Llŷr

Father of Manawydan, Bendigeidfran, and Branwen in the Mabinogi, although only Manawydan bears his name in patronymic. A shadowy figure in Welsh tradition, Llŷr is often assumed to be borrowed from the Irish Lir (1), the patronym of the sea-god Manannán, whose name also means ‘sea’. A possible hint of Llŷr's foreign origin may come in the references to him as Llŷr Llediaith [half-language]. Many commentators have sought to trace Shakespeare's King Lear to Llŷr, but the route is tortuous; Shakespeare drew from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), which in turn drew from Giraldus Cambrensis' work, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, where the name Leir appears, and perhaps also from lost Welsh texts.

Bibliography

• Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydain, rev. edn. (Cardiff, 1978), 427–9, 556

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