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Transcript
· Britain's Irish King
0:04 · 1,500 years ago, in the west of Great Britain, we can find a reference to
0:08 · an extremely unusual event. A man named Serygei 'Wyddel' is
0:14 · slain in battle by a local king, who had apparently instructed his men to shackle
0:19 · themselves to their horses before the fight, so that they wouldn't think about fleeing.
0:23 · And while this is a bit odd on its own, what's weirder is that this story is the only mention
0:28 · of this battle in any contemporary source, and the only mention ever of this name: Serygei.
0:37 · Even stranger still, is his epithet, 'Wyddel', which is Welsh for 'the Irishman'.
0:44 · An Irish king, with a name never found anywhere else, who ruled,
0:49 · fought, and died… in Wales. Strange! Over the next millennia and a half, this
0:56 · story would be transformed and adapted, leading to arguments over who the men involved really were,
1:01 · where this battle really took place, or if it even really happened at all, until eventually,
1:06 · it was almost forgotten entirely. This is the mystery of Britain's Irish king.
· Cadwallon
1:25 · I am going to ask you to do a monstrous task: remember two people.
1:31 · We've met the first one, Serygei, the Irishman. The second is his rival king,
1:36 · Cadwallon [7], the "long arm". According to a 14th century bard, he received this epithet because his
1:44 · arms could touch the ground when he was standing upright [2]... which I'm not sure is true.
1:50 · Regardless, these men did apparently do battle, but the only medieval source ever mentioning this
1:55 · is a Welsh Triad [7], a trio of short sentences designed to help a bard or poet's memory [6].
2:02 · Basically, they were summaries, grouped with two other, similar summaries.
2:06 · In this case, the men that fought in this battle were one of the three fettered,
2:11 · or shackled, or torqued warbands of Britain, and they apparently fought Serygei at a place
2:17 · known as Cerrig y Gwyddyl, the "Irishman's Rocks" on the island of Ynys Mon [7].
2:21 · A place which is most commonly thought to be here [7][5], a field with the same name,
2:28 · although both the rocks and the Irishman are no longer present.
2:33 · And that's it. We have the summary, two men, a place, and nothing more.
2:39 · And it's not unusual for these stories to be forgotten, plenty, if not the majority,
2:43 · have been, but Cadwallon is a bit different, because he's claimed as one of the earliest
2:49 · ancestors to the kings of what would become the most powerful kingdom in Wales [2]… you'd
2:54 · think that would give him a bit of credit, but they didn't care about Cadwallon.
2:59 · In the 9th century a big piece of propaganda for this kingdom, Gwynedd,
3:03 · was produced [14]. They gave themselves a new ancestor: an apparent, and historically dubious,
3:09 · grandfather for Cadwallon named Cunedda [18], and he was better than his grandson in every way.
3:16 · Because while Cadwallon might have defeated an Irish king on Ynys Mon,
3:19 · Cunedda supposedly defeated and drove out the Irish from the entire country [8][18].
3:25 · Cadwallon was subsequently relegated to a name in a genealogy [2], his battle against an Irish
3:30 · king was deemed chronologically impossible [8], left out of the royal origin stories, and then
3:36 · completely forgotten by everyone. Sorry Cadwallon, maybe you should try being better next time.
3:47 · Except… in one place. One place preserved the memory of Cadwallon and Serygei, but it wasn't
3:56 · some village near the site of the battle, in fact it wasn't even on the same island.
4:01 · Instead, the people of Caergybi, Holyhead in English, had a much
4:05 · more unusual memory of these events.
· Caergybi
4:17 · Near the very start of the 16th century,
4:19 · a Welsh poet named Lewys Mon included an odd passage in one of his works.
4:25 · He references this ancient battle between Cadwallon and the Irish,
4:28 · a piece of history that, as we've seen, hadn't been popular for over 700 years.
