Talk:Uther Pendragon

experts

As part of a team of leading experts researching ancient British history since 1956 and having been involved in much of the recent activity I am wondering why the self-styled Cuchullain is removing my every post. This is pretty serious as he has a limited and blinkered view of British history that does not appear to be based on the best available manuscript evidence.

In terms of the King Arthur subject we are the leading experts and although this does not remove us from criticism our view is that at least an alternative opinion should be heard.

A worrying development.

Tim Matthews, Ancient British Historical Assocation, realhistoryradio@aol.com—Preceding unsigned comment added by Realhistoryradio (talk • contribs)

Mr. Matthews, alternate interpretations certainly are allowed and welcome here, but the books you quote are not reliable sources. We're not going to take your word for it that you and your colleagues are the "leading experts" on King Arthur, you are going to have to provide proper sources or at least rephrase your contributions to sound less definite. --Cúchullain ^t/c 00:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this article doesn't states clearly that its contents are fictional:

"With Aurelius on the throne, Uther leads his brother's army to Ireland to help Merlin bring the stones of Stonehenge from there to Britain."

That quote appears in the section for the History of the Kings of the Britons, which is fiction.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If it was written as history it would be in the past tense. Uther is a legendary, not historical character, something that is stated right at the beginning of the article. I'd also disagree that the History of the Kings of Britain is "fiction", strictly speaking. It's not true, but that's not the same thing as fiction. --Nicknack009 01:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point, "fiction" isn't the right word for whatever the Historia is. But the real problem is the user thought the article made Uther seem like a historical figure rather than a legendary one, and I don't think it does.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Pendraig or Pendragon

I brought this up on the talk for the Pendragon page, but went unanswered for a long time, so I figured I should bring it up here. Throughout Wikipedia there seems to be some confusion. Was the original Welsh Gwthyr Pen Dragon or Pen Draig? Dragon means "leader", while draig means "dragon". It makes a big difference, because I've heard Pendragon means War Leader (pen meaning "war") and "war dragon" or "son of the dragon". --Narfil Palùrfalas 13:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought Pen Dragon meant he was the head of the Sarmatian cavalry, who often sported red dragon banners. I've heard it in various places. Shouldn't this be mentioned? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladius Terrae Novae (talk • contribs) 23:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No, Pen Dragon is Old Welsh. The only connection between the title and the Sarmations is that the symbol of the Sarmatian cavalry was the dragon standard (though the Sarmatians were not the only Romans to carry such). --Narfil Palùrfalas (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

So there's no chance it signifies his position? By the way, were some of the other dragon-standard-bearing Romans in Britain? ---G.T.N. (talk) 21:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

in considering the line of Pendragon's , Kings in Brittain, one sees they follow not sequentially but only occasionally, so whenyou consider too the high rites and realize that only a few attain the highest status, THEN youfollow that this title refers to one who attains that highest status, of the Dragon, Highest King status see also unknowable below —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.77.218 (talk • contribs)

By the 4th century, many of the legions, especially cavalry, had adopted variations of the dragon. The last two legions in Britain in 400 were the Sixth Vitrix, recalled in 402 to fight the Huns in Italy, and the Second Augusta, which was taken in 407 by the usurper Constantine III (Uther's alleged father) to aide in his cause on the continent. It is unknown if either of these legions adopted the dragon symbol. The Second Augusta is recorded to have the symbols of Capricorn, Pegasus, and Mars earlier in its career. The symbols of the Sixth Legion, as far as I know, are unknown. --Narfil Palùrfalas (talk) 13:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been studying the original question, and here's what I came up with: Pen Dragon is found in Pa Gwr (Arthur and the Porter) from the Black Book of Carmarthen, a 1250 Welsh manuscript with poems dating from earlier. But the first appearance of the term appears in Geoffrey's Historia, and unfortunately I have been unable to find an untranslated text. However, translated texts mention that "Pendragon" signifies in Old Welsh the head of the dragon. --Narfil Palùrfalas (talk) 13:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

