Coel Hen

"King Cole" redirects here. For other uses, see King Cole (disambiguation).
"Coel" redirects here. For the prefix "coel-", see List of commonly used taxonomic affixes.

An illustration depicting Coel from a 15th-century Welsh-language version of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae

Coel (Old Welsh: Coil), also called Coel Hen (Coel the Old) and King Cole, is a figure prominent in Welsh literature and legend since the Middle Ages. Early Welsh tradition knew of a Coel Hen, a c. 4th-century leader in Roman or Sub-Roman Britain and the progenitor of several kingly lines in Yr Hen Ogledd (the Old North), a region of the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now northern England and southern Scotland.

Later medieval legend told of a Coel, apparently derived from Coel Hen. He was said to be the father of Saint Helena and through her the grandfather of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.

Other similarly named characters may be confused or conflated with the Welsh Coel. The legendary "King Coel" is sometimes supposed to be the historical basis for the popular nursery rhyme "Old King Cole", but this has been said to be unlikely.[1]

  1. ^ Opie and Opie, p. 6: "Because there is said to have been a Prince Cole in the third century A.D.... it does not follow that the song 'Old (or Good) King Cole' dates back to that period, even in the unlikely event of it referring to this chieftain."