The 'Drws Llech' or 'Door-stone' of Sawyl's Brother, Dunod

TrussGap Brow, Swindale Beck, Cumbria

Dunod Fwr (Bwr), brother of Sawyl, my candidate for the father of the famous Arthur, is associated with five places.  I have dicussed the regio Dunutinga in my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER.  Also treated of in that volume is Erechwydd (= Eamont in Cumbria), a place also associated with Urien of Rheged.  Bran son of Ymellyr[n] is associated with both Dunawt of Dent and Cynwyd of Kent.  Ymellyr is transparently from Old Norse a, river, plus melr, sandbank, identifying his region with Ambleside in Cumbria just to the west of the River Kent. [1]  And, yes, the use of English or Norse names in the context of figures belonging to the sub-Roman or early medieval period is horribly anachronistic.  But this does happen in the heroic poetry, demonstrating pretty obviously that some of the traditions were recorded quite late.  

Not generally mentioned in the context of Dunod's homeland is the fact that he supposedly married the daughter of Lleenog of the Kingdom of Elmet.

Elmet from Koch's CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA

But one place has remained a mystery: Drws Llech.  From P.C. Bartrum's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:

"DUNOD FWR ap PABO POST PRYDYN. (500, d.595). He is mentioned in a triad (TYP no.5) as one of the ‘Three Pillars of Battle’ of Ynys Prydain, and in another triad (TYP no.44) he is mentioned as one of the seven who rode the horse Corfan to view the battle-fog of [the host of] Gwenddoleu at Arderydd. This was in the year 573 (AC). His pedigree is given in HG 11, ByS §12, BGG §4 in EWGT pp.11, 56, 73. The cognomen Fwr, ‘fat’, occurs in TYP no.44 and ByS §12, but becomes Fawr in one late version of BGG §4 and Achau'r Saint §§21, 51 in EWGT pp.70, 71. He was the father of St. Deiniol by Dwywai ferch Lleenog (ByS §12). In the ‘Hoianau’ in the Black Book of Carmarthen he is called Dunaud deinwin, ‘Dunod white teeth’, the father of Deiniol (BBC 56 l.1). In Annales Cambriae s.a.595 we find: Dunaut rex moritur, but MS.B reads: Dunauut filius Pabo obiit. It seems probable that the identification is correct, but it must be supposed that he died at a good age, especially as his son, Deiniol, is recorded as dying in 584. Dunod is mentioned in a poem on the death of Urien in the ‘Llywarch Hen’ Poetry (CLlH III.3). Llywarch Hen is represented as saying: Let savage Unhwch guide me; It was said in Drws Llech, ‘Dunod ap Pabo does not retreat.’ Further on in the same poem it is probably the same person who seems to be described as making war on Owain and Pasgen, sons of Urien: A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY 236 III.37 Dunod, horseman of the chariot, planned to make a corpse in Yrechwydd against the attack of Owain. III.38 Dunod, lord of the land, planned to make battle in Yrechwydd against the attack of Pasgen. Another poem tells how Llywarch Hen, after the death of Urien, was living in a state of poverty and was advised by a friend to migrate to Powys. The friend says: V.5 Trust not Brân, trust not Dunod. The location of Dunod's family may be represented by the regio Dunutinga, which was presented to the church of Ripon in about 675 (Eddius's Life of Wilfrid, Ch.17). It is associated with the Ribble and other places in the north of the West Riding (H.M.Chadwick, Early Scotland, p.143 and n.3). The place is represented by modern Dent which is the name of a considerable region surrounding a village known as Dent Town [11 miles West by South of Hawes] (John Morris, The Age of Arthur, 1973, p.573). Dunod's bard was perhaps Cywryd (q.v.). FICTIONS Geoffrey of Monmouth included Dunod ap Pabo among the princes who were present at Arthur's coronation (HRB IX.12), similarly Brut y Brenhinedd. Two other sons of Dunod Fwr are mentioned in the Iolo MSS. p.126, namely Cynwyl and Gwarthan. For the origin of these fictions, see s.n. Gwarthan." 

