Yarrow Stone
As a result of these articles -
- it has occurred to me that I perhaps should not have so hastily dismissed an earlier idea regarding Arthur's father, Uther. My reasons for deciding against the theory are summarized here:
Essentially (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/07/arthur-as-descendant-of-sub-roman.html), I had once sought to provide Uther with an alternate, pre-Galfridian genealogy. This particular trace looked to an apparent convergence of events featuring one Gwythyr (or 'Victor') in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN and CULHWCH AC OLWEN.
How this worked was rather simple: in the elegy poem, Uther is said to fight with (according to Marged Haycock, probably on the same side as) Gwythyr. When we go to the Arthurian story in the MABINOGION, we find one of Gwythyr's warriors named PENN SON OF NETHAWC. Nethawc is a pet-form of Nectan.
The experts who edit and translate these texts felt that there was some element missing from in front of Pen, as that was otherwise not a name, but an epithet. [Uther itself, incidentally, is an adjective in Welsh, and its significance as a true name has been challenged.]
The following links outlined my idea in some detail:
Culhwch and Olwen
Marwnat Vthyr Pen
Significantly, there happen to be early Nectan/Nethawc names recorded in the region of the Eildons. Some are extant in place-names (Nenthorn and Plendernethy), but the best example is found on a stone:
Now, I ultimately decided against this possible family connection for Uther. Why? Because the scholars were not entirely correct about the Penn name not occurring in isolation. We find it in Pictish sources (and the whole Gwythyr episide in C&O takes place in Pictish Scotland), both as a name itself (in its Q-Celtic form of Cind) and as a component in the Brude ruler list.
Again, we must accept the location of the Gwythyr tale in the context of this discussion. The focus of the story is Creiddylad, who is certainly a personification of the Hill of Belief in Highland Scotland:
I later decided to take a look at the Nwython (a Welsh form of Pictish Nectan) placed in the royal pedigree of British Strathclyde. This Nwython, in turn, naturally led to a consideration of the St. Nectan who was known from Tintagel and vicinity (in the territory of the ancient Dumnonii of the south). Alas, this Strathclyde Nwython is not only way too late to have anything to do with Uther, but is in all likelihood an intrusion of a Pictish Nwython into the British genealogy:
Taken all together, the case for an 'Uther Pen son of Necthawc (= Nectan)' did not seem very strong. Yet at the time I had not decided on the original site for the 'raptors of Elei' being the Eildon Hills, the oppidum of the Selgovae. And it remains true that anyone bearing the name Nectan - even if he belonged in the Tweed basin - might well have been sucked up into the legendary Pictish traditions of Highland Scotland. In other words, there is no really good reason why a 'Nethawc' could not belong to the area around the Eildons.
If Mabon at the Eildons is a gwas or servant of Uther Pendragon, does it follow that Uther belongs there, too? Well, Dr. Christopher Bowles, an expert on the Yarrow Stone (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/06/dr-christopher-bowles-on-yarrow-stone.html), believes the chieftains buried at Yarrow would have come from the Selkirk area. Selkirk and the Eildons are only several kilometers distant from one another.
For those who want to read even more articles on an Uther son of Nethawc/Neithan from the territory of the ancient Selgovae, I refer you to the following links, all from my blog site. The last post is the most important of the group.
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