The figures beneath each entry give reference numbers for the Bibliography
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Son of Fachtna and Nessa; proclaimed King of Ulster in preference to Fergus. CuChulain brought up at court of Conor mac Nessa. Grants arms of manhood to CuChulain. While at a feast on Strand of the Footprints he describes Connla. His ruse to put CuChulain under restraint. - His guards seize Naisi and Deirdre. Suffers pangs of the Debility curse. The curse lifted, and he summons Ulster to arms. Christian ideas have gathered about end of Conor. His death caused by Conall's 'brain ball'. He figures in tale entitled THE CARVING OF MAC DATHO'S BOAR; he sends to mac Datho for his hound. See also: CONCHOBAR MAC NESSA.
# 562
A bishop who unsuccessfully charged Merlin with heresy.
# 156 - 238
The wife of King Ban and mother of Lancelot in Italian romance.
# 156 - 238
In Geoffrey of Monmouth, he was the son of King Constantine of Britain and brother of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther. This makes him Arthur's uncle. When Constantine died, Vortigern persuaded Constans to become king. He had first to leave the monastery in which he had immured himself. He was only a puppet king and eventually Vortigern brought about his assassination by Picts. In French romance he is called Moine but this word merely signifies a monk. See: IVOINE.
# 156
# 156:
1. Arthur's grandfather. The brother of Aldroenus, King of Brittany, he was made King of Britain and had three sons, Constans, Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther. He was stabbed to death by a Pict. In Welsh genealogies Constantine is given a father called Kynnvor while, according to Gallet, his father was King Solomon of Brittany. It has been suggested that the original of Constantine was the Roman emperor Constantine III (ruled AD 407-11). He was an ordinary soldier who was made emperor by the Roman troops in Britain, despite the fact that there was a Roman Emperor of the West, called Honorius, ruling at the time. Constantine landed in Gaul and established himself at Arles, his son Constans leaving a monastery to join him, just as, according to Geoffrey 'Constans, son of Constantine, left his monastery to become King of Britain' (See CONSTANS). One of Constantine's subordinates, Gerontius, then rebelled and threw off Constantine's rule. Gerontius defeated and killed Constans. Constantine, however, like Maximus, was led on to intervene unsuccessfully and fatally in Italy itself, and he was compelled to surrender with another of his sons to the forces of Honorius, and both suffered execution in the summer of AD 411. If Arthur indeed died in AD 542, this Constantine lived too early to be the grandfather of the historical Arthur; but, if he lived earlier, the relationship is not impossible.
2. Historically, a sixth-century King of Dumnonia. In Arthurian romance, he was Arthur's cousin, son of Cador of Cornwall who succeeded him as King of Britain. The sons of Mordred rebelled against him, but Constantine defeated them. He killed them separately, each before an altar where he was seeking santuary.
See: ALDROENUS. # 562: Arthur confers his kingdom on Constantine.
# 156 - 232 - 243 - 562
Formerly called Byzantium, this city was renamed after Constantine the Great. At the time when the Roman Empire was divided into two, Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. Emperors who ruled there in the traditional Arthurian period were Honorius (AD 395-423), Marcian (AD 450-57), Leo I (AD 457-74), Leo II (AD 474), Zeno (AD 474-75 and again 476- 91), Basilicus (AD 475-76), Anastasius I (AD 491-518), Justus I (AD 518-27) and Justinian I (AD 527-67). Geoffrey says that the Byzantine emperor contemporary with Arthur was Leo, and G. Ashe identifies him with Leo I. In CLIGÉS, the imperial family of Constantinople is showing its kinship with Lot of Lothian. In PEREDUR (see MABINOGION) the Empress of Constantinople was the paramour of Peredur (Perceval) with whom she was said to have dwelt for fourteen years. She had previously aided him by giving him a stone which rendered him invisible to the afanc. In FLORIANT ET FLORETE the Emperor is Filimenis.
# 156 - 237 - 272 - 346
See: GRAIL.
A demoniac race called Coranians, harass land of Britain.
# 562
The castle of the Grail Kings. The name possibly derives from the words 'Corps Benit' (Blessed Body), and has been seen as one of the riddles of the Grail.
