So … Arthur, son of Meurig and father of Morgan is clearly referenced in the Llandaff Charters – all three being kings of Glamorgan and Meurig being, in turn, the son of King Tewdrig yet when I look for further references to Arthur on wikisource.org and find an entry about Oudoceous who was a bishop of Llandaff round about 630 A.D. I find the following:
“In the 'Liber Landavensis' (pp. 140-60) is recorded a number of grants of land said to have been made to Oudoceus during his episcopate by various princes of South-east Wales. These documents, although they may not perhaps be authoritative as to the claims they were put forward to support, nevertheless appear to embody historical facts, and from them it would seem that Oudoceus was the contemporary of Meurig ap Tewdrig, king of Glamorgan, and his grandson Morgan Mwynfawr [q. v.], who flourished in the early part and the middle of the seventh century. This date, which is favoured by Haddan and Stubbs (Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, i. 160), is consistent with the statement in the life that it was during the episcopate of Oudoceus that the 'English conquered the region south-west of Hereford, for the advance in this direction is generally supposed to have been made under Penda.
Oudoceus is the latinised form of old Welsh Oudocui, which in modern Welsh would be Euddogwy. In the catalogues of saints the name appears as Docheu, Dochwy, and Dochdwy (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd edit. p. 423; Iolo MSS. 103, 112, 134). The church of Llandogo, near Tintern, is dedicated to Oudoceus.
[Liber Landavensis, ed. Gwenogfryn Evans; Rees's Welsh Saints.]”
Much to my surprise but not really, Teudrig, Meurig and Morgan get mentioned but Arthur gets left out. This can only be deliberate. As to the reasons ‘why?’ … too much at stake perhaps, too much history in need of revision, too many careers jeopardised if Arthur is recognised as real and not as legend.
Around this time, apparently, a comet or a shower of meteors grazed Britain setting the country ablaze, devastating both population and the land and causing a migration to Brittany for a period of years before conditions got better. While Gildas doesn’t mention the comet as such, he does mention the devastation, the sickness which followed and the migration out of Britain. This was supposed to have happened somewhere between535 and542 A.D. although 562 also crops up as the year involved.
“Studies of tree rings going back thousands of years have shown that the world experienced a sudden and catastrophic drop in temperatures in 540 AD. The disaster led to repeated crop failures, famines and the spread of bubonic plague that may have wiped out around a third of the population of Europe, according to Professor Mike Baillie, a tree ring expert at Queen's University, Belfast.”
To back up this story are the vitrified stone forts of Scotland. They’re a puzzle for a few reasons. The vitrification doesn’t make the fort stronger, great heat is needed and, very often, the vitrification is at the top of the wall and doesn’t extend to the base.
Something exploding in the atmosphere could produce such an effect. Either way, the country of Britain lost a great deal of its population which allowed for the Angles and Saxons to move in.
I arrived here in the village of Rhiw, North Wales, last night where a mist prevented the view being revealed. The same conditions applied at dawn but now – what appeared as cloud is seen as hills and valleys, the sun is bright and the land is warm.