Faces of Arthur Index

Vortigen Studies Index

The seventh battle: The Celidon Wood

The Celidon Wood could be reached via the Roman road system. Although its exact location and extent are unknown, as mentioned above this great forest has traditionally been placed in the area surrounding the Clyde and Tweed headwaters.

Caledonia was originally the region of the Great Glen in Highland Scotland inhabited by the Caledonii. As such, in Classical usage Caledonia came to mean Scotland north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus. But in Welsh tradition (as is evidenced by the presence of Merlin at 1) Arthuret just north of Carlisle, 2) Drumelzier on the Tweed and 3) the region near Glasgow), the Coed Celyddon would appear to be, in Kenneth Jackson’s words, "perhaps the moorlands round the upper Clyde and Tweed Valleys".

The eighth battle: The Castle of Guinnion

The Castle ("Castellum") Guinnion has been identified with the Roman fort of Vinovium at Binchester, although Professor Kenneth Jackson (_Once Again Arthur’s Battles_, MODERN PHILOLOGY, August, 1945) thought this unlikely. A.L.F. Rivet and Colin Smith (in The Place-Names of Roman Britain), however, note that:

"…Ptolemy’s alternative Vinnovium (British *Uinnouion) brings us very close to the later name set down by Nennius. There is still a problem, however, in that Vinnovium should have given in Old Welsh at this stage a form in –wy, or similar; but it could be that –ion has been maintained as a learned form. Crawford, even without this support, thought that the identification should not be entirely rejected, and he was surely right."

Binchester is not far south of Hadrian’s Wall on the Roman Dere Street.

The ninth battle: The City of the Legion

The City of the Legion (Urbs Legionis) is, in this context, the Roman legionary fortress at York, the Romano-British Eburacum.

Dere Street began at the fort and ran north to Hadrian’s Wall and beyond. The argument against York is that, according to Welsh sources, the only Roman forts called Cities of the Legion were Chester or Deva and Caerleon or Isca. But that the Welsh did not know York was a legionary fortress seems very doubtful. To begin, we have chieftains such as Peredur son of Efrauc (Efrauc = Eburacum/"York") and Peredur son of Eliffer Gosgordfawr. Rachel Bromwich and others have suggested that Peredur is a Welsh rendering of the Roman rank of Praetor. The governor or legate of Britannia Inferior, that is Northern Britain, was in the later period of praetorian rank.

From www.roman-britain.org:

"Britannia Superior / Inferior c.AD212 - AD396

Caracalla reviewed the administration of Britannia and split the province into two: Britannia Superior in the south had a consular governor based at London with two legions, the Twentieth at Chester and the Second at Caerleon. Britannia Inferior in the north had a praetorian governor with only one legion, the Sixth at York, where the governor also resided."

Peredur son of Eliffer is placed in two Northern battles. He is said to have been present at Arfderydd (Arthuret just north of Carlisle) and an unidentified Caer Greu. Of this last battle site, Bromwich has tentatively related the name to W. creu, "blood". I would propose that Caer Greu/Creu is Carrawburgh, i.e. the Roman fort of Brocolitia, on Hadrian’s Wall. To quote from Dr. G.R. Isaac of The University of Wales:

"English 'Carrawburgh' could easily reflect something like very early Old Welsh *'Cair Carrou'. The extant form of 'Caer Greu' could be the regular Middle Welsh reflex of that."

Eliffer the father of Peredur, by virtue of his son’s name, would seem to have ruled from York. If so, then his epithet Gosgordfawr may be significant. It means "[of the] Great Retinue". Could not this "great retinue" of a ruler of York - a ruler whose son’s name probably means "praetor" – be a memory of the York legion?

