DINAS EMRYS BEFORE VORTIGERN AND AMBROSIUS:THE FORT OF EDERN, FATHER OF CUNEDDA?

Dinas Emrys

I've already made a case for the Emrys or Ambrosius of Dinas Emrys being an imported conflation of St. Ambrose and his father.  The tale of his interaction with Vortigern at the hillfort in Eryri (modern Snowdonia) is a localized folk version of St. Ambrosius's and Magnus Maximus's (Welsh Macsen Wledig) dealings at Aquileia - with both locations wrongly be related to words for 'eagle.'  

Ambrosius, meaning 'the divine or immortal one', also got inextricably bound up with the god Lleu/Lleuelys, the Lord of Gwynedd in early Welsh tradition.  And then Geoffrey of Monmouth added Merlin/Myrddin to the mix.

But there may be even more to the story than this!

In Gildas, we are told Ambrosius's parents both wore the purple.  By the time we get to Nennius, Ambrosius's father is said to have been a Roman consul.  Now, Roman consuls were distinguished by their wearing of the toga praetexta, an off-white toga with a broad purple border (see  https://www.unrv.com/clothing.php#:~:targetText=Toga%20Picta%20Was%20a%20special,type%20during%20many%20state%20occasions). 

I've also argued that western Wales was not "given" to Ambrosius, but to Cunedda. It has been my view that Cunedda first ruled from Caernarfon/Segontium, not from Aberffraw on Anglesey.  However, there may be a way to actually put him at Dinas Emrys.

Cunedda's father (in the British pedigree; see  https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/genealogies.html) was one Aeternus, modern Welsh Edern.  His grandfather was Patern (Padarn) Pesrut (Beisrudd).  Pesrut means '[of the] Red Tunic.'  Paternus, of course (see http://archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wordz.pl?keyword=paternus), means -

patern.us            ADJ    1 1 NOM S M POS           
paternus, paterna, paternum  ADJ   [XXXBX]
father's, paternal; ancestral;

Ambrosius itself, as we've seen, can mean 'immortal.'  Well, so can L. aeternus (see the listings in the Perseus Lewis and Short Dictionary here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=exact&lookup=aeternus&lang=la).  Thus what we have is an uncanny parallel between the purple-clad father of Ambrosius the Immortal and Padarn Beisrudd the purple-clad father of Edern the Immortal.

Padarn (from Paternus, itself from pater, 'father') Red-tunic  -  Father/consul in the purple
                                                   |                                                                   |
                                  Edern (from Aeternus)                          -   Emrys (from Ambrosius)

I would thus propose the following: that part of the reason Ambrosius (= St. Ambrose) was placed in story at Dinas Emrys was because he had been substituted for Edern, father of Cunedda.  And that before the hillfort was called Dinas Emrys, and certainly before it was called after the 'Fiery Pharaoh' that was Vortigern, it was the Fort of Edern.  

Cunedda himself is said to have had a son named Edern, who went on to found the northern Welsh kingdom of Edeirnion.

Edeirnion, Wales

If Dinas Emrys were originally 'Dinas Edern', what would that mean for Cunedda's settlement in or conquest of Gwynedd - and for the place of birth of his son, Ceredig/Arthur?

Well, according to head archaeologist Dr. David Hopewell of the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust (personal communication):

"I don’t think that there is any evidence that Dinas Emrys had anything to do with the Roman military. It was apparently occupied as a hillfort by the native population in the Romano-British period and subsequently as a high status side in the early medieval and medieval periods."

As it is unlikely Cunedda would have named a hillfort in Wales in honor of his father, I would propose that his father had preceded him as a mercenary or federate in northwestern Wales.  That he may have established himself as the lord of Dinas Emrys, and that it was sometime after this that his son came over from Drumanagh in Ireland.  That Cunedda succeeded his father at Dinas Emrys, in other words.  

But one thing looks to be fairly certain: if Edern is the name we should use for the Emrys fort, then it was Cunedda's father to whom to the place was granted by the high king of Wales.