COROTICUS THE CRUEL TYRANT AND LITTLE FOX: FATHER OF ARTHUR?

[NOTE:  Since writing this piece I have produced the following blog posts of a related nature -
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/chapter-2-arthurs-ancestry-restoring.html and 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-birthplace-and-father-of-arthur.html.]

A British Fox

Sometimes, when I'm at an impasse in my Arthurian researches, I sit back and ask myself the question: "What have I overlooked?"

Having been forced to let go of my Eliwlad = Eilwlad theory, which allowed me to postulate that Arthur's father was Sawyl Benisel of the North, I found myself floundering a bit.  Upon some reflection I realized I had a choice.  Accept the theory I had worked so hard to formulate in my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY (shortly to be reissued) or revisit all the prior connections I had explored for Uther Pendragon. The last was a daunting prospect, yet I felt, in the end, that I had to go in that direction.

So that is what I did... fighting resistance the whole way.

As it turned out, I had, in fact, missed something.  Perhaps something crucial, although for now I'm merely treating it as an intellectual exercise.  [I have been warned by a dear friend and colleague to avoid "absolutes."]

My readers are kindly referred to this old post: https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/09/crudelisque-tyranni-and-uther-pendragon.html.  There I had noticed that Ceredig of Strathclyde was called in Latin 'crudelisque tyrannus,' a phrase which could easily have been rendered Uther Pendragon in the Welsh.  Ceredig's time was right for him to be Arthur's father.  In addition, as Strathclyde had been the tribal territory of the ancient Dumnonii of the North, I could finally account for why Uther and Arthur were placed in Cornwall: the latter was part of the kingdom of the Southern Dumnonii.  

The post actually got a lot of attention, although I dispensed with it shortly after it was composed. I did not feel I had enough to go on to propose Ceredig of Strathclyde as Arthur's father.

Now, having read the Coroticus story again - with a much more critical eye - something jumped right out at me. Ceredig (Coroticus) was turned into a vulpiculi or 'little fox.'  For details on this event, see https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39131222.pdf.

Vulpiculi is from (see Lewis and Short) -

vulpēcŭla , ae, f. dim. vulpes,

I.a little fox, Cic. N. D. 1, 31, 88; id. Off. 1, 13, 41; “Auct. Carm. Phil. 59: tum vulpecula evasit puteo,” Phaedr. 4, 9, 10.

Why might this be significant?  Because Uther Pendragon is given a son named Madog.  And Madog in Welsh means "fox."  For a good discussion of the name Madog, see https://www.academia.edu/10711279/Lynx_in_Continental_Celtic.  In brief, it breaks down thusly:

OW. madawg,W. madog m. 'a fox'(< Celt. Britt. *matakos)

I think the vulpiculi may show up in tradition because Ceredig's son and successor was named Cynuit/Cynwyd.  Superficially, this name could have been interpreted as containing the British components for dog/hound (*cuno-) and wood (*widu-) or wild (*weido-), respectfully.  In other words, Cynwyd may have been viewed metaphorically as a dog of the wood or a wild dog.  In Britain, there were only two such: the wolf and the fox. We might compare W. gwyddgi (GPC):

gwyddgi

[gŵydd3+ci]

eg. ll. gwyddgwn.

Ci gwyllt, blaidd; llwynog, cenau llwynog; siacal; yn ffig. milwr dewr:

•  wild dog, wolf; fox, fox-cub; jackal; fig. brave warrior. 

13g. A 821-2, ef llithyei wydgwn oe anghat.

Dchr. 14g. H 37b3, Gwytgwn coed colled ae porthei (Cynddelw).

id. 101a3, y wytgwn eu bod or wytgruc (Llywarch ap Llywelyn).

id. 110a1, samswn gwytgwn gogoned achaws.

1632 D, gwyddgwn, vulpeculæ, lupi.

1688 TJ, gwŷddgŵn, cenawon llwynog neu flaidd.

1722 Llst 189, gwyddgi, a dog-fox; a wolf; the nackal or lion’s hunter, p. gwyddgwn.

1773 W d.g. fox, wolf.

1800 P.

That a medieval author could mistranslate a name is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated that in the work of Gildas, where Cuneglasus is rendered 'tawny butcher.'  In reality, the name means 'Blue hound.'   And while some might object that W. cwn, 'hound', had only a positive connotation for the Celtic aristocratic and warrior elite, as the entire purpose of using wolves and such to denote Coroticus and his men (see below) doubtless sought to convey a pejorative description (after all, this was hagiography, not heroic poetry!), I don't find the use of Cynwyd in this sense at all unusual.