The tenth battle: The Shore of the river Tribruit

The location of the shore (W. traeth) of the river Tribruit has remained unresolved. The clue to its actual whereabouts may lie in the two possible meanings assigned to this place-name. According to Kenneth Jackson (_Once Again Arthur's Battles_, MODERN PHILOLOGY, August, 1945), Tribruit, W. tryfrwyd, was used as an adjective, meaning "pierced through", and sometimes as a noun meaning "battle". His rendering of traeth tryfrwyd was "the Strand of the Pierced or Broken (Place)". Basing his statement on the Welsh Traeth Tryfrwyd, Jackson said that "we should not look for a river called Tryfwyd but for a beach." However, Jackson later admitted (in The Arthur of History, ARTHURIAN LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES: A COLLABORATIVE HISTORY, ed. by Roger Sherman Loomis) that "the name (Traith) Tribruit may mean rather 'The Many-Coloured Strand' (cf. I. Williams in BBCS, xi [1943], 95). Most recently Patrick Sims-Williams (in The Arthur of the Welsh, THE EARLY WELSH ARTHURIAN POEMS, 1991) has defined traeth tryfrwyd as the "very speckled shore" (try- here being the intensive prefix *tri-, cognate with L. trans). Professor Sims-Williams mentions that 'trywruid' could also mean "bespattered [with blood]."  I would only add that Latin litus does usually mean "seashore, beach, coast", but that it can also mean "river bank".  Latin ripa, more often used of a river bank, can also have the meaning of "shore". 

The complete listing of tryfrwyd from The Dictionary of Wales (information courtesy Andrew Hawke) is as follows:

tryfrwyd
2  [?_try-^2^+brwyd^2^_; dichon fod yma fwy nag un gair [= "poss. more than one word here"]]
3  _a_. a hefyd fel _e?b_.
6  skilful, fine, adorned; ?bloodstained; battle, conflict.
7  12g. GCBM i. 328, G\\6aew yg coryf, yn toryf, yn _tryfrwyd_ - wryaf.
7  id. ii. 121, _Tryfrwyd_ wa\\6d y'm pria\\6d prydir, / Trefred ua\\6r, treul ga\\6r y gelwir.
7  id. 122, Keinuyged am drefred _dryfrwyd_.
7  13g. A 19. 8, ymplymnwyt yn _tryvrwyt_ peleidyr....
7  Digwydd hefyd fel e. afon [="also occurs as river name"] (cf.
8  Hist Brit c. 56, in litore fluminis, quod vocatur _Tribruit_; 14 x CBT
8  C 95. 9-10, Ar traethev _trywruid_).
Tryfrwyd itself, minus the intensive prefix, comes from:
brwyd
[H. Grn. _bruit_, gl. _varius_, gl. Gwydd. _bre@'t_ `darn']
3  _a_.
6  variegated, pied, chequered, decorated, fine; bloodstained; broken, shattered, frail, fragile.
7  c. 1240 RWM i. 360, lladaud duyw arnam ny am dwyn lleydwyt - _urwyt_ / llauurwyt escwyt ar eescwyd.
7  c. 1400 R 1387. 15-16, Gnawt vot ystwyt _vrwyt_ vriwdoll arnaw.
7  id. 1394. 5-6, rwyt _vrwyt_ vrwydyrglwyf rwyf rwyd get.
7  15g. H 54a. 12.

The editors of GCBM (Gwaith Cynddelw Brydydd) take _tryfrwyd_ to be a fem. noun = 'brwydr'. They refer to Ifor Williams, Canu Aneirin 294, and A.O.H. Jarman, Aneinin: Y Gododdin (in English) p. 194 who translates 'clash', also Jarman, Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin, pp. 36-7. Ifor Williams, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies xi (1941-4) pp. 94-6 suggests  _try+brwyd_ `variegated, decorated'.

