{{No footnotes, date=May 2022 Mynyddog Mwynfawr (variant orthographies include:

Old Welsh Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic ...

''Mynydawc Mwynvawr''; Middle Welsh; ''Mynyddawg Mwynfawr'') was, according to Welsh tradition founded on the early

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

poem '' Y Gododdin'' (attributed to Aneirin), a Brittonic ruler of the kingdom of Gododdin in the

Hen Ogledd Yr Hen Ogledd (), in English the Old North, is the historical region which is now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Its population spo ...

("Old North"; a Welsh language term for Scotland and northern England). The traditional reading of ''Y Gododdin'', accepted by most scholars, is that Mynyddog is king of Gododdin, perhaps with his court at

Din Eidyn Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods, approximately the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh C ...

, modern

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He appears as the sponsor of the renowned warband that fought at the Battle of Catraeth in the early Welsh poem. The name Mynyddog Mwynfawr, if translated as a personal name, means Mynyddog the Wealthy. The name ''Mynyddog'' is the adjectival form of ''mynydd'' "mountain" (i.e. "mountainous").

John T. Koch John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume ''Celtic Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia'' (2006, ABC Clio). He ...

considers Mynyddog Mwynfawr to be a place (meaning approximately "Wealthy Mountain"). Koch argues that Mynyddog Mwynfawr is a kenning or

personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...

which represents Din Eidyn, Gododdin, or perhaps the entire Old North, and that Gwlyget, described as Mynyddog's steward, is the ruler of Gododdin. The popular Welsh poet Richard Davies (1833–1877) adopted the name ''Mynyddog'' as his pen name. Use of an adopted Welsh-language pen name was common among Welsh poets of his era.

Sources

* Rachel Bromwich (ed.), ''Trioedd Ynys Prydein'' (University of Wales Press, 1978; new edition, 1991) * Chris Lowe, ''Angels, Fools and Tyrants: Britons and Saxons in Southern Scotland'' (Canongate Books and Historic Scotland, 1999) * Ifor Williams (ed.), ''Canu Aneirin'' (University of Wales Press, 1958). The standard edition of ''Y Gododdin''. Northern Brythonic monarchs Medieval Welsh literature