CUNEDDA AND THE CUNORIX STONE

The Cunorix Stone

CUNEDDA

The great Cunedda, called Cunedag (supposedly from *Cunodagos, ‘Good Hound’) in the Historia Brittonum and Cunedaf in the MARWNAD CUNEDDA, is said to have come down (or been brought down) from Manau Gododdin, a region around the head of the Firth of Forth, to Gwynedd. This chieftain and his sons then, according to the account found in the HB, proceeded to repulse Irish invaders. Unfortunately, this tradition is largely mistaken.

Cunedda of Manau Gododdin, the reputed founder of Gwynedd, was himself actually Irish. There was an early St. Cuindid (d. c. 497 CE) son of Cathbad, who founded a monastery at Lusk, ancient Lusca. In the year entry 498 CE of the Ulster Annals, his name is spelled in the genitive as Chuinnedha. In Tigernach 496 CE, the name is Cuindedha.

The Irish sources also have the following additional information concerning St. Cuindid:

Mac Cuilind - Cunnid proprium nomen - m. Cathmoga m. Cathbath m Cattain m Fergossa m. Findchada m Feic m. Findchain m Imchada Ulaig m. Condlai m Taide m. Cein m Ailella Olum.

U496.2 Quies M. Cuilinn episcopi Luscan. (Repose of Mac Cuilinn, bishop of Lusca).

D.viii. idus Septembris. 993] Luscai la Macc Cuilinn

994] caín decheng ad-rannai, 995] féil Scéthe sund linni, 996] Coluimb Roiss gil Glandai.

trans: 'With Macc cuilinn of Luscae thou apportionest (?) a fair couple: the feast of Sciath here we have, (and that) of Columb of bright Ross Glandae'

The (later-dated) notes to this entry read: 'Lusk, i.e. in Fingall, i.e. a house that was built of weeds (lusrad) was there formerly, and hence the place is named Lusca ........Macc cuilinn, i.e. Luachan mac cuilinn, ut alii putant. Cuinnid was his name at first, Cathmog his father's name'.

Significantly, Lusk or Lusca is a very short distance from the huge promontory fort at Drumanagh, the Bruidhne Forgall Manach of the ancient Irish tales. Manau is an error for this Manach (see Appendix IX).

Aeternus, Cunedda's father, is none other than Aithirne of Dun and Ben Etair just south of Lusca. Paternus Pesrudd (‘Red-Cloak’), Cunedda's grandfather, is probably not derived from Mac Badairn of Es Ruad (‘Red Waterfall’), since Es Ruad is in northwest Ireland (Ballyshannon in Co. Donegal). I think Paternus, from the L. word for ‘father’, is Da Derga, the Red God; Da, god, being interpreted as W. tad (cf. L. tata, ‘father’). The Da Derga's hostel was just a little south of the Liffey. Cunedda's great-great-grandfather is said to be one Tegid (Tacitus), while his great-great-great grandfather is called Cein. These two chieftains are clearly Taig/Tadhg and his father Cian. Cian was the founder of the Irish tribe the Ciannachta, who ruled Mag Breg, a region situated between the Liffey and either Duleek or Drumiskin (depending on the authority consulted). The Lusca and Manapia of Chuinnedha are located in Mag Breg.

According to the genealogy edited in Corpus Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae, the name of Chuinnedha’s father was Cathmug. He belonged to the descendants of Tadc mac Cian, otherwise called the Cianachta. There was a concentration of the saints of this family in the Dublin/Louth/ Meath area, corresponding roughly to the teritory of the Cianachta Breg.

It is surely not a coincidence that according to the Irish Annals Chuinnedha's other name was Mac Cuilinn. We’ve seen above that Mac Cuilinn and the Maqui-Coline of the Wroxeter Stone in Wales are not only the same name, but the same person. Gwynedd was thus founded by Chuinnedha alias Mac Cuilinn of the Manapii in Ireland, not by a chieftain of Manau Gododdin in Britain.

The Irish origin of Cunedda should not be a surprise to us, as there is the well-documented case of the Welsh genealogy of the royal house of Dyfed, which was altered to hide the fact that Dyfed was founded by the Irish Deisi. We know this because we have the corresponding Irish genealogy from a saga which tells of the expulsion of the Deisi from Ireland and their settlement in Dyfed. As is true of Cunedda's pedigree, in the Welsh Dyfed pedigree we find Roman names substituted for Irish names.

THE CUNORIX STONE

A 5th century memorial stone was ploughed up at the site of the Roman city of Viroconium near Wroxeter, Shropshire, England.  This stone is unusual in two respects.  First, it almost certainly bears the name of an important, perhaps high-ranking Irishman of the period.  Second, the name of the person in question is Cunorix son of Maquicoline.*

So far as I know, no one prior to myself had realized just how remarkable a name this was.  I’ve already mentioned in the Introduction that a second name of the Irish Chuinnedha, who in the British language was called Cunedda, was Mac Cuilinn.  As it happens, Mac Cuilinn corresponds exactly in meaning with Maquicoline.  Thus I proposed that the Maquicoline on the Cunorix Stone was none other than Cunedda himself.

