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  Vortigern Studies > Faces of Arthur > Arthurian Articles > August Hunt (5)

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August HuntVisit August Hunt's website: The Quest for Arthur's Grave

August Hunt, (1960), published his first short stories in his high school newspaper, THE WILDCAT WIRES. These were followed by stories and poems in THE PHOENIX literary magazine of Clark Community College, where he received a writing scholarship. Transferring to THE EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE in Olympia, WA, he continued to publish pieces in local publications and was awarded the Edith K. Draham literary prize. A few years after graduating in 1985 with a degree in Celtic and Germanic Studies, he published "The Road of the Sun: Travels of the Zodiac Twins in Near Eastern and European Myth". Magazine contributions include a cover article on the ancient Sinaguan culture of the American Southwest for Arizona Highways. His first novel, "Doomstone", and the anthology "From Within the Mist" are being offered by Double Dragon (ebook and paperback). August, a member of the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch, has most recently had his book "Shadows in the Mist: The Life and Death of King Arthur" accepted for publication by Hayloft Publishing. Now being written are "The Cloak of Caswallon", the first in a series of Arthurian novels that will go under the general heading of "The Thirteen Treasures of Britain", and a work of Celtic Reconstructionism called "The Secrets of Avalon: A Dialogue with Merlin". 

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The story of Uther and Igerna

August Hunt


The story of Uther's defeat of Gorlois of Cornwall and the former's taking of the latter's queen, Ygerna, tells us that Ygerna is here, in typically Celtic fashion, being considered the Goddess of Sovereignty, whom the king must possess if he is to have the land. The Ygerna episode informs us that the Terrible Head-dragon (the usual translation of Uther Pendragon's name) had conquered the kingdom of Gorlois.

Is Arthur's association with Cornwall correct? Was he indeed born at Tintagel? Or are the Cornish sites merely fictions?

Only in the past few years, excavations carried out at Tintagel by Kevin Brady of Glasgow University have uncovered evidence which provides a very good reason why Arthur was linked to this site. A broken piece of Cornish slate was uncovered bearing the 6th century inscription "Pater Coliavificit Artognov", which Professor Charles Thomas of Exeter University has rendered "Artognov, father of a descendent of Coll." While the name Arthur cannot be identified with that of Artognov, it is quite possible that Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source knew that Tintagel was once owned by someone whose name began with Arto-. The mention of Coll in connection with a ruler found residing in Dumnonia is interesting, in that a famous Cole Hen or Coel the Old is placed at the head of genealogies for the British Strathclyde kings. Strathclyde was anciently inhabited by a Dumnonii tribe - a tribe whose name matches exactly that of the Dumnonii who inhabited Cornwall and Devon.

If Arthur was placed at Tintagel because an Artognov ruled from there (although see an alternative possibility below), can we now do anything with the other characters of the play: Uther Pendragon, Ygerna and Gorlois?

Uther

Ample evidence exists (see P.C. Bartrum’s A Classical Welsh Dictionary) for Uther Pendragon, the “Terrible Chief-Warrior”, in early Welsh tradition antecedant to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae.  However, there is good reason for believing that Geoffrey fleshed out the life of Uther, a fifth century Briton, buy making use of episodes in the life of a 10th century Viking.

