Maelgwn Gwynedd
Surviving records suggest he held a pre-eminent position among the Brythonic kings in Wales and their allies in the "Old North" along the Scottish coast.
Nonetheless, his principal legacy today is the scathing account of his behavior recorded in De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae by Gildas, who considered Maelgwn a usurper and reprobate.
Attested in Latin as Maglocunus in Gildas' De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, it derives from a Common Brittonic form reconstructed as *Maglo-kunos, a compound composed of the root *maglo- (MW.
[citation needed] The kingdom of Gwynedd began with the reconquest of the coast by northern Britons under the command of Maelgwn's great-grandfather Cunedda.
Three generations later, Maelgwn's father Cadwallon Lawhir ap Einion completed the process by destroying the last Irish settlements on Anglesey.
By tradition, his llys (English: royal court, literally hall) was located at Deganwy, in the Creuddyn Peninsula of Rhos.
He made donations to support saints Brynach in Dyfed, Cadoc in Gwynllwg, Cybi in Anglesey, Padarn in Ceredigion, and Tydecho in Powys.
[9] The only contemporary information about the person is provided by Gildas, who includes Maelgwn among the five British kings whom he condemns in allegorical terms in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.
In the course of his condemnations, Gildas makes passing reference to the other beasts mentioned in the Apocalypse, such as the eagle, serpent, calf and wolf.
[21] There is an incidental mention of Maelgwn in the song To Maenwyn found in the Red Book of Hergest and attributed to Llywarch Hen.
The steward (Welsh: maer) Maenwyn is encouraged to resist a command to surrender his post and show his fidelity to Maelgwn.
[24] One of the specific places mentioned is at Louhai (Tintern parva, some six miles north of Chepstow), where Maelgwn is claimed as a secular witness to its donation.
[25] In the Black Book of Carmarthen, Dormarch, Gwyn ap Nudd's favourite hound, is recorded as previously belonging to Maelgwn Gwynedd.
In his condemnation of 5 British kings in the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, Gildas refers to wine as "sodomitical" but never applies that word to any person.
[32] Once attributed to Saint Tysilio (died 640), the Chronicle of the Kings of Britain was written c. 1500 as an amalgam of earlier versions of the Brut y Brenhinedd, a derivative of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae.
Among its spurious claims is that Maelgwn Gwynedd came to the crown following Vortiper, that he was succeeded by a certain Caretig, that he was the fourth king of all Britain after Arthur, and that he had two sons, Einion and Rhun.
[40] It was first printed in Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of the Mabinogion: the notes to that edition are the work of Iolo Morganwg and contain inaccuracies and some of his inventions.
The story itself tells of events where the Taliesin of legend is placed in difficult or impossible situations but invariably overcomes all obstacles, usually through feats of magic.
[45] This story is repeated uncritically in some later histories, and subsequently "Malgo the Briton" is mentioned in Thomas Stephens' notes on an 1888 publication of Y Gododdin, with the stated suggestion that Maelgwn was an ally of "Aeddan" against the Pictish king Bridei.
Of those who have promoted a connection, perhaps the most notable person of late is John Morris in his Age of Arthur, where he refers in passing and without authority, to "... Bridei, son of Maelgwn, the mighty king of north Wales, ...".
