one of their own royal sons after a Dumnonian champion. The Arthur of Dyfed can be explained in the same way, as Dyfed was founded by the Irish Deisi. In their attempt to make themselves more British, the Irish naturally chose to use the name Arthur precisely because it had been made so famous among the Britons of the previous generation.
I will emphasize once again that after a couple of decades of intensive Arthurian research I've not been able to come up with an acceptable genealogy for Arthur outside of that provided for us by the Galfridian tradition. I am, of course, leaving out later known family trees of the Dyfed and Dalriadan Arthurs, as well as that preserved in a corrupt Triad concerning Arthur Penuchel. While I can't say for certain that Pen son of Nethawc warrior of Gwythyr = Uther Pen warrior of Gwythur, I feel that the argument in favor of this identification is fairly strong.
Accepting the identification comes with a heavy price, however. My cherished tie with Banna/Birdoswald and Camboglanna/Castlesteads in the Irthing Valley of the People of the Bear is suddenly threatened. While Arthur could certainly have fought and died at Camboglanna, we are hard-pressed to defend his hypothetical burial at Aballava/Avalana/"Avalon"/Burgh-By-Sands. Congabata as the prototypical grail Castle also loses its luster. And while it is wildly romantic to make Arthur a ruler at Uxellodunum/Stanwix, the largest Roman cavalry fort in all of Britain, if he was of Dumnonian descent we can only maintain this grand vision if we make him into someone who had risen to a position over which he had no hereditary right.
Yet if the best theory is the one that fits the most facts, and another theory is wanting in that regard, we must be willing to modify or abandon that which is less valid.
SLAYING THE DRAGON
In passing, I would add that we must, with great reluctance, relinquish our grip on Uther's draco standard and his dragon-comet as well. Why? Because it is obvious that the story of the comet and the standard fashioned from its likeness is a creation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In Welsh poetry, dragon is used as a metaphor for warrior, hero, war leader, chieftain, prince (see the GPC). According to Rachel Bromwich, Pendragon means either 'Chief Warrior' or 'Chief of Warriors.' Welsh scholars are unified in accepting this interpretation of Pendragon. They do not hold to the notion that, as Geoffrey claims, the epithet should mean "[the] dragon's head." My translation of a key section of the Uther elegy poem shows that he was "like a cannwyll in the gloom", cannwyll meaning, literally, candle or luminary, with a transfr. sende of star, sun, moon or lamp and a fig. sense of leader or hero.[2] The latter meaning matches a previous line of the poem where Uther is called "a leader in darkness." It is likely that Geoffrey chose to interpret cannwyll as 'star' and so imaginatively brought into existence the dragon-comet.
No one has questioned why Geoffrey did not avail himself of the preexisting tradition of the red dragon of Dinas Emrys, which is associated with Ambrosius, the supposed brother of Uther. This particular dragon is not emblematic of a Roman dragon standard - something that I have shown in my extensive treatment of the story of the Dinas Emrys serpents. When Geoffrey decided to identify Merlin (the Northern Myrddin) with Ambrosius of Dinas Emrys fame, he gave birth to a major dichotomy: on the one hand we had the military man Ambrosius, and on the other Merlin Ambrosius. As only the latter could now be associated with the two serpents of Dinas Emrys, the author was free to use a different dragon entirely for the former.
Finally, by Late Imperial times, the draco was used throughout the Roman army. It was not specific to this or that unit. So to concentrate one's search for Uther's dragon on a unit whose remote ancestors may have played a role in introducing the draco to the Roman military misses the point entirely. And that point, simply put, is this: there is no evidence in our written sources - including the Galfridian - to support the contention that his draco was directly derivative of Sarmatians, Dacians, etc.
Finally, by Late Imperial times, the draco was used throughout the Roman army. It was not specific to this or that unit. So to concentrate one's search for Uther's dragon on a unit whose remote ancestors may have played a role in introducing the draco to the Roman military misses the point entirely. And that point, simply put, is this: there is no evidence in our written sources - including the Galfridian - to support the contention that his draco was directly derivative of Sarmatians, Dacians, etc.
I've spilled a lot of ink on Geoffrey's standard and comet, but now have come to believe that holding to the Galfridain tradition in this context is a grave mistake. It leads one to chase after Dacians or Sarmatians or whatever as if they were manifestations of the fabulous Questing Beast.
For many years now I've tried to glean something of historical value from the pages of Geoffrey's HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN. Ironically, the more I try to do so, the more convinced I become that there is nothing whatsoever contained in his section on Arthur that is useful to the historian. While we do, beyond doubt, owe to him to the astounding phenomenon that is the fictional Arthur, in my opinion to continue to look towards him as an authority whose narrative demands to be proven, rather than disproven, is a huge mistake. In fact, I will go one step further and make a really bold statement: I cannot find one iota of fact in the Galdfridian Arthurian tradition.