According to Rachel Bromwich's translation of the Welsh Triads, dragon and draig in Old Welsh are "doublets with equivalent meaning", they mean both "leader" and "dragon" and appear frequently in the poetry. "Pendragon" means "chief dragon" in the figurative sense and "foremost leader" in the literal sense. Also according to Bromwich Geoffrey misinterpreted the name "pendragon" to mean "dragon's head" and came up with the fanciful story about the shooting star and the dragon standard to explain it. --Cúchullain ^t/c 19:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I've also frequently seen it implied that the "dragon" referred to is the dragon standard used in the later Roman Empire, and that Uther would have been the "head of a dragon," or Romano-British military unit. I've never heard anything that convincingly disproves this, other than "it's not true." It also seems like a logical explaination. ---G.T.N. (talk) 21:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, Bromwich is a very well respected scholar of the Welsh language, so I'd side with her over conventional wisdom on this. She says flatly that "pendragon" means "chief dragon", and that the definition as "dragon's head" is a mistranslation played upon by Geoffrey. The connection with the dragon standard is pretty dubious since the dragon standard story in connection with Uther does not predate Geoffrey. I've never heard anything that implied "dragon" in this case would mean a Romano-British military unit, beyond perhaps fiction.--Cúchullain ^t/c 23:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

But this is also a matter of Roman military history. see draconarius. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gladius Terrae Novae (talk • contribs) 12:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that it is, considering that the dragon standard being associated with Uther does not predate Geoffrey. Again, Bromwich is quite clear on what "Pendragon" means.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The absolutely literal translation is "head dragon", but as stated in the article on Welsh syntax, "Genitive relationships are expressed by apposition. The genitive in Welsh is formed by putting two noun phrases next to each other, the possessor coming second." So "head of a dragon" is a perfectly acceptable literal translation of the phrase. Penn, "head", is also used in a figurative sense to mean "chief", and ferocious animals are often used figuratively to mean "warrior" or similar, so linguistically, "dragon's head" and "chief warrior" are both reasonable. Bromwich seems to lean towards the latter explanation as most likely in this case, but I don't think it's possible to be definitive. There is no one-to-one relationship between words and phrases in different languages. --Nicknack009 (talk) 14:25, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Maelgwn of Gwynedd is called "head dragon of the Island" by Gildas, suggesting it was actually a title awarded to the most powerful of the Welsh kings of the 6th Century. It seems to have died out shortly afterwards. Has anyone got an etymology for Wthwr in Welsh? John D. Croft (talk) 20:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Re Pendragon meaning either Dragons' Head or Head Dragon. I know nothing of Welsh, but have some knowledge of language structure, languages and translating, and would be very sceptical of accepting any one person's (in this case Bromwich's) interpretation of the word, some 1000-1500 years or so after it was coined. I read Bromwich's obituary and she was obviously a great expert in the field, but that doesn't mean to say that she has to be right, or that there couldn't be multiple meanings for the expression, or even a play on words.

I have come across Pen at the start of many Cornish names, meaning head (of land) eg Pendennis etc. The equivalent in English in that example is to put the Head after the name eg Beachy Head, or possibly with apostrophe even eg Nag's Head, Dragon's Head. Either way it is clearly a very old bilingual metaphorical use of the word head. Similarly there is an old racing yacht called Pen Duick, from Breton meaning literally Black Head (Head Black) i.e. Coal Tit, the bird.

In English head (again metaphorically) meaning leader can precede a noun, eg Head Boy, Head Dragon or follow it School Head, Department Head, or follow it with an apostrophe (the) School's Head etc or even use "of" eg Head of Department. Meaning is slightly tweaked often depending how it is used.

Transliterating foreign languages, and importing foreign sentence structure, to give an authentic flavour of them to English readers was much in vogue mid twentieth century. Hemmingway wrote a whole novel about the Spanish Civil War like this, but it's a bit silly - on a par with Nazis speaking with German (or, worse, English!) accents in American war films. Whole linguistic and psychological theories have been built on some of these mistranslations - eg the so-called 100 different words for snow in Eskimo - and taught in universities and schools for decades. Like this Yoda speaks.

Although in modern English head used metaphorically is quite removed from its literal meaning of part of a human or animal's body, it's possible that in the past, in an agrarian society, the link to the literal meaning may have been closer (for example in Nag's Head, you can't help looking for a hill that resembles a head of a horse). Another example, someone called Short, with nickname Shorty, who also is not very tall (or perhaps ironically very tall). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.209.64.143 (talk) 14:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Rachel Bromwich was one of the greatest Celtic scholars of the past century, so her words indeed hold a lot of weight. The idea that Penn Dragon/Draig means "Chief of Warrior" or "Top Warrio" has much support in Welsh literature - warriors are often called dragons in medieval Welsh poetry and the epithet formula Penn-(X) meaning "Chief of (X)" or "Top (X)" is found numerous times in medieval Welsh literature. Compare Taliesin, who is called Pen Beirdd "Chief of Bards" and Ysbaddaden, who is styled Pen Cawr "Top Giant" (or "Chief of Giants", if cawr represents an petrified Brittonic genitive plural *cauaron), and Ysgithrwyn, who is a Pen Baedd "Top Boar". Cagwinn (talk) 16:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I have an exceedingly old book here, written in Latin, a transcription printed in 1601 from earlier chronicles originally written hundreds of years earlier.