Cynwyd's etymology is actually entirely different, being derived from the following (Rivet and Smith):

"This remains uncertain. The long expositions of Williams and of Jackson in Britannia, I (1970), 71, should be studied. It is unfortunate that the name seems to have no analogues here or abroad; the Cunetes tribe of Spain provide a similarity of form, but they were probably Iberian (non-Celtic). The British name was *Cunetiu, and from this the name of the Wiltshire river, Kennet, is derived; the same may be assumed for several other rivers called Kennet and similar, including the Kent of Cumbria (older Kenet), and for the Cynwyd of Merioneth (Wales). Ravenna's Cunia and Cunis rivers are probably not relevant, being referable to Cenio. Whether the first element in Countisbury, the name of a Devon hill-fort, belongs here is doubtful; it was in an Old Welsh form (Asser) Arx Cynuit, and Jackson thinks this name related to *Cunetiu, but we seem not to have hill-fort names made from original water-names in other instances. Jackson dismisses the older notion of a Celtic *cuno- 'high' as non-existent, and a root in well-known *cuno- ' dog ' as most unlikely in a river-name; for the same reason he does not welcome Williarn's proposed root in the *ku-no- ' point, edge' of Pokorny, and rightly dismisses the consequential argument that in the present case the river might have taken its name from that of the settlement, for we have no eévidence that this occurred in Celtic times (though such back-formation is common later). The most recent discussion of the abundant Cuno- names, mostly personal names involving Cuno-'dog', is that of H. Birkhan in Germanen und Kelten.. . (Vienna, 1970), 345-79; he mentions British Cunetio (p. 348, note), a unique toponym, but without associating it with other Cuno- names. The name must be left unresolved."

Dr. Simon Rodway agrees with this assessment, saying "Cynwyd is from *Cun-e:t-, cf. the Romano-British place-name Cunetio, probably a cognate. The significance of the suffix is unclear."

A "little fox" might be presumed to be a 'dog of the wood'.  We then only need allow for a rather simple error of transmission, oral or otherwise, in which vulpiculi - originally an error for Cynwyd, Ceredig's son and successor - is replaced in the Welsh with Madog.

If this happened, in Madog son of Uther Pendragon we would have vulpecula/Cynwyd son of crudelisque tyrannus.  And that would mean, in turn, that Ceredig/Coroticus of Strathclyde was Arthur's father.

I can only say one thing for certain at this juncture: there does not appear to be another figure of Dark Age Britain whose name and/or epithet can be interpreted as Uther Pendragon and who also may have been given a son named Madog.  Coroticus lived at exactly the right time to be Arthur's father. And he is mentioned at the end of the Life of St. Patrick, which may account for why Arthur's story in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM comes right after that of the saint.

NOTE ON THE FOX TRANSFORMATION

The account of Coroticus' becoming a fox is worth investigating in more detail.

Muirchu's Life of St. Patrick I.29

I shall not pass over in silence a miraculous deed of Patrick's. News had been brought to him of a wicked act by a certain British king named Corictic, an ill-natured and cruel ruler. He had no equal as a persecutor and murderer of Christians. Patrick tried to call him back to the way of truth by a letter, but he scorned his salutary exhortations. When this was reported to Patrick, he prayed to the Lord and said: 'My God, if it is possible, expel this godless man from this world and from the next.' Not much time had elapsed after this when (Corictic) heard somebody recite a poem saying that he should abandon his royal seat, and all the men who were dearest to him chimed in. Suddenly before their eyes, in the middle of a public place, he was ignomiously changed into a fox, went off, and since that day and hour, like water that flows away, was never seen again.

In https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y2CO10-vsgC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=%22coroticus%22%2B%22lupi+rapaces%22&source=bl&ots=6hUjXPuVsf&sig=ACfU3U0Y8gCwGArj7XXgHRUAf1_ET1aQjg&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiH4I_0psjoAhVQj54KHdl5CWUQ6AEwAXoECAsQLw#v=onepage&q=%22coroticus%22%2B%22lupi%20rapaces%22&f=false, Maire Johnson provides some excellent footnotes regarding this episode:

In other words, the 'fox' interpretation of a perceived 'hound of the wood' or 'wild hound' name was chosen over that of a wolf to further denigrate Coroticus.  The author's intent was to show Coroticus in an evil light.  He had a name (Cynwyd) which seemed to allow for an interpretation as a wolf or fox and he exploited it to vilify the saint's antagonist to the maximum extent.  

What Coroticus' own men are doing with the recitation of the "poem" sounds suspiciously like the casting of a druidic spell or curse.  The Latin reads:

"Non grande post ea tempus effluxerat et musicam artem audiuit a quodam cantare quod de solio regali transiret, omnesque karissimi eius uiri in hanc proruperunt uocem."

The word 'cantare' here implies not only a song, but also an 'incantation, charm, spell, magic song.'

But the important thing to notice is that the transformation into a fox comes when the king has been called upon to abdicate.  Had he done so, it is only natural to assume that his son Cynwyd would have succeeded him.  Thus the sequence of Coroticus followed by a fox may well be a folk memory of the perceived fox-son succeeding his father in the kingship. 

The sequence of events, matched up with the hagiographical account, would look something like this:

1) Coroticus abdicates or otherwise vacates the kingship.  

2) His son Cynwyd succeeds him.

3) Cynwyd is wrongly taken to mean a wild dog or dog of the wood, in this case a fox, not a wolf.

4) Coroticus is said to become the fox, as the fox, i.e. Cynwyd, rules after his father.

5) At some point in the transmission of the legend, the Latin vulpecula is rendered into W. Madog.

6) Thus Coroticus the crudelisque tyrannus or uther pendragon, is given a son named Madog.