WHY ANY DIRECT CONNECTION BETWEEN UTHER PENDRAGON AND THE DRACO STANDARD MUST BE PERMANENTLY REJECTED

Dacians with a Draco Standard on Trajan's Column

This statement has been a long time coming - even from me, a person who tends to be more skeptical than most: we need to divest ourselves of the false notion that Pendragon as an epithet should be related directly to the draco standard. 

Over the last few years, when delving more deeply into the career of the 2nd century Roman officer L. Artorius Castus, I have gotten bogged down time and time again in chasing the dragon's tail.  Uther's supposed connection with the draco is a romantic fiction we readily accept.  But trying to link Arthur's father and his dragon to Geoffrey's draco, we continue to delude ourselves. It is well known that the word dragon in pre-Galfridian literature was merely one of several animal metaphors employed by poets for warriors and/or chieftains.

The top Welsh specialists are all in agreement in this assessment of the proper use of the word dragon in heroic poetry.   While John T. Koch (CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA) leaves open the slight possibility that Geoffrey of Monmouth's interpretation of Pendragon may be correct, in balance he does not think so:

For Geoffrey, the epithet Pendragon is ‘dragon’s head’,

an explanation of a celestial wonder by Merlin (see

Myrddin). This meaning is not impossible, but since

Welsh draig, pl. dragon < Latin drac}, dracones could also

mean ‘chieftain, military leader, hero’ (see draig goch;

dragons), Pendragon could be ‘chief of chieftains’.

Rachel Bromwich in her TRIADS is less forgiving:

Even Sir Ifor Williams (in his notes to THE POEMS OF TALIESIN) provides this definition for

dragon: 'a dragon, (fig.)  fighter, champion, leader, chieftain.'

A.O.H. Jarmon (his his THE GODODDIN) has for dragon, 'ruler, prince', and for draig, 'chieftain, prince.'

Etc.

Even less weight should be given to Geoffrey's interpretation once we realize even his dragon star was an imaginary motif.  He got it from a line of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, which reads 'I am like a cannwyll in the gloom.'  Cannwyll means 'candle', but figuratively meant 'star, sun, moon, luminary, leader' and the like.  Its metaphorical use in this context is proven by a matching phrase a few lines prior: 'I am a leader in the darkness.'

Thus what Geoffrey did was to take cannwyll for star, and convert that into a star that stood for Uther himself.  He then cleverly extrapolated from Uther's epithet a dragon's head, and used that to describe the star.  From there it was an easy step for him to link the dragon head star to a draco standard.  The process may seem far-fetched to some, but this is just one instance of an endless series of manufactured events in his masterful pseudo-history.  Too many Arthurian scholars underestimate Geoffrey's resourcefulness, adaptive abilities and pure inventive genius.  At their own peril, they forget that there is nothing of true history in his pages.  

My advice to burgeoning Arthurian researchers is two-fold:  1) utterly adjure Geoffrey of Monmouth's work and 2) ignore any theory which adheres to Geoffrey's notion that Uther was named for the dragon head star and became distinguished for carrying around the draco.

Now, as a caveat I would add this: the dragon itself, employed as a metaphor for a warrior and the like in Welsh poetry, may have originated any number of ways.   In the case of Uther, supposed brother of Ambrosius/Emrys, we must bear in mind that the two dragons of Dinas Emrys (= Caer Dathal; see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/01/dinas-emrys-as-caer-dathal-late.html) are more likely models for the draco in Geoffrey, and we may be able to tentatively associate the former creatures with the crossed serpent insignia of the Roman military unit serving at Segontium.  

I have pointed out before that Geoffrey's comet, while it is said to signify Uther, would in traditional medieval lore would instead have appeared to mark the death of Ambrosius.  Geoffrey had already made much of the two dragons of Dinas Emrys, going so far as to fuse the northern Myrddin/Merlin with Ambrosius.  We must remember that Uther HAS TWO DRAGONS FASHIONED after the image of the dragon comet.  Why two?  Because they were reflections of the dragons of Dinas Emrys, of course.  

One of the dragon standards is left at Winchester, while Uther carries the other with him in his wars.  We should not forget that Winchester was for the early period the Saxon capital, and Wessex itself had a dragon standard.  The white dragon of Dinas Emrys, after all, represented the English invaders. 

Finally, the Roman military unit stationed at Segontium not far from Dinas Emrys is known to have been sent to Illyricum.  The Dalmatia of the Artorii and, in particular, L. Artorius Castus, was a part of Illyricum.  It is quite possible that some soldiers retiring from the unit may have returned home to Britain.  They may well have brought the story of LAC with them or, at the very least, the name Artorius - the later Arthur. 

That Uther's dragons should be traced to the Dinas Emrys dragons rather than to a draco standard may be proven definitively by some lines from the Welsh "Gwarchan Maeldderw."  I have the authoritative edition by G. R. Isaac, published in CAMBRIAN MEDIVAL CELTIC STUDIES 44 (Winter 2002).  The relevant section reads:

"...in the presence of the spoils of the Pharaoh's red dragon,

companions (will?) depart in the breeze."

As Isaac explains in the notes -

<pharaon sb. m. 'Pharaoh'

I am interpreting the syntax as a poetic transformation of what would normally be expressed in the word order (also modernizing the orthography) ar fudd draig rudd Ffaraon. As Williams notes, the mention of the 'red dragon of Pharaoh' is suggestive of a reference to the story of the dragons of Dinas Emrys in Nant Gwynant, Snowdonia, as told in Historia Brittonum and Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys.>

The Pharaoh in question is, of course, Vortigern, who is called thus in Gildas.