Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio

Gwenddoleu fab Ceidiaw [ va ː gwen'ðolei b ' keidjau ], also Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, († 573 ) was a king britonischer from the region of Arfderydd, a few miles north of Carlisle. He was by Welsh mythology, the lord and patron of the poet Myrddin Lailoken ( Merlin).

Life

In the post-Roman period Britain ruled Gwenddoleu in Arfderydd near the Hadrian's rampart. The place Carwinley to have been the site of his castle Caer Wenddolau ( Gwenddoleu 's castle ).

According to tradition Gwenddoleu was either an usurper or a true descendant of Coel Hen, the ruler of Hen Ogledd in Southern Scotland along the Roman frontier to the north. About his rule almost nothing is handed down, only his death at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573 CE, is mentioned in the Annales Cambriae. That was one of the many battles of Briton kings to rule over the former Roman Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman legions in 410 AD

Merlin Legend

Gwenddoleu does not occur in the Arthurian legends, but his advisor Myrddin was a literary model for the figure of Merlin in later Arthurian romance. In the Vita Merlini of Geoffrey of Monmouth is said that Myrddin Lailoken mitkämpfte in battle, at the sight of Gwenddoleus ' death went mad and fled into the Caledonian Forest, where he continued to live as a hermit. Also in the Trioedd Ynys Prydein ( " The Triads of the Island of Britain " ) is mentioned several times this battle, which apparently played an important role in the Welsh tradition. Here he is again named as one of the "three true hosts of the Island of Britain " in another triad of the three fighting bulls of the island of Britain. However, these texts have been lost and only from passages in other reports rudimentary reconstructed. Also in the Englynion y Clyweid ( " The sayings of the wise " ), he is called.