# 454 - 461
Son of Renoart and Morgan (consequently Arthur's nephew) in BATAILLE LOQUIFER (an obscure medieval romance which also contains a few Arthurian references).
# 156
He was born Conall mac Luigthig and was fostered by a witch, Fedelm. During a ritual, his ear became magically singed and so he was called Corc or red. He was fostered by Crimthann, his cousin, who sent Corc to the King of the Picts with a secret ogham message on his shield, implying that the King kill the bearer. However, a scolar, whom Corc had rescued from slavery, altered the characters so that they bore a favourable meaning. Corc was welcomed and married the Pictish king's daughter. He returned home after his cousin's death and founded a dynasty of his own at Femhen. Shortly afterwards he discovered the site of his descendant's royal fortress, Cashel. Beleaguered in a snowstorm, he beheld a vision of a yew-bush growing over a stone and angels going up and down before it. His druids told him that whoever kindled a fire on that stone should be king of Munster forever. So Corc founded the dynasty of the Munster Eoghanacht or People of the Yew. See also: CRIMTHANN.
# 454
Landing of Ith and his ninety warriors at Corcadyna in Ireland.
# 562
Youngest daughter of King Lear. She refused to flatter her father and was wed to Aganipus, King of the Franks, without a dowry. She later received her father when he had been beggared and outcast by her elder sisters Goneril and Regan. She became Queen of Britain after his death. In earliest Celtic legend she is Creuddylad, daughter of Llyr. Her sisters' husbands captured her and she committed suicide in prison. Her story is similar to the folk-heroine, Cap-O-Rushes. Shakespeare reworked the legend in KING LEAR.
# 243 - 454
He accompanied Brutus as leader of the second group of Trojans. He was given Cornwall as his province and wrestled with the giant GogMagog.
# 243 - 454
(c"r'moc ul'fa da) 1. Cormac Ulfada, son of Art, grandson of Conn CetCathach. High King of Ireland; King Cormac was supposed to have heard of Christian faith long before it was preached in Ireland by St Patrick ordered that he should not be buried at the royal cemetery by the Boyne, on account of its pagan associations. Finn and Cormac feasted at Rath Grania; See also: CORMAC MAC ART. 2. Son of Lactighe. King of Ulster, 48 BC; grandfather of Conaire Mor; marries Etain Oig; puts her away owing to her barrenness; 3. Cormac Connlonges (con'lung yes) Son of (Conchobar) Conor mac Nessa who went into voluntary exile in Connacht after the killing of the sons of Usnech, for whom he was one of the sureties; rallies to Maev's foray against Ulster. See also: CORMAC COND LONGES.
# 166 - 562
The son of Conchobar mac Nessa. He was exiled because his championship of Fergus mac Roigh at the treachery of Conchobar's slaying of the sons of Usna. As Conchobar lay dying, he asked his son to return and become king. Despite a prophecy warning of the possible outcome, Cormac went. During his stay at a hostel, Craiftine played his harp so soothingly that Cormac slept and was overpowered by soldiers.
# 208 - 454
Son of Art and grandson of Conn Cet Chathach. He was stolen by a shewolf and raised as one of her cubs. He was recognized as Art's son because of his perceptive judgements in a case of litigation. He restored Tara to its former greatness. He visited Tir Tairngire where he was given the silver branch of Manannan. While there he encountered the cup of truth. If three falsehoods were said over it it broke, but if three truths were said over it it reunited. He was the father of Grainne, wife of Finn mac Cumhail, whom he appointed chief of his warband or Fianna. He died choking on a salmon-bone. He is credited with being an early Christian, refusing burial at the usual cemetery of Bruig na Boinne (the river Boyne), but being buried upright with his face to the East. His great wisdom caused him to be called the Irish Solomon.
