Doubts Concerning the British History Attributed to Nennius

William Wells Newell

doi:10.2307/456601

Doubts Concerning the British History Attributed to Nennius

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020

William Wells Newell

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This treatise, which contains the earliest notice of Arthur, deserves a place in the history of literature as foundation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.

Type: Research Article
Information: PMLA , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , 1905 , pp. 622 - 672

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/456601 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1905

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References

^{page 622 note 1} T. Mommsen, Historia Britonum cum additamentis Nennii, Monumenta Germanise Historica, auct. antiquis., xiii, Berlin, 1894.—L. Duchesne, Nennius retraetatus, in Revue Celtique, xv, 1894, 174–197 (contains text of ms. of Chartres).—Recent literature: G. Heeger, Über die Trojanersage der Britten, Munich, 1886; H. Zimmer, Nennius vindicatus. Über entstehung, geschichte und quellen der Historia Britonum, Berlin, 1893; R. Thurneysen, Nennius vindicatus, in Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie, xxviii, 1895, 80–113.

^{page 622 note 2} In the Middle Ages this name, or Historia Britannica, was often bestowed on the history of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

^{page 622 note 3} So Schöll, La Borderie, G. Paris (see Heeger, op. cit., p. 19 f.).

^{page 622 note 4} Wright, Heeger.

^{page 622 note 1} The latter view is that of Mommsen (who prints Chartres only as variae lectiones).

^{page 622 note 2} According to Mommsen the title runs: “Incipiunt Exberta fu Urbacen de libro sancti Germani inventa et origine et genealogia Britonum.” Fu for fii, i. e., filii. Exberta is supposed by Thurneysen an error for excerpta, since the Nennius preface uses this word; but the writer of the preface did not knew a text answering to Chartres, hence is not an authority.

^{page 622 note 3} Mommsen, p. 132; see below, p. 640, note 4.

^{page 622 note 4} In his History of Ireland, Keating cites from the lost Psalter of Cashel statements concerning Partholon, etc., evidently founded on the Historia; the Psalter he cites as a work of the holy Cormac, son of Cuileannan (1, 6). The Psalter is referred to the early eleventh century; Keating could have had no reason for his ascription, save his fancy that Cormac, as an ecclesiastic of Cashel, must needs have been engaged in the composition.

^{page 622 note 1} P. 653, below.

^{page 622 note 2} P. 638, below.

^{page 622 note 1} According to Mommsen, mss. D and C, in which the preface is marginal, are so alike as to form but one testimony, while those mss. in which the preface has crept into the text are no more than copies of these.

^{page 622 note 2} The question is complicated by additions contained in the Nennius texts, also in the first instance marginal glosses, by a writer who calls himself the pupil of one Beulan. This glossator, it would appear, pretends personally to have known Elvodugus; see below, p. 667, note 1; Thurneysen, pp. 63, 97.

^{page 622 note 3} The extent of the translator's freedom is well set forth by Heeger, in a review of Zimmer's work; Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, May, 1894, pp. 399 ff.

^{page 622 note 1} The only cases sufficiently salient to allow examination are passages associated with the names of Damhoctor (p. 635, note 1, below), and Equitius (p. 640, below). The translator, or the Latin text he used, may have made a correction or two from the Vatican text: see Thurneysen, p. 82.

^{page 622 note 2} “Britannia insula a quodam Bruto consule Romano dicta.”

^{page 622 note 1} De Excidio, c. 3: “Britannia insula …. bis denis bisque quaternis civitatibus ac nonnullis castellis …. decorata.” Beda, 1, 1: “Erat et civitatibus quondam xx et viii nobilissimis insignita, praeter castella innumera ….” Historia, c. 7: “in ea sunt viginti octo civitates et innumerabilia promontoria cum innumeris castellis …. et in ea habitant quattuor gentes, Scotti, Picti, Saxones, atque Brittones.” Observe the word innumeris, apparently a reminiscence of Beda.

^{page 622 note 2} Hist. eccles., iii, 6.

^{page 622 note 1} “Ascanius Julium procreavit a quo familia Juliorum orta, et propter aetatem parvuli, quia necdum regendis civibus idoneus erat, Silvium Postumum fratrem suum regni reliquit haeredem.”

