Bath House, Roman Ribchester (Photo Courtesy Paul Adams)
[What follows has not been altered in any way since I first offered it a couple of months ago. I should add, however, that I managed to get temporarily sidetracked onto what turned out to be more spurious Welsh tradition, viz. the supposed connection of Uther with Caer Dathal in Gwynedd. I eventually came to the conclusion that Caer Dathal as the birthplace of Arthur was no more acceptable historically than Geoffrey of Monmouth's Tintagel. In fact, the Caer Dathal claim may actually depend on the Galfridian one. Having now exhausted all additional avenues of research, I remain committed to presenting and defending the 'Sawyl of Ribchester' theory as the most viable.]
After doing everything conceivable to destroy my own argument for Arthur's Dark Age origin at Ribchester, Lancashire, I've come to realize that it really is a good theory - perhaps even a valid one. I will emphasize, as I always do, that it is only a theory. Anyone who claims to be presenting historical fact when it comes to an Arthur of the 6th century A.D. is being ingenuine.
What I would like to present here is a summary of sorts of my conclusions (I will not dignify them by calling them "findings", as that implies a result stemming from scientific testing).
1) The paper "Missing Pieces" (Malcor, L.A., Trinchese, A., Faggiani, A., Missing Pieces: A New Reading of the Main Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 47, no 3 & 4 Fall/Winter, 2019, pp. 415-437), after critical examination by top Roman historians and epigraphers, has convinced me that the 2nd century A.D. Lucius Artorius Castus would, in fact, have had a great deal to do with the Sarmatians who were sent to Britain. LAC's center of operations would have been York, but the Sarmatians served as garrison troops at Ribchester and that fort became a civilian settlement reserved for Sarmatian veterans. Had the name Artorius been remembered in the North, becoming eventually Cumbric Arthur, the two most likely places to find it as far as ruling families are concerned would be those two cities.
2) Uther is said to have had a son named Madog. A 5th-6th century chieftain of Ribchester named Sawyl Benisel had a son of that name. We know of this St. Madog only through the Irish sources. In the 'Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle' (Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr), Madog son of Uther is given a son named Eliwlad. While it is possible to come up with one barely acceptable etymology for Eliwlad (one that relies upon a word definition only possibly found in very early Welsh), the simplest derivation would be to propose an original form Eilwlad (the metathesis happening rather easily, as can be demonstrated by copying errors in MSS.). This would mean 'Other-land' and would be a perfect semantic match to Irish Ailithir, 'Other-land', an epithet applied to Sawyl's son Madog. Thus, Eliwlad or Eilwlad son of Madog would be a folk memory of Madog Ailithir. Ailithir was used to mean 'pilgrim' from the time of Old Irish, and in Welsh literature we find another didactic poem which Oliver Padel has compared to the one featuring Arthur and the eagle. In this later poem, a saint instructs a pilgrim on Christian doctrine.
3) The name Sawyl is almost certainly used in the elegy for Uther Pendragon (Marwnat Vthyr Pen) for Uther himself. This requires emending a word kawyl through a single error known as an eye-skip. According to no less an authority than Dr. Simon Rodway of the University of Wales, cannwyll for kawyl calls for several errors and some of these would be unique to the MSS. in which the poem is embedded. Because of this he holds that Sawyl is the preferred reading. 'eil cannwyll' would also make no sense, given the reference to Uther's transformation in the previous line. And this is true whether eil here is supposed to have the sense of 'like' or 'second.' Eil Sawyl, 'a second Sawyl', on the other hand, does work quite nicely. The pen kawell of the previous line (which is the source of the proposed eye-skip) can perhaps be found in the place-name Kingscavil in West Lothian. Unfortunately, Kingscavil as it now stands is a Gaelic name and the derivation of its second element is disputed. If we instead accept Sawyl for kawyl, then the best reading of pen kawell is "Lord of the Sanctuary", an epithet for God in the same line. "Lord of the Sanctuary" would be a play on "Sanctuary of the Lord", first found used of God in the Old Testament in the context of Samuel and his mother at Shiloh.
