Cewri in his veins from his great-grandmother Creiddylad, and he is frequently compared, in the novel, to the Greek hero Hercules, the Roman name for the Greek divine hero Heracles. His physical strength and giant ancestry is demonstrated when "our Brythonic Hercules" picks up a "dead man by the heels" and uses the body as a weapon to drive off twenty Saxons. Myrddin Wyllt or Merlin the Wild, is the Emperor Arthur's counsellor. A legendary figure associated, in some sources, with events in the 6th century, Myrddin is a figure in medieval Welsh legend, known as a prophet and a madman. He is the most important prototype for the modern composite image of Merlin, the magician of Arthurian legend. Powys identifies him with Cronos or Saturn the father of Zeus. Nineue ferch Avalach (Nineue daughter of Afallach) is Tennyson's Vivien. Tennyson used the name "Vivien" for the Lady of the Lake in his Idylls of the King (1859). In Welsh mythology, Modron ("divine mother") was a daughter of Avallach, derived from the Gaulish goddess Matrona. She may have been the prototype of Morgan le Fay from Arthurian legend. She was the mother of Mabon, who bears her name as "Mabon ap Modron" ("Mabon, Son of Modron"), and who was stolen away from her when he was three days-old and later rescued by King Arthur. Powys has an invaluable discussion of Nineue in his "The Characters of the Book". Prince Einion, father of Porius and reigning Prince of the Edeyrnion and great-great grandson of the legendary Cunedda. Euronwy is Porius's mother, cousin of the Emperor Arthur, and daughter of Porius Manlius, a Roman. Brochvael, the brother of Prince Einion, is used by Powys to anchor the novel in the real world of the late 5th-century, because he is associated with a number of historical figures. For example, he had encountered in Rome "the precocious boy Boethius"; the philosopher lived from c. 480–524 or 525 AD. He also corresponded with the Roman statesman and writer Cassiodorus (c. 485 – c. 585), who served in the administration of Theoderic the Great, King of the Ostrogoths. Brochvael had in addition been a friend of Apollinaris Sidonius (circa 430 – August 489 A. D.), a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius has been described as "the single most important surviving author from fifth-century Gaul" by Eric Goldberg. He was one of four 5th- to 6th-century Gallo-Roman