On brwydr, the National Dictionary of Wales has this:

1  brwydr^1^
2  [dichon ei fod o'r un tarddiad a@^ _brwyd^1^_, ond cf. H. Wydd. _bri@'athar_ `gair']
3  _eb_. ll. -_au_.
6  pitched battle, conflict, attack, campaign, struggle; bother, dispute, controversy; host, army.
7  13g. HGC 116, y lle a elwir . . . y tir gwaetlyt, o achaus y _vrwyder_ a vu ena.
7  14g. T 39. 24.
7  14g. WML 126, yn dyd kat a _brwydyr_.
7  14g. WM 166. 32, _brwydreu_ ac ymladeu.
7  14g. YCM 33, llunyaethu _brwydyr_ a oruc Chyarlymaen, yn eu herbyn.
7  15g. IGE 272, Yr ail gofal, dial dwys, / _Brwydr_ Addaf o Baradwys.
7  id. 295.
7  1567 LlGG (Sall) 14a, a' chyd codei _brwydyr_ im erbyn, yn hyn yr ymddiriedaf.
7  1621 E. Prys: Ps 32a, Yno drylliodd y bwa a'r saeth, / a'r _frwydr_ a wnaeth yn ddarnau.
7  1716 T. Evans: DPO 35, Cans _brwydr_ y Rhufeiniaid a aethai i Si@^r Fo@^n.
7  1740 id. 336, _Brwydrau_ lawer o Filwyr arfog.

Dr. G. R. Isaac of The University of Wales, Aberystywyth, in discussing brwyd, adds that:

"The correct Latin comparison is frio 'break up', both < Indo-European *bhreiH- 'cut, graze'. These words have many cognates, e.g. Latin friuolus 'friable, worthless', Sanskrit bhrinanti 'they damage', Old Church Slavonic britva 'razor', and others. The Old British form of brwyd would have been *breitos. It is sometimes claimed that there is a possible Gaulish root cognate in brisare 'press out', but there are difficulties with that identification.

"It may be worth stressing that the 'tryfrwyd' which means 'very speckled' and the 'tryfrwyd' which means 'piercing, pierced' are the same word, and that the latter is the historically primary meaning. The meaning 'very speckled' comes through 'bloodstained' from 'pierced' ('bloodstained' because 'pierced' in battle). But I do not think this has any bearing on the arguments. Actually, Tryfrwyd MAY mean 'very speckled', but that is conjecture, not certain knowledge. Plausible conjecture, yes, but no more certain for that."

That "pierced" or "broken" is to be preferred as the meaning of Tribruit is plainly demonstrated by lines 21-22 of the _Pa Gur_ poem:

Neus tuc manauid - "Manawyd(an) brought                                                

Eis tull o trywruid - pierced ribs (or, metaphorically, "timbers") from Tryfrwyd"

Tull, "pierced", here obviously refers to Tribruit as "through-pierced".

Professor Hywel Wyn Owen, Director of the Place-Name Research Centre, University of Wales Bangor, has the following to say on traeth + river names (personal correspondence):

"There are only two examples of traeth + river name that I know of, both in
Anglesey (Traeth Dulas, Traeth Llugwy) but there may well be others. The
issue is still the same however. Where a river flows into the sea would
normally be aber. The traeth would only be combined with the river name if
the river name was also used of a wider geographical context, and became,
say, the name of the bay. Hence traeth + bay name rather than traeth +
river name directly."

In the poem Pa Gur, the shore of Tryfrwyd battle is listed one just prior to Din Eidyn and once just after the same fort (I will have more on the Pa Gur battle sites below). Furthermore, we are told in the same poem that Manawyd(an) was present at the Tryfrwyd battle. The Gwrgi Garwllwyd or "Man-dog Rough-grey" who is also placed at Tryfrwyd has been associated with the Cynbyn or "Dog-heads" Arthur fought at Din Eidyn.