Ifor Williams, the editor of the Llywarch Hen poetry, has this on Drws Llech: 

3b drws llech. Enw rhyw fwlch yn y mynyddoedd Ile bu brwydro ? [Translation: "The name of a gap in the mountains where there was a battle?"] Ar llech gw. P.K.M. 303 ; drws, cf. Drws y

Coed, y bwlch rhwng Rhyd Ddu a Nantlle : Drws y Nant,

ger Dolgellau : Bwlch Oerddrws, rhwng Dolgellau a Mallwyd ; (Llywelyn ap Gruffudd), M.A. 240a. Nyt oet hawt y dreissyaw ger drws deuvynyt ; E. Ll. 24.

Thus he believed that the place was a bwlch/fwlch, a pass or defile.  And this is despite the fact that the primary meaning of drws is 'door.'

Llech presents us with a bit of a problem, for it is not a generic term for stone or rock. Here is the word's definition in the GPC:

slate (in geol.); roofing-slate; writing-slate; bakestone, griddle; (rectangular) slab of stone, flooring- or paving-stone, flag-(stone); gravestone; rock, boulder, cliff.

A llech, therefore, is in all likelihood going to be a flattened, rectangular, slab-like stone - in other words, a stone specifically shaped like a door.  

Alan James had some interesting information to impart on the geology of the Yorkshire and Cumbria mountainous terrain, and also kindly commented on some my ideas for Drws Llech:

"Drws llech is an anomalous formation - is it a loose compound, 'door-slab'? Or a phrasal one, 'door/pass with a slab'? We'd expect *drws y lech for the latter.  Llech is ‘A slab, a slate, a flat stone’, in place-names also 'a shelf of rock' - see BLITON.

Lech is indeed used for grave-slabs - horizontal in medieval times, upright gravestones later, and by metonymy for 'a grave'. I think your idea that the name might have referred to some prehistoric structure is a good one, though I don't think Cumbric speakers would necessarily have recognised that some of them were remains of 'graves'. The fact that llech doesn't have a plural inflection may not rule out a 'door' with a pair of slabs, the modern plural forms, llechau, llechi, are analogous formations, probably not used in Cumbric.

Your point about limestone pavements is a good one too. Such 'door-like' passes as I can think of in the Pennines, Yorkshire Dales and Peak District are almost all on limestone - not necessarily with pavements, but characteristically bedded with large slabs. In the Lakeland fells, more typically igneous rocks, with slate slabs.

There aren't many 'door-like' passes through the Pennines, or the Cheviots. 'Doors' with 'slabs' are more typical of the Lakeland fells. 

I think drws implies a fairly narrow gap between high, rocky sides. The distribution of llech reflects geology, much more likely in places where there are bedded layers that weather or break easily into flattish slabs."

https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/guides/the-welsh-origins-of-place-names-in-britain/ has for drws:

gap, narrow pass

James at https://historicplacenames.rcahmw.gov.uk/ adds that drws in the Welsh landscape means

"Technically, drws means the opening itself, the slab of wood on hinges with which you close the opening is a dôr, so the term also applies to physical features."

In https://spns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Alan_James_Brittonic_Language_in_the_Old_North_BLITON_Volume_II_Dictionary_2019_Edition.pdf, a Truss Gap in Cumbria is listed:

drus (m)

IE *dhwōr- (ō-grade of *dhwer- 'pierce') + -est- > eCelt *durestu- > Br *drustu- > OW drus > MMnW drws, cf. MCorn darat > Corn daras; O-MnIr, G dorus, Mx dorrys; ?cf. Lat foras 'out of

doors', fores 'double doors'.

The precise history of the Celtic forms is ‘thoroughly obscure’ according to P. Schrijver (quoted

in EGOW at p. 51). They exist alongside the more regular development eCelt *durā- > OW dor >

W dôr, MCorn dor, Bret dor, OIr dor, cogn. Lat foris ‘outside’, OE dor > ‘door’ (also OE duru >

northern ME/ early Scots dure), Gk thúrā-, Skt dvarau, and ‘in all major Indo-European groups’,

OIPrIE §72 at p. 108, and see also DCCPN p. 18.