4:34 · One problem though, he doesn't mention Cerrig y Gwyddyl at all, instead he claims that the
4:40 · battle was fought near Caergybi [9]. The historian Rachel Bromwich notes that
4:45 · Lewys was from this area, so what we're seeing here is very likely a local story,
4:49 · one that adopted a forgotten bit of history from centuries prior, and
4:52 · moved it 1,931,208 cm north… or 12 miles [9]. And by the end of the century, we would see this
5:02 · reinforced. In David Powel's 'Historie of Cambria' from 1584, the following passage is included:
5:09 · "The Irish… did overrun the isle of Mon, and were driven thence by
5:13 · Cadwallon Lawhir… who slew Serygei their king with his own hands at Llan y Gwyddyl,
5:20 · which is the Irish church at Holyhead [46][5]". So here, we're introduced to another location,
5:26 · the 'Church* of the Irishman', apparently the name of a church in Caergybi, and the new location of
5:32 · Cadwallon and Serygei's fateful battle. So, these were both likely drawing on some
5:38 · sort of local legend [9], moving this battle from Ynys Mon to Caergybi, and specifically to a church
5:44 · named after the Irish. It was prominent enough to be featured in a book about the history of Wales,
5:50 · which is more consideration than it ever got from the kings of Gwynedd, but unknown enough
5:54 · for no one to question the final battle being at the previously unmentioned Llan y Gwyddyl.
6:01 · And from here, the story would get picked up, by my count, 12 more times across the
6:07 · next 4 centuries, which is one mention, on average, every 33.3 years, the same
6:12 · amount that I mention my son that I hate.
· The 1700s
6:19 · Now, if you've watched this channel before,
6:22 · you won't be surprised to learn that, whilst researching this topic,
6:25 · I got a little sidetracked asking: "How many times did this story come up,
6:29 · where did it come up, and how much did it change over the course of approximately 400 years?"
6:34 · And after spending an entire day researching it, I might as well tell you all about it,
6:38 · otherwise this will all have been for nothing. …all….. for nothing…..
6:43 · Although, this is an important question. As I said, the kings of Gwynedd didn't care about
6:47 · this story at all, for the next four centuries it was entirely left to the folklore of a town that
6:52 · wasn't even at the original battle site. Seeing how much Serygei's story changed can give us
6:57 · insight not only into the local legends, but it may provide some clues into this lost event.
7:04 · After 1584, the next time this story comes up is in an alleged account of Sir Richard Wynn
7:10 · sometime in the 1600s that closely agrees with the 'Historie of Cambria', only adding the detail that
7:14 · the Irish were "destroyed completely" [9]. I could then find nothing for about a century,
7:20 · until the historian Peter Bartrum brought up a letter from 1733,
7:24 · which mentioned that the "Bedd Serigin Wyddel" was one of the "marvels of Cybi" [5].
7:30 · Now, "bedd" means grave, which is a very interesting detail because now Serygei
7:34 · seems to have just been defeated at Caergybi, but apparently he had a grave, and a famous one.
7:41 · But 42 years later is when we hit the real jackpot: 'A History of the Island of Anglesey',
7:46 · which adds a lot of new details, some of which are a bit… questionable.
7:51 · We're first told Cadwallon went to fight Serygei in the year 450, because these Irish had recently
7:57 · invaded Ynys Mon and slain numerous people near a "strong fort" called Din Dryfol, at a
8:04 · place that was now known as Cerrig y Gwyddyl. Cadwallon defeated them, and pushed them back
8:09 · to Caergybi, where their fleet was docked, and slew Serygei with his own hands. He then built
8:15 · a fortress, the walls currently around the church at Caergybi, which were apparently known as "Mur
8:20 · Cadwallon", "Cadwallon's wall" [42]. The first detail that stands out is that
8:26 · the author of this text brings back Cerrig y Gwyddyl, but instead of the site of their battle,
8:31 · it seems to have commemorated a random slaughter. Cadwallon's actual first battle
8:43 · location isn't named, but the final defeat is once again at the familiar Caergybi.