Manawyd's role at Tryfrwyd may suggest that this river or its shore is to be found in or on the borders of Manau Gododdin, which according to Watson is "the district round the head of the Firth of Forth, whose name remains in Slamannan and Clackmannan." The Fords of Frew west of Stirling were proposed by Crawford as the site of Traeth Tryfrwyd, but Jackson claims W. frut or ffrwd, "stream", cannot have yielded frwyd. Jackson also countered Skene's theory that this was the Forth, on the grounds that the Welsh name for the Forth, Gweryd, which would be *Guerit in OW, "cannot have anything to do . with OW. -bruit."

The Cynbyn or "Dog-heads" may (although see below) owe their existence to the Coincenn daughter of Aedan, father of the Dalriadan Arthur, and to the Coinchend in the Irish story "The Adventure of Art son of Conn."  In this Irish tale, Art battles a monstrous woman named Coincenn or "Dog-head" who is a membere of a tribe bearing the same name.  The Coincenn of the Irish are probably, in turn, a reflection of the Classical Cynacephali. [I would add that the name of Art son of Conn's mother may be significant in this context.  She was called Eithne, which was also the name of the mother of the god Lugh.  The place-name Eidyn is of unknown etymology.  Because Din Eidyn was the capital of Lothian, and Lothian is derived from Middle Welsh Lleudinyawn, Brittonic *Lugudunia:non, land of "Lugh's (Welsh Lleu's) Fortress", it would be reasonable to suggest that Eidyn as Lugh's fortress represents a British form of Irish Eithne.  Din Eidyn would then be the Fort of (the goddess) Eithne.]

The problem with going with Tribruit as the name of a river or even a shore meaning "speckled" is this: why would not more common Welsh words for "speckled" have been used?  Words like brech (f. brych) or brith?  Indeed, there are plenty of examples of such "speckled" words in Gaelic place-names, including a Breich Water, i.e. "Speckled Water", in West Lothian, and a town called Braco, "Speckled", on the River Knaik hard by the Ardoch Roman fort. 

In addition, there is no way to explain a "broken/pierced-through" river on the basis of a geological feature.  A shore could be said from a metaphorical sense to be "pierced" by a river or even a rock formation such as a headland, but the same cannot be said for a river.

It is for this reason that we must give the Welsh Traeth Tryfrwyd precedence.  The place-name means, literally, "[the] Pierced/Broken-Through Shore".  We have discussed above that such a shore would seem to be in the vicinity of Edinburgh/Dun Eidyn or a bit further west in Manau Gododdin proper.  The poem may be even more specific, in that Traeth Tryfrwyd is said to be 'ar eidin cyminauc' (_Pa Gur_, Line 28), "at Eidyn on the border".  Now, the "border" here could be the Firth of Forth, or it could be the border between the lands immediately around Din Eidyn and Manau Gododdin.  Eidyn could also designate Gododdin proper, with the border being, once again, the division between Gododdin proper and Manau Gododdin.

As for the Cynbyn or "Dog-heads", I would call attention to Hound Point just west of Edinburgh and the presence of Kentigern (*Cunotigernos, "Hound-lord") at Culros just across the Forth from Bo-Ness (see Jocelyn of Furness's _Life of St. Jentigern_).  Jennifer Parkerson, Map Library Assistant for the National Library of Scotland, passed along the following on Hound Point: 

"THE HOUND (Dalmeny) is mentioned as lie Hund in RMS 1539, in a charter anent fishing rights; it is named on Blaeu 1654, and Barnbougle & Dalmeny c.1800 shows it as the large off-shore rock which has obviously given its name to HOUND POINT.  From Anglian hund or Old Norse hundr, a dog, it is one of those animal names that seamen give to rocks, not always for any fancied resemblance but as labels for navigational purposes.  As the rock on the corner where tides race in and out of the strait, the Hound was a danger to small coasting vessels, and the legend of a black hound bringing a Mowbray of Barnbougle to an untimely end may have been a folk memory of some fatal wreck on it."  [Stuart Harris, _The Place Names of Edinburgh_]  

We will see under the discussion of the _Pa Gur_ poem that both English and Gaelic place-names are present, a fact that proves the poem preserves much older material than has previously been thought.  I would suggest that the author of the _Pa Gur_ may have inserted the Cynbyn or "Hound/Dog-heads" into the account of the Tribruit battle because of either Hound Point or Kentigern at Culros.  

