Aeron (kingdom)

Aeron was a kingdom of the Brythonic-speaking Hen Ogledd (English: Old North), presumed to have been located in the region of the River Ayr in what is now southwestern Scotland. It existed during the post-Roman Era, perhaps earlier, and disappeared before or during the 7th century conquest of the region by the ascendant Kingdom of Northumbria.

Aeron is incidentally mentioned in the Book of Taliesin in poems of praise to Urien of Rheged. It is the homeland of several heroes in the Book of Aneirin. The families of several of these heroes also appear in royal genealogies associated with the genealogies of the better known kings of Alt Clut who lived in southwestern Scotland. This, taken together with the phonetic similarity of 'Aeron' and 'Ayr', suggests the location of Aeron.

There are no historical records confirming its history or even its existence, only literary references combined with circumstantially consistent genealogies and incidentally relevant historical records. Though Aeron may have been located within the territory of modern Scotland, as a part of Yr Hen Ogledd it is also an intrinsic part of Welsh history, as both the Welsh and the Men of the North (Welsh: Gwŷr y Gogledd) were self-perceived as a single people, collectively referred to in modern Welsh as Cymry.

Aeron's location is unclear from the sources, but the hypothesis most commonly accepted by modern scholars places it in the Ayrshire region of present-day Scotland. During the post-Roman period, the area around the River Ayr was part of the Hen Ogledd, the Brythonic-speaking part of northern Britain. William J. Watson noted the similarities between Aeron and the modern placename "Ayr", suggesting they may have derived from a pre-Christian deity *Agronā, perhaps meaning "Goddess of Slaughter". John Morris-Jones noted the region was a good fit, considering that the poetry in the Book of Aneirin makes it clear that Aeron was nearby to Urien of Rheged, who is celebrated as its defender and may have been its overlord. He further notes that in later poetry an Aeron is associated with "Clud", which he interprets as a reference to Alt Clut (now Dumbarton); this would firmly place Aeron in southwestern Scotland.Ifor Williams, however, is skeptical of the reading of "Clud" as a reference to the Scottish Alt Clut, noting that similar names appeared all across the Hen Ogledd and Wales. However, he ultimately concludes that "...the references in the Gododdin to Aeron, and the place of importance given to Cynddylig Aeron, would seem to favour the identification of Aeron with Ayr." Williams and Rachel Bromwich note that another possible location is along the River Aire in Yorkshire, which would place Aeron next to the kingdom of Elmet.

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