8:49 · One more oddity is that the author claims these walls around the church were built by Cadwallon,
8:54 · but in reality they're Roman, this was a Roman fort [aw]. Granted, the author probably didn't
9:00 · know this, but the extra detail of the walls being named after Cadwallon is very interesting. Unless
9:06 · they're mistaken, we can assume that it was again another local story, perhaps connecting
9:11 · our Cadwallon to this fortress, although there's always the chance that it's named after someone
9:16 · else. The walls were restored in the 17th century [aw], they could've picked up this name then.
9:23 · The second piece of intrigue that this author tells us are the alleged details
9:26 · of Serygei's grave. We've seen that this tradition already existed by 1733,
9:31 · but we're now given much more detail. Apparently, Serygei was buried in the corner
9:36 · of this Roman fort, and a chapel, called Eglwys y Bedd, the chapel of the grave,
9:41 · was built on top of him. According to the author, this chapel was often
9:45 · known to the Welsh… as Llan y Gwyddyl [43]. Finally, he claims that Serygei was made a
9:51 · saint by the Irish, but that his shrine that used to be in the chapel was carried off by
9:57 · Irish raiders, according to a… "chronicle" [43]. [show google earth, since wind sounds playing]
10:01 · What we've seen here then is an odd marrying of the original Triad to the local folklore first
10:06 · brought up in the 1500s. Cerrig y Gwyddyl is the site of a defeat, but Cadwallon isn't said to have
10:12 · fought here. When he finally vanquished him, it was in Caergybi, in Llan y Gwyddyl, which
10:18 · this author tells us is another name for this chapel of Eglwys y Bedd, finally
10:22 · locating this previously unspecified place.
10:29 · We have a few more texts in the 1800s.
· The 1800s
10:35 · In 1824 we see this story again, although by now it's been acknowledged
10:39 · that the walls of Caergybi are Roman [37]. But in 1833 we got a few more interesting details.
10:45 · In this 'History of the Island of Mona', Cadwallon for the first time since the original Triad,
10:51 · slays Serygei at Cerrig y Gwyddyl [39]… sort of. Because 152 pages later, we're back at Caergybi.
11:01 · The author cites a letter from 1693 claiming that the ancient name of this place was Llan y Gwyddyl,
11:08 · and that the chapel of Eglwys y Bedd got its name because of all the Welsh and Irish
11:12 · that died during Cadwallon and Serygei's final encounter [40]... simultaneously claiming that
11:17 · Serygei died twice, at two separate locations. Two sources from 1844 and 1879 both compound the
11:26 · idea of Serygei being made a saint, with the first claiming he was canonised by the
11:30 · Irish [47], and the latter by the Welsh [41]. And strangely, a book from 1852 then again claims
11:36 · that Serygei was slain in two locations, Cerrig y Gwyddyl [48], and Llan y Gwyddyl, although
11:41 · they claim that Cadwallon himself founded this chapel after his victory [49].
11:47 · Finally, for this century, we have one more major lore drop. As we saw before, Cadwallon
11:52 · was deemed less cool and propagandistic than his historically-dubious alleged grandfather Cunedda,
11:58 · and if Cunedda drove out all the Irish, how could his grandson have defeated an Irish king?
12:05 · Well, the historian R. Rees, in 'An Essay on the Welsh Saints' in 1836 answers this question,
12:11 · by saying that Cunedda just… left Ynys Mon out, that the Irish retreated there, and that Cadwallon
12:17 · dealt the final blow [44][45].
12:24 · Wow. That was a lot of reading, and quite the work out for a guy like me who only learnt how to read 2 weeks ago.
12:30 · But, to summarise what we've seen: The Welsh Triads tell us, briefly,
12:35 · of an ancient battle between king Cadwallon of Gwynedd, and Serygei "the Irishman".
12:40 · Cadwallon apparently defeated Serygei at Cerrig y Gwyddyl on Ynys Mon, but unfortunately for him,
12:44 · by the 9th century, no one cared. However, by the 1500s, we find that the
12:50 · town of Caergybi, 12 miles to the north, did actually care, and that they adopted
12:55 · Cadwallon and Serygei's battle, moving the location to the nearby Llan y Gwyddyl.
