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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.
Taliesin was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings.
Aneirin[aˈnɛirɪn] or Neirin was an early Medieval Brythonic war poet. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland. From the 17th century, he was usually known as Aneurin.
Owain mab Urien was the son of Urien, king of Rheged c. 590, and fought with his father against the Angles of Bernicia. The historical figure of Owain became incorporated into the Arthurian cycle of legends where he is also known as Ywain, Yvain, Ewain or Uwain. In his legendary guise he is the main character in Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and the Welsh Romance Owain, or the Lady of the Fountain, which corresponds to Chrétien's poem.
The Book of Taliesin is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before.
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth in about AD 600. It is traditionally ascribed to the bard Aneirin and survives only in one manuscript, the Book of Aneirin.
The Book of Aneirin is a late 13th century Welsh manuscript containing Old and Middle Welsh poetry attributed to the late 6th century Northern Brythonic poet, Aneirin, who is believed to have lived in present-day Scotland.
Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to the works of the 16th century.
Urien, often referred to as Urien Rheged or Uriens, was a late 6th-century king of Rheged, an early British kingdom of the Hen Ogledd. His power and his victories, including the battles of Gwen Ystrad and Alt Clut Ford, are celebrated in the praise poems to him by Taliesin, preserved in the Book of Taliesin. He became the "King Urien of Gorre" of later Arthurian legend and his son Owain mab Urien was later known as Ywain.
Yr Hen Ogledd, in English the Old North, is the historical region which is now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages. 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.
Llywarch Hen, was a prince and poet of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a ruling family in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain. Along with Taliesin, Aneirin, and Myrddin, he is held to be one of the four great bards of early Welsh poetry. Whether he actually wrote the poems attributed to him is unknown, and most of what is known about his life is derived from early medieval poems which may or may not be historically accurate.
Gwallog ap Lleenog was a hero of the Hen Ogledd. He has long been considered a probable sixth-century king of the sub-Roman state of Elmet in the Leeds area of modern Yorkshire, though some more recent scholarship would identify him more tentatively simply as a 'king of an unidentified region in the north'.
The Battle of Catraeth was fought around AD 600 between a force raised by the Gododdin, a Brythonic people of the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain, and the Angles of Bernicia and Deira. It was evidently an assault by the Gododdin party on the Angle stronghold of Catraeth, perhaps Catterick, North Yorkshire. The Gododdin force was said to have consisted of warriors from all over the Hen Ogledd, and even some from as far afield as Gwynedd in North Wales and Pictland. The battle was disastrous for the Britons, who were nearly all killed. The slain warriors were commemorated in the important early poem Y Gododdin, attributed to Aneirin.
Clydno Eidyn was a ruler of Eidyn, the district around modern Edinburgh, in the 6th century. Eidyn was a district of the Gododdin kingdom in the Hen Ogledd, or "Old North", the Brittonic-speaking parts of Northern England and southern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. Clydno became a figure in Welsh tradition.
Mynyddog Mwynfawr was, according to Welsh tradition founded on the early Welsh language poem Y Gododdin, a Brittonic ruler of the kingdom of Gododdin in the Hen Ogledd.
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.
The Battle of Argoed Llwyfain was fought between the forces of the Kingdom of Rheged under the command of Urien and Owain mab Urien and the forces of the Kingdom of Bernicia under Fflamddwyn . Most of what is known about the battle comes from the early Welsh poem Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain by the poet and bard Taliesin. Supposedly on one Saturday, Fflamddwyn had surrounded the seat of power within Rheged and demanded that King Urien submit and provide hostages. Urien's son Owain used the memory of his ancestor Ceneu son of Coel and denied giving hostages. Urien then stirred his men and fighting began. In the ensuing combat Fflamddwyn was slain, temporarily freeing Rheged of the Anglian menace.
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.
Urien Yrechwydd is a late Old Welsh or Middle Welsh heroic poem found uniquely in the Book of Taliesin. It is among those poems in the manuscript thought by Ifor Williams possibly to have originated as part of a sixth-century corpus of Canu Taliesin, a series of poems really composed by the semi-legendary sixth-century court poet of Rheged, Taliesin.
The House of Rheged or the House of Rhun was an informal royal dynasty who ruled in the brittonic Kingdom of Rheged. The line is traced back to Coel Hen whose descendants are often referred to as the Coeling. The dynasty includes Urien, King of Rheged and his son Sir Ywain a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend.
References
- ↑ Williams 1968, p. 41. Various locations have been proposed for Gwen Ystrad by early commentators — e.g. Winsterdale near Windermere, valley of the Gala Water (Skene) and Wensleydale (Camden) — but these are no more than speculations. Williams 1968, p. 31.
- ↑ Koch 1997, p. xxvi-xxix; Isaac 1998, p. 69, citing Morris-Jones, "Taliesin." Y Cymmrodor.
- ↑ Williams 1968, pp. 38-9.
- ↑ Isaac 1998, pp. 69-70.
- ↑ Koch 1997, pp. xxvi-xxx.
- ↑ Koch 1997, p. xxvi.
- ↑ Isaac 1998, p. 69.
- ↑ Isaac 1998, pp. 69-70.
- ↑ Isaac 1998, p. 69.
- ↑ The Triumph Tree: Scotland's Earliest Poetry, AD 550–1350, ed. by Thomas Owen Clancy (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998), pp. 79-80.
Sources
- Clancy, Joseph P. The Earliest Welsh Poetry. London, 1970.
- Isaac, G.R. "Gweith Gwen Ystrat and the Northern Heroic Age of the Sixth Century." Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 36 (Winter 1998): 61-70.
- Koch, John T. The Gododdin of Aneirin. Text and Context in Dark-Age North Britain. Cardiff and Andover, MA, 1997.
- Williams, Ifor, Sir (tr. J.E. Caerwyn Williams). The Poems of Taliesin. Mediaeval and Modern Welsh Series 3. Dublin: DIAS, 1968. Originally published in Welsh as Canu Taliesin. Cardiff, 1960.