UPDATE: I've once again reviewed my work over the decades on the Arthurian battles of the HB and AC. And the conclusion I've reached is the same one I'd arrived several times in the past: Arthur belongs in the North. Subsequent treatments of his legend in Welsh poetry, story and hagiography do not appear to contain any good, historical clues regarding his presence in the South.
Having also accepted the Armenia reading for the L. Artorius Castus stone, I am now concentrating my attention on Hadrian's Wall for any future Arthurian research.
Artaxata, Ancient Capital of Armenia
The problem with Sawyl of Ribchester as Uther Pendragon?
The theory looks great, given the Northern battles of Arthur. And it works much better than simply allowing Uther Pendragon to be St. Illtud. But all of it depends on profoundly legendary material like the PA GUR, which - as I have remarked before - is replete with monsters, Gaelic and English place-names, etc. CULHWCH AND OLWEN'S association of Uther with Caer Dathal in Arfon is likewise undependable. All these instances are merely episodes in stories.
When it comes to the PA GUR narrative, it is quite possible - even likely - that I've been duped. How? Well, it just takes a good storyteller to fancifully connect Uther Pendragon with the Latin titles/descriptors found for Illtud in that saint's Vita. And voila!, Uther = Illtud. Truth is, Uther Pendragon has the very usual name + epithet format found in a great many examples in Welsh tradition (just look through the hundreds of listings in Bartrum's A CLASSICAL WELSH DICTIONARY). And while Uther is also an adjective, we have other examples of personal names that are derived from adjectival forms. So, point in fact, there is nothing wrong with Uther Pendragon left as is (something I have always acknowledged, even when searching for some other more historical figure I could link him with).
The biggest negative for Sawyl of Ribchester is the need for us to have the Arthur name preserved there because of L. Artorius Castus' presumed use of Sarmatian troops. Unfortunately, while it is certainly possible he went to Armorica under Commodus, all of my work has pointed instead, and very strongly, to his having gone to Armenia. And if the latter is correct, then Castus was never in Britain when the Sarmatians were there.
I have dozens of blog pieces that either directly or indirectly deal with Armenia as the preferred reading for the fragmentary ARM[...]S of the L. Artorius Castus memorial stone. I keep thinking back on the last one in the series -
Professor Roger Tomlin, who had preferred Armenia from the outset, was impressed with the supportive evidence and arguments I had compiled in support of Castus's Armenia venture.
And, truth be told, whenever I default to Armorica for the sake of Sawyl as Uther I experience an unpleasant doubt. My inner voice literally begins screaming "BUT CASTUS DIDN'T GO TO ARMORICA - HE WENT TO ARMENIA!"
Why do I cling to Illtud or Sawyl so desperately? Well, precisely because if I don't, I am stuck with just plain old Uther Pendragon, a personage who appears to have been inserted into a partly fabricated royal Dumnonian pedigree. And that ancestral line does not work for the Northern Arthurian battles.
If I do divorce myself from this unhealthy fixation with Illtud/Sawyl, I end up in a very different place. I recently set out my argument for once again favoring an Uther based on Hadrian's Wall:
This is actually a very good argument. We can even say that Pendragon, while it may well have meant "Chief warrior' or 'Chief of warriors' in the later Welsh poetic tradition, may be an oblique reference to the Dacians at Banna, who had their own wolf-headed draco in the early Roman period and who would thus have probably attached special veneration to the later Roman draco.
We have everything we need to make a convincing case for Arthur originating at Banna (with his mother, perhaps, coming from neighboring Magnis, whose garrison was Dalmatian). We have river and tribal names that refer to bears, we have Camboglanna in the same valley as Banna, we have "Avalon" at Avalana/Aballava - we even have a Lake Goddess in the same region.
That the Welsh placed Camlan in NW Wales should not discourage us, for this is simply one more example of the relocation of sites and events to the 'Celtic Fringe.'
So, once again, at the end of a very long road of Arthurian exploration, I find myself back to where I started: on Hadrian's Wall.
HOWEVER (and, yes, this is a huge 'however'), I have a lot of readers who are justifiably alarmed at my forsaking Illtud in such a easy fashion. They are okay with me dropping the Sawyl bit, but think it unwise to dismiss the saint so quickly for no other reason that I've become inflexible when it comes to the battle locations.
I mean, I really don't have any doubt that Illtud is the Uther Pendragon mentioned in the PA GUR. After all, I had just confirmed the presence of Mabon between the Ely River and the Church of Illtud
(https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/06/mabon-servant-of-uther-pendragonilltud.html). It all works, and quite nicely. There is no real problem with the legendary "split" of Uther from Illtud, i.e. that in folklore and hagiography and literary creation the one man was divided into two separate personages. I've described before how this could have happened, and why. We know, for instance, that the gorlassar epithet belonging to Uther himself was used by Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source to conjure a separate chieftain, Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall.
So how can I so glibly proclaim that Uther was not, originally, Illtud?
It is difficult, especially as I've also determined why Uther is said to have kin at Caer Dathal (Caer Engan) in Arfon. Dathal would appear to be from the Irish Tuathal, a name whose cognate form in Welsh is Tudwal. As it happens, the Breton saint Tudual was educated under St. Illtud. The following entry is from Bartrum's A WELSH CLASSICAL DICTIONARY:
TUDUAL. Breton Saint. (480)
Three Lives were edited by Arthur le Moyne de la Borderie in Mémoires de la Soc. Archéol. des
Côtes-du-Nord, Second Series, II.77-122.
‘His mother was called Pompaia, the sister of count Rigual [Riwal] who was the first of the
Britons to come from beyond the sea’. Pompaia is thought to be the same as Alma Pompa, the mother of
Leonorius (LBS I.299). In the Life of St.Brioc he is said to be nephew of Brioc. He is also mentioned in
the Life of St. Briac. He was born in Wales and educated under St.Illtud. He crossed over to Brittany
and founded the monastery of Tréguier on the Jaudy on land granted to him by Deroch son of Rigual.
St.Paul was then at Léon. See LBS I.263, 296-7, IV.271-4; G.H.Doble, The Saints of Cornwall, IV.92-93
and n.30. November 30 is the commonest date given for his commemoration (LBS IV.273).
John of Glastonbury (Chronica, ed. Thomas Hearne, p.450) says that at Glastonbury was
preserved ‘a bone of St.Rumon, brother of St.Tidwal’ (G.H.Doble, The Saints of Cornwall, II.125).
As for Uther, the Dumonian pedigree he traditionally belongs, which makes Constantine/Custennin his father, contains a Tudwal:
TUDWAL ap GWRFAWR or MORFAWR. (370)
Genealogical link in the ancestry of Custennin Gorneu; father of Cynfor (MG 5, JC 11, ByS 76,
ByA 30 in EWGT pp.39, 45, 65, 93).
The following information is from http://christophergwinn.com/arthuriana/arthurs-pedigree/:
LATE PEDIGREE (BARTRUM, PP 58) :
King March of Cornwall ap Meirchion ap Custennin ap Cynfarch (sic) ap Tudwal
LATE PEDIGREE – PENIARTH MS 181 – MID-16TH C.
Aldwr brenin Llydaw (“king of Brittany”) ap Kynfor ap Tudwal…
Does this all mean that the jury is still out on Illtud as Uther?
Maybe. I have to do some more thinking on the problem and look carefully yet again at those pesky Arthurian battles.
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