JCeltL, 1 (1992), 101-118

Gallo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouarws 'Badger-slayer' and the Reflex of Indo-European gWht

Abstract

John T. Koch Harvard University

Rough ly a decade ago. Patrick Sims-Williams and the late Warren Cowgill

published suhstant ial articles on the Celtic reflexes of the Indo-European

aspirated voiced lahio-velar g"'!r. T hese independent pieces of work showed

impressive areas of consensus. including the conclusion that the primary Celtic

treatment of g 1111! was unaspirated gw_ Cowgill a lone. however . proposed that

this gw was subsequent ly simplified to w in ()aulish and British. for which

he offered a~ direct evidence only the Gaulish ucdiiu(-mi) 'l beseech' and the

Old Breton persnn:~l name Uurmhaelm1 ' ha ving brown brows', both of which

have heen disputed.

The British aml Gau lish personal name Tasc(i_)oua11os can he confidently

reconstructed as older *Task(j )og1111umos. representing a well-paralleled type of

IE name and epi thet formation (cf. , e.g.. Homeric andro-ph(mos 'man-slay ing'

I with IE *-g"'lumosi). The corpus of Early Welsh proper names contains

addi t ional instances of this type. The etymology supplies further evidence

favouring Cowgill 's formulation and establishes a key Ga llo-Brittonic isog loss.

Attestations T he name which serves as the starting point for this paper we know to have been borne by two individuals: (1) the king of the Catuvellauni of south-east Britain during the period c. 20 B.C.-c. A .D . 10, father of the grea t Cunobelinos Britannorwn Rex (as per Suetonius (Gaitts, xliv)), (2) a potter Tascouanus attested by a single graffito from Germania Superior (DAG 228 (ix); GPN 264). A s I discussed in two recent articles (Koch 1987a: 266ff ; 1987b: 17, 45-46), we know of King Tasciouanos through two groups of sources: (I) the I ron Age coinage of the Catuvellauni , where his name occurs on his own issues as T ASCIAV. TAXCIAV.

TAS. TASCI. TASC. TASCIO. TASCIA. TASCIAVA, TASCIO RICON. TASCIO

RICONI, TASCIOVAN and as a patronym on Cunobelinos's issues as

102 John T . Koch

TASCIIOVAN, TASCIOVANI, TASCIIOVANII. TASCIIOVANTI and TASCIIOVANTIS (Mack 1953: 61-8, 74-8; Allen 1980: 123); (2) in the early Welsh genealogies and related sources, the name yields the forms OW Teuhant, Teulzuant / tei:rx want/ with the doublet Teonant (an error for *Tecuant), Geoffrey's Tenuantius ( < OW *Teluwnt misread as Tenuant) - whence Tenewan, etc., in the Brutiau - MW Deheuweint with the doublet Tecwant; TecFalln / te xwan(n)/ occurs as the patronym of K ynvelyn ( < Cunobelinos) in the Gwarchan Kynvelyn of the Gododdin.

Derivation The name consists of two etyma. As has been recent ly shown by A. Mac an Bhaird (1982), the common Olr. personal name Tadc / taog/ < Celtic *tazgo- and the well-attested Old Celtic proper name element tasco-, ta zgo- , etc., (as in , e.g., Moritasgus, Tasgetios) mean 'badger'; for a collection of these forms. see GPN 263-5). The basic Welsh phonologica l development of Tasci.o<tanos is to a form which would be written Teuc!zwan(l) in standard modern orthography, in which *Teuch- (corresponding to a notional simplex *tach having undergone vowel affection and subsequent lahialisation of the diphthong as in teiltt > teulu) implies, a voiceless preform / tasko-/ . The Gaulish and British spellings of the name, as well as the Welsh forms, imply a voiceless articulation of the cluster / -sk-/, rather than / -zg-/ . If it were otherwise. we would look for a treatment like that in Welsh maidd ' buttermilk' corresponding to Olr. medg and Gallo-Lat. mesga (De Bernardo Stempel 1991: 42) . The Gaulish spellings collected by Evans (GPN foe. cit.) show that voiced and voiceless variants occurred in what were otherwise identical formations: e.g., Tascilla , Tascillus, Tasco. Tascius vs. Tasgilla. Tasgillus, Tasgo, Tasgius. It is therefore more likely thilt we hilve variants of a single etymon and not two. The subsequent Brittonic development in the cluster is the same as seen in MW cy-chwynn 'start off' corresponding to Ir . scend-. Lat. scando 'l mount' , also MW beich, l'viB bech 'burden, load'; cf. Olr. base, Lat. jascis 'bundle, packet' (Lewis and Pedersen 1937: 25.2). A metathesis of -sc- [-sk-) > -cs- [-xi-] is involved in this change and may

