Little Balernock
For some time now I have been working on the “problem” of Uther Pendragon.
What is the nature of this problem, exactly? Simply this: 1) is Uther Pendragon, as it would appear to be, a name + epithet, or is it merely a title for another chieftain? And 2) how do we prove Uther actually was Arthur’s father prior to Geoffrey of Monmouth?
No. 1 cannot really be answered with any cer-tainty. There are other early British and Welsh names like Uther, “Terrible or Wondrous”, i.e. names that have a distinctive adjectival quality. The formation itself, therefore, is not at all unique. Yet the combined effect of this supposed name + epithet IS unique, so far as I am aware. Other legitimate name + epithet pairings do not exhibit a linkage of meaning between the name and epithet. In other words, they cannot be read as a single title, as is the case with Uther Pen-dragon, the ‘Terrible/Cruel Chief leader/Chief of warriors.’ Instead, the epithets are clearly sepa-rate descriptive modifiers of the names. This fact alone leads me to suspect that in Uther Pen-dragon we do have a title alone and not a name + epithet.
If we go about our search for Uther with this in mind, he is actually not that difficult to find.
A few years ago I posted the following blog piece:
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/09/crudelisque-tyranni-and-uther-pendragon.html
There I had noticed that ‘Coroticus’ or 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. Finally, a famous Dumnonian Arthur would make understandable Aedan of Dalriada naming his own son after such a man, as the Dalriadans and the neighboring Britons are known to have intermarried.
We might even be able to show why Geoffrey of Monmouth has Uther hail from Britta-ny/Llydaw/Armorica. From https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/12600759/Royal_succession_and_kingship_among_the_Picts.pdf:
"...the rest of the sentence in the Dumbarton ge-nealogy (Fer map Confer, ipse est uero olitauc dimor meton uenditus est) has not been satisfac-torily interpreted.99 It would seem safer not to make an emendation that does not help to make sense of the whole sentence and which may not be necessary: it is possible that both uero and Fer map Confer are not corrupt forms. Fer map Confer is similar to the Cein map Guorcein map Doli map Guordoli in the Harleian genealogy for Owen map Hywel, ruler of Dyfed, where the sec-ond name expands the first, so such a couplet need not be a mistake.99
99 Genealogical Tracts, §5, ed. Bartrum, 10, and 127 n.5. Graham Isaac in correspondence has written: ‘There has been some tradition of citing the form meton as an Old Welsh instance of what appears in Middle Welsh as mewn, mywn (which is cognate with Old Irish medon). Assum-ing that, there is a natural way – in grammatical terms – of understanding the phrases with just the minimum of emendation: deletion of c at the end of olitauc. That gives litau, which looks like the Old Welsh for Llydaw, “Brittany”.This might have the alternative meaning “Latium” of its Irish cognate Letha. I should emphasise that W. Llydaw is not otherwise extant in the meaning “Latium”. And mor meton, “middle sea”, seems a plausible variant designation for what in later Welsh becomes Y Mor Canol, “the Mediterranean Sea”. Grammatically that gives: ipse est ueroo litau[.]. di mor meton uenditus est (“He is in fact from Latium. He was sold from/to [the lands of] the Mediterranean.”)’. Dr Isaac would like to stress that this is not a definitive interpretation, that what the text signifies, even if his analysis is correct, is not clear,and that it is completely open to further emendation to improve the sense. John Koch (in correspondence) inde-pendently has translated dimor meton as ‘from the middle sea’,and emended litauc to litau, so that the meaning was either ‘Armorica, Brittany’, or in the more archaic sense ‘continent, main-land’, or ‘Latium’ in the learned sense."
My guess is that Llydaw/Brittany was originally intended, as there was a kingdom of Domnonee there and that place may well have been associ-ated with the Northern British Dumnonia. In fact, the ‘middle sea’ is probably a reference to Armorica, the land ‘before/in front of the sea,’, here being conceived of as being in or within the sea (W. mewn = in, within, inside, enclosed by), as it literally is a large peninsula projecting out into the ocean.
