- Chapter Thirty-Six -
In the tenth-century Armes Prydein Fawr, the poet envisages a formal alliance
between the Cymry, on the one side, and the men of Dublin and the Irish on
the other.^41 The Irish and the Hiberno-Norse were therefore merely allies. The men
of Cornwall and Strathclyde, however, will be 'included among us', namely among
the Cymry;42 they will therefore participate in the resharing of the land of Britain
that will follow the expulsion of the foreigner, the allmon or allfro.^43 Moreover the
leaders of the Cymry are to be both Cadwaladr of Gwynedd and Cynan of Brittany.44
The poet can thus use the terms Brython and Cymry without distinction.^45 What is
striking about his terminology is that he seems at one point to distinguish the Cornish
and the men of Strathclyde from the Cymry, from 'us', and yet he says that the other
Britons will be 'included among US'.46 They have perhaps not been 'among us' but this
will change in the future.^47 In the thirteenth century, cynnwys 'include' is used in the
laws for bringing in a distant kinsman and giving him a share in an inheritance.^48 Such
a nuance fits the context in Armes Prydein perfectly.49 Moreover, the apparent double
sense of Cymry - 'Welsh' but also 'Britons' - corresponds exactly with the double
sense of Britannia in Asser's Life of Alfred, both 'Wales' and 'Britain'.50 Therefore, in
the wider sense of both terms, just as the Cludwys 'men of the Clyde' are Brython, so
of bro, normally equivalent to French pays, perhaps exceptionally 'holding of land', Trois
Poemes en Moyen-Breton, ed. R. Hernon (Dublin, 1962), stanza 242 (and see note); also,
more distantly, Irish mruig.
41 Armes Prydein, ed. I. Williams, lines '}-IO, where I would translate cymod by 'alliance'
rather than 'reconciliation'.
42 Ibid., line I I; for cynnwys see n. 45. Whereas the Cymry / Brython will possess everything
from Manaw to Brittany, line 172, the men of Dublin, allies though they were, will return
home, line 177. For the priority of honour given to the Gwyr Gogled, d. the similar claims
made for the men of Arfon in the Breiniau Gwyr Arion, Ancient Laws and Institutes of
Wales, ed. A. Owen (London, 1841), Venedotian Code, n.ii.
43 Armes Prydein, ed. I. Williams, lines 171-7.
44 Ibid., lines 81-95. 163-70, 182-4·
45 Ibid., lines 42-4: the land of the Britons is the land of the Cymry where they should never
suffer 'homelessness', diffroed (= di-fro-edd, 'the state of being deprived of one's bro). On
this compare Hen Gerddi Cryefyddol, ed. H. Lewis (Cardiff, 1931), XIV.I2: A chymro
diuro diurad weti.
46 With line I I compare lines 151-4. I take it that the 'us' of genhyn, line I I, are the Kymry
of line 9.
47 This is shown by the role of Cynan of Brittany and by the phrase 0 Vynaw hyt Lydaw,
line 172. There is no need to assume a legend of a quarrel between Cynan and Cadwaladr
and a subsequent need for reconciliation: see D.N. Dumville, 'Brittany and ''Armes
Prydein Vawr"', Etudes Celtiques 20 (1983): 145-59, esp. 156-8.
48 Llyfr Iorwerth, ed. A.Rh. Wiliam (Cardiff, 1960), § 85/6, which corresponds to the con-
text of Armes Prydein, line II (distant kinship, yet inclusion).
49 Note the presentation of the future British revival as the pursuit of a land-suit against the
English in lines 132-46.
50 In the dedication to Alfred, the latter is omnium Britanniae insulae Christianorum rector,
but in c. 79 Asser agrees with Alfred that he will spend six months of every year with the
king, six months in Britannia: Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. W.H. Stevenson, rev. edn by
D. Whitelock (Oxford, 1959), pp. I, 64.712