Hiberni Reversuri
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Proc Antiqc So Scot, 110, 1978-80, 305-27 Hiberni reversuri M Miller* accouns Thirhi e f th o f do td Pictisen e Ath th War, Gildas tell thas s u consequenc n ti f eo the Brittonic victory the Picts retired and their Irish allies went home, post non longum tempus reversuri.1 In a previous discussion of this passage (Miller 1975a), I suggested that 'expecting to return after no long time' would be a legitimate translation. However, even if this suggestion holds, it is also true that Gildas might not have mentioned the matter if the expectation had not been fulfilled followine Th . g discussio concernes ni d with evidenc r thiefo s fulfilment. While Gildas' First and Second Pictish Wars can be fairly closely dated on external evidence2 Thire fo th ronle dw y know crisis thait Britone t sa th t s appealed (vainly Agitioo )t consult.r te From Bede's time onwards Agitius has usually been identified with Aetius, who was third time consul in 446, and could have been so addressed at any time up to his murder in 454.3 The Brittonic victory and the withdrawal of the Picts, together with the evacuation by the Irish of lande th s betweewallso therefore tw ar e , nth e probably dateable sometim f i 450se th d n an e;i Gildas kneIrisn a f hwo return, this mus f courso t e have happened writins beforwa e r gh eo (Mille9 54 publishino t r 5 1975c) 54 implicatioe n i gTh . f Gildasno ' referenc thas ei t aftee th r Third Pictish War, the Picts and Scots acted independently, no longer in alliance as before. lookine Whaar e r thereforw tgfo assertioy an s ei n about Irish attack Britain o s n after about 460 and before 545. The relevant written sources are of three ascertainable kinds: historical (at least by intention) legendar r presseyo legendaro dt y usepseudo-historicald an ; ; ther s alssourct e ei ye oon s ea unclassified. Of these, only the historical can (if it survives criticism) provide evidence that the evenn retura facts n resi te nwa th ; t tel thats lu , whether fac fictionr famouto s wa t ,i literature n si . Each account comes fro mdifferena t area historicae th : l from Ulste perhapd ran s Dalriadae th , legendary from Anglesey, the pseudo-historical from Meirionydd, and the unclassified from Man through Gwynedd. It is a question how far they are independent: their particularism has weighee b o t d agains face th tt tha l are r closelal to , y depen , pedigredon e material. surveA 4 y sourcee oth f usefully sma y precede discussio externae th f no l evidenc historicityr efo . ULSTER e only th e major t , Th intendedlno f i , y historical sourc anagraphin a s ei ce poeth n mo provincial king f ChristiaUlstee so th f o r n period dow 1165-6o nt editions o t existI . tw n si f o , whic earliese hth t manuscript i MainBooe U th f ke o e sar (late 14th century Dublid an ) n RIA Stowe B iv 2, written in 1628.5 Taken together with the annals,6 this gives us an annotated pedigree. Professor Byrne lists five other treatments of the provincial king-list of Ulster, either independent or contained in Synchronisms. These were apparently known to the present poet, * 33 Kersland Street, Glasgow | PROCEEDING 6 30 THF SO E SOCIETY, 1978-80 TABLE 1 Early Ulaid king l Fiatacs Da fro e mth h 1. Muiredach Red-neck, first Christian king, reigned 25 or 27 years [obit 479 AFM, 490 ATg] . Eochaid2 , reignee dth 3. Cairell, reigned 25 years; 4. Eochu of the Cruithin same length of time ravaged Man and died in l nAraideDa s yr 6 2 ; [obit 507 ATg] Arran [obit 526 AFM] [obit 553 AUc] . Fergnae5 , nephef wo I Muiredach (?) 4 yrs. 6. Demman, reigned 14 years 7. Baetan, reigned 20 years [obi AUc7 55 t ] [obit 572 AUc] [obiAUc1 58 t ] [577 AUc: e Blace th th f d ko Ae . 