WHY I CANNOT SHAKE OFF SAWYL AS ARTHUR'S FATHER: A NEW POSSIBLE CORRESPONDENCE IS BRIEFLY EXPLORED

River Hoddnant, Wales

River Hodder, Lancashire, England

Hodder In Relationship to Samlesbury and Ribchester

Hoddnant in Relationship to Llanilltud Fawr

So while research into the most likely reading of the fragmentary ARM[...]S of the Lucius Artorius Castus memorial stone continues apace, with a reading of ARMENIOS seeming more and more like our best candidate, the "evidence" for the Welsh identification of Sawyl of Lancashire as Arthur's father accumulates in like fashion.  This creates a major problem for me, as a placement of Arthur hard by the Roman fort of the Sarmatian veterans at Ribchester seems to fly in the face of Castus's fighting in Armenia in the 160s A.D.  Why?  Because if Castus did fight in Armenia at the time, he was never in Britain when the 5,500 British troops were there.  It then becomes exceedingly difficult to justify accounting for the preservation of the Artorius name in the vicinity of an area of Sarmatian settlement.

Most recently I realized that the Hoddnant, upon which St. Illtud founded his church/monastery, shared an etymology with the Hodder near Ribchester and Sawyl's Samlesbury.  

From the Life of St. Illtud on the Hoddnant (https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/illtud.html):

§ 6. Of his first dwelling in the valley of Hodnant.

These things being done as related, the aforesaid woman wished to enter the bed; Illtud drove her off so wishing as the poison of a serpent, declaring he was leaving her, and saying 'Thou shalt not cling to me further.' He reached out to her her clothes; she putting on what was handed to her sat down, yet although clothed she feigned with trembling heart that she was cold, thatby this plea she might lie again in the bed by his side. But he knew the reason to be feigned; he strengthens his purpose with the firmness of virtues; he gains the victory. A solitary wayfarer, whom God accompanied, having abandoned all secular things, he kept on his way until he arrived at the aforesaid valley, called Hodnant, which not without reason means in Latin uallis prospera, prosperous valley. About it stood no mountains or steep unevenness, but a most fertile open plain. There was a very thick wood, planted with diverse trees, which was the crowded abode of wild beasts. A very pleasing river laved its two banks, and wells intermixed with rills along their pleasing courses. After he had rested and examined everything, the delectable spot pleased him, as the angel had indicated before in dreams. Here is the woody grove, a sunny spot to those who tarry there; here too about the plains is rich fertility. Through the midst there runs a flowing stream of waters. This I know may be said, it is the most beautiful of places.

§ 7. Of the penance imposed on him, and of the reception of the clerical habit, and of his manner of watching and fasting, and of the first building of a church, and of the sow seen with six porklings.

Such things having been seen and being pleasant to him, the servant of God, the most blessed Illtud, went to Dubricius, bishop of Llandaff, who imposed penance on him for past faults. He shaved his beard, he cut his hair, he blessed his crown. Then, having taken the clerical habit in accordance with the angelic command as revealed in the dream, he returned tonsured to the same place, building at once first a habitation, the bishop Dubricius marking out the boundary of a cemetery, and in the midst, in honour of the supreme and undivided Trinity, the foundation of an oratory, where he had previously seen the lair of a sow and porklings. These having been duly marked out, he founded a church, a quadrangular rampart of stone being made above the surrounding ditch. After these things were done and before they had been undertaken, he watched and fasted assiduously, he prayed without ceasing, expending his goods bounteously on all who asked. He worked with his own hands, a most religious hermit, not trusting in the labours of others. In the middle of the night before mattins he used to wash himself in cold water, remaining so as long as the Lord's Prayer could be said three times. Then he would visit the church, kneeling and praying to the omnipotence of the supreme Creator. So great was his religion that he was never seen engaged in any business except in God's service. His whole concentration was on Holy Writ, which he fulfilled in daily works. Many to be taught resorted to him; they were trained to a thorough knowledge in the seven arts.

It is the Hodd- and Hod- elements that should interest us in these two river-names.  

From https://spns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Alan_James_Brittonic_Language_in_the_Old_North_BLITON_Volume_II_Dictionary_2019_Edition.pdf:

*hǭδ

MW hawd > W hawdd, Corn hueth.

The etymology is obscure: an IE *sōd-, lengthened o-grade of IE *sed (see heδ), may be

involved.

‘Easy, prosperous, pleasant’. It often occurs as in stream-names, e.g. Hoddnant Crd, Howey

Brook Rdn; and see DPNW pp. 197-8 (Honddu) and 281 (Llanthony) for further examples in

Wales, CPNE p. 135 for several in Cornwall, and PNShr1 pp. 153-4 on Hodnet Shr, where *hǭδ

describes a valley rather than a watercourse.

c1) Hodder R Lanc/YWR border ERN p. 198, PNLanc p. 139, PNYWR7 p. 129 + -duβr,

though Jackson, LHEB p. 519, followed by Watts DEPN(C), considers this ‘uncertain’. 

