Cunedda

A northern British chieftan (ruler of the Votadini) who, according to Nennius, drove the Irish out of Wales in the fourth century. Cunedda’s sons were part of the expedition. He migrated with a number of subjects to Wales c. AD 430 and rid a large part of Wales of Irish settlers.

Cunedda appears in other sources, and may have been a real person, though Nennius’s dating seems too early; Cunedda would have fought the Irish in the early to mid-fifth century, possibly in the service of Vortigern. He may have descended from Roman nobility. In Welsh texts, a number of saints trace their pedigrees back to Cunedda, and one Welsh history makes him the maternal great-grandfather of Arthur.

His pedigree suggests that his was a Roman family in origin, running as follows:

According to Brut y Brenhinedd, a medieval Welsh history, Cunedda's daughter, Gwen, was the mother of Eigyr (Igraine), Arthur's mother, thus making Cunedda Arthur's great-grandfather. Cunedda may have married Gwawl, daugher of Coel.