For many years now I've tried to glean something of historical value from the pages of Geoffrey's HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN. Ironically, the more I try to do so, the more convinced I become that there is nothing whatsoever contained in his section on Arthur that is useful to the historian. While we do, beyond doubt, owe to him to the astounding phenomenon that is the fictional Arthur, in my opinion to continue to look towards him as an authority whose narrative demands to be proven, rather than disproven, is a huge mistake. In fact, I will go one step further and make a really bold statement: I cannot find one iota of fact in the Galdfridian Arthurian tradition.
A DUMNONIAN ARTHUR AND THE ARTHURIAN BATTLES
If Arthur were born between the Nethan Water and Cambusnethan in Strathclyde, how, if at all, does such a point of origin influence the locations of the Arthurian battle sites?
Well, it need not change them at all. The Arthur I'm envisioning here is, simply put, a mercenary captain. He would have gone to serve a lord or lords who were battling the Saxons in the east. Over time, he rose to become exactly what the HISTORIA BRITTONUM refers to him as: a leader of battles who commanded the unified forces of the British kings of the North. He may have had no base of operations, merely going where he was needed, when he was needed.
His death at Camboglanna, in this context, suggests something other than what I once though might be the case. As a Dumnonian, he may have been opposed to whatever successor state lay to the south in the ancient tribal territory of the Novantae. The Welsh sources make Medraut a descendant of the Anavionenses, whose territory formed the nucleus of Rheged. I've remarked before that Rheged does not come upon the scene until after the demise of Arthur. It may be that after fighting Saxons in the east, Arthur the Dumonian was faced with the threat of an ascendant Rheged in the south and west.
THE NAME ARTHUR IN STRATHCLYDE
One of my reasons for situating Arthur on Hadrian's Wall was because I could rather easily account for the name in that region. After all, the 2nd century Lucius Artorious Castus was based at York and would have operated along the Wall. Furthermore, there are indications in the Welsh sources that the royal house of York was related to princes along the Wall, and a corrupt Triad even makes a certain Arthur Penuchel the son of Eliffer of York.
We loose this connection if we opt for an Arthur born in Strathclyde. And, indeed, it is hard to account for why a man in Strathclyde of the 5th century would have been thus named.
On the other hand, it has always been difficult if not impossible to explain why the name Arthur was borrowed by the Dalriadans of the following generation had they not acquired it through marriage ties with the Strathclyde Britons. Despite the possible widespread fame of an Arthur based on Hadrian's Wall, as such an Arthur was not Dumnonian and we would have a very hard time demonstrating how his name came to be in Dalriada.
STRATHCLYDE DYNASTY FROM LLYDAW?
It will be recalled that according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Uther Pendragon came from Llydaw. Interestingly enough, there is an tradition which seems to claim that the founder of the Northern Dumonian kingdom came from the same place. The following note is lifted from https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/12600759/Royal_succession_and_kingship_among_the_Picts.pdf:
Llydaw may be the correct reading here. Why? Because not only were there Dumnonii tribes in North and South Britain, there was a Domnonée kingdom in northern Brittany/Llydaw. Domnonée was established by Dumnonians from southwestern England.
AN ANCESTRY SUPPRESSED?
If I'm right about Arthur's descent from the Northern Dumnonii, then it is obvious the Welsh tradition regarding his ancestry was suppressed early on in favor of the immediately popular and universally accepted one generated by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In fact, I would go so far as to say the problem scholars have detected and described in the CULHWCH AND OLWEN passage on Penn son of Nethawc may have been brought about when a copyist decided to strike the word 'Uther'. This would have been a conscious act designed to remove any ambiguity. An Uther Penn son of Nethawc would have represented an undesirable alternative to the prevailing view embodied in the HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.
