A NEW IDENTIFICATION OF ARTHUR'S MOTHER, YGERNA (AND ARTHUR'S REAL BIRTHPLACE)

Carne and Carne Hill with St. Denys Church

Geoffrey of Monmouth claims that Arthur's mother's name was Igerna.  Welsh scholars insist that Eigr is the earlier form of the name, yet Eigr is not found in any Welsh source prior to the HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.[1]  Her being made the daughter of Anblaud/Amlawdd of Erging doesn't help vouch for her veracity, as Brynley Roberts demonstrated Anblaud was a created character used to hang famous women on who otherwise lacked known pedigrees. 

 

I've recently decided to favor Geoffrey's form because of the presence at Gorlois' fort of Dimilioc or Domellick of Carne.  This is simply the Cornish word for a rock or a rock outcrop.  Front it with a Welsh 'Y-", the definite article, and you have Igraine, Igerna, Ygerne, Ygraine.   In Welsh, carn often appears as garn.  There are many Y Garns in Wales. We also find carn or carne appearing in Cornish as cerne or kerne.

St. Denys Parish Church stands at the top of Carne Hill on the site of the Iron Age hill fort. There was another St. Denys chapel at Tintagel, where Gorlois moved Igerna for safekeeping when he fought Uther Pendragon. 

We actually know that the place was called Carn Hill from early on.  The following is excerpted from 

"The Hill-Fort at St. Dennis" by Charles Thomas M.A., F.S.A. (https://cornisharchaeology.org.uk/journals/No.4_1965.pdf):

 "The Site 

The isolated hill crowned by the parish church was formerly called 'Carn Hill' (so MacLauchlan, 1849). The tenement which included this appears in the Exeter Domesday as Dimelihoc (f.254b), a small manor with a single plough team, '1 acre'(perhaps a little over a hundred modern acres) of potential arable, pasture half-a-league by half-a-league, and no animals recorded. This probably refers to the northern slopes of the hill, and the rough ground on the moor below, since the ground south of the hill appears as Karsalan, the modern Carsella.

'Dimelihoc', found in 1145 as Dimilioc, 1284,1334 Dynmyliek, and thence to Domelioc, Domeliock (pronounced 'damel'ak'), clearly comprises OCo. din (-as), 'fortress', and a personal name *Milioc that may ultimately come from Lat. Aemiliacus rather than, as the name Mailoc seems to do, from Brit. *Maglacos. If this name, originally that of the hill-summit, had been extended to a wider tenement by Domesday times, it must be presumed that the hill-top itself was then locally called \an) dinas'; for the ascription to the un-Celtic and non-local saint Denis or Dionysius (of Paris) almost certainly resulted from verbal confusion. Whether this took place under a Norman master, or conceivably under some such English landlord as the Ailmer who held Dimelihoc in the time of Edward the Confessor, rather depends upon the date assigned to the churchyard cross standing south of the present church; but it is most unlikely that it occurred before the 11th century.  

The dinas in question surrounds the church and churchyard. Apart from the strong evidence afforded by the place-names, its fortified nature was apparently recognised in some lost medieval tradition encountered by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 1130's. The Galfridian version of the Arthur story refers (Historia Regum Britanniae, viii. 19) to 'Dimilioc' as the castle of Gorlois, duke of Cornwall. (This is implied to be hard by 'Tintagel', where Gorlois' wife Igerna is immured: Jenner and Henderson have variously demonstrated that Geoffrey's 'Tintagel', the actual medieval castle of which was not commenced until a few years after Geoffrey wrote, is far more likely to represent Castlean-Dinas, the massive Iron Age hill-fort a few miles north of St. Dennis.) 31 The evidence therefore permits the assumption that the St. Dennis hill-top was recognised as an ancient fortification, in some tale contemporary with Geoffrey of Monmouth's writing (early 12th century), at the time of the ascription to 'St. Denis' (11th century), and at the time when the name *Din Milioc was applied to it (unknown, but one would suppose well pre-Domesday)."

