Beli Mawr
Beli Mawr (
Beli the Great) was a
Welsh ancestor
deity. He was the consort of
Dôn and the father of
Caswallawn,
Arianrhod,
Lludd and
Llefelys. Several royal lines in
medieval Wales traced their ancestry to him.
He is usually, though not universally, considered to have derived from the
Celtic god
Belenus.
Historical linguistics suggests that the name
Beli may be derived from
Bolgios, a name attested as one of the leaders of the
Gaulish sack of
Delphi in the
3rd century BC. It is related to the Irish "
Beltane", modern Gaelic "bealtuinn" (May-day), which comes from Irish "béalteine", reflecting the diphthonging of the initial vowel from Early Irish "beltene", or "belltaine",
Proto-Celtic *belo-te(p)niâ (according to Stokes), and means "bright-fire". The Gaulish god-names "Belenos" (*Bright one) and "Belisama" (probably the same divinity, originally from *belo-nos = our shining one) are also from the same source, as was Shakespeare's "
Cym-beline".
However, it should be noted that in Medieval Welsh tradition, Beli Mawr is often given the the patronymic
ap Manogan, and this appears to derive from a textual garbling of the name of a real historical figure,
Adminius, son of
Cunobelinus; after being transmitted through the
Roman authors
Suetonius and
Orosius, this name became
Bellinus filius Minocanni in the medieval Welsh text
Historia Brittonum. Thus, although Beli became a separate personage in medieval
pseudohistory from Cunobelinus (
Cymbeline), he was generally presented as a king reigning in the period immediately before the Roman invasion; his "son" Caswallawn is the historical
Cassivellaunus.
Beli also appears in
Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Historia Regum Britanniæ as
Heli.
*
Beli Mawr and the Belgae