13:01 · From the 1500s to the end of the 1800s, we're told that the local chapel of Eglwys y Bedd is
13:06 · the mystical Llan y Gwyddyl, and that Serygei was buried underneath. We're told that he was
13:11 · canonised by the Irish, and maybe the Welsh too, but that his shrine was lost to Irish raiders… at
13:16 · some point. We're finally told again that Serygei did die at Cerrig y Gwyddyl… but at the same time
13:23 · they claim that he also died at Caergybi. It's a mess really, it's what you'd expect
13:27 · from looking at 300 years of local stories, myths, and unsubstantiated claims. It's worth
13:33 · acknowledging that these writers from centuries ago likely had access to sources we don't have,
13:38 · but it's also worth noting that none of them have expanded on the details of the original Triad,
13:44 · they seem to only have information on the more contemporary local legends,
13:49 · and while some of their claims seem reasonable, a lot of them are unfortunately completely
13:53 · unprovable, which we'll come to later. Finally, we come to the 20th century,
13:58 · where this story was scrutinised further, but also covered in a very important work, just before
14:04 · mentions of Serygei stopped almost entirely, as you can see from this almost comical graph.
· The 1900s
14:19 · 1903, 'A Book of North Wales' by S. Baring-Gould.
14:24 · After reading so many texts inadvertently arguing with each other over whether Cadwallon
14:28 · won at Cerrig y Gwyddyl, or at Caergybi, it was a massive relief to finally see something different,
14:34 · because Baring-Gould claimed this king won several battles at Irish strongholds before
14:40 · pushing the them back to Caergybi, and the example he gives is a battle at Din Sylwy [32]… over here,
14:48 · all the way to the east. Of course by "reliving",
14:52 · I mean massively confusing. I spent ages trying to find where else had this battle been mentioned,
14:58 · or been called an Irish fortress? I couldn't find anything, and the reason
15:02 · for that will become clear in a few minutes. Moving on for now, the rest of the details are
15:07 · mostly what we've seen already. Cadwallon slays Serygei by his own hand in Llan y Gwyddyl, which
15:12 · was constructed on the spot that he died [32]. Baring-Gould calls the Welsh "freaky"
15:16 · for glorifying an enemy commander, compares this to the glorification of the Boers [32], and says
15:21 · that the walls of Caergybi are so uncouth that they cannot possibly have been Norman, or Roman,
15:26 · so therefore must have been Welsh [34]... rude! Finally, he claims that this beautiful depiction
15:34 · on the church is of Serygei holding a short sword [34]. Unfortunately this isn't provable, it could
15:43 · be him, although no one else has ever mentioned this, and I think he might be holding a trowel.
15:49 · Or at least that's what I first thought, because towards the end of my research I found a book
15:54 · from 1913 that was quite critical of some elements of the local legend,
15:59 · particularly of those brought up in the 'History of the Island of Anglesey', and they also claimed
16:04 · that this was a statue of Serygei [35]. Asides from that, they also question if Serygei
16:09 · was actually ever made a saint, there aren't any other references to him in Wales, and apparently
16:14 · the Irish don't ever mention him either [35], and in another blow they point out that the author of
16:18 · the original claim that Serygei had a shrine that was carried off by Irish raiders, never specifies
16:23 · where he got this information from, casting doubt on the entire idea of him being canonised [35].
16:30 · Their criticism of the 1775 source is great, but seeing another claim that this statue was
16:34 · Serygei caught me off guard, because I wasn't expecting to find an actual depiction of him,
16:38 · let alone two claims of one… until I noticed the author of the book… S. Baring-Gould [35].
16:46 · Nice try, he almost got me, but in the end Mr Baring-Gould is still the only person to
16:51 · ever claim that this statue is Serygei. Finally, we come to the last text I want
16:58 · to mention, and the last major appearance Serygei and his story ever really made.