4) Pendragon may be interpreted in standard Welsh poetic fashion as meaning merely 'chief-warrior' or the like. In other words, 'dragon' in this context would be a metaphor. However, the Sarmatians were among those steppe people who are credited with bringing the draco standard into the Roman army. It is true that by the late Roman period the draco had become thoroughly 'Roman.' But it may have remained particularly sacred to the Sarmato-Britons of sub-Roman and Dark Age Ribchester. In the late Roman army there was a rank magister draconum which would translate perfectly into pen + dragon. What this means is that there might be something to Geoffrey of Monmouth's story about the comet and the draco after all. I have elsewhere covered in some detail the comet of 442 A.D., found in Continental and Irish records. This comet originated in Ursa Major, the Great Bear, and we know the Welsh frequently alluded to Arthur as a 'bear.'
Alternately, the cruel/terrible/horrible/fearful chief-dragon may owe his name/title to a desire on the part of the Welsh to hide the true identity of Arthur's father (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-two-sawyls-or-does-arthur-belong-at.html). This may well have happened because another wicked, cruel Sawyl, styled a dux and a tyrant, who resided in southern Wales was wrongly identified with the northern figure of that name.
5) The battles of Arthur as found in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM are in perfect accord with a man who was born at Ribchester and who then appears to have acquired military control of Hadrian's Wall. These battles stretch up and down the Roman Dere Street and include among them the York of Lucius Artorius Castus. Arthur died at Camlan on the Wall (Castlesteads fort) and may have had his control center at either Banna/Birdoswald (like Camlan, in the Irthing Valley/Valley of the Bear and of the *Artenses or People of the Bear, i.e. Welsh Arthwys) or at Uxellodunum/Stanwix. Banna was garrisoned for centuries by Dacians who, like the Sarmatians, had introduced a version of the draco into the Roman army. The Dacians may also have worshiped a bear god (Zalmoxis). Sarmatians and Dacians had fought together against Rome, and their homelands bordered upon one another.
6) The god Mabon is said to be the servant of Uther Pendragon. I have demonstrated that Eliwlad son of Madog is localized at Cutmadoc in Cornwall, very near to which are Mabon place-names (Tremabyn). In the parish of Llansawel in Wales (-sawel = Sawyl) there was a castle of Mabon the Giant. And we know that Mabon as the Roman period Apollo Maponus was worshipped at Ribchester. Eliwlad as the Otherworld eagle may have been associated with the god Lleu, who takes that form in death in Nantlle, Gwynedd. The Welsh placed Mabon's grave in the same place, and in the "Pa Gur" poem Mabon is said to be a predatory bird.
7) A requirement of the 6th century Arthur is that he be part Irish. This is because his name was used in the following generation by two Irish-descended dynasties in Britain (those of Dyfed and Dalriada). Sawyl of Ribchester had as his wife a princess of Ulaid. No one else has been able to satisfactorily explain why only Irish-descended dynasties in Britain named their sons Arthur. If you can't demonstrate why this happened, then your theory is not valid. This may seem a brutal assessment, but I feel the need to emphasize it precisely because so many Arthurian scholars have chosen to ignore it.
One theory which seeks to account for the later Irish Arthurs was first voiced by Oliver Padel and echoed by Nicholas HIgham (in KING ARTHUR:MYTH-MAKING AND HISTORY, p. 77):
"The upsurge in Arthur-naming seems to be exclusive to Irish or Irish-connected families. This may simply reflect interaction of Irish in-comers with the name Arthur as a wonder-worker and folk-hero, upon arrival in Britain. Its adoption may, therefore, reflect a desire to capture whatever mythological kudos and religious potency already surrounded the name, with British/Welsh families avoiding its use primarily because of its newly acquired mythological connections."
I'm afraid I find this explanation rather nonsensical.
The only other attempt to account for the Arthur name among the Irish in Britain is that of Ken Dark, who thinks the famous, legendary Arthur was the one who belonged to 7th century Wales (see https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/GCMS/RMS-2000-04_K._Dark,_A_Famous_Arthur_in_the_Sixth_Century.pdf). There are several problems with his idea. The main one has to do with chronology. Simply put, it doesn't work for the dates and time-bracketing that are assigned to the 6th century Arthur.
And that's pretty much it. At this point in time, after more than a quarter of a century of Arthurian research, I cannot do better in terms of producing a solid historical candidate for the famous hero. My "gut feeling" is now aligned with my rational mind and I can state with a measured degree of confidence that no other theory seems especially compelling to me. This is especially true given the intensive and comprehensive 'stress testing' I have inflicted upon it. As a result, I will be reissuing my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER with some minor corrections and improvements in the next few days.
My book can be found here:
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