Gallo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 103

be witnessed in the present element as early as the first century BC in the British personal name Taximagulus in De bello Gallico (BG).

-Uanos is to be compared with MW gwan 'thrust, blow, wound, charge, etc.', the verbal noun gwamt 'to slay, smite, wound, etc.', Olr. gonaid 'slays', IE {gw hen- 'to strike, kill' _2

Comparanda The full compound therefore means 'badger-slaying, -sm1tmg, etc.' and belongs to a type of heroic epithet and personal name in which forms of {gwhen- are incorporated as final elements. This type is well-attested in various archaic Indo-European literatures: e.g., Vedic ahihim- 'serpent-slaying' ( < IE *ogW!zi-gwhi.'n-), epithet of lndra; vr crahim- 'smashing-resistance', also an epithet of lndra , = the Avestan theonym W ara8rayna; Avestan vlra-glm­'slaying-men, -enemies' ( < IE *wiro-gWhon-); aspa.vira-gan­'slaying horses and riders'; Rig-Vedic a-viralzan 'not man-slaying', epithet of soma: Homeric andro-phonos 'man-slaying', epithet of Hector and others, Bellero-phon 'overcoming-evil. (?)'.3

The Outcome of IE gwh Of the various IE formations, Gallo-Brittonic -uanos most probably corresponds exactly (in root, vowel grade and inflexional category) to the second element of androphonos < IE *-gW!zonos. The etymology thus provides one more Brittonic and one more Gaulish example to bear upon the as yet unresolved question of the reflex of the voiced aspirated labio-velar stop in Gaulish and Brittonic. Some nine years ago, excellent and insightful studies addressing this problem were published by the late Professor Warren E. Cowgill (1980) and Dr. Patrick Sims-Williams (1981). To an impressive and reassuring degree, their independent conclusions coincided, most importantly with regards the primary reflex of IE *gwh being Common Celtic gw, rather than g as some authorities had previously supposed (and cf. also now the suggestion of Schmidt 1991: 363). They disagreed, however, over the subsequent development of this sound in p-Celtic . Sims-Williams proposed that g'•~-'h gave British gw in initial position and g in

104 John T. Koch

medial position . Cowgill proposed that gw fell together with the semi vowel w in all positions in both Gaulish and British. The general structural argument for such a development is elegant ~ nd

compelling, as may be shown by laying out the Proto-Celtic stop system as agreed upon by both earlier researchers.

k

b d g

At this stage, with IE p gone and therefore no voiceless counterpart to the voiced labial b, a natural tendency arose for the labia li zed velar kw to be realized as the purely labial voiceless stop (p] . Once this change was phonemicized. the resulting p -Ce ltic system was, according to Cowgill (still at this point substanti:~lly in agreement with Sims-Williams),

p k

b d g gw,

in which it is now gw that lacks a voice less counterpart. (Here. Cowgill ceases to write gw with a superscript , which I take to indicate a phonemica lly and probably phonetically, more distinct labial component, as well as the falling together of the labio-velnr with originally separate velar plus labia l. ) At the next step, Cowgi ll resolves this asymmetr y by supposing that gv.· simply lost its stop component and fell together with the historical semivowel w in both British and Gaulish, resulting in the following system.

p k

b d g [ w < gw/wj

Whereas the essence of the change may be formulated ns gw , w > w, a degree of phonetic velarization may have arisen :1s a free var iation in the realization of the phoneme /w/ once gw

Ga/lo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 105

and w had ceased to contrast phonemica lly. Such non-phonemic velarization would help <1 ccount for the outcome of the fortis allophone of 1he semi-vowel w (of both origins) as /gw/ in early Neo-Brittonic .

