WHAT IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO: THE CASE FOR UTHER PENDRAGON AS SAWYL OF RIBCHESTER

'Marwnat Vthyr Pen' Showing pen kawell and eil kawyl

My dilemma, in a nutshell, is this: given my identification of all the Arthurian sites in the North of Britain, two potential historical candidates emerge from additional research: a chieftain or king ruling along the western half of Hadrian's Wall or a son of Sawyl Benisel of Sarmatian Ribchester.

We may retain the latter only if we accept Uther Pendragon as a poetic title for Sawyl.  While several arguments can be put forward in support of Sawyl, ultimately we must rely on just two possible textual emendations.  That is the slender basis of the case I'm presenting. 

My readers have seen me treat of the first one in mind-numbing detail.  This demands that Eliwlad (son of Madog son of Uther) be interpreted as an error for Eilwlad.  Such a change can be accounted for by a metathesis which can be demonstrated in other MS. occurrences of eil for eli (or vice-versa). The meaning of Eilwlad is 'other-land', something that perfectly matches the Irish ailithir epithet of St. Madog son of Sawyl. While ailithir is, literally, 'other land', its meaning is "pilgrim." The didactic poem 'The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle' resembles another poem featuring a saint instructing a pilgrim.

Professor Barry Lewis, who has studied these kinds of didactic poems, told me that he could not think of any counter-examples in which anyone other than a saint or especially holy person instructed the laity. While Eliwlad is depicted as a spectral eagle in an oak tree, it is implied that he is a Heavenly visitant.  For him to be instructing Arthur on Christian tenets implies that he is by his very nature sacred.  Were he not, there would be no reason for him to have been used thus in the poem.    

The other proposed alteration is from kawyl to Sawyl in the Uther Pen elegy.  I had offered cannwyll, but Dr. Simon Rodway, one of - if not the top expert on the language in these MSS. - said that three things made him "uneasy" about this word in the context of the poem:

"1)      This requires positing an n-suspension.  These do occur occasionally in medieval Welsh MSS, but they are very rare.

2)      Supposing an n-suspension would only allow us to restore one n.  In an OW form, one would expect nt, nh or perhaps nn, but not n.

3)      The single l would mean suggesting an Old Welsh exemplar, for which there is no other clear evidence in the poem.  Elsewhere the scribe has ll where needed, so if he was copying from an examplar with l for ll, then this would be the only occasion on which he didn’t correctly modernize.    

Overall, emendation to Sawyl, while totally speculative, involves less issues (eye-skip to kawell), and eil Sawyl, ‘a second Samuel’ gives plausible sense."

The "plausible sense" he is alluding to here has to do with 'eil' fronting kawyl, which can mean not only second, but like/similar to or descendant of, as well as my accepted interpretation of 'pen kawell' in the previous line as a title for God reading 'chief of the sanctuary.'  This title, in the Bible, is first used for God during the story of the prophet Samuel.  

And that's pretty much it.  We either accept those two points or we don't.  As with pretty much everything Arthurian, there is precious little evidence.  Some would say there is none at all - and they are not far wrong.  No matter how objective we try to be when we study this material, we ultimately are forced to make a judgment call.  In other words, we decide to "believe" something from a subjective perspective.  The subjectivity in question may be based on a rational process, but the actual decision to subscribe to a theory requires, well, a leap of faith.

For better or worse, I'm committing to an Arthur who was born at Ribchester to Sawyl Benisel.  I do so with the full awareness that my theory may be wrong and that someone else in the future may come up with a more compelling and more valid historical candidate for this great hero.