^{page 622 note 1} The passage in Chartres is full of scribal errors: “De Romanis et Grecis trahunt ethimologiam, id est de matre Labina filia Latini regis Italie et patre Siluianiae (read Siluii filii Eneae), filii Enachi, filii Dardani, filii Dardanus, filii Saturni. Rex Gothorum (read Grecorum; so Vatican) perrexit ad partem Asiae, et Trous filius Dardani edificauit urbem Troie. … Et de stripe (i. e., stirpe) Silluii filii Eneae ex Labina orti sunt Remus et Romulus et Brutus, tres filii regine sanctimonialis pro /// mi (?) Reae, qui fecerunt Romam. Brutus consul fuit in Roma epiromanus quando expugnavit Hispaniam et detraxit in seruitutem Rome, et postea tenuit Britanniam insulam quam habitant Britones filius illi olli Siluio Posthumo. …”

Vatican alters the word epiromanus to imperii Romani, but has epiromanus in c. 3; a proof, I think, of what is otherwise sufficiently clear, that the editor had before him a text like that of Chartres, which he in some measure recast.

^{page 622 note 2} Etym., ix, 2, 67.

^{page 622 note 1} Mommsen supposes that the Frankish story depended on a misspelling of a Colonia Traiana as Troiana, Mon. Germ. Hist., auct. antiquis., ix, 619.

^{page 622 note 1} The words “hoc experimentum bifarie inveni” (c. 10), and “aliud experimentum inveni” (c. 17) are additions of the reviser.

^{page 622 note 2} Et manent ibi tertiam partem Britanniae tenentes usque in hodiernum diem.

^{page 622 note 3} From Scythia because of their association with Scots who were Scythians. See below.

^{page 622 note 4} Quod usque hodie apud Pictos constat esse servatum.

^{page 622 note 1} Crestien, Erec, 1947.

^{page 622 note 2} “Hibernia … usque contra Hispaniae septentrionalia, quamvis magno aequore interjaciente pervenit.”—Beda, 1, 1.

^{page 622 note 1} Zimmer thinks the translator's language and arrangement to indicate a better Latin text; to my mind the version is made from the text we possess.

^{page 622 note 2} After the “Peutinger Table,” Mommsen, p. 115.

^{page 622 note 1} Chronicle: ‘'Sciendum vero est quod Britones in tertia mundi etate ad Britanniam venerunt; Scite autem, id est Scotti, in quarta etate Scociam sive Hiberniam obtinuerunt.” —Skene, op. cit., p. 3. Historia: “Brittones venerunt in tertia aetate mundi ad Britanniam: Scotti autem in quarta obtinuerunt Hiberniam.”—C. 15.

^{page 622 note 2} W. F. Skene, Chronicle of the Picts, etc. Edinburgh, 1867, p. 107. The Life names the part of the Irish coast first seen as Cruachan Eile; this is the height on which Saint Patrick fasted, and (according to the later legend followed in the Historia) received certain boons from the Almighty (p. 659, below).

^{page 622 note 1} De Excidio states that the expedition of Maximus, by depleting the island of its militant youth, was responsible for British downfall. The reviser observed that this mention was not noted in his text, and inferred that the Maximus in question was not that same Maximus whose affairs were remarked; he therefore, for the sake of distinction, varied the name to Maximianus, and utilized it to replace that of Gratianus, who was in no way connected with Britain (the writer in Chartres may have confused the emperor with the local British imperator or “tyrant” Gratianus; Thurneysen, p. 92).

^{page 622 note 1} “Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum rediguntur.”—Mon. Germ. Hist., auct. antiquis., ix, 660.

^{page 622 note 2} The passage is a curiosity: “Et in tempore Guorthigirni regis Britannie Saxones pervenerunt in Britanniam, id est, in anno incarnacionis Christi, sicut Libine abasiae Inripum civitate invenit vel reperit, ab incarnacione Domini anni D usque ad kl. Jan. in xii luna ut aiunt alii trecentis annis a quo tenuerunt Saxones Britanniam usque ad annum supradictum.”