THE PLACE-NAME CAMBUSNETHAN
Peter Drummond, who has worked extensively on Lanarkshire place-names, has kindly provided the following draft entry from his forthcoming volume of the Survey of Scottish Place-Names:
CAMBUSNETHAN CAU PS NS806553 1 E343 150m
? Camcachetheyn c.1116 Inquest of David
Cambusneithan 1159 RRS i
Kambusnaythan 1165 x1166 RRS ii no. 63
Camb<us>naithan 1185 x Kel. Lib. no. 272 [ecclesiam de Camb<us>naithan 1185 x Kel. Lib. no. 272 [Ralph de Clare, son of Ralph de Clare, by the consent and petition of Roger, his heir, has granted and by this, his present charter, established to Kelso Abbey the church of Cambusnethan (LAN) with everything justly pertaining to it, in free, pure and perpetual alms. Additionally, he granted to Kelso Abbey and to the church of Cambusnethan, the teinds, multure, and produce of his mills of Cambusnethan in free, pure and perpetual alms. Additionally, he grants Kelso Abbey the right to grind its grain in the mill first, before the lord or whoever else. However, the monks granted to Ralph the right to build a private chapel within his court as long as it does not damage or cause financial loss to the mother church. Ralph made these concessions for the soul of himself and of his ancestors and successors (POMS). [Camb<us>naithan throughout; Kamb<us>naythan rubric]
Kambusneythan 1189 RRS ii
Cambusneithan 1195 RRS ii
Cambnaithan 1185 x 1232 Kel. Lib. no 272
Cambusnethan 1315 x 1321 RMS i no. 79
Cambusnaythan 1329 ER i p.251
Cambusnathane 1391 RMS i no. 828
Kammesnethan 1539-40 referenced in Cowan (1983) Appendix Rentals of 1539 – 40i
Camnethan 1590s Pont 34 [Also, Camnethan moore]
Cambusnethan 1755 Roy
Camnethan Kirk 1816 Forrest [Also, Camnethan House at c. NS780530]
Cambusnethan 1864 OS 1st edn
Brit cam(b) / *cambas + *nejth OR G camus, ‘bend (of river)’ + ? saint’s name.
The NGR above is for the parish kirk beside which the 19th century settlement of Cambusnethan grew, the name later applying to a sizeable housing estate now incorporated within Wishaw town. The settlement name came initially from the parish name. The original parish church stood beside the Clyde on a wide meadow at a river meander near the border with DAZ (it was mapped by Roy as Old Kirk), at a place convenient for the landowner in Cambusnethan House but a long Sabbath trudge for many parishioners to this far south-west corner. The 1795 OSA correspondent the Reverend John Lockhart correctly jaloused that the first element was from G cam-uise (properly G camus) signifying a ‘bend of water’ (OSA vol. 12, p. 568). He opined that the final element in the name ‘seems to have been dedicated to’ St Nectan (op. cit.); while the Reverend Archibald Livingstone some 50 years later was a little less definite, writing it is ‘said to have been dedicated’ to the saint (NSA vol 6, p. 608). This presumably was the saint now referred to as St Nechtan, who is probably remembered in some Scottish place-names (e.g. Kilnaughton, Islay) but not – according to the website Saints in Scottish Place-Names – for this particular location. Watson (1926, 202) wrote that the name meant Neithon’s bend or bight, and – not very helpfully – ‘the name doubtless commemorates a Welsh [i.e. British] saint of that name’. Later (p. 330) he writes of a saint Nathalan (also Nothlan, Nethalen, Nachlan) – his connection to place-names in ABD is confirmed by the website above – and of whom Watson then wrote: ‘We may compare [with] the unknown saint of Cambusnethan in Lanarkshire’.
(There is a River Nethan entering the Clyde on the opposite bank, but it is upstream about 10km as the crow flies and more by the river’s meanders: its name according to Watson (1926, 210) derives from ‘an early Nectona, “pure one”’. James’ BLITON suggests the second element could be derived from an early *nejth, ‘washed, cleansed’.)
The variation in the spelling of the first element from cam to cambus is interesting – even the OS surveyors used the short form Camnethan frequently in the OSNB. Gaelic dictionaries have camus (Dwelly) or camas (MacLennan, Cox), deriving from OG camm and ScG cam, ‘crooked or bent’, but from an early stage in the 12thand 13th century names like this and Cambuslang (Camboslane 1292) manifested the medial letter b, which perhaps suggests that the Brit term *camb either influenced the name, or was indeed the original form. Taylor (PNF 3, 368) argues that Cambo in Fife may be from Pictish (a form of Brittonic) *cam(b) + -ōc, as an alternative to G cam. A similar feature underlies the name Cumbernauld, often locally pronounced without the b, and which derives from either Brit cömber + ïn + -alt or G comar + G an + G allt (Drummond 2014, 233), meaning ‘confluence of streams / steep slopes’. Cambusnethan is, likewise, often pronounced locally as /Cam’nethan/.
