LLYFNI VALLEY AND UTHER PENDRAGON

[The maps are listed in order from west to east.  Note Craig-Y-Dinas, Caer Engan and the Madoc names clustered about Nantlle.  Uther is linked to Caer Dathal/Craig-Y-Dinas, Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther belongs between the two Nantlle lakes (where the god Lleu also appeared in an oak as a death-eagle) and Madog at/near Coed Madog.]

If the Tintagel/Dundadgel of Geoffrey of Monmouth is, indeed, a relocation for Caer Dathal'Craig-Y-Dinas in Arfon, Gwynedd, what is the implication of this for the identity of Uther Pendragon?

A past theory of mine (fully developed into an actual published book) made the case for Arthur being Ceredig son of Cunedda/Cerdic of the Gewissei.  This chieftain was said to be the son of the great Cunedda, a man wrongly said to have come to Wales from Manau Gododdin in the far north.  In reality, he was an Irishman from Drumanagh.  This major promontory fort was right across the Irish Sea from Gwynedd.  

If the 'Terrible Chief-warrior' is merely a descriptor for Cunedda, where was he based?  Clearly, Craig-Y-Dinas is a strong candidate for his headquarters.  After all, Uther was related to the men of Caer Dathal. 

But there are to forts near Caer Dathal we also need to consider.  Geoffrey of Monmouth has Ambrosius, Uther and a Constantine be buried at Stonehenge near Amesbury (OE Ambresbyrig). This burial of "dragons"(chieftains) became confused in the tradition with the buried dragons of Dinas Emrys, creatures who started out as the cremated remains of chieftains wrapped in cloth and deposited in urns.  It is logical, therefore, to suggest that Cunedda may have ruled from Dinas Emrys.  I've elsewhere made the case for Vortigern's giving all western Wales to Ambrosius in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM being a folk variation on that king's de facto granting of Gwynedd to Cunedda and his sons.  

But Welsh tradition also placed a Roman Constantine at a tomb in Segontium, the primary fort of NW Wales.  The military garrison at Caernarfon seems to have had a military device of two crossed snakes (see the NOTITIA DIGNITATUM shield patterns).  This device may have something to do with the story of the two dragons at Dinas Emrys.  When the Romans withdrew from Segontium, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Cunedda took it over.  Or there were already Irish federates at the fort and it was these men who continued using Caernarfon in the absence of Imperial forces.

The Dinas Emrys story is a complicated one, involving many confused strands of tradition.  On the one hand, the Ambrosius or "Divine/Immortal One' placed there seems not to be the historical Ambrosius at all, but instead the god Mabon (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/st-curig-at-dinas-emrys-proof-positive.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/was-dinas-emrys-fort-of-mabonmaponus.html). Yet there is the possibility that the Ambrosius with a nameless father who wore the purple may ultimately owe his presence at the hillfort to the names of Cunedda's father (Edern/Aeternus) and grandfather (Padarn/Paternus of the Red-Cloak).  See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/dinas-emrys-before-vortigern-and.html and subsequent related articles.

I think the case for Dinas Emrys is the strongest. The hillfort is near a Llydaw place-name, and this would match Geoffrey of Monmouth's claim that Uther came from Brittany (Welsh Llydaw). As I've repeated several times, Vortigern did not give all western Wales to Ambrosius, despite what Nennius says.  Instead, western Wales in the time of the High King was granted in de facto fashion to Cunedda and his sons.  It is likely the name Gwynedd derives from the following Irish word (from John Koch in CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA):

"As to the etymology of Féni, a connection with Old

Irish féinnid ‘hunter, (tribeless) warrior’ seems likely (cf.

fían; O’Brien, Ériu 9.182–3). Wagner linked the name

with fén ‘wagon’, thus an original group name meaning

‘wagoners’ (Celtica 11.264ff.). As a refinement of the

first etymology, Hamp proposed that Féni and the

partly synonymous Goídil (see Gaelic) ultimately go

back to the same root and had once belonged to a single

paradigm: Indo-European *weidh-(e)l-o- : *weidh-njo-,

with the same root as Old Irish fíad, Old Breton

guoid, and Welsh gßydd, all meaning ‘wild, feral,

uncultivated’ < Proto-Celtic *w{du- < IE *weidh-

(GPC s.v. Gwyddel; Pokorny, IEW 1.1177). The original

sense of Celtic *w{dni¼ > Féni would thus be ‘forest

people’ and it then developed the meaning ‘warriors’,

which was applied to that class among dominant tribal

groups. It is likely that the Welsh kingdom name

Gwynedd and its old Latinization Venedotia also go

back to this Celtic formation, an etymology which

would suit traditions of Gwynedd’s foundation by the

migratory war-bands of Cunedda and his sons."