AFTER ONE LAST REVIEW OF THE GALFRIDIAN TRADITION AND MY RESPONSE TO IT...

Coin of the British Usurper Constantine III

I have solved the Uther riddle once and for all.

My final clue came in the form of one of those nagging bits of place-name studies' results from Cornwall. I had noticed a couple of Gorlois names attached to Gereint sites. This made sense not within the body of any extant tradition, but only in my proposed identification of Uther Pendragon/gorlassar as the terrible MM/MVM Gerontius of the early 5th century. This famous, though ill-fated British general's military rank, so I had suggested, might have been assigned to a later Gereint, Arthur's actual father.

The whole idea came from the pseudo-history of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In that work, Vortigern the "superbus tyrannus" kills Constans, who was initially a monk. There's good reason for thinking that Vortigern was associated with Magnus Maximus "the tyrant". Hence the story of Vortigern and Ambrosius at Eryri - a reflection of Maximus and St. Ambrose at Aquileia.

This represents a strange conflation/confusion of history. For Constans I, who had actually gone to Britain, was killed by one Magnentius (a name based on the same root as Magnus). Magnentius is killed by a Constantius.

Constans II, the historical monk, is killed by Gerontius the magister militum and magister utriusque militiae. Gerontius is killed by another Constantius.

The vytheint elei Kysteint is Welsh for Constantius.

When I realized what was going on here, I got very excited.

That excitement didn't last. For my analysis of the vytheint elei phrase of the PA GUR poem made me realize that the tradition on Uther in that source had applied the Uther Pendragon name/epithet to similar descriptors and ranks belonging to St. Illtud.

Yet Illtud was said to be Arthur's cousin by marriage. The hagiography and genealogies made it plain he was not Arthur's father. Because of that, I wasted a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to foist a Sawyl reading on the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN elegy so that I could put Arthur at Ribchester in the North.

Well, I feel I can now put this all to rest in a simple and satisfying way.

Arthur's father was a Gereint of Dumnonia who was called after the ranks/descriptors that had belonged to his earlier namesake Gerontius. This helps account for the claim in the Uther elegy that he had fought alongside Gwythur, i.e. Withur of Leon in Brittanny. I suspect Henben or Old Chief (perhaps rather than Old Head) is for Gereint or Gerontius, a name meaning the Old One. Dathal of Arfon need not detain us anymore, either, as St. Tudual ended up in Domnonee, the Breton part of British Dumnonia. AND there was a Tudwal in the early portion of the Dumnonian royal pedigree.

The tradition embedded in the PA GUR, therefore, is merely wrong. It may represent an honest mistake or it may be an attempt to shift Uther from Dumnonia to southern Wales. In any case, as Gereint accords quite well for the father of an Arthur of Cornwall and the "West Country", I see no need to attach our hero to Glamorgan. While his mother could belong to Ercing, my study of Ygerna as deriving from the Carne name at St. Dennis, itself possibly transferred there from earlier carn place-names at Gereint sites, cast doubt on the veracity of Eigr as the original form of Arthur's mother's name.

What this means for me now is that I'm faced with writing an entirely new book based on a Dumnonian Arthur. Complete with a reexamination of Arthur's battles and of traditional southern sites like South Cadbury Castle, Glastonbury and Brent Knoll. 

It should be fun!