From John Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA:
“Domnonia (French Domnonée) is the name of an early Breton principality, whose rulers were viewed as kings (reges) by some Breton sources, but as counts (comites) by the Merovingian Franks. One of its best documented rulers and monastic founders is Iudichael, who flourished in the first half of the 7th century. Although the exact extent of Domnonia is uncertain and prob-ably varied over time, it comprised roughly the northern half of Brittany (Breizh), i.e. the re-gions which are now the Côtes-d’Armor (Ao-doùan-
Arvor) and the northern parts of Finistère (Pen-nar- Bed). The name continues the tribal name Dumnonii (< Celtic dubno-/dumno- ‘deep, the world’), who also gave their name to Devon (Welsh Dyfnaint) in England. Domnonia was probably settled, at least in part, from insular Dumnonia (see Breton migrations). It is likely that British and Armorican Dumnonia func-tioned at times as a single sea-divided sub-Roman civitas and then as an early medieval kingdom.”
The post got a lot of attention, although I dis-pensed 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. But before I reveal what that is, here is the entire original article.
***
According to Nicholas J. Higham (see https://books.google.com/books?id=dn11DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=nicholas+j.+higham+moses+joshua&source=bl&ots=npHhnjKoFk&sig=QybB4c9HCnwnPkT1NSGY03gzSzk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimqsuDsePfAhWLL3wKH-VaIDm8Q6AEwCHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=nicho-las%20j.%20higham%20moses%20joshua&f=false), the account of Arthur is found after that of St. Patrick because the former was thought of as a British Joshua, while the latter was an Irish Mo-ses. This is an interesting idea, to be sure, but I think there could be a much more literal reason why the HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S famous Chapter 56 follows that of Chapters 54-5.
I'd long been aware of St. Patrick's letter to the Strathclyde king Coroticus, called Ceredig Wledig in the early Welsh genealogies. But I did not know that this same king is mentioned in Muirchu's Life of St. Patrick.
From https://www.confessio.ie/#:
I.29
(1) 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 [actually infausti is 'un-fortunate' or 'ill-omened'] and cruel ruler.(2) 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 salu-tary exhortations. (3) 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.'(4) 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.
Latin:
I.29
(1) Quoddam mirabile gestum Patricii non transibo silentio. Huic nuntiatum est nequissi-mum opus cuiusdam regis Brittanici nomine Co-rictic infausti crudelisque tyrranni. (2) Hic namque erat maximus persecutor interfectorque Christianorum. Patricius autem per epistolam ad uiam ueritatis reuocare temptauit; cuius salutar-ia deridebat monita.(3) Cum autem ita nunti-arentur Patricio orauit Dominum et dixit: "domine, si fieri potest, expelle hunc perfidum de praesenti saeculoque futuro". (4) Non grande post ea tempus effluxerat et musicam artem au-diuit a quodam cantare quod de solio regali transiret, omnesque karissimi eius uiri in hanc proruperunt uocem.Tunc ille cum esset in medio foro, ilico uulpiculi miserabiliter arepta forma profectus in suorum praesentia ex illo die illaque hora uelut fluxus aquae transiens nusquam conparuit.
This story is repeated in Jocelyn (see http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18482/18482-h/18482-h.htm):
CHAPTER CL.
A wicked Tyrant is transformed into a Fox.
In that part of Britain which is now called Vallia, lived a certain tyrant named Cereticus; and he was a deceiver, an oppressor, a blasphemer of the name of the Lord, a persecutor and a cruel destroyer of Christians. And Patrick hearing of his brutal tyranny, labored to recall him into the path of salvation, writing unto him a monitory epistle, for his conversion from so great vices. But he, that more wicked he might become from day to day, laughed to scorn the monition of the saint, and waxed stronger in his sins, in his crimes, in his falsehoods and in his cruelties. The which when Patrick heard, taught by the Divine Spirit, he knew that the vessel of evil was hardened in reprobation, prepared in no wise for correction, but rather for perdition; and thus he prayed unto the Lord: "O Lord God, as thou knowest this vulpine man to be monstrous in vice, do thou in a monstrous mode cast him forth from the face of the earth, and appoint an end unto his offences!" Then the Lord, inclining his ear unto the voice of his servant, while on a certain time the tyrant stood in the middle of his court surrounded by many of his people, sud-denly transformed him into a fox; and he, flying from their sight, never more appeared on the earth. And this no one can reasonably disbelieve, who hath read of the wife of Lot who was changed into a pillar of salt, or the history of the King Nabuchodonoser.