17:04 · The 1912 publication 'A History of Wales' by John Edward Lloyd, a man
17:08 · nicknamed the "father" of Welsh history [19]. Lloyd's work is different to everything we've
17:13 · seen so far, because this was a proper historical book with sources and citations and analysis,
17:18 · rather than local stories with unsubstantiated claims, and of all the claims made over the
17:23 · centuries, Lloyd relays very, very few of them. He brings the story back to the original Triad,
17:30 · one of the very few authors who did, by telling us that, according to tradition,
17:34 · Cadwallon completed the conquest of North Wales from the Irish, that he shackled his men to their
17:39 · horses so that "victory and death" were the only outcomes, and finally that he defeated
17:44 · Serygei at… Cerrig y Gwyddyl, not Caergybi [38]. Sweeping away the evolving tale that we've just
17:50 · seen woven over the past 300 years. He does, however, reconcile one of the
17:56 · oldest details I mentioned, Llan y Gwyddyl, an unspecified chapel near Caergybi that was
18:01 · eventually claimed as an alternate name for the local chapel of Eglwys y Bedd.
18:06 · Lloyd notes that in the parish of Tywyn, 55 miles to the south, there is a stone circle
18:11 · with the name "Eglwys y Gwyddyl" - "chapel of the Irishman". He reasons that, if these stones can be
18:18 · known as an Irish chapel… who's to say that our "Irishman's Rocks" and "Church of the Irishman"
18:23 · aren't two names for the same place [38]? The source he cites also makes a very unusual
18:29 · point that I'd never heard before, the author here claims that apparently it's quite common
18:34 · in Wales to name "traces of ancient houses or walls" after the Irish [36]. And while
18:39 · that isn't very specific, I think I found what he was talking about, because while there are a few
18:44 · examples of medieval structures being named after the Gwyddel… the vast majority of the
18:49 · objects bearing their names...
18:51 · are ancient.
· The Irishman's Monuments
18:57 · Cerrig-y-Gwyddyl [5], Cerrig-Gwyddyl [5], Craig-y-Gwyddyl, Crugyn Gwyddel
18:59 · [23], Tomen-y-Gwyddel [24], Bryn-y-Gwyddel, Bedd-y-Gwyddel,
19:03 · Eglwys-y-Gwyddelod [20], Eglwys-y-Gwyddelod 2 [22], Muriau'r Gwyddelod [25],
19:07 · and Irish Joe's Cafe in Rhyl
19:09 · … wait.
19:14 · All across Wales we can find
19:16 · ancient monuments named after the Irish. Although looking at this map I think
19:20 · you'll be able to see a very interesting pattern. There are only 2 in south Wales,
19:25 · 2 in Powys, one in Ceredigion, and 5 in Gwynedd. What's even more strange is that this isn't all of
19:32 · them, because there are 7 more that are not only named after the Irish, but that all have the same
19:37 · name: Cytiau'r Gwyddelod, "Irishman's huts". And of these 7 Irishman's huts,
19:44 · all of them are located in western Gwynedd [27][29][21], and 3 of them
19:48 · are found in the vicinity… of Caergybi [9]. These huts are a series of roundhouses that
19:54 · are at least 2,500 years old [26][30]. There are the remains of 20 to the west of the town today,
19:59 · but there could have once been as many as 50 [26][30], not to mention the ones found
20:03 · to the south [29] and the east [27]. And these circular huts are the reason
20:07 · why Baring-Gould thought Din Sylwy was an Irish fortress! Do you remember when I said
20:12 · we'd come back to that? Well after I spent ages trying to find where he got this from,
20:17 · I eventually discovered it was his own theory. He claimed that there are faint traces of these
20:22 · cytiau within the ancient fort, and despite the various Roman-era findings, he believed
20:27 · that it must date to the post Roman Irish [33]. You may not be surprised to learn that that isn't
20:32 · considered very historically accurate nowadays. There is apparently a circular structure inside,
20:38 · but the place was full of Roman artefacts, and Iron-age one [28], meaning the fort was
20:42 · very likely built by the Britons, not the Irish, and that Cadwallon probably didn't
20:46 · besiege an Irish king here.
