THE GHOST AMBROSIUS: READING THE 4TH CENTURY INTO THE 5TH

Ambrosius

Aurelius Ambrosius, said to be a Roman, is the most famous figure in Dark Age British history prior to Arthur. Why? Because he is credited with having united the Britons in a successful defense of the country against the Saxons, who from Vortigern’s time had, according to the traditional account, pillaged and conquered at will.

Ambrosius is important also because it has been fashionable to identify him with Arthur. As we shall see, such an identification is patently impossible.

To begin, Ambrosius was not a contemporary of Arthur. He was not, in fact, even a contemporary of Vortigern, who preceded Arthur by a century. And this is true despite the HB account, which brings Vortigern and Ambrosius (as the Welsh Emrys) together for a fabulous story that takes place at Dinas Emrys in northwestern Wales (see below).

There are major problems with accepting Ambrosius as a contemporary of Vortigern. First, he cannot have been a Roman and been in Britain during or after Vortigern’s rule. The withdrawal of the Romans is firmly dated at c. 409 CE. Vortigern’s ruling dates, depending on the sources consulted, are anywhere from twenty to forty years after the Roman withdrawal. If he were a Roman during or after Vortigern, then he came from the Continent and was not a native Briton. The argument could be made that ‘Romanized’ Britons continued to preserve the Roman way of life in southern England for a half century after the withdrawal of the troops. In this sense, a chieftain like Ambrosius might still consider himself to be ‘Roman’.

However, the HB tells us that Ambrosius fought a battle against a certain Vitalinus at a Guoloph or Wallop, thought to be the Hampshire Wallop. This Vitalinus is listed in the HB as the grandfather of Vortigern. This means that Ambrosius has wrongly been placed in the time of Vortigern. He actually belongs to the time of Vitalinus, who was probably of the 4th century.

The father of the famous 4th century St. Ambrose bore the name Aurelius Ambrosius. This man was, furthermore, the prefect or governor of Gaul (Gallia). Britain, Spain and Gaul were in the Gallic prefecture. So, we have here a historical figure named Aurelius Ambrosius who not only was a true ‘Roman’, but who could have had something to do with military operations carried out in Britain in the 4th century.

There is good reason to believe that St. Ambrose himself bore the name Aurelius. Jones' Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire gives no second name for the bishop of Milan and neither does Paulinus of Milan's Vita. Ambrose may have belonged to the gens Aurelia, as we know that he was related to Symmachus [Quintus Aurelius Symmachus]; an inscription refers to him as Aurelius Ambrosius. It is true that there is a debate over the Ambrose referred to in the inscription. Those who think it is Ambrose junior [St. Ambrose] point out that a dedication to St. Nazarius is involved. The point may be moot: if Ambrose senior belonged to the gens Aurelia, so did the son, and vice versa.  Incidentally, St. Ambrose’s Milan was anciently called Mediolanum and there was also a Roman town of this name in the British Cornovii tribal territory.  

One other factor strongly indicates that there is no good historical reason for accepting a 5th century Aurelius Ambrosius in Britain. Vortigern’s only interaction with Ambrosius, or Emrys Guletic (‘Prince Ambrosius’) as he is called in Welsh tradition, is in the Dinas Emrys folktale already alluded to above.

Other than Dinas Emrys, there appears to be no site in Britain which can be shown to contain the personal name Ambrosius. Still, this hero may even have been placed at Guoloph/Wallop because of the proximity of this stream to Amesbury. As Geoffrey of Monmouth did much later, Ambrosius's name was fancifully associated with Amesbury.

The town name does not, in fact, seem to contain the personal name Ambrosius. Its etymology is instead as follows:

Ambresbyrig, from a c.880 CE charter, then various spellings to Amblesberie in Domesday. Almost certainly a personal name Ambre or Aembre cognate with the Old German Ambri, hence Ambre's burgh, cf. Ombersley. All the early forms for Amesbury have the medial -b-, but no form has any extension that would justify derivation from Ambrosius.  See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/06/ambirix-as-name-preserved-in-place-name.html.

Ambrosius as a Latin adjective means “the Divine or Immortal One”. As such, it was at some point taken to be a title for the Welsh god Lleu. Welsh tradition made Lleu the ancient ruler of Gwynedd, and this is the rank granted to Emrys or Ambrosius in the HB. Hence Dinas Emrys in northwestern Wales, the ‘[Hill-] fort of the Divine or Immortal One’, is actually the Fort of Lleu.

The Welsh also appear to have identified the youthful god Mabon with Lleu. That this is so is demonstrated by the placement of the two gods in death at the same place. According to the Mabinogion tale Math Son of Mathonwy, Lleu is found as the death-eagle in the oak tree at Nantlle (Nant Lleu) in Snowdonia not far from Dinas Emrys. And one of the Stanzas of the Graves reads:

“The grave on Nantlle’s height, No one knows its attributes – Mabon son of Modron the Swift.”

In Chapter 6, we will discuss Emrys’s Campus Elleti, supposedly a site in southern Wales, in the context of Camelot. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth proceeded to further confuse the story of Ambrosius, a Roman governor of Gaul mistakenly identified with a Welsh god, by identifying both with the Northern Myrddin or Merlin. Hence we find Merlin or ‘Merlin Ambrosius’ in the Dinas Emrys story of Emrys/Lleu/Mabon.

In addition, Merlin is placed at the springs of Galabes, Geoffrey’s attempt at the Guoloph of the hero Ambrosius.

In conclusion, we can only say that there is no good reason for supposing that Vortigern and Ambrosius were contemporaries. Instead, the Ambrosius mentioned by Gildas as having military success in Britian must have been the 4th century Gallic governor of that name. This being the case, Ambrosius could not possibly have been the victor at the battle of Mount Badon, which is dated 516 CE. And, by extension, Ambrosius was not Arthur.

The Ghost Ambrosius or Why Arthur’s Predecessor Should be Stricken from the Annals of British History

Over the past several years, I've written a handful of articles on Ambrosius Aurelianus, a geographically and temporally dislocated figure in early British legend.  Yet despite the evidence I've presented, Arthurian scholars, professional and amateur alike, continue to mistake him for a real personage of 5th century Britain.  The idea that he might even be Arthur is still out there.  I feel, therefore, that it is time for a summary treatment of this supposed military hero.  The easiest way for me to do this is to itemize the points of my argument.

1) The name of A.A. matches perfectly that of the fourth century Governor of Gaul (whose territories included those of Britain) and his famous son, St. Ambrose.  Vortigern's grandfather Vitalinus is said to have fought A.A. at Wallop in Hampshire.  Such a battle reference puts A.A. well before Vortigern and negates the possibility that A.A. was a boy during Vortigern's reign.

2) St. Ambrose and his father lived at Trier on the Moselle.  The Campus Elleti in Wales where Vortigern's men are said to have found the boy A.A. comes from a Welsh place-name Maes Ilid (see modern Llanilid) and this may be a substitute for the Moselle (Mosella/Mosellae).  [For Llanilid as a scholarly error for the site, see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-red-herring-of-llanilid-uther.html.] We also have a Mediolanum in what is now Powys, a town whose name is identical with that of St. Ambrose of Milan. 

3) Dinas Emrys is a relocation for Amesbury, the latter thought (wrongly) to contain the name of Ambrosius.  Dinas Emrys was placed in Eryri because this mountain range was fancifully connected to the Welsh word for eagle, and both St. Ambrose and Magnus the Tyrant (easily confused with Vor-tigern) are known to have been at Aquileia, a place-name that could have been incorrectly linked with the Latin word for eagle. 

4) Trier was in Gallia Belgica, 'Gaul of the Belgae', and A.A.'s Wallop in Hampshire was in the ancient tribal territory of the British Belgae.  Gallia could be used in medieval sources for both Gaul and Wales.

5) A.A. is said to have been given Dinas Emrys and the western kingdoms of Britain by Vortigern. This is impossible, as Gwynedd belonged to Cunedda and his sons.  This is obviously a mistake for Amesbury, which was inside of what was to become Wessex, the kingdom of the WEST Saxons.

6) A.A appears to have been identified in folk belief with the god Lleu, styled Lord of Gwynedd,who was himself identified by the Welsh with the god Mabon.  The Campus Elleti ballgame story is paralleled in the Irish story of Mac Og, the 'Young Son', the Gaelic version of  Mabon. 

7) A.A. was further identified with Merlin (Myrddin), himself possibly a form of Lleu or an avatar of that god.

8) The whole exhuming by A.A. of the two vases containing dragons (read “chieftains” or “warriors”) has its prototype in St. Ambrosius’ exhuming of pairs of saints.  See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/01/st-ambrose-and-exhumation-of-saints.html.

In conclusion, the Ambrosius Aurelianus who first appears in the pages of Gildas is a purely legendary figure, based on the known historical Ambrosii of the Continent.  He was mistakenly transferred to Britain during the normal course of folklore development, largely due to a confusion of place-names. There is no reason to believe that either Ambrosius - father or son - ever set foot on British soil.  To concoct some famous war-leader of the Britons who happened to have been named after one of the Ambrosii is to ignore points 1-7 above.

But What About Gildas’s Ambrosius?

Although I have shown to my satisfaction why Ambrosius Aurelianus was not only wrongly placed in Britain, but put there at the wrong time, I've been asked a very good question by some of my readers:  "That's all well and fine, if we're talking about the tradition recorded in Nennius and subsequent sources (like Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history).  But what about A.A.'s appearance in Gildas?  How do you account for that?"

