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c€VriccAnntC0  cCamcr' 

àiicvtn\iftná^\<^^Ÿh^'tcconcfrc^ri 
iifAC'  iâk  tnrcc^ùnc^ucncdcn^  i^itta  ^r^ 
cnuu\(lCtâr  c\mcäa.(r"  tiXfiinffutf'  avLoru^^ 
numcr  oc^  cracT'  ucncracr  yuf^cp^rCc^iì- 
iiifti%iíi]dr  <îcrc^í>»^cröfucu>öcac?tnamt- 
<m<>cjditt  ccnca  ciuaárctmncii.  fç^c  4nnxf 
^nccofu^  rt-itntctin  rcorn^rcc^'  ccfcûcc^f 
cutti^cncifíîma^  <^^r  ^^ywicrAht^frc- 
cto  i^tít;»cetttito(uí  rctíft  fíinu  \zcnx  ^idUA' 
íjicandu' 

dhricfiít*^dddâ.rítmydiztrciuat^^ 
^nnif  Dconcfìiridít  reçnamc^  tcpo? 
anntf^  fnodoLŷiatd  rcíçriautcrftei^ 

2r;/.  Jl^//J.  //^r/.  M5.  3859,  /o/.i88^,    //.1-25. 


^^.reeÊË!^ 


^^  Cpîîimrodor. 


*u 


THE      MAGAZINE 


OP    THE    HONOURABLE 


SOCIETY  OF  CYMMRODORION. 


VOL.   XXVIII. 


TALIESIN.       ?,^f.I 


BY 


SlR     JOHN     MORRIS-JONES,     M.A., 
Professor  of  Welsh  in  the  Unîverstty  Colle^e  of  A'orth  Wales. 


LONDON : 

ISSUED    BY    THE    SOCIETY, 

NEW  STONE  BUILDINGS,  64,  CHANCERY  LANE. 

1918. 


Devizes  : 
Printed  bx  George  Simpson  &  Co.,  Devizes,  Ltd. 


EDITOEIAL    NOTE. 


"  TaLIESIN  "    BY    SlR    JOHN    MoRRIS-JoNES. 


'  The  Council  of  the  Honourable  Society  of  Cymmrodorion 
feel  great  satisfaction  in  presenting  to  the  members  of  the 
Society  this  important  contribution  to  the  study  of  Welsh 
Literature.  Originally  it  was  intended  to  be  a  compara- 
tively  short  review  of  one  of  Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans's  valu- 
able  reproductions  of  Early  "Welsh  Texts,  but  the  Editor  of 
the  Society's  publications  was  fortunate  enough  to  induce 
the  Author  to  give  to  the  world  (in  addition  to  his  criticism 
of  Dr.  Evans's  theories)  the  result  of  many  years'  close  study 
of.  some  of  the  earliest  existing  specimens  of  Welsh  Poetry. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  praise  the  very  great  service  thus  rendered 
to  Wales,  to  its  language,  and  its  history,  by  Sir  John 
Morris-Jones  We  have  only  to  express  the  deep  sense  of 
gratitude  which  will  be  felt  by  every  lover  of  literature,  and 
especially  by  every  member  of  the  Cymmrodorion  Society, 
for  the  unselfish  and  unremunerated  labour  that  has  added 
an  invaluable  treasure  to  our  store  of  knowledge.  For  the 
addition  of  a  helpful  Index  to  the  Author's  work  we  are 
much  indebted  to  his  daughter,  Miss  Rhiannon  Morris-Jones 
of  the  University  College,  Bangor.  The  Editor  desires  to 
add  that  beyond  securing  the  production  of  thework,  in  the 
manner  indicated,  his  assistance  has  been  merely  nominal. 
On  behalf  of  the  Cuuncil,  E.  Vincent  Eyans, 

Hon.  Secretary  and  Editor. 


