Peibio Clafrog
| Peibio Clafrog Pepianus Spumosus |
|
|---|---|
| King of Ergyng | |
| Reign | ca. 449 |
| Successor | Cynfyn |
| Issue | Efrddyl, Cynfyn |
Peibo Clafrog (alternatively, Pepiau Glavorawc, or in Latin, Pepianus Spumosus), was King of Ergyng in south-east Wales in the 5th or 6th century. He is chiefly known from the legends of Saint Dubricius, who was supposedly his grandson. The contemporary rendering of this name would seem to be Peibio, as in Garthbeibio, a parish in Montgomeryshire, or Ynys Beibio, near Holyhead.
Peibo Clafrog appears in the Life of Dubricius included in the 12th-century Book of Llandaff or Liber Landavensis as well as in a number of works derived from it, and in charters associated with Dubricius. He is consistently described as Dubricius' maternal grandfather.
In the Life, Peibio is King of Ergyng and has a daughter, Efrddyl. He is afflicted with a mouth ailment that causes him to drivel saliva constantly. This is supposed to be the cause of his epithet Clafrog, though this term literally means "scabby" or "leprous"; there has evidently been some confusion with the similar-sounding Glyfoer or Glafoer, meaning "drivel". Returning from a skirmish one day, Peibo asks his daughter to help him wash his head. In the process he discovers that she is pregnant. Furious, he orders her to be tied in a sack and drowned in a river. When she washes ashore, he then orders her burnt alive. The next day, however, his servants discover that she has miraculously survived the ordeal and is contently nursing her newborn baby on top of the pyre. The regretful Peibio orders Efrddyl and her child brought to him; the child's touch instantly cures his affliction. In thanks Peibio bestows his grandson with the place of his extraordinary birth, called Matle (Madley), and eventually a monument commemorating the event is erected. "[John] Lewis, in his History of Great Britain describes the monument of this Prince as existing in his time. 'In Herefordshire in a parish (probably he means Madley) is the picture of a King, with a man on each side of him, with napkins wiping the rheum and drivel from his mouth; that humour so abounding in him that he could get no cure for it, which King, the country people call King Driveller, the Britons Pebiau Glavorawc, the Latins Pepianus Spumosus, Rex Ereychi.'"
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