Prydain

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Prydain (Middle Welsh: Prydein) is the modern Welsh name for Britain.

[edit] Medieval

In mediaeval texts (e.g. the Mabinogion), the term often refers to the northernmost part of the island, beyond the Forth and Clyde. This may be as a result of conflation with Prydyn, the medieval Welsh name for the land of the Picts. The term Ynys Prydain ("Island, or Land, of Prydain") is commonly used to refer to the lands of the Brythonic inhabitants of southern Britain, south of Prydyn. Middle Welsh ynys, like Latin insula, could mean "land" as well as "island", and this is the usual meaning of the word in the term Ynys Prydain. Compare Albion and Alba for a similar distinction.

[edit] Fiction

The name has been used by a number of authors for ancient Celtic or fantasy lands, including numerous works of Stephen Lawhead, and Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. However these fictional lands bear little or no relation to the original Welsh word.