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As to the story of the stranger having been refused milk, and cursing Plescop, that is a mere piece of popular invention to account for the fact that the pasturage of the parish is unsuitable for milch kine. From the popular tradition nothing further can be concluded than that a certain man named Amon came from foreign parts and died there almost immediately after his arrival, and that at an uncertain date.

S. ANDRAS, Confessor

He lived in the fifth century, and was the son of S. Rhain Dremrudd ab Brychan Brycheiniog.1

Llanandras, in the Diocese of Llandaff, is said to be dedicated to him. This, fo-day, is the parish church of S. Andrew Major, in the Deanery of Penarth. Llanandras is also the Welsh name for Presteigne, in the County of Radnor and Diocese of Hereford, the parish church of which is now regarded as dedicated to the Apostle. Probably both are dedicated to the Apostle, whose name in Welsh takes the form Andreas.

S. ANEF, or ANE, Hermit

He was one of the sons of Caw, lord of Cwm Cawlwyd, in the North, who, not being able to withstand the constant incursions of the Gwyddyl Ffichti, was obliged to leave his territory, and come with his numerous family, most of whom embraced the religious life, to Anglesey, where they settled on lands given them by Cadwallon Lawhir and Maelgwn Gwynedd. This was about the beginning of the sixth century. He is said to have been a hermit in Anglesey, and to him is dedicated the chapel of Coedana (Coed-aneu, or -ane) in that county, now subject to

1 Iolo MSS., pp. 121, 140.

Llangwyllog.

1

Sometimes it is said to be dedicated to S. Blenwyd,

or Blenwydd, another son of Caw.2

If he be the same as Angawd, son of Caw, he was at one time in the service of Arthur, according to the tale of Culhwch and Olwen.3 The Angar of the "Sayings of the Wise" may also possibly mean the same person :

Hast thou heard the saying of Angar,
Son of Caw, the celebrated warrior?
"The heart will break with grief."4
(Bid tonn calon gan alar.)

Another brother, S. Ceidio, is patron of Rhodygeidio (Rhodwydd Geidio), under Llanerchymedd, in the same neighbourhood.

S. Ane's Festival does not occur in any of the Welsh Calendars, but Miss Angharad Llwyd, in her History of Anglesey, gives it as January 13.5

S. ANEURIN, Abbot, Confessor

ANEURIN, the son of Caw, was one of a large family. The numbers vary in the several genealogies, the lowest being ten and the highest twenty-one. There are in the Iolo MSS. eight lists of the sons of Caw. Aneurin's name does not occur in all of them, but there are reasons for identifying it with another name included, that of Gildas. In these lists, when Aneurin occurs Gildas does not, except in one instance, where we have both names. The epithet "y Coed Aur" (of the Golden Wood) is sometimes added after both Aneurin and Gildas. We are expressly told that Euryn y Coed Aur was another name for Gildas, who was also called Gildas the Saint and Gildas the Prophet; and we also find Euryn and Aneurin identified.9

1 Myv. Arch., pp. 417, 420-1.

Iolo MSS., pp. 107, 137.

So the

2 Browne Willis, Bangor, p. 282. Lewis Morris, Celtic Remains, p. 39. Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Wales, s.v. Coedanna.

3 Mabinogion, ed. Rhys and Evans, p. 107.

5 P. 194 (1833).

Pp. 109, 116, 136, 142-3.

Iolo MSS.,

P. 256.

7 P. 143.

8 Ibid., pp. 117, 137. There was also an Euryn y Coed Helig, one of the twelve sons of Helig ab Glannog, ibid., p. 124.

9 Ibid., p. 118.

identity of Aneurin with Gildas may be taken as established.1 Probably, as has been suggested, Gildas was his "ecclesiastical appellation" when he became a "saint," that is, a monk, the name being regarded as an English rendering of his earlier name Euryn or Aneurin.2 Gildas has certainly not the appearance of a Welsh name. Neither Gildas

nor Aneurin is included in the Genealogies of the Saints printed in the Myvyrian Archaiology.