CONTENTS 


ITAGE 

Tbadition,  1.     The  tradition  of  tlie  Cynfeirdd         ...             ...  2 

Early  Records:   Old  Welsh,  6.     MSS.  of  old  poems            ...  6 

Collected,  9.     Re-discovered,  10.     Printed         ...  12 
Criticism  :     Sharon   Tiirner,    13.      Stephens,    16.      Xash,    18. 
Skene,   22.     Rhys,   23.     Anwyl,   24.     Linguistic 

theory,  27.     Dr.   Gwenogvryn  Evans   ...              ...  37 

Dr.  Evans's  method,  38.  On  the  date,  40.  On  names, 
50.  On  the  geography,  55.  The  eponym 
theory,  84.  Taliesin's  "hiography",  101.  The 
"  amended "  text,  translation,  and  notes,  115. 
Palaeography,  125.  Transcription  fi'om  Old 
Welsh  exemplar,  130.  Glos.ses,  139.  General 
qiiestions  relative  to  his  work  ...  ...     145 

Conclusions  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...     151 

EXAMINATI0X    OF    POEMS     ...  ...  ...  ...  ...       152 

Argoed  Llwyfein,  154.  Gweith  Gwen  Ystrad, 
160.  Uryen  Yrechwydd,  171.  Yng  NgorfFowys, 
175.  Dadolwch  Uryen,  181.  ]\Iarwnat  Owein, 
187.  Other  Historical  poems,  195.  Marwnad 
Rhun.  202.     Conclusions         ...  ...  ...     223 

Reconsideration  of  theories  of  Hi.storical  poems       ...     224 

Other  poems :  Mythological  poems,  235.  Mystical 
poems,  240.  Classical  evidence,  247.  Metem- 
psychosis,  250.  Old  hardism,  252.  Later  poems, 
254.     Future  study  of  poems  ...  ...  ...     257 

Appendices  :   The  oldest  monuments  of  the  Welsh  language — 

Appendix  I:    The  stone  of  Cingen       ...  ...  26() 

Appendix  II:   The  Surexit  Memorandum  ...  265 

Corrections  and  Additions  ...  ...  ...  ...  280 

Index  to  Proper  Names  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  283 


(K^mmroìî0r. 


VoL.  XXVITI.     "  Cared  doeth  yr  encilion."  1918. 


^aCimn^ 


By   J.  MOERIS  JONES,  M.A., 

Professor  of  Welsh  at  the  University  College  of  North   Wales. 


Tradition  is  now  generally  aclmitted  to  be  worthy  of  more 
respect  than  was  paid  to  it  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
When  it  is  not  the  obvious  product  of  popular  etymolog-y 
it  usually  contains  some  element  of  truth.  And  it  may 
carry  its  message  from  a  very  remote  age.  At  Mold  there 
stood  a  cairn  called  Bryn  yr  Ellyllon.  "  It  was  believed 
to  be  haunted ;  a  spectre  clad  in  golden  armour  had  been 
seen  to  enter  it.  That  this  story  was  current  before  the 
mound  was  opened  is  a  fact  beyond  dispute.  In  1832  the 
cairn  was  explored.  Three  hundred  cartloads  of  stones 
were  removed,  and  beneath  them  was  a  skeleten  '  laid  at 
full  length,  wearing  a  corslet  of  beautifully-wrought  gold, 
which  had  been  placed  on  a  lining  of  bronze.' '"  The 
"  corslet  "  is  at  the  British  Museum,  but  it  is  now  stated 
to  be  "  a  peytrel  or  brunt  for  a  pony  ".'■'  It  is,  however, 
"obvious  that  before  a  warrior  would  decorate  his  horse 
with  the  precious  metal,  he  had  doubtless  satisfied  his 
own  personal   needs  in  this  direction ".'     Here  then  we 

1  E.  Sidney  Hartland,  Ethnoyraphical  Survey  of  the   United  Kiiì(j- 
dom.  p.  6,  citint;  Boyd  Dawkins,  Early  Man  in  fírifain,  p.  431. 

2  A  Guide  to  the  Antiguities  of  the  Uronze  Age  (in  the  Brit.  Mus.), 
p.  149. 

» Ibid.,  p.  150. 


2  Taliesin. 

have  "  eyidence  of  a  tradition  which  must  have  been 
handed  down  from  the  prehistoric  iron  age — that  is,  for 
more  than  two  thousand  years  ".'  This  is  a  purely  local 
example  ;  but  more  general  traditions  are  not  less  likely 
to  be  based  on  fact.     The  tradition  of  the  Irish  that  their 

