Alclud, the Rock of Clyde
I have a confession to make...
For some time now I've had what feels like the perfect theory for a historical sub-Roman or Dark Age Arthur. But I've been holding it back. Well, at least the entirety of it, the pieced-together version.
Why have I not revealed this to the world?
Because a linchpin of the argument relies on some material found in Geoffrey of Monmouth's HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN - a source I've long eschewed as nothing more than fabulous fiction without a shred of actual historical content. And having to make use of such material, frankly, not only worries it, but scares me.
And yet, I find myself sitting on this potential treasure chest while at the same time I feel like I've reached the end of my decades of research into things Arthurian. All I have to do is unlock the chest and open it up for inspection of contents.
So with that caveat (read: huge qualifying statement) out of the way, here we go...
It all started when I took a third look at Uther's Mt. Damen battle as this was "recorded" in Geoffrey's HISTORY:
[Geoffrey's text:
From Geoffrey:
Chapter 18...
The Saxons behaved with great gallantry, and, having sustained the assaults of the
Britons, forced them to fly; and upon this advantage pursued them with
slaughter to the mountain Damen, which was as long as they could do it
with day-light. The mountain was high, and had a hazel-wood upon the
top of it, and about the middle broken and cavernous rocks, which were
a harbour to wild beasts. The Britons made up to it, and stayed there all
night among the rocks and hazel-bushes. But as it began to draw
towards day, Uther commanded the consuls and princes to be called
together, that he might consult with them in what manner to assault the
enemy. Whereupon they forthwith appeared before the king, who
commanded them to give their advice; and Gorlois, duke of Cornwall,
had orders to deliver his opinion first, out of regard to his years and
great experience. “There is no occasion,” said he, “for ceremonies or
speeches, while we see that it is still night: but there is for boldness and
courage, if you desire any longer enjoyment of your life and liberty. The
pagans are very numerous, and eager to fight, and we much inferior to
them in number; so that if we stay till daybreak, we cannot, in my
opinion, attack them to advantage. Come on, therefore, while we have
the favour of the night, let us go down in a close body, and surprise
them in their camp with a sudden assault. There can be no doubt of
success, if with one consent we fall upon them boldly, while they think
themselves secure, and have no expectation of our coming in such a manner.” The king and all that were present, were pleased with his
advice, and pursued it. For as soon as they were armed and placed in
their ranks, they made towards the enemies’ camp, designing a general
assault. But upon approaching to it, they were discovered by the watch,
who with sound of trumpet awaked their companions. The enemies
being hereupon put into confusion and astonishment, part of them
hastened towards the sea, and part ran up and down whithersoever their
fear or precipitation drove them. The Britons, finding their coming
discovered, hastened their march, and keeping still close together in their
ranks, assailed the camp; into which when they had found an entrance,
they ran with their drawn swords upon the enemy; who in this sudden
surprise made but a faint defence against their vigorous and regular
attack; and pursuing this blow with great eagerness they destroyed some
thousands of the pagans, took Octa and Eosa prisoners, and entirely
dispersed the Saxons.
Chapter 19.
After this victory Uther repaired to the city of Alclud, where he
settled the affairs of that province, and restored peace everywhere.]
While my earlier attempts to locate Damen I had utilized an antiquarian's identification of the place, it occurred to me that there was another, more logical solution to the problem. Uther supposedly retreats from a loss to the Saxons at York and ends up at Mt. Damen. Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, first shows up in story at this mountain. He gives advice to Uther and the Britons are victorius when they are besieged there by the enemy. Uther next proceeds to Alclud, the Rock of Clyde, a volcanic plug fortress whose description nicely matches that supplied by Geoffrey for Damen itself.
What I asked myself at this juncture was whether Damen could stand for Damnii or similar. In other words, known, attested variants for the Damnonii of Ptolemy. If so, then Mount Damen in all likelihood was Alclud, the later Dùn Breatainn or Fort of the Britons, capital of the Damnonii (= Dumnonii) tribe. This was the principal tribe of the Dark Age kingdom of Strathclyde.
