In THE BOOK OF TALIESIN (VII, 61), a number of battles are listed for Urien Rheged. While some remain unidentified, we do know the locations of others. In this blog post I would like to offer a tentative identification for 'yn eil mehyn'.
This place is listed between that of the Lyvennet Beck in Cumbria, the ford of Alclud in Strathclyde (although Alclud makes more sense as Auckland in Durham; see https://spns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Alan_James_Brittonic_Language_in_the_Old_North_BLITON_Volume_II_Dictionary_2020_Edition.pdf) , the Manor Water in Scottish Borders and Bremenium/High Rochester in Northumberland. In the above map I have placed as many of the Urien battles as can be at least tentatively located. We might, then, reasonably expect for 'eil mehyn' to be somewhere in Lowland Scotland, and preferably between the other battles - assuming, of course, we can allow for such a geographical ordering of the various engagements.
On the place-name designation (or description) 'eil mehyn', here is Ifor Williams' note:
It is possible 'eil mehyn' as the fenced/palisaded place may not be a real place-name; it may instead be merely a descriptor. Some weight is given to this possibility, given that the precededing location is 'eidoed kyhoed', the 'conspicuous defenses.' Or both eil mehyn and eidoed kyhoed may be one and the same site!
Let us, though, assume for the sake of argument that eil mehyn is an actual fortified site.
Now, opting to take this angle is interesting, for one of the seriously proposed etymologies for the Eildon Hills, with its Eildon Hill North fort (the largest in all of Scotland), is an English dun preceded by a Cumbric word meaning palisade or fence. The early forms for Eildon are as follows (see http://spns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MayWilliamsonComplete.pdf):
Ældona, 1119-24 (c 1320) Kelso; Eldune, 1143 LSMM; 1166-70 BM; -doun, c 1153 (16th) Dryb; -dunum (acc) 12th SD; -dun, c 1208 BM; Eladune, c 1150 C de M.
This discussion of the name Eildon is from Alan James, noted expert of place-names in Northern Britain (see http://www.clanntuirc.co.uk/JSNS/V7/JSNS7.pdf, as well as https://spns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Alan_James_Brittonic_Language_in_the_Old_North_BLITON_Volume_II_Dictionary_2019_Edition.pdf):
"It might include a plural form *eil of *al, which Watson 1926, 32‒33, saw as a cognate of Old Irish ail ‘rock’), alternatively *eil ‘wattle fence or structure’, but Old English ǣled ‘fire’ or ǣlǣte ‘desert, empty place’ (+ OE -dūn ‘hill’) are also good possibilities."
I would propose, therefore, that 'the place of the fence or palisade' is a Welsh rendering of Eildon, and that this is where Urien won a major victory, presumably against the English. [1] Three heroes for the three Eildon Hills makes sense, and given that the Eildons is not only the most prominent landmark in the Scottish Lowlands, but also sports Scotland's largest hillfort on Eildon North Hill, it seems unlikely that the Welsh panegyricists would have been ignorant of the site.
NOTE: The fascinating thing about the Urien map is that it shows a war leader a generation after Arthur fighting the English along pretty much exactly that same North-South line.
[1] Another possibility for the 'fence place' would be the Catrail dyke in the Scottish Lowlands. The name (see again Alan James) has been etymologized with ail, 'palisade', as its second component. From James' BLITON:
*eil (m) eCelt *al-jo- > Br *aljo- > M-MnW ail, eil; OIr aile > (in compounds) Ir, G –aile, Mx –ayl. The Celtic root *al- is associated with weaving, and with the construction of fences, buildings, etc using woven wattles. So Welsh eil is ‘a shelter, a shed’, Old Irish aile ‘a fence, a palisade’, Irish/Gaelic buaile, Manx boayl, ‘a cattle-fold’. Williams, PT pp. 85-6, saw this element in Alclüd, suggesting that it referred to wattle-built defences both here and at the unlocated Eil Mehyn BT61(VII), but see also *al and alt. a1) Eildon Hills Rox PNRox pp. 7 and 40 [+OE –dūn ‘a hill’], but see discussion under *al. b1) The Catrail Slk CPNS p. 181 ? + cad- ["battle"] + analogical –r- (for ‘erroneous’ -ï[r]-, cf. CPNE p. 7 and, for similar cases in Gaelic toponymy, SPN² p. 161). A discontinuous series of earthworks crossing upper Tweed, Yarrow, Ettrick and Teviot dales; both its archaeology and its etymology are obscure. c2) Potrail or Powtrail Water Lnk (a headwater of the Clyde) CPNS p. 181n2 ? + *polter-.
If this great ditch served a military purpose, it may be where Urien fought.
I would add that the Elei associated with Mabon in the PA GUR poem does not appear to be the river of that name (Elai) in southern Wales. Indeed, there is no good reason for associating Mabon with the River Ely. Instead, the context of Elei strongly points to a location in the North.*
One of the other 'raptors of Elei' is Kysceint son of Banon, a slight scribal error for Kysteint, i.e. the Welsh spelling of the Latin name Constantius. Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales was kind enough to provide me with this information on the name Banon:
"Banon is a woman's name meaning 'queen' (probably originally 'goddess'), cf. Gaulish Banona."
The only famous Constantius we know of in Britain is Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine the Great. He launched a punitive expeditions against the Picts north of Hadrian's Wall and died at York. If Kysteint son of Banon is a folk memory of this emperor, then all the more reason for us to seek 'Elei' in the North. As for Banon, well, this may stand for Constantius' mother, Claudia, but I also wonder if it may not be a folk development from the Bononia (modern Boulogne) Constantius captured from Carausius?
