Peredur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peredur is the name of a number of men from the boundaries of history and legend that was Dark Age Britain. The most well known of them appear in the following literary sources:
- Peredur ab Efrawg (Peredur son of York) - one of the Arthurian Welsh Romances associated with the Mabinogion. It tells the life-story of its titular character. The French author, Chrétien de Troyes transformed him into Percival.
- Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin), by Geoffrey of Monmouth – a Peredur, King of Gwynedd, appears in battle, apparently at Arfderydd.
Both may possibly be identifiable as an historical Brythonic king of somewhere in Northern Britain recorded in:
- Trioedd Ynis Prydein (The Welsh Triads) – which say he fought at the Battle of Arfderydd; was, with Gwrgi and Arddun, one of triplets born to the wife of Eliffer Gosgorddfawr; died, alongside Gwrgi, fighting the Northern Angle, ‘Eda Glinfawr’.
The Annales Cambriae also say the sons of Eliffer were at Arfderydd in 573 and that Peredur and Gwrgi died in 580. There appears to have been a tradition that Peredur founded the town of Pickering in the North Riding of Yorkshire (now North Yorkshire). So, considering the association of the Mabinogion character with nearby York, he may have ruled a kingdom based on that city (then called Caer Ebrauc).
