“Here are the names of the men who escaped from the battle of Camlan: Sandde Bryd Angel because of his beauty, Morfran ap Tegid because of his ugliness, St Cynfelyn from the speed of his horse, St Cedwyn from the world’s blessing, St Pedrog from the strength of his spear, Derfel Gadarn for his strength, Geneid Hir from his speed.
This text is found as a margin note in a seventeenth century welsh manuscript collected by poet and clergyman Evan Evans, one of what is now known as the Panton mansucripts. The motif of seven survivors is an old one in Wales, appearing in the stories of the Mabinogion, where only seven warriors returned from Bran the Blessed’s war in Ireland, and in a poem from the Book of Taliesin about King Arthur’s expedition to the realm of Annwn whence “none, save seven, returned”. The note in Evan Evans’ manuscript seems to represent a tradition that retrospectively wove together this ancient motif of seven survivors into legends of King Arthur’s last battle, the Battle of Camlann.
In the pseudo-history of Arthur’s legend, Camlann was fought against Arthur’s nephew Mordred (Medraut in the welsh sources), a disastrous internecine clash where Arthur received his mortal wound. Camlann is an ancient and persistent element of the Arthurian tradition that was deeply embedded in the Welsh psyche in the Middle Ages, a full stop at the end of the brief golden age of Arthur’s reign and a catastrophe for the Britons that ushered in their uncertain present beset by the constant incursions of the newly arrived Anglo-Saxons. The way in which the Pax Arthuriana was washed away in civil strife was in many ways a shadowy retelling of that troubled era for the Welsh where competition and division between the Welsh kingdoms undermined any cohesive resistance to the English.
Buried in the list of two hundred and sixty retainers at Arthur’s court that forms part of the twelfth century text of How Culhwch won Olwen is an older version of the note in the Panton manuscripts. Here the survivors are three and you find, as in the later seven, Sandde Bryd Angel (Sandde with the form of an angel) whom “no one placed his spear in him at Camlan, so exceeding fair was he; all thought he was an angel helping” and Morfran ap Tegid whom “no man placed his weapon in him at Camlan, so exceeding ugly was he; all thought he was a devil helping. There was hair on him like the hair of a stag.” The latter is the same Morfran also known as Afagddu, son of Ceridwen and Tegid Foel, as stupid as he was ugly, who appears in the legendary tale of Taliesin as the intended recipient of Taliesin’s awen. The triad in Culhwch is completed by Cynwyl Sant, loyal and brave, “the last to part from Arthur”. This Saint Cynwyl is seemingly forgotten in the later tradition (and replaced at the dying Arthur’s side by Sir Lucan in the English and French romances) but is dimly remembered on the Welsh map as a founder of churches in Carmarthenshire in the south, witnessed by the village names Cynwyl Gaeo and Cynwyl Elfed.
The later list of seven is a strange mix, retaining the archetypal Sandde and Morfran from the older triad, and ending with Geneid Hir (Geneid the Tall), whose name appears nowhere else in Welsh literature (though may be a corruption of several other names from the annals). Bracketed in between are a group of four who seem to have solid roots in the dawn of the medieval period in Wales, the Age of Saints spanning the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries when Christianity become inextricably intertwined with the early kingdoms of Wales.
St Derfel (Derfel Gadarn or Derfel the Mighty) in many ways is the prototype of this group. He was entangled with the Arthurian tradition from the earliest days; his father Hywel was a blood relative of Arthur and Derfel was also remembered as Derfel Farchog (Derfel the Knight) with some iconography showing him as an armoured warrior. For example his church at Llandderfel in Merionethshire was the home until the early modern period of a wooden figure of Derfel arrayed as a warrior with armour and weapons with an accompanying horse that can still be seen at the church today. In a bizarre coda to Derfel’s legend, the statue of Derfel was transported from the depths of Wales to London to form part of the pyre built for the ecclesiastical murder of the priest John Forest, former confessor of Queen Catharine of Aragon. This was presumably motivated both by the reformers’ dislike of the local cult of this figure and by a supposed local prophecy that the statue would one day start a fire that would burn down a whole forest. The wooden statue was paraded to the pyre by the executioners bound in ropes as though the image itself was a condemned man. A sign was erected that said “David Darvell Catheren, as saith the Welshmen, fetched outlaws out of Hell. Now is he come with spere and shilde in harness to burn in Smithfeilde, for in Wales he may not dwell”.