[1]
[2]
Before I begin discussing my new reading for a key passage of the poem, here are editor Marged Haycock’s notes on the two most important, but very troublesome lines in the relevant section:
6 a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell G emends am dwy > an Dwy(w) ‘our Lord’,
[1]
The association of St. Nectan with St. Nectan's Glen and Kieve at Trethevy next to Tintagel would appear to be a modern instance of pious fraud. See Ceri Houlbrook's "Saints, Poets, and Rubber Ducks: Crafting the Sacred at St Nectan’s Glen" (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0015587X.2016.1197593?journalCode=rfol20) and her book The Magic of Coin-Trees from Religion to Recreation: The Roots of a Ritual
However, Professor Nicholas Orme of The University of Exeter disagrees. He cited the preeminent Cornish place-name expert Professor Oliver J. Padel in this context, saying (in personal communication) that
"I have put all the Nectan evidence together in my book 'The Saints of Cornwall' (Oxford University Press 2000). Since then I have come across only one other reference to a cult of St Nectan - from memory - at Helston: that is in my anthology of 'Cornish Wills' published by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society.
As far as St Nectan's Kieve is concerned, it is first recorded fairly late (18th? century) as 'St Knighton's Kieve'. Of course the k may simply be 'speculative' influenced by 'knight'. 'Nighton' was a common form of Nectan so it looks likely that there was a chapel there. No such chapel is recorded, but the Exeter diocesan records for chapels disappear after 1455, so it is quite possible for such a chapel to have been built and licensed by the bishop of Exeter after that date. So I would say there is a likelihood of such a chapel having been founded, c.1455-1530. Nectan was one of the very few 'Celtic' saints who acquired a wider following than in one or two places. For unknown reasons his cult seems to have become more popular towards the end of the Middle Ages: it occurs at Newlyn East, ? Helston, Exeter Cathedral, and Cheddar as well as the original centre at Hartland. That would explain such a chapel, whereas if you came up with a speculative chapel of - say - St Kew or St Mabyn - I'd say 'unlikely'.
To summarize, then. All I can say is that a late medieval chapel, founded 1455-1530 and disused after 1538 when the Reformation came, is plausible, for the reasons I stated above. The site has become a votive centre, probably mainly during the 20th century but possibly - by a few local people - earlier. The area is complicated because there was also a documented chapel at Trethevy, but the Nectan one would have to be distinct from that. As there were hundreds of votive chapels in Cornwall by the end of the Middle Ages, that is quite possible."
To summarize, then. All I can say is that a late medieval chapel, founded 1455-1530 and disused after 1538 when the Reformation came, is plausible, for the reasons I stated above. The site has become a votive centre, probably mainly during the 20th century but possibly - by a few local people - earlier. The area is complicated because there was also a documented chapel at Trethevy, but the Nectan one would have to be distinct from that. As there were hundreds of votive chapels in Cornwall by the end of the Middle Ages, that is quite possible."
Before I begin discussing my new reading for a key passage of the poem, here are editor Marged Haycock’s notes on the two most important, but very troublesome lines in the relevant section:
6 a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell G emends am dwy > an Dwy(w) ‘our Lord’,
understood as the subject of 3sg. subjunct. rithwy ‘transform’ etc., but yn adwy
‘in the breach’ or yn ardwy ‘as a defence’ would give a more regular three
syllables in the central section. Kawell ‘basket, pannier; cradle; fish-trap; creel,
cage; quiver; belly, breast’ (GPC) seems unlikely, as do cowyll ‘maidenhood-fee;
clothing, covering’ (with G s.v. coŵyll), sawell ‘chimney, kiln’ (see on §4.246),
or nawell ‘nine times better’. Cannwyll is sometimes a rhyme partner for tywyll
(e.g. AP line 88 cannwyll yn tywyll; CC 18.13; R1056.15), and would yield full
rhyme. ‘May our Lord, the guiding/chief light, transform me’ is a possibility; or
(with yn adwy) ‘May the guiding/chief light (i.e. God) transform me in the
breach’. Or is pen kawell a basket to collect up the heads he cuts off (line 18)? If
Uthr is the speaker, is vb rithaw to be connected with his transformation through
disguise (see introduction)? Obscure.
7 eil kawyl yn ardu G emends kawyl > Sawyl, the personal name (from Samuelis
via *Safwyl). Sawyl Ben Uchel is named with Pasgen and Rhun as one of the
Three Arrogant Men, Triad 23, as a combative tyrant in Vita Cadoci (VSB 58);
and in CO 344-5. Samuil Pennissel in genealogies, EWGT 12 (later Benuchel),
Irish sources, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Sawyls include a son of
Llywarch, and the saint commemorated in Llansawel: see further TYP3 496,
WCD 581 and CO 104. Ardu ‘darkness, gloom; dark, dreadful (GPC), sometimes
collocated with afyrdwl ‘sad; sadness’ (see G, GPC).
