While some readers of medieval Arthurian romance may be familiar with the legendary figures of Lleu or King Loth, perhaps fewer will be aware of the existence of several key references to Loth in more ostensibly historically-oriented texts of the medieval period, not least those surrounding the family of the genuinely historical sixth/seventh century Saint Kentigern or Cyndeyrn (also known as Saint Mungo), the founder of the See of Glasgow.
According to the Cumbrian Anglo-Saxon monk, Jocelyn, writing in The Life of Saint Kentigern around 1180, Saint Kentigern was illegitimately born into Gododdin (Celtic Lothian) nobility at Dunpelder, an alternative name for the minor oppidum on Traprain Law in East Lothian. According to the story related by Jocelyn, Kentigern's mother converted to Christianity and prayed to God for a child through virgin birth, in emulation of Mary. Jocelyn says that she did indeed become pregnant, but was herself unaware of any carnal knowledge - more on this later. To return to the story, her father inevitably discovered the pregnancy and set upon applying the laws against illegitimacy:
— Jocelyn, The Life of Saint Kentigern, in Two Celtic Saints: The Lives of Ninian and Kentigern (Llanerch, 1989), p.36 & 38.
Jocelyn then goes on to say that she was miraculously unhurt, but that her father then ordered that she be cast adrift on the sea. Again, her Christian faith saved her, and she came ashore "at a place called Culenros" (modern Culross) where Kentigern is said to have been raised and educated by Saint Servanus at the latter's foundation there.
Jocelyn gives the name of Kentigern's mother as Taneu (Thenew, who is also commemorated as St. Enoch). Kentigern's father's name is unknown, since his identity was unknown to the mother, but Jocelyn states that the maternal grandfather was "a certain king, most Pagan in his creed". Clearly, this king is a Gododdin (Lothian) king, with his capital at Traprain Law, but, unfortunately, Jocelyn fails to name him. However, in accounting for Taneu's apparently divine conception of Kentigern in a virgin birth (a claim which would have constituted heresy), Jocelyn cites the story of the Lot as given in the Bible:
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.
— Genesis Chapter 19.
No doubt this literary allusion by Jocelyn is intended to give a biblical air to Kentigern's origins, although an incest story seems an odd one to achieve an impression of sanctity, despite the remarkably non-moralising way in which the story is related. Nonetheless, Jocelyn does specifically cite it, as a means of diluting Taneu's apparently blasphemous comparison of Kentigern's birth with the Virgin Birth on the one hand, but also as a means of excusing Taneu's carnal crime by means of a psychological explanation:
— Jocelyn, The Life of Saint Kentigern, in Two Celtic Saints: The Lives of Ninian and Kentigern (Llanerch, 1989), p.34-35.
Is it possible that the later claims that Kentigern's grandfather was none other than King Loth can be explained by a misreading or mis-memorisation of this passage?
The story is later related, with the grandfather's name, in the Sprouston Breviary, a Scottish plainchant manuscript from c.1300 which contains a large number of holy songs in honour of St. Kentigern. According to a Lectio from this manuscript:
— Sprouston Breviary, own translation.
And in the anonymous C12th Life of Saint Kentigern, commissioned by Bishop Herbert, the scribe relates a story that about a mile to the South of Dunpelder, King Loth was killed by a swineherd. Here, a stone was erected to commemorate his death, originally with a small carved stone on top (now lost), known to this day as the Loth Stane.
One is tempted to think that, in pagan times, this stone would have been associated with the cult of Lleu. But, as with much of ancient mythology of Lothian, we will probably never know!
In another Scottish religious text, the Aberdeen Breviary, composed mainly by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, and first published in 1509, the story from the Sprouston Breviary is repeated, but with the additional information that Kentigern's father was one Eugenius, a king of Cumbria. However, in the medieval period "Cumbria" or "Cambria" can mean nearly the entire Brythonic area of the Old North (and sometimes Wales, too), and not just the modern English region of Cumberland.
In all of this, then, we have another historical (or pseudo-historical) version of a King Loth in Lothian, but also given a specific location as his capital - Traprain Law. But whether or not Jocelyn's reference to the biblical Lot created the later assumptions of the Brythonic King Loth as Kentigern's grandfather is a valid question! However, the narrative of Jocelyn in particular is given specific historical content with its reference to the king of Strathclyde who was in place during Kentigern's mission there to Glasgow - namely, one Rederech, known to the Welsh annalists as Rhydderch Hael or Hen. All of this would place King Loth historically at some point in the C6th AD, the contemporary of such North Brythonic kings as Urien ap Owein, who also figures in many of the medieval Arthurian tales. In this, it would seem that the Arthurian legends of King Loth link once more into known history, suggesting at least some factual basis to a King Loth of Lothian.