While this claim may seem outlandish, we need only go to the year entry 915 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There we are told of the Jarls Ohtor and Hroald or Hraold, who come from Brittany to raid the Welsh coast along the Severn Estuary. They concentrate their initial attacks on Archenfield, the Ercing where Aurelius and Uther are first placed when they come to England from Brittany. Hroald is slain by the men of Hereford and Gloucester, but Ohtor goes on to land "east of Watchet". The Willet  or “Guellit” River, adjacent to Carhampton, the ancient Carrum, is east of Watchet.  Both the Willet and Carhampton feature in the tale of Arthur and the terrible dragon (“serpentem ualidissimum, ingentem, terribilem”) in the 11th century Life of St. Carannog.  I would propose that this terrible dragon owes its existence to the dragon-ship of Ohtor, i.e. a typical Viking ship with a dragon’s head at its prow and a dragon’s tail at its stern, and that Geoffrey of Monmouth made use of the terrible dragon’s presence at Carrum to associate Uther with Ohtor.   After an unpleasant stay on an island (Steepholme or Flatholme), Ohtor and what remains of his host go to Dyfed, where Uther is said to fight Pascent and the Irish king Gillomanius. Ohtor then proceeds to Ireland, where Uther had previously fought Gillomanius over the stones of Uisneach/Mount Killaraus.

We have, then, the following startling correspondences:

Uther is found in Brittany

Ohtor is found in Brittany

Ercing

Archenfield

Carrum (as terrible dragon)

east of Watchet

Menevia in Dyfed

Dyfed

Ireland

Ireland

This Viking jarl is found in the Welsh Annals under the year 913, where the concise entry reads "Otter came". This reference to Ottar is also found in the Welsh Brut t tywysogion, "Chronicle of the Princes" (information courtesy Huw Pryce, School of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Bangor).

Gorlois

Geoffrey got his Gorlois from The Book of Taliesin, poem XLVIII.  In this poem, Uther appears to call himself Gorlassar. So far as I know, no one has proposed a link between Geoffrey's Gorlois and Gorlasar, despite their obvious resemblance to each other and the fact that both are associated with Uther. The poems of The Book of Taliesin were not written down until the 13th or 14th centuries and thus post-date Geoffrey's History by a good century or more. However, some scholars believe that a few of the Taliesin poems are genuine and may be traced back to oral poems composed in the 6th century. Even the later poems of unknown authorship may embody earlier oral poems. It is, therefore, quite possible that Gorlasar was originally a title for Uther. Geoffrey of Monmouth could have taken this title and converted it into a separate person whose form Uther assumes.

The full stanza containing the name Gorlasar (from "Death Song of Uther Pendragon", translation courtesy Dr. Graham Thomas, Senior Assistant Archivist, Department of Manuscripts and Records, The National Library of Wales) runs like this:

I was called Gorlasar ['bright blue'],
My belt was a rainbow to [or 'about'] my enemies.
I was a prince in the dark,
[He] who enchanted me placed me in the basket.

According to the Geiriadur Prifsygol Cymru (cited by Dafydd Price Jones and Andrew Hawke), gorlasar is from gor + glassar, in Old Irish forlas(s)ar, "fire, conflagration" or, as an adjective, "shining, fiery". In Welsh the meaning is "bright blue, having glinting weapons". Gorlas (gor + glas), in OI forglas, means "with a blue face, very blue" or, as an adjective in Welsh, "bright or deep blue, verdant".

The truth is, Gorlasar may actually be a name the poet Taliesin gave himself. I say this because of line 4 of the quoted strophe, which has Gorlasar placed in a basket. This sounds suspiciously like what was done to Taliesin, who was placed in a "coracle or hide-covered basket" by the goddess Ceridwen. Taliesin's name is said to mean "radiant forehead" (tal iesin).

Ygerna

And what of Ygerna, the wife of Gorlois and then of Uther?

Conventional theory derives Ygerna's name from the Welsh form Eigr or Eigyr. Christopher Gwinn proposed (via private correspondence) that this Welsh name may be derived from Indo-Euorpean *pek-1, “to make pretty, to make joyful”.  Dr. Graham Isaac of The University of Wales, Aberystywyth agreed that this derivation was possible, and tentatively suggested *pek-1 + rih2, for a meaning of something like “the beautiful one”.  He was quick to remind me, however, that this was speculative only, and that there might be other possible derivations for her name.  In addition, he cautioned against applying this derivation to the definition given for the noun eigr in modern Welsh (see the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru): “a beauty, a fair maiden.”  This noun derives from the name of Arthur’s mother because Geoffrey of Monmouth insisted she was the most beautiful woman in all of Britain.