As it happens, that is an excellent question.  And not an easy one to answer.  But I will take a stab at it, in any case.

A.A. was Prefect of Gaul (and thus of Britain as well) c. 337-340.  We do not know when he died, but his son St. Ambrose (with whom he was conflated in Welsh legend) moved to Rome with his mother not earlier than 353 (https://books.google.com/books?id=sc49DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=st.+ambrose+and+his+mother+went+to+rome&source=bl&ots=7w4smM9os3&sig=ACfU3U0AuKyqO3hjZIrPlxdpBvQVvfCZ5g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_hL-SzqnpAhUOsp4KHZLYANQQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=st.%20ambrose%20and%20his%20mother%20went%20to%20rome&f=false).  Some have thought A.A. may have fallen at the same time as his Emperor Constantine II, who died in 340. 

In 343, Constantine's brother Constans, the new Western Emperor, visited Britain.  It is not known precisely why (see http://www.roman-emperors.org/consi.htm#9), but the reason is hinted at in Ammianus:

Book XX

1 1 Lupicinus, master of arms, is sent with an army to Britain, to resist the inroads of the Scots and Picts.

Such was the course of events throughout Illyricum and the Orient. But in Britain in the tenth consulship of Constantius and the third of Julian raids of the savage tribes of the Scots and the Picts, who had broken the peace that had been agreed upon, were laying waste the regions near the frontiers, so that fear seized the provincials, wearied as they were by a mass of past calamities. And Julian, who was passing the winter in Paris and was distracted amid many cares, was afraid to go to the aid of those across the sea, as Constans once did (as I have told),1 

1 In one of the lost books; it was in 343.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that A.A. did not perish with Constantine.  That although he was no longer serving as Prefect of Gaul, he accompanied Constans to Britain in some capacity.  This is certainly not out of the realm of the possible.  Granted, Constantine I/the Great had made the praetorian prefecture a civil, rather than a military post.  But A.A. could have been replaced by another prefect, and found himself in another role as part of a major military expedition to Britain.  It's also not inconceivable that A.A. fled to Britain after Constantine II's death, although had that been the case we would have expected him to take his family with him.  

However it happened, if A.A. were in Britain at the time, how do we account for the sequence of events in Gildas?

Rather easily, I suspect.  The problem has to do with a simple confusion of the two emperors named Constans - the one who was in Britain in 343 and the Constans II, son of the Constantine III who had been proclaimed emperor in Britain in 407.  

A very puzzling line in Gildas has not, to my knowledge, been analyzed.  It occurs in 25:2, and runs as follows:  "After a time, when the cruel plunderers had gone home, God gave strength to the survivors." These survivors, and those who flocked to them, had as their leader A.A.  On the surface, this would seem to be a nonsensical statement.  The Saxons invited in by Vortigern did not, in fact, go home.  Gildas had just previously told us that they had invited in more of their kind and proceeded to take over the island. We are told in Nennius that Vortimer pushed them to the Isle of Thanet, but that after he was slain they continued their depredations and conquest.  

So who went home when A.A. showed up on the scene?

I would propose that Gildas' account is here hopelessly confused.  The enemy that withdraws in this context was forced to do so by Constans I, accompanid by A.A., who may well have had the military command.  We are probably talking about Scots and Picts, not Saxons.  What we appear to have here is a simple jumbling of fourth and fifth century events.

NON-ARTHURIAN NOVEL NOW AVAILABLE

Not Arthurian, but something my readers may find to be of some interest.

https://www.amazon.com/Rending-August-Hunt/dp/1533583099/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the%20rending%20august%20hunt&qid=1626911951&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR3CdPKy5vFaUSI00RDioo8wbqy68-l8F7iSUoBvwa7AvTmCISOGUsSRHX4

PROLOGUE

The Soulmender Taul had been born in the Tower of the Keep of Ashroud and had never set forth outside. For five hundred and thirty seven years he had dedicated himself to the single purpose of guarding the Doomstones. Now it was time for him to leave.

He stood on the wall of the Tower, arms raised in supplication to the sky. His robe - woven of the blue of the heavens, the brown of the earth, the green of the sea - flapped in the wind. White hair like clouds or snow or foam whipped his face. Already the sulphureous reek of the balstorm came to his nostrils. The churning yellow clouds with their black lightnings were spreading their dark carrion wings over the Keep. Vile bal creatures milled like fire ants at the foot of the wall.

They had destroyed the Doombringers, ten thousand strong, the pride of the Soulmender army. Taul caught glimpses of Doombringer corpses and their mounts, hidden mostly by feasting bal creatures. For three days the fierce battle had waged on Dearthurn's Plain of Lidaghtrk Dalirkght, an endless cacophony of mortal and bestial screams and the clashing of weapons and armor. All that remained was for the bal army of the Soulrender to pierce the defenses of the mighty fortress. The Doomkeeper guards and the Soulmenders themselves could not long hold out against the dark army. Soon Sekia the Banned would set foot in the Keep and the Doomstones would be desecrated.

Taul began to sing. The song did not come easy to his lips, unaccustomed as he was to using dirty magic. But dirty magic was all he could use, else the Soulrender would know what he was doing and would seek to prevent his departure. The words of the song were like the faint echoes of thunder:

Come to me,

the dead in your mountain,

from out of the corpse-cold north.

Come to me,

the sleepers in your hill,

from out of the flesh-frozen north.

Come to me,

the spirits in your mound,

from out of the bone-biting north.

Spirit passing in the breath that leaves,

Breath passing in the wind that leaves,

Wind passing in the cloud that leaves,

Cloud passing in the storm that leaves.

Come to me,

the dead in your wind,

from out of the corpse-cold north.

Come to me,

the sleepers in your cloud,

from out of the flesh-frozen north.

Come to me,

the spirits in your storm,

from out of the bone-biting north.

Taul stretched forth the sense that saw what happened far away and watched as the deathstorm gathered over the mountain in the north. The spirits of the dead rushed like the howling wind from the Doors of the mountain, becoming One as they rose above the mountain in a pillar of swirling cloud-fire. The pillar grew until it blocked out the sun, a black lotus unfolding in the sky.

When it pressed against the dome of heaven itself, the spiritstorm moved from its mountain, flew on the wings of the dead towards the Keep of Ashroud. It traveled fast, so fast that it passed behind the Curtains of the worlds. There his sight would not go. He lowered his arms. How long would it take to reach here? the Soulmender wondered. Would it arrive in time?

An explosion detonated somewhere below him, rocking the Tower. The stones of the Keep groaned to their very foundation. Before he even looked down, Taul knew what the explosion meant: a tine from a bolt of bal-lightning had found its way through the Spell of Fastening that secured the main gate.

The unyielding bands of irthmog- wrought stayiron were peeled back like skin from a dead man. Huge timbers of fernfolk oak, kept suspended between the form-shadow worlds and the fernfolk world by Doordevisers, were shattered into glass-like shards.

The dark bal army of Sekia Soulrender surged forward, pressed in on itself and flowed in miasmic waves into the Keep of Ashroud.

A rumbling in the distance that was not balthunder brought the Soulmender's head back up. Scanning the horizon, he could barely make out a deeper darkness moving beneath the balstorm. Then the sense that saw what was far away knew it for what it was: the spiritstorm from the mountain in the north, just now come from behind the Curtains of the worlds. The thunder that was not bal became louder, the deathstorm loomed larger. Closer, closer it came, passing through the air with unnatural speed, boiling with the darkness that hid the dead. Something akin to hope rekindled in Taul's breast.

Within the Keep beneath the Soulmender's feet, his fellows and the Doomkeepers were dying. Some had the goodness removed from their souls by a horror of Sekia's making. These, now wholly evil, turned on their brothers-in-arms. Others had their souls rent from them and their torn souls became the playthings of the Soulrender. The rest fell victim to the nightmare warriors of the dark army. Even then, the Soulmender, who awaited the spiritwind, could feel the enemy forcing its way up the Tower stairs. Soon they would reach the roof of the Tower, where he stood waiting.

And then, mercifully and cruelly, the deathstorm reached the Keep, hovered possessively over the top of the Tower. The Soulmender offered himself to it, a sacrifice to pay for the dirty magic he had used. The fiery cloud enshrouded him in gloom. Within the gloom were shapes -- shapes without substance, shapes which gave themselves form by wrapping themselves in wind-driven cloud. The shapes, vague and indefinable, clawed and clutched at him. He gave himself up to them.

The spirits of the dead yanked him from the Tower wall, lifted him aloft. Suddenly all was cold and choking darkness, an endless sensation of violent motion, of being tossed this way and that until he knew not anymore what was up or what was down. As the spirit-shapes tried to rip him apart, tried to strike him with flaming brands, buffeted him with mighty gusts and pelted him with sleet and hail, he cried out in agony and terror, but there was only laughter like wind and screams like wind and teasing, mocking faces like wind.

Through it all, he tried desperately to keep his wits about him, to send his thoughts to the world he needed, to send his thoughts to the spirits so that they might guide the deathstorm to the world of his choosing.

The spirits heard him. Their answer was the thunder that bore him away from the Keep of Ashroud.

THE STREAM-NAMES OF ROMAN RIBCHESTER

[Original unaltered map courtesy http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/roman2.htm]

As the Roman fort at Ribchester, Bremetennacum Veteranorum, is my proposed site for the birthplace of the legendary Dark Age Arthur, I thought it might be interesting to briefly investigate the relationship between the stream-names of this location.  

