Calchfynydd

Last updated

Calchfynydd (Welsh calch "lime" + mynydd "mountain") was an obscure Britonnic kingdom or sub-kingdom of sub-Roman Britain. Its exact location is unknown and virtually nothing certain is known about it.

The name survives in the epithet of Cadrawd Calchfynydd, apparently a 6th-century ruler of the district. Welsh sources refer to Cadrawd as one of the Gwyr y Gogledd or 'Men of the North', suggesting the area was located somewhere in northern Britain. William Forbes Skene suggested an identification with Kelso (formerly Calchow) in southern Scotland and Rachel Bromwich agrees that a location somewhere in the Hen Ogledd is most likely. [1] Alistair Moffat in his history of Kelso supports this position, citing early references to "Chalchou," as well as the chalk area and Chalkheugh Terrace. [2] John Morris placed it south of the realm of Urien of Rheged. [3] Hills of lime or chalk might refer to the Cotswolds or Chilterns.

Presumed rulers in the line of Cadrawd

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camelot</span> Castle and court associated with King Arthur

Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rheged</span> Sub-Roman kingdom of Northern Britain

Rheged was one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, the Brittonic-speaking region of what is now Northern England and southern Scotland, during the post-Roman era and Early Middle Ages. It is recorded in several poetic and bardic sources, although its borders are not described in any of them. A recent archaeological discovery suggests that its stronghold was located in what is now Galloway in Scotland rather than, as was previously speculated, being in Cumbria. Rheged possibly extended into Lancashire and other parts of northern England. In some sources, Rheged is intimately associated with the king Urien Rheged and his family. Its inhabitants spoke Cumbric, a Brittonic dialect closely related to Old Welsh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida of Bernicia</span> King of Bernicia

Ida is the first known king of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which he ruled from around 547 until his death in 559. Little is known of his life or reign, but he was regarded as the founder of a line from which later Anglo-Saxon kings in this part of northern England and southern Scotland claimed descent. His descendants overcame Brittonic resistance and ultimately founded the powerful kingdom of Northumbria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coel Hen</span> Sub-Roman king in Northern Britain

Coel, also called Coel Hen and King Cole, is a figure prominent in Welsh literature and legend since the Middle Ages. Early Welsh tradition knew of a Coel Hen, a c. 4th-century leader in Roman or Sub-Roman Britain and the progenitor of several kingly lines in Yr Hen Ogledd, a region of the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now northern England and southern Scotland.

Cassivellaunus was a historical British military leader who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC. He led an alliance of tribes against Roman forces, but eventually surrendered after his location was revealed to Julius Caesar by defeated Britons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peredur</span>

Peredur is the name of a number of men from the boundaries of history and legend in sub-Roman Britain. The Peredur who is most familiar to a modern audience is the character who made his entrance as a knight in the Arthurian world of Middle Welsh prose literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welsh Triads</span> Group of related texts in medieval manuscripts

The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness; for example, "Three things not easily restrained, the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool."

Constantine was a 6th-century king of Dumnonia in sub-Roman Britain, who was remembered in later British tradition as a legendary King of Britain. The only contemporary information about him comes from Gildas, who castigated him for various sins, including the murder of two "royal youths" inside a church. The historical Constantine is also known from the genealogies of the Dumnonian kings, and possibly inspired the tradition of Saint Constantine, a king-turned-monk venerated in Southwest Britain and elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelso, Scottish Borders</span> Market town in the Scottish borders

Kelso is a market town in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Roxburghshire, it lies where the rivers Tweed and Teviot have their confluence. The town has a population of 5,639 according to the 2011 census and based on the 2010 definition of the locality.

