THE FATAL FLAW IN THE LOGIC OF UTHER PENDRAGON = SAWYL BENISEL

[NOTE:

Utilizing proper logic is tough. I may not have done so in the piece posted below.

It has occurred to me that just as Uther Pendragon in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN elegy could refer to himself as gorlassar, why could not Sawyl have been referred to at some point as Uther Pen[dragon]?

I was reminded of a post I wrote years ago, which discussed Urien of Rheged's epithet udd dragonawl:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/11/urien-pen-and-dragon-repost-of-udd.html?m=1

I imagine an exploration of Welsh heroic poems would find many similar examples.

In the case of Sawyl Benisel, it could have "gone down" like this:

Sawyl is called the Terrible Chief warrior or Chief of warriors. This poetic name/title is used for a poem which supplies his real name by having him transformed by God the chief luminary into a second [Biblical] Samuel. At the same time he is gorlassar and (in another line) a leader in darkness.

Given the flexibility of poetic usage, there's really nothing wrong with this. I have been reluctant to drop the Madog-Ailithir = Madog-Eliwlad  connection, as well as the Irish wife of Sawyl (who alone can account for the subsequent Arthurs being from Irish-descended dynasties in Britain). 

Sure, the nice tie-in with the fabled Sarmatian draco would have been a welcome addition to the pro-Sawyl argument, but every scholar I've approached on the question has failed to produce a shred of evidence in support of the existance of the Sarmation standard. And, certainly, if Sawyl was wrongly identified with Illtud the warrior-monk, it is because dragon was understood to mean warriors. Otherwise, Uther Pendragon could not have been improperly associated with the saint's Latin military descriptors and ranks.

For now, this is where I will leave my Arthurian research. For no other reason, really, than I see no clear way to proceed along any other path.]

I may have been right when I wrote this post only a short time ago:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/03/banna-or-bust-on-getting-stuck-in-web.html

Why might this be so?

Because there is a fatal flaw in the logic of my argument in favor of Uther Pendragon = Sawyl Benisel.

I voiced it, indirectly, in another article, published here:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/04/removing-fly-from-ointment-uther-as.html

"For Illtud to be identified through his Latin military titles with Sawyl Benisel, the latter would have to be the original bearer of the Uther Pendragon name/epithet.  Or, Sawyl in the Uther elegy poem is merely a metaphor, used of Illtud because he was actually Uther Pendragon from the very beginning." 

Let's begin with a simple analysis of the first sentence.  Sawyl of Ribchester already had a name and an epithet, the latter being Benisel.  Uther Pendragon for a Sawyl at Ribchester might work if it were a reference to the draco standard at the Sarmatian fort, but I have shown that the notion the Sarmatians were to be associated with the draco is a mistaken one (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/02/there-is-absolutely-no-evidence-for.html). Instead, 'dragon' in Welsh poetry denoted a warrior.  Thus Uther Pendragon being identified with the Latin military titles of Illtud (terribilis miles, magister militum, princeps militum). As this is true, we can't really allow for Uther Pendragon = Sawyl Benisel.  Why create two names and two epithets for the same person?

The second statement is patently false.  Yes, if Uther Pendragon was conjured as a Welsh rendering of Illtud through the latter's Latin military titles, then any Sawyl poetic comparison of Uther would belong, properly, to Illtud. But it is also possible that a totally separate personage whose name was Uther and whose epithet was Pendragon and who was compared to the Biblical Sawyl, was wrongly identified with Illtud, who then took on the Sawyl association.

The same be said of Illtud, from a different perspective. Ordinarily, the Wels would just give Illtud an epithet. And, indeed, they did, calling him 'knight', for instance. To have taken terribilis from terribilis miles and add it to magister militum seems an unlikely way of deciding to refer to the saint. It seems far more likely that a real name and epithet, viz. Uther Pendragon, has been fancifully associated with the separate Illtud Latin military titles. Any Sawyl association attached to Uther would then be transferred to the saint.

The thing smacks of legendary development, not history. One should not try to extrapolate hidden facts from sources like the Welsh PA GUR - even though such sources may have been informed by earlier tradition and, in turn, informed a burgeoning body of later literature.

Sometimes a person can attempt to be too clever.  I have been guilty of this sin more than once.

If we take Uther Pendragon as a genuinely separate entity, either a name + epithet or a special designation for someone having to do with a dragon, and allow for the Welsh dragon as 'warrior' to have originated with the Roman draco (something that is quite plausible and, indeed, probable), then a 'Chief dragon' (or magister draconum?) is allowable.  And there is one place where the Roman draco may have been held in special reverence: the Dacian-garrisoned Hadrian's Wall fort of Birdoswald/Banna, where we have found an Arthur-period royal hall.   I have theorized that the Birdoswald fort, only a few kilometers from Camboglanna/Castlesteads in the same river valley, was referred to as the 'Aelian dragon', a reference to the garrison and, by extension, that fort itself.  This is a reading now held to be possible by experts on the Ilam Cup inscription whom I have consulted. 

I have thus come around once again to viewing the whole Illtud-Sawyl business as spurious tradition.  There was the tendency among the Welsh to relocate famous heroes of the past from areas that had long been English to Wales itself.  It is not at all unreasonnable to assume that they did the same to Uther by identifying him with Illtud. That Sawyl Benisel became confused with the mix to be expected given a litereal interpretation of Sawyl in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, rather than viewing the name simply as a poetic metaphor.

Accepting all of this would free me up to offer one and only one theory for Arthur: that he originated at Birdoswald, with his name (and possibly his mother) coming from the neighboring Hadrian's Wall fort of Carvoran/Magnis, which in the late period was garrisoned by a Dalmatian unit.  A L. Artorius Castus who served in Armenia appears to have had close relationships with Dalmatian officers and himself became procurator of Liburnia.  The Artorii are well attested in Dalmatia, especially at Salona, and we have a gravestone at Carvoran for a woman hailing from Salona.  There would have been no better place for the Artorius name to have been preserved and passed down to a royal son in the 5th century. 

As the 'Terrible Chief-dragon' of Birdoswald, Arthur's father would be the inheritor of the Dacian's peculiar attachment to their own wolf-headed draco, which in the later Roman period in Britain would have become "standardized" (if readers will forgive the pun!) as the Roman draco.  We know the Dacians at Birdoswald held onto their native traditions for some time as we have evidence for the depiction of the Dacian sword known as a falx on stones recovered from the site.  It has been suggested the falx served as a sort of regimental badge.

I've written on these matters and a great deal more in my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF THE NORTH.  This book will remain in print.  I have decided to allow the book on Sawyl (THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER) to lapse.  While interesting from the standpoint of how legendary material was created in medieval Wales, I no longer think of it as a genuinely valid theory when it comes to identifying a decent historical candidate for Arthur.  

https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Leader-North-Definitive-Identification-Legendary-ebook/dp/B0B5CG54RT/ref=monarch_sidesheet