Royal Wales

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Deborah Fisher. Royal Wales

Royal Wales

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ROYAL WALES

Family Trees

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The land and people of Manaw Gododdin, immortalized in a poem (one of the earliest in the Welsh language) attributed to the bard Aneirin, is thought to have been located in the region of modern-day Clackmannanshire. In around 600, its leaders fought the Angles at a place referred to as ‘Catraeth’ in the north of England, tentatively identified as Catterick in North Yorkshire. Aneirin’s poem influenced later royal bards, such as the prince-poet Owain Cyfeiliog (c.1130–97), not to mention Dafydd Benfras, whose works in praise of Llywelyn Fawr (c.1173–1240) draw heavily on the same tradition.

The evidence for Cunedda’s existence is largely circumstantial; for that of his sons, even more so. According to legend, he had eight or nine of these, including such familiar names as Meirion and Ceredig, and Cunedda’s kingdom was shared between them. Historians tend to believe that at least some of the names of Cunedda’s sons were invented by later generations to give greater credibility to dynastic claims on the territories in question, particularly Ceredigion.

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