# 166 - 188 - 454
Many strange births appear in the Cycles of the Kings. According to O' Grady's SILVA GADELICA, this is how Cormac mac Art was born. Before the battle against Lugaid Mac Con, in which he was slain, Art son of Conn of the Hundred Victories spent the night as guest of a smith named Olc Acha. It had been prophesied that a great honour would derive from the smith and he asked Art to lie with his daughter &#Eacute;tain that night. This he did and Cormac was conceived. Before departing to the battle in which he knew he would die, Art instructed Étain to take the child to be fostered by his friend Lugna in Connacht. When her time drew near Étain set out for Lugna's house so that the child might be born there, but as soon as she arrived in that country her pain took her and she gave birth to her son on a bed of brushwood collected by her maid. Thunder boomed, and Lugna on hearing it exclaimed: 'Noise - thunder - birth of king', and realizing that it was Cormac that was born he set forth to seek him. Meanwhile, Étain went to sleep, leaving the child in the care of her maid. But the maid also fell asleep and a she-wolf came and carried the child away and thereafter brought him up with her whelps in a cave. Lugna found the distraught mother, took her home, and offered a reward for a clue to the infant's whereabouts. One day a man named Grec chanced upon the cave, and in front of it he saw a child on all fours amidst gambolling wolf-cubs. The child, together with the cubs, was brought to Lugna's house and Lugna hailed him as Conn's victorious representative. He named him Cormac, which was in accordance with Art's instructions.
# 504 - 548
King Cormac, the hero of the narrative with the title 'Cormac's adventures in the Land of Promise,' which is brought in Cross' and Slover's ANCIENT IRISH TALES, was the son of Art. The piece is not a single unified story; it is a collection of narratives based on an ancient account of various legal ordeals, and later expanded into a story of a visit to the fairy world. Here, as in other stories from the same selection, we see illustrated the strong tendency toward moralizing and social criticism exhibited by Irish literature of the middle period. These stories, of course, are not told entirely for the purpose of expounding the legal or social ideas to which they refer; they merely capitalize upon an already established interest and follow the usual Irish literary habit of furnishing a narrative to explain every well-known fact.
# 166
The realm of King Mark. Actually, in Arthurian times, part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, though it is not impossible that someone called Mark ruled territory within this kingdom. # 156
Now at Westminster Abbey, is the famous Stone of Scone; The LIA FAIL and Coronation Stone.
# 562
Poet at court of King Bres.
# 562
The Cymric Cosmogony. God and Cythrawl, standing for life and destruction in Cymric cosmogony. See also: BARDDAS.
# 562
(1859-1943) Advocate of calendar reform; originator and director of International Fixed Calendar League. He lived in the village of Acomb in Northumberland. His work was instrumental in forming many of the notions connected with the modern view of stone circles and related lore. Cotsworth's main interest was calendrical form, attempting to persuade people to move from the complex modern calendrical system of 12 months per year to one of 13 months of 28 days each, plus the last day of June in each year as the yearday. (He was appointed expert to League of Nations committee on calendar reform (1922-31). In the course of researching the background to these reforms in such places as Egypt and the Middle East, he began to conceive of the hidden purpose of the stone circles and standing stones as calendrical markers and regulators of a particular kind, and almost incidentally offered some useful insights into the design of the mysterious 'Clog Calendar', which was widely used in ancient times for measuring the passage of the days and relating these to the festivals. Many of Cotsworth's notions are widely accepted today, but when he first published his findings, in his remarkable book THE RATIONAL ALMANAC, he was laughed to scorn. Among his more interesting proposals was the recognition that the degree of 360 divisions of a circle was derived from the lunarwidth measurement of a sunrise/sunset arc at the latitude of the pyramids. He took the moon's vertical diameter of 31', and divided this into the tropical arc (the variation between solstice points) of 46 minutes and 54 seconds to obtain 90 links or lunar (31') repetitions, which he proposed was the earliest method of measuring sky curves and angles and from which eventually developed the notion of there being 4 x 90' divisions in the entire circle of the sky. He showed that the central tower of the Minster at York was orientated in such a way as to reflect the sunrise/sunset on the longest and shortest days thus, for example, the shortest day sunrise (December 22nd) is on the SE corner of the tower, while the sunset is on the SW corner. He developed notions of Silbury Hill as a sighting point for calendrical measurements, and saw the construction of this extraordinary mound as being done for much the same purposes as the pyramids. For more on Cotsworth, see also: CLOG CALENDAR and STONEHENGE.
# 702
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