To quote Gareth Bevan of the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru at Aberystywyth, the form Eigyr "does not occur... before the Welsh version of Geoffrey of Monmouth". Is Eigyr, then, merely an attempt to render Geoffrey's Ygerna into Welsh, just as Gwrlais is an attempt to render Geoffrey's Gorlois (itself, ironically, derived from the earlier Welsh gorlassar epithet applied to Uther)?  Or could Geoffrey’s Ygerna be a substitute for a genuine Eigr, mother of Arthur?

Welsh tradition gives her a father named Anblaud who, through his sons Gwrfoddw and Llygadrudd Emys (this last being a corruption of the name of the grave of Arthur’s son at Llygad Amr; see P.C. Bartrum), has been shown to be a king of Ercing.  Ercing as a regional name evolved from the Roman name of the town of Ariconium at Weston-Under-Penyard and now forms part of Herefordshire. 

Because the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru says that the Welsh –ing suffix denotes “descendents of” (information counrtesy Lona Jones, The National Library of Wales), it is tempting to assume that Ercing’s origin in the Roman period Ariconium place-name was forgotten and that this region came to be thought of as the kingdom of “the desendents of Erc”.  This would be in keeping with Glywysing, the later Glamorgan, a kingdom designation which means “descendents of Glywys”.  This is especially true as Glywys himself is a eponym stemming from Glevensis, “a man of Glevum”, the Roman name for Gloucester.  The name of Glywys’s father, Solor, points to the Silures tribe of southern Wales. 

Eigr as one of the “descendents of Erc” could suggest that she actually belonged to the descendents of Erc (or Eirc, or Earca) in Kintyre.  Kintyre was the home of the 6th-7th century Arthurs.  We will see below that the story of Arthur’s conception can be linked indirectly to Kintyre.  If Eigr did belong to Kintyre, her becoming Uther’s wife would certainly help account for the appearance of the Arthur names in Dalriada.  However, I will not press this argument, as Arthur’s presence in Ercing in a source as early as the Mirabilia of the Historia Brittonum probably explains why the Welsh sought a pedigree for Eigr in this particular kingdom.

To find out who Igerna really is, we have to take a closer look at the story of Arthur’s conception.

The Conception of Arthur

It is well known that the story of Arthur’s conception has a clear parallel in that of the Irish Mongan, a 7th century king of the Dal nAraide in Co. Antrim.  Instead of Merlin transforming Uther into a semblance of Gorlais so that the king may sleep with Igerna, in the Mongan tale it is the sea god Mannanan mac Lir who transforms himself into Fiachna, the husband of Mongan’s mother Caintigern. 

There are two versions of the story, and I will supply both here: 

Fiachna Lurga, the father of Mongan, was sole king of the province. He had a friend in Scotland, to wit, Aedan, the son of Gabran. A message went from him to Aedan. A message went from Aedan asking him to come to his aid. He was in warfare against the Saxons. A terrible warrior was brought by them to accomplish the death of Aedan in the battle. Then Fiachna went across, leaving his queen at home.

While the hosts were fighting in Scotland, a noble-looking man came to his wife in his stronghold in Rathmore of Moylinny. At the time he went, there were not many in the stronghold. The stranger asked the woman to arrange a place of meeting. The woman said there were not in the world possessions or treasures, for which she would do anything to disgrace her husband’s honor. He asked her whether she would do it to save her husband’s life. She said that if she were to see him in danger and difficulty, she would help him with all that lay in her might. He said she should do it then, “for thy husband is in great danger. A terrible man has been brought against him, and he will die by his hand. If we, thou and I, make love, thou wilt bear a son thereof. That son will be famous; he will be Mongan. I shall go to the battle which will be fought to-morrow at the third hour, so that I shall save Fiachna, and I shall vanquish the warrior before the eyes of the men of Scotland. And I shall tell thy husband our adventures, and that it is thou that hast sent me to his help.”