8 attac Mann ko ] Cruithin [obis 8 yr 58 t7 : AUc] . Fiachna9 e Lurgan (g.so) 4. f no 10. Fiachnae, reigned 2 years 30 yrs [obit 626 AUc] [obi AUc7 62 t ] 11. Congal Claen (g.son of 9.): 10 yrs. 12. Dunchad, reigne yearsd9 ; Seventeen generations raged against Man [obit I 643 AFM] 66. Eochaid 1158-1166 e commandeh t bu d better sources than thos e onl th extant ys i survivin e h : g authoritr yfo CairelFs campaign in Man and death in Arran. Baetan's Manx activities however are known not from this source, but from the annals and genealogical collections: the latter report that he 'cleared the gaill out of Man', but that it was abandoned in the second year after his death.7 The Manx war of Dunchad is apparently, like that of Cairell, unique to this poem. It is obvious that no confidence can be placed in the reign-lengths assigned to the first four reigns, with their sequence of 25/27, the same, 25, and 26 years respectively, too regular longo to .d Consequentlan y (assumin accurace g th pedigreee th f yo ) Cairell's deat likels hi o yt be later than 526.8 It is clear however that the historians of the Dal Fiatach believed that Cairell, Baetan, and Dunchad had led attacks on Man over a considerable period, and that Cairell had also reached the Firth of Clyde. DALRIADA Whe Clydeside ture th nw o n t e power thif so s period fine w ,d tha recorde th t Brittonif so c Strathclyd t reacno ho e d royareliabl e backr th fa t l o pedigrebu y,s f Dalriadeo whas y aha ma t usefue b l details. Modern scholarship holds that the first kings of this pedigree settled in Kintyre, and that the advance into Cowal (reaching the west coast of the Firth of Clyde) took place under Comgall, regardes i eponyo e th wh s da m (Skene 1847, xciii; Watson 1926, 121; Anderso Anderso& n n 1961, 38). Once more, the variability of the dates makes them unreliable, but for our purposes the modern contention is of interest, in that this Dalriadic expansion is placed somewhere within 50 545o 6therefort d an , approximatels ei y contemporary with Cairell (whos6 52 eo t dat1 e50 have w eiss a ,seen early)o to , . nature extanr ou Th f eo t source sucs si h tha cannoe w t t tel thif li s modern contentios nwa MILLER: HIBERNI REVERSURI 307 TABLE2 Early king Dalriadf so a 1. Fergus, (first) king of Scots in Britain, obit 498 AFM, 501 ATg . Domangar2 t obit 506 ATg, 507 AUc 3. Comgall . Gabra4 n obit 538c ,AU 5425 54 , obic tAU 5580 56 , I I 5. Conall 6. Aedan obit 606 AUc c AU obi1 57 t campaignec Orknen di AU 0 y58 campaigned in Man 582 AUc, c AU , 583584 4AC 50 , 8. Connad Cerr . Eochaid7 , obi 'kins a t f go c AU 9 62 obig t AT 6278 62 , Picts' 629 AUc 9. Domnall Brecc obit 642, 686 AUc anticipated by medieval learning, nor whether any such anticipation was independent of the Dal Fiatach story of Cairell.9 It should however have been the case that, before the activities of i NeillColumbU kinge e th , th f Dalriad so f ao a were subordinat thoso et f Ulstereo thao s , t the king of the two Dalriadas would owe service and be owed protection or furtherance of his interests: Cairel Ulstef o l Arran ri Comgald nan Dalriadf o l Cowan ai therefore ar l plausiblea e conjuncture. ANGLESEY The relevant material from Anglesey comes to us in the form of the foundation-legend of the kindred of the poets Meilyr Brydydd (c 1100-37), his son Gwalchmai (c 1130-80) and grand- son Einio 1203-23).c n( This foundation-legen annotation a s di pedigree e th o nt telld s an ,su 10 that Meilyr ap Gwron ap Cunedda was with his cousin Cadwallon ab Einion ap Cunedda when lattee th r defeate Irishmae dth n Serig t Llaa i mGwyddey Anglesey.n i l 11 This Meily listes i r d as the eighteenth ancestor of Meilyr Brydydd. The obit of Cadwallon is placed at 534 in the Annals of Redon,12 and seems to have been date th e from whic autho e Historiae hth th f ro Brittonum sources hi r (o ) reckoned back (exactly) 146 years to the foundation of Gwynedd on the death of Maximus in 388. We can therefore 13 apparently trace Cadwallo obit-dats hi d nestablishean s ea thad ad t- sinc 830y d db e,an consular dating appears in Gwynedd on an epitaph of 540 (Nash-Williams 1950, no 104) - the date could wel true taked b l ean n fro msimilaa r epigraphic source. Annalse noticobie e th 1th n 4Th i t f eo ofRedon is: occisus est Cavallonus rex fortissimus Majoris Britanniae, and this may be a reference Angleses hi o t y war (fortissimus). Unfortunatel knot no wo d whee yw n this entry (and four others) were prefixed to the Annals proper, which begin with the foundation of Redon in 832. t lookI s therefor thougs ea have hw e her egooa d historical source pressed into servica s ea foundation-legen Meilyy db r Brydyd progenys hi r do .