Gwriad ap Elidir of Man

  Research Notes:

Source: http://www.varrall.net/pafg58.htm#1163

From A History of Wales by John Davies, London, 2007, pp. 78-79"

"The existence of Offa's Dyke may well have deepened the self-awareness of the Welsh people, for, in the generation following its construction, kingdom was linked with kingdom with the result that the greater part of the inhabitants of Wales became the subjects of a single ruler. If the genealogies, alomst the sole evidence for these developments, are reliable, it appears that it was through marriage rather than through conquest that the kingdoms of Wales were united. The heir of one kingdom married the heiress of another, although it is probable that there would have been fewer heiresses had there not been considerable slaughter among their male relations. A chain of marriages begins around 800 when Gwriad, a native of the Isle of Man, who perhaps had links with the Men of the North, married Esyllt of the line of Maelgwn Fawr; their son, Merfyn, became kind of Gwynedd in 825 on the death of Esyllt's uncle, Hywel ap Rhodri, the last of the male descendants of Maelgwn Gwynedd. Merfyn was the first of the lineage known to historians as the second dynasty of Gwynedd."

Gwriad married Esyllt verch Cynan, daughter of Cynan Tindaethwy and Unknown, about 800. (Esyllt verch Cynan was born in Gwynedd, Wales.)