Cowgill succeeded to adduce only one Gauli sh and one Brittonic example for this hypothetical stage, and both of these are capable of alternative interpretation. In an earlier article (Koch 1985: 10, 22ff), I agreed strongly with Lej eune ( 1976-7, no. ll .a) and Cowgill ( 1980: 28-9) that the second word of the Chamalieres inscription uediiu-mi [wediju:mi( :)J must, on the grounds of the genre and content of the text, mean ' I beseech, I pr ay' and reflect IE *gwhedh(i )j o; cf. Olr. gu.idiu , Old Persian j adi yami y . However , as I noted on that occasion, the other scholars who had trea ted the inscnpt1on favoured another etymology and gloss (though see Cowgill's compelling linguistic reasons for rej ecting these (ibid.)) .4

Rather more doubtful is the Old Bretc;m per sonal name U ur mhaelon 'hav ing brown brows' in the Cartulary of Redon (CR) . Sims-Williams (198 1: 228) regards Uurm- )'as an element o f non-Brittonic origin in a pseudo-archaic spelling", and certainly the phonetic meaning of the spelling may be doubted , especially so if F leur·iot ( 1964: 4) is right in assigning the Lei den L eech book to the late eighth century. In the Leechbook the spelling gu- is quite regular , indica ting that uu- in ninth-century and later charters was merely a traditional grapheme for (gw-]. belonging to a particularly conser vative orthographic school. Accordingly , we should perhaps no w reject as too late Jackson's ninth-century dating of w > gw­in Breton (LHEB §49) ; see further my remarks (Koch 1985-6: 6 1 ) . Purely orthographi c though this U u- may be , it should not continue to he overlooked that what has become the standard citation form is not the so le piece of OB ev idence on this point : also in C R we find Uuorm- lzaelon (a different spelling of the sa me name, vs. the velarized representations Gurm- hailon . Guorm-clon ). U urm-l!ouue11 ( vs. Guornz-lzouucn ), U urm- gen , U ur nz- ien . Uur ml!am , Uurmon (collected in Loth 1890: 18 1).

A number of problems t reated in Sims-Williams's survey (e.g. Welsh de = Irish daig ) are not resolved under the present

106 John T. Koclr

explanat ion , so we may as yet have to dea l with an untidy situation of multiple cond itioned reflexes. None the less, the proposed etymology of T asc( i )ouanos tips the balance towards Cowgi ll's hypothesis, as well as offering n further point in support of the concept of a genetic Gallo-Britton ic argued for on the basis of shared innovations absent from Goidel ic.5

What had been in Common Celtic phonology *Tazg(j)ogwonos, *Task(j)ogwonos gave Gallo-Brittonic *Task(j)owonos. The attested Tasc(i )ouanos results from a Gn llo-Urittonic var iation in voca lism fo llowing a labial glide which hns no parallel in Goidelic. A collection of examples of this variation follows in the next section .

A fu rther possible weak point in Cowgill's argument - viz. that most of hi s examples of I E med ial -gwh- give Welsh / -v-/ . not / -w-/ - can be overcome. An additional instance of /-wj -/ > /-v-/ may be adduced. To Cowgill's dia lectal Mod. Difiau < MW dyw l eu 'Thursday' should be compnred the particularly straightforward hifurc<~t ion of MW dwyvnwl, Mod. dwyfol 'divine', alongside duwinwl, Mod. duwiol 'god ly', ansmg from the sa me preform, Brit. * eli!, wjal-. Thus, we need not regard as problematical Welsh deifio 'burning' < IE {tthegwh- nor nyf 'snow' < *sneigwh-) ; both show W f < Briti sh / -wj-/ .

W o-/we- > wa- in Gaulish and Brittonic The change does not have the character of a sound law having operated at a particular time and dialect area. Rather, both the conserving and innovative byforms can be shown to have coexisted over a wide range of periods and areas. The var iation only works in one direction; I have found no examples /wo-1 or /we- / from etymological /wa-/ (except where other factors, such as i-affection. having nothing to do with the labial glide, are at work). (Dates supplied for OW forms from Liber Landm•ensis (Lib. Lan.) are taken from Davies ( 1979). On the dating of the charters appended to Vita Cadoci (VCad.), see Koch (1985-6 : 46f and notes 6-10.)).