Nonetheless Derfyl is also remembered for the holiness of his later life having eventually renounced his weapons and turned to a life of asceticism and penance after the disaster of Camlann. The present day church of St Derfel at Llanderfel on the site of his hermitage was home to his relics and a centre of local pilgrimage that made the church locally rich. Some other traditions say that in later life he succeeded his Breton cousin Cadfan as the abbot of Bardsey Island and died on the remote Isle of Tides at the age of more than a hundred.
St Cynfelyn, from the list in the Panton manuscript seems to have a similar legend, a warrior turned penitent. He seems to have started life as Cynfelyn ap Bleuddid, a local lordling in mid Wales descended by repute from Cunedda Wledig, founder of the kingdom of Gwynedd. St Cynfelyn in later life retired to a hermit’s cell on an island on the edge of a marsh, near the present day village of Llangynfelyn, where he lived a life of asceticism. He is remembered in the welsh martyrologies as a confessor of the faith and Aneurin’s poem Stanzas of the Months includes the couplet “Truly says Cynfelyn, A man’s best candle is reason.”
Cedwyn from the list of seven is even more obscure but likewise seems to be a noble-born person descended in his case from Vortigern and Vortimer, the patriarchs of the House of Powys. Llangedwyn in the Tanat valley, not far from Pennant Melangell, preserves his name on the Welsh map. Here too is the tradition of a warrior turned holy man.
St Pedrog, to conclude the list, is a reference to Pedrog Splintered-Spear, according to the bards’ triads one of the three Just Knights of Arthur’s court, paladins who would contest with anyone who would do an injustice to the weak and defenceless, “in the cause of justice”. The triad says that this Pedrog was the son of Clement, prince of Cornwall. Other traditions (or traditions of a different Pedrog) remember a Pedrog who was descended from Welsh nobility, son of King Glywys of the kingdom of Glywysing in South Wales. Then again there is Saint Petroc, patron saint of the county of Cornwall along with St Michael and St Piran, who is patron of at least seventeen churches scattered across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset as well as a handful in Wales, with the sites most closely linked with him at Padstow in Cornwall where he settled for a while at the mouth of the River Camel, and St Petroc’s church in the town of Bodmin where his relics were venerated. The number of different individuals represented here is dubious, but what you have clearly is a complex later tradition that combined motifs of noble descent, a career as a warrior and separate saintly career.
So in all, you have these four sons of noble houses, steeped in the ways of war as was their culture who all, after the time of battle, laid down their arms and chose a life of penance. These stories seem to reflect a shift in Welsh culture brought about by the arrival of Christianity in Wales. The ideals for a leader in celtic society were courage and skill in battle and largesse and generosity in peace time. There is nothing in the indigenous culture that would shame a warrior for deeds done in war. Inter-tribal warfare was a fact of life and it was fitting for the sons of the aristocracy to answer the call to battle, and afterwards to settle down to enjoy the fruits of their military career. It seems though that the new faith opened up new possibilities that critiqued this violent culture. There are other stories, told in parallel to these, notably of Myrddin Wyllt in welsh-speaking culture and of Suibne Geilt in Ireland, that recognise the trauma of warfare and tell of men driven mad on the battlefield and in a way the tales of Derfel and the others might tell the same story of traumatised men who went apart to seek healing, men who chose solitary hermitages where they found solace in divine love and attended to the healing of their souls. There’s maybe another perspective as well of souls who learnt from bitter experience that the violence of warfare was something that required repentance, that the deeds required by their culture were in the end too heavy to be borne. It seems a hopeful thing that the arrival of Christianity allowed these men to step out of that violent culture and find a broader perspective that offered them the chance of atonement and of freedom from those memories. In these troubled times of our own, it may be that the vision of a greater world can inspire us to transcend our own culture, too.
(c) Tony Marshall Griffiths 2023. First published to WordPress 12th Mar 2023.
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