In THE SUFFIX -ÄKO IN CONTINENTAL CELTIC by Paul RUSSELL   

(https://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/ecelt_0373-1928_1988_num_25_1_1877.pdf), the author shows how the Roman name Aemilius could be made into a place-name designator by using the -ako suffix:

"It seems, then, that LN function of -äcus can be explained as a semantic specialisation of its general adjectival function in Gaulish and early Gallo-Latin. The shift from adjective to substantive seems in most cases to be a feature of Gallo-Latin.94 We still, however, have to face the question of why -äcus was more productive than the native Latin suffix -änus. The answer, I would suggest, lies within the complex sociolinguistic patterns of Roman Gaul and, as such, can only be framed in the most general and tentative terms. The practice of naming a fundus after the owner seems to have been widespread in Gaul but who did the naming? For a number of reasons it appears that it was not be owner himself but the people who lived in the area. By far the majority of these LNN are based on Roman gentilicia ; now, while it does not necessarily imply that they were Roman, it certainly implies a degree of Romanisation to the extent that, if the owners were naming their fundi, they might have used Latin -änus. Support for this view comes from the high proportion of -änus to -äcus LNN in Gallia Narbonensis, the area with the highest degree of Romanisation.95 On      the other hand, the native inhabitants of a particular area would have tended towards the Gaulish/Latinised Gaulish end of the continuum for whom the natural pattern of forming an adjective from a PN would have been with -äko-. If, then, the native inhabitants provided the name, we would expect precisely the type we find, namely owner’s name + äko thus, for example, the land owned by Aemilius would have been termed * (fundus) Aemiliacus = modern Amalhac, Amilly, Amillis, etc.96 This suggestion seems to be the only way to explain the conjunction of a Roman PN with a native Celtic suffix within the complex linguistic system which probably operated in Roman Gaul."

Now, the real question is this:  if I'm right and Geoffrey of Monmouth is claiming a personified place-name as Arthur's mother, does it follow that we should interpret this story as Arthur being born at The Carn?

Significantly, there is no carn place-name at Tintagel or Tintagel Head.  Many reasons have been given for why Geoffrey chose Tintagel.  He could have done so for political reasons, or to please a patron, for example.  Some have even pointed to the Artognou inscription found there, not as a serious claim for identifying Artognou with Arthur, but to suggest that Geoffrey had knowledge of someone having lived there or worked there who had an Arto- name.  I have already suggested above that may have used the presence at both places of shrines to St. Denys to justify the transferrence.  According to Nicholas Orme in his THE SAINTS OF CORNWALL, besides the chapel at Trevena/Tintagel at the church at Domellick, St. Dennis may have had establishments at Otterham and North Tamerton.  In Devon, there were St. Dennis churches at Bradninch and Walkhampton. 

But if Arthur's "mother" The Carn was never at Tintagel, does it follow that there was a tradition at one time promoting Domellick's hillfort as the hero's birthplace?  Carn names are exceedingly common in Cornwall,. And, indeed, there are many forts or other ancient monuments in Cornwall (and Wales, for that matter) that bear carn names. Yet we are hardly justified in assuming that The Carn at St. Dennis was itself a relocation of a prior site.  [In passing, though, I cannot resist mentionng Carne Beacon near Veryan Castle hillfort, which folk belief claims to be the burial mound of one of the Dark Age Gereint kings (or saints or both). The Carne place-names here are across Gerrans Bay, i.e. Gereint's Bay, from Dingerein Castle fort.]  

In other words, if Arthur was born at The Carn, and that carn is Carn Hill at St. Dennis/Domellick, then Arthur was born at St. Dennis/Domellick.  And NOT at Tintagel. 

It might be worth our while to take a look at the etymology of Aemilius.  According to the best authorities, the name is to be linked to L. aemulus.  Here is the listing for that word from Chartlon T. Lewis' and Charles Short's A LATIN DICTIONARY:

aemŭlus , a, um, adj. cf. ἁμιλλάομαι and ἅμα, imitor, imago, Germ. ahmen (Eng. aim) in nachahmen = to imitate,

I.striving after another earnestly, emulating, rivalling, emulous (cf. aemulatio and aemulor), in a good and bad sense; constr. with dat. or as subst. with gen.

I. In a good sense, Att. ap. Auct. Her, 2, 26, 42: “laudum,” Cic. Phil. 2, 12: “laudis,” id. Cael. 14: “aemulus atque imitator studiorum ac laborum,” id. Marc. 1: “Timagenis aemula lingua,” Hor. Ep. 1, 19, 15: “itinerum Herculis,” Liv. 21, 41.—With ne and subj.: milites aemuli, ne dissimiles viderentur, Aur. Vict Caes. 8, 3.—

