Gwallog ap Llênog: Difference between revisions

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'''Gwallog ap Llaennog''' (several [[Middle Welsh]] variant orthographies include '''Gwallawc fab Lleynawc''' ; standard [[Welsh language|Welsh]] : ''Gwallog ap Llëenog'' or ''Llëynog'') was a hero of the [[Hen Ogledd]]. He has long been considered anda probable 6thsixth-century king of the [[Sub-Roman Britain|sub-Roman]] state of [[Elmet]] in the [[Leeds]] area of modern [[Yorkshire]], though more recent scholarship would identify him more tentatively simply as a 'king of an unidentified region in the north'.<ref>Thomas Owen Clancy (ed.), ''The Triumph Tree; Scotland's Earliest Poetry, AD 550-1350'' (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998), p. 14.</ref>

==Life==

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Thus it appears that Gwallog joined a group of [[Britons (historical)|Brittonic]] kings, including [[Urien|Urien Rheged]], [[Riderch I of Alt Clut|Rhydderch Hael]] and [[Morcant Bulc|Morgant Bwlch]] of [[Bryneich]], in an attempt to defeat the [[Angles]] of [[Bernicia]]. This endeavour failed after Urien was slain.

Gwallog is the addressee of two poems in the [[Book of Taliesin]] which [[Ifor Williams]] identified on linguistic and historical grounds as (in part) plausibly originating in the sixth century, and possibly being genuine praise-poems addressed to Gwallog.<ref>''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), pp. xi-xii, 12-15; the poems are XI and XII in Williams's numbering. Translated in Thomas Owen Clancy (ed.), ''The Triumph Tree; Scotland's Earliest Poetry, AD 550-1350'' (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998), pp. 91-93.</ref> These afford some evidence that Gwallog was a king of [[Elmet]].<ref>''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), p. lvii.</ref> If so, he was apparently succeeded by [[Ceretic of Elmet|Ceredig]], the last king of Elmet, who was deposed by [[Edwin of Northumbria|St. Edwin]] of [[Northumbria|Deira]]; this would be consistent with the appearance of a 'Ceretic, son of Gwallawg' in one of the [[Welsh Triads]]. However, as evidence for sixth-century historical realities, this evidence is very tenuous.<ref>Tim Clarkson, 'The ''Gododdin'' Revisited', ''The Heroic Age'', 1 (1999), http://www.heroicage.org/issues/1/hatf.htm.</ref>

The somewhat later cycle of Middle Welsh poems associated with [[Llywarch Hen]] suggests that Gwallog later made war against Urien's former kingdom of [[Rheged]] in concert with [[Dunod Fawr]] of the [[Pennines|Northern Pennines]], attacking Urien's sons. Here, Gwallog is given the epithet ''Marchog Trin'', meaning "battle horseman".<ref>''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), pp. lviii-lix.</ref> Again, this poetry probably tells us more about later legends of Gwallog than any sixth-century history.