Ceretic of Elmet (or Ceredig ap Gwallog) was the last king of

Elmet Elmet ( cy, Elfed), sometimes Elmed or Elmete, was an independent Brittonic kingdom between about the 5th century and early 7th century, in what later became the smaller area of the West Riding of Yorkshire then West Yorkshire, South Yorkshir ...

, a Britonnic kingdom that existed in the

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

area of

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

in sub-Roman Britain. Bede records that

Hilda of Whitby Hilda (or Hild) of Whitby (c. 614 – 680) was a Christian saint and the founding abbess of the monastery at Whitby, which was chosen as the venue for the Synod of Whitby in 664. An important figure in the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon Engla ...

(born 614), a member of the

Deira Deira ( ; Old Welsh/Cumbric: ''Deywr'' or ''Deifr''; ang, Derenrice or ) was an area of Post-Roman Britain, and a later Anglian kingdom. Etymology The name of the kingdom is of Brythonic origin, and is derived from the Proto-Celtic *''daru' ...

n royal family, was taken to the court of King Ceretic, after fleeing from the Northumbrian usurper,

Æthelfrith Æthelfrith (died c. 616) was King of Bernicia from c. 593 until his death. Around 604 he became the first Bernician king to also rule the neighboring land of Deira, giving him an important place in the development of the later kingdom of Nor ...

Bernicia Bernicia ( ang, Bernice, Bryneich, Beornice; la, Bernicia) was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England. The Anglian territory of Bernicia was ap ...

. Bede describes Ceretic as " King of the Britons", perhaps meaning just the Britons of that area. When Edwin of Deira returned to power in 617, Ceretic was expelled, supposedly due to complicity in the poisoning of Hilda's father, and his kingdom was annexed to the

Kingdom of Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

. He is probably the Ceretic whose death is recorded in the ''

Annales Cambriae The (Latin for ''Annals of Wales'') is the title given to a complex of Latin chronicles compiled or derived from diverse sources at St David's in Dyfed, Wales. The earliest is a 12th-century presumed copy of a mid-10th-century original; later ed ...

'' in 616 (which should be corrected to 617 or soon afterwards).J. Morris (ed.), ''Nennius, British History, and the Welsh Annals'' (Phillimore, 1980), p. 86: ''616 an: Ceretic obiit.'' He is generally thought to be identical to Ceredig ap Gwallog, a ' Man of the North', whose father, Gwallog ap Lleenog, is associated with Elmet by the poet,

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 ...

References

{{Reflist 617 deaths Monarchs of Elmet Year of birth unknown People from Yorkshire 7th-century English monarchs