If so, then the sudden appearance of Gorlois of Cornwall there might be significant. Cornwall was in the region of the southern Damnonii (again, Dumnonii, hence Dumnonia). And Gorlois, as I and others have long known, is a character created by Geoffrey of Monmouth out of the gorlassar epithet Uther uses of himself in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN.
Hence, two things become possible. Either Geoffrey has confused Uther's/Gorlois's southern Damnonii for the northern Damnonii or vice-versa, i.e. Uther/Gorlois originally belonged in Strathclyde at Alclud and was only transferred in story to the southern Dumnonian kingdom.
As it happens, Uther as a chieftain centered at Alclud is something I had also proposed:
The idea was really quite simple: Uther Pendragon was a Welsh rendering of the crudelisque tyranni title given by Irish sources to Ceredig Wledig, king of Strathclyde at Aloo/Alclud at exactly the right time to fit Uther's floruit. Such an identification would allow us to demonstrate how the Arthur name came to be adopted into the Dalriadan royal family. For Aedan of Dalriada (father or grandfather of an Arthur) had taken to wife the niece of a British king. Their daughter was Maithgemma, an Irish word for 'bear.' It would not be unreasonable to suppose that they also had a son and this time a British name that was thought to be derived from the British word for bear - Arthur - was chosen.
From there the later Arthurs in Kintyre derived their names and we could even - finally! - account for how an Arthur ended up in the Irish-descended Dyfed dynasty. The father of this Arthur was named Petrus, and the original Arthur, a son of Ceredig who did not live long enough to succeed his father, hailed from Alclud, the Petra Cloithe of Adamnan.
But this wasn't all. We could even account for Geoffrey's Arthurian birth tale, which drew heavily on the Irish Mongan birth tale (the same Mongan later killed by Arthur son of Bicoir of Kintyre). I have elsewhere suggested that Uther might have his origin in that tale's mil uathmar (+ chend), as Uther's transformation into Gorlois was copied from Manannan's transformation into Fiachra. Igerna was merely a truncated form of Mongan's mother, Caintigerna.
Here is the cool thing, though: if we allow for Uther Pendragon to be the historical king of Alclud, Ceredig Wledig, who was referred to as the cruel tyrant, then that man may have been identified for story-telling purposes with the mil uathmar by Geoffrey or his source. We would no longer be restricted to the imaginary mil uathmar, himself conjured from a variant of the Degastan place-name.
And what would this mean for the Arthurian battles, as I have laid them out?
Well, it works very well indeed. We know that after Arthur's time, the Strathclyde king Rhydderch fought alongside other British kings, including the great Urien, against the Saxons. If Rhydderch could be fighting Saxons, then so, too, might a Strathclyde Arthur have been. If such an Arthur were the most powerful war-leader of his time, he may well have fought up and down Dere Street and into Highland Scotland and even as far south as Buxton (Badon). He might even have fought a last battle at Camboglanna on Hadrian's Wall.
Of course, if we except an Arthur from Alclud in the 6th century, we cannot account for how the name got there. It seems more than a strain to point once more to the 2nd or 3rd century L. Artorius Castus. More important, perhaps, is that a possible pairing with the name Maithgemma would suggest rather strongly that the Britons (and the Irish) connected it with the native word for 'bear.'
The Welsh and Arthur sources are quite clear in making Ceredig Wledig a king of 'Aloo', i.e. Alclud. Given the rock and Petrus/Petra connection, it is tempting to wonder of this is correct or if instead Ceredig might properly belong at Petrianis (named for a Petra) at the end of Hadrian's Wall. Could Petra Cloithe be a mistake for Stanwix/Uxellodunum?
