Lludd Llaw Eraint

King of Britain after his father Beli Mawr; brother of Llefelys (king of France in the Mabinogi geographic-political imagination); eponymous founder of London (Welsh Caer Lludd, "Lludd's Fortress" — a medieval-Welsh folk-etymology subsequently entered into English-medieval-historical tradition through Geoffrey of Monmouth). The Llaw Eraint ("Silver Hand") epithet is cognate with Irish Nuada Airgetlám ("Nuada of the Silver Arm") — both deriving from a Proto-Celtic *Nōdens (the deity-name attested in the 4th-c. CE Lydney Park temple inscriptions in Gloucestershire as "Deo Nodonti"). The Welsh-Irish-Common-Brittonic Nōdens/Nuada/Lludd is a foundational deity-king-figure with healing, hunting, and silver-arm associations preserved across the Insular Celtic mythological tradition. The three-plagues-and-resolution narrative of the Cyfranc — the Coraniaid foreign people, the May-Eve dragon-shriek, and the magician-thief — is the central episode and one of the most-discussed political-magical episodes of the medieval Welsh tradition.

Parentage

• paternal: Beli Mawr

Powers

• rebuilds and walls the chief city of Britain, which is named Caer Lludd after him
• Destroys the Coraniaid with poisoned insect-water
• Measures the island of Britain to find its centre
• Traps the two fighting dragons in a pit

Epithets

• Lludd Llaw Eraint Welsh · Lludd Llaw Eraint · nameLludd of the Silver HandCyfranc Lludd a Llefelys (Lludd and Llefelys) (primary)

Relations

• sibling: PenarddunFull sibling; shares the same complete attested parentage.
• sibling: Caswallawn fab BeliReciprocal of welsh_caswallawn.sibling (alphabetical family sweep). (auto reciprocal)
• sibling: LlefelysReciprocal of welsh_llefelys.sibling (alphabetical family sweep). (auto reciprocal)
• sibling: Nynniaw fab BeliReciprocal of welsh_nynniaw.sibling (alphabetical family sweep). (auto reciprocal)

Sources

• existence: Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys (preserved in White Book of Rhydderch and Red Book of Hergest) (primary); Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae (12th c.) Bk. III (primary); Trioedd Ynys Prydein (primary); Lydney Park temple, Gloucestershire — 4th-c. CE Roman-period dedications to Deo Nodonti, the Common-Brittonic Nōdens / Welsh Lludd / Irish Nuada deity (archaeological)