(i) Names w. Ga ii .Britt. ((cllmuw- (see further Lambert. 1990:

Gallo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 107

203-15) . OW: Harl. 3R59 Gen. Cat-gollau[, Cat-go/au[, vs.

[C ]at-gua/lau[, all < Catu-uellaunos. Lib.Lan. - lud-gucllon (c . 722-33; same person as next 3 forms),

vs. lud-guallaun I lud-guallon I lud-gualon (c. 722-:33), ltul-guallnun (c. 625); Dln-guallaun (c. 1005), Dltmn-gua/lmm l d av( a)nwaLaunl (c . 942), Dwz-guallatl/1 (c. 868) < Dumno-uellawws; Guallonir (c. 650, c. 680-95), Guallonlr I Gual/onor (c. 720-48), Guallonir (c. 745-75) < *Uellauno-ri xs, Ri-uallaun I Ri-guallaun (c . 720) , Ri-uguallaun (c . 1005), Ri-ugual/aun (c . 1025), Ri-uguallawz I Ri-gual/au11 I Ri-ual/aun (c. 1045-75) < *Rigo-uellawros .

VCad. Gualltmlr (c. 690-725 ; possibly same individual as Gu.a/Lonir I Guallonor in Lib . Lan.).

Cf. Brit. Cassi-uellnwws (BG, in Britain) , Catu-uellnuni , Kcn :ovfA.i\.avo t (Cassius Dio LX, 20, 2; Rivet and Smith, 1979: JOS); Catu- uellmworum RIB i, no. 1962; Bol-ue/aullio (GPN 276; Rivet and Smith , 271f.); Dubnouefllllllts, Dttbnoucll au11[ , Dumno-uellaunos, Dum no-bell au( , 6.o1J.v o-f!,.A.av\'O<;:; vs. Dubno-uallawws (same king as above), Calllallauna (RIB no. 1065), (Tadia) Uallaunius (RIB, no. 369, Caerwent), Ualawzecus (see Tomlin 1987: 19).

OB - Uuallon ( < Uellawws ), Uuallonic (cf . Brit. Ualmwccus above), H ael-uuafloll , Ri-wwllo11 , Ri-guallon, Cat-uual/on , ( < Caw-uel/awzos), Dumno-uuallon ( < Dtwmo-uellawws), lud-uua/on (all CR).

O C - larn-wal/on (Bodmin) < *lsarno-uellaunos. Gaul. - Vel/au- (Holder , AcS iii, 149), Ue/laui (GPN 277),

OurA.W.J\' 1 0\1<;: (GPN 277) , Uelawzis (CIL ii. 1589). Uel/auensis, Uellauus (GPN 277) ; Uel/aunus (DAG Note xlv l3) , U. Bitttrix (DAG 224]), Uellawzo-dttntwz (BG, GPN 277), Sego-uel/auni (DAG 80, from Pliny, NH iii, 34 = Ptol. ii , 10, 7 ~ryaAA.auvo t ), ?Catuellaumts (GPN 173 ; DAG 237), Chillons-sur-Marne Cawellauni , Catu-udlauni, Catclau11i (GPN 174; DAG 212; cf. Durocate/auni) , U er-cassi -ue/Launus ( BG):

vs. Catalawzi , ?Ual(l)o{nius j (DAG 224), Ual/aunitLS

108 John T . Koch

(C IL vii , 126); Vallaunus (DAG 244), 2:£y<XA.II.cruvoi (above) .

(ii) Names w. Celt. uotc- 'wolf, hawk' < 'beast of prey' . OW Ri-uuatch , Gualchen ; cf. OB Vualc-moel, Gaul. Vale[ (DAG

224), ?Valcius (DAG R3), vs. Volcae (DAG 80). Volkanus (DAG 2 13, 223), Volcinius (DAG 224), Catuolcus (DAG 22 1), V olcacius (DAG Note xlv).