The modern name for the large river at Ribchester is Ribble, but we know from Classical sources it was anciently called Belisama, a goddess name probably meaning something like 'the Most Shining One' (see Rivet and Smith's THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN).  As the name of the fort itself is derived from another stream-name - *Brematona - we must assume this stream is the Stydd Brook that empties into the Ribble immediately to the NE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stydd_Brook).

But what of the Ribble name itself, now applied to the Belisama?

Many theories have been attempted, but none of them work.  The most outlandish is often found on the Web, deriving from the neopagan writer Nick Ford.  He claims (in LANCASHIRE'S SACRED LANDSCAPE, p. 82)Ribble is from Rigabelisama, i.e. 'Queen Belisama.'  This is etymologically impossible (never mind that Riga- does not mean queen; we would need *rīganī-).  The idea has been floated that we should see a British *Ro-belo- in the Ribble, a formation that would be remarkably similar semantically to Belisama.  Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. Place-name expert Alan James has informed me that

"That idea has been tossed around, trouble is lenition (pre 500 AD), unless OE speakers adopted the name very early, it would be *Rivel."

Richard Coates of the English Place-Name Society agrees, saying

"I’m sceptical about *ro-, which seems unlikely to have given such a consistent English /i/ at the relevant period (see LHEB 657-9)."

Fortunately, we don't have to make up an etymology for Ribble.  The early forms of the river-name (see Watts) - Rippel, Rypel - lead me to believe that this Ribble is simply OE *rip(p)el, 'a strip of land.'  This element may be present in several English place-names, but is certainly the basis for Ripple in Hereford and Worcestershire and Ripple in Kent.  Watts says of these two places:

"The reference is probably to a tongue of higher land along the Severn west of Ripple..."

"The reference is to a strip of high ground forming a spit or ridge of land."

I would assume, then, that such a place existed at Ribchester and precisely because this strip of land ran along the river, the river was given the name through the usual process of back-formation.  Alan James has another equally possible and related idea, which he shared with me only recently:

"It's not impossible that the river was named from some land on the estuary, not necessarily at Ribchester, which was more probably named from the river, rather than v.v."

As a final note, I would add that the Ribble valley was an important region for the Vikings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuerdale_Hoard).  Alan James reminded me of

"Cf. ON skogar-ripel 'strip of woodland'; the OE word is simply a diminutive of ripp 'strip.'

In any case, there is no reason to search for improbable derivations for the Ribble river-name (like something drawn from the language of the Sarmatian Iazyges whose veterans settled at the fort).

SAWYL BENISEL, FATHER OF ARTHUR, AND THE 'IRISH CONNECTION'

I have frequently mentioned that when we seek to propose a historical candidate for the legendary Arthur, we must account for the fact that subsequent Arthurs all belonged to Irish-descended dynasties in Britain.  Otherwise, whatever theory we come up with must automatically be considered null and void.  

When I argued for Sawyl Benisel at Ribchester as Arthur's father, I pointed out that his wife, according to Irish sources, was a princess, none other than the daughter of Muiredach Muinderg of the Dal Fiatach of Ulster. But I did not bother to delve more deeply into possible Ulaid influences present in the Arthurian legends.  I would like here to remedy that deficiency.

My readers will notice first that on the map above, the Dal Fiatach were neighbors of the Dal nAraide.  Well, Fiachna son of Baetan, whose son Mongan is sired upon Caintigern by Manannan mac Lir in a story that perfectly parallels the begetting of Arthur, was of the Dal nAraide.  The Dal nAraide, in turn, were neighbors of the Dal Riata who settled in Scotland and who named one of their princes Arthur.  Arthur son of 'Bicoir' (= Petuir of Dyfed) is said to have slain Mongan off the island of Islay, a part of Dalriada. 

But this is not the only fascinating connection between Arthur and Ulster.

Fergus Mac Roich, whose sword Caladbolg is the prototype for Arthur's Caledfwlch, was an Ulster king. [See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/07/king-arthurs-sword-excalibur-lightning.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-sword-in-anvil-and-sword-in.html.]

Findabair, the prototype for Arthur's wife Guinevere, was of Connacht, the enemy of Ulster in THE TAIN.  [Most Arthurian scholars have failed to observe that in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history, Arthur must marry Guinevere before he can conquer Ireland.  This is at least literary evidence that Findabair was acknowledged as an Irish Goddess of Sovereignty, a role she most certainly played in the Irish sources.]

I have elsewhere pointed out that Sawyl's Irish wife bore the same name (Deichtine) as the mother of CuChulainn.  Lugh was CuChulainn's father, and this god came to play a huge role in Arthurian story, first as Geoffrey of Monmouth's 'Lucius Hiber[n]us', and then as Lugh/Llwch Lamhcalad/Llawcaled or Lancelot of the Lake.  Although the case for the Setantii of Lancashire being etymologically related to CuChulainn's original name of Setanta has been challenged, the marked resemblance of the British tribal name and Irish personal name is intriguing.  

Although Arthur's 'Avalon' is certainly the Aballava Roman fort at Burgh-By-Sands in Cumbria, we have record of Aedan son of Gabran (variously father or grandfather of the Dalriadan Arthur) fighting

Baetan, father of Fiachna father of Mongan, on the Isle of Man.  As Mananann was linked with the Isle of Man, it is often identifed with his Emain Ablach. I have shown that all of the goddesses of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Avalon are Irish in origin. 

Given all of the above, I feel that an identification of Sawyl as Arthur's father is considerably strengthened.  Indeed, I can find no other possible candidate for Arthur's father that will better explain the Irish associations so prevalent in the story of our great British hero.  It makes sense that Ulster traditions would have infiltrated the court of Sawyl, given his marriage to an Ulster princess.  These traditions then found their way through the usual channels of transmission to Geoffrey of Monmouth.   

A Fairly Radical Revision of My Earlier Piece on Sawyl of Ribchester as Arthur's Father (Repost)

Eagle in an Oak Tree

At the end of 2019, just before the ill-fated COVID year of 2020, I thought I had completed my Arthurian research with a series of "discoveries" that strongly suggested Arthur was the son of a chieftain who hailed from Ribchester in Lancashire.  Unfortunately, 2020 proved to be as deleterious to my further Arthurian explorations as it did to pretty much everything else.  In short, everything seemed to devolve into chaos or stagnation.

In hindsight, I now view 2020 as a sort of "clearance" year.  And while I could choose to interpret that negatively, I opt instead to accept it was a time of positive growth.  For sometimes what we do must go into "retrograde" before we can advance to a more enlightened and committed state. Or, perhaps, I should say 2020 was a year of doubt followed by reclamation and clarification.

Several parties - including myself - had placed elements of my newest (and boldest) historical Arthurian theory into a sort of pupa stage.  The caterpillar was within the cocoon, but had not yet emerged and taken wing.  Before that could happen, the hidden transformation within the chrysalis had to conclude, and all external conditions had to be conducive to the miraculous emergence of the butterfly.

First, I was more or less forced to deal with the "specter" of the 2nd century Roman officer Lucius Artorius Castus, who at one time was put forward as "The Arthur." Although Dr. Linda Malcor, who originated the 'LAC = Arthur' theory, is now willing to admit that a Dark Age/Sub-Roman Arthur existed, I had to be able to demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction that there might be some connection between the two heroes.  If LAC proved to have no connection with the Sarmatians whom Marcus Aurelius shipped to Britain, then I could scarcely justify my argument for an Arthur based at the Ribchester Roman fort of the Sarmatian veterans. What this meant is that I felt compelled to launch onto an extensive investigation of LAC and, in particular, the LAC memorial stone inscription.  I did not want to deceive myself by subscribing to even a tangential Sarmatian theory without proof that such a theory might be possible.   If I had to abandon the Ribchester argument, that was okay. I would be disappointed, but disappointment is better than reconciling oneself to intellectual dishonesty for the sake of ego. 

Though excruciating, at times, and replete with very unpleasant "debates" with people I otherwise consider colleagues and even friends, I was able to reach the only logical, reasonable conclusion regarding LAC's military career as it concerned Britain, viz. that he had in all likelihood utilized Sarmatian troops in a victorious war against northern British tribes during the reign of Commodus and that, furthermore, he had taken legionary troops to Armorica to help in the Deserters' War.  Lastly, he had taken 1500 Sarmatian spearmen to Rome to execute the Praetorian Prefect Perennis.

All of that allowed me to sustain my position regarding the Ribchester Dark Age/Sub-Roman Arthur, as I could make a good case for the name Artorius (= British Arthur) being preserved in the Ribchester area by the descendents of the Sarmato-Britons living there.

But then I had another problem: the persistent belief in a Southern (or Dumnonian) Arthur.  The Welsh had propagated that myth, either independently or because of Geoffrey of Monmouth.  Our earliest extant literary sources from the Welsh places Arthur primarily in Wales and Southwest England.  We know that his legend was transferred to Brittany as well.  While I strove to link Uther Pendragon to Geraint of Dumnonia, the idea proved too tenuous.  Plus, if I situated Arthur in the South, I had to do the same thing with his battles that I had once tried to do when I sought to identify him with Cerdic of Wessex (= Ceredig son of Cunedda). And that was to render the Arthurian battles of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM into Welsh "translations" (often flawed ones) of the place-names found in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.  This seemed a promising approach, but upon reflection looked more like onomastic gymnastics than anything else.  Without having to contort anything, I could easily place all the Arthurian battles in the North - and early Welsh sources such as the PA GUR poem (which includes very helpful passages on the location of the Tryfrwyd/Tribruit battle, for example) informed me that trying to put the battles in the South was a mistake. 