Yet again, though, we are struck with a rather serious discrepancy.  For if Maquicoline on this stone is Cunedda, Cunorix is probably the Cynyr known from the Welsh sources as a grandson of Cunedda. 

The names (Maqui)coline and Cunorix are associated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There were find Ceawlin (in Bede called Coelin), one of the Bretwaldas or Britain-rulers, and Cynric.  While the ASC gets the order of generations wrong, making Cynric the son of Cerdic and Ceawlin the son (or at least successor) of Cynric, I’ve been able to show that both personages do, in fact, belong to the Gewissei, the ‘Sure/Certain/Reliable Ones’ who fought alongside the West Saxons against Britons and helped found Wessex.  Indeed, the tribal or group name Gewissei or Gewissae is found preserved in the genealogy for the kingdom of Ceredigion, where it occurs as Iusay, son of Ceredig son of Cunedda.

The names of the earliest members of the Gewessei have long been suspected to be of Celtic origin. My research suggests they were Irish or Hiberno-British. 

What were the Gewessei from Gwynedd doing in both Viroconium in central Wales and in southern England?

My working theory is fairly simple and straight-forward, although I admit that things “on the ground” may have been much more complicated. When the Romans withdrew from Britain, Irish raids on Gwynedd intensified.  Eventually, Cunedda and his sons (or warband) were able to found a number of petty kingdoms in the region.  In a typical Roman-style acknowledgement of this situation, these Irish conquerors were offered federate status by the Welsh high-king who was ruling at Viroconium.

I should not neglect to point out, however, that the high-king in question may himself have been half Irish and half British.  Certainly, this was true of Vortigern.  There is also a confusion in the Welsh tradition between Vortigern and another chieftain named Catel, later Welsh Cadell.  It has been thought that because Vortigern had been so thoroughly vilified, it was thought preferable to trace the princes of Powys through Catel instead.  The true trace to Vortigern was, therefore, suppressed. 

My idea here is a bit different.  The best etymology for the name Catel/Cadell is Latin catellus, ‘puppy, whelp, little dog.”  Two such princes are found in the Powys dynasty bearing this name. Both had sons named Cyngen, ‘Hound-born.’ I think it is possible, given these names, that Catel/Cadell was a pet-name for Cunorix. ‘Hound-king.’  If so, then Cunorix son of Cunedda may have either usurped the Powys kingship for a generation or even have started an entirely new dynasty.  That Catel or Cadell is said to have begun his reign in Ial of northern Powys fits with what we know about Cunedda’s sons and their settlement of northwestern Wales. 

In any case, the high-king at Powys had formed a federate relationship with Cunedda and his sons. The earliest source tells us that these federates drove the Irish out of Wales.  This statement may seem highly ironic, but at the core it may be correct.  Additional service to the high-king seems to have involved allying themselves with the Saxons against enemies of Powys to the southeast. It is tempting to view the Gewissei as fighting the Saxons themselves, but the ASC does not support such a patriotic picture of the politics of the time.  Vortigern is said to have brought in Saxons as mercenary federates to help him against his enemies.  There is no reason to assume, knowing what we do about intertribal warfare among the Celts, that his enemies did not also include other Britons.  In later centuries, when it became necessary to invent a nationalistic resistance against the barbaric, pagan, Germanic invaders for the usual propagandist reasons, we rarely find Britons fighting Britons.

If this general sketch of what may have been happening in 5th century Britain has any bearing on reality at all, what are we to make of the phenomenon called Arthur?  Well, to begin with we must “disenthrall ourselves” of the notion that this greatest of all Dark Age British heroes was fighting the Saxons.  If he were son of Cunedda and one of the Gewissei, clearly he was not.  Rather, he was fighting with the Saxons against the Britons in the name of the Welsh high-king.

Furthermore, he might well be known to us already under another name – a name which is found not only the English sources, but in the Welsh as well.

* Cunorix/Cynric is known in the early Welsh sources as Cynyr, and he is wrongly made the son of Gwron son of Cunedda.  From P. C. Bartram's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:

"GWRON ap CUNEDDA WLEDIG. (Legendary). (420)

He appears in the legends of Anglesey as the father of Cynyr, Meilir and Yneigr who aided their cousin Cadwallon Lawhir in expelling the Gwyddyl from the island. The story occurs in the expanded ‘Hanesyn Hen’ tract (ByA §29(15) in EWGT pp.92-93). See s.nn. Cadwallon Lawhir and Meilir Meilirion.

Gwron is not mentioned in the older lists of the sons of Cunedda and therefore his historical existence is doubtful. He might, perhaps, have been too young to take part in the conquests which the other sons of Cunedda are supposed to have made. Another suggestion is that his name Gwron, ‘hero’ is really a cognomen and that he is actually to be identified with Ysfael (q.v.) ap Cunedda, who gave his name to a part of Anglesey and presumably ruled there. This was suggested by Owen Rhoscomyl."

Gwron as a heroic epithet here must have belonged either to Cynyr himself or to his real father, Cunedda.