(iii) Gall. Britt. uere. do- 'steed' . MW gorli•yo; cf. Galla-Lat. ((erGdus 'a post-horse' (PID it.

3400 ; DAG 79) vs. Varedonius (DAG 2 14).

(iv) Celt. ueri11a 'tribe, band of people'. OW guerin gl. 'fact io' ; cf . Gaul. Varini (DAG 221), Varinnae

(DAG 221) , Varinnius (DAG 194, 214) , vs. Verina (DAG 87, 224) , Vcrinia (DAG 87) , Verimls (DAG 214 , 224, 237) ; cf. O lr. foi renn 'group of persons, men' .

(v) Celt. uosw- 'what or who st<~nds beneath , subordinate, ea rth '. OW guas; cf. OB Vuas-bidoe , Cun-uuas, Pen-uuas ; Brit.

Mori-u.assus (Bath ; Tomlin. 1987: 19). Rio-uassus (do.): Late British Vassol (early si xth century; LHEB 533).

Gaul. Vasidius (DAG 244), Vasilius (DAG 136 , 244). Vasio, Vasionensis. Vasicnsis (DAG 80) , Vassalus (DAG 139), Vassatus (DAG 83, 237), Vassedo (DAG 83, Note xlv), Vassetius (DAG K1), Vassia (DAG 83), Vassi lia , -ius (DAG 83), Vassi/ius (DAG 139), Vassillus, Uassius (DAG 244), Vassio (L>AG 182), Vassitu( s } (DAG 237) , Vasso (DAG R3), Vasso or -us (DA G 2 14), V asso-caletis (DAG 213) , Vasso-galete (DAG p. 982) , Vassionius (DAG 224) , Uassius (DAG 224), Vasso-rix (DAG 214, 237). uassus 'cliens' (DAG 220), uassus (DAG 224, 244) , Dago uassus (DAG 244). Dago-uassus (DAG 237), Vas to (DAG 182);

vs. Uossaticcius: - iccus? (DAG 83), Vossatilli (DAG 224), VossatitH (DAG 228 li x), 244), Vossillia , Vossi llius? (DAG 83 ), Vossilla (DAG 83) , Vossiltus (DAG 83, 214).

Olr. foss.

Gallo-Brillonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 109

(vi) Celt. <to-ret- 'deli ver , help' . OW : Lib. L an. - Cat-guaret ( 197 J98a 200), Cat-guoret (202

204a 204h 206 207 208 209a, el passim .), all the same man, fl. early 8th century; Domn-guaret (209a c. 770 .) ; El-guaret (121 166), El-guoret (121 122), same man fl. c. 595-600 ; Guoretris (21 6a 21 6b 225 c. 864-72); lud-guoret (I RJa c . 735) ; Ri-ttorct (203b c. 758) ; Tec- guaret (249a 257 c . 1033-40);

Juvencus Englynion - an guorit , an guoraut 'he will deliver us, he did deliver us' = MW a'n gweryt, a'n gwarawt.

cr. the S(l me elem . many times in OB, always llltoret, guorel; Gaul. Uoreto-uirius; vs. Olr. f o · reith 'helps, etc. '

Some other Celtic Compounds with IE {gwhen-Etymo logies can now be supplied for sever al further Welsh words and names belonging to the androplzimos t ype.

I.a . Guron (disyllabic) , later gwron 'arwr ; gwr dewr , milwr eofn' (GPC sn.; Lloyd-Jones 1950: 712) is com.mon in Hengerdd, where it often scans gwwrmz. It occurs as a proper name in Lib. Lan. in two byforms showing the wo- /wa- va riation : Gttoron < /gwurwon/ ( 198b .199bi , c . 755), Guoruan , Guruan /g(w)urwan/ (Lib .L an. 76a 77, c. 575-625) go back to Gallo-Brittonic *Wirowonosl-wanos < IE *Wiro-gWJzonos 'man-slaying' and are thus the exact cognates of the Avestan vira-gan- . The forms with -on show regular loss of w before o , as in cat( I )o 'may he keep', go(r)- < OW g(u )o(r)-, cal(LJon < *ca/({)uon , etc. (On the confusion of the reflexes of British <tiro- and uor- in OW pretonic position, see next item).

