... St. Gildas was the son of Caw o Priten, i.e. Caw of Pictland or Southern Scotland, a regulus "beyond the mountain Bannawc" in Arecluta, which means "on or opposite Clyde."  This Caw is also called Caw of Twrcelyn, which is a small commote or patria in Anglesey.  People have often wondered why he was called by this name.  The reason, however, will be found in the Vita S. Cadoci, where the twelfth century compiler has edited an important historical tradition almost out of recognition.  In § 22 of the Vita he recounts a journey of St. Cadoc into Albania or Scotland where, in digging near a monastery or llan which he had founded, he discovered the collarbone of "an old hero of immense size."  This hero or giant is made to return from hell, and, when questioned by St. Cadoc, replies, "I reigned formerly for many years beyond the mountain Bannawc.  It chanced that by the devil's instigation I and all my raiders came to these coasts for plunder and devastation.  The king who reigned over the country pursued with his troops.  A battle was fought and I and my army slain."  When asked who he was, he replied, "Caw of Prydyn or Cawr [i.e. giant]."  Caw is then converted, and the "reguli Albanorum," or kings of the Scots, give him twenty-four villæ or trevs.  This extraordinary story is based on an account of St. Cadoc's journey amongst the Scotti—not of Albania or Scotland, but of Anglesey.  Near Amlwch, in the old comote of Twrcelyn, is the extinct monastery of Cadog called Llangadog, the only one ascribed to him in the island.  The twenty-four villæ are so many trevs in the commote of Twrcelyn, which the invader, Caw o Priten from Arecluta, was granted by his allies, the Scotti of Anglesey.  In other words, Caw, father of St. Gildas, was one of those very Picti who came over the sea from the north in the fifth century, against whom the author of the Excidium rails so bitterly.  If St. Gildas ab Caw had written the following from chapter 19 of the Excidium:—[The Picts and Scots are] alike in one and the same thirst for bloodshed, in a preference also for covering their villainous faces with hair rather than their nakedness of body with decent clothing—if, I say, St. Gildas the son of the Pictish raider who settled in Twrcelyn in Anglesey, had written this, he would have been attacking his own kin, his own father's familia who were wont to cover their faces with hair rather than their nakedness of body with clothing. (Celtic Review, v.2, 1906)