Celticist Peter Schrijver relates the river-name Elai to the same root word meaning fence or palisade:
If we reconstruct forward from an early Celtic Alesia or
Alisia towards Old Irish, the result is aile, which does
indeed exist: the Old Irish ia-stem aile means ‘fence,
palisade (to prevent cattle from trespassing)’; cf. also the
compound bú-aile ‘cow pen’. Old Welsh has a probable
cognate in the Book of Llandaf ’s Eiliau, Eliau, names of a
village and a villa, respectively, hence originally ‘Pens,
Fences’. These are British Celtic plurals in *-ou > – au,
which have an exact counterpart in Modern Welsh eiliau
‘cattle pens’. They regularly reflect an earlier British plural
*alesj-owes/*alisj-owes. The singular *alesj_ probably
survives as the Old Welsh river name Elei in the Book of
Llandaf (perhaps modern Lai or Ely, Glamorganshire).
The Middle Welsh singular belonging to the plural eiliau,
however, is not *elei but eil ‘cattle-pen, shed’ (e.g., in the
Red Book of Hergest 1035.23 alaf yn eil meil am ved ‘cattle
in a pen, a cup around mead’), which cannot be derived
regularly from *alesja/ *alisja. Middle Welsh eil is probably
a back-formation: on the model of such common plural /
singular pairs as teithieu / teith ‘journey(s)’, drysieu / drws
‘door(s)’ a new singular eil was created beside inherited
eilieu (= Old and Modern Welsh eiliau).
[EMANIA 20, JUNE 2006
Early Irish Ailenn
An Etymology]
Dr. Simon Rodway, in reviewing Schrijver's argument, said only that "I can't see any problem with this."
If both scholars are right, we can look to the Catrail or "Battle-fence" (or, perhaps better, 'Mighty Fence, with Cadr + ail/eil; accroding to the GPC, cadr is from Celt *kat-ro-) for a good connection with Mabon - or at least with the Mabon name as it is found in an extent northern place. I am speaking of the Mabonlaw hillfort in the parish of Roberton, a parish which also contains portions of the Catrail dyke. See the map below.
Elei would be an error of sorts, a more familiar substitution for the northern ail/eil/"palisade" that was itself later further embellished with either cad- or cadr.
*
Given the context in which Mabon appears in the 'Pa Gur', it seems impossible to maintain his presence at the River Ely in southern Glamorgan, Wales. I am here presenting the relevant portions of the poem as taken directly from Nerys Ann Jones' ARTHUR IN EARLY WELSH POETRY:
The reader will notice that after Mabon is associated with Elei, we are told of the Tryfrwyd battle, which took place at Queensferry (see my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF THE NORTH). Mabon is mentioned again - this time with what may be a patronymic, Mellt ('Lightning') - in conjunction with heroes fighting at Edinburgh on the border. Llwch Llaw-wynnog shows a Welsh attempt at an Irish spelling for the god Lugh. Lugus is preserved in the regional name Lleuddiniawn, modern Lothian, whose capital was Edinburgh.
Therefore, it seems certain that this particular Mabon does not belong in southern Wales!
According to https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/108609.pdf:
"The name 'Annan Street' in the Yarrow valley, which is also accompanied by a road-side cemetery, may indicate the presence of another lateral route, paralleling those in the valleys of Tweed and Lyne, and to the south over Craik Moor to Raeburnfoot, connecting Trimontium to the head of the Annan."
The Annan was the cult center of the god Maponus.
Noted place-name expert Alan James (BLITON) remarked on this possible route:
"Not unlikely. The head of the Annan is in fact Annanhead Hill, overlooking The Devil's Beef Tub on the Pbl/ Dmf border NT0513. I don't know of any trace of any Roman road (which 'Street' might imply), but there's a lot of evidence of Iron Age settlement round about there, which could well extend into early medieval."
NOTE ON THE THIRD 'RAPTER OF ELEI', GWYN GODYFRION
The entire section on the Elei, precisely because this was known to be a river-name, shows what appears to be intruded water symbolism. To explain how this came about, the following note from THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH (ed. R. Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman and B. F. Roberts) is helpful:
It should not surprise us, then, that the third of the raptors of Elei bears a very strange epithet - one which has, indeed, been interpreted as a place-name. As discussed in the volume by Jones:
If not a made-up name for a made-up hero (is this merely a doublet for the god Gwynn son of Nudd?), Gwyn 'Below/Under [the?] Water' looks to be yet another corrupt spelling, like so many that occur in the 'Pa Gur' (again, see my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF THE NORTH). Alternately, we could look for a real place-name, probably an English, Norse or Gaelic one. Something, perhaps, like "Nether White Burn/Beck."
In CULHCH AC OLWEN, Gwyn is placed in the North for the story of Creiddylad and Gwythyr. As his father was Nudd, it may well be that legend associated him with the Nudd son of Liberalis who is to be connected with the Yarrow Stone. I once explored this Nudd as a possible relation of Uther Pendragon (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/06/uther-pen-son-of-nethawcnwython-part-two.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/05/uther-pen-son-of-nethawcnwython.html). If Gwyn Godyfrion was indeed linked to this chieftain, a possible link with the Eildons as the original site of Elei gains some traction. See the following maps for the proximity of Yarrow to the Eildon Hills.
Note that the Yarrow Water empties into the Ettrick, a major tributary of the Tweed just upstream from the Eildons. The Yarrow Stone stands in Whitefield. The Whitehope Burn runs nearby.
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