b. The persistent personal name, Gwronwy , Goromvy, G woronwy, Gronwy , Gronw is a suffixed form of the prev ious; for the collected forms see Lloyd-Jones (1 950 : 57 1). A rchaic Guoruone. /gwurwone / (Lib.Lan . 203a , c. 752) preserves the labial glide which began the second element of British *W iro-wonejos. Thi s early spelling, like Gttoruan and Gum an above are fur ther confirmation that our primary reflex is Welsh 1-w-1 < British /-w- I . not / -y (w)-1 < 1-g(w)-1. The O W spelling

110 1o1m T . Koch

Guorgonui (Lib.Lan. 221 , c. 950) may likewise be interpreted as representing /gwur-, gworwonul/ with -go- as an inverse spelling of lenited - wo- , at a stage when the lenition of go- was wo- as in Cornish. In the eleventh-century charters Lib .Lan. 27 1 272 (c. 1072-75), M ediaeval and M od. /guronul/ has emerged. 6

Thus, the Goronwy /Gr onw of the Fourth Branch of the M abinogi , the sl :~ ye r of Lieu, has a name deri ved from an Indo-European epic epithet ('man-, hero-slaying') which has quite probabl y survi ved from the primitive myth of the slaying of the Pan-Celtic god Lugus.

The reflexes of the initial element gwr- < !tiro- 'man, hero ' , and gwr- I gor- < uer- I (eor- 'over , super' have tended to fall together by regular phono logy in Old Welsh pretonic position, e.g. MW G wrtheyrn < Uortigernus alongside gwrawl < *wiral-. The elements are likely to have been further confused by popular etymology. T herefore, sense and compara11da in the cognate languages must dictate the appropriateness of the identification of one element as opposed to the other in any given instance. Cf. Lloyd-Jones (Ibid .) : 'Y mae'n debyg mai gwwr (g1vr) oedd rhan gyntaf yr enw, ac mai cymathind a roes G1vor­a Cor-, a sillgoll Gr .' Apart from the absence of a monosy llabic byform of g~ovron , these remarks apply equally to the previous item.

2. An additional possible Welsh analogue is Bleid-van 'wo lf-slayer' (CA 29 1; if the spelling represents /blei owan/) .

J. Thus far the name of the race of sinister otherworldly mag1c1ans, the Cor(ry)an yeit , who figure as one of the three national gormesoedd in Cyfranc Lludd a Llevelys has eluded convincing explanation. Vari ant spelli ngs include Korann ycit , Coranyeit , Coranneit , Coranyeyt (Bromwich 196 1: 86) . T he overlooked key cvmparandum is, I think , Old Irish corrgui nee/If 'magic, wizardry' , corrgui nec/1 'mngician , sorcerer' . T he Irish word is apparent ly a compound of corr 'crane' and guin < *gwhoni- 'the act of slaying, wounding, bane, etc .' ; see 0 Cuiv (1 963: 338) and Guyonvarc'h (1 964: 44lff). T he compound can be understood in either of two ways : (I) th at practition ers of cvrrguinecht did harm to their victims through a form of bird

Gallo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 111

magic, perhaps in particular by assuming the one-eyed one-legged crane-like posture of sorcery (as described frequently in the Irish sagas), or (2) that they did their magic by killing birds, as in, e.g., the taking of auspices. That Giraldus tells us the eating of crane flesh was tabu in Ireland in his day may have a bearing here. See further Ross (1967: 279-92) .

One would expect Common Celtic *corrogwon- to give to early · Neo-Brittonic byforms *cornJon(-) and *corruan(-). The former would lose the labial glide by regular sound change within the mediaeval period (see above). The extant cor(r)an- can therefore be expl<~ined either as <~n interaction between byforms *corron- and *cornvan-, or as showing a simplification of the strong cluster -rrw- > -rr- in the latter. The spelling with -rry- in Peniarth 16 could be a recollection of OW /-rrw-/ . Had the basic Old or Archaic Welsh form actually been *Corru.onje( i)t, this would explain why the ending MW -yeit had not caused the expected affection of a stem with -a-.