It was done thus. When army was drawn up against army, the boats saw a noble-looking man before the army of Aedan and Fiachna. He went towards Fiachna in particular, and told him the conversation with his wife the day before, and that he had promised to come to his help at that hour. Thereupon he went before the army towards the other, and vanquished the warriors, so that Aedan and Fiachna won the battle.

And Fiachna returned to his country, and the woman was pregnant and bore a son, even Mongan son of Fiachna. And he thanked his wife for what she had done for him, and she confessed all her adventures. So that this Mongan is a son of Manannan mac Lir, though he is called Mongan son of Fiachna. For when the stranger went from her in the morning he left a quatrain with Mongan’s mother, saying:

I go home,
The pale pure morning draws near:
Manannan son of Lir
Is the name of him who came to thee.”

(http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/mongan.html)

3. Then Fiachna assembled the nobles of Ulster until he had ten equally large battalions, and went and announced battle to the men of Lochlann. And they were three days a-gathering unto the battle. And combat was made by the king of Loch­lann on the men of Ireland. And three hundred warriors fell by Fiachna in the fight. And venomous sheep were let out of the king of Lochlann’s tent against them, and on that day three hundred warriors fell by the sheep, and three hundred warriors fell on the second day, and three hundred on the third day. That was grievous to Fiachna, and he said: ‘Sad is the journey on which we have come, for the purpose of having our people killed by the sheep. For if they had fallen in battle or in combat by the host of Lochlann, we should not deem their fall a disgrace, for they would avenge themselves. Give me,’ saith he, ‘my arms and my dress that I may myself go to fight against the sheep.’ ‘Do not say that, O King,’ said they, ‘for it is not meet that thou shouldst go to fight against them.’ ‘By my word,’ said Fiachna, ‘no more of the men of Ireland shall fall by them, till I myself go to fight against the sheep; and if I am destined to find death there, I shall find it, for it is impossible to avoid fate; and if not, the sheep will fall by me.’

4. As they were thus conversing, they saw a single tall war­like man coming towards them… And the warrior said: ‘What reward wouldst thou give to him who would keep the sheep from thee?’ ‘By my word,’ said Fiachna, ‘[whatever thou ask], provided I have it, I should give it.’ ‘Thou shalt have it (to give),’ said the warrior, ‘and I will tell thee the reward.’ ‘Say the sentence,’ said Fiachna. ‘I shall say it,’ said he; ‘give me that ring of gold on thy finger as a token for me, when I go to Ireland to thy wife to sleep with her.’ ‘By my word,’ said Fiachna, ‘I would not let one man of the men of Ireland fall on account of that condition.’ ‘It shall be none the worse for thee; for a glorious child shall be begotten by me there, and from thee he shall be named, even Mongan the Fair (Finn), son of Fiachna the Fair. And I shall go there in thy shape, so that thy wife shall not be defiled by it. And I am Manannan, son of Ler, and thou shalt seize the kingship of Lochlann and of the Saxons and Britons.’ Then the warrior took a venomous hound out of his cloak, and a chain upon it, and said: ‘By my word, not a single sheep shall carry its head from her to the fortress of the king of Lochlann, and she will kill three hundred of the hosts of Lochlann, and thou shalt have what will come of it.’ The warrior went to Ireland, and in the shape of Fiachna himself he slept with Fiachna’s wife, and in that night she became pregnant. On that day the sheep and three hundred of the nobles of Lochlann fell by the dog, and Fiachna seized the kingship of Lochlann and of the Saxons and Britons.

