Camlan, where Arthur and Medrawd fought, is presented as the site of a battle whose origins are bound to a failed attempt at reconciliation. The narrative does not describe the place’s landscape or the fighting in detail; instead, it makes Camlan significant through Iddawc Cordd Prydain’s account of how the conflict began and his own responsibility for it.

The Battle and Its Setting

Camlan is named as the place where Arthur and his nephew Medrawd fought. The account identifies the battle as the outcome of a breakdown in relations between the two, but provides no topographical description of Camlan itself. Its meaning in the narrative is therefore concentrated in the conflict associated with the name, rather than in any developed portrait of the location.

Iddawc’s Role in the Conflict

Rhonabwy encounters Iddawc Cordd Prydain in a dreamlike journey and asks why he is known by that nickname. Iddawc explains that he served as a messenger between Arthur and Medrawd before the battle. Arthur had sent him to reason with Medrawd, remind him that Arthur was both his foster-father and uncle, and seek peace so that the sons of Britain’s kings and nobles would not be killed.

Iddawc admits that he acted against this purpose. Though Arthur had entrusted him with the fairest words he could devise, Iddawc delivered the harshest words he could think of, driven by a reckless desire for battle. He says that the conflict at Camlan followed from his intervention, making his confession a direct account of how a peace mission was turned into a cause of strife.

Departure and Penance

Iddawc says he left three nights before the end of the battle and went to Llech Las in North Britain to do penance. He remained there for seven years before gaining pardon. Camlan thus stands in the narrative not only for the deadly conflict between Arthur and Medrawd, but also for the act whose consequences Iddawc continued to bear after leaving the battlefield. His retrospective testimony supplies the location’s moral dimension: the battle is remembered through a messenger’s admission that his own words helped bring it about.