NOTE ON THE THIRD 'RAPTER OF ELEI', GWYN GODYFRION

[This is an addendum to my article https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/08/eil-mehyn-of-urien-rheged-and-eildon.html.  It is important because while it was not difficult to account for Mabon son Modron and Constantius Chlorus at Newstead/Trimontium, I had previously be unable to account for the placement there of Gwyn Godyfrion.  But once I accepted the suggestion that Godyfrion was here merely an epithet of Gwyn son of Nudd, things began to open up.  

I had already studied the Yarrow stone.  It is a memorial to sons of Liberalis, probably 6th century.  One is named Nud[d].  This also happens to be the name of the father of the famous Gwynn of Welsh tradition.  The Yarrow Stone bearing Nudd's name is at Whitefield next to the Whitehope Burn.  Yarrow empties into the Ettrick and the latter into the Tweed just a little upstream from the Eildons.  I personally have no doubt the presence of a Nudd here would have encouraged some poet to place Gwyn in the same place.

So, at this point I'm pretty sure Elei in the PA GUR is a substitution for the Eildons.  In all likelihood the eil mehyn, palisaded place, of the Urien poem (which is immediately preceded by eidoed kyhoed, 'conspicuous defenses') is a reference to the Eildons.  All the other identifiable place-names in the same section of the poem in question, when grouped on a map, show the Eildons in the center of the grouping.]

NOTE ON THE THIRD 'RAPTER OF ELEI', GWYN GODYFRION

The entire section on the Elei, precisely because this was known to be a river-name, shows what appears to be intruded water symbolism.  To explain how this came about, the following note from THE ARTHUR OF THE WELSH (ed. R. Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarman and B. F. Roberts) is helpful:

It should not surprise us, then, that the third of the raptors of Elei bears a very strange epithet - one which has, indeed, been interpreted as a place-name.  As discussed in the volume by Jones:

If not a made-up name for a made-up hero (is this merely a doublet for the god Gwynn son of Nudd?), Gwyn 'Below/Under [the?] Water' looks to be yet another corrupt spelling, like so many that occur in the 'Pa Gur' (again, see my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF THE NORTH). Alternately, we could look for a real place-name, probably an English, Norse or Gaelic one.  Something, perhaps, like "Nether White Burn/Beck."

In CULHCH AC OLWEN, Gwyn is placed in the North for the story of Creiddylad and Gwythyr.  As his father was Nudd, it may well be that legend associated him with the Nudd son of Liberalis who is to be connected with the Yarrow Stone.  I once explored this Nudd as a possible relation of Uther Pendragon (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/06/uther-pen-son-of-nethawcnwython-part-two.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/05/uther-pen-son-of-nethawcnwython.html).  If Gwyn Godyfrion was indeed linked to this chieftain, a possible link with the Eildons as the original site of Elei gains some traction.  See the following maps for the proximity of Yarrow to the Eildon Hills.

Note that the Yarrow Water empties into the Ettrick, a major tributary of the Tweed just upstream from the Eildons.  The Yarrow Stone stands in Whitefield.  The Whitehope Burn runs nearby.