I only have a poor knowledge of Latin but, as I understand it, (I may well be mistranslating), it says Uther's brother died 24 feb 498 and Uther succeeded him. Then there's a bit I don't understand fully but it mentions two golden dragons were crafted … then … he was called "Vtherpendragon" , or in English (Gothic script) "Drafe Heued", which it retranslates into Latin as "Vther caput Draconis" (ie Uther head of Dragon).

Amongst other things it goes on to mention 2 sons (of eight) Octa and Eosa, can't quite work out what they did, but at one point I think they escaped from prison. [Could Octa be Hector?]

Then Uther died in 519, succeeded by Arthur (Pendragon), the rest is history, as they say…

Just thought someone might be interested in this… I think the dates should at least be put into the article. /GW

The book you are reading is obviously derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae, which is a completely unreliable source for ancient-early medieval British history. It's primarily a work of fiction masquerading as history (kind of you like your average program on the History Channel today!). Cagwinn (talk) 01:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It's called Flores Historiarum by Matthew of Westminster, containing "Praecipue de Rebus Britannius" (which spans Genesis to 1307) - this is the volume containing the info on Uther - and also Chronicon Ex Chronicis by the monk Florentio Wigorensis (Genesis to 1118) and continued to 1141.

Obviously the history is unreliable, but wouldn't the material have been transcribed and retranscribed by monks over the centuries, using available evidence and oral history. In the process much would have been altered and distorted but yet some truth probably lies at the heart of it.

For example, while browsing, I read that the bones of huge monster (giving size) were discovered in the middle ages (can't remember date and place right now). It struck me that this was likely a very early record of a dinosaur find, not understood at the time. The fact is simply recorded and not elaborated upon, much the same way that a comet's passing is also recorded. Since we know that they did see comets, and it seems likely that they would have found dinosaur fossils, it seems to me that by dismissing the whole work as fiction, you may well be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But admittedly I haven't read Geoffrey of Monmouth's work, neither have I researched the more reliable evidence that you have, as this is my first contact with the subject matter. Would be interested in finding out more. /GW

FWIW, this is my transcription of the passage about the golden dragons - perhaps someone can shed some light.

De coronatione Uther pendragon. Anno gratiae 498. Anastasius sedit in cathedra Romana, anno uno, mensibus II et diebus 24. Per idem tempus, Uther frater Aurelii regis Britonum defuncti, audito casu fratris, cum festinatione Wintoniam venit, et convocato populo regni et clero Britaniae diadema suscepit. Reminiscens itaque desidere supradicto, iussit fabricari duos Dracones ex auro, ad similitudinem draconis quem in radio stellae inspexerat, et unum in Ecclesia primae sedis Wintioniae obtulit, alterum vero sibi retinuit in praelio deferendum. Ab illo igitur tempore vocatus suit Britannice Utherpendragon: Anglica vero lingua "Uther Drafe heued": Latine vero Uther caput Draconis. Unde usque hodie mos inolevit regibus terrae huius, quod pro vexillo Draconem in bellicis expeditionibus ante se statuerint deferendum.

… and my attempt at translation:

The coronation of Uther pendragon. 498 AD. In the first year, 2nd month and 24th day of the rule of Pope Anastasius. Uther, having learnt of the death of his brother Aurelius, king of the Britons, went quickly to Winchester, and called together the people of the kingdom and the British clergy. Remembering the wish mentioned above, he ordered two golden dragons to be crafted, in the likeness of the dragon which they had seen near a star: the first he offered to the throne to be kept in Winchester cathedral, and the other he kept for himself to be worn in battle. From that time therefore he was called the British Utherpendragon: in the English tongue, "Uther Drake heued" [gothic script]: in Latin, Uther head of the dragon. … [this bit no idea] … and thus he would carry the dragon into battle on his standard set before him. /GW

