HOW TO GET CEAWLIN FROM COLINE: A LINGUISTIC ARGUMENT FOR CUINNID/CUNEDDA MAC CUILINN AS THE GEWISSEI CHIEFTAIN

-coline on the Wroxeter Stone

Ceaulin in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE

The following is taken from the WIKIPEDIA article on the West Saxon name 'Ceawlin:'

Since there is no obvious Old English or wider Germanic origin for Ceawlin,[5]: 4  commentators have frequently assumed that it must originate in the Celtic languages, like the name Cerdic borne by another early West Saxon king.[7]: 37 [8]: 513  However, no secure Celtic etymology has, as of 2019, been forthcoming:

In 1941, O. S. Anderson suggested that the names were both contractions of the Welsh name Cadwallon, with the addition of the diminutive suffix -īn in the case of Ceawlin.[4]: 64, 92 

While noting that no such name is found in the Celtic languages, Richard Coates cautiously suggested in 1989–90 that "It could be derived from a British *Cawolīnos or, better, a hypothetical Pr[oto]W[elsh] *Cawlīn", positing a relationship with the Welsh word caw ("skilled"), but lacking close parallels for the -līn element.[5]: 4 

Arguing that -lin was a diminutive suffix for names more widely in Old English, John Insley argued in 2019 that Ceawlin is a diminutive of Ceawa, but did not offer an etymology for that name.[6]

Unbeknownst to Insley, however, Ceawa had been etymologised by Gillis Kristensson as an Old English counterpart of Middle High German kouwe 'jaw, jawbone' (from West Germanic *kauwō-).[9] In this case, Ceawlin would be a name of Old English etymology.

I do not think any of these suggestions are correct.  In my book THE BEAR KING, I demonstrate that the great Cunedda of NW Wales was not British, and he did not hail from Manau Gododdin in the far North of Britain.  Instead, he is to be identified with a member of the Irish Ciannachta named Cuinnidh (and variations) Mac Cuilinn, 'son of Holly.'  He came from Drumanagh.  My argument for this identification is long and involved, but I think very strong.  

However, I did not stop there. It became apparent to me that Cerdic of Wessex, indisputably the British name Ceredig, was the prince of that name who was the son of Cunedda.  The connection was made through a variety of means, but of primary importance is the Wroxeter Stone pictured above.  I made the case for Cunorix of the stone being Cynric of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, with his father Maquicoline being Ceawlin.  [Note there is a curious reversal of generations in the Gewissei of the Welsh sources and those of the English sources.]

Still, there remained one serious sticking point in what was otherwise a very comprehensive portrait of Irish federates or mercenaries fighting in southern England: I had to be able to show that Ceawlin could, indeed, come from Irish Coline.  

The solution to the problem came when I discussed the 5th century Coline with Professor Jurgen Uhlich of Trinity College, Dublin.  I alread knew from A LATE INSCRIPTION FROM WROXETER

by R. P. WRIGHT, F.S.A. and PROFESSOR K. H. JACKSON that Coline

"does not yet show the vowel change which would have been expected to turn it into Culini at some time in the later part of the fifth century"

Uhlich began by explaining to me that the form Cuilin was not germane to our discussion, as this change occurred

"Sometime in the 8th century, at a rough guess, i.e. when the habit of marking even internal consonants for colour gradually caught on. To be sure, this extra i is merely a ‘glide’ letter, with no additional pronunciation involved whatsoever."

We need to remember that Bede wrote c. 730, while the ASC was written in the 9th century.

Continuing his explanation of how this name could have changed through the centuries, Uhlich told me that

"au for u is merely a hypercorrect spelling in backward imitation of the 8th-century change of short au > u (such as in Cú Chaulin(n) > Cú Chul(a)inn, with the second word continuing what in Ogam spelling is attested as CALUNO-). This mechanical hypercorrection, however, went so far as to include even long ú (where a pre-stage *áu is impossible to assume), so you even find, say, cáu for cú, etc. As it happens, I have dealt with this in Ériu 46 (1995), §16."

His study can be found here:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30007872?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents

I then noticed the spellings for cawl in the BOSWORTH AND TOLLER ANGLO-SAXON DICTIONARY, which included ceawl:

https://bosworthtoller.com/005894

cawl

Noun [ masculine ]

 

cawl, caul, ceawl, ceaul, es; m. A basket; sporta, corbis, cophĭnus = κόφινος

 Linked entries

v.  caul ceaol ceawl cel ceofl ceol ceoul ceowl cewl.

I then proposed to Prof. Jurgen that a Caulin spelling for Culin was known by the West Saxons. Pronunciation is not important, as a scribe faced with Caulin could easily have 'Anglicized' that spelling to Ceawlin. According to Richard Coates, Ceaw- would be pronounced like Welsh caw, which is roughly the "chow" sound we need. I think Cau- could have been construed as having the same pronunctiation - as we can see in the entry for cawl above, where the spellings ceawl and caul are both found. 

It is true (in Coates' words) that "only WSax has the palatal affricate 'ch', but again, we are talking about a written form, not a spoken one.  Actual Irish phonology is not at issue here.  A WSax scribe with the name in front of him spelled C- would still have copied it as a C-, even if he pronounced it Ch-. 

Professor Jurgen's response?

"In short, your scenario could work technically, i.e. an AS scribe reading the hypercorrect spelling with <au> somewhere and then transposing this mechanically into an OE one."

I, personally, am more than content with this method of suggesting that the West Saxon Ceawlin might represent the secondary name of Cunedda.