According to Duchesne (p. 182), the year 801 did offer the required coincidence between the first of January and the twelfth day of the moon. De Excidio had predicted, that Saxon power in Britain would endure only three hundred years; Saxon writers of the ninth century, perhaps, argued that the prophecy had already been discredited, since the Saxon landing had certainly taken place earlier than 500.

^{page 622 note 1} “Regnante Gratiano secundo cum Equitio Saxones a Guorthigirno suscepti sunt anno cccxlvii post passionem Christi.”

^{page 622 note 2} Zimmer (p. 20) assumes that the more correct form of the name indicated that the Irishman used a Latin text older and better than Harleian; however, in the name of Eucharistus, above mentioned, the translator corrected to Eleuther; in the present case I suppose that he simply amended from Prosper.

^{page 622 note 3} “Gratiano iii et Equitio.”

^{page 622 note 4} “Quando Gratianus consul fuit secundo et Equitius quarta, tunc his consulibus Saxones a Wyrtgeorno suscepti sunt anno cccxlvii a passione Christi.” Observe the Anglo-Saxon name of the king, also the initial (as given by Mommsen, p. 172).

^{page 622 note 5} The author, perhaps, misread Beda's date of ccccxlviiii by dropping a c and i; he then looked out the year in Victor, and obtained the consuls (these held over in 348); he forgot that Beda reckoned from the Incarnation. The Welsh scribe took Equitius as well as Gratianus to be an emperor, hence the word regnante.

^{page 622 note 1} “Computantur in praesentem annum.”

^{page 622 note 2} Thus Jerome himself, at the end of his work, counts up to the 14th year of Valens, which was not the date of authorship (he reserved contemporary history, as he says, for more extended treatment).

^{page 622 note 1} Harleian: “ab incarnacione autum ejus anni sunt dcccxxxi. Other mss. vary only the year: Vatican: dcccclxxvi et v annus Eadmundi regis Anglorum. Nennius texts: dcccxii usque ad xxx annum Anaarauht regis Moniae, qui regit modo regnum Wenedotiae regionis, id est Guernet (i. e., Guened); sunt igitur anni ab exordio mundi usque in annum praesentem vicviiiii.”

^{page 622 note 2} Mommsen, p. 117, note.

^{page 622 note 1} “Duo anni in ogdoade usque in hunc annum in quo sumus.”

^{page 622 note 1} There seems to be no sign that the reckoning by cycles is later than the rest of the chapter.

^{page 622 note 2} At this time Ambrosius, the prophetic boy of the Historia, is not yet born. However, the passage belongs to the awkward sutures of the compilation; we may presume that an editor who attached the life to the prefixed chapters (at first mere glosses) committed a prolepsis; perhaps he intended to have it understood that predictions of the future adversary alarmed the king.

^{page 622 note 1} “Trans Tythicam vallem.” With Claudian this was only a poetic name for the ocean. De Excidio, from which the phrase is borrowed, and the Historia, scarcely comprehend the words; Tythica Vallis (the Vale of Tethys) was probably thought to be the proper name of a northern sea.

^{page 622 note 2} Guoyrancgonus.

^{page 622 note 1} A common European custom. So among the Lombards, adoption is said to have been accompanied by cutting the hair. Charles Martel sent Pipin to Luitbrand that the latter, after the custom of Christian believers, might first cut the lad's hair, and so become his spiritual parent. See note of W. Gunn, Nennius, p. 162.

^{page 622 note 2} “In libro beati Germani repperi.”—C. 47.

^{page 622 note 1} According to Zimmer, p. 15, the reference is to the celebrated Faustus of the 5th century, a bishop of Regium in Provence.

^{page 622 note 1} “Ille respondit: ‘Ambrosius vocor.’ Id est, Embreis Guletic ipse videbatur. Et rex dixit: ‘De qua progenie ortus es?’ At ille: ‘Unus est pater meus de consulibus Romanicae gentis.’ “

^{page 622 note 2} The name of Cair Guorthigirn, it will be noticed, is doubled, the locality being assigned both to North and South Wales. Perhaps the name, like Arthur's Seat, was a legendary one, which might belong to several districts.

^{page 622 note 1} Aurelianus, like Augustus, doubtless as a title of honor.