Commentators on this chapter in Jocelyn make the observation that Vallia = Wales. This is an error, of course, for the contemporary Ceredig son of Cunedda's kingdom of Ceredigion in western Wales. What is obvious to me, there-fore, is that the compiler of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM, in summarizing the Vita sancti Patricii, confused this British king Corot-icus/Ceredig of Strathclyde for Ceredig son of Cunedda of Wales, the Cerdic of the Gewissei. He then followed his section on Patrick (and Corot-icus) with that of Arthur.
In this sense, then, Arthur does not suddenly appear "out of the blue", as it were. Rather, Ar-thur appears right after Coroticus of Strath-clyde. The question, however, now becomes "Why Arthur right after Coroticus/Ceredig?"
According to P. C. Bartram,
"The date of the raid by Coroticus was put by J.B.Bury in 458 (Life of St.Patrick, pp.195, 303). This assumed the traditional date of 432 for Pat-rick's mission to Ireland. But James Carney, putting Patrick's mission in 456, has suggested 471 for the date of the raid."
This would mean, of course, that Ceredig Wledig would fit the chronological requirement as a fa-ther for Arthur.
But most importantly, I would point out that the crudelisque tyrranni description given to Corot-icus is very interesting. Uther (uthr) has among its several meanings cruel (GPC: fearful, dread-ful, awful, terrible, tremendous, mighty, over-bearing, cruel; wonderful, wondrous, astonish-ing, excellent), while teyrn (cognate with Latin tyrannus) has much the same meaning as Pen-dragon, 'chief-warrior.'
We are reminded of the Nennius interpolation which says that Arthur was called "in British mab Uter, that is in Latin terrible son, because from his youth he was cruel (Mab Uter Britannice, id est filius horribilis Latine, quoniam a pueritia sua crudelis fuit)." This is found in a couple of 13th century MSS. According to Dr. Simon Rodway,
"As all the early examples of uthr quoted in GPC are from poems, it is difficult to decide exactly what it means. Even in praise poetry, it could mean 'cruel', i.e. cruel towards enemies."
***
The interesting detail that had slipped my notice earlier was Ceredig (Coroticus) being turned in-to a vulpiculi or 'little fox.' For more 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 discus-sion 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)
In https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y2CO10-vsgC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=%22coroticus%22%2B%22lupi+rapaces%22&source=bl&ots=6hUjX-Pu-Vsf&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:
“Frustrated at Coroticus’ unrepentant attitude, the saint’s letter calls the leader and his gang of noble toughs a pack of ‘rapacious wolves’ (lupi rapaces) several times…
The mean form of the king’s new shape mocks Corictic’s virile warrior prowess and acts as a vulpine echo of the historical Patrick’s accusa-tion that Corictic and his ruffians were lupi ra-paces… It is also possible that here Muirchu may have been comparing Corictic/Coroticus to King Herod, whom Jesus calls a fox in Luke 13:32.”
The reference here to Herod as a fox is interesting, as in the Book of Taliesin we find a poem called Madawg Drut ac Erof. The poem is odd, in that the first part tells of the death of Madawg son of Uther, while the second tells of Herod (= Erof). But if we remember that Herod was called a fox and Madawg means fox, the pairing suddenly makes sense.
