" It was a
difficult thing to persuade them; they all wanted to be independent.
A legend shows that Maelgwn tried guile as well as force. The kings
met him at Aberdovey, and they all sat in their royal chairs on the
sands. And Maelgwn said: "Let him be king over all who can sit
longest on his chair as the tide comes in." But he had made his own
chair of birds' wings, and it floated erect when all the other chairs
had been thrown down. Before Maelgwn died of the yellow plague in
547, his strong arm had made Wales one united country, and had made
every corner of it Christian.
The new wave of nations, coming on as surely as the tide, began to
beat against Wales. The Picts came from the northern parts of
Britain, and Teutonic tribes swarmed across the eastern sea. The
Angles came to the Humber, and spread over the plains of the north
and the midlands of Roman Britain; the Saxons came to the Thames, and
won the plains and the downs of the south-east. In 577 the Saxons,
after the battle of Deorham, pierced to the western sea at the mouth
of the Severn; they crept up along the valley of the Severn, burning
the great Roman towns. Before they reached Chester and the Dee,
however, they were defeated at the battle of Fethanlea in 584.
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