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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.
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Rhiainfellt, name variants including Rieinmelt and Rieinmelth, was a British princess of the royal house of the kingdom of Rheged, a part of the Hen Ogledd. Her name means "Lightning Maiden" or "Lightning Queen" in Old Welsh. She was a wife of Oswiu, King of Northumbria.
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
- ↑ The Poems of Taliesin, ed. by Ifor Williams, trans. by J. E. Caerwyn Williams, Medieval and Modern Welsh Series, 3 (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968).
- ↑ Mike McCarthy, 'The Kingdom of Rheged: A Landscape Perspective', Northern History, 48 (2011), 9–22 (p. 14), doi : 10.1179/174587011x12928631621159.
- ↑ Andrew Breeze, 'The Names of Rheged', Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 86 (2012), 51-63 (p. 62).
- ↑ Cf. Andrew Breeze, 'Yrechwydd and the River Ribble', Northern History, 47 (2010), 319–28, doi : 10.1179/007817210x12738429860905.
- ↑ Cf. Andrew breeze, 'Lancashire and the British Kingdom of Rheged', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 167 (2018), 1–19, doi : 10.3828/transactions.167.3
- ↑ As edited by Mary Jones on the basis of The Book of Taliesin, ed. by J. Gwenogvryn Evans (Llanbedrog, 1910).
- ↑ The Triumph Tree: Scotland's Earliest Poetry, AD 550–1350, ed. by Thomas Owen Clancy (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998), pp. 80-81.