But there may be anothe reason why the vulpiculi shows up in the tradition. This is because not far to the ESE of Alclud, in Glasgow, there is an ancient site known as Balornock. And not far to the NW of Alclud is one called Balernock. Both place-names are discussed here:
https://spns.org.uk/wp-con-tent/uploads/2019/03/Alan_James_Brittonic_Lan-guage_in_the_Old_North_BLITON_Volume_II_Dictionary_2019_Edition.pdf
lowern,*lewïrn, (both m) IE *wlop- > eCelt *lop- + -erno- > Br, Gaul lowerno- > OW(LL) laguern, leuyrn, louern (in place-names, LL pp. 207, 142, 175) > M-eMnW llywern, llewyrn (see below), OCorn louuern > Corn lowarn, OBret Louuern-, Loern (in place- and personal names) > Bret louarn, Vannetais dialect luhern; OIr loarn (in personal and ethnic names); cf. Lat vulpēs, Gk alōpós, Skt lopāṣa ‘a jackal, a fox’. 190 See LHEB §6(3), pp. 279-81, §48(2), p. 384, and §208(B5), pp. 677-8, and CIB ǂ19 at p. 72, ǂ27 at pp. 98-9, ǂ80 at p. 226 n1418, and ǂ84 at p. 231. On forms with lewï- see Schrijver (1995), pp. 61-2, and idem (1998). For discussion of a Continental ex-ample, see Louerion in DCCPN p. 151. ‘A fox’, though note that Schrijver in the works cited above argues that forms with lewï- are not plu-rals < *lowerni-, but derived from *lowernjo- and mean ‘a fox-like thing, a will o’the wisp’. In West Brittonic, as in Goidelic, this seems to have sur-vived mainly or exclusively in place- and person-al names. See Breeze in CVEP pp. 67-9 on this element in river-names, and Padel (1978) at p. 24 n10 for personal names. In CA LXXXVIII, Pais Dinogad, the phrase llewyn a llwyvein is appar-ently a formula referring to a pair of hunters’ quarries, either or both being, perhaps, garbled forms of words related to lowern: see Williams’s note to CA line 324, Jackson’s to YGod (KJ) p. 151, and Jarman’s to YGod (AJ), line 1012. a2)
Balernock Dnb (Garelochhead) Ross (2001) p. 23 + bod- + -ǭg: possibly -*lewïrn-, see above, in a lost stream-name, or a personal (saint’s?) name, *Lewïrnǭg.
Balornock Lnk CPNS p. 202 + bod- + -ǭg: again, a lost stream-name, or a personal (saint’s?) name, here *Lowernǭg.
The name is discussed elsewhere as "Louernoc's hut", from Brythonic, and not a Gaelic baile name (https://www.parliament.scot/Gaelic/placenamesA-B.pdf).
Buthlornoc in 1186 (https://www.theglasgowstory.com/story/?id=TGSAG).
Louernoc, Angl -lornock (saint's name, 'little fox') (http://spns.org.uk/wp-con-tent/uploads/2017/08/Index_of_Celtic_and_Other_Elements.pdf).
As can be seen, the name is a diminutive and means 'Little Fox' - the exact equivalent of the 'vulpiculi' used of Coroticus by Muirchu.
We can now understand the fox transformation story in the Life of St. Patrick differently. The king of Strathclyde is asked to step down and he does so, becoming a hermit. Whether he was given the name Louernoc or merely lived at the hut of a religious bearing that name is debata-ble. But Muirchu, intent on showing the king's evil nature, instead concocted the tale that Co-roticus' own men had used a spell to turn their leader into a little fox.
Madog as fox could easily have been substituted for the vulpiculi of Muirchu's account, as knowledge of the underlying Celtic Louernoc need not be assumed by the Welsh. The little fox in a sense seemed to “succeed” the king, and such a misperception could have led to the mis-taken notion that the fox in question was the king's son.
From Alan James on my idea on Coroticus and Louernog:
"*Lowern was apparently a Brittonic given name. Coroticus might have somehow been nicknamed *Lowernog, ‘little fox’, even as insult initially (which Muirchu somehow got to know of), but taken up by his subjects, even by Coroticus himself, as an amusing handle. And if he subse-quently repented and became a hermit in his *bod, that would have been Bod-lowernog, Balornock."
In passing, I would mention that according to the Harleian Genealogies, Coroticus’ son and successor was one Cynwyd. The name, as it turns out, may be a *cuno- or ‘hound’ name. Were it Cynwydd, it would be the exact Welsh equivalent of Irish coinfiad, ‘wild dog’, used as a poetic term for ‘fox.’
coinḟíad
Cite this: eDIL s.v. coinḟíad or dil.ie/10343
n (1 cú + 2 fíad) fox: bás d'fhagáil . . . ó confhi-adh allaid (of bird), CF² 1405 . coinḟiadh dá lí ar tí a hén, Acall. 846 = sinnach, CF² 1433 . coinfhiadh curata (of a warrior), O'Rah. 42.5 ` stag '.