That is not a question, I think, that can be answered. Sure, it's an interesting idea. And it would fit in much better with Camboglanna, Aballava (Avalon?) and Congavata (Grail Castle?). Still, the HISTORIA BRITTONUM tells us Arthur was leading the kings of the Britons in their wars, so there is nothing unusual in his being present fighting on the Wall. And it remains true that if Arthur came from Alclud, we can more easily account for his most northerly battles which otherwise I have ascribed to L. Artorius Castus and/or the Dalriadan Arthur. Alclud was immediately adjacent to Dalriada: Petrianis is quite a distance from the home of Arthur son of Aedan.
In closing, though, I will repeat my misgivings when it comes to adopting the above scenario as my final Arthurian theory. We have to rely first on my identification of Mt. Damen with Alclud of the Damnonii, and we have to accept that Uther/Gorlois originally belonged there before he was situated at Tintagel. These are two very big asks, and I would never expect others to make such a leap with me. It is my job only to present a theory that seems to fulfill all necessary requirements. What other people end up doing with it is entirely their decision.
NOTE:
A discussion of the Damnonii/Dumnonii of the North in possible place-names follows, drawn from Alan James' excellent dictionary on Brittonic place-names. One of the studies he cites, likewise available online, is provided at the very bottom of this blog. A final study, by Dr. Andrew J. Breeze, is also listed, although I've not been able to access it. The author has kindly sent me the conclusion he reached regarding the Dumnonii name.
duβ[ï]n, *doμn, etc.
?IE *dhu-b- (zero-grade of *dheu-b- ‘deep’, see dṻβ and duβr) + -n- > eCelt *dubno-/ā-, also
*dumno-/ā-, > Br, Gaul *dubno-/ā-, *dumno-/ā- > OW(LL) duuin > MW dwvyn > W dwfn, dyfn,
OCorn dofen, duuen- > M-MnCorn down, M-MnBret doun, don; O-MIr domain > Ir, G domhain,
Mx dowin, also OIr domun > Ir, G domhan, ‘the world, the universe’; cf. Gmc *diupaz > OE
dēop, AScand *dēp (ON djúpr) > ‘deep’.
The Indo-European status and etymology of the root is controversial: see OIPrIE §18.2 at pp.
292-3. It may involve the verbal root *dheu- 'die, come to an end', see dīn.
Celtic forms vary in three ways:
i) non-nasal –b- > -β- versus nasal –m- > -μ-, see LHEB §97, pp. 483-6 especially p. 484 n3, and,
on Continental forms, DCCPN p. 18;
ii) vowel –u- in South-West and West Brittonic versus –o- in Pritenic (and possibly in the
‘Brit/Prit’ of the North): see Koch (1980-2);
iii) absence or presence of an adventitious vowel in the second syllable,
so the range of potential forms in the neoBrittonic of the Old North is expressed by the formula 121
An adjective meaning ‘deep’. It may have borne a cosmological significance in early Celtic
world-views, perhaps associated with cultic offerings to powers of the underworld: see PCB pp.
46-59, DCML pp. 170-1, Green (1986), pp. 138-50, and Woodward (1992), chapters 4 and 5.
It may have carried such connotations, or even have been a deity-name, in the ethnic name given
by Ptolemy as Damn[ón]ioi for which Rivet and Smith, PNRB pp. 342-4, read *Dumn-
(alternatively, as Koch points out, *Domn-). However, Isaac (2005), p. 191, argues for IE
*dṃ(h2)- (zero-grade of *demh2- ‘put together, build’) + -no-n-io- > eCelt damnonio-/ā-, cf.
Welsh defnydd and OIr damnae, both ‘matter, material’, so the name may mean ‘men of
substance’ or ‘builders’. See also P. Russell (2002) at p. 185. If the sites associated with them by
Ptolemy are a reliable guide, their territory extended from the lower Clyde basin across the
Campsies and central Forth as far as Strathallan (Ardoch) and Strathtay (Inchtuthil, if that was
Victoria): see Driscoll and Forsyth (2004) at pp. 4-11 and Fraser (2009) pp. 15-22.
