Wikipedia’s King who Doesn’t Exist

Enhance your browsing experience by trying out Opera today: Wikipedia has picked up some infamy over the years for being a less-than-reliable resource. But when discussing Wikipedia mistakes, people are usually expecting some uncited information, some inaccuracies, or maybe some bias. I imagine that very few would be expecting the invention of a king who doesn’t actually exist. Throughout Wales’ history, there have been plenty of enigmatic figures, but apparently none more so than the subject of this video, Anwn Ddu, or Annun Ddu, a supposed king of Gwent and Dyfed in Wales that doesn’t appear to be connection to a single source. Welsh history is already an underserved topic, prone to coverage littered with mistakes, and Wikipedia articles being wrong like this one don’t help, so today I’m looking to correct another part of Wales’ history, and set the record straight on Wikipedia’s Welsh king who doesn’t exist. Chapters: 0:00 - The King that Doesn’t Exist 1:37 - Anwn Ddu 4:41 - Wikipedia Sources 7:35 - Annun ap Macsen Wledig, King of Dyfed 11:06 - Ynyr ap Dyfnwal ap Ednyfed, King of Gwent 14:28 - Antun Du, King of Greece Sources (turn on captions): Bartrum, P.C. (1993). A Welsh Classical Dictionary : People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000. The National Library of Wales, [1] , [2] 20-21, [3] 38, [4] 216 (I call him “Deingr“ due to my own stupidity, it’s “Deigr“, sorry). [5] 238-239, [6] 242, [7] 708, [8] 738 Guy, B. (2020). Medieval Welsh genealogy : an introduction and textual study. The Boydell Press, [9] , 63, [10] 77, 82, 106, 129. [11] Matthews, J.F. (1983). Macsen, Maximus and Constantine. Welsh History Review, 11(4). [12] Williams, T. (1848). Iolo Manuscripts: A Selection of Ancient Welsh Manuscripts. Llandovery: William Rees, . [note 1] This is slightly wrong, one other genealogy claims descent from “Teuhant“ (HG 10), but HG 16 is the only one I am aware of that claims descent from a known pre-Roman figure (Caractacus), sorry. The following were consulted, but contained no information, as mentioned: Davies, J. (2007). A History of Wales. London: Penguin. Maund, K. (2006). The Welsh Kings. 3rd ed. The History Press Ltd Charles-Edwards, T.M. (2013). Wales and the Britons, 350-1064. Oxford: OUP. Music courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library: Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Source: Artist: Torture - Cyote Hearing Venetian - Density and Time Fortress Europe - Dan Bodan Namaste by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Artist: Blacksmith - Godmode The Symmetry of Sleeplessness - Dan Bodan Under the Rug - Density & Time Two Moons - Bobby Richards Lands Unknown - Futuremono Images of, and from: Eryops: Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Red eyed tree frog: Carey James Balboa, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The Jesus College Manuscript: © Jesus College, Oxford. Reproduced under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. All other images are public domain, via the National Library of Wales, the Digital Commonwealth, the Rijksmuseum, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. #wales