The word coinfiad occurs, for example, in the medieval Irish 'Crede's Lament for Cael', Acallam na Senórach, c. 1200 (see https://books.google.com/books?id=fe_FAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=%22coinfiad%22%2B%22fox%22&source=bl&ots=yvvJHtqOK5&sig=ACfU3U00fkEmGMaWoTwKMmD1RrHhFEmhwg&hl=en&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNo5SC3sroAhVRqZ4KHVLHDS8Q6AEwAXoECAMQMA#v=onepage&q=%22coinfiad%22%2B%22fox%22&f=false).
There it is said
"sisi ni aincenn a bi -
she who cannot save her young
coinfiad da li for ti a hen
from the jaws of the two-colored fox."
[coinfiad da li: lit. 'wild dog of two colours'; Whit-ley Stokes Acallamh na Seanórach Acallamh na Senórach 1900]
The name Cynwyd is actually to be derived from the following (see Rivet and Smith’s THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN):
CUNETIO
"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 sim-ilarity 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 rele-vant, 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 orig-inal 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 Willi-arn's proposed root in the *ku-no- ' point, edge' of Pokorny, and rightly dismisses the conse-quential argument that in the present case the river might have taken its name from that of the settlement, for we have no evidence that this occurred in Celtic times (though such back-formation is common later). The most recent dis-cussion 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 asso-ciating 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."
Welsh has a gwyddgi, ‘wild dog’, for a fox:
(GPC):
gwyddgi
[gŵydd3, 'wild' + ci, ‘dog’]
eg. ll. gwyddgwn.
Ci gwyllt, blaidd; llwynog, cenau llwynog; siacal; yn ffig. milwr dewr:
• wild dog, wolf; fox, fox-cub; jackal; fig. brave warrior.
SO WHY UTHER PENDRAGON AND NOT COROTICUS?
If we are to accept that Uther Pendragon is a Welsh rendering of crudelisque tyrannus, then we must ask why this was used rather than Coroticus' own name. It's a fair question, and one that begs an answer.
Well, clearly, Muirchu thoroughly vilified Coroticus. So uttterly, in fact, that the king and his men were excommunicate. As Arthur was put forward in Nennius as the champion against the pagan English, it would not do to have his father portrayed as he was in the VITA of St. Patrick. My guess is that it is for this reason the crudelisque tyrnannus description was employed in lieu of his father's real name. By resisting use of Coroticus' name and conjuring Uther Pendragon, the Welsh were able to avoid an undesirable characterization. Uther was, essentially, a new personage, stripped of and protected from St. Patrick's invective. He could be recast in a more heroic mold.
Geoffrey of Monmouth later created yet a third personage - Gorlois - from the gorlassar term Uther uses for himself in the "Marwnat Vthyr Pen."
UTHER AND GWYTHUR, WITHUR OF LEON
The Uther elegy poem tells us that Uther fought with (or alongside of) a chieftain named Gwythur. If we allow for the relocation of Uther/Coroticus from the northern Dumnonia to the southern one, and bear in mind that some British Dumnonian kings (like Cunomorus) may have held sway both in Devon and Cornwall as well as in Breton Domnonee, then Gwythur is probably the 6th century Withur of Leon. Leon, a kingdom name deriving from the Latin word for legion, was the westernmost part of Domnonee. The following selection is from John Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA:
When Coroticus becomes a fox, we are told he flows away like water. This is odd, as toponymists (see above) have made a case for louern and derivatives being used as stream names. Important in this context is the presence in Ceredigion, Wales (a kingdom name chosen in honor of Ceredig son of Cunedda) of an Afon Llywernog or 'Water of the Little Fox' and associated place-names (including a Fynnon-cadno or "Fox Spring"). W. llywernog is the exact equivalent of the names found in Balornock and Balernock near the Alclud of Coroticus/Ceredig.