The same source discussed the -nant of Hoddnant as follows:

The Indo-European root-sense is ‘bend, bow, sink down’, so in the Brittonic languages, ‘a

valley’. A feminine form *nantā- underlies Modern Welsh nant (f) ‘a brook’, and this may well

be present in stream-names in the North. However, the difficult case of Nanny Burn (see below),

and the several forms with nent, raise the possibility of a northern Brittonic hydronym *nantjo- or

*nantjōn-. Alternatively, nent might in some cases preserve a genitive singular or nominative

plural form (Watson, CPNS p. 390 discussing Tranent ELo, gives neint as a plural form, though

this is not among those listed in GPC), or be due to reduction in unstressed positions in

Anglicised forms: see ERN pp. 319-20 s.n. Pant for Ekwall’s discussion.

Now, it may just be a coincidence that Illtud, who appears to have been wrongly identified with Uther Pendragon/Sawyl, has his establishment on a river which begins with the same element as a river found near Ribchester.  Most historians, I'm sure, would not make the connection.  But folklorists would.  Stories can be transferred from one place to another if the place where the original story belongs has a name similar or identical to the place where the story ends up.  It is possible that one of the reasons Uther Pendragon/Sawyl, who lived near the Hodder, a major tributary of the River Ribble, was wrongly identified with Illtud was precisely because the latter lived on the Hoddnant.  

The basis of the identification of Uther Pendragon with Illtud, as I've detailed previously, has to do with the various Latin military titles Illtud was given (such as magister militum), in combination with his avenging spirit being referred to as 'a terrible soldier'

I'm going ahead and pasting below a section from an earlier blog post that lists the primary reasons why I find the Welsh identification of Uther with Sawyl (although they did it in an indirect and mistaken fashion!) to still be quite compelling.  Again, the problem is to determine how the name Artorius might have been preserved through the centuries near the Ribchester fort - accepting that, as of right now, the best solution to the gap in the Castus memorial stone is a proposed ARMENIOS reading.

I will keep working on the ARM[...]S problem, although at this point no further progress seems possible.  I've just posted a piece on why ARMORICOS just doesn't seem to make sense (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-death-knell-for-armorican-theory-of.html) in the context of the Deserters' War under Commodus. But it may be I'm missing something still (and, no, it is not the reading of ARMATOS proposed by Malcor, Trinchese and Faggiani). 

If anything comes up, I will, of course, post it here on my blog site.    

Our only alternative is to default to the Birdoswald Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, where I have situated Uther Pendragon because the presumed presence there of the Roman standardized form of the Dacian draco.  Well, and that fort's proximity to Camboglanna/Camlann, Aballava/Avalana/"Avalon", the Dark Age royal hall at that fort, St. Patrick's apparent birth at that fort, etc.  But what I don't like is our inability to make a direct genealogical connection to someone at the fort.  We can only do that with Sawyl of Ribchester.  

***

Geoffrey of Monmouth, either accidentally or intentionally, got things wrong. He has Uther transformed not into 'a second [i.e. Old Testament] Sawyl/Samuel', as is what we find in the Welsh elegy MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, but into Gorlois.  He got the latter from the gorlassar epithet provided for Uther at the beginning of the elegy.  But Geoffrey does compare St. Illtud (his Eldad) to Samuel.  I've pointed out that in the Life of St. Cadog, Illtud is replaced in one context with a Sawyl.

So what is going on here?  As I've pointed out before, Illtud is said to have been the commander of the household troops of a chieftain residing at Dinas Powys in south Wales.  We are told that when he became a religious, he put away his wife.  He is not credited with children, although he is said to be Arthur's cousin.  

My idea is that the Northern Sawyl, who was the original Uther Pendragon due to his relationship with the continued veneration of the draco standard among the elite at Ribchester, came to be confused for or conflated with Illtud because the latter held several Latin titles/ranks (as evinced in his VITA) that could easily have been rendered 'the terrible chief-warrior/chief of warriors' in the Welsh.  Or the late Roman rank of magister draconum could have been preserved a Ribchester, again because of the draco's presence there.  In this sense, Illtud was not Arthur's father - Sawyl of the North held that distinction instead.  During the usual haphazard development of folklore and heroic legend, differing strands of tradition must have existed at various times, and sometimes side by side.  We ended up with a Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall from gorlassar, 'the very blue', a description of Uther's blue-enamelled armor and/or weapons (or his being tattooed with woad?), and St. Illtud as Sawyl.

Suffice it to say that it is not at all impossible for Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father, to originally have been Sawyl of the North.  It was this Sawyl who, like Uther, had a son named Madog.  Sawyl's son Madog was called by the Irish Ailithir, 'pilgrim', a word derived from elements meaning, literally, 'other land.' Uther's grandson through Madog was Eli[g]wlad, a name which semantically means exactly the same thing as Ailithir.  Sawyl of the North had married an Irish princess, and this would account nicely for the fact that all subsequent Arthurs belong to Irish-descended dynasties in Britain - something no one has been able to account for as yet.  And, of course, there is the Sarmatian draco and the credible connection between the Sarmatians who had settled at Ribchester and L. Artorius Castus. The Arthurian battles are all in the North, along a line running roughly up and down the old Roman Dere Street. Ribchester is perfectly positioned to have been the base of operations for these battles, especially given the town's close relationship to York and to the Sixth Legion in the Roman period.