House of Rhodri

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6th–9th Centuries

Before Rhodri Mawr: In the Footsteps of Merlin

Journey beyond Rhodri Mawr into the world of Merlin, tracing ancestral traditions through Merfyn Frych, Llywarch Hen and the legends of early Wales

An imagined Myrddin (Merlin) in a woollen cloak overlooking a misty valley, with ancient woodland and a distant timber hall.
An imagined Myrddin at the edge of an older world, where ancestry meets poetry and legend. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

An ancestral journey into the world of princes, poets and prophecy.

Beyond Rhodri’s Family Tree

My family’s story has taken me back to Rhodri Mawr.

Following the research my mother preserved, I have been exploring the names, relationships and generations that connect our family’s story to the rulers of medieval Wales. Some of those names once seemed distant to me. They belonged in history books, on castle information boards or in the titles of old manuscripts.

Now they have become part of a more personal journey.

But reaching Rhodri raises another question.

Who came before him?

A family tree encourages us to look backwards. Every name leads to another. Every branch suggests a road not yet travelled. Eventually, though, we reach a place where the evidence changes. The surviving records become thinner, the pedigrees more difficult to assess, and the stories surrounding the people grow larger.

That does not mean the journey must end.

It means we need to understand what sort of journey we are making.

This time, I am following an ancestral tradition beyond Rhodri, towards a world remembered through poetry, royal pedigrees and legend. Along that road stands a figure whose name is known far beyond Wales.

Merlin.

In the Welsh traditions we are following, he is Myrddin: a poet, a prophet and a man whose story became entangled with the forests and fallen kingdoms of early Britain. Tradition

His relationship with the familiar Arthurian wizard developed over centuries of storytelling.

I am not setting out to claim him as an ancestor.

The question is more intriguing than that.

How close can the old ancestral stories take us to his world?

Before Rhodri: The Road Through Merfyn

A winding hillside path among moss-covered rocks, fading into mist between distant ridges.
An imagined ancestral road, suggesting the journey backwards through names, generations and an increasingly uncertain past. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

The first step backwards takes us to Rhodri’s father, Merfyn Frych. Genealogies

Merfyn was king of Gwynedd and died in 844. Documented

His father was Gwriad. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography describes Gwriad as a “reputed descendant” of Llywarch Hen, a figure associated with the northern British sixth century. Genealogies

That distinction is worth carrying with us.

That single word, reputed, changes how we should read the road ahead.

It does not make the tradition uninteresting. It tells us that a claim of descent and a demonstrated descent are not necessarily the same thing.

The traditional pedigree we are exploring runs backwards:

Rhodri Mawr → Merfyn Frych → Gwriad → Elidyr → Sandde → Alcwn → Tegid → Gwair → Dwg → Llywarch Hen. Genealogies

This is a sequence preserved through medieval genealogical tradition, rather than a continuous set of contemporary records proving every relationship. Spellings of the names can also differ between sources.

For a storyteller, those names have a particular power.

Read them aloud, and they begin to sound like footsteps.

Rhodri. Merfyn. Gwriad. Elidyr.

Each name moves us further from the world we recognise and deeper into a past reconstructed from fragments.

But we must resist the temptation to fill every silence with certainty. The claimed connection between Gwriad and Llywarch Hen is disputed. We cannot simply attach the entire sequence to a modern family tree and treat every generation as equally secure.

Instead, we can ask what the pedigree remembers, what it claims and where it leads.

And in Merfyn’s case, it leads somewhere unexpected.

Into a poem spoken by Myrddin.

The King Named in a Prophet’s Voice

An open parchment manuscript on a worn wooden desk, its handwritten lines softly lit by a candle.
An imagined manuscript scene evoking the poetry that brings Merfyn Frych’s name into Myrddin’s prophetic world. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

There is already a literary bridge between Merfyn Frych and the Merlin tradition.

It appears in a medieval Welsh poem called Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer, usually translated as “The Dialogue of Myrddin and Gwenddydd his Sister”. Documented

Within that poem, Merfyn is described as:

“Merfyn Frych from the land of Manaw.” Documented

For me, that is the moment when two strands of this journey touch.

On one side stands Merfyn, father of Rhodri, a ruler whose place in Gwynedd’s history is established.

On the other stands Myrddin, speaking within a literary tradition of prophecy.

The poem presents a conversation between Myrddin and his sister Gwenddydd. Through their exchange, the prophetic voice looks towards a succession of future rulers. Merfyn belongs to that sequence. Documented

Here, “Documented” refers to what the surviving poem contains, not to proof that its prophecies were genuinely spoken in the sixth century.

We need not pretend this proves an impossible meeting across the centuries.

A later poet could place known events into the mouth of a figure imagined to have lived in an earlier age. What appears within the story as a prediction can therefore reflect knowledge of the past at the time of composition.

