THE TWO SAWYLS or DOES ARTHUR BELONG AT RIBCHESTER AFTER ALL?

Carn Goch Hillfort

The primary reason I moved away from Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester as Arthur's father is this: I could not understand why a man who had given birth to several saints and who possessed the famous Biblical name would have been called Uther Pendragon (the cruel/terrible/horrible chief-warrior/chief of warriors).  Yet I had forgotten that this chieftain of the North had been thoroughly confused in Welsh tradition with an identically named personage of Wales - and one whose character was wholly in keeping with such a title.

Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester, in all but the earliest source, is called Benuchel. But this appear to be because a Sawyl of southern Wales had originally been called Benuchel in order to distinguish him from his northern namesake.  Before I show how thoroughly the two Sawyls became conflated, I need to provide the complete story of the one who belonged in Glamorgan.  And this is told in the Life of St. Cadog.

We can see that this Sawyl was not a particularly pleasant fellow.  Called both a general (dux, a leader of soldiers; cf. Pendragon) and a tyrant ("a cruel or severe ruler, a despot" - Lewis and Short Dictionary), he is full of wickedness and also prone to slaying people cruelly (attrociter, from atrocitas, the quality of atrox - fierce, savage, bloody; heinous, cruel; severe; terrible, frightening, dreadful, horrible, harsh, severe, unyielding).  Such a man could easily have been referred to as uther pendragon.

pendragon (GPC) - chief leader, chief of warriors, commander-in-chief, generalissimo

uthr - fearful, dreadful, awful, terrible, tremendous, mighty, overbearing, cruel; wonderful, wondrous, astonishing, excellent

Now, "According to Welsh tradition, the reason for Sawyl and Dunawd following their father [Pabo] into Wales was that they were unable to hold their own against the invaders ; moreover, Sawyl's over- bearing character drove his clansmen into revolt against him, and they expelled him."  [See https://www.academia.edu/36351485/The_Lives_of_the_Saints_Volume_16.pdf.]  I would urge my readers to also consult pp. 19-20 of this source -

https://books.google.com/books?id=-G4AAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22sawyl%22%2B%22llansawel%22&source=bl&ots=vWW3YZvWvY&sig=ACfU3U1YlzV6PUaWR4y64cs58wM6IfJLNA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPjZqXqYTpAhUGoZ4KHT2MAVkQ6AEwEHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22sawyl%22%2B%22llansawel%22&f=false

So what we ended up with was one Sawyl, when originally there were two - the son of Pabo of the North and Sawyl Felyn son of Bledri Hir of the South (who seems to have become or eventually been made into a saint at Llansawel).  It is obvious that the man of the North, during this process of identification, took on the unsavory characteristics of his namesake. This being the case, and assuming that at some point in the development of the tradition it was still known that a Sawyl was the father of Arthur, then the title Uther Pendragon might well have been conjured to hide the true identity of our hero's sire.