^{page 622 note 2} The Ambrosius in question, says the writer, was seemingly Embreis Guletic. The “Welsh word, in later spelling Gwledig, means ruler, and doubtless is intended as a translation of the Aurelianus of De Excidio.

^{page 622 note 1} Pp. 658 and 669, note.

^{page 622 note 1} The text adds: “Ipse est Catel Durnluc.” The question arises, whether the reference is to that Catel whom Germanus made king, or to a successor of the author's own time, namely, a Catel who justified the prediction that a sovereign of that line should never be wanting to Powis. On this head Welsh mediæval writers differed: the genealogies given in Harleian (see p. 671, below), and in Jesus Coll., ms. 20, take the former alternative, while Brut y Tywysogion adopts the latter, and considers “Teyrnllwg” to be only a name for Powis. To me it seems safe to assume that none of these writers had any information other than their inferences from the words of the Historia. See Zimmer, p. 71 ff.

^{page 622 note 1} See the Greek legend of Hyrieus.

^{page 622 note 1} Stokes and Windisch, Irische texte, iv, 1, 15.

^{page 622 note 2} Mommsen, p. 120, seems to take the editorship of Marcus seriously.

^{page 622 note 1} “At ipsi, cum navigarent circa Pictos, vastaverunt Orcades insulas, et venerunt et occupaverunt regiones plurimas ultra mare Frenessicum. …”

^{page 622 note 2} From Lochland, i. e., Scandinavia.

^{page 622 note 3} Beda, i, 15: “De illa patria quae Angulus dicitur hodie manere deserta inter provincias Jutarum et Saxonum perhibetur.” Historia: “Et Hencgistus, inito consilio cum suis senioribus, qui venerunt secum de insula Oghgul.”—C. 37.

^{page 622 note 4} Et Hencgistus semper ciulas ad se paulatim invitavit, ita ut insulas ad quas venerant absque habitatore relinquerent, et dum gens illius crevisset et in virtute et in multitudine, venerunt ad supra dictam civitatem Cantorum. c. 38. Compare mention of Pictish ravages from the Orkneys as an intermediate station, p. 633, above.

^{page 622 note 1} “Cum suo rege Uurtigerno,” i, 14. Geoffrey of Monmouth has also Vortigernus. The use, in such names, of initials W or Gu is merely a matter of scribal usage; the Saxon scribes write the W, the Welsh Gu; I have used the form Wortigern as more correctly expressing the name to modern eyes.

^{page 622 note 2} The proper name Guorthigirniaun (−ion, suffix forming a local appellation from a personal name) seems to indicate that the designation was genuinely British. Guorthigirniaun is identified with a commote of Radnor (Zimmer, p. 67); such appellation must have been derived from some petty chief, who can not have been identical with the (imaginary) over-king credited with admitting Saxons; the coincidence can only prove the familiarity of the name.

De Excidio knows the receiver of the foreigners only as an unamed “tyrannus,” qualified with the epithets “crudelis, infaustus, superbus;” Beda gives us a proper name (compounded of wor- or guor-, emphatic particle, and tigerno-, king). I cannot think the correspondence of sound and sense likely to have been accidental, and rather suppose that such resemblance caused the importation of the name of Wortigernus into the tale.

^{page 622 note 1} In c. 31, we have a pedigree of Hengist, first up to Woden, thence as follows: Frealaf, Fredulf, Finn, Fodepald, Geta, qui fuit, ut aiunt, filius dei. The same pedigree (borrowed from the Historia), appears in Henry of Huntingdon, who writes Flocwald. Florence of Worcester and others have corresponding statements, taken from Asser, who in giving the ancestors of Alfred makes the line proceed: Woden, Frithowald, Frealaf, Frithiwulf, Fin, Godwulf (the last two names by textual error united in one), Geata, “quern Getam jamdudum pagani pro deo venerabantur.” The list in the Historia is only a perversion of Asser's (Fodepald is a mere scribal error for Godulf). It seems likely, therefore, that Asser must be enumerated among the sources of the Life of Wortigern; this is quite in accordance with other indications, which tend to show that the oldest portion of the Historia does not antedate the tenth century.

^{page 622 note 1} “Largiente Ambrosio illi qui fuit rex inter omnes reges Britannicae gentis.”

