WHY SAWYL BENISEL IS LISTED BETWEEN WELSH KINGDOMS IN THE HARLEIAN GENEALOGIES

Wales from Koch (Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia)

Something odd happens in the earliest Welsh genealogies.  Here, for example, is a section from the Harleian:

Dunoding
[C]uhelm map Bleydiud map Caratauc map Iouanaul map Eiciaun map Brochmail map Ebiau[n] map Popdelgu map Popgen map Isaac map Ebiau[n] map Mouric map Dinacat map Ebiau[n] map Dunaut map Cuneda.

Meirionydd
[C]inan map Brochmail map Iutnimet map Egeniud map Brocmail map Sualda map Iudris map Gueinoth map Glitnoth map Guurgint barmbtruch map Gatgulart map Meriaun [map Typiaun] map Cuneda.
[C]atguallaun liu map Guitcun map Samuil pennissel map Pappo post Priten map Ceneu map Gyl [Coyl] hen.

Rhufoniog?
[?I]mor map Moriud map Ædan map Mor map Brechiaul.

Here's the odd thing: Samuil pennissel and his 'branch' aren't assigned anywhere.  Yet he is sandwiched between the Welsh kingdoms of Meirionydd and Rhufoniog.  Prior to those two kingdoms come Dunoding ("people of Dunawd") in Wales.  When you look on the map of early Wales, you see that Dunoding falls between Meirionydd and Rhufoniog.

Now, Samuil is made the brother of a Dunod!  And we know there was this regio Dunutinga somewhere in northwestern England.   So what seems to have happened here in the Harleian MS. is that the two Dunodings were confused.  This possibility adequately explains why Samuil/Sawyl and his pedigree were situated between Rhufoniog and Meirionydd.

The nothern Regio Dunutinga has routinely been identified with Dentdale, but the linguistics don't seem to work.  As explained by Brythonic place-name expert Alan James (personal communication):

"With regard to Dent, it's depressing how the same old rubbish keeps being trotted out. In BLITON I deal with it thus: Discussion of this place-name has ... been persistently muddled by the identification of this place with the lands in regione Dunutinga granted to Ripon according to VW17, and associated in turn with the semi-legendary chieftain Dunawd (< *Dönǭd < Donātus, see Morris (1973) p. 214n4). Early forms give no support for this identification; whatever the correct etymology for Dent, it certainly has nothing to do with Dunawd. If the *regio Dunutinga was around Dent, the name in VW is very garbled. If, on the other hand, the *Dunutingas were named after any Dunawd, their regio was not Dent.

Indeed, evidently highly intelligent, expert historians who are not historical linguists seem to have a problem with the simple point, that the Dunutingas may well be the descendants of Dunod, or they could be garbled *Dinetingas, people of Dinet, Dent, but they cannot be both! Dinet can't be equated with or derived from Dunod.

Myself I think they were descendants of some Dunod, but we can't know whether he was the 'famous' one, nor can we know where their regio was."

I'm convinced James is right here: Dentdale is not regio Dunutinga.  But if not, then where is the latter place?

James concludes "somewhere in the general area of Craven, Bowland, the Howgills, Mallerstang Common is a plausible guess, but again no more than that."

If we go to the land grants given to Ripon -

https://books.google.com/books?id=k9cGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=%22ripon%22%2B%22donatus%22&source=bl&ots=s78lGSBmqc&sig=ACfU3U3Afx4XWddYsYaWVfDRxA_739C4pA&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjX593Svd7nAhXPJTQIHYdxC8gQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=rippel&f=false

- we find the following useful information:

Gaedyne is Yeadon, and Caetlaevum is Catlow.  

Note that Amounderness is intruded into later lists of these places, as is the Mersey district (Marchesiae).  Alan James assures me that

"Amounderness was north of the Ribble: the Amounderness Hundred comprised the lands north of the Ribble up to the Cocker, beyond Lancaster, i.e. the Fylde (OE gefilde 'plain'), and east to the fells and the border with YWR. Samlesbury, south of the Ribble, was in the Hundred, and former Northumbrian 'shire', of Blackburn. Small portions north of the Ribble (notably Ribchester) were later annexed to Blackburn Hundred, but Amounderness never extended south of the Ribble."

But must we abandon Dentdale entirely?  I don't think so.

From Melville Richards' Early Welsh Territorial Suffixes:

"DUNODING [Dunawd] a cantref which was later divided into Eifionydd and Ardudwy. Dunawd was a son of Cunedda (dunaut Cy ix 183). Cf. 1283 'Cantredo de Dinnedin qui habet duas commotas videlicet Euyonith et Hardidew' LW 155. See G s.n. Dinoding, HW i 238."

So, the *Dinetingas, people of Dinet, Dent, could well derive from an earlier Dunutinga/Dunoding, it seems to me. If we can have forms like Dinnedin for Dunoding, I don't see any reason why we can't allow Dentdale to be a Dunoding of the North.

Such an identification for the land of Dunawd, reputed brother of Sawyl, lends credence to the idea that Sawyl himself ruled from the Ribble.

Still, we have a problem, best explained by Alan James:

"... even if Dinet was a form of the personal name, it can't also be a place name. Either they were the people of a place called Dinet, or of a guy called Dinet. If a place were named after a guy named Dinet, it wouldn't just be Dinet."

However, we could propose that something like this happened: we begin with a Cumbric name like afon (if the river) or dol (if the dale) or whatever, followed by Dunawd. This would be standard place-naming formula.  You can find Caer Dunod, etc., in Wales, for example.

We then have the English adding to Dunawd their own -inga as a designation for the people who live in this Dunawd place or who descend from the said Dunawd.

This would not change the name of the place.  It would merely designate the inhabitants of the place in the terms of the land grant.

I asked Alan James if this would this satisfy the requirements of Dent being from Dunawd.  He responded:

"I suppose if the place were something like *Cair Dunod, and the English speakers picked up the idea that Dunod was the eponymous ancestor or hero figure of the local Britons, they might have called those people Dunodingas. But then the generic was forgotten, and the place-name became Dinet."

Map Showing the Sources of the Dent and Ribble