Note 180 — Chapter III · BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMANS.

See Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 127. Tighernac records, at 606, the death of Aidan, son of Gabran, in the thirty-eighth year of his reign and seventy-fourth of his age. This places his birth in 533, and the commencement of his reign in 569. He did not, however, succeed Conall on the throne of Dalriada till 574. There were, therefore, five years during which he reigned elsewhere before he became king of Dalriada. Welsh tradition connects him with the battle of Ardderyd as one of the contending parties; and in the tract on the Gwyr y Gogled, or Men of the North, he appears among the Roman party as grandson of Dungual Hen. His mother was Lleian, daughter of Brachan of Brecheniauc. There is a tract in the Cotton MSS. (Vesp. A, xiv.), ‘De Brachan Brecheniauc et cognatione ejus,’ which states that Brecheniauc or Brecknock, in South Wales, received its name from him, and that he was son of Aulach, son of Cormac, king of Ireland. It gives him ten sons and twenty-six daughters, but while some of these sons and daughters are connected with localities in South Wales, others are stated to have founded churches or died in the north. Thus Arthur is buried in Manau or Manann, Rhun Dremrudd was slain with his brother Rhawin or Rhuofan by the Saxons and Picts, and both founded churches in Manau; Nefydd was a bishop in y Gogledd, where he was slain by Saxons and Picts. Of the daughters Beithan died in Manau; Lleian was mother of Aidan; Nevyn was mother of Urien; Gwawr was mother of Llywarch Hen; Gwrgon Goddeu was wife of Cadrawd Calchvynydd, and the sepulchre of Brychan is said to be in an island called Yny Brychan, near Manau. The history of two different persons of the same name is here obviously combined, and one of the Brychans, the son of Aulach, is closely connected with Manau, and brought in contact with the Picts and Saxons. His daughter Lleian was mother of Aidan, and through her he may have inherited rights connected with it, and thus appear among the British knights engaged in the struggle which terminated with the battle of Ardderyd in 573. The other Brychan was probably Brychan, son of Gwyngon, who appears in the Liber Llandavensis (p. 456) as a donor of lands to Bishop Trychan, and among the witnesses are Dingad and Clydawg, two of the sons who are connected with Wales.