20:52 · But what we can say for certain,
20:54 · is that there is a prevailing mythology across Wales, particularly in western Gwynedd,
20:59 · that associates several ancient stone monuments with the Irish, and Cerrig-y-Gwyddyl, whatever
21:05 · these 'stones' once were, is no exception. This isn't a story you can read about, it's one
21:11 · that I found accidentally while researching this topic [36][9] and spending the day going through
21:15 · archeological databases, but it is there. And it is especially dense around Caergybi,
21:22 · right where local tradition would claim Cadwallon slew Serygei, right where the Irish king of
21:27 · Ynys Mon was supposedly defeated, and buried.
21:36 · Is this why these stories became connected? The
· Ynys Mon
21:39 · Irish king dying in the town surrounded by the Irishman's huts? Maybe, or maybe not,
21:46 · we don't know. And to be honest, we can't know. The details, as we've seen, are extremely difficult to parse.
21:55 · The historian Rachel Bromwich points
21:57 · out the connection to these Irishman's huts, but she also says that the location of Caergybi is
22:02 · a "probable enough" site for the battle [9]. A historian in 1904 theorised that Serygei was
22:07 · a corrupted Norse name, and that this story must be from way later, and just… randomly
22:12 · connected to an otherwise unknown 5th century king [10]. The modern historians Bartrum and
22:17 · Bromwich both disagree with this though [10][5], with the former stating that there probably is a
22:21 · historical basis for this story, and the latter suggesting that Serygei was instead some sort
22:25 · of corrupted Irish name, which would make sense, although as I said at the very start, this is the
22:30 · only time this name has ever occurred, we have no idea what it originally was in Irish [5].
22:37 · And it's no wonder that even the name of Cadwallon's opponent was forgotten,
22:40 · because as I've already said, none of the details of this story survive. In the minds
22:45 · of the 9th century kings of Gwynedd, Cadwallon's historically dubious grandfather did all the work,
22:50 · driving out the Irish, giving Gwynedd a totally unbiased claim to the entire country [18], and
22:54 · leaving these people as nothing more than the apparent creators of these ancient monuments.
23:01 · This does, of course, disagree with a lot of historical evidence… actually any historical
23:06 · evidence. It's completely chronologically possible that Cadwallon fought an Irish king
23:11 · around the year 500, according to Bromwich [8], as inscribed stones have been found across Wales
23:16 · bearing Irish names that continued into the 6th century [8][17], both in Latin,
23:20 · and in the old Irish alphabet Ogham [11]. In fact, according to the historian T.
23:25 · Charles-Edwards, their presence on Ynys Mon is particularly noticeable,
23:29 · where we have four definite Irish inscribed names, and no definite Welsh ones [12][13].
23:37 · The Irish were prominent in Wales, both here in Gwynedd and beyond, despite what their kings would
23:42 · have you believe. They left inscribed stones [13], they left place names [14], and in the south,
23:46 · they even had an entire dynasty [16][14][17], so it's not at all out of the question that at around
23:51 · the year 500, a Welsh king could have fought and defeated an Irish one on Ynys Mon [8][5].