The Flores Historiarum (there's an edition on Google Books - here is the section in question) was written by Roger of Wendover in the 13th century (Matthew of Westminster apparently never existed! The true author of the chronicle you are referring to is Matthew of Paris, and it is a continuation of Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum). Roger of Wendover drew from several sources and the section on Uther is very clearly derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae - you can see the Latin text here. Cagwinn (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that very useful info. And indeed, that part is definitely lifted from Geoffrey's Historia (although no mention of Merlin there, I will look higher up the page). Relieved to see that my translation stands up pretty well (except for the last part) l, hate to think of my O-level Latin teacher turning in his grave… Interesting about the comet with two tails - perhaps astronomers could put a date and name to this comet? /GW

Unknowable

The teams olf "experts" write reams about the inknowable myths in regard to any country including Brittain. When,in areality the royal lines were recorded and are well known today. (just not to those experts). Those royal lines show the location and ancestors and descendants of all the long line of kings and include Uther and Sons Arthur and Eochaid descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, 126th HighKing of Tara/Ireland. /s/ willy the kang no. 144

A Dream of Eagles

I switched the title of Whytes' books to A Dream of Eagles (here and elsewhere), as that is what it is titled in Canada, and Whyte is a Canadian authour.

I'm not sure that's right, at any rate there needs to be a redirect page to the more common title.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

History of the Kings of Britain

Someone has messed around with this paragraph; most of it is just some lame jokes. Maybe someone can repair the damages? -85.179.90.195 (talk) 06:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. It was just simple vandalism, I've reverted it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 07:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

TV/Movies

Would it be appropriate to expand the 'Modern Literature' section to more of a 'Modern Fiction' section, to mention Uther's apperances in some of the recent Arthur movies and most recently, on television? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChicagoMel (talk • contribs) 05:48, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It would all need to be sourced to reliable, third-party sources - not just the novels themselves. We don't need a list of every book that mentions Uther Pendragon.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

False etymology

Dragon is an Old French/Langue d'Oïl word which was invented when the Legends started being written by the French, it is not a Welsh borrowing from draco. The word dragon was brought to Britain after the Norman Invasion, deplacing wyrm. And before that Uther had several epithets, like Gorlassar. The French borrowed from Breton drogn, in all likelyhood, and mutated it into Dragon. The Old Welsh dronn has not survived into Modern Welsh, though Breton and Irish still have drogn and drong, meaning multitude, crowd or warband. Penndronn, the Old Welsh form, would mean Chief of the Warband. UtherPendrogn (talk) 06:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

bendragon or ben dragon

Will Cagwinn please stop artificially turning 'ben dragwn' into 'bendragwn'. This particular manuscript is clear that the name 'ythr ben dragwn' is composed of three elements, not two. And the argument made that ben is a mutation of pen is unsubstantiated - unless evidence can be shown of that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mythosmann (talk • contribs) 10:27, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Mythosmann, please stop adding minor trivia to the article and inflating its importance. The division of the epithet into two elements in this very late manuscript is utterly irrelevant; many other manuscripts give it as a single compound and whether it's two elements or a single compound, the meaning is exactly the same. You clearly have ZERO understanding of the Welsh language and its grammatical rules and your statement "that ben is a mutation of pen is unsubstantiated" is laughably ignorant. You don't know what you're talking about and you have no business editing this article until such time that you do. Cagwinn (talk) 19:02, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

This one-off spelling doesn’t need lengthy coverage but there’s no reason not to include it. Additionally, Cagwinn is wrong that it should go in the lead if it’s not covered in the article body; the lead should only summarize important items that the body covers. And finally, stop insulting other editors.—Cúchullain ^t/c 19:31, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Cúchullain, I can cite lots of articles related to Celtic topics in which alternate spellings are given in the lede and not further mentioned in the body of the article; there is no reason to give any special attention to this spelling, which is found only in select Welsh manuscripts from the early modern period (mainly 17th-18th centuries) and which has no special significance (it's simply an orthographical quirk from that time period). Uthr is the standard spelling in Modern Welsh, Uthyr in Middle Welsh, and Uthir in Old Welsh. Cagwinn (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Also, Cúchullain, the reason I am losing my patience with Mythosmann is that he is attempting to push a loony idea that "ben dragwn" is HEBREW and means "Son of the Dragon" (check the article's edit history!). Cagwinn (talk) 20:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