At the end of it all - and good riddance to 2020, despite its profoundly instructive characteristics - I emerged thinking more than I had before that my Sawyl Benisel = Uther Pendragon theory was the most valid one I could come up with after over three decades of questing for a historical Arthur. While it may well be wrong (ALL OF OUR THEORIES MAY WELL BE WRONG!), and I am quite well aware of the foibles of belief and bias, until additional evidence to the contrary comes to my attention I am content to rest on the argument I present in my most recent book, THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER (https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Leader-Ribchester-Definitive-Identification-Legendary/dp/B085RNKWT6/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+battle-leader+of+ribchester+august+hunt&qid=1625421989&sr=8-1).

What follows is an old piece - yes, one offered way back at the end of 2019.  It does not contain all that is in my book, and some of the piece itself is in need of slight revision.  But it does a good job of showing what I had settled upon before we are afflicted (and blessed?) by 2020.  

[https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-fairly-radical-revision-of-my-earlier.html]

ELIWLAD GRANDSON OF UTHER AND MADOG AILITHIR 

SON OF SAWYL: MY FINAL STATEMENT ON A POSSIBLE 

ARTHURIAN-SARMATIAN CONNECTION 

Maponus Stone From Ribchester

The following post represents some selections from previous studies dealing with the personal name Eliwlad and with Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester.  I've now come to the conclusion that Eliwlad does, in fact, represent a Welsh attempt to render Irish Ailithir. No other proposed etymology for the name Eliwlad works.  One can, with considerable difficulty, concoct a few three part names beginning with the El- prefix ('many'), but the problem with this is that we do not, anywhere, have comparanda for such a formation.  In other words, all extant El- names are composed of only two elements.  Thus it is highly improbable that any postulated three-part El- name can be allowed.  In addition, if we seek a two-part El- name, no etymology is forthcoming from -iwlad.  

Professor Marged Haycock (personal correspondence) did come up with what looked like a promising etymology:

"Possibly elyf/elyw + gwlad in the ‘flaith’ sense.  Lord who has cattle, riches. etc."

But Dr. Simon Rodway stressed that this was not possible:

"In the Black Book of Carmarthen orthography, eliw stands regularly for elyf, plural of alaf, not for eliw, which is what we consistently have with Eliwlad. In other words, in the MSS in which Eliwlad occurs, i is not otherwise used for y. Elyf (a pl.)  + gwlad isn't at all compelling on formal grounds, anyway."

And Prof. Peter Schrijver agreed with him on this point:

"Simon certainly knowns what he is talking about, and to assume that consistent -i- in Eliwlad stands for -y-, as your etymology would presuppose, is problematic (unless it is a fossilized name, which seems to me unlikely because *elyf-wlad should be an eminently transparent compound)."

There thus seems to be no four-letter sequence that could possibly compose the first element of the name.

Two other proposed etymologies also had to be dispensed with.  The first of these was written about in the following blog post:

http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-second-preferred-etymology-for.html

While this idea seemed great at the time, I had neglected to check on one very important thing, viz. whether such a name-form was supported by the corpus of early and medieval Welsh names.  As it turns out, such is not the case.

Eliwlad as 'Prince of [the region] Eli' or, more literally, Eli-prince, does not yield any corollaries in Welsh personal names.  The same goes for 'Prince of Elei', perhaps a reference to Mabon the predatory bird of Elei in the PA GUR.  While Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales says that Elei-gwlad for Eliwlad is possible linguistically, it does not work for the same reason Eli-prince does not work.  Simply put, I could not find even one additional example of a place-name as an initial component, followed by a descriptor such as gwlad.  This means the proposed etymology is fatally flawed.  


Arguing against any use of gwlad as "prince" in Welsh is the mere fact that this word is regularly used only to mean 'land' and the like.  For 'prince' we find the very well-attested gwledig. There may exist a couple exceptions to the rule.  The following selection is from Thomas Charles-Edwards' ‘The Date of Culhwch ac Olwen’ in Bile ós Chrannaib: A Festschrift for William Gillies, edited by Wilson McLeod, Abigail Burnyeat, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart, Thomas Owen Clancy and Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh, Ceann Drochaid, 2010, pp. 50-51:

"Another possible old word that was not understood is gwlad in the sense of ‘lord, ruler’. In
one of the poems ascribed to Taliesin, his patron, Urien of Rheged, is praised by comparison:

gwacsa gwlat da wrth Urföen.

In the context, this ought to mean, ‘Useless is a good lord compared with Urien’. Although in
Middle and Modern Welsh gwlad means ‘country’ or ‘kingdom’, its Irish cognate, flaith, has
a triple meaning, ‘lordship; kingdom; lord’. This example makes it likely that in early Welsh,
gwlad could have at least a double meaning, ‘lord’ and ‘country’. A further likely example is
in Culhwch. The phrase mab brenhin gvlat teithiawc in lines 90–1 has a parallel in line 95,
mabyon gwladoed ereill, where ereill shows that the text is referring back to the earlier
phrase. This makes it likely that brenhin here is an embedded gloss, so that the contrast was
between map gvlat teithiawc [son of a wandering prince?] and mabyon gwladoed ereill [sons of other princes?]. The mabyon gwladoed ereill were to be housed in the yspyty, whereas the mab (brenhin) gvlat teithiawc would be allowed through the gate so as to enter the hall: hence the gwladoed ereill would appear to be rulers of lesser rank than a brenhin or gwlat teithiauc. This in turn makes it likely that gvlat in lines 90–1 and 95 should not be taken in the later sense of ‘major kingdom’, such as Gwynedd or Powys. The adjective teithiawc was regularly applied to a person or an animal but not to a country."

Welsh does have an allwlad, although it is only attested late.  Here it is from the GPC:

allwlad 

[all-+gwlad] 

eg.b. (adran (a)) ac eb. (adran (b)) a hefyd fel a.

a  Estronwr, dieithryn:

•  foreigner, stranger. 

1567 LlGG 89a, Yr awrhon nid ych na diethreit nac allwlat.

1567 TN 129a, A wyt ti yn unic yn ddiethr [:- allwlat] yn Caerusalem?

1604-7 TW (Pen 228) d.g. Alienigena.

1632 D.

1722 Llst 190, Allwlad. c.g. A forreigner.

1770 W d.g. An alien.

b  Gwlad estron:

foreign land. 

18-19g. MA ii. 365, [y] bobl groylon hyn a dathoed o allwlat.

[1862] Ieuan Glan Geirionydd: G 127, Ei mam dirion, mewn gwlad estronol, / Mewn ing o’i herwydd mae’n angeiriol; / … / Athrist, a hi’n ddieithrol—mewn all-wlad, / Trwy sâd gamsyniad yn absenol [Awdl Farwnad y Dywysoges Charlotte].

Fel a. Ecsotig, dieithr, estron, tramor:

exotic, strange, foreign, alien. 

1650 B xxii. 142, nhwy a dhychwelon yn i hol i’r ynys ag a dhifethan y gormesiaid anghyfiaith a’r treiswyr alhwlad.

1793 P, Allwlad … foreign.


[1860] Addysg Chambers ii. 253, Er fod y rhan fwyaf o’r planhigion … yn rhai brodorol, etto y mae yno luaws mawr o rai allwlad wedi eu cywladu.

I did ask Dr. Simon Rodway whether this word was necessarily only a late "concoction" or if it could possibly have been used much earlier.   He responded thus:

"I can't see any reason why it couldn't be an old compound."

Eliwlad is found in the Welsh didactic poem 'The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle'.  The text of this poem may be found in Jenny Rowland's EARLY WELSH SAGA POETRY, while a translation (which Rowland assisted with) can be found in the pamphlet"Arthur's Talk With the Eagle" by Gwyneth Lewis (Tavern Books, 2010).  Ifor Williams' text can be found at the following link, and I am posting his version as a footnote [1] below:  http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/eagle-w.html.  The English translation available at http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/eagle.html is very old and, in my estimation, not reliable.  The best recent scholarly translation and detailed discussion can be found in Nerys Ann Jones's ARTHUR IN EARLY WELSH POETRY.  

For an important post on Ribchester's relationship with York, see  https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/10/bremetennacum-and-eboracum-special.html.  And for Maponus (= Mabon, Uther Pendragon's "servant") at Ribchester, see https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/583.

On the date and significance of 'The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle', here is a brief discussion by Thomas Green in his Arthuriana: Early Arthurian Tradition and the Origins of the Legend, pp. 267-8:

To this we might add what Bromwich has to say on Eliwlad in her TRIADS, p. 346:

As for the name Sawyl Benisel, father of Matoc/Madog - as it is found in the Irish sources - this account is definitive:

from EARLY LITERARY CHANNELS BETWEEN IRELAND AND BRITAIN

Clark Harris Slover

Studies in English

No. 7 (November 15, 1927)

"The scoliast's preface to the Hymn of Sanctan in the Irish Liber Hymnorum contains the statement that the author made the hymn as he was going from Clonard westward to Inis Matoc. He was a brother to Matoc and had followed him to Ireland, and they were both Britons. Sanctan did not have the knowledge of the Irish language up to that hour, but God gave it to him quickly. Con­firmation of the British origin of Sanctan and Matoc is afforded by the LL tract on the mothers of Irish saints, where we find that Dechtire, daughter of Muiredach Muinderg, king of Ulster, was wife of Samuel Chendisil, and had two sons, Sanctan and Matoc.

