ARTHUR AND CADWY IN THE REGION OF CARRUM: A HAGIOGRAPHICAL TRANSFERENCE FROM CASTLE CARY PARISH?

Castle Cary Parish Bordering on North Cadbury

(c. 1684)

North Cadbury Bordering on Castle Cary in the Medieval Period [Courtesy https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol10/pp1-13]

My readers will recall my associating Arthur's mother Ygerna with the Carne place-name at Domellick.  I wrote about this in some detail here:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-new-identification-of-arthurs-mother.html

I then went on to suggest how Ygerna may have come to be connected with Tintagel:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/04/tintagel-and-ygerna-guellit-and-carrum.html

When it came to Uther, Arthur's father, I argued that the Pen Kawell in the Uther elegy poem might well be a reference to the Pen place-names at the Cale River in Somerset, all sites very close to the famous Cadbury Castle at South Cadbury:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/06/is-uthers-kawell-cale-river-in-somerset.html

In the past, I attempted to show that Dindraithou at 'Carrum' was a relocation for Cadbury Hill in North Somerset:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/06/dindraithou-and-cadbury-hill-in-north.html

This idea was based on the presence of Cleeve names at both the Dindraithou fort site and at Cadbury Hill.  I was not entirely satsified with this, however, precisely because Cleeve is not mentioned in the saint's life which tells of Arthur at Dindraithou.

Only the other day I happened to look at Carrum again, remembering that the name meant "rocks."  I was reminded that the parish of Castle Cary, bordering North Cadbury near South Cadbury and Cadbury Castle, which might be from a root with the meaning of "rock."

From Victor Watts' THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH-PLACE-NAMES (2004):

CARHAMPTON 'Settlement, estate called or at Carrum' ... OE carrum, dative pl. of carr, +tun.

River CARY 'Hard, stony stream'... An Old European r.n. *Karisa on the root *kar- 'hard, stone, stony' as also River CAREY Devon SX 3687 and the W. r. Afon Ceri Dyfed SN 3247. 

Mills (in A DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PLACE-NAMES) merely says the name is Celtic or pre-Celtic. 

Other place-name experts disagree with that etymology.  For example, Eilert Ekwall thought that Cary should be derived from the Celtic root car-, 'to love' (cf. Welsh caru), and thus the stream is the 'dear' or 'beloved' one.  If this is so, I would remind everyone that the Welsh name Carantoc/Carannog, mistakenly linked to Carrum in the saint's life, actually has as its first element the same Celtic car-. 

Richard Coates, perhaps the preeminent expert on English place-names, told me via private communication:

"With *kar- names it’s always hard to decide between the ‘love’ ad the ‘hard’ meanings. Thomas in  his book on Welsh RNs generally goes for the ‘love, pleasant’ meaning. I’m not sure why Watts dissents. Since most of the course of the Somerset Cary is across the peat levels, it’s less plausible that rocks are involved."

For the parish of Castle Cary and its southern boundary, see 

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol10/pp14-25

Castle Cary in relation to North and South Cadbury, as well as to Wincanton or the Tun on the White Cawel

If we are to identify Arthur and Cadwy's original fort with a Cadbury, as seems probable, and we allow for Carrum being a hagiographical relocation of the Castle Cary parish bordering on North Cadbury, then it would be more logical to choose the Cadbury Castle site than the one at Cadbury Hill. The possibility that Uther's Kawell is the Cale River strengthens such a selection.