My Final Take on Two Critical Lines of the Uther Pendragon Elegy

First Several Lines of 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen'

Over the past few weeks, I've produced several blog posts on Uther Pendragon as St. Illtud.  An old idea of mine, buttressed by new findings.  Here are a couple of the most recent articles:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/06/mabon-servant-of-uther-pendragonilltud.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-simple-argument-for-reconciling-my.html

The problem was that the stronger the case becomes for Illtud = Uther, the more my argument for a Northern Arthur seems to weaken.  The solution to this problem would appear to be a confusion that occurred at some stage in the development of the legend between Illtud and Sawyl Benisel of the North.  I have outlined in some detail how the two chieftains could have been conflated.  

But the claim that Uther Pendragon, originally a Cymracization of Latin military titles/descriptors belonging to St. Illtud, is an error for Sawyl derives from one instance in which Uther appears to be likened metaphorically to the Biblical Samuel.  I am talking, of course, about a couple of emended lines in the elegy to Uther Pendragon ('Marwnat Vthyr Pen').

I am here quoting the lines in question, with the two key unemended words highlighted:

ny pheidwn rwg deu lu heb wyar.

I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.

Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:

It’s I who’s styled ‘Armed in Blue’:

vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.

my ferocity snared my enemy.

5 Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:

It is I who’s a leader in darkness:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.

May our God, Chief of the _____, transform me.

Neu vi eil kawyl yn ardu:

It’s I who’s a second _____ [or 'It's I who's like a _____ ] in the gloom:

ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu.

I’d not give up without bloodshed [the fight] between two forces.

Now, if the translation regarding God as the transformer of Uther (a role assumed by Merlin in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and in connection with gorlassar/Gorlois) is correct, as seems probable, the Pen Kawell epithet must refer to Him, and not to Uther.  God could be Pen cafell, 'Chief of the Sanctuary', but if so we would have the only example of proest end-rhyme (a sort of non-rhyming end-rhyme) in the entire poem.  On this matter I have the authoritative statement by Professor Peter Schrijver (personal correspondence): 

"l. 23 gyhyr shows “Irish” rhyme (dd and r belong to the same class of consonants: voiced continuants)

l. 28 geinc shows Irish rhyme with -eint (t and k belong to the same class of consonant: voiceless plosives)

l. 34 goruawr gyghallen: last word does not rhyme, but it looks like this is compensated by preceding goruawr (rhyme in -awr); note that the commentary wrestles with the shortness of the lines and wonders whether the text is corrupt.

l. 40 gwrthglodyat – byt: same situation as in l. 34: byt does not rhyme (but does rhyme with the first word in l. 41) but gwrthglodyat does (in at)

So yes, there are other lines with rhyme problems. But they fall into different categories than kawell – tywyll would if taken at face value (proest/consonantal rhyme, if that is what it is). So there is no certainty that kawell/tywyll cannot be taken at face value, but just the likelihood that they cannot."

To match tywyll of a previous line, the best emendation for kawell is kannwyll, which carries a primary meaning of candle or lamp, but in a transf. sense could mean a bright heavenly body or a luminary or leader. 

kawyl could easily represent Sawyl through the principle known as eye-skip, an error of copying in which a beginning letter from a word in a previous line is put down by mistake as the first letter of a similar word in a following line.  

The result of such a reading would be:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kannwyll.

May our God, Chief of the Lamp, transform me.

Neu vi eil kawyl yn ardu:

It’s I who’s a second Sawyl [Samuel] in the gloom:

Even if we adopt Haycock's other idea for the first line, viz. ‘May the guiding/chief light (i.e. God) transform me in the breach’, we are still using cannwyll in the first line and so cannot have it in the second.  The force of Sawyl would be diminished in the sense that the allusion to the Biblical Samuel in the Holy of Holies, keeping the Lamp of God lit, would be lost.  

I once proposed that cannwyll could be the original form of the second line's kawyl, making for a

"It's I who's like a candle (or star? or leader?) in the gloom:"

Such a reading could explain Geoffrey of Monmouth's dragon-star, said to represent Uther himself.  Although, in all honesty, the Galfridian transformation story involves gorlassar/Gorlois, not the star itself.  But, it makes no sense to employ cannwyll in the middle of a line when it could have been employed at the end of a line to match tywyll.  We would be stuck with cafell again for the first line, which would represent the only instance of proest end-rhyme in the entire poem.  Yes, Uther as a cannwyll in the gloom does seem to match his claiming himself as tywyssawc yn tywyll 'a leader in darkness' in a previous line.  But this hardly seems to relate to God as Chief of the Sanctuary.  And such a transformation into a leader in the gloom when he was already, a few lines above, a leader in darkness seems redundant.  

All in all, given that St. Illtud/Uther is replaced by Sawyl Benuchel in the Life of St. Cadog in the monastery raiding incident, Eldadus (Geoffrey of Monmouth's form of Illtud) is likened to the Biblical Samuel, the fort of Uther's servant Mabon (called Mabon the Giant) is in the parish of Llansawel and Maponus was worshipped at the Ribchester of Sawyl Benisel, I cannot help but conclude that the 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen' does, indeed, contain a poetic reference to Uther as a second Sawyl.  And that it was for this reason that Sawyl Benisel, Arthur's real father, came to be wrongly identified with Uther/Illtud.