 Bodedern is a village in Anglesey, Wales, about 5 miles (8 km) from the port town of Holyhead. "Aeternus", known in Welsh as St Edern or sometimes in a variant spelling as "St Ederyn", is recorded in the Welsh genealogies as the son or grandson of Beli ap Rhun (a 6th-century king of Gwynedd). He appears as "Edern ap Nudd", one of the knights of King Arthur, in the Mabinogion (a collection of medieval Welsh prose tales). He established a church in the area in the 6th century, perhaps at Pen Eglwys Edern, a site about half a mile away (800 m) from the present building (eglwys means "church" and pen means "head" or "top"). Excavations there in the early 1970s revealed a cemetery from the 5th or 6th century. The village takes its name from the saint; the Welsh prefix bod means "dwelling of". The present building stands in a churchyard in the centre of Bodedern, on the north side of Church Street.
