Helig ap Glanawg

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Helig ap Glanawg (standard modern Welsh orthography: Helig ap Glannog) is a legendary figure described in various accounts dating to at least as early as the 13th century^[1] as a 6th-century prince who lived in North Wales.

Post-medieval tradition says that the river Conwy once reached the sea by the Great Orme, Llandudno, and to the west lay the great cantref of Gwaelod which stretched all the way to Puffin Island, off Anglesey. Helig ap Glanawg was said to have lived here when his land was inundated by the sea, which formed the Lavan Sands which lie between the Great Orme's Head and the Menai Strait off the north coast of Gwynedd. The legend states the remains of Llys Helig, said to be his palace but in fact the remnants of a glacial moraine,^[2] can be seen at exceptionally low tides, this being near the Conwy channel, about a mile or so off the coast at Penmaenmawr. The earliest known use of the name Llys Helig for this rock formation is the Halliwell Manuscript, published in 1859, which is believed to date to around the beginning of the 17th century, eleven centuries later.^[3]