UTHER AND DINAS EMRYS: WHO DID VORTIGERN GIVE GWYNEDD TO?

Dinas Emrys, Gwynedd

I long ago posed a serious question few if any Arthurian scholars seem to have considered:  who did Vortigern really give Gwynedd to?  I'd already proven he did not give it to Ambrosius Aurelianus.  Welsh tradition insists Gwynedd went to Cunedda and his sons.  So if Ambrosius wasn't at Dinas Emrys, was Cunedda?

The following links are an investigation of that idea.  Please bear in mind that not all the information in these posts is still relevant.  I would emphasize only my suggestion that Ambrosius the 'divine/immortal one' with an unnamed father who wore the purple is a substitution for Aeternus/Edern (from a word that can also mean immortal), father of Cunedda, whose own father was named Paternus ('the fatherly') of the Red-Cloak. And that it was Paternus the 'dragon' (in Welsh poetic usage, a warrior or war-leader) whose cremated remains were wrapped in a red cloak and deposited in an urn at Dinas Emrys. In other words, the Ddraig Goch of Wales, as the genius of the British people, had its origin in the disinterred remains of Cunedda's grandfather. Or that the two were confused and eventually conflated in folklore.  Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us Uther was buried at Stonehenge, but that is only because Amesbury (OE Ambresbyrig) nearby was thought to be the equivalent of Welsh Dinas Emrys. 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/11/padarn-beisrudd-uther-pendragon-and.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/dinas-emrys-before-vortigern-and.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/who-was-buried-at-dinas-emrys.html

Now, if this is correct, and the tradition that places Eliwlad son of Madog son of Uther at Nantlle on the Afon Llyfni of Craig-y-Dinas/Caer Dathal in Gwynedd  is valid, then I must once again look at my earlier theory which proposed that Arthur = Ceredig son of Cunedda (himself = Cerdic of the Gewissei). The Arthur name in this case would a decknamen for an earlier Irish or British 'bear-king' name.  Ceredigion has in its midst the Afon Arth or Bear River, and no fewer than three of Ceredig's immediate descendants and successors in the line of the Ceredigion princes had art-/'bear' names.  I have hinted at the possibility that the name Arthur is preserved, albeit obliquely,  in the VITA of St. Germanus of Auxerre (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-i-ultimately-decided-on-ceredig-son.html).

So, I need to digest all of this for a bit before making a decision on what theory to support.  The revelation that Eliwlad and Madog belonged near Caer Dathal and Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd and not in Cornwall has, to be honest, shaken things up (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-shocking-discovery-real-location-of.html). For one, the 'kawyl' of the Uther elegy would not be an eye-skip for Sawyl, but instead  - as I've felt all along it must be - a botched rendering of kanwyl(l), a word that could mean 'star.'  This is what Uther, in the previous line,  is transformed into (the epithet gorlassar, Geoffrey's Gorlois, being found a the head of the poem). 

It has always been a major "coincidence" that Arthur's military activity in Nennius and the Welsh Annals exactly matches chronologically that of Cerdic of Wessex.  I now fear that there is no coincidence.  There may have been a deliberate attempt to disguise Cerdic/Ceredig under the name Arthur and to use a poetic descriptor to similarly hide his father Cunedda's true identity.  The only reason I can think of to do this is because the Welsh wished to counter Cerdic of Wessex's fame with their own hero's prowess.  This was a tricky matter, for the Cunedda dynasty was quite famous to the Welsh, while Cerdic, rightly or wrongly, was claimed as an English hero. 

I will announce where I'm heading with all this in the near future.