ANNOUNCEMENT OF CONCLUSION OF MY ARTHURIAN RESEARCHES

Hadrian's Wall

Only a few weeks ago, I wrote the following blog piece:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-celtic-fringes-and-marginalized.html

A related one had preceded it:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2022/06/a-question-from-fan-why-did-i-abandon_24.html

While somewhat understated, I feel these essays nicely express my current sentiment.  In brief, I have spent an awful lot of time trying to make something out of the Arthurian traditions of the Welsh.  My failure to do so is not so much due to my own shortcomings, but rather to an acknowledgement of the unreliability of the source material.  As is true of today's Arthurian researchers, we all want to make Arthur our own, and the Welsh were no exception to this rule.

Ironically, the theory that I have finally settled on as the best one I can put forward was first presented publicly at the Second International Symposium on Lucius Artorius Castus in Podstrana, Croatia, in October 2019.  Not long after that experience, I felt I had made an important discovery regarding a possible connection of Arthur with a Dark Age dynasty at Ribchester.  I was partly influenced by a desire to try and reconcile the so-called 'Sarmatian Theory' concerning L. Artorius Castus with my own conviction that a Dark Age Arthur was the more famous man remembered in legend.  

Alas, over a year of additional research, both into the Ribchester angle and into the supposed relationship of Artorius with the Sarmatian troops in Britain, I found myself in the ineviable position of having conclusively proven that 'LAC' (as he is usually referred to in Arthurian circles) was not in Britain when the Sarmatians were there.  Furthermore, the genealogical trace which allowed me to tentatively place the Dark Age Arthur at Ribchester of the Sarmatian veterans proved to be false.  It actually pointed strongly to a fort in NW Wales (Dinas Emrys/Caer Dathal) which has already been subjected to all kinds of folkloristic treatment.

With nothing else really to go on, I decided to follow the Welsh tradition down whatever rabbit hole it might lead me.  As it turned out, everything naturally led me to reconsider my earlier hypothesis concerning Ceredig son of Cunedda (= Cerdic of the Gewissei).  A single phrase in the elegiac poem on Uther Pendragon ('Pen Kawell') led me to identify the latter with Ceawlin of the Gewissei, the [Maqui-]Coline who was Cunedda himself.  This seemed an eminently perfect theory, although it necessitated a creative treatment of the Arthurian battle sites.  In essence, I had to show convincingly that the sites in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM were Welsh attempts at place-names found in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.  

Pen Kawell turned out to be pivotal in my decision to abandon the Arthur = Cerdic of Wessex identification.  While cawell, taken literally as 'basket', could be linked to AS ceawl, 'basket', it was more likely that cawell was either a place-name (making Uther the 'chieftain of Cawell') or, even better, a epithet for God in the poem line in question.  'Pen Cawell' could be an easy error for 'Pen Cafell', 'Chief of the Sanctuary' (given that W. cawell and cafell both derive from the same Latin word).  It made the most sense to read the relevant line as "Our God, Chief of the Sanctuary, transforms me..."  This is especially true as the following line tells us what Uther is metaphoprically transformed into: "It is I who is like a candle (or fig. star, or leader) in the gloom..."

And there were still other southern candidates for Arthur, all involving dubious identifications of Uther.  I looked again into St. Illtud (called a 'terrible warrior') and at the Dumnonian Geraint, perhaps a reflection of the earlier Roman Gerontius, whose magister utriusque militiae rank may have yielded Uther Pendragon through standard folk etymology. Illtud was as easily dispensed with as had been Ceredig of Strathclyde (called a 'cruel tyrant' in the St. Patrick sources; one of the meanings of uthr in Welsh being 'cruel'). The Geraint idea was clever, but ultimately doomed, as all sites pertaining to him were in extreme southern Cornwall.  If I had a hankering for the Celtic fringe, I couldn't get any better than that!

What I needed was perspective.  A much wider one! I had intentionally pigeon-holed myself into the Celtic Fringe, and thereby has lost sight of the bigger picture.  So what did I do?  I went back to the Arthurian battle list as recorded in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.

I had forgotten just how perfectly my place-name identifications for sites in the North seemed to be.  Without having to distort or imaginatively interpret, I had found locations that not only followed all established linguistic rules, but also took into account geography, the Roman road system and archaeological findings.  Furthermore, I had made a quite reasonable argument for Camboglanna on the Wall being Camlann (not an original idea, in any sense), for Aballava/Avalana just a little bit west of Camboglanna being Arthur's 'Avalon', and Birdoswald and Carvoran being the forts of Uther the Dragon and Arthur, respectively.  Birdoswald was the site of a remarkable Dark Age hall and related building complex and had been manned for centuries by the Dacians, famous for their draco standard.  Carvoran had been manned by Dalmatians, and I had demonstrated that LAC had, in all likelihood, been born in Dalmatia, and he certainly was put to rest there.  Birdoswald and Camboglanna were in the Irthing Valley, a river-name quite possibly to be traced to a Cumbric word for 'bear.'  I assigned the *Artenses or 'Bear-people' to this region.  The designation *Artenses is preserved in the Welsh eponym Arthwys.  A son of this 'Arthwys', i.e. a descendent of the Bear-people, was one Ceidio, whose name is a pet-form of a longer name that may well have meant 'Battle-leader.'  He may be Arthur, the dux erat bellorum of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM.  Powcady just north of Camboglanna may preserve Ceidio's name.

https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Leader-North-Definitive-Identification-Legendary-ebook/dp/B0B5CG54RT/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1QSK5FBTR8JJL&keywords=the+battle-leader+of+the+north+august+hunt&qid=1658330132&sprefix=battle-leader+of+the+north+%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1

My opponents will complain that all of that is purely circumstantial evidence - and they would be right in making such an assessment.  My attempt to pin down Uther and Arthur into a genealogical framework independent of the Galfridian construct has failed.  I find I need to resort to logical probabilities.  And, if I wish to be honest with myself, I must remain content with such. 

I go back to what place-name expert Alan James once told me:

“If you're assuming late 5th century, the archaelogical and (earliest OE) p-n evidence suggests the main concentration of Germanic-speakers would have been around the Humber, with control of York and extending west to the Magnesian Limestone/ Dere Street - i.e. the beginnngs of Deira and Lindsey; smaller but significant settlements along the Tees, and in the Yorkshire Gap, with control of Catterick; likewise along the Tyne and eastern part of Hadrian's Wall. Further north probably still P-Celtic, but there were of course strategic sites on both sides of the Forth; likewise to the west, strategic sites along the Wall and either side of the Solway Firth. 

Whether or not Arthur was involved, I can well believe there were battles at all the places you've marked!”

So, if not Arthur at these places, it must have been someone very much like him.  

And that, my friends, is the best that I can do.