Merfyn’s appearance is evidence of his place in the Myrddin literary tradition, not evidence that a sixth-century prophet personally foretold his reign.

Yet understanding that does not diminish the discovery.

It gives us something real to work with.

We do not have to invent a conversation between Merfyn and Merlin. Medieval storytelling has already brought Merfyn’s name into Myrddin’s world.

For the family-history journey, that is a remarkable crossing point.

The ancestral road and the prophetic poem do not become the same road. But, for a moment, they run beside each other.

Llywarch Hen: At the Far End of the Pedigree

An imagined Llywarch Hen, grey-haired and cloaked, seated beside empty benches in a dim timber hall.
An imagined Llywarch Hen in a quiet hall, evoking the loss and remembrance that gather around his name in Welsh poetry. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

If Merfyn provides the literary bridge, Llywarch Hen provides the human face at the earlier end of the tradition.

Llywarch belongs to the remembered world of the Hen Ogledd, the Old North. Welsh tradition presents him as a British prince associated with the northern rulers. Tradition

The pedigrees also present him as a cousin of Urien of Rheged, a ruler associated with the latter half of the sixth century. Genealogies

But it is not merely his place among princes that makes him compelling.

It is the voice of loss attached to his name.

A cycle of poetry presents Llywarch as an old man looking back on conflict, family and bereavement. Documented

The poems are not a securely authenticated autobiography. They are literary works built around his character and the people and places associated with him.

That distinction matters, but it leaves us with an extraordinary figure for storytelling.

An ageing prince.

A survivor.

A man whose world can be approached through lament rather than through the triumphant language of conquest.

The traditions also connect him with Urien’s death and its aftermath. Tradition

Through this poetry, the northern past becomes something more intimate than a sequence of rulers. It becomes a landscape of loyalties, grief and remembrance.

This is where the journey slows.

The names between Merfyn and Llywarch carry us through the pedigree. Llywarch gives us a reason to stop and listen.

We can imagine an old man looking across the remains of his world, provided we understand that the scene is our storytelling, not a recovered eyewitness account.

What has he survived?

What does he regret?

What remains when the men who once filled the halls are gone?

Those questions bring us close to the emotional world of Myrddin.

Myrddin Before the Familiar Wizard

An imagined Myrddin Wyllt seated among moss-covered tree roots, wearing a weathered cloak in a misty woodland.
An imagined Myrddin in the forest, evoking the isolation that follows battle in the Welsh tradition. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

The Merlin many of us first encounter is a magician at a king’s side.

He belongs to a world of enchanted swords, royal secrets and extraordinary power.

The earlier Welsh Myrddin tradition offers a different figure.

Myrddin Wyllt, “Myrddin the Wild”, is associated with a sixth-century northern British setting. In the traditional account, he serves Gwenddoleu and is overwhelmed by the catastrophe of the Battle of Arfderydd, conventionally dated to 573. Tradition

After the battle, he retreats into the forest and becomes a wild, prophetic figure. Tradition

We should not mistake that account for a fully verified biography.

But we can recognise its emotional force.

This Myrddin does not begin as a comfortable adviser seated beside a throne. He belongs to a story about what violence does to a person.

The hall gives way to the forest.

The ordered world of service and loyalty gives way to isolation.

Speech becomes prophecy.

I would be cautious about assigning a modern medical diagnosis to a legendary figure. Nevertheless, a present-day audience can recognise the story’s concern with suffering after battle without needing to explain away its supernatural elements.

Myrddin is both wounded and extraordinary.

His separation from ordinary society is part of what makes his voice powerful.

And he is not entirely alone within the literary tradition. The dialogue with Gwenddydd gives him someone who asks questions and draws words from him. The prophet has a sister, and the prophetic voice exists within a relationship.

That offers a richer character than the familiar image of an all-knowing wizard.

It gives us someone to listen to before we ask him to perform magic.

Where Llywarch and Myrddin Approach Each Other

Llywarch and Myrddin offer two ways into a remembered age of northern British conflict.

One is the old prince whose story gathers around loss.

The other is the wild prophet whose story gathers around the aftermath of battle.

Their relationship is not something we need to manufacture from nothing. Historic Environment Scotland has published research exploring connections between Llywarch Hen, Myrddin, the Battle of Arfderydd and the landscape around Caerlaverock. Documented

That does not permit us to announce that the two men definitely sat together at a particular fire.

It does give us a sound reason to explore the traditions alongside one another.

We can let their voices echo without forcing them into an invented historical meeting.

Llywarch looks backwards.

Myrddin looks forward.

One remembers those who have gone. The other speaks of those still to come.

Between them stands the storyteller, trying to understand how the past survives when the people themselves have disappeared.

Here, memory becomes the thread connecting the journey.

It is also what connects this exploration to my mother’s research.

The distances are vastly different, and the evidence belongs to different categories. But the desire to preserve names, relationships and stories is something I recognise.