II. In a bad sense, both of one who, with a hostile feeling, strives after the possessions of another, and of one who, on account of his strong desire for a thing, envies him who possesses it; envious, jealous, grudging.— With gen.: Karthago aemula imperii Romani, Sall C. 10; Vell. 2, 1: “Triton,” Verg. A. 6, 173: “quem remoto aemulo aequiorem sibi sperabat,” Tac. A. 3, 8: “Britannici,” Suet. Ner. 6.—

III. Subst., a rival = rivalis: mihi es aemula, you are my rival (i. e. you have the same desire as I), Plaut. Rud. 1, 4, 20; Ter. Eun. 4, 1, 9; cf. id. ib. 2, 1, 8; “si non tamquam virum, at tamquam aemulum removisset,” Cic. Verr 2, 5, 31: et si nulla subest aemula, languet amor, Ov A. A. 2, 436.—By meton. (eccl.), an enemy: “videbis aemulum tuum in templo,” Vulg. 1 Reg. 2, 32; “affligebat eam aemula,” ib. 1, 6.— In gen., mostly of things without life, vying with, rivalling a thing, i. e. comparable to, similar to, with dat., v. Rudd. II. p. 70 (poet., and in prose after the Aug. per.): “tibia tubae Aemula,” Hor. A. P. 203: “labra rosis,” Mart. 4, 42: “Tuscis vina cadis,” id. 13, 118; Plin. 9, 17, 29, § 63; id. 15, 18, 19, § 68 al.: “Dictator Caesar summis oratoribus aemulus, i. e. aequiparandus,” Tac. A. 13, 3.!*? Facta dictaque ejus aemulus for aemulans, Sall. Fragm. Hist. 3 (cf. celatum indagator for indagans in Plaut. Trin. 2, 1, 15, unless celatum be here a gen.).

From this word we get our word emulate. The dictionary authors cite imitor, to imitate, act like, copy after, seek to resemble, counterfeit, mimic; resembles; assume the form of, and imago, an imitation, copy, image, representation, likeness, etc., as deriving from the same root.

On the surface, the story of Uther assuming the form of Gorlois would seem to be tied up in the meaning of Aemilius.  But we would have to believe that Goeffrey somehow knew not only the personal name underlying his Dimilioc, but that the personal name was the be related to L. aemulus.  And that seems more than a little too far for us to go.  

Now, I've already shown that Gorlois is from the poetic term gorlassar Uther attaches to himself in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN elegy.  The context of the poem suggests the word means something like the Irish forlas(s)ar, 'great fire, great radiance', rather than 'the very blue'.  His tranformation at Pen Kawell, likely Pen Ridge over the River Cale (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/06/is-uthers-kawell-cale-river-in-somerset.html), refers to him becoming 'like a star in the gloom.'  Geoffrey himself tells us Uther was symbolized by the great dragon-star that appeared in the sky upon Ambrosius' death. Geoffrey seems to have been responsible for instead taking gorlassar as another chieftain and having Uther magically transform into that man's shape.  

This does not necessarily detract from the possibility that Arthur may have been born at Carne Hill.  But it does show us just how badly history can get mixed up with aetiologically concocted tales.

Still, I think there is a much better place to situate Ygerna, 'The Carn.' In the Life of St. Carantoc (or Carannog), we are told that Arthur and Cadwy were ruling jointly at Dindraethou near Carrum (see https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/carannog1.html, http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/carannog2.html). I have shown that Dindraethou was never actually an Arthurian fort (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/12/dindraithou-darts-castle-at-watchet.html).  But that Arthur is with Cadwy tells us that the original site was one of the Cadbury hillforts.  Carrum is Carhampton, and the word comes from OE carrum, dat. plur. of carr, 'rock', so 'rocks.'  As it happens, carn in the Celtic languages meant a heap of stones.

What I think happened was this: Arthur and Cadwy, who belong properly at Cadbury Castle, are placed in the saint's life at Carrum where, incidentally, we also find a 'terrible dragon' (cf. Uther Pendragon).  This carrum was at some point related to the carne at St. Dennis/Domellick and "personified" by Geoffrey of Monmouth into Ygerna.  The truth is that Arthur's mother belongs neither at Domellick nor Carhampton: she belongs at Arthur and Cadwy's Cadbury Castle in Somerset.  

[1] For years now, I've held to my theory that Eigr was a personification of the headland at Tintagel.  I had arrived at this notion after extensive correspondence with Dr. Graham Isaac.  See

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-repost-of-my-summarized-treatment-of.html.  But given the presence of Carne at Domellick, I now think this earlier proposed etymology is quite unwieldy - and completely unnecessary. 

St. Dennis Church and Fort at Carne Hill