Samuel Chendisil is the same as the Samuel Pennissel of Welsh tradition. The name means "low-head." He is men­tioned in the tenth-century genealogies attached to the Historia Britonum in MS Harleian 3859 as son of Pappo Post Priten. He appears also in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Brittaniae (III, 19)  as successor of Ryd­derch in the kingship. The relation between him and Samuel Bennuchel ("high-head") is interesting. Samuel Bennuchel is mentioned in the Welsh Triads as one of the three haughty men of Britain, and also as a member of King Arthur's court in the romance of Kulwch and Olwein. 

There is no doubt that they are one and the same person, for the genealogies from MS Hengwrt 536 (14th cent.) substi­tute Sawyl Penuchel for Samuel Pennissel as son of Pappo Post Priten, and the Brut Tyssilio, a Welsh redaction of Geoffrey's Historia, makes a similar substitution. J. Loth thinks that the substitution first occurred in the Triads; that the writer, feeling that "low-head" was a poor name for a haughty man, changed the original name Pennissel to Pen­nuchel ("high-head") .

Various Irish references to Sanctan show that the same confusion obtained in Ireland. The passage in the Book of Leinster already quoted says he was son of Cendissel ("low-head"). Another reference to Sanctan is glossed cendmar ("great head") .Still another refers to bishops Santan, Sanctan, and Lethan as sons of the British king Cantoin. Whatever this last name may mean, it falls in with the others in this tradition, for it contains the cenn ("head") element." 

***

I have discovered in early Irish sources variant spellings for Irish ailithir, "pilgrim, foreigner" (literally, aile + tir, 'other land'), an epithet for St. Madog son of Sawyl Penisel (or Penuchel).   One of these spellings was Elithir.  This last example satisfied the requirement of Eliwlad, the first element of which could not directly be derived from the Welsh cognate of Irish aile/eile, i.e. 'all' (although see below under  SCHOLARLY SUPPORT FOR ELIWLAD = AILITHIR/ELITHIR).  Welsh has alltud, 'other people/country', allfro, 'other land', and the late occurring allwlad, 'other country', for "foreigner."   In Welsh, ail/eil is "second."

Here are some of the books providing the spelling Elithir:

https://books.google.com/books?id=FQu0JKB_1gUC&pg=PA355&lpg=PA355&dq=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&source=bl&ots=NSkTwScygL&sig=DZkKzNIi7m98jc8K6cqQAKCcHe8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAjoD50_bWAhVI12MKHSDEAaQQ6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&f=false

 https://books.google.com/books?id=d8k_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA558&lpg=PA558&dq=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&source=bl&ots=RlEYVof7wh&sig=Cz54s3ccztT72jCpRGlc1FJEoew&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAjoD50_bWAhVI12MKHSDEAaQQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=wkVu5aheCCQC&pg=RA4-PA87&lpg=RA4-PA87&dq=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&source=bl&ots=x8V9lOgcHE&sig=COjXKifwiP-FE5yBidMZ_9sZcQs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAjoD50_bWAhVI12MKHSDEAaQQ6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=c_gUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&source=bl&ots=EfBagwDm-U&sig=-zDj4KGRtim6asEOvnUTjxsMoz4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAjoD50_bWAhVI12MKHSDEAaQQ6AEIMDAE#v=onepage&q=%22elithir%22%2B%22pilgrim%22&f=false

Etc. - including the actual texts alluded to in these sources, some of which are available online.

In other words, I could make an argument again for Eliwlad being 'other land', an exact equivalent of the Irish Ailithir epithet given to Madog son of Sawyl.

Oliver J. Padel in ARTHUR IN MEDIEVAL WELSH LITERATURE states that

“Barry Lewis has pointed out that a sixteenth-century dialogue between a creiriwr [crair + -iwr in the GPC] (‘pilgrim’) and Mary Magdalene of Brynbuga (the town of Usk) is remarkably similar in both form and content to the dialogue with the Eagle…”

As this comparative treatment of the two poems appears to be accurate, and if I am right about Eliwlad being an interpretation or attempted translation of Ailithir, then we have two nearly identical poems featuring characters named ‘Pilgrim’.  I have found the text of the Mary Magdalene/creiriwr poem here: https://books.google.com/books?id=pavuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA318&lpg=PA318&dq=mary+magdalene+brynbuga+pilgrim&source=bl&ots=8OqWJ7aJOM&sig=ACfU3U2Hl0CeSUhpnmMMa8kwzFH6EB63pw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjn-YD-4uPgAhUCoZ4KHUBkCHoQ6AEwCXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=mary%20magdalene%20brynbuga%20pilgrim&f=false.:

SCHOLARLY SUPPORT FOR ELIWLAD = AILITHIR/ELITHIR

"Your proposal to understand Eliwlad as a W 'translation' of Ir Ailithir looks quite attactive. Eli- might well stand for Ir ail(e), and tir is correctly translated as 'gwlad'. The respective range of meaning of both words is, of course, not perfectly identical.

If  'pilgrim' really is the "primary meaning" of ailithir, then this word is beyond any doubt a bahuvrîhi compound, designating somebody 'who is characterized by another [foreign] land', obviously in the sense that (s)he has visited a [remarkably] foreign land, is acquainted with it, etc.

Professor Stefan Zimmer

[As a side note, Professor Zimmer may, inadvertently, have provided a good explanation for why the Lleu death-eagle motif was borrowed from the MABINOGION by the author of the 'Dialogue':

"We have to remind of an alternative, however, viz. that the 'other land' referred to might be the 'Otherworld' , so that the bearer of the epithet may have been named so for assumed/desired magical qualities."

What seems obvious to me is that Ailithir/Eliwlad was interpreted as being a designation for the Otherworld, a land of spirits who could assume the form of animals or birds. This alone would be sufficient to account for the presence of the spectral eagle in the poem.]

"Irish aili- does not have a diphthong ai in the first syllable but a fronted low simple vowel [ae] (approximately as in Engl. back) followed by a palatalized -l´-. I find it quite plausible that this would have been borrowed immediately as W eli-.

Professor Doctor Peter Schrijver

“I don’t disagree with anything Zimmer or Schrijver say."

Dr. Simon Rodway

“I think that -wlad cannot be anything else but gwlad 'country', and your idea that Eliwlad is a reinterpretation of Ailithir seems plausible to me.  If Eliwlad developed directly from the British, we would expect *Eilwlad."

Professor Ranko Matasovic

“It looks perfectly possible to me that Eliwlad represents British *Aljowlatos 'other land'.  Eliwlad/t is a plausible rendering of Eilwlad. One certainly finds occasional <e> for <ei> in MW, and metathesis is always possible. If it’s not from *aljo-, I have no idea.”

Professor Richard Coates

“What you're suggesting would be < *aljo-walato, which would become Eilwlad. I don't think your proposal raises significant phonological problems. Otherwise, I agree with what Coates had to say on the matter.”


Alan James

“First it appears to me that you you must be right in identifying gwlad as the second element. This is indeed the regular cognate of flaith in Irish, but the latter, a feminine i-stem, originally also had an abstract meaning ‘lordship, sovereignty’, and its application to a person is a secondary process in Irish (retaining the feminine gender!) for which there are several parallels, such as techt meaning not only ‘going’ but also ‘messenger’, cerd both ‘craft’ and ‘craftsman’, etc.

Your proposed adaptation of aili- to eli-, on the other hand, would have to have been purely formal, since Irish and British continue two different variants of the same word ‘other’, Ir. aile (also 'second') < *aljo- and e.g. Middle Welsh. all < *allo-. British ail, 'second', is from *aljo-.

But apart from this formal misgiving, I do admit that your derivation would make for a nice contextual fit!“

Professor Jurgen Uhlich

THE ANCIENT ELEGY FOR UTHER AND THE NAME SAWYL

In Marged Haycock's translation of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, the 'Death-Song of Uther Pen[dragon],' we appear to find the chieftain actually calling himself Sawyl.   This is what Haycock has in her notes to Line 7 of this elegy:

 7 eil kawyl yn ardu G emends kawyl > Sawyl, the personal name (from Samuelis

via *Safwyl). Sawyl Ben Uchel is named with Pasgen and Rhun as one of the

Three Arrogant Men, Triad 23, as a combative tyrant in Vita Cadoci (VSB 58);

and in CO 344-5. Samuil Pennissel in genealogies, EWGT 12 (later Benuchel),

Irish sources, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Sawyls include a son of

Llywarch, and the saint commemorated in Llansawel: see further TYP3 496,

WCD 581 and CO 104. Ardu ‘darkness, gloom; dark, dreadful (GPC), sometimes

collocated with afyrdwl ‘sad; sadness’ (see G, GPC).

Initially, I refused to get too excited about Uther calling himself a 'second Samuel'.  I mean, this was, after all, an emendation.  However, I asked Welsh language expert Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales about the authority who made this emendation - one that was accepted by Haycock herself.  Our discussion on this matter ran as follows:

"Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg, by John Lloyd-Jones...