We do not want the people before us to vanish completely.

South to Carmarthen: The Fort Beneath the Legend

An imagined fortified riverside settlement, with a low defensive wall and rooftops emerging through morning mist.
An imagined riverside settlement evoking the layers of place and legend explored at Carmarthen, not a reconstruction of the historic town. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

The northern setting does not explain every part of the Merlin tradition.

Another strand brings us south, to Carmarthen.

Here, the physical landscape offers its own invitation. Carmarthen developed from a Roman military and urban setting. The Roman town, Moridunum, became an administrative centre, and its history included substantial defences. Documented

The later medieval castle belongs to a different stage in the town’s development. Documented

So we must distinguish the Roman fort, the Roman town, its defences and the medieval castle.

They are connected by place, but they are not a single structure built at a single moment.

The name offers another layer.

Caerfyrddin became associated with the interpretation “Myrddin’s fort”, or “Merlin’s fort”. Tradition

Yet the place-name has older roots in Moridunum, meaning “sea fort”. Inferred

The legendary interpretation is not proof that Myrddin owned or occupied a fortress there.

For storytelling, I find that layering more interesting than a simple ownership claim.

An ancient place survives.

Its name changes.

Later generations hear something in that name and attach a story to it.

Eventually, place and legend become difficult to separate in the imagination.

Carmarthen also gives us the Black Book of Carmarthen, a manuscript dating from around the middle of the thirteenth century that preserves important early Welsh poetry, including material associated with Myrddin and the Arthurian tradition. Documented

It is not a family register proving our route to Merlin.

It is another kind of inheritance: words carried forward.

Arthur Enters the Story

An imagined Arthur and Merlin standing on a windswept ridge, with misty hills stretching towards a softly lit horizon.
An imagined Arthur and Merlin, evoking the literary world in which prophecy became entwined with royal destiny. Image: House of Rhodri, Own work

Arthur enters this journey through the development of the legend, not through a demonstrated branch of the family tree.

He already appears in earlier British traditions. The ninth-century Historia Brittonum describes him as a battle leader fighting alongside the kings of the Britons against the Saxons. Documented

That label identifies what the text says, not independent proof that Arthur fought the battles attributed to him.

Those accounts were written long after the period in which a historical Arthur is usually placed, leaving his historical identity unresolved.

The great literary joining of Arthur and Merlin came through Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Around 1136, Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain brought their traditions into the same sweeping account of Britain’s past. Merlin appears in the stories of rulers who preceded Arthur and plays a crucial role in the circumstances that led to Arthur’s conception. Documented

Again, this is evidence of the literary account, not verification of the events within it.

This helps explain why the familiar Merlin feels larger than any single early tradition.

He is the product of repeated storytelling.

The wild prophet, the interpreter of signs and the figure connected with royal destiny became woven into an expanding Arthurian world.

Arthur need not take over this story.

He can stand at its edge, showing where the Myrddin tradition travelled and how far its influence reached.

Our journey began with names in a pedigree.

It has brought us into one of the most enduring legendary worlds in European literature.

What We Can Carry Home

So what have we found?

Not proof that Merlin was an ancestor.

Not a deed naming one of the figures in the pedigree as the owner of Carmarthen’s ancient fort.

And not a reason to treat every medieval genealogical claim as fact.

We have found something better suited to an honest storyteller.

Merfyn Frych, Rhodri’s father, appears in a poem belonging to the Myrddin prophetic tradition.

The disputed pedigree leading towards Llywarch Hen takes us into the remembered northern world explored alongside Myrddin in Welsh literary scholarship.

Carmarthen adds another strand: an ancient fortified place, a name interpreted through legend and a manuscript preserving the voices of medieval Welsh poetry.

These are different connections.

Keeping them distinct does not break the story. It gives the story its shape.

We can move from history into traditional ancestry, from ancestry into poetry, and from poetry into legend, without pretending that the boundaries have disappeared.

For me, that is the fascination of looking beyond Rhodri.

The family tree does not simply end at the edge of certainty. It invites another kind of question.

What did later generations believe about those who came before them?

Which names did they preserve?

Which voices did they place in the mouths of princes and prophets?

And why do those voices still reach us?

I began by following my mother’s work backwards through the generations.

Now I find myself listening at the edge of an older world.

There is Llywarch, remembering.

There is Myrddin, speaking towards the future.

And between them, across all those centuries, there is still a story to tell.

Further Reading

The sources below provide historical, literary and archaeological background to this exploration. They do not independently verify our modern family’s descent, and the inclusion of a pedigree in a source does not establish every relationship within it.

Merfyn Frych and the Ancestral Tradition

Llywarch Hen and the Old North

Myrddin and the Prophetic Poetry

Carmarthen and the Black Book

Arthur and Geoffrey of Monmouth

Written by House of Rhodri · updated 2 November 2026

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