The 'Badger in the Bag' Episode: PwyU . and Pryderi < Tasciouanos and Cunobelinos In their Introduction to the Mabinogion ( 1974: xviii) , Gwyn and Thomas Jones showed how the awkward incident of the drowning maidens in the Fourth Branch was to be explained as the broken-down dindshenchas of Llyn-y-morynion. They then went on to propose. 'It is likely that a close study of the tales, the Four Branches and Culhwch and Olwen in particular, would reveal many other such imperfectly understood onomastic tales.' In light of the foregoing study, I now believe that one such half-remembered t<~le based on <1 proper n<~me is the 'broch yg got' episode in the First Branch, in which Pwyll secures the sovereignty goddess Riannon ( < * Rigantona) from his rival Gwawl by luring him into a bag of food which e<1ch m<~n of Pwyll's company subsequently smites. We are told then (PKM: 17) that this was the first playing of badger in the bag (ac yna gyntaf y guarywyt broch yg got). As Gruffydd has shown ( 1950: 54). such a game did in fact exist in Wales till early modern times. a similar amusement. it appears, to the Mexican pinata. This

I I 2 1 olm T . Koch

particular extraordinary means of overcoming the rival and the remark about the ori gin of the game serve no obvious purpose in the extant narrati ve, but of course wou ld be well-motivated if the hero had once been known by the traditional name or epithet 'badger-slayer , -smiter' Tasciouanos. Though we do have in Welsh two other names containing broclt, the later word for 'badger' . /Jrochjael means 'Prince ly Badger' and 'Brychan' (of Irish ori gin) 'Little Badger', only Tasciouanos implies that its bearer smote, slew, or overcame a badger .

In my article 'A Welsh Window on the Iron Age: Manawydan , Mandubracios' (= Koch 1987b), proposed on the basis of other evidence that the First and Third Branches could be understood as having arisen from a saga glorifying the dynasts of the Catuvellauni , the House of C unobelinos son of Tasciouanos (the successors of Cassiuellaunos > Caswa llawn) and discrediting the dynasty of the Trinovantian Mandubracios son of Imannuetios ( > Manawydan). The present interpretation of the source of the broch yg got episode, albeit tentative, would serve as a f urther point in support of the hypothesis of the Catuvellaunian origin . I am not the first writer to feel that the names Pwy/1 'Care, Sense' and Pryderi 'Anxiety' are somehow unsatisfactory and possibly intrusi ve (see Gruffydd 1950: JJff). It is in my opinion quite possible that the name Pwyll or iginated in the context of a primiti ve version of the surviving 'scrglige' episode in which the h~ro·s consciousness, for which the early word was pwy/1 = O lr. ciall. but not his body j ourneyed to the otherworld.

As W . J . Gruffydd (1950. pp. 106ff) pointed out , the episode in Pwyll in which Pryderi is named and his name explained is awkward and perhaps revea ls a seam in the o lder fabr ic of the tale. There can be no doubt that Pryderi reflects an OW spelling pri tcri. which could be the o lder spelling for the word 'anx iety' , but it could also represent Prile Ri wi th a suspension stroke for 11 , thus M od . Prydain Ri 'King of l3ritain' , corresponding exactly to the 'Britannorum Rex ' which Suetonius applied to Tasciouanos's son and successor Cunobelinos. That the idea of British High Kingship is well developed in the Welsh legend:1rv history of Britain is hardly little known. But it must