‘A door, doorway, gate, gateway’. It occurs in later Welsh place-names and in early Modern

Welsh literature in the sense of ‘a narrow gap or pass’, but its presence in earlier Welsh

toponymy is not certain. For Irish and Scottish Gaelic examples, see DUPN p. 59 and PNFif5 p.

356.

Whaley (2001), pp. 77-96, and in DLDPN pp. 348-9, argues for this element in the following, but

see also *trǭs:

a1) Truss Gap Wml (Shap) PNWml2 p. 178, DLDPN p. 349 and plate 2.

a2) Trusmadoor Cmb (Ireby) DLDPN pp. 348-9 and plate 1 (not in PNCmb) + -μa [+ OE –dor

‘door’]. 

As it happens, this Truss Gap is located pretty much exactly between Dentdale and Eamont (Erechwydd).

But even better, there is a Trussgap Brow in this place.  Trussgap is, of course, a tautology (with English gap reproducing the meaning of Cumbric truss/drws).  Brow here is for the crag (see photo at the top of the post), which itself sports cliffs.  I take this for Drws Llech, given that llech could mean a cliff.

Perhaps significantly, the place-name Swindale (according to Victor Watts in his THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH PLACE-NAMES) means 'valley where swine are raised.'  This finds it echo in the name of the man associated with Drws Llech in the Llyward Hen poetry - Unhwch.  According to Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales, Unhwch means 'unique pig.'

Alan James' comment on the site?

"GPC gives clogwyn as the last of the senses for llech, though even that word can mean a steep crag. I rather doubt whether llech would have been used in Cumbric for cliffs in general, though it's obvious how the sense could extend by metonymy. And the crags and screes on either side have plenty of slabs still attached or fallen off - see the photo of Gouther Crag for example: there's a huge 'slab' on that edge, and the gap between Gouther and Outlaw Crags might well be a drws."

[1]

From P.C. Bartrum's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY:

BRÂN ab YMELLYRN. (Legendary). He is mentioned in a poem on Urien Rheged put into the mouth of Llywarch Hen (CLlH. III.40, p.17 and notes): Brân ab Ymellyrn planned to exile me, and burn my houses: A wolf howling at the door(?)! Another poem tells how, after the death of Urien, Llywarch Hen was living in a state of poverty and was advised by a friend to migrate to Powys. The friend says (CLlH. V.5, p.22 and notes): Trust not Brân, trust not Dunawd; Consort(?) not with them in hardship. Herdsman of calves, go to Llanfawr. Gruffudd Hiraethog found that Brân ab Ymellyrn was identified with Brân Galed (q.v.). In Peniarth MS.176 p.185 he wrote: Kynan ap Bran Galed ap Emellyr ap Kynwyd Kynwydion, a hwnnw oedd Bran Galed yn gynnar ac a elwid wedi hyny Bran Ewerydd. Hen Llyfr Bodeo[n]. 'Bran Ewerydd’ seems to be an attempt to identify the same Brân with Bran mab Ywerit [Brân ab Iwerydd] of a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen. See s.n. Iwerydd Glyn E.Jones, in BBCS 25 pp.105-112, discusses the possible identification of Brân ab Ymellyrn, Brân [Hen] ap Dyfnwal [Moelmud] (see Dyfnwal Moelmud (2)), and Brân ab Iwerydd, but A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY -59- comes to no definite conclusion. He points out that a certain Brân was ‘at Cynwyd’ (Bran yg Kynwyt) according to ‘Gwarchan Tudfwlch’ in Canu Aneirin, l.1291. Also in CLlH VII.17 a battle of Cynwyd is mentioned in connection with Pelis, a soldier of Urien Rheged. Brân ab Ymellyrn may be referred to here.