Leir is a legendary ancient king of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story is told in a modified form by William Shakespeare in the play King Lear. In the drama, some names are identical to those of the legend (e.g. Goneril, Regan, Cordelia), and the events are very similar.
It is often claimed that there is a link between Leir and the Welsh and Irish sea-gods Llyr and Ler (derived from Common Celtic *Leros "Sea"), but the n...
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Leir is a legendary ancient king of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story is told in a modified form by William Shakespeare in the play King Lear. In the drama, some names are identical to those of the legend (e.g. Goneril, Regan, Cordelia), and the events are very similar.
It is often claimed that there is a link between Leir and the Welsh and Irish sea-gods Llyr and Ler (derived from Common Celtic *Leros "Sea"), but the names are not etymologically related. According to Geoffrey, Leir is the eponymous founder of Leicester (Legra-ceaster or Ligora-ceaster in Anglo-Saxon), called Cair Leir in Old Welsh, where Leir (along with Anglo-Saxon Legra or Ligora) is a hydronym derived from Brittonic *Ligera or *Ligora.
In Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae, Leir followed his father, King Bladud, to the kingship of Britain and had the longest reign of all the kings at sixty years. The date of his reign is not clear, but Geoffrey says that Leir's father lived at the same...
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