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While the Norman was winning valley after valley, the Welsh princes were trying to decide by the issue of battle who was to be chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075; and his nephews and cousins tried to rule the country. Among these, Trahaiarn was a soldier of ability and energy, and a ruler of real genius.
But he was the rival of the exiled princes of the House of Cunedda, and he found it difficult to bend Snowdon and the Vale of Towy to his will. Two of the exiles met him, probably near some of the cairns in the valley of the Teivy; and there, in the battle of Mynydd Carn, fiercely fought through the dusk into a moonlight night in 1079, Trahaiarn fell.
Robert of Rhuddlan and Trahaiarn of Arwystli were mighty foes; but Griffith drove both of them back; and, by his prowess and success in battle, broke the spell of conquest which kept Gwynedd in bonds. But his enemies attacked him again from all sides; and, while Hugh the Wolf and Robert of Rhuddlan were laying Gwynedd waste, Trahaiarn and Griffith met at the hard-fought battle of Bron yr Erw.
Griffith lost the day, and again became a sea-rover. He sailed to Dyved, and there he met Rees, the King of Deheubarth, who also was of the line of Cunedda, and had been driven from his land by the Normans. The two chiefs joined, and they crushed Trahaiarn at Mynydd Carn. Then they turned against the Normans. Rees soon fell in battle, and left two children, Nest and Griffith.
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