Maelgwn Gwynedd

Maelgwn Gwynedd (d. 547). Historical king of Gwynedd, great-grandson of Cunedda who ruled from a court at Degannwy, near the mouth of the Conway River, north Wales. Oral tradition maintains that he became king by beating his rivals in a contest against the incoming tide in which he kept his feet dry with a floating chair. Early written records treat him harshly, especially Gildas, who accused him of being excessively fond of listening to his own praise, of the heresy of Pelagianism, and of murdering first his own wife and then his nephew, whose wife he then married. In the Hanes Taliesin, composed many centuries later, Taliesin was thought to have bested Maelgwn's court poets, notably Heinen Fardd.

Bibliography

See J. Wood , ‘Maelgwn Gwynedd: A Forgotten Welsh Hero’, Trivium, 19 (1984), 103–17;
J. E. Caerwyn Williams, ‘Gildas, Maelgwn and the Bards’, in R. R. Davies et al. (eds.), Welsh Society and Nationhood (Cardiff, 1984), 19–34.