i 

ancestors  came  to  Ireland  direct  from  the  continent  has 
been  vindicated  by  Zimmer  against  the  dominant  theory 
of  the  last  century  that  they  came  across  Britain."  This 
theory  was  first  propounded  by  Edward  Lhuyd  ;'  it  was 
adopted  by  Theophilus  Evans,  who  quoted  in  its  support  a 
vague  tradition  about  the  presence  of  the  Irish  in  Britain." 
The  existence  of  such  a  tradition  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury  is  confirmed  by  a  statement  in  Gibson's  Camden, 
1695,  p.  670,  "that  'tis  a  common  tradition  among-st"  the 
inhabitants  of  the  hilly  districts  of  Carnarvonshire,  Breck- 
nock  and  Radnorshire,  "that  the  Irish  were  the  ancient  Pro- 
prietors  of  their  Country  ".'  That  is  a  fact ;  but  it  does  not 
in  any  way  prove  Lhuyd's  theory,  for  those  Irish  had  come 
over  from  Ireland.*  Here,  then,  is  a  fairly  wide-spread 
tradition  that  must  have  been  handed  down  from  about 
the  sixth  century,  Tradition  is  thus  one  of  our  data,  to 
be  accounted  for  and  interpreted.  Where  there  is  no 
other  apparent  reason  for  it,  it  may  well  be  what  it  seems 
to  be — a  popular  account  of  what  once  took  place ;  and 
where  more  reliable  data  are  scarce  it  may  be  of  value  in 
directing  inquiry  and  confirming  conclusions. 

Among  the  most  persistent  of  the  Welsh  traditions  is 

1  Hartland,  loc.  cit. 

2  Au/  welchem  Wege  kamen  die  Goidelen  vom  Rontinent  nach  Irland  ? 
1912,  p.  31,  etpassim;  see  H.  Gaidoz  in  the  Revue  Internationale  de 
l Enseignement,  1917,  pp.  104-114. 

3  Archceoloyia  Britannica,  1707,  At  y  Kymry,  pp.  [xvi-xviii]. 

4  Brych  y  Prif  Oesoedd  (1740),  Reprint,  1902,  pp.  11,  12. 
^  Y  Cymmrodor ,  ix,  p.  131. 

''  H.  Zimmer,  Nennius  Yindicatus,  1893,  pp.  89-91. 


Taliesin.  3 

that  which  tells  us  that  a  group  of  famous  bards,  of  whom 
Taliesin  was  tlie  chief,  íiourished  during  the  period  of  the 
strug-gle  between  Briton  and  Saxon  in  the  sixth  century. 
If  it  be  objected  that  this  is  not  a  genuine  but  a  spurious 
tradition  based  upon  a  memorandum  in  the  Nennian 
additamenta,  one  may  reply  that  the  reverse  is  the  case, 
and  that  the  memorandum  is  based  upon  a  form  of  the 
tradition.  For  the  Welsh  tradition  is  not  a  reproduction 
of  the  memorandum ;  the  memorandum  records  an  early 
North  British  variant  of  it.  The  sixth  century  bards  of 
Welsh  tradition  are  Taliesin,  Aneirin,  Myrddin  and  Llyw- 
arch  Hên ;  those  of  the  memorandum  are  Talhaern, 
Taliessin,  Néirin,  Bluchbard  and  Cian.  The  names 
Taliesin  and  Neirin  are  common  to  both  ;  the  Welsh  and 
Nennian  variants  overlap  but  do  not  coincide,  which 
proves  their  mutual  independence  and  points  to  both 
beinof  ffenuine.  The  tradition  as  reflected  in  Welsh 
literature  bears  all  the  marks  of  genuineness.  It  is  not 
advocated  or  explained  like  a  new  theory  or  discovery ; 
it  is  taken  for  granted  as  common  knowledge.  Thus  in 
the  oldest  Welsh  copy  of  the  Laws  (the  Black  Book  of 
Chirk),  when  reference  is  made  to  an  expedition  led  by 
Rhûn  ap  Maelgwn,  it  is  simply  stated  that  Taliesin  com- 
posed  an  englyn  on  the  occasion.'  There  is  no  mention  of 
the  date,  or  even  of  the  century.  It  is  not  explained  that 
Taliesin  was  a  contemporary  of  Ehûn,  it  is  only  implied. 
The  tradition  is  not  superimposed  on  the  subject  matter 
of  Welsh  literature ;  it  is  a  substratum  which  underlies  it. 
Moreover,  the  conditions  for  handing  down  such  a  tra- 
dition  were  favourable.  The  bards  formed  an  import- 
ant  body  whose  status  was  acknowledged  ;  their  privi- 
leges  and  duties  are  defined  in  the  Laws  of  Hywel :  the 