5. … And then he [Fiachna] went into Ireland and found his wife big-bellied and pregnant, and when her time came, she bore a son. Now Fiachna the Fair had an attendant, whose name was An Damh, and in that (same) night his wife brought forth a son, and they were christened together, and the son of Fiachna was named Mongan

(http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/mongan2.html)

The most important detail to notice is in the first account of Mongan’s conception.  This is the mention of the “terrible warrior” or “terrible man” sent against Fiachna and Aedan (variously father or grandather of an Arthur)  in battle.  The word used in the Gaelic text is “h-uathmar”.  The uath is the root of this word, and is cognate with the Welsh root of Uther. 

The name of Fiachna’s wife, Caintigern, is given in The Voyage of Bran (Imram Brain):

49. 'This shape, he on whom thou lookest,
Will come to thy parts;
'Tis mine to journey to her house,
To the woman in Line-Mag.

50. 'For it is Manannan, the son of Lír,
From the chariot in the shape of a man,
Of his progeny will be a very short while
A fair man in a body of white clay.

51. 'Manannan, the descendant of Lír, will be
A vigorous bed-fellow to Caintigern [Caointigirn in the Gaelic text]:
He shall be called to his son in the beautiful world,
Fiachna will acknowledge him as his son.

52. 'He will delight the company of every fairy-knoll,
He will be the darling of every goodly land,
He will make known secrets-a course of wisdom-
In the world, without being feared.

53. 'He will be in the shape of every beast,
Both on the azure sea and on land,
He will be a dragon before hosts at the onset,
He will be a wolf of every great forest.

54. 'He will be a stag with horns of silver
In the land where chariots are driven,
He will be a speckled salmon in a full pool,
He will be a seal, he will be a fair-white swan.

55. 'He will be throughout long ages
An hundred years in fair kingship,
He will cut down battalions,-a lasting grave-
He will redden fields, a wheel around the track.

56. 'It will be about kings with a champion
That he will be known as a valiant hero,
Into the strongholds of a land on a height
I shall send an appointed end from Islay.

57. 'High shall I place him with princes,
He will be overcome by a son of error;
Manannan, the son of Lír,
Will be his father, his tutor.

58. 'He will be-his time will be short--
Fifty years in this world:
A dragonstone from the sea will kill him
In the fight at Senlabor.

(http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/branvoyage.html)

Arthurian scholar John Matthews independently came up with the idea that the name Caintigern, which is from Old Irish cain (cf. Welsh cain/cein), “beautiful”, and tigern, “lady”, may help account for the name Igerna.  I had also considered this possibility, and have decided that it makes a great deal of sense – especially given Geoffrey of Monmouth’s first mention of Igerna is as the most beautiful woman in all Britain.  To quote from the Latin text of his Historia Regum Britanniae:

 

From Octavus para 13 text C:

Aderat inter ceteros Gorlois dux Cornubiae cum Igerna coniuge sua cuius
pulchritudo mulieres omnes Britanniae superabat.

Ibid text DEH:

Aderat namque inter ceteros Gorlois ducis Cornubiae uxor nomine Igerna
cuius pulchritudo mulieres omnes Britanniae superabat.

 (courtesy Peter Gatehouse via the Arthurnet listserv)

 

“Among these others there was present Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, with his wife Igerna, who was the most beautiful woman in Britain.”

 

(Lewis Thorpe translation, Penguin Books)

 

What Mr. Matthews and I would propose is that Caintigern could have been wrongly divided into caoin Tigern, “beautiful Lady”, with the later loss of the T- of Tigern yielding Igerna.

 

 Additional support for this idea comes from the names of two of Mongan’s wives: Breotigern, “Flame Lady”, and Findtigern, “Fair/White/Bright Lady”.  The presence of three women with –tigern names in the story of Fiachna and Mongan suggests a fairly typical triplicated Celtic goddess.  Can we determine which triple goddess this might be?

 

Possibly.  Fiachna’s and Mongan’s Dal n-Araidhe was a part of Ulter, the ancient kingdom of the Ulaidh.