Sawyl Penuchel or Ben Uchel, also known as Samuil Penisel, was a British king of the sub-Roman period, who appears in old Welsh genealogies and the Welsh Triads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwenhwyfach</span>

Gwenhwyfach was a sister of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) in medieval Welsh Arthurian legend. The tradition surrounding her is preserved in fragmentary form in two Welsh Triads and the Mabinogi tale of Culhwch and Olwen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hen Ogledd</span> Area of northern Britain, c. 500 to c. 800

Yr Hen Ogledd, or in English the Old North, is the historical region that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the Celtic Kingdom of Elmet. Its population spoke a variety of the Brittonic language known as Cumbric which is closely related to, if not a dialect of Old Welsh. The people of Wales and the Hen Ogledd considered themselves to be one people, and both were referred to as Cymry ('fellow-countrymen') from the Brittonic word combrogi. The Hen Ogledd was distinct from the parts of North Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Scoti.

<span title="Welsh-language text"><i lang="cy">Cantrer Gwaelod</i></span> Legendary sunken kingdom west of Wales

Cantre'r Gwaelod, also known as Cantref Gwaelod or Cantref y Gwaelod, is a legendary ancient sunken kingdom said to have occupied a tract of fertile land lying between Ramsey Island and Bardsey Island in what is now Cardigan Bay to the west of Wales. It has been described as a "Welsh Atlantis" and has featured in folklore, literature, and song.

Celliwig, Kelliwic or Gelliwic is perhaps the earliest named location for the court of King Arthur. It may be translated as 'forest grove'.

Pen Rhionydd is named as the location of King Arthur's northern court in a Welsh triad found in Peniarth MS 54, containing pre-Galfridian traditions:

Arthur as Chief Prince in Pen Rhionydd in the North, and Gerthmwl Wledig as Chief Elder, and Cyndeyrn Garthwys as Chief Bishop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manaw Gododdin</span>

Manaw Gododdin was the narrow coastal region on the south side of the Firth of Forth, part of the Brythonic-speaking Kingdom of Gododdin in the post-Roman Era. It is notable as the homeland of Cunedda prior to his conquest of North Wales, and as the homeland of the heroic warriors in the literary epic Y Gododdin. Pressed by the Picts expanding southward and the Northumbrians expanding northward, it was permanently destroyed in the 7th century and its territory absorbed into the then-ascendant Kingdom of Northumbria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scotland during the Roman Empire</span> Aspect of Scottish history

Scotland during the Roman Empire refers to the protohistorical period during which the Roman Empire interacted within the area of modern Scotland. Despite sporadic attempts at conquest and government between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, most of modern Scotland, inhabited by the Caledonians and the Maeatae, was not incorporated into the Roman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aeron (kingdom)</span>

Aeron was a kingdom of the Brythonic-speaking Hen Ogledd, presumed to have been located in the region of the River Ayr in what is now southwestern Scotland. It existed during the post-Roman era, perhaps earlier, and disappeared before or during the 7th-century conquest of the region by the ascendant Kingdom of Northumbria.

Talhaearn Tad Awen, was, according to medieval Welsh sources, a celebrated British poet of the sub-Roman period. He ranks as one of the earliest, if not the earliest, named poets to have composed and performed in Welsh. The better known poets Aneirin and Taliesin, who may have been slightly younger contemporaries, also belong to this early generation, the first of those known to modern scholars as the Cynfeirdd. Whereas medieval Welsh manuscripts preserve verse composed by or otherwise ascribed to the latter two figures, no such work survives for Talhaearn and in fact, his former fame seems to have largely vanished by the later Middle Ages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eidyn</span> Region around Edinburgh

Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods, approximately the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle, and apparently included much of the area below the Firth of Forth. It was the most important district of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin, and a significant power in the Hen Ogledd, or Old North, the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now southern Scotland and northern England.

References

  1. Rachel Bromwich. (1961. rev 1990). Trioedd Ynys Prydein. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 325
  2. Moffat, Alistair (1985), Kelsae: A History of Kelso from Earliest Times, Mainstream, ISBN   0-906391-93-8
  3. J. Morris, Age of Arthur: a history of the British Isles from 350 to 650 (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1973), 211 232.