^{page 622 note 2} “Haec est genealogia illius, quae ad initium retro recurrit.”

^{page 622 note 1} “Fernmail ipse est, qui regit (other ms., regnat) modo.” Vatican has “qui regnavit,” but this change has the appearance of being an alteration of the editor. Zimmer, who calls this the only certain date contained in the Historia (p. 67), endeavors to fix the period of Fernmail by the aid of the old Welsh genealogies; but it has above been observed that these, in so far as they correspond, seem only to echo the compilation.

^{page 622 note 2} The comparison of Patrick with Moses, c. 55, is verbally taken from Tirechan as cited in Armagh; W. Stokes, Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, London, 1887, p. 332; so also the three boons granted by God to Patrick, p. 331.

^{page 622 note 3} In the account of Muirchu, as given in Armagh, the saint, just before his death, while on his way to Armagh, is turned back by an angel, and as compensation, receives four boons (p. 296). Cruachan Eile is the height on which Patrick (in imitation of Christ) fasts for forty days (p. 322); but neither Muircu nor Tirechan connects this mountain with the promises. On the other hand, the Tripartite Life, with which the Historia agrees, does represent the boons as conceded on the mount. According to Muirchu (p. 295), while Patrick is on Cruachan Aigle, the landscape is darkened by the wings of saints, who are made to arise in the form of birds, in order that Patrick may have a vision of what on the Judgment Day will be the fruit of his labors. In the Tripartite Life (p. 115), the legend receives decoration; the darkness is said to arise from the black wings of demons, followed by the white wings of the redeemed. The Historia gives us still a further step in advance; wings belong to birds of many colors, who are not themselves the saints, but only symbolic of the latter. Verbal correspondences point to the mention in Armagh as the ultimate source.

^{page 622 note 1} “In illo tempore Saxones invalescebant in multitudine et crescebant in Britannia. Mortuo autem Hengisto, Octha filius ejus transivit de sinistrali parte Britanniæ ad regnum Cantorum, et de ipso orti sunt reges Cantorum. Tunc Arthur pugnabat contra illos in illis diebus cum regibus Brittonum, sed ipse dux erat bellorum.”

In place of the last sentence, Vatican has: “Tunc belliger Arthur cum militibus Bryttaniæ atque regibus contra illos pugnabat, et licet multi ipso nobiliores essent, ipse tamen duodecies dux belli fuit victorque bellorum.”

The words “in illo tempore” relate to the time of Wortigern, and pass over that of Patrick.

^{page 622 note 2} See above, p. 654, note 4.

^{page 622 note 1} In Beda the line proceeds: “Uictglis, Uitta, Uicta.” Sweet: “Uitta, Uihtgils, Uegdaeg. The Oldest English Texts, London, 1885, p. 171.

^{page 622 note 1} Higden, Polychronicon, (fourteenth century), v. 329, took the Duglas to be in Lincolnshire, the forest of Celidon near Lincoln, Mons Badonis Bath. W. Camden, Britannia (1600), made Douglas in Lincolnshire, Agned Cadbury in Somerset. T. Carte, A General History of England, 1747, placed the Glein in Northumberland, Gwynion Durham, Cærleon Chester. J. Whittaker, History of Manchester, 1775, ii, 35, devised a scheme in general following Carte; this was accepted by S. Turner, History of the Anglo-Saxons, 1807. E. Guest, Early English Settlements in South Britain, 1850, ii, 101, took the wood of Celidon to be near the Thames, Mount Badon Cadbury in Dorset. C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, 1867, p. 83, thought Urbs Legionum to be Exeter, Agned Cadbury, Tribruit some place on the Trent, Mount Badon Bath. W. F. Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, 1866, i, 58, took the Duglas to be the river emptying into Loch Lomond, Urbs Legionis Dumbarton, Mount Badon Bouden Hill near Linlithgow, Agned Edinburgh. A. Anscombe, Local names in the ‘Arthuriana‘in the’Historia Britonum,’ Zeit. f. Celtische Philologie, v, 1904, 1, considers Glein to be the Lune (river of Lancaster), Bassas Bassenthwaite Water, Silva Celidonis Ciltina, Guinnion Vinovia, Urbs Legionis Chester-on-the-Dee. Anscombe's ingenious and erudite observations involve correction of the proper names, chiefly after the Vatican text.

