gorlassar, kawell and kawyl: Was Uther's Real Name Samuel/Sawyl?

 Eli and Samuel by John Singleton Copley, 1780

I have treated of this portion of the Uther elegy in great detail elsewhere.  Here I merely wish to discuss my earlier preferred readings and to reconsider some alternatives.

What follows is taken from Marged Haycock's edition, translation and notes (LEGENDARY POEMS FROM THE BOOK OF TALIESIN):

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24 Marwnat Vthyr Pendragon
Book of Taliesin 71.6-72.8

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’: [3]

vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.
my ferocity snared my enemy.

Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:
It is I who’s a leader in darkness:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.
. . . . . [6]

Neu vi eil Sawyl yn ardu:
It’s I who’s a second Sawyl in the gloom: [7]

ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu.
I’d not give up without bloodshed [the fight] between two forces.

3 gorlassar Cf. PT V.28 Gorgoryawc gorlassawc gorlassar, rhyming with escar,
as here; again PT VIII.17 goryawc gorlassawc gorlassar. Both passages are
corrupt. PT 98 suggests ‘clad in blue-grey armour’ or ‘armed with blue-grey
weapons’, following G and GPC who derive it from glassar ‘sward, turf, sod’
rather than llassar ‘azure’, etc. (see GPC s.v. llasar), presumably because one
would expect *gorllasar. That may indeed have been present, with l representing
developed [ɬ]. Llassar is rhymed with casnar, Casnar (cf. line 10 casnur) in CBT
III 16.55, VII 52.14-5. On the personal names Llasar Llaes Gygnwyd, OIr
Lasa(i)r, calch llassar ‘lime of azure’, etc., see Patrick Sims-Williams, The Iron
House in Ireland, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 16 (Cambridge 2005), 11-
16; IIMWL 250-7.

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).

***

Comment 1:

gorlassar, of course, became Gorlois in Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictional history. Originally an epithet of Uther, it was made into a separate person whom Uther later transformed into in order to beget Arthur on Eigr/Igraine.

Comment 2:

This is a very difficult line, but I was able to satisfactorily demonstrate that kawell is here for kafell, 'a sanctuary, a temple', etc.  We would then have something like "May God, chief of the sanctuary, transform me."

Comment 3:

Sawyl is the emendation inherited by Haycock.  I had suggested instead cannwyll. "It's I who's a second (or "who's like a") candle/luminary in the gloom."  Cannwyll had a figurative meaning of 'sun, moon, star', and a metaphorical one of 'leader.'  This would seem to match perfectly Line 5's 'leader in the darkness.' In addition, were someone to assume the word here was supposed to mean star, then we would have a link to Geoffrey of Monmouth's dragon-star, which supposedly represented Uther himself.

However, if pen kawell is, indeed, 'chief of the sanctuary', then we are reminded of the Biblical sanctuary at Shiloh, in which Samuel received his calling.  Sawyl, the recommended correction for kawyl, is the Welsh form of the name Samuel.

When we look at this line in the context of the line of descent Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther in 'The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle' (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/eliwlad-flies-again-or-is-there-still.html), where Uther may well be a nickname for Sawyl Benisel, we might ask ourselves whether the presence of the name Sawyl in the elegy is more than a coincidence and should be preferred over my offering of cannwyll.

"It's I who's a second (or "who's like") Sawyl in the gloom."

NOTE:

Initially, I refused to get too excited about Uther calling himself a 'second Samuel' (the first, presumably, being the Biblical prophet of that name).  I mean, this was, after all, an emendation.  However, I asked Welsh language expert Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales about the authority who made this emendation - one that was accepted by Haycock herself.  Our discussion on this matter ran as follows:

"Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg, by John Lloyd-Jones

Cited several times by Marged Haycock in her edition of the Uther poem, and  she adopts many of his emendations.

A trustworthy, well-respected source, in your opinion?  Or is his work somewhat outdated or even obsolete?"

"It’s a very good piece of work, which I often use. It’s much more comprehensive than GPC [Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, 'Dictionary of the Welsh Language']."

Such an unqualified, professional academic opinion of Lloyd-Jones changed everything!

As for how the error could have occurred, Dr. Rodway suggested the following scenario:

"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another nearby word resulting in an error.  In this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'.  Was not an uncommon error, so quite plausible.  Also, kawell and kawyl are unlikely to be the same word.  The poets avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (v rare) it could be scribal error."