Peredur - Gwrgi and Peredur, Sons of Eliffer

Gwrgi and Peredur, Sons of Eliffer

Gwrgi and Peredur are listed as sons of Eliffer (Old Welsh: Eleuthur) "of the great warband" (cascord maur) and as scions of the Coeling dynasty in the genealogies of Harleian MS 3859, making them first cousins of Urien Rheged. Likewise, a pedigree from Jesus College MS 20 includes Gwrgi and Peredur as brothers together with one Arthur penuchel. Their principal claim to fame rests on their having fought in the Battle of Arfderydd. The Annales Cambriae report that this battle (bellum Armterid) was fought in 573, but gives no further detail. A later expansion of the entry names Gwrgi and Peredur, both described as sons of Eliffer, as the chieftains on the victorious side and tells that Gwenddolau was defeated and slain in the battle. Under the year 580, the Annales Cambriae record the deaths of Gwrgi (Guurci) and his brother Peredur (Peretur). These references give them a place as heroes in the old Brythonic North or Hen Ogledd of the late 6th century.

Further detail is supplied in later legendary traditions, notably those represented by the Welsh Triads (Trioedd Ynys Prydein). One listing the three "Horse-Burdens" of Britain relates that Gwrgi, Peredur, Dunawd the Stout and Cynfelyn Drwsgl were carried by a horse called Corvan, which enabled them to watch the clouds of dust ("battle-fog") coming from Gwenddolau and his (mounted) forces in the battle of Arfderydd. The circumstances in which Gwrgi and Peredur died are alluded to in a Triad which explains that they had one of "Three Faithless Warbands of the Island of Britain". Their warband abandoned them at Caer Greu on the day before a battle with Eda Glinmaur ("Great-Knee") and so they were slain. The Welsh Triads also refer to family relations. One on the "Three Fair Womb-Burdens" of Britain, preserved incompletely in Peniarth MS 47, suggests that Peredur and Gwrgi had a sister called Arddun, while a variant version in Peniarth MS 50 calls the third sibling Ceindrech Pen Asgell ("Wing-head") and names the mother Efrddyl verch Gynfarch. Peredur is said to have had a son by the name of Gwgon Gwron, called one of the three "Prostrate Chieftains" (Lledyf Vnben) because "they would not seek a dominion, which nobody could deny to them".

Still further allusions are found in early Welsh poetry. The poem Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin, which assumes the form of a dialogue between Myrddin Wyllt (the prototype of Merlin) and the poet Taliesin, deals out praise to the brave "sons of Eliffer", saying that they did not avoid spears in the heat of battle. The apparent context is the battle of Arfderydd, where Myrddin fought as one of Gwenddolau's warriors, went mad from terror and in this way, acquired the gift of prophecy (see also Vita Merlini below). For some unknown reason, however, the poem extends the number of sons to seven. A warrior called Peredur is also listed in one of the younger sections of Y Gododdin (awdl A.31), which shows him as one of the heroes to have died fighting in battle as a member of the warband of Mynyddog Mwynfawr, chieftain of the Gododdin in "the Old North". It has been argued that Peredur's appearance here may have been due to a tendency in the growth of the poem to draw personages known from such sources as the Annales Cambriae into the orbit of its subject matter, assuming he is the same Peredur.