^{page 622 note 1} The battles of Worthemir also begin with a battle, or perhaps two battles, fought on the bank of a river.

^{page 622 note 1} Variant orthography disregarded.

^{page 622 note 1} In 796 according to Zimmer, p. 82.

^{page 622 note 2} (1) After bringing the Mercian genealogy to Penda, the Historia continues with three brief pedigrees, those of Aethelred, son of Penda, Aethelbald, son of Alweo, and Egfrid, son of Offa. In the same order, and with the same members, the lists appear in Sweet, loc. cit. (2) East Anglian lists proceed similarly from a son of Aldwulf named Aeflwold (in the Historia Elric, doubtless merely a scribal corruption); according to Florence of Worcester, these princes were brothers. (3) For the agreement and disagreement as to the Kentish line see above, p. 662.

^{page 622 note 3} The Historia gives for Northumbria an unintelligible series up to Oswy; Sweet has nothing correspondent. (2) The Historia derives Eadberht and Bishop Egbert through Eata and Leodwald from Aethelric, legitimate son of Ida; Sweet (as does Florence) from an illegitimate Occ.

^{page 622 note 1} At this point a glossator already mentioned, the self-styled pupil of Beulan, introduces a curious comment; a bishop Renchidus, and Elbobdus, “episcoporum sanctissimus,” had confided to him (“mihi tradiderunt,” c. 63) that Paulinus and Rum were one and the same person! The emphasis laid on the name seems to indicate that by Elbobdus he meant that Elvodugus who figures in the Nennius preface, and who is now described as deceased. If this be a correct inference, the forgery is surely plain. The author of the preface, a glossator of the twelfth century, in order to popularize his invention, recommended Nennius as a pupil of the famous Elbodg; the imitator with whose lucubration (lucus a non lucendo) we are now concerned is pleased to pose as a writer of the ninth century, not only a pupil of the presumably well-known Beulan, but also an intimate acquaintance and protegé of the same Elbodg.

^{page 622 note 2} The Historia (c. 57) credits Oswy with a second queen Riemmelth, daughter of Royth, son of Rum.—Beda tells us that Ida had six sons by legitimate queens, and six by concubines; the Historia, while retaining the names given by Beda, chooses to affirm that Ida had only one queen Bearnoch; the name is only a corruption of Bebba, who, according to Beda, gave her hame to Bebbanburgh or Bamborough (for which the Histtoria prefers to substitute a Welsh appellation).

^{page 622 note 1} Life of Saint Columba, ed. by W. Reeves, Edinburgh, 1874, 1, 8. Rodercus filius Tothail reigned at Petra Cloithe (Clyde Bock, Dumbarton).— The Life of Kentigern calls him Rederech, and says that he was buried in Glasgow, c. 45.

^{page 622 note 2} Lives of SS. Ninian and S. Kentigern. A. P. Forbes, Edinburgh, 1874, c. 22.

^{page 622 note 3} Edwin is said to have destroyed a kingdom of Elmet, not otherwise mentioned.

^{page 622 note 1} A strife called Catguoloph is said to have been fought between Ambrosius and an otherwise unknown Guitolin, twelve years after the accession of Wortegirn. The latter, according to the data given, should have begun to reign in 425. The writer could not have intended the prophetic Ambrosius of the Life of Vortigern, who was not bom at the time. The date agrees no better with the Ambrosius of the De Excidio; but all these designations of time are in the air. The history, no doubt, was in a state of continuous bardic development, so that Guitolin and his battle may have been contemporary inventions based on the earlier text of the Historia itself.

^{page 622 note 1} Zimmer, p. 114, identifies the name with that of a brook Amir.

^{page 622 note 2} Edited together with continuations to 1286 and 1288, by Williams Ab Ithel, Annales Cambriae (Rolls Publ.), London, 1860.

^{page 622 note 3} So much may be inferred from the entries relating to the battles of Badon and Camlan.

^{page 622 note 1} These carry upward the pedigree of a son of Howell Da, who died in 987. Zimmer, p. 87. Phillimore, Y Cymmrodor, ix, 169.

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