 

Dennis Walsh’s Ireland’s History in Maps Website (http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlkik/ihm/ulster.htm) lists the goddess Macha as one of the legendary chieftains of the Dal n-Araidhe:

 

Cermna -- Sobuirche -- Sétna Artt -- Fiachu Findscothach -- Ollam Fótla -- Fínnachta -- Slánoll -- Géde Ollgothach -- Berngal m. Géide -- Ailill -- Find m. Blátha -- Sírlám -- Argatmár -- Áed Ruad -- Díthorba -- Cimbáeth -- Macha (queen) -- Rudraige -- Bressal Bódíbad -- Congal Cláringnech -- Fachtna Fáthach -- Éllim m. Conrach -- Mál m. Rochride -- Cóelbad m. Cruind.

 

It is also true that some of the Dal n-Araidhe kings became over-kings of Ulster (see Francis J. Byrne’s Irish Kings and High-Kings). 

 

Macha was the Ulster goddess of sovereignty whose name has been preserved in Emhain Macha and Ard Macha.  Like Caintigern, Breotigern and Findtigern, she had three aspects, embodied in Macha wife of Nemed, Macha wife of Cimbaeth and Macha wife of Crunniuc.  As the latter, she appears as a horse goddess in a story that parallels that of the Welsh goddess Rhiannon or Epona Regina.  Rhiannon’s second husband in Welsh tradition is none other than Manawydan mab Llyr, the British counterpart of the Irish Manannan mac Lir who engenders Mongan on Caintigern.  In passing, I should mention that an Arthur was placed in the Dyfed of Rhiannon. 

 

Mongan (see Donnchadh O’Corrain and Fidelma Maguire’s Irish Names) derives from mong, “mane”.  The same word is present in the epithet given to the second Macha, Mongruiadh, “Red-mane”.  Mong can also be rendered “head of long, abundant hair”, but as Macha was a horse goddess, “mane” is surely to be preferred in this context. 

 

Finally, we have Mongan being slain in Kintyre, in Gaelic Aird Echde, “Point of Echde”, a modern version of the ancient name for the peninsula, the Promontory of the Epidii or Horse-people. 

 

I believe, therefore, that it is appropriate to put forward Caintigern as a manifestation of Macha.  Mongan, a legendary character himself, would be the son of Macha by the sea god Manannan.  In adopting this birth story for the 5th-6th century Arthur, Geoffrey of Monmouth perhaps unwittingly made the great hero’s mother the horse goddess Epona. 

 

Another reason why Merlin/Myrddin may have been associated with Caintigern is the marked similarity of this name with a recorded form of the name of St. Kentigern.  In The Life of Kentigern, that saint is twice brought into connection with Myrddin.  As Henry Gough-Cooper has shown (“Kentigern and Gonothigernus: A Scottish Saint and a Gaulish Bishop Identified”, The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe, Issue 6, Spring 2003), the name Kentigern appears in at least one source as Caintigernd. 

 

There may yet be another aspect to the Igerna story that should briefly be explored.  Just a little NNE of Igerna’s Tintagel is Hartland Point, which is believed to be the Herakleous akron or “Promontory of Hercules” of Ptolemy’s Geography.  The proximity of this headland to Tintagel is astonishing, given the story of the conception of Hercules.  I quote the account presented in Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths:

 

“Meanwhile, Zeus, taking advantage of Amphitryon’s absence [in battle], impersonated him and, assuring Alcmene [Amphitryon’s wife] that her brothers were now avenged – since Amphitryon had indeed gained the required victory that very morning – lay with her all one night, to which he gave the length of three… Alcmene, wholly deceived, listened delightedly to Zeus’s account of the crushing defeat inflicted on Pteralaus at Oechalia, and sported innocently with her supposed husband for the whole thirty-six hours.  One the next day, when Amphitryon returned, eloquent of victory and of his passion for her, Alcmene did not welcome him to the marriage couch so rapturously as he had hoped.  Amphitryon… consulted the seer Teiresias, who told him that he had been cuckolded by Zeus…”

 

Arthur’s 12 battles have often been compared to the 12 labors of Hercules and the Hercules birth story has been cited as a parallel to that of Arthur’s. 

