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Gwallog ap Llênog

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Gwallog (Old Welsh: Guallauc) was possibly a sixth-century ruler of Elfed, a region in the wider area memorialised in later Welsh literature as the Hen Ogledd. The evidence for his existence survives entirely from two poems of spurious date and several other references in semi-legendary genealogy and literature well beyond his era. If this later material is to be believed, he was a member of the Coeling, a family which is supposed to have been prominent across several kingdoms in northern Britain in the sixth century. He is probably best remembered for his role in the Historia Brittonum as an ally of Urien Rheged. As with many figures of this period, he attracted much interest in later Welsh literature.

Life

Our only possibly contemporary source for Gwallog's life comes from two Middle Welsh poems honouring him attributed to Taliesin by modern scholarship.[1] Though both poems survive in a fourteenth-century manuscript, one of the poems may date to Gwallog's period based on an archaic feature of the text.[2] The first poem is a praise to Gwallog, and the second is an elegy memorialising him after his burial. There is very little biographical information in either of these poems, as they reference places and figures about which no corroborating evidence survives, neither contemporaneously or in later sources. Nevertheless, it is said that Gwallog fought in battles all around northern Britain, against Gwynedd, Strathclyde, and the Picts.[3] The second poem to him, his elegy, calls him the son of Llenog, and yields a connection to Elfed, since he is called ygnat ac (read ar) eluet 'judge over Elfed'.[4] Nothing is said about his manner or cause of death.

Harleian Genealogies and the Historia Brittonum

The genealogies from Harley MS 3859 (c. 850-950 AD), primarily concerned with northern Brythonic dynasties, give Gwallog's patrilineal descent as 'Gwallog son of Llenog son of Maeswig Gloff son of Cenau son of Coel Hen'.[5] That Coel was truly the progenitor of all these dynasties, however, is a matter of ongoing academic debate, since the only testimonies of this common descent are from texts written in Wales hundreds of years after the kingdoms they represent disappear from the historical record.[6] Next to nothing is known about Gwallog's father Llenog, who may have founded a (possibly monastic) settlement called Llanllennog, the location of which is entirely unknown.[7]

The other document of historical interest found in Harley MS 3859 is the Historia Brittonum. This text is a composite narrative cobbled together from Bede and other, lost sources, created in Gwynedd in 829 AD.[8] In it, a series of events are connected to the reigns of various Northumbrian kings. Gwallog occurs in a section dated to the reign of Theodric of Bernicia (d. c. 572 x 593), where he, together with Urien, Rhydderch Hen, and Morgan, are recorded as fighting against that Anglian king.[9] Gwallog is only mentioned in one sentence of this narrative, however, and it is unknown what other involvement he had in this campaign.

Later reputation

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 Northern Pennines, attacking Urien's sons. Here, Gwallog is given the epithet Marchog Trin, meaning "battle horseman".[10] Again, this poetry probably tells us more about later legends of Gwallog than any sixth-century history.

Over time, Gwallog evolved into a semi-mythological figure akin to Arthur. In the medieval text Geraint son of Erbin, he is named as one of Arthur's knights[11] and also appears in the Welsh triads as one of the "Three Armed Warriors of the Island of Britain" and one of the "Three Battle Pillars of the Island of Britain".[12] Gwallog is also mentioned in the Black Book of Carmarthen poem "Ymddiddan Gwyddno Garanhir a Gwyn ap Nudd" as one of the slain warriors escorted to their graves by Gwyn ap Nudd, the lord of the Welsh Otherworld.[13]

The medieval Welsh Bonedd y Saint claims that Gwallog was the father of Saint Dwywe, though this is unlikely to be based on sound historical information.[14]

References

  1. ^ This is because they survive in the Book of Taliesin. However, these two poems are not attributed to Taliesin in the manuscript itself, and the name 'Book of Taliesin' is an appellation of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, even if it is uncertain that the medieval compilers of the manuscript attributed the poem to Taliesin, the poems are still called 'historical' Taliesin poems by modern scholars, following Ifor Williams' categorisation in The Poems of Taliesin (henceforth PT).
  2. ^ See Koch, John T., 'Why Was Welsh Literature First Written Down?’ in Fulton, Helen (ed.), Medieval Celtic Literature and Society, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 15–31 (20). This is based on the occurrence of brot /brɔ:d/ for later brawt 'judgement' in line 17 of poem XI in PT, a praise of Gwallog. This could make this poem contemporaneous with Gwallog's period, assuming this is not a case of orthographic conservatism, since the sound change /ɔ:/ > /au/ in Welsh has been dated in modern scholarship to the late sixth or early seventh century. See Rodway, Simon, Dating Medieval Welsh Literature: Evidence from the Verbal System (Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, 2013), p. 14, n. 37, and p. 136.
  3. ^ PT XI, ll. 21, 36-7, 41.
  4. ^ PT XII, ll. 21n, 37.
  5. ^ HG[§9] [G]uallauc map Laenauc [194rb] map Masguic Clop map Ceneu map Coyl Hen. See Guy, Ben, Medieval Welsh Genealogy (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), chapter 2 for the dating of the genealogies, and p. 335 for Gwallog's patriline.
  6. ^ Ben Guy suggests that the genealogies were grouped together and made to derive from Coel Hen by the editor of Harley MS 3859. This is because the four men who are descended from Coel (Urien, Rhydderch Hen, Gwallog, and Morgan) are all mentioned in the narrative of the Historia Brittonum (see below), which also appears in the same manuscript. See Medieval Welsh Genealogy, pp. 66-7.
  7. ^ Williams, Ifor (ed.), and Caerwyn Williams, J. E. (trans.),The Poems of Taliesin (Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968), p. lv, poem XI, line 5.
  8. ^ See Dumville, David N., “‘Nennius’ and the Historia Brittonum”, Studia Celtica 10–11 (1975–1976), pp. 78–95. It is still debated as to what extent the Historia Brittonum is useful as a historical source.
  9. ^ Morris, John (ed. and tr.) Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals (London: Phillimore, 1980), §63.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ "Geraint the Son of Erbin | Robbins Library Digital Projects". d.lib.rochester.edu. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015.
  12. ^ Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, ed. and trans. by Rachel Bromwich, 4th edn (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 11.
  13. ^ Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, ed. and trans. by Rachel Bromwich, 4th edn (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 372.
  14. ^ W. Owen Pughe, 'The Topopgraphy of Meirion', Transactions of the Cymmrodorion, or Metropolitan Cambrian Institution, 1 (1822), 150-72 (p. 169).
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