Dafydd's Blog
Welcome to Dafydd's Blog!

There are quite some very detailed websites available online, that allow us to research through family trees of the ancient Celts and the old British monarchs. In fact, these genealogy trees go back as far as thousands of years BC.
Those of you who know a bit of the Welsh legends, also know of their gods and that these gods were at a time also humans of flesh and blood, and thus had families, children, and descendants. In the long run, King Arthur is one of their descendants.

Basically, the British family tree begins with two names:
Dôn and Beli. There can easily be found information on the House of Dôn, but what we focus on now is the fact they had two sons in particular.

One son is named Llud Llaw Ereint, and this man had also sons... one of them being Afallach (from which Avalon is derived) who is grandfather in his own right of Prydein/Prydain, the king who gave Britain (Prydain) his name. Another son is Tenuantius, who is great grandfather of Meurig. Meurig married Victoria, daughter of the well known Boudicca, who was daughter of Mandrubratius (another son of Llud Llaw Ereint!).
Meurig and Victoria had one son named Eurgen, who had one daughter named Gwladys.

Now we hold this particular line with Gwladys in mind, and move back up the family tree to the house of Dôn.
Dôn and Beli had also another son named Llyr (God of the Sea). There appear to be two marriages of Llyr: one with Penarddun, and one that is more important in this case, with Anna, daughter of Joseph of Arimathea (the uncle of Jesus the Christ of Nazareth).
Llyr and Anna had one son who is well known in the Mabinogion: Bran (Fendigaid/the Blessed). Bran and his wife Enygeus had sons, one of them being Caradoc. Caradoc's son Coellyn had two sons on his account: Owain and Coel.
While Owain is a great-great grand father of Eudaf Hen (king of Ewyas, father of Elen of the Roads who married Magnus Maximus/Macsen Wledig of the Mabinogion), we focus here on Coel (do not mistake with Coel Hen, who was Dux Britanniarium after Maximus). coel had a son named Llewfer Mawr.

And here we come back to the point we left off: Llewfer Mawr marries Gwladys, and they have two children:
another Gwladys, who is grandmother of Helena Augusta Britannica who married into the line of Roman emperors (Constantius I, Constantine I, Constantius II, Maximian Constans and finally Magnus Maximus).

Our attention now goes to Cadwalladr, the son of Llewfer Mawr and Gwladys. He has one DAUGHTER (though the mother of this daughter is not known) named FRIGG, also known as the Norse Goddess Frigga.
Yes, and it was this Frigga that was either wife of mother (depending on the sources) of Odin/Woden/Wodan!

From there, the family line continues in the Scandinavic lands, but what is also remarkable, is that an approximate date is available: birth date of Frigga is set at 219 AD, and birth date of Odin is set at 215 AD.

Was not Odin supposed to be the inventor of the nordic Runes, aka the Futhark?
Now we draw our attention to Nordic/Viking history, and we find that indeed the oldest Futhark inscriptions that can be found (in Denmark) appear to be from ca. 300 AD. Then the scandinavian culture begins to be born - based on the worship of Odin, Freya, Frigga and Thor. 400 years later the Viking Age begins as the Norse invade England and other areas of Europe and start their raids.
It must have been a few hundred years after these norse Gods actually walked this earth, that the religion became fundamental and strong. Much like Christianity became in fact powerful a few hundred years after Christ, as the majority of Christian and Catholic Saints can be found in the 4th century and onward.

Thus there can be a connection between the British Celtic Gods, and the Norse Gods after all? Something to comtemplate on...