Cited several times by Marged Haycock in her edition of the Uther poem, and  she adopts many of his emendations.

A trustworthy, well-respected source, in your opinion?  Or is his work somewhat outdated or even obsolete?"

"It’s a very good piece of work, which I often use. It’s much more comprehensive than GPC [Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, 'Dictionary of the Welsh Language']."

Such an unqualified, professional academic opinion of Lloyd-Jones changed everything!

As for how the error could have occurred, Dr. Rodway suggested the following scenario:

"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another nearby word resulting in an error.  In this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'.  Was not an uncommon error, so quite plausible.  Also, kawell and kawyl are unlikely to be the same word.  The poets avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (very rare) it could be scribal error."

The important first several lines of the elegy can be translated as follows:

Neu vi luossawc yn trydar:

It is I who commands hosts in battle:

ny pheidwn rwg deu lu heb wyar.

I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.

Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:

It’s I who’s styled 'Gorlassar' [= Geoffrey of Monmouth's Gorlois]:

vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.

my ferocity snared my enemy.

Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:

It is I who’s a leader in darkness:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.

Our God, Chief of the Sanctuary [kawell with the meaning of cafell

here; see Note 2 below], transforms me:

Neu vi eil Sawyl yn ardu:

It’s I who’s a second Sawyl in the gloom:

ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu.

I’d not give up the fight between two forces without bloodshed.

GORLASSAR

The allusion to Sawyl/Samuel and the sanctuary plainly refers to the Biblical Samuel, who received his call as prophet from Yahweh while sleeping at night in the Shiloh sanctuary. 

But what about Gorlassar?  For it is this descriptor, meaning literally 'very blue or very green or very blue-green' (or even a very bluish or greenish grey), which Geoffrey converts into the separate personage of Gorlois.  In Geoffrey's tale, Uther is transformed by Merlin into Gorlois.  But in the elegy the one who transforms Uther is none other than God.  And the actual transformation is into the second Sawyl, the Biblical Samuel being the first, of course.

What, then, is the significance of gorlassar in this context?

Well, the word is used for Urien as well, and Welsh scholars are united in relating this to W. llasar, a sort of blue enamel used to decorate shields and perhaps weapons and armor as well.  I've proposed other possibilities in the past, but the martial quality of the elegy leads me to believe the scholars are right in this instance.  

I had flirted with the notion that 'kawyl' was an error for cannwyll, defined in the GPC as follows:

"candle, luminary, transf. of star, sun, moon, lamp; fig. of light, brightness, instruction, leader, hero"

This is a possible error, according to Dr. Rodway:

"A copyist might have missed an n-suspension over the a, and single n for double nn is quite common in Middle Welsh MSS."

As "star" is a transferred meaning of cannwyll, and "gloom" is mentioned in the same line, I sought to link kawyl to the dragon-star in Geoffrey of Monmouth's story.  The problem with this idea is that whatever or whoever kawyl is, it is the object or subject of the transformation by God in the previous line.  Given the pronounced military aspect of the poem, a supposed transformation by God into a star seems out of context.  Even if we take this figuratively, i.e. that cannwyll means leader, Uther was already designated that 2 lines up.  That would make this reference not only unduly repetitive, but redundant.

'Eil' is also a bit of a problem, as it can mean 'second', 'like or similar to' or 'descendant of' (cf. the well-known example of Dylan eil Ton).  But, again, as Uther is transformed, he can't merely be like something or similar to something.  Nor does it make sense for him to be transformed into the descendant of someone. He must become a second _awyl and this strongly suggests the _awyl in question is a person.  A second cannwyll would make sense only if God in the preceding line were the first such.  The transformation of Uther into Sawyl would be in keeping with the Arthur birth story, which echoes the birth stories of both Hercules and the Irish Mongan son of Fiachnae (in the former, Zeus transforms into a man's wife; in the latter, Manannan mac Lir does the same thing) - as long as we bear in mind that gorlassar/Gorlois is not what/who he changed into.  Gorlois as the product of the transformation is Geoffrey of Monmouth's reinterpretation - or misinterpretation - of the episode. 

As Sawyl Benisel/Benuchel had been given a Biblical name, and some of his sons became saints in Wales and Ireland, it would make sense for the poet to celebrate a connection between him and the divine. We need not be put off by someone like Sawyl bearing the title Uther Pendragon, the Terrible Chief-dragon, as the draco was an object of veneration among the Sarmatians who settled about Ribchester.  Pendragon could also represent the late Roman rank of Magister Draconum, master of the draco corp. 

MADOG ELITHIR/ELIWLAD AND THE IRISH CONNECTION

To quote P.C. Bartram in his A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY, "He [Sawyl] is evidently the same as Samuel Chendisil the father of Matóc Ailithir and Sanctan by Deichter daughter of Muredach Muinderg, king of Ulster (MIS §1 in EWGT p.32)."

Deichter is an interesting name.  A much earlier Deichter was the mother of the famous Irish hero Cuchulainn, who was first called Sétanta. Scholars are still debating whether Sétanta should be related to the name of the Setantii tribe in Britain.  Sawyl ruled over what was once the Setantii tribal region.

If this Deichter were also Arthur's real mother, then we could once again account for why subsequent Arthurs all belonged to Irish-founded dynasties in Britain.  And this is a requirement for ANY identification of the earlier Dark Age Arthur. 

In fact, my main reason for settling on this particular theory for a famous Northern Arthur of the 6th century is precisely because I've been unable to find another who has demonstrable Irish ties of any sort.  For example, we cannot link an Arthur at York with the Irish.  Nor can we link an Arthur in the Irthing Valley with the Irish.  WHAT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO IS THIS SIMPLE FACT: FOR IRISH-DESCENDED ROYAL FAMILIES IN THE FOLLOWING GENERATION (7TH CENTURY) TO NAME THEIR SONS ARTHUR, THEY HAD TO HAVE A VERY GOOD REASON FOR FINDING THE NAME TO BE IMPORTANT.  AND THE ONLY CONCEIVABLE REASON FOR THAT WOULD BE IF THE FAMOUS ARTHUR WAS HIBERNO-BRITISH IN TERMS OF HIS LINE OF DESCENT. ONE MIGHT TRY AND MAKE A CASE FOR HIS HAVING MARRIED AN IRISH WOMAN, AS GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S GUINEVERE IS PLAINLY THE IRISH SOVEREIGNTY GODDESS FINDABHAIR (SOMETHING I HAVE DISCUSSED AT LENGTH ELSEWHERE). BUT THAT IS FICTION; ARTHUR HAD TO POSSESS FINDABHAIR BEFORE HE COULD CONQUER IRELAND. WE HAVE NO OTHER EVIDENCE THAT ARTHUR HAD AN IRISH WIFE. THE ONLY OTHER POSSIBILITY IS THAT THE 6TH CENTURY ARTHUR HAD AMONG HIS RETINUE IRISH MERCENARIES.  THEY WERE SO IMPRESSED WITH AND FOND OF THEIR BRITISH LEADER THAT HIS REPUTATION SPREAD TO DYFED AND DALRIADA.  UNFORTUNATELY, WE CANNOT PROVE THAT ANY SUCH IRISH MERCENARIES WERE USED BY ARTHUR.  WHAT WE CAN PROVE IS THAT SAWYL MARRIED THE DAUGHTER OF AN IMPORTANT KING AMONG THE IRISH.  IF ONE OF HIS SONS BY THIS PRINCESS WERE ARTHUR, WE CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE POPULARITY OF THE NAME IN THE SUBSEQUENT GENERATION.

THE HOME OF SAWYL BENISEL: SAMLESBURY BY RIBCHESTER

Samlesbury Church on the River Ribble

For a nice history of Samlesbury, see

http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol6/pp303-313.

My own extensive treatment of the place-name’s etymology is as follows:

Sawyl (Samuel) Benisel ("Low-head"), another son of Pabo,  is birth-dated c. 480.  On the Ribble, not far south of “regio Dunutinga”, is a town called Samlesbury. The place-name expert Ekwall has Samlesbury as “Etymology obscure”, but then proposes OE sceamol, “bench”, as its first element, possibly in the topographical sense of “ledge”. Mills follows Ekwall by saying that this place-name is probably derived from scamol plus burh (dative byrig). However, sceamol/scamol is not found in other place-names where a “ledge” is being designated. Instead, the word scelf/scielf/scylfe, “shelf of level or gently sloping ground, ledge” is used.

The complete history of this place-name has been kindly supplied by Mr. Bruce Jackson, Lancashire County Archivist:

A D Mills:  'A Dictionary of English Place-Names'; Oxford University Press, 1991, page 284

'Samlesbury Lancs.  Samelesbure 1188.  Probably "stronghold near a shelf or ledge of land".  Old English scamol + burh (dative byrig).'

David Mills:  'The Place Names of Lancashire';  Batsford, 1976 (reprinted

1986), page 130

'? burh on a shelf of land (OE sceamol + -es (possessive) + burh, in the

form byrig (dative)

Samerisberia 1179 (Latin)

Samelesbure 1188

Samlesbiry 1246

The original settlement was probably around the church which stands by the R. Ribble, at the foot of the 168 foot ridge to which the first element may refer.  The derivation from OE sceamol, however, involves taking as base later forms of the name in 'sh-', such as Shamplesbiry 1246, which, though not uncommon, are far less frequent than forms in 's-'.  If the 's-' forms are original, the etymology is less certain.  There is much variation in the representation of the first element in early records - e.g. Sambisbury c.1300, Sammysburi 1524, Samsbury 1577.  There is today no village around the church; the main settlement moved to the south, to SAMLESBURY BOTTOMS, (Old English botm, 'valley bottom', here referring to the valley of the R. Darwen in which the hamlet stands), where a community grew up around the cotton mill which was built there c1784.'

