Academics such as Sheppard Frere have argued that it may have been Vortigern who, adopting elements of Roman statecraft, moved the Votadini south, just as he invited Saxon settlers to protect other parts of the island.
S. Baring-Gould in The Lives of the British Saints (1907) states that he was the son of Cedig ap Ceredig ap Cunedda Wledig, and that his mother was a Saint Tegfedd or Tegwedd, the daughter of Tegid the Bald (Tegid Foel), Lord of Penllyn in Meirionnydd, and that he lived in the early part of the 6th century.