[2][3] Nikolai Tolstoy has suggested that the present version of the legend may have been influenced by the eleventh-century battles of Brian Boru and Máel Sechnaill, while Will Parker has proposed that the branch is distantly related to the Irish tales of Cath Maige Mucrama and Immram Brain[4] as well as the early Arthurian texts The Spoils of Annwfn and How Culhwch won Olwen.

The Irish offer to make peace and build a house big enough to entertain Bendigeidfrân but hang a hundred bags inside, supposedly containing flour but actually containing armed warriors.

Only seven men survive the conflict, among them Manawydan, Taliesin and Pryderi fab Pwyll, prince of Dyfed, Branwen having herself died of a broken heart.

As instructed they take the now silent head to Gwynfryn, the "White Hill" (thought to be the location where the Tower of London now stands), where they bury it facing France so as to ward off invasion.

Though Ireland today is divided into four provinces, the five mothers and five sons helps to explain the structure of this island as well as poke fun at the Irish people.