Eilert Ekwall:  'The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names';

Oxford University Press, 1960, page 403

'Samlesbury La [Samerisberia 1179, Samelesbure 1188, -bur 1212,

Schamelesbiry 1246, Scamelsbyry 1277.  Etymology obscure.  If the name originally began in Sh-, the first element may be Old English sceamol 'bench' &c. in some topographical sense such as "ledge".'

Eilert Ekwall:  'The Place-Names of Lancashire'; Manchester University

Press, 1922, page 69

'Samlesbury (on the Ribble, E. of Preston):  Samerisberia 1179, Samelesbure

1188, 1194, Samelesbur', Samelisbur' 1212, Samelesbiri 1238.  Samelesbiry,

Samelesbiri, (de Samlebir, Samlesbiry, Samplesbiry) 1246, de Samelesburi

1252, Samlisbyri 1258, Samlesbury 1267, 1311 etc., Samlisbury, Sampnelbiry,

Sampnesbiry 1278, Samesbury 1276, 1278, Samlesbur' 1332, Samsbury 1577;

Shamplesbiry, de Schamelesbiry, -byr 1246, Scamelesbyry, Shampelesbyri,

Shapnesbyri 1277.

The old chapel of Samlesbury stands on the S. bank of the Ribble, with Samlesbury Lower Hall some way off on the river.  I take this to be the site of the original Samlesbury.  The etymology is much complicated by the variety of the early spellings.  The forms with S- are in the majority, but there are a good many with Sh-, and it is not easy to see why S- should have been replaced by Sh-, whereas S- for Sh- is easily explained by Norman influence.  If the original form had Sh-, I would compare the following names:  Shamele (hundred Kent) 1275; Shalmsford (Kent); Shamelesford 1285, Sahameleford 1275, perhaps Shamblehurst (Hants):  Samelherst, Scamelherst' 1176, Schameleshurste 1316.  All these may contain Old English sceamol "bench, stool," or some derivative of it.....The meaning of this word in topographical use is not clear, but very likely it may have been something like "ledge, shelf".....In this case the word might refer to a ledge on the bank of the Ribble.  In reality, Samlesbury Lower Hall stands on a slight ledge (c 50 ft above sea level), which stretches as far as the church.

If the spellings in Sh- are to be disregarded the etymology is much more difficult.  The first element is hardly the personal noun Samuel .  It it is a personal noun, as the early forms rather suggest, it may be a derivative of the stem Sam- found in German names.  This stem is not found in English names, but the related stem Som occurs in Old English Soemel and perhaps in the first element of Semington, Semley, Wilts.  Burh in this name, as in Salesbury, may mean "fortified house, fort" or "manor"...’

Henry Cecil Wyld and T Oakes Hirst:  'The Place Names of Lancashire';

Constable, 1911, page 226

'Samlesbury

1178-79     in Samesberia

1187-88     de Samelesbure

1189-94     Samlisburi

1227          Samlesbiri

1228          Samlesbyr

1246          Samelesbiri

1259          Samelebir

The first element is undoubtedly the Hebrew personal noun Samuel.  This does not appear to have been popular amongst the English in early times.....It is not recorded by Bjorkman [Erik Bjorkman:  'Nordische Personennamen in England'; Halle, 1910] as having been adopted by any Norseman in this country, but Rygh mentions a Norwegian place name Samuelrud ["Norske Gaardnavne Kristiana", 1897, volume ii, page 201].  In volume i the same writer records Samerud (pp 7 and 9), but says that this is possibly a Modern name.'

John Sephton:  'A Handbook of Lancashire Place-Names':  Henry Young, 1913, page 23

'A parish 4 miles east of Preston.  Early forms are Samerisberia,

Samelesbure.  First theme is the scriptural name Samuel .  Ancient Teutonic names are also found from the root Sama.....' .

I would suggest as a better etymology for Samlesbuy  “Sawyl’s fort”. There are, for example, Sawyl place-names in Wales (Llansawel, Pistyll Sawyl, now Ffynnon Sawyl).  Richard Coates, of the Department of Linguistics and English Language at The University of Sussex, says of Samlesbury as “Samuel’s Burg”:

“After a bit of extra research, it seems that all the spellings in <Sh-> and the like are from just 2 years in Lancashire assize roll entries (1246 and 1277). That makes them look more like the odd ones out and <S-> more like the norm. I'm coming round to preferring your interpretation, even though Ekwall in PN La (p. 69) simply rejects the idea it might come from "Samuel". Brittonic *_Sam(w)e:l_ (<m> here is vee with a tilde - nasalized [v]) is a good etymon for the majority of the forms, including the modern one, of course.”

Dr. Andrew Breeze of Pamplona, another noted expert on British place-names, agrees with Dr. Coates:

“I finally looked up _Samlesbury_ last night and feel sure you are right. The form surely contains the Cumbric equivalent of Welsh _Sawyl_<_Samuel_. Your explanation of this toponym in north Lancashire is thus new evidence for Celtic survival in Anglo-Saxon times.”

Brythonic place-name expert Alan James also has signed on to the idea that Samlesbury is from the name Samuel:

"Checking LHEB p415 confirms that the medial consonant in Proto/Old Welsh *Saμuil would have remained audibly nasal through the 6th – 9th centuries, and could have been adopted into OE as *Samɪl or *Samel, and that name could very well be the specific in Samlesbury.

However, we need to be clear that *(æt) Samelesbyrig is an English p-n formation, not a Celtic one, formed with anglicised *Samel, not *Saμuil, and certainly not Middle-Modern Welsh Sawyl. The fact that the specific is an anglicised version of a Brittonic-influenced latinate form of a Hebrew name is no more evidence of Celtic survival than it is of Hebrew survival. The eponymous *Samel need not have known a single word of Welsh. It only tells us that there had been some transmission of personal names from Brittonic to OE, presumably by bilinguals (probably mothers?) at some point during the period of anglicisation, and there’s plenty of evidence to support the judgement that, in what became Lancashire, that was quite a long and gradual process.

You're probably right in your suggestions that Samel could have originated as an anglicised, Old English, form of proto-Welsh *Saμuil, but as *(æt) Samelesbyrig is an English p-n formation, not a Celtic one, we can't assume that Samel of Samlesbury was, or spoke, Welsh (Brittonic, Cumbric). By the time the place was named, Samel could have become current as a personal name among monolingual Old English speakers. So Samel of Samlesbury can't be identified with any certainty with anyone named Sawyl.

As for Samlesbury being an anglicized version of a place originally named for a 5th century Sawyl, I wouldn't rule that out, but it would mean Sawyl had been adopted into OE not only a personal name but as a figure of local legend. I'm always doubtful about place-names being 'translated', it does happen, but it's not normal. But if Sawyl > Samel featured in folklore among English speakers, they might have associated the site with him and given it that name.


When it comes to the family of Sawyl being placed as you have suggested [see below under the section on "Pabo Post Prydain and His Sons (A Map)"], I would agree that some kind of 'legendary mapping' went on in the central middle ages, maybe starting during the time of the Cumbrian kingdom in the 10th century and continuing through the 11th and into the 12th, where figures in local folklore and poetry were associated with particular places, though whether any of those identifications relate to what really happened half a millennium earlier is, at best, unproveable."

Bremetennacum Veteranorum, Ribchester Roman Fort

Bremetennacum

NEW EXCAVATIONS AT THE RIBCHESTER FORT

An excavation project within the Roman fort at Ribchester has only recently been undertaken by the archaeology department of the University of Central Lancaster:

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/news/ribchester-roman-dig-bbc.php

When I wrote to Dr. Duncan Sayer, one of the directors of the dig, and asked if they had yet found any evidence for sub-Roman use of Bremetennacum Veteranorum, he replied with this exciting news:

“Yes, I believe we have identified some evidence of sub-Roman occupation within the fort at Ribchester. Certainly the abandonment date of AD370 is no longer really tenable and at this early state in the project we are reasonably convinced they have structures and workshops that relate to a later-Roman and sub Roman phase of activity.”

PABO POST PRYDAIN AND HIS SONS (A MAP)

Pabo in the earliest, most reliable genealogy (the Harleian) is the son of Pabo son of Ceneu.  Later pedigrees intrude a Arthwys and Mar, but P.C. Bartram is surely right in saying that the earlier line of descent is "more correct, being chronologically more satisfactory."

The above map shows the geographical relationship of Pabo Post Prydain (of the Papcastle Roman fort in Cumbria) and his "sons" Cerwyd(d), an eponym for the Carvetii tribe, Dunot of Dentdale (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/02/why-sawyl-benisel-is-listed-between.html) and Sawyl of Samlesbury near the Ribchester Roman fort.  Note that Papcastle is on the Derwent, and the fort there was called Derventio.  This matches the name of the Darwen River at Samlesbury, another Derwent.  

