Name: Cynog

Author: John Edward Lloyd

was, according to legend, the son ‘of Brychan, founder of the kingdom of Brycheiniog, and Banadlwedd, daughter of a king of Powys. He is chiefly commemorated in Brycheiniog, where Defynnog, Ystrad Gynlais, Penderyn, Battle, Llangynog, and Merthyr Cynog, are all named after him, the last being reputed his place of burial. These churches, with their chapels, account for a large part of the modern county of Brecknock. Other churches bearing his name are Boughrood in Radnorshire and Llangynog in Montgomeryshire; two extinct churches of this saint stood also at Llangunnock on the Garren in south-west Herefordshire and Llangunnock on the Pill Brook in central Monmouthshire Cwrt Brychan is close to the latter. No account of Cynog would be complete which did not refer to the torque which, it was averred, had been given him by his father and which became a most precious relic in the estimation of the whole countryside. It has not survived, but Giraldus Cambrensis had seen it and gives a detailed description, which, though not easy to interpret, points, in the opinion of Sir T. D. Kendrick, to its probably being Welsh or Irish work of the Viking period, i.e. the 10th or the 11th century.