As for the "Pierced/Broken-Through Shore" itself, I would mention Broken Hook, which according to John Reid of the Scottish Place-Name Society ("Going Round the Bend", November 200) lay by the river Avon.  Hook is either from OE hoc, 'bend in a river', or from a possible *huc, 'river-bend'.  Broken Hook is found as brokenheugh in 1551 and describes a place where a natural breakthrough has occurred in a river bend. Reid mentions that the history of the River Carron demonstrates that breakthroughs in the meanders did occur.  Via personal correspondence, he added:  

"Broken Hook was one of the pendicles of the barony of Abbotskerse and I have found it iin five charters relating to that entity plus one further one in a post-Reformation retour. There are no overt references to its location but on two occasions it appears thus: 1587 Brokinheuk et Reddoch; 1635 Brokinhouk et Ridheuch. It is this association with Reddoch (the NGR for which is NS943804) that makes me locate it on the Avon rather than the Carron. For the last few years I have been scouring the leaves of the registers of sasines (beginning in 1617 for this local) and have worked through these to the second half of the eighteenth century. No instance of the name has appeared and we must assume that it had been absorbed into some greater land holding by then, thereby making it more or less obsolete in charter terms at least. Nevertheless, from a sasine of 1749 I have noted  "--- all and haill these nine oxengates of Redheugh with houses [etc] with also the fishings upon the Water of Avon --- and also these parts  [glosses particatas (anglice) lie falls] ultra Gramma Salsa (anglice lie Salt Grass) called Henry Hooks Saltgrass and lie  Hooks Saltgrass --- said lands of Redheugh omnium per prius mixtarum (anglice Runrig)". It is possible that the last of these two, Hooks Saltgrass, might relate to the lost Broken Hook and might be for *Broken Hook's Saltgrass.

These names relate to saltings on the tidal parts of the rivers. There must be an even stronger suspicion that the place named Hook on an estate plan of 1806 and located at NS945801 may be the lost Broken Hook in view of its location. The last should not be confused with Heuk which lay on the east bank of the River Carron at its confluence with the Forth."  

Broken Hook at Reddoch was just a little north of Inveravon, the "Mouth of the Avon", at the Antonine Wall, with its temporary Roman camps.  Only a few miles to the east is the Roman fort at Carriden.  Carriden is interesting in that the author of the _Pa Gur_ poem could easily have confused it for Din Eidyn/Edinburgh. 

We have seen that the Tribruit battle is twice brought into conjunction with Eidyn.  To quote from Craig Cessford's _Post-Severan Cramond_ (THE HEROIC AGE, Issue 4, Winter 2001):   "The fort of Carriden at the eastern terminus of the Antonine Wall, which also falls within Votadinian territory, might appear to be derived from Caer Eidyn, but this is problematical. Kenneth Jackson argued that the early forms of the name such as Karreden and Karedene can not be derived from this source but David Dumville has challenged this (Dumville 1994). Even if Dumville is correct his argument suggests that the name Carriden may be relatively late as he suggests that this fort was originally named 'End of the Wall' [Penguaul, Cenail, Peneltun] a topographical descriptive term later applied to Kinneil and not necessarily indicating any occupation."  

The headwaters of the Avon are at Slamannan or Sliabh Manau, the "Hill of Manau", and this river empties into the Firth of Forth at the eastern terminus of the Antonine Wall in Manau Gododdin.  The Carron is itself in Manau Gododdin.   I would identify the Traeth Tribruit, the "Broken Shore", with Broken Heugh, the "Broken River-Bend" at the mouth of the Avon.

More Arthurian battles...

From Glein to Camlann is Copyright © 2006, August Hunt. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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