Rodney Castleden - The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts

Boudicca was famously described in Rome: “She was huge of form and terrifying of aspect and with a harsh voice. A great mass of red hair fell to her knees and she wore a great twisted gold necklace, and a tunic of many colours.”

Dio Cassius makes a point of describing her as invariably wearing a “great twisted golden necklace.” The marvelous goldtorc found at Snettisham was made in about 50 BC, which at first sight makes it too early to have belonged to Boudicca. But royal regalia is often several generations old—its antiquity is part of its ceremonial value—and it is possible that this torc, and the rest of the Snettisham hoard, did belong to the queen.

See David .

Brendan (486–578) was a pupil of Bishop Erc of Kerry. He was a navigator and sailed to Iceland. From there he sailed westto a “beautiful land beyond the fogs.” He also sailed to the Fortunate Islands (assumed to be the Canary Islands). The ocean voyages took place in the years before 560.

Exactly where Brendan went is the subject of endless speculation. Some believe he discovered North America long before Columbus. What is certain is that he traveled to Wales, to Iona, and then to Ireland, where he founded a monastery at Annaghdown. There he spent the rest of his days, dying there in about 578 while visiting his sister Briga. Before his death, he arranged for his body to be taken secretly back to the monastery he had founded at Clonfert; it was transported hidden in a luggage cart. What he feared was that his followers might dismantle his body for relics. He was buried, intact, in Clonfert cathedral.

There were two Gaulish chiefs of this name, both leaders of invasions. It is possible that “Brennus” was a title, meaning dux bellorum or “commander-in-chief” rather than a personal name.

Diodorus Siculustells us about the second Gaulish King Brennus, who lived in the third century BC:

Brennus the King of the Gauls, on entering a temple [at Delphi in Greece] found no dedications of gold or silver, and when he came only upon images of stone and wood, he laughed at them [the Greeks], to think that men, believing that gods have human form, should set up their images in wood and stone.

The implication is that the more sophisticated Gauls did not think of the godsin anthropomorphic terms and this tallies with their art, much of which at that time did not feature humanoid forms.

It was an earlier Gaulish King Brennus, who was the King of the Senones tribe, who led the Celtic warriors in the sack of Rome in 387 BC. He caused more havoc there than would be seen again until Alaric the Goth descended on the city in the fifth century AD. Brennus demanded his own weight in gold, with the cry, “ Vae Victis! ” (“Woe to the defeated!”) He was interested in loot rather than conquest, which was perhaps unfortunate in the longer term, though the Celts remained a force to reckon with in Italy until 295 BC.

King of the Picts, who reigned from 555 to 584. He is the only British king from the fifth or sixth centuries to be mentioned in a chronicle on the European mainland. Bede describes him as rex potentissimus , “most powerful king,” which suggests that the Picts had their own overking. Bridei, or Brudeus, was a son of Maelgwn, King of Gwynedd, and he was elected king. The Picts would not have chosen an obscure or low-ranking person as their king, and Maelgwn, we know, was an overking. Pictish succession passed through the female line, so it is likely that for him to be eligible for the Pictish throne; Bridei’s mother or grandmother was a Pict. In fact Welsh tradition has it that Maelgwn’s mother was a Pict.

Bridei’s high reputation among the Picts rests on a great military victory won in 560. Gabran, King of Dal Riada, had taken a large area of Pictland and, by defeating him in 560, Bridei won most or all of this land back and once more united the northern and southern Picts.

St. Columbavisited him and asked Broichan, his chief magician, to set free his Irish slave girl.

Bridei was eventually killed in 584 during a rebellion of the southern Picts.

An Iron Age tribein the north of England. At the time of the Roman invasion, Queen Cartimanduawas their ruler; she had a treaty arrangement with Rome.

See Religion: Brighid .

St. Brioc was born in 468 in the West Wales kingdom of Ceretigan (or in Latin Coriticiana, modern Cardigan). He was the son of Cerpus and Eldruda. He performed various miracles, including rescuing a stagfrom a king in Ceretigan.

In about 510 he sailed away with 168 companions to a port in Cornwall and converted King Conan (or Kynan) and his people to Christianity. Later he crossed the Channel to Brittany, but went back to Ceretigan again to comfort his people when plague struck them in 547.

The Cornish port was probably on the Camel estuary: St. Brioc’s (now St. Breock’s) parish is very large, covering the area south of Padstow. Recently a Dark Age port has been uncovered on the Camel estuary near Padstow.

The wizard of the Pictish King Bridei. Broichan covered Loch Ness with darkness and raised a storm so that for a time St. Columbawas unable to set sail on the lake ( See Magicians ).

See Bridei .

See Nectan , Theodoric.

Brynach or Bernacus was of noble birth, and probably Welsh rather than Irish. He visited Rome and killed a dragon. He returned by way of Brittany to Milford Haven in south-west Wales. There he resisted attempts at seduction and founded many churches. He resisted a demand from Maelgwnfor food and managed to secure a grant from him exempting him from future royal exactions.

A king of Gwyneddwho died in about 620 or 630. The Llangadwaladr Stone on the island of Angleseyis his memorial. Translated from some oddly laid-out Latin, the inscription reads “Cadfan, wisest king, most renowned of all kings.” The lettering suggests a date around 620, which fits with the information in the Welsh Annals, to the effect that Cadfan’s father died in 616 and his son Cadwallonwas killed in 633 by Oswald of Northumbria. This is his genealogy: Cadfan, son of Iago, son of Beli, son of Rhun, son of Maelgwnof Gwynedd.

See Geraint .

Son of Gwynnliw of Glevissig, educated at Caerwent, Cadoc refused the royal scepter of Penychen because of his commitment to the Church and was granted Llancarfen by Paul Penychen; there he built Castil Kadoci, perhaps to be identified as Castle Ditches near Llancarfen. Much later he left Llancarfen to Elli of Llanelli and moved to Beneventum (possibly Abergavenny), where he was visited annually by Elli and became bishop under the name Sophias.

He visited Rome in the time of Pope John III (560–72). He also visited Jerusalem, Cornwall, and Brittany. He acquired Gildas’bell, though Gildas refused to surrender it to Cadoc until he was ordered to do so by Pope Alexander; he also acquired the Gospel book that Gildas wrote while studying at Nantcarvan for a year while Cadoc was away in Scotland.