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Rhonwen Baganes
A Cymric Heroine, also known as Ronnwen Baganes, Renwein, Ronwen, Romwenna: Fair-lance, the Pagan; Fair-maned the Pagan
Rhonwen (Ronnwen Baganes, Renwein, Ronwen, Romwenna) is a Cymric (Welsh) heroine known from folklore as the daughter of the Saxon, Hengist whom Gwrtheyrn (Vortigern) married. However, her name is entirely Brythonic and she could be an echo of an earlier embodiment of the Island of Britain in female form. |
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Cym: Fair-lance, the Pagan; Fair-maned the Pagan
According to folklore, Rhonwen is the daughter of Hengist and the wife of Gwrtheyrn (Vortigern). Though Nennius relates the tale of Gwytheyrn's marriage in his Historia Brittonum, though Gwytheyrn's wife is not named. However, Geoffrey of Monmouth reproduces (and expands on) Nennius' account in his Historia Regium Britanniae. Though many of these additoins are probably the work of Geoffrey's own imagination, Monmouth was a part of Gwytheyrn's domain so he may have been drawing on extant local traditons when he named Hengist's daughter and Gwytheyrn's wife as Renwein (though a variant version also gives her name as Ronwen). Ronwen is also the name used in the Bruts; indicating that this name may represent a native tradition.
However, the name of Ronwen (or Rhonwen, to use its modern Cymric orthography) does provide us with a problem. Some have suggested that Ronwen could represent a Cymric form of the Anglo-Saxon Hroðwyn a name which would, almost, preserve the alliteration often found in the Mediaeval genealogies of father and child. But this pre-supposes that Rowen rather than Ronwen is the correct form of the name (which seems unlikely given the extant evidence). Rhonwen is a purely Cymric name that can be interpreted as either: 'fair lance' (from rhon and gwyn) or 'fair mane' (from rhawn and gwyn).
As well as the earlier histories, Rhonwen is also known from two triads in the Trioedd Ynys Prydein. The first of these is Triad 37 (the Llyfr Coch Hergest version which names the 'Three Concealments and Three Disclosures of the Island of Britain' and gives one as the disclosure of the bones of Gwrthefyr the Blessed by Gwrtheyrn the Thin for the love of Ronnwen the pagan woman. The next triad, 59 names the 'Three Unfortunate Counsels of the Island of Britain' and hives the second as when Horsa and Hengist and Rhonwen were allowed into the Island. Subsequent bards essentially seem to have regarded Rhonwen as the progenitor of the Anglo-Saxon nation and they are variously described as: Rhonwen Wyrion (The grand-children of Rhonwen) [Tudur Aled]; plant Ronwen (the offspring of Rhonwen) [Guto'r Glyn]; esilldydd Ronwen (Rhonwen's lineage) [Dafydd Nanmor] and dy rwn yw daear Ronwen (our inheritance is the land of Rhonwen) [Dafydd ab Edmwnd]. It would seem therefore that the marriage between Gwytheyrn and Rhonwen was a tale in common currency for the late medieval bards. This might be because the marriage itself held the semi-mythological elements of the wedding between the high king and the female personification of the land (as seem in the pairing of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar as well as that of Matholwch and Branwen).
It should also be noted that Rhonwen's name occurs solely in the context of her marriage to Gwytheyrn and is not known elsewhere. Her epithet Paganes (literally pagan woman) obviously comes from the 'barbarous' (ie non-Christian) belief systems of the Saxons.
If you would like to try the foods of the time of the ancient Celts, then why not have a look at the ancient recipes section of this site. For the foods of the time when some of these tales were written down, take a look at the Medieval recipes section of the site and, in particular, the recipes from The Forme of Cury.
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