SAWYL BENISEL AS THE FATHER OF ARTHUR: MY FINAL DECISION

Opening of the 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen'

In the last several blog posts I've discussed Uther Pendragon as the warrior monk Illtud.  But I have also focused on what appears to be a strange confusion over Uther/Illtud and a certain Sawyl, the Welsh spelling of the name Samuel.  This last appears to be the Sawyl who ruled from the vicinity of the old Ribchester Roman fort, i.e. Sawyl Benisel.

Before I seek to justify why I am opting for Sawyl rather than Illtud as Arthur's father, I wish to enumerate the 'Samuel Occurrences' as they relate to Illtud.

1) The best emendation for kawyl in the 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen' is Sawyl.  Uther is referring to his transformation by God in the midst of battle, and his becoming either 'like [the Biblical] Samuel' or a 'second Samuel.'

2) In the PA GUR, Uther/Illtud is said to be a servant of Mabon at the Ely River in Glamorgan.  Illtud served as master of the soldiers for a chieftain in the Ely Valley.  The link with Mabon was established because there is an Illtud church in the valley of the Taff not far from a church of Mabon in the same valley.  But we also have a giant Mabon whose castle was in the parish of Llansawel (Church of Sawyl) in Carmarthenshire.  Maponus was worshipped at Ribchester in the Roman period, and was specifically a Northern deity.  The majority of the dedications made to him were by soldiers belonging to the Sixth Legion at York.  

3) In the Life of Illtud, the saint is chief over the soldiers who are punished for their transgression by Cadoc.  But in Cadoc's Vita, the chief of these same soldiers is Sawyl Benuchel (a term later used for Benisel).  This Sawyl is said to live by Llancarfan, and I have theorized that because the place was said to derive part of its name from 'stags', this man must be Sawyl of Ribchester, whose brother was Cerwyd[d], eponym for the Carvetii or 'stag-people', a Roman period tribe whose kingdom had bordered on the region ruled by Sawyl.

4) Geoffrey of Monmouth has Eldad (= Illtud) evoke Samuel and his actions when the former deals with the captured Saxon Hengist. 

Putting all of that aside for a moment, I can remind my reader that while Illtud is not said to have had any children, and to have put away his wife when he became a religious, it is also true that both Uther and Sawyl are said to have had sons named Madog.  When treating of Eliwlad, son of Madog son of Uther, I was able to show fairly convincingly that the name might well be patterned after the Ailithir title given to Madog son of Sawyl in the Irish sources.  In addition, Ailithir means 'pilgrim', and another Welsh didactic poem that closely resembles the form of "The Dialogue of Arthur and the Eagle" has as its primary character a personage called merely creiriwr, 'pilgrim.'

There are other reasons for looking very favorably upon Sawyl as Arthur's father.  Firstly, we can easily account for the presence of the Artorius name at Ribchester, given that fort housed the Sarmatian veterans.  I have argued that these soldiers would have been employed by the 2nd century prefect of the Sixth Legion in an expedition to Armorica and then, possibly, in a deputation to Rome that ended up bringing down Perennis, the Praetorian Prefect.  Such significant exploits might well have caused the name Artorius to have been preserved at Ribchester and to have been given to a royal son in the latter part of the 5h century.  

Sawyl married an Irish princess. This would explain why all Arthurs subsequent to the more famous one belonged to Irish-founded dynasties in Britain (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/07/sawyl-benisel-father-of-arthur-and.html).  No one has been able to account for this fact to date.

More importantly, the Arthurian battle list of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM ends up revealing a marvelous pattern once it is arranged in the North.  The battles trend all along the Roman Dere Street from York to Manau Gododdin.  Badon fits extremely well as Buxton (the site of Badon according to 'The Dream of Rhonabwy'), and Camboglanna/Castlesteads on Hadrian's Wall answers perfectly for Camlan.  Avalon, if we must have it as something tangible, could be the Aballava/Avalana Roman fort not far west of Camboglanna at Burgh By Sands.  We even have a Dea Latis or 'Goddess of the Lake' at Burgh By Sands.  The PA GUR poem fixes the Tryfrywd/Tribruit battle in the North, and so to try and relocate it to the South means we are going against the only tradition we possess for that battle.  

As the Sarmatians were particularly fond of the draco standard, it may be that Sawyl was more easily conflated with Illtud because of the use of the term 'dragon' in the Pendragon epithet.  Yes, 'dragon' meant 'warrior' or the like in Welsh poetry, but the dragon itself as a mythical monster, before being used in a purely metaphorical sense, may well have been derived from the draco.

Everything that looks so good if we go with Sawyl as Arthur's father vanishes if we instead opt to stick with Illtud/Uther.  We cannot account for the preservation of the Artorius name, and trying to find the battles in the South is acutely problematic.  We are forced to accept the Afon Gamlan next to Llanelltyd in Gwynedd for Camlan, and we have no Avalon by name. The other battles can be found, more or less, although the pattern is unsatisfactory and, indeed, highly improbable from a strategic sense.  Our best bet is to do what I tried to do with my Welsh Arthur candidate Ceredig son of Cunedda: identify them with a selection of the Gewissei battles as those are presented in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.  

At this point in my research, I am completely content with choosing Sawyl Benisel as Arthur's real father.  It seems pretty clear to me that Sawyl was wrongly identified with Illtud/Uther Pendragon, with the latter ultimately being substituted for Sawyl.  This may - and probably was - the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who also created Gorlois from the gorlassar epithet Uther gives himself.  Illtud had family ties in Ercyng, which is where Geoffrey lived and wrote his HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN.  

COMING SOON: