NOTE: While the following idea seemed promising, another, better solution to the problem of Elei has occurred to me. I will be sharing this final piece of the puzzle in a day or so.
Camp Hill Earthwork; Pier Camp Hillfort, Hirael, Bangor, Gwynedd
Not long ago I wrote the following piece on the possibility that the Hirael hillfort, and not Dinas Dirnowig, was Uther's Caer Dathal:
I now have reason to believe that Hirael is, indeed, the right place. And, if so, this would push my argument for an Uther in Arfon to the forefront and, effectively, negate my own rival theories.
Before I get to that, some more earlier pieces that are germane to the present topic:
Now, I'm going to begin with what Professor Schrijver has to say ont the Elei river-name (and it should be noted that Dr. Simon Rodway agreed with him on this):
EMANIA 20, JUNE 2006
Early Irish Ailenn
An Etymology
Peter Schrijver
University of Utrecht
If we reconstruct forward from an early Celtic Alesia or
Alisia towards Old Irish, the result is aile, which does
indeed exist: the Old Irish ia-stem aile means ‘fence,
palisade (to prevent cattle from trespassing)’; cf. also the
compound bú-aile ‘cow pen’. Old Welsh has a probable
cognate in the Book of Llandaf ’s Eiliau, Eliau, names of a
village and a villa, respectively, hence originally ‘Pens,
Fences’. These are British Celtic plurals in *-ou > – au,
which have an exact counterpart in Modern Welsh eiliau
‘cattle pens’. They regularly reflect an earlier British plural
*alesj-owes/*alisj-owes. The singular *alesj_ probably
survives as the Old Welsh river name Elei in the Book of
Llandaf (perhaps modern Lai or Ely, Glamorganshire).
The Middle Welsh singular belonging to the plural eiliau,
however, is not *elei but eil ‘cattle-pen, shed’ (e.g., in the
Red Book of Hergest 1035.23 alaf yn eil meil am ved ‘cattle
in a pen, a cup around mead’), which cannot be derived
regularly from *alesja/ *alisja. Middle Welsh eil is probably
a back-formation: on the model of such common plural /
singular pairs as teithieu / teith ‘journey(s)’, drysieu / drws
‘door(s)’ a new singular eil was created beside inherited
eilieu (= Old and Modern Welsh eiliau).
Why is this important? Because the PA GUR poem places three heroes at Elei, and one of them is Mabon son of Modron, the servant of Uther Pendragon.
In one of the links supplied above (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-vythneint-elei-of-pa-gur-poem-new.html), I showed conclusively that an Elei champions may actually belong at Preseli, and Prof. Schrijver was kind enough to allow my proposed etymology for that place as one containing a second element identical to the word he had analyzed in Elei.
I had drawn a blank in localizing Gwyn Godybrion or Mabon, although I spent a lot of time looking for an Elei in the North.
Then I realized something. Gwyn (in the corrupt form of Goluthon) was made one of the sons of Iaen of Caer Dathal. I had tried to downplay that in a number of ways, none of them very successful.
Only just today I happened to remember that the meaning of W. eil and that of W. bangor were exactly the same! The Hirael fort, a candidate for Caer Dathal, is at Bangor.
From the GPC:
ban|gor
[ban1+côr3; cf. yr e. lle Llyd. Bangor, ?a’r e. lle H. Wydd. Benchuir (gen. i Benchor)]
eb.g. (bach. b. bangoren) ll. bangorau, (prin) bengyr.
a Defnydd ffensio, &c., sef ffyn a pholion wedi eu cydblethu â brigau neu ganghennau, plethwrysg, ffens bleth, wal bleth, plethwaith neu far croes mewn gwrych neu ffens blethedig:
• wattle, wattle fence, wattle wall, plaited rods or crossbar in a wattle hedge or fence.
While the GPC doesn't go into this kind of depth with eil -
ail2, eil2
[?cf. Gwydd. C. aile ‘ffens’; am enghrau. eraill posibl, gw. P Tal 85, GCBM ii. 12]
eb.g. ll. eiliau, eilion.
Plethiad, gwead; cwt, sièd, penty, pentis, adeilad (?neu ffald) o wiail plethedig; hefyd yn ffig.:
an interweaving, weaving; shed, lean-to, wattle building (?or enclosure or pen); also fig.
- I see the note of Sir Ifor WIlliams Taliesin poems that it could denote a defensive construction. And Alan James in his work on Brittonic place-names has it meaning
*eil (m)
eCelt *al-jo- > Br *aljo- > M-MnW ail, eil; OIr aile > (in compounds) Ir, G –aile, Mx –ayl.
The Celtic root *al- is associated with weaving, and with the construction of fences, buildings,
etc using woven wattles. So Welsh eil is ‘a shelter, a shed’, Old Irish aile ‘a fence, a palisade’,
Irish/Gaelic buaile, Manx boayl, ‘a cattle-fold’.
So, if Elei, even if used wrongly in the PA GUR for the River Ely, actually means fence or palisade, especially a wattle one, then it may well be merely another descriptive name for Bangor. Siaun son of Iaen was buried at Hirael, and Gwyn Godybrion, another son of Iaen, is placed at Elei. It seems to me, therefore, that a good case can be made for the Caer Dathal of Uther at Bangor = Elei.
It is true that Yscawen son of Banon belongs in Pres-eli, but the use of a place-name whose second element may be identical with Elei is significant. And it may well be that Mabon did belong to an 'Elei' elesewhere (although we may recall that his grave was placed in the Height of Nantlle, a distance of only 20 odd kilometers as the crow flies from Hirael), maybe even in the North, as I have hypothesized before. But, it also remains quite conceivable that these champions who originally belonged at other Eleis were gathered together at the one ruled over by Uther at Hirael/Bangor.
Should this idea prove to be correct, it would mean that the two locations linked to Uther in ancient Welsh tradition - Elei and Caer Dathal - are one and the same place. And if that is so, then it seems to me we must pay attention to the tradition, as any other localizations are totally lacking.
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