 

Rivet and Smith (in their The Place-Names of Roman Britain, p. 135) remark that

 

“The promontory of Heracles should probably be Hartland Point, as the most notable feature on the coast, but any of the headlands between Porlock and Braunton (Foreland Point, Highveer Point, Bull Point, Morte Point, Baggy Point) is a possibility: unless the cape was simply christened by sailors from the sea, the discovery of a shrine might settle the question.”

 

We have already seen above that there was a “terrible warrior/terrible man” present in the conception of Mongan story.  But just as good, we have Mongan himself referred to as a dragon (Gaelic drauc) and being killed by a dragon stone (ail dracoin).

 

On the nature of the dragon stone, I have this from Christopher Gwinn (private communication):

"Dragon stone" was a name for a precious stone in Irish  - it is derived from Latin dracontia (also called draconite, dentrites draconius, or obsianus - it is girn-rodor in Old English), a mystical black gem with special powers that was believed in the middle ages to have been found in the heads of dragons. In the Middle Ages, ammonites (a type of horn-shaped fossil) were frequently called draconites, but the name obsianus seems to imply that it is the volcanic glass obsidian (there were allegedly nine different types of dragon stones, so maybe both of these stones could be dragon stones). It was a jewel that adorned a cup  in Fled Bricrend - Cu Chulainn is given a cup of red-gold by Ailill and Medb which had embedded on its bottom a decoration of a bird made out of  "dragon stone, the size of his two eyes".  The stone must have had some sort of special significance to the Irish, because its presence on Cu Chulainn's cup helps mark him as the champion deserving of the Champion's Portion - if the dragon stone was obsidian, it was a very hard stone that, when it fractured, had extremely sharp edges, thus making a deadly weapon when used as a sling-stone (obsidian was used for arrow and spear tips in the Stone Age). Dragon-stones (dracoin) are mentioned elsewhere in Imram Brain (sect. 12), where they are paired with glain "crystals":

"Then if Airchthech (Bountiful Land) is seen,
On which dragon-stones and crystals drop
The sea washes the wave against the land
Hair of crystals [glano] drops from its mane.”*

*a kenning for the spray of a wave

Even more important than the presence of the terrible warrior, the dragon and the dragon-stones in the story of Mongan’s conception for showing its relationship to Geoffrey’s story of Arthur’s conception is the identity of the slayer of Mongan, i.e. the warrior who uses the dragon-stone to slay the king.  His name is revealed in the Irish Annals of Tigernach (Year Entry 625):

Mongan mac Fiachna Lurgan, ab Artuir filio Bicoir Britone lapide
percussus interit. Unde Bec Boirche dixit:

 

Mongan son of Fiachna Lurgan was struck with a stone by Artuir son of
Bicoir
the Briton and died...


IS uar in gáeth dar Ile,
do fuil oca i Cínd Tire,
do-genat gnim amnus de,
mairbfit Mongan mac Fiachnae.

Cold is the wind over Islay;
there are warriors in Kintyre,
they will commit a cruel deed therefore,
they will kill Mongan, son of Fiachna.

(Irish text from http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100002/index.html, English translation from Richard Barber’s The Figure of Arthur, 1972)

There are thus several reasons why a storyteller such as Geoffrey of Monmouth (or his ultimate source) would have borrowed the Mongan conception story and grafted it onto that of Arthur:

1)     A terrible warrior is present, which reminds us of Uther Chief-warrior

2)     Dragons are present, in the form of Mongan and dragon-stones

3) Mongan is slain by an Arthur with a dragon-stone

Vikings & Saxons is Copyright © 2000, August Hunt. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Comments to: August Hunt


 

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