· Serygei | Sirigi
24:02 · But that's all we can really know, that the Irish were here,
24:07 · and that the kings of Gwynedd soon made their home
24:09 · on this island for the next 700 years [18]. Cadwallon apparently had his court here in
24:15 · northern Ynys Mon [2], and the chief court of the kings of Gwynedd would be here at
24:19 · Aberffraw [15], to the south. Cadwallon's alleged son, king Maelgwn, also apparently possessed the
24:25 · Roman fort at Caergybi [3]. His great-great-great grandson was buried on this island, and his
24:31 · gravestone rests in a church that was rebuilt and named after his son, Cadwallon's alleged
24:37 · great-great-great-great-great grandson [1]. Gwynedd's link to this island was also
24:43 · strengthened in their own 9th century propaganda, where Cunedda not only drove the Irish out of
24:48 · all of Wales, but his almost certainly mythical sons also founded numerous kingdoms in the area,
24:54 · covering what was at the time all of Gwynedd… giving them an ancestral claim
24:58 · to almost all of their lands... except for the territories known as Arfon,
25:03 · and the island of Ynys Mon [14][18]. Their hold was clearly strong enough here, that they saw no
25:09 · need to fabricate some sort of ancient claim. So, did Cadwallon conquer Ynys Mon from an
25:16 · Irish king? It seems so, at the very least it's plausible [9][5]. Was there
25:21 · a battle at Cerrig-y-Gwyddel? Probably, but was it at this field? We don't know,
25:26 · there was a Cerrig-Gwyddyl on the eastern side of the island [5], and the original location
25:31 · easily also could've just been lost. By the 16th century, Cadwallon had also
25:36 · supposedly slain Serygei at Llan y Gwyddyl in Caergybi, but we don't know where this came
25:40 · from. Is it a lost detail from the original story? Was it really just an alternate name
25:45 · for Cerrig-y-Gwyddel? Bartrum points out that in a 13th century genealogy, the battle takes
25:51 · place at Llam y Gwyddyl, "Irishman's leap", and he suggests that Llan y Gwyddyl was just a later
25:58 · mistake [5]. If that's the case, then where's Llam y Gwyddyl? Where did this detail come from?
26:04 · Was this a place near Caergybi, where the tale then could've easily been adopted by the locals,
26:09 · or was Llan y Gwyddyl really a local chapel, allowing the two names to easily conflate?
26:15 · We don't know, we can't know, in fact… we might never know,
26:20 · this is a story from 1,500 years ago, it's a miracle we know anything about it at all.
26:35 · All we can say then is that Cadwallon probably slew an Irish king named Serygei at a place called
· Maelgwn
26:41 · Cerrig-y-Gwyddel somewhere on Ynys Mon. Were there more battles? Almost certainly,
26:54 · the existence of this Triad proves that there was a story that needed to be remembered,
26:59 · but whatever that story was, has been forgotten. Maybe there was a final encounter at Caergybi,
27:05 · and while Serygei probably wasn't slain there, and he almost certainly wasn't buried underneath
27:09 · Eglwys y Bedd, for a very long time, to a lot of people, this story was important,
27:13 · and that's worth something. Cadwallon's alleged son held this fortress [3], who's
27:18 · to say that his father's final victory wasn't in the Roman walls of Caergybi?
27:25 · We don't know exactly what happened to king Cadwallon. The rulers of Gwynedd claimed him
27:29 · as their ancestor, and according to them his successor was a man named Maelgwn,
27:34 · who they claimed was his son, but as I've alluded to throughout the video, history
27:39 · can be a lot more complicated than that [2]. In the mid-6th century, a monk wrote an angry
27:45 · sermon, blaming the Briton's problems on their violent and tyrannical kings,
27:50 · which included Maelgwn, who the monk claimed had come to the throne at a young age…
27:55 · by killing his mother's brother [4]. Was Cadwallon really Maelgwn's father,
28:02 · or was he his uncle [31]? Was Maelgwn's ancestry rewritten to include descent from a known figure,
28:08 · the man who conquered Ynys Mon, rather than whoever his real father was? Or was
28:13 · Maelgwn really his son? Did Cadwallon's unknown brother-in-law just rule upon his death until
28:18 · Maelgwn took the throne from him? We don't know. All we have on Cadwallon is essentially a blurb,
28:25 · the kings of Gwynedd were happy to claim descent from him, happy to claim that his
28:28 · potentially murderous nephew was really his son, and happy to rule from the island he conquered,
28:34 · but his story, his legend, wasn't good enough, except for the people of Caergybi.
28:42 · These Roman walls contain a church today, dedicated to the eponymous St Cybi,
28:47 · who was given the fortress in the 6th century by king Maelgwn [3]. Cadwallon's supposed son,
28:53 · at the site of his supposed victory. And in 1748, having gone disused for many years,
29:03 · Eglwys y Bedd was partially torn down [34].
29:07 · Thank you for watching.