# Hen Ogledd

Yr hen ogledd (Welsh pronunciation: [ər ˌheːn ˈɔɡlɛð]), in English the Old North, is the historical region of Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands inhabited by the Celtic Britons of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages. Its population spoke a variety of the Brittonic language known as Cumbric. The hen ogledd was distinct from the parts of North Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Scoti as well as from Wales, although the people of the hen ogledd were the same Brittonic stock as the Picts, Welsh, Bretons and Cornish, and the region loomed large in Welsh literature and tradition for centuries after its kingdoms had disappeared.