1  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Walfís,  1841,  i,  p.  104. 


b2 


4  Taliesin. 

household  bard  is  the  eighth  officer  of  the  Court ;'  the 

chief  bard  is  to  sit  next  to  the  judge,  and  to  lodge  with  the 

Heir  Apparent.'     Bardism  was  one  of  the  three  profes- 

sions  (the  other  two  beiiig  scholarship  and  smithcraft)  for 

which  no  serf  was  to  be  trained  without  his  lord's  per- 

mission  ;^  it  was  obviously  an  ancient  institution  when  the 

Laws  were  compiled,  and  no  break  in  its  continuity  is  at 

all  probable  between  the  sixth   and  the   tenth   century. 

Part   of    a   bard's   training   consisted   in   committing   to 

memory  the  works  of  the  ancients.     The  recitation  of  this 

traditional  poetry  formed  an  important  feature  of  bardic 

contests ;  and  for  this  purpose  certain  poems  attributed  to 

the  bards  of  the  sixth  century  (and  doubtless  others)  had 

fìxed    yalues    attached    to     them.      Of    this    there     are 

indications  in  the  thirteenth  century  Book  of  Taliesin,  in 

which  the  titles  of  some  of  the  poems  are  followed  by 

their  values  ;  thus  (pp.  30-40)  : 

Glaswawt  Taliessin.  xxiiii.  a  tal.     Kadeir  Rerrituen.  ccc. 
Radeir  Taliessin.  xxiiii.  Kanu  y  gwynt.  ccc.  a  tal. 

Kadeir  Teyrnon.  ccc.  Kanu  y  med.  xxiiii. 

Kanu  y  cwrwf.  xxiiii. 

The    expression   "xxiiii.   a  tal"  means  literally  '24   (is) 

what  it  is  worth ' ;  similarly  "  ccc.  a  tal"  ;  in  the  other 

cases  the  figure  only  is  g-iven.     The  matter  is  made  quite 

clear  in  a  note  which  follows  the  third  of  the  gorchaneu 

(epilog-ues  ?)  appended  to  the  Gododdin  in  the  Book   of 

Aneirin  (p.  28)  : 

Eman  e  teryyna  gwarchan  kynvelyn.     Canu  un  canuawc 
a  dal  pob  awdyl  or  gododin  herwyd  breintyng  kerd  amrysson 
Tri  chanu  a  thriugeint  a  thrychant  a  dal  pob  un  or  gwar- 
chaneu.     Sef  achaws  yw  am  goffau  ene  gorchaneu  rivedi  e 


1  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales,  1841,  i,  p.  32. 
■''  Ibid.,  p.  74 
^  Ibid.,  p.  78. 


Talíesín.  5 

gwyr  a  aethant  e  gatraeth.  Noc  a  dele  gwr  mynet  y  emlad 
heb  arveu,  ny  dele  bard  mynet  e  amrysson  heb  e  gerd  honn. 
Eman  weithyon  e  dechreii  gwarchan  maelderw.  Talyessin 
ae  cant  ac  a  rodes  breint  idaw.  kemeint  ac  e  odleu  e 
gododin  oll  ae  dri  gwarchan  yng  kerd  amrysson. 


That 


is 


Here  ends  the  gorchan  of  Cynvelyn.  Each  stanza  of  the 
Gododdin  is  worth  a  song  of  one  measure  \i.e.  of  one  unit] 
according  to  privilege  in  song-contest.  Each  of  the  (jor- 
chaneu  is  worth  363  songs  \i.e.  units],  the  reason  being  that 
the  number  of  the  men  who  went  to  Catraeth  is  commemo- 
rated  in  the  gorchaneu.  [More]  than  a  man  should  go  to 
battle  without  arms,  no  bard  should  go  to  a  contest  without 
this  song  [in  his  repertory].  Here  now  begins  the  gorchan 
of  Maelderw.  Talyessin  composed  it,  and  gave  it  privilege 
equal  to  [that  given]  to  all  the  stanzas  of  the  Gododdin  and 
its  three  gorchaneu  in  song-contest. 

The  ancient  poetry  which  thus  formed  part  of  the 
bard's  stock-in-tracle  was  callecl  hengerdd,  as  seen  in  the 
following  triacl  from  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest,  col.  1142. 

Tripheth  a  beir  y  gerdawr  vot  yn  amyl.  kyfarwydyt 
ystoryaeu.  a  bardoniaeth.  a  hengerd. 