The fact that other articles have the same problem is not a reason to replicate it here. Again, the lead is for summarizing the important parts of the article body. It seems to me that there's no reason to feature this late, one-off spelling variant in the article so I'll remove it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:09, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Cagwinn. Why do you make such a big deal about ‘ben’ perhaps referring to the patronymic ‘son’ ? If you read the Vulgate Cycle, many of the proper nouns and inscriptions in Arthurian history are pointedly said to be Chaldean - or Aramaic. Perhaps you forget that Gahmuret (Alain le Gross), the father of Sir Perceval, was said to have been a knight and king of Mesopotamia, where the lingua-franca was Aramaic. So within the greater corpus of Arthurian history, there is a great deal of Aramaic nouns and terminology. It is likely that any translator of this Welsh manuscript would have known all of this (the text was being translated form the Latin). And they would also have known that the most respected book in Wales at the time also used the patronymic ‘ben’ - namely the Bible. (The first Welsh Bibles did not appear until the 16th century). Apologies for greating a major crisis in Arthurian studies, but it seemed reasonable to me that the meaning was Son of the Dragon, which has a greater synnergy with traditional titles of the period than Head of the Dragon. Most people were the son of someone, hence all the Macs, Bars, Os, Sons, Ezs, Vichs, Ovs, Bens, and Fitzs. Mythosmann (talk) 18:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I make a "big deal" out of it because it is pure, unadulterated nonsense and original research, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. The Semitic word for "son (of)" was NEVER borrowed by the Welsh. The word in this epithet is absolutely Welsh pen(n) "head, chief (etc.)". In Welsh grammar, epithets such as this are liable to soft mutation, so initial p- regularly becomes b-. The fact is, both spellings Pen(n)-dragon and Ben(n)-dragon are found in medieval Welsh texts, though Pen(n)- is found in earlier texts. We now for a fact that the first element was pen(n) "head, chief", not only because of the attested spellings with initial p-, but also because the phrase pen(n)-dragon/pen(n)-draig occurs frequently in medieval literature as a term for a military general/battle leader (the term literally means "chief of warriors"), and Geoffrey of Monmouth - the earliest datable author to have mentioned the character of Uther - translated it into Latin as "dragon's head" (HRB, book VIII, "Vther Pendragon, quod Britannica lingua caput draconis sonamus").Cagwinn (talk) 19:01, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Cagwinn is correct on all accounts.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:58, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

And yet the primary hero of later Arthurian legend was Joseph of Arimathaea, who appears throughout the Vulgate Cycle and is reputed to have visited Glastonbury. Now did Joseph speak Welsh or Aramaic? Let me think... Mythosmann (talk) 10:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Joseph of Arimathea was late 12th-century addition to the Arthurian legend by French authors of fiction. It has nothing to do with the language of Wales or the earlier Welsh traditions about Arthur.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:25, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

All of Arthurian legend was 12th century, none of it is Dark Age. And Arthurian legend says that the Round Table and twelve knights was a copy of the Last Supper Table and twelve disciples. (Merlin Grail by Robert de Boron.) Now were the traditions of this Last Supper style Round Table formulated in Welsh or Aramaic?

And much of Arthurian legend was overtly said to be written in Chaldean, or Aramaic. History of the Grail says: "They found on one of the gates a miraculous inscription in Chaldean saying, ‘This Castle should be called Corbenic’, and in that language Corbenic means ‘Holy Vessel’." (History 40:289) So this distinctly Arthurian name for Castle Corbenic is actually Chaldean or Aramaic. However, I don't know any Aramaic word meaning 'holy vessel' that sounds like corbenic. However, there is an Aramaic word that sounds like Caliburn, and that is 'khareb', meaning 'sword'. Mythosmann (talk) 23:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

You are just spouting off a whole lot of nonsense. Wikipedia is not your personal blog - don't post fringe theories here. Cagwinn (talk) 01:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

You confuse theories with facts. There is a difference - facts are what underpins Wiki articles. And I am only giving you these facts, because you accused me of being looney without justification. In reality, there is a great deal of Aramaic influence within the greater corpus of Arthurian legend. Mythosmann (talk) 09:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

File:Uther ben dragon (a).jpg

Pendragon spelt as Ben Dragon. JC MS-28.

File:Uther Ben Dragon (b).jpg

Pendragon spelt as Ben Dragon. Peniarth MS-23.

Ok, so now I have another Welsh manuscript of Brut y Brenhinedd with the name spelt as Uther Ben Dragon. This is the Peniarth MS-23C page 75v. Looking top right you will clearly see 'ben', followed on the next line by 'dragon'. Note the name is split again, as 'ben dragon'. Then on the third line down, we have 'bendragon' as one word. It seems likely that Welsh authors understood the royal name to be (when capitalised) to be Uther ben Dragon, and I think that is noteworthy enough to be included in the Wiki page. I will try to find commentary on this. Mythosmann (talk) 14:14, 20 September 2018 (UTC)