Sawyl's son St. Asa belongs at Llanasa and Llanelwy/St. Asaph just a little to the SW of Samlesbury in Flintshire, while a church to his son Sanctan can be found at Kirksanton in southwestern Cumbria:

For more on Sanctan, see https://books.google.com/books?id=a_1fAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=chendisil&source=bl&ots=hy_TsaWT3F&sig=ACfU3U0PeMe8M8291HhlEH9pgQ5zJssvpg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL2tLCmebgAhUSip4KHaB1A-MQ6AEwB3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=chendisil&f=false.

The headwaters of the Rivers Dent and Ribble are literally right next to each other:

THE SETANTII TRIBE

Sawyl Benisel at Ribchester inhabited a region that was once controlled by a Romano-British tribe called the Setantii.  The Setantii tribal territory embraced the Ribble, Samlesbury and Ribchester's Roman fort.

From A.L.F Rivet & Colin Smith’s The Place-names of Roman Britain, p 456-457:

“SETANTII

DERIVATION. This ethnic name is mysterious; there seem to be no British roots visible, and very few analogues anywhere of names in Set-. It is tempting, in view of Ptolemy's variants which show Seg- (Seg-) both for the port-name and the river-name, to suspect some confusion with the Seg- of Segontium, a possibility that occurred to Rhys (1904) 315 with regard to the river, though eventually he seems.to wish to main tain Setantii as a proper form. The strongest argument for so doing is provided by Watson CPNS 25, who points out that the first name of the Irish hero Cuchulainn was Setanta (from an earlier *Setant(os) : 'the Setantii were an ancient British tribe near Liverpool. . . the inference is that Setanta means "a Setantian" and that Cuchulainn was of British origin'. But the relation between these two names has been questioned. There is a full exposition of the problem by Guyonvarc'h in Ogam, XIII, (1961), 587-98, with discussion of views of Mac Neill, Osborne, and others, including Brittonic-Goidelic transferences in both historical and phonetic aspects. The essence of the matter is that it is tempting to see in this name Irish sét ('path'; = British *sento-, for which see CLAUSENTUM), but *-ant- suffix (as in DECANTAE) is Brittonic only, for -nt- does not exist in Goidelic. The name might be based on a divine name *Setantios, not otherwise known, and he in turn might be related etymologically and by sense to the goddess Sentona, perhaps 'wayfarer' (see further TRISANTONA). Clearly there is an additional problem in reconciling the a/e vowels in these forms (Trisantona, Gaulish Santones) if they are indeed connected. There, for the présent, the matter rests; but it is as well to reiterate that one cannot base too much speculation on forms recorded by Ptolemy alone, particularly when, in numbers, the MSS of his work record attractive variants.

IDENTIFICATION. Presumably a minor tribe, but since they appear only as part of a 'descriptive' name in the coastal list (next entry) and not in their own right in the full list of tribes, they probably formed part of the Brigantian confederacy. If the river name seteia is directly connected with them, they should have stretched along the Lancashire coast from the Mersey to Fleetwood.”

[1]

Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr

Jes. MS 3

Llyma yr mod y treythir o englynyon yr eryr

Es ryfedaf kann wyf bard.

o vlaen dar ae vric yn hard.

py edrych eryr py chward.

Arthur bellglot ordiwes.

arth llu llewenyd achles.

yr eryr gynt ath weles.

Ys ryfedaf o tu myr

as gofynnaf yn vyuyr

py chward py edrych eryr.

Arthur bellglot engyhynt

arth llu llew[e]nyd dremynt

yr eryr ath welas gynt.

Yr eryr a seif ymbric dar.

[pei] hanfut o ryw adar

ny byd[ut] na dof na gwar.

Arthur gl[edy]fawc aruthyr

ny seif dy alon rac dy ruthyr

mi yw mab madawc [uab] uthyr.

Yr eryr ny wn dy ryw

a dreigla lgyngoet kernyw

mab madawc uab uthur nyt [byw].

Arthur ieith ****r*lit

***h gwyr * nyt gwaret lit

eliwlat gynt ym gelwit.

Yr eryr golwc diuei

ar dy barabyl nyt oes vei

ae ti eliwlat vy nei.

Arthur dihafarch ffossawc.

diarwrein arllwybrawt 

ys gwiw kystlwn o honawt.

Yr eryr barabyl eglur

a dywedy di wrth arthur

beth yssyd drwc y wneuthur.

Medylyaw drwc drwy aferdwl

a hir drigyaw yny medwl.

rygelwit pechawt ardwl.

Yr eryr barabyl diwc.

am a dywedy yn amlwc.

y wneuthur beth yssyd drwc.

Medylyaw brat anghywir

a chelu medwl yn hir.

kwl a phechawt y gelwir.

Yr eryr barabyl tawel

am a dywedy di heb ymgel

beth am peir fford y ochel.

Gwediaw duw pob pylgeint

a damunaw kereifyeint

ac er[chi]* canhorthwy seint.

Yr eryr parabyl doethaf

yttyhun ygouynnaf.

bod crist py delw y haedaf.

Karu duw o bryt vnyawn

ac erchi arch kyfyawn

ath ved nef a bydawl dawn.

Yr eryr gwir euenygi

ys llwyr y gorfynnaf ytti.

ae da gan grist y voli.

Arthur gwryt gadarnaf

arth gwyr gwrodeu pob eithyaf.

pob yspryt molet y naf.

Yr eryr ratlawn blegyt

athovynnaf heb ergryt

pwy yssyd naf ar pob yspryt.

Arthur nyt segur lafneu

rudyeist ongyr yggwaetfreu

crist yw cret vi nam amheu.

Yr eryr ratlawn adef

ath ovynnaf o hyt llef

beth oreu y geissyaw nef.

Ediuarwch am drossed 

a gobeth ran dang*nefed

hyñ ath beir yr drugared.

Yr eryr barabyl didlawt

ath ofyñaf arderchawc ardraeithawt

beth waethaf gyt a phechawt.

Arthur arderchawc doeth|ieith

gwedy profer pob kyfyeith

gwaethaf yw barñ añobeith.

Yr eryr barabyl gynyd.

ath ofynnaf dros dofyd

o añobeith beth yssyd.

Haedu hirboen uffernawl

a cholli duw yn dragywydawl

a chael cwymp anesgwrawl.

Yr eryr [i]eith ymadaw

ath lwyr ofynnaf rac llaw

ae gwell dim no gobeithaw.

Arthur arderchawc kyman

or myn eluyd kael kyfran

wrth gadarn gobeithet gwañ.

Yr eryr parabyl kywir

yttyhun y gofynnir

ponyt kadarn perchen tir.

Arthur geldyfawc wy*t

*na choll dofyd yr alaf

y kydernit ywr pennaf.

Yr eryr parabyl diheu

ath ovynnaf ar eireu

ponyt wyf gadarn inheu.

Arthur peñ kadoed kernyw

arderchawc luydawc lyw

y pennaf kydernit y[w] [d]yw.

Yr eryr ieith diarfford

gnawt gogorus ualdord

beth a ryd duw yr gosgord.

Gosgord nyw kywir voli

ac nyt kywir gyfarchei

ny dyt duw vessur arnei.

Yr eryr nefaw[l] dy̴ghet

or ny chaffaf y welet

beth a wna crist yr ae kret.

Arthur wydua llewenyd

wyt lluoessawc argletryd

ty hun dydbrawt ae gwybyd.

Yr eryr geir diamuarn

ath ofynnaf yn gadarn

ae dydbrawt y rodir y varn.

Arthur arderchawc wydua

yth dyd dyffed ny phalla

duw ehun a varn yna.

Yr eryr [barabyl cyhoed]

ath ovyn perchen * toruoed

beth dydbrawt a wna y pobloed.

Arthur arderchawc dam|re

arth gwyr wirodeu heilde

yna y gwybyd pawb y le.

Mi ae gofynneis y goffeiryeit

ac y esgyb ac y y̴gneit

pa beth oreu rac eneit.

Pader a maeyeit a bendigedic gredo

Ae cano rac eneit

hyt angheu goreu gordyfnot.

Ys kyrchych fford a delych

dy allu vyd da dangnofed

nyth didra ar adneu reddruga.

Syberw segur dolur

Ar eu knawt mynet dros vessur

ys dir nychyaw ny bo pur.

Anudon am dir a brat arglwyd 

a diuaño dy law gar

dyd | brawt bydawt ediuar.

Ac velly y teruyna eglynyon yr eryr.

Yr eryr barabl difrad,

Os ti ydyw Eliwlad,

Ai gwiw ymladd am danad?

Arthur ddihafarch ateb,

Ni saif gelyn i'th wyneb,

Rhag angau ni ddiainc neb.

Yr eryr iaith ddiymgel,

A allai neb drwy ryfel

Yn fyw eilwaith dy gaffel?

Arthur bendefig haelion,

O chredir geiriau'r Ganon,

A Duw ni thycia ymryson.

SOURCE

Williams, Ifor. "Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr" Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies. vol. 2. (1925-25) p. 269-86

[2]

cafell (pl. -au/-oedd only) < cavella  ‘sanctuary, temple, cell’, 14th c. +

"For semantic reasons, the interpretation of GPC (as a variant of cawell, see below) seems unlikely to me. I should rather presume a double meaning of British Latin cavella. The difference of W -f-(-v-) : -w- (OW kauell) could have been introduced as a means of differentiation."

from Dating the loanwords: Latin suffixes in Welsh (and their Celtic congeners) by Stefan Zimmer

"As cawell and cafell are phonological variants of the same word, you could easily make a case that they originally had the same semantic range."  

- Simon Rodway (personal correspondence)