Gallo-Brittonic Tasc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 113

be emphasized that it was strongly present even in the pre-Galfridian tradition . Brim and Caswallawn hold this office in the Mabinogi . Hi stori a Brittomtm tells of Bellin us Rex Bri tannicus and the Chartres MS (older by a century or more than Historia regum Britanniae) has Casabellaunus .Rex Britannicus . We also have the statement in Historia Brittonu.m's 'Description of Britain' ( §8) - 'Sic in proverbio antiquo dicitllr , quando de iudici bus vel senna fit "iudi cavil Bri ttanniam cum tribus insulis"' - indicating the notion to have been traditional by c. 830. Going back further, the actual potentia of Cunobelinos was that of de facto king of Lowland Britain. As per the foregoing discussion, such phrases as brenhin coronawc ar yr ynys hon (PKM: 29) and Brenllin coronawc yn Llundein ( :45) may reflect an o ld concept. but cannot directly continue the actual wording of the title that Cunobelinos would have used for himself, the most obvious candidate being * Pritanon Ri xs 'Britannorum Rex', the exact precursor of OW * Prite[n J Ri, wrongly Pryderi . This hypothesis may be summarized as follows, taking note of the fact that Tasciouanos employed the epithet RIGONI 'of the di vine king' on his coinage and of my earlier suggestion thnt this Rigonos is the direct precursor of the T eirnon of the First Branch (Koch 1987b : 45ff) .

PWYLL (a) first man to play badger

in the bng

(b) beloved of Riannon < * Rigantona and T eirnon < *Tegernonos < Rigonos

PRYDERI < OW * Prite[n] Ri < *Pritanon Ri xs

TASC IOUANOS 'Badger-slayer, -smiter'

RIGONI '(elect) of Rigonos'

CUNOBELINOS Britannorum Rex < *Pritanon Rc xs)

I 14 J olzn T. Koch

Editorial Note This article was originally scheduled for inclusion in the Festschrift for T. Arwyn Watkins. published last year, but due to an oversight which was in no way the author's fault, the article was unfortunately omitted. Any reference to Professor Koch's subsequent publications referring to the contribution to the Watkin's Festschrift should be understood as citing this article.

Notes

I. An early version of this paper was read at the Sixth Harvard Celtic Colloquium in May, 1986. I thank John Carey . D . Simon Evans. Paul Jefferiss, Lionel Joseph and Calvert Watkins who have given useful comments either at that time or at subsequent stages in the preparation of the typescript.

This paper is dedicated to Professor T. Arwyn Watkins in recognition of his numerous contributions to the understanding of the Celtic languages.

2. In her recent valuable study. De Bernardo Stempel ( 1991: 42) has discussed the etymology of this name and. after reconsidering such alternatives for the first element as 'peg' or 'hard' , suggests a possible IE formation *tek 'p-ko- from the root *tek'p- 'weave. plait. fit together'. Allowing that the badger might have received his name as 'the builder (of his set)' or , less probably, for entering his burrow like a peg into a hole, this idea need not be inconsistent with the proposal advanced here; cf. Pokorny ( 1959: 1059). Her analysis of the second element, however , runs into some obstacles. -U a nos is not likely to go hack to Celtic *-manos 'den Sinn/Verstand .. . habend' < IE *m11Hos: ,J;Ilcn( ai­'think'. The Old Celtic and Old Welsh spellings consistently have -u-, which means 1-w-1. It would be (to my knowledge) wholly unparalleled to have / -w-/ < /-m-1 in intervocal position at a compositional boundary in these languages. We expect -111- here to lenite to / 1-.t/ and to be spelled m still in tenth-century Welsh. Furthermore, the second element in OW

Gallo-Brittonic T asc(i)ouanos 'Badger-slayer' 115

Cotman, Late Romano-British Catamanus (the Llangadw:-~ l ad r

Stone), is not comparable to our -uanos. T he former name is most probably the same as the Gaulish royal name Catumandus (DAG 83), which has -nd- ; cf. Williams (I 972: II). In all likelihood, it has the same element mandu- found in Mandttbracios, Cartiman.dua , etc. The diminuti ve · of Cadfan occurs three times in the Book of Aneirin , where it is always Catvannan with double -tzn- f rom < -nd-.

3. For a fuller discussion of the Indo-European poetic complex involved here , see Ca lvert Watkins ( 1987).

4 . In his most recent treatment of the inscription, Lambert ( 1987: 12) has accepted uediiu < * gw hedh(i )jo ( recte), setting aside his earlier interpretation ( 1979).

5. On the recent movement back to the view of a closely re lated Gaulish and Brittonic, see now Evans ( 1988: 220) .

6. On Archaic - G, OW -ui , -Qi, MW and Mod. -wy < Brit. -ejos/-eja, see Koch 1985-6: 46.

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