the men of Deivyr and
Bryneich, and threatens, in the case of a third party, that if they were
suspected of leaning to the Bernician interest, he would himself raise
his hand against them, we can come to no other conclusion than that those
countries were arrayed against the Cymry when the battle of Cattraeth
took place.

Ida had to encounter a powerful opponent in the person of Urien, king of
Rheged, a district in or near which Cattraeth lay, as we infer from two
poems of Taliesin. Thus, one entitled "Gwaith Gwenystrad," commences
with the words,

"Extol the men of Cattraeth, who, with the dawn,
Went with their victorious leader
Urien, a renowned elder." {3c}

In the other, called "Yspail Taliesin," Urien is styled "Glyw Cattraeth,"
the ruler of Cattraeth. {4a} At the same time he is generally spoken of
under the title of Rheged's chief.

The leader of the hostile forces in the battle of Gwenystrad is not
named, but in the battle of Argoed Llwyvein we find him to be Flamddwyn
or the Torch bearer, a name by which the Britons delighted to designate
the formidable Ida. Flamddwyn's army on this occasion consisted of four
legions, which reached from Argoed to Arvynydd, and against them were
arrayed the men of Goddeu and Rheged, under the command of Ceneu ab Coel,
and Owain, and "Urien the prince."

Argoed, bordering on Deivyr and Bryneich, was ruled by Llywarch Hen, who
after his abdication and flight into Powys, pathetically records the
loyal attachment of his former subjects,--

"The men of Argoed have ever supported me." {4b}

The Historia Britonum enumerates three other kings, who with Urien fought
against the Saxons in the North, viz., Rhydderch, Gwallawg, and Morgant,
though the latter, under the impulse of envy, procured the assassination
of Urien, in the Isle of Lindisfarne.

After the Saxons had finally established themselves on the eastern coast,
in the forementioned countries, an immense rampart, extending nearly from
the Solway to the Frith of Forth, was erected, either with the view of
checking their further progress westward, or else by mutual consent of
the two nations, as a mere line of demarcation between their respective
dominions. This wall cannot have an earlier date, for it runs through
the middle of the country originally occupied by the Gadeni, and could
not of course have been constructed as a boundary by them; nor can it be
referred to a more recent period, as there coul