And the lines under consideration follow…
Neu vi luossawc yn trydar:
It is I who commands hosts in battle:
ny pheidwn rwg deu lu heb wyar.
I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.
Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:
It’s I who’s styled ‘Armed in Blue’:
vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.
my ferocity snared my enemy.
5 Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:
It is I who’s a leader in darkness:
a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.
. . . . .
Neu vi eil Sawyl5 yn ardu:
It’s I who’s a second Sawyl in the gloom.
ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu:
I’d not give up without bloodshed [the fight] between two forces.
Kawell of Line 6 is ‘creel, fishing basket.’ No one has been able to make any sense of pen kawell. I once thought it might be a place-name, but my search for such failed to yield any significant site or notable feature. However, Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source may have guessed the same thing, as he placed Uther’s transformation into Gorlois at the headland of Tintagel. Welsh pen is frequently used of promontories. A headland of the fish basket is not an unreasonable construction for a place-name. However, we would expect Pen Cored or similar (“Headland of the Fish-Weir”) instead. A Pen Kawell may have been called such because the headland itself resembled a basket, or because fish-baskets had to be carried up to or over it.
Taken literally, pen kawell is either ‘basket-head’ (a not very flattering description or nickname!), “chief basket” or “Chief of the Basket.” I once thought this last could be a designation for either Taliesin himself, who transforms from Gwion Bach while inside a hide-covered basket or coracle, or it could be a reference to Gwyddno Garanhair, who not only owned the weir in which Taliesin’s coracle became trapped, but who also possessed a magical mwys, ‘hamper, basket’ (= cawell, according to the GPC). However, in the Taliesin story the hero is placed not in a cawell, but in either a ‘korwgyl ne vol kroen’, i.e. a coracle or a skin bag. Neither is the same thing as a cawell.
Fortunately, there is a solution to the problem posed by this line. Welsh has both cawell and cafell. These words come from Latin cauella. Here is cafell in the GPC:
cafell1
[amr. ar cawell, bnth. Llad. Diw. cauella, cf. cafod, cawod]
eb. ll. cafellau, cafelloedd.
a Cysegr, teml, cangell, côr eglwys, cell, siambr:
sanctuary, temple, chancel, choir, cell, chamber.
I suggest that kawell is here a slight error for kafell. Thus ‘pen kawell’ should be read ‘chief of the sanctuary/temple’, a perfect poetic designation for God. Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales agrees that the meaning here would better fit cafell than cawell: "As cawell and cafell are phonological variants of the same word, you could easily make a case that they originally had the same semantic range."
Sawyl in Line 7 is an incorrect emendation. Instead, cannwyll works very nicely here, matching “the leader in darkness” of line 5. Haycock had suggested can(n)wyl(l) for the Pen Kawell line, but just as kawell cannot come from the Welsh word for horse (cafal, ceffyl; information courtesy Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales), nor can it represent cannwyll. Cannwyll can mean both luminary as well as (metaphorically) leader. Presumably, Uther was a 'second luminary' in the sense that God was the first. Or he is referring to himself as opposed to the dragon-star itself.
Dr. Simon Rodway has informed me that cawyl could represent an error for cannwyll: "Yes, that’s possible. A copyist might have missed an n-suspension over the a, and single n for double nn is quite common in Middle Welsh MSS."
Dr. Simon Rodway has informed me that cawyl could represent an error for cannwyll: "Yes, that’s possible. A copyist might have missed an n-suspension over the a, and single n for double nn is quite common in Middle Welsh MSS."
From the GPC:
cannwyll
[bnth. Llad. Diw. cantēla < candēla, H. Grn. cantuil, Llyd. C. cantoell, Gwydd. coinneal]
eb. ll. canhwyllau.
a Darn silindraidd o wêr neu gŵyr wedi ei weithio o gwmpas pabwyryn ac a ddefnyddir i roi golau, yn dros. am seren, haul, lloer, llusern, lamp, &c.; yn ffig. am oleuni, disgleirdeb, cyfarwyddyd, arweiniad, arweinydd, arwr, y pennaf, y rhagoraf, &c.:
candle, luminary, transf. of star, sun, moon, lamp; fig. of light, brightness, instruction, leader, hero, choicest or best of anything.
The entire portion of the poem, if I’ve rendered it correctly, should then read as follows:
It is I who commands hosts in battle:
I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.
It’s I who’s called the very blue:
my ferocity snared my enemy.
It is I who’s a leader in darkness:
Our God, Chief of the Sanctuary, transforms me.
It’s I who’s like ['eil' here means like/similar to, not 'second'] a candle/lamp/leader in the gloom:
I’d not give up fighting without bloodshed between two forces.
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