'  Three  things  that  cause  a  minstrel  to  be  abundant 
(well-equippecl)  :  lore  of  stories,  and  [the  art  of]  poetry, 
and  ancient  verse.'  In  the  above  quotations  we  obtain  a 
glimpse  of  the  activities  of  the  medieval  bards.  They 
formed  an  organized  body,  not  only  fitted  to  be  the 
vehicle  of  tradition,  but  actually  having  this  as  one  of  its 
recognized  functions.  Tlieir  hengerdd,  or  ancient  verse, 
included  poems  attributed  to  Taliesin  and  Aneirin : 
"  Hengerdd  Talyessin,  the  ancient  song  of  Taliesin,"  says 
Phylip  Brydydd,  "was  new  for  nine  times  seven  years"  (Mìjv. 
Arch.  ^259a) ;  and  Dafydcl  Benfras  prays  for  a  muse  "  to 
sing'  a  panegyric  like  Aneirin  of  old  on  the  day  when  he 
sang  the  Gododdin"  (do.  217a).  The  traditioii,  of  which 
the  bards  were  thus  the  special  custodians,  was  generally 


6  Taliesin. 

accepted  in  the  middle  ages,  and  handed  down  to  modern 
times. 

The  oldest  examples  of  iwitteìi  Welsh  are  found 
between  the  lines  and  in  the  margins  of  Latin  manu- 
scripts.  They  consist  of  (1)  glosses,  namely,  sing-le  words 
and  short  phrases  explanatory  of  the  Latin,  and  generally 
inserted  immediately  above  the  words  explained,  and  (2) 
short  memoranda  and  fragments  of  prose  and  verse, 
written  in  margins  and  blank  spaces.  They  date  from 
the  eighth  or  ninth  to  the  eleventh  century ;  and  their 
language  is  called  Old  Welsh.  They  are  written  in  the 
so-called  Hiberno-Saxon  character,  and  their  orthography 
differs  widely,  but  regularly,  from  that  of  Medieval 
Welsh.  Medieval  scribes,  copying  Old  Welsh,  converted 
its  orthography  into  that  of  their  own  day,  except  when 
they  failed  to  understand  it,  in  which  case  they  tran- 
scribed  it  mechanically.  Complete  books  in  Old  Welsh 
must  have  existed  ;  but  not  one  has  survived.  The  litera- 
ture  recorded  in  them  is  to  be  found,  if  at  all,  only  in 
later  copies. 

The  oldest  extant  manuscript  written  entirely  in 
Welsh  is  the  Black  Booh  of  Carmarthen,  which  dates  from 
about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century.  It  contains  verse 
onlj^ ;  two  poems  are  by  the  twelfth  century  bard 
Cynddelw ;  but  most  of  the  pieces  and  collections  of  stanzas 
and  englynion  are  anonymous.  The  first  poem  is  set  out  in 
the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  Myrddin  and  Taliesin. 
The  rhymes  prove  it  to  be  a  late  production.'     There  is 

^See  my  Welsh  Grammar,  1913,  p.  73.  The  suggestion  {Black 
Book,  ed.  J.  G.  Evans,  p.  161)  that  two  dialogues  have  been  run  into 
one  by  turning  over  two  leaves  of  the  copy  is  mistaken.  The 
"  change  of  metre  at  47  "  is  a  change  from  lines  of  9  syllables  to  a 
cyhydedd  hir  of  19.  But  lines  o/ 9  immediately  folloìu,  so  that  there  is 
no  abrupt  total  change  as  the  above  assumption  implies.  The  two 
measures  are  often  linked  together,  and  in  combination  form  a 
variety  of  the  metre  called  (j%vaxvdodyn. 


Taliesin.  ■  7 

another  dialogue  in  which  Taliesin  figures,  his  companion 
being  a  person  of  the  name  of  Ug-nach  vab  Mydno.  The 
collection  of  stanzas  called  Hoianeu  and  Afallenneu,  com- 
monly  attributed  to  Myrddin,  deal  mostly  with  events  of 
the  twelfth  century,  though  some  of  them  are  concerned 
with  Rhydderch  Hael  and  Gwenddoleu,  the  northern 
kings  with  whom  tradition  associated  Laloecen'  or  Myr- 
ddin  Wyllt.  These  stanzas  may  be  old,  and,  in  any  case, 
probably  form  the  type  after  which  the  others,  which 
belong  to  the  large  class  of  spurious  prophecies,  were 
modelled.  The  manuscript  also  contains  a  stanza,  p.  46, 
found  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  p.  44,  and  several  englynion 
usually  attributed  to  Llywarch  Hên. 

