Budic II (Medieval Latin: Budicius; Welsh: BudigorBuddig; c. 460 – c. 550), formerly known as Budick, was a king of CornouailleinBrittany in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He was father of Hoel as well as several Celtic saints.
Budic II was born in Cornouaille to a member of its royal family, possibly Erich of Brittany.[1] He was named after his uncle Budic I of Brittany. Budic II succeeded to the throne, c. 478,[1] but was expelled by a cousin and fled to the court of King Aircol LawhirofDyfed, where another cousin Amon Ddu was employed. There, he wed Anowed or Arianwedd, the sister of Saint Teilo. After the death of his usurping relative, he returned to Cornouaille to claim the Breton throne,[2] later joined by Saint Teilo whom he reputedly persuaded to rid the area of a terrible dragon that had been terrorising the countryside.[3] Teilo was able to subdue the beast and tied it to a rock in the sea.
The date of his death is uncertain. Some sources claim he died in 545. However, this contradicts other sources which claim that Saint Teilo had fled to France in 549 to escape the Yellow Plague of Rhos and had spent time in Brittany in Budic's company.[4] Upon his death, his kingdom was usurped by Macliau, king of the neighbouring Veneti.[5]
InGeoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistoricalHistory of the Kings of Britain, Budic is said at different places to have married a sister of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon (making him Arthur's uncle) and to have married Pendragon's daughter Anna (making him Arthur's brother-in-law). This confusion reappears in Wace and Layamon, although most later sources make his son Hoel Arthur's "cousin".[9] In later romances, a possibly derived[2] character of King Nentres (also written Neuntres among other forms) of Garlot marries Arthur's half-sister Elaine[2] (also known as Blasine).