Some Welsh writers have identified Aneurin-Gildas with Aneurin "the Chief of Bards" (Mechdeyrn Beirdd) and author of those very obscure poems the Gododin and the three Gorchans (also Gododinian), which bear his name, and are to be found in the thirteenth century MS., the Book of Aneurin, now in the Cardiff Free Library. Stephens, in his posthumous edition of the Gododin, while rejecting the identification of the two Aneurins, tries to make out, but unsuccessfully we believe, that the bard was the son of Gildas. This he thought would "remove all the chronological difficulties which beset the authorship of the Gododin."

There is nothing really known about Aneurin the Bard beyond what may be gleaned from his own writings, which is very little. We are not given the slightest clue there as to his parentage; and the poems do not appear to contain any reference whatever to either Caw or his sons. Caw was lord of Cwm Cawlwyd, which seems to have been modern Renfrewshire. He was driven out of his territory by the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or Pictish Goidels, and he and his family found an asylum in Wales. Some of them remained with their father in North Wales, where they were given lands at Twr Celyn in Anglesey by Maelgwn Gwynedd, whilst the rest made for South Wales, where we are told they were granted lands by King Arthur, and became saints in the various Bangors there. Aneurin became a saint of Catwg's Bangor at Llancarfan, with which, as we learn from his Lives, Gildas was connected.

We know that Gildas died in 570, having been born probably in 476, or, as some suppose it, 493. Maelgwn Gwynedd, who is generally supposed to have died in 547, was venomously attacked by him circa 540. The chronological position of Aneurin-Gildas in the Genealogies fixes him as belonging to this same period, which is too early for

On

1 Iolo Morganwg, in a note in the Iolo MSS., p. 270, identified them. pp. 83, 118, 254, S. Cenydd, the son of Gildas, is said to be the son of Aneurin. 2 Eurin (from aur, gold), meaning "golden"; and the An- of Aneurin would here be an intensive (equivalent to en-), and not, as more commonly, a negative prefix. Gildas is to be referred to gild, derived from gold.

3 P. 9. Edited for the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion by Prof. Powel, 1888.

identification with Aneurin the Bard. The Gododin describes the Battle of Catraeth, which Stephens takes to have been that of Aegesanstane or Daegstan, which took place in 600 or 603.1 Skene, however, would divide the poem into two, the first part alone relating to the battle of Catraeth, which he identifies with the "bellum Miathorum" of Adamnan, and gives 586-603 as its date. The second part contains an allusion to the death of Dyfnwal Frych or Domnall Brecc, king of the Dalriadic Scots, who was slain at the Battle of Strathcarron in 642, and which the bard witnessed. He regards this second part as a continuation of the original Gododin by a pseudoAneurin.2 Out of the 363 "golden-torqued warriors" that fought at Catraeth only three escaped with their lives, says the author, besides himself.

The Welsh Triads state that Aneurin the Bard was treacherously killed by Eiddyn ab Einygan, who dealt him on the head one of "the three atrocious axe-strokes of the Isle of Britain "; 3 whereas AneurinGildas died in his bed at Ruys in Brittany.

We therefore conclude that Aneurin ab Caw and Gildas ab Caw are one and the same person; but that Aneurin the Bard, of whose pedigree the Welsh know nothing, lived considerably later.

There are no churches dedicated to him under the name Aneurin. See further under S. GILDAS.

S. ANNA, or ANNE, Widow, Abbess

THERE are four Annas mentioned in the Welsh pedigrees:-(1) Anna, daughter of Uthyr Bendragon. (2) Anna, daughter of Meurig ab Tewdrig. (3) Anna, daughter of Vortimer the Blessed. (4) Anna, daughter of Brychan Brycheiniog.4

Some authorities make Anna, daughter of Uthyr Bendragon, to have been the mother of Cynyr of Caer Gawch, and afterwards wife of Amwn Ddu, and mother of S. Samson, Another makes her wife first to Amwn and then to Cynyr.5

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4 Iolo MSS., p. 140.

This Anna must be a scribe's blunder.

5 Myv. Arch., p. 423; Iolo MSS., pp. 107, 141. She is also, on the same page,

said to have been the mother of S. David.

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