Tegid Foel is the husband of

Ceridwen Ceridwen or Cerridwen ( ''Ke-RID-wen'') was an enchantress in Welsh mythology, Welsh medieval legend. She was the mother of a hideous son, Afagddu, and a beautiful daughter, Creirwy. Her husband was Tegid Foel and they lived near Bala Lake () in ...

Welsh mythology Welsh mythology (Welsh: ''Mytholeg Cymru'') consists of both folk traditions developed in Wales, and traditions developed by the Celtic Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium. As in most of the predominantly oral societies Cel ...

. His name rendered into English would be "Tacitus the Bald". In folklore, Tegid Foel is associated with Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) in

Gwynedd Gwynedd (; ) is a county and preserved county (latter with differing boundaries; includes the Isle of Anglesey) in the north-west of Wales. It shares borders with Powys, Conwy County Borough, Denbighshire, Anglesey over the Menai Strait, and C ...

and may have been the tutelary deity of that lake. Tegid Foel is known chiefly from the story of

Taliesin Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the '' Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts ...

's birth, first recorded in full in the 16th century but dating to a much earlier period. According to the story, he lived by Llyn Tegid in the region of Penllyn with his wife, the sorceress Ceridwen. Together they had two children, a beautiful daughter named Creirwy and a son Morfran, called

Afagddu Morfran (Middle Welsh: ''Moruran'' "cormorant"; literally "sea crow", from ''môr'', "sea", and ''brân'', "crow", from Common Brittonic *''mori-brannos'', as in French ''cormoran'' < L ''corvus marinus'') is a figure ...

("utter darkness") because of his dark skin and hideous looks. Tegid's name is mentioned several times in Welsh literature in the patronymic of his more famous son Mofran; it appears in the ''

Mabinogion The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, create ...

'' tales '' Culhwch and Olwen'' and ''

The Dream of Rhonabwy ''The Dream of Rhonabwy'' ( cy, Breuddwyd Rhonabwy) is a Middle Welsh prose tale. Set during the reign of Madog ap Maredudd, prince of Powys (died 1160), its composition is typically dated to somewhere between the late 12th through the late 14th c ...

'', and in Welsh Triads 24 and 41. Apart from Creirwy and Morfran the Welsh genealogies also name other children of Tegid. The ''Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae'' gives the following lineage: "Afan Buellt son of Cedig son of Ceredig son of

Cunedda Cunedda ap Edern, also called Cunedda ''Wledig'' ( 5th century), was an important early Welsh people, Welsh leader, and the progenitor of the Royal dynasty of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd, one of the very oldest of western Europe. Name The n ...

Wledig by Degfed Tenth"daughter of Tegid Foel"; Rawlins MS B gives another genealogy naming another daughter, Dwywai.Bromwich, ''Trioedd Ynys Prydein'', pp. 506–507. Standard spellings.

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References

* * * {{Celtic mythology (Welsh) Welsh mythology