The  Book  of  Aneirin,  a  manuscript  of  about  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century,"  contains  the  Gododdin  and  its 
gorchaneu,  referred  to  above.  The  Gododdin  aj)pears  as  a 
string  of  stanzas,  evidently  recovered  from  oral  tradition 
in  which  the  sequence  and  relation  of  the  parts  had  been 
lost.  The  last  five  pages  of  the  manuscript  contain  a 
number  of  stanzas  in  Old  Welsh  orthography,  only  slightly 
modified  here  and  there  ;  the  scribe  resorted  to  literal 
transcription  owing  to  the  difficulty  and  corrupt  state  of 
the  text  in  his  original.  A  few  of  these  stanzas  corres- 
pond  to  stanzas  in  later  spelling  in  the  body  of  the  book ; 
but  the  divergences  between  them  show  that  the  originals 
must  have  differed,  and  suggest  that  the  later  readings 
are  in  some  cases  mere  conjectures.     It  is,  however,  clear 

^  Joceline's  Life  of  St.  Kentigern,  xlv,  in  Historians  of  Scotland, 
vol.  V,  p.  241. 

2  The  date,  "  circa  1350",  in  the  Report  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh 
Lang.,  ii,  91,  is  an  error,  corrected  to  "  circa  1250"  in  a  footnote  to 
p.  iv  of  the  Introduction.  Such  an  error  in  reporting  the  most  im- 
portant  fact  in  the  volume  ought  at  least  to  have  been  corrected  in 
large  type  in  a  proniinent  position,  and  not  hidden  away  without 
even  an  apology,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  no  account. 


8  Taliesin. 

that  the  Gododdin  was  written  down  in  the  Old  Welsh 
period,  and  that  the  text  was  then  uncertain,  which  im- 
plies  that  it  had  been  handed  down  from  a  still  earlier 
period.  The  gorchaneu  seem  to  show  that  additions 
were  made  to  the  original  poem;  and  in  oral  trans- 
mission  interpolations  from  these  were  natural,  and  may 
explain  the  references  in  the  poem  in  its  present  state  to 
Aneirin's  death  and  to  Dyfnwal  Frych  who  died  in  642.' 
The  evidence  of  the  manuscript  then,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is 
not  inconsistent  with  the  tradition  as  to  the  date  of  the 
orig-inal  poem. 

The  Book  of  Taliesin  is  a  manuscript  of  the  late 
thirteenth  century  containing  a  collection  of  poems  rightly 
or  wrongly  attributed  to  Taliesin. 

The  Red  Booìc  o/Hergest,  in  the  Library  of  Jesus  College, 
Oxford,  is  a  manuscript  of  the  late  fourteenth  century 
containing  a  large  quantity  of  Welsh  prose  and  verse. 
Most  of  the  poetry  is  the  work  of  medieval  bards,  written 
in  the  standard  medieval  metres,  each  poem  being  duly 
ascribed  to  its  author.  The  rest  consists  of  what  passed 
at  the  time  as  ancient  verse.  The  fìrst  poem  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin,  which  is  there  incomplete  owing  to  the  first 
leaf  having  been  lost,  is  found  complete  in  the  Red  Book. 
Another  poem  professing  to  be  by  Taliesin  (Anrec  Urien, 
Skene,  F.A.B.,  ii,  291)  is  found  in  the  detached  portion  of 
the  White  Book  of  Ehydderch'  in  Peniarth  MS.  12,  and 
it  is  possible  that  this,  and  one  or  two  other  poems  found 
here  may  have  been  included  in  the  lost  portion  of  the 
Book  of  Taliesin.  The  Red  Book  also  contains  the  Givas- 
gargerdd  and  Kyvoesi,  englynion  of  prophecies  (after  the 
events)  pretending  to  be  by  Myrddin,  and  a  large  collec- 
tion  of  the  englyníon  usually  attributed  to  Llywarch  Hên. 