Alan James (personal correspondence) has contributed the following on such names:
"Check out also Lavernock Glam. (Richard Morgan has just published a book of PNGlam, I've not got it yet, but Gwynedd Piere's book gives Lawernak 13th ct, Lavernock 1425-6 etc.; the local pronunciation is 'Larnock' or 'Lannock', and that's evidenced from 16th ct on, but is a contraction. However, he does offer an alternative, English etymology, *llawer-cnoc 'skylark hillock', quoting an englyn 'Lavernock' by Saunders Lewis:
Gwaun a mor, can chedydd
Yn esgyn trwy libart y gwynt
There's also 'guuer licat laguernnuc' (gwofer llygad = 'source' lywernog) in Llyfr Landaf, 207.
In Cornwall, Lawarnick and Lewennick are both coastal coves, and there's also Lanwarnick, all three possible but not certain. In Brittany, Louargniec."
Note above that Cynwyd is found in stream-names of the Kennet/Kent type.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF UTHER PENDRAGON
"Non grande post ea tempus effluxerat et musi-cam 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.'
According to Welsh Triad 28, Uther was a great enchanter.
TRIAD 28
Three Great Enchantments of the Island of Britain:
The Enchantment of Math son of Mathonwy (which he taught to Gwydion son of Don), and the Enchantment of Uthyr Pendragon (which he taught to Menw son of Teirgwaedd), and the Enchantment of Gwythelyn/Rudlwm the Dwarf (which he taught to Coll son of Collfrewy his nephew).
In "Math Son of Mathonwy", the title character transforms Gwydion and Gilfaethwy into deer, pigs and wolves. Gwydion transforms the eagle Lleu back into human form. In TRIAD 27, Coll son of Collfrewy is named as a great enchanter. In 26, he is one of the great swineherds. He owned a magical sow who gave birth to wheat, bees, barley, a wolf-cub, an eagle and the dreaded Palug's cat.
The Menw mentioned above tranforms himself into a bird in "Culhwch and Olwen":
"And Menw transformed into the form of a bird, and landed over his lair, and tried to snatch on of the treasures from him. And he got nothing, however, apart from one of his bristles."
Bromwich's note (b) to TRIAD 28 points out that "Menw m. Teirgwaedd is distinguished as a shapeshifter." She makes the case for Uther's transformation being that into Gorlois, recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history.
However, given that all the transformations alluded to involve animals, we cannot help but wonder whether Uther's was of the same kind. Did he, perhaps, turn into a fox?
We need to take another look at the relevant lines of "Marwnat Vthyr Pen", where the hero calls himself gorlassar:
It is I who commands hosts in battle:
I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.
It’s I who’s called the very blue [or, given the context, 'the great blaze, conflagration'; cf. Irish forlassar, from the intensive prefix plus lasar, 'fire, flame']:
my ferocity snared my enemy.
It is I who’s a leader in darkness:
Our God, Chief of the Sanctuary, transforms me.
It’s I who’s like ['eil' here means like/similar to, not 'second' - unless God is to be considered the 'first'] a candle/luminary [transf. star, sun, moon; fig. leader, hero] in the gloom:
I’d not give up fighting without bloodshed between two forces.
I'd suggested before that this was almost certainly where Geoffrey of Monmouth got his notion of Uther's comet (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/02/uthers-star-and-comet-of-442-ad.html). In fact, Geoffrey has Merlin pronounce to the king: "the star, and the fiery dragon under it, signifies yourself." Of course, he also took gorlassar and converted the epithet for Uther himself into Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. In reality, Uther was referring to himself as the 'cannwyll' when he used gorlassar, so in this sense gorlassar is the cannwyll.
At first glance there would seem to be no possible connection between a transformation into a fox and one into a comet. Except when we remember that Uther's comet is a tailed comet.
The red fox of Britain can have a coat whose colors mimic those of fire. He is also known for his remarkably long and busy tail. In fact, the Welsh word for fox is llwynog, 'bushy', a reference to the tail. The English word fox comes from a root meaning 'tail.' While not attested until late, W. llostog, 'tailed', is also a name for a fox. And, finally, ser llostog is a tailed star or comet, and ser llosgyrnog is a star (comet) with a long or prominent tail.
Could it be that Uther's comet was not a dragon, but instead was visualized as a fox? It was gorlassar - radiant, shining, blazing - like a fox's coat, and it had the fox's long, bushy tail.
An intriguing idea. Alas, we have no evidence that a comet could be perceived, symbolically speaking, as vulpes vulpes by Dark Age Britons.
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