THEY WON'T LET IT GO!: ILLTUD AS UTHER or THE PA GUR PROBLEM

Reconstruction on the Caerau Hillfort

No sooner had I announced my decision to lay down my pen concerning things Arthurian than some of my more devoted readers prodded me again (rather forcibly!) to explain why I ultimately decided to discard Illtud as the historical figure underlying Uther Pendragon.

I was going to let that pass - were it not for the fact that the ghost of the terribilis miles, the magister militum/princeps militum Illtud continues to haunt me.

Why?

Well, because it seems certain to me that the author of the Pa Gur, who places Mabon servant of Uther at the River Ely, certainly identified Illtud with Uther. Illtud had been captain of Pawl Penychen's soldiers. And the Ely was in the center of Penychen. The Siluran oppidum Caerau was there, as was the known Dark Age fort of Dinas Powis.

Now, as I've mentioned in a previous blog, the poet might have merely identified an originally separate personage named Uther Pendragon with Illtud because of Latin titles/descriptors that had been given to the latter. Anything is possible in the Pa Gur, which is a work replete with folklore.

But is it likely that the poet did so? Isn't it much more likely that Uther Pendragon had been constructed out of those titles/descriptors and that at some point in the legend-building process the fact that Uther was Illtud had been forgotten?

Ultimately, I found myself forsaking Uther as Illtud for a couple of reasons:

1) The aforementioned possibility

2) The lack of corresponding details when comparing Uther's role as Arthur's father with the Life of St. Illtud

3) The incompatibility of Arthur's battles (which were all northern) with an Arthur in the southern theater

4) Geoffrey of Monmouth could have arbitrarily made Uther Arthur's father, especially as there is no evidence in the pre-Galfridian tradition that supports the notion that Uther was actually Arthur's father

BUT, there is a far more serious objection to Illtud as Arthur's father - one which I'd neglected to fully consider. This has to do with the relationship of Mabon with Ambrosius of Campus Elleti in Penychen.

For the Ambrosius of Campus Elleti, as I've been able to show pretty conclusively, is not the historical figure of the name. Instead, the "Divine/Immortal One" is the Welsh Mabon, in this particular context a manifestation of the Irish Oengus mac Og. And that means that the Pa Gur's "Mabon servant of Uther Pendragon" points us in a direction other than that directed at Illtud.

The following is from work I'd done years ago on Uther Pendragon as a poetic name/epithet for Ambrosius himself:

"What all of this tells me is that I might well have been right, all those years ago, when I proposed, only half-seriously, that Uther Pendragon was merely a title for Ambrosius Aurelianus. This latter "fictional" chieftain of Dinas Emrys was said to be (HB Chapter 48) rex magnus or the 'great king' among the Britains. His fort was that of the Red Dragon, symbolic of the British, so he was the de facto pen or "chief" of that particular beast. Also, Vortigern was said to have 'timore Ambrosii', dread of Ambrosius. One of the meanings of Uther (see GPC) is 'dreadful'. It was not difficult to see in this combination of facts the title Uther Pendragon.

To quote from Bruce's THE ARTHURIAN NAME DICTIONARY:

"After Geoffrey's chronicle, Ambrosius disappears from legend and romance for some time. The authors of the Prose Merlin and the Vulgate Cycle renamed him Pendragon [emphasis mine]. He resurfaces in the seventeenth century..."

Now, partly this can be explained by the Galfridian fusion of Ambrosius and Merlin at Dinas Emrys. As Merlin now played a prominent role, that of Ambrosius would naturally have been downplayed or even to have disappeared. However, it does not account for why the Pendragon epithet continued to be used as a separate character, and one plainly based on Ambrosius. Instead, this would seem to be confirmation of my idea that Ambrosius IS Uther Pendragon.

I also once pointed out that in medieval tradition, a comet marked the death of a king. That is was, therefore, extremely odd that Geoffrey of Monmouth has the comet appear heralding Ambrosius's death, but say the dragon-star represents Uther.

For the Red Dragon of Vortigern, I have this old article available:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-dragon-of-emrais-and-dragon-of.html

So, is Uther Pendragon = Ambrosius of the Red Dragon?

This could be true in legend, but there are major problems with the chronology of such an argument. My own research has indicated that Ambrosius is a reflection either of St. Ambrose or his Gallic father of the same name or perhaps a conflation of both men. I also demonstrated

(see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-ambrosius-aurelianus-was-put-in.html) that if Ambrosius was ever in Britain, it happened in the 4th century under the Emperor Constans. The statement in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM that has Ambrosius fight the grandfather of Vortigern supports this view.  

If Arthur was thought to be the son of Ambrosius of the 4th century, then plainly Arthur could not have been fighting in the 5th-6th centuries.  

As a final note, the fact that in CULHWCH AND OLWEN Arthur's father's kin are said to be at Caer Dathal/Dinas Emrys (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/01/dinas-emrys-as-caer-dathal-late.html?m=1) suggests once again that Uther should properly be identified with Ambrosius."

It makes a great deal of sense for someone to have made Ambrosius Arthur's father. These two chieftains had, after all, been given prominence in the HISTORIA BRITTONUM. 

Of course, I do not hold to the identification of Ambrosius = Uther as being anything other than a legend-building development.

Which means that the famous Arthur is, alas, left without a father, and that his localization in southern Britain cannot be justified.