Note that this occurs as an element in a personal name on the Yarrowkirk Slk stone:
DVMNOGENI (for the variant reading DIMNO-, see CIB p. 120).
a1) Wilkinson (2002), pp. 139-43, drew attention to a number of place-names in central Scotland
that apparently contain this element, though in monothematic (a1) forms, *dṻβ-on- is equally
possible. Any or all of them might contain a lost stream-name, presumably of the ‘Devon’ type
(see dṻβ, but note that the rivers discussed there could, conversely, belong here), but apart from
Devon Burn Lnk they do not have obvious associations with watercourses. Wilkinson’s
suggestion that they might be associated with the Damnonii (see above) is interesting but
speculative. They include:
Devon, with Devon Burn, Devonburn (a settlement), and Glendevon, Lnk (Lesmahagow): see
Taylor (2009) at pp. 87-8; for Glendevon WLo, see dṻβ.
Devonshaw Hill Lnk [+ OE sċeaġa > ME/Scots shaw ‘a wood’].
Devonside Lnk [+ OE –sīde . ‘side’].
The latter two are not apparently connected with Devon (Lesmahagow), see dṻβ and Wilkinson
(2002) at pp. 142-3. The modern form ‘Devon’ in all these cases probably reflects the influence
of the English county-name, itself from the ethnic name Dumnonii, PNRB pp. 342-3.
Dowanhill Lnk (Govan) [+ OE –hyll > ‘hill’]: possibly *doβ/μn here.
a2) Denis Burn Ntb (near Hexham), Bede’s Denisesburna .i. Rivus Denisi HE III.1, could be
*dubn-issā-, but see dṻβ (c1).
c2) Blendewing Pbl (Kilbucho) + blajn-.
Cardowan Lnk (Glasgow) + cajr-: another possible *doβ/μn form.
Dundyvan Lnk (Old Monkland) PNMonklands p. 11 ? + dīn-, Gaelicised, + -jo- causing double
i-affection giving *dïβïn: see Wilkinson (2002) at p. 140 and note.
Glendivan Dmf (Ewes) PNDmf p. 41 + glïnn-, similarly modified.
Poldevine Dmf (Wamphray) PNDmf p. 129 + *pol-.
Poldivan Lake Dmf (Closeburn) + *pol-: modified like Dundyvan above [+ OE -lacu, here
probably 'a stream', see EPNE2 p. 8].
A curious group of place-names across Lothian and Rnf are apparently of identical origin,
though the first element is not certain and the meaning of the name-phrase is obscure. If they are
*part[h]- + -duβ[ï]n, the formation may have been an appellative, perhaps a low-lying land or
land with deep soil, though the early form (probably for Parduvine MLo, see PNMLo p. 112)
Pardauarneburne 1144 suggests the second element may have been a stream-name, but
doubtfully duβ[ï]n; see CPNS pp. 372-3, PNMLo p. 112, and Wilkinson (2002) at p. 140 n7, and
also *part[h]-. They are:
Pardivan ELo (Whitecraig) CPNS pp. 372-3.
Pardivan MLo (Cranston) PNMLo p.190. 122
Pardovan WLo (Linlithgow) CPNS pp. 372-3, PNWLo p. 62, WLoPN p. 29.
Parduvine MLo (Carrington) CPNS pp. 372-3, PNMLo p.112
Perdovingishill Rnf (lost) CPNS p. 372, WLoPN p. 29 [+ OE –hyll > ‘hill’].
Nomina_25_Wilkinson.pdf https://share.google/E9pjfO5lAQQWxhV19
Dumnonii and the place-name Devon
Breeze, Andrew C.. (2022 - 2023) - In: Devon and Cornwall notes and queries vol. 43 (2022/23) p. 55-59
"The conclusion is simple. DUMNONII is there related not to words meaning 'deep' but ones meaning 'world', which gives a sense 'great ones of the world', like that of the BITURIGES 'kings of the world' in central Gaul. It also knocks out a meaning 'deep god, mysterious god', as if all gods were not mysterious."
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