1  Skene,  Four  Ancient  Boohs  of  Wales,  ii,  360. 

2  Rpport  on  Mamiscripts  in  the  Welsh  Language,  i,  324. 


Taliesin.  9 

Most  o£  the  englynion,  especially  the  last-meiitioned,  are 
of  the  forms  which  are  called  in  the  Red  Book  Grammar 
(col.  1129)  oW  hen  ganiad — of  ancient  composition,  and 
are  actually  exemplified  in  Old  Welsh  writing-  of  the 
ninth  century  in  the  Cambridge  Juvencus  codex. 

Some  stray  poems  and  stanzas  attributed  to  the  early 
bards  are  found  in  other  medieval  manuscripts  :  thus  in 
Peniarth  MS.  3,  part  ii,  written  about  1300,^  are  found 
the  Kyvoesi,  Hoianeu  and  Afallenneu,  attributed  to  Myr- 
ddin  ;  and  the  detached  portion  of  the  White  Book  (early 
fourteenth  century)  contains  the  Gwasgargerdd  Yyrddin  in 
addition  to  the  Taliesin  poem  mentioned  above.''' 

There  are,  of  course,  many  later  copies  of  the  poems  ; 
the  bards  continued  to  read  and  study  them,  and  seem  to 
have  become  owners  of  some  of  the  old  copies  :  the  Book 
of  Aneirin  belonged  in  the  fifteenth  century  to  Gwilym 
Tew  and  Dafydd  Nanmor  according  to  entries  in  the  mar- 
gins  of  p.  20.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  when  bardism 
as  a  profession  was  rapidly  declining-,  the  antiquary  Robert 
Yaug'han  of  Hengwrt  (1592-1666)  brought  together  almost 
all  the  most  valuable  Welsh  manuscripts  then  in  existence, 
except  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest ;  he  secured  the  Black 
Book  of  Carmarthen,  the  Black  Book  of  Chirk,  the  Book 
of  Aneirin,  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  the  White  Book  of 
Rhydderch,  and  many  others  ;  in  the  whole  history  of 
collections  and  collectors  it  may  be  doubted  whether  such 
a  clean  sweep  as  this  of  all  the  choicest  material  was  ever 
made  by  one  man.'     The    Hengwrt    Library  with    some 

1  Report  on  Manuscripts  in  the  Welsh  Languaye,  i,  303. 

2  Ihid.,  325.  The  text  of  the  detached  portion  of  the  "White  Book 
was  printed  by  Phillimore  in  Y  Cymmrodor,  vii,  pp.  123-154. 

^  It  is  not  suggested  tliat  Robert  Yaughan  had  no  agents  or 
helpers.  Lewis  Morris  in  a  list  of  over  forty  inanuscript  collections 
known  to  him  says  that  the  Hengwrt  collection  was  "  made  by  Rob  : 
Vaughan  and  his  friends  John  Jones  of  Gilli  \ýic,  read  Gelli]  Lyfdy 
and  Wiiliam  Morris  of  Cefn  y  Braich." — Report  on  MSS.  in  the 
Welsh  Lany.,  ii,  p.  838. 


I  o  Taliesin. 

additional  voliimes  became  the  Peniarth  Library,  which 
is  now,  by  Sir  John  Williams's  noble  gift  to  the  nation, 
accessible  to  students  in  the  National  Librarj  of  Wales. 
But  the  Book  of  Aneirin  had  disappeared  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  centurj  from  the  Hengwrt  collection ;'  it  was 
bought  "from  a  person  at  Aberdâr  ",  became  the  property 
of  Carnhuanawc,  and  then  of  Sir  Thomas  Philipps,  and  is 
now  safe  in  the  Free  Library  at  Cardiff."  The  term 
Gynfeirdd,  by  which  the  bards  of  the  period  from  the 
sixth  to  the  eleyenth  century  are  now  known,  seems  to  be 
due  to  the  happy  inspiration  of  Pobert  Yaughan,  who 
transcribed  their  reputed  works  in  a  vokime  which  he 
called  "  Y  Kynveirdh  Kymreig  ".^ 

In  the  eighteenth  century  Lewis  Morris  of  Anglesey 
(1701-1765)  and  his  brothers  Richard  (1703-1779)  and 
William  (1705-1763),  who  by  unaided  application  had 
acquired  considerable  profìciency  in  most  of  the  learning, 
literary  and  scientific,  which  was  current  in  their  day,  had 
in  the  literature  and  antiquities  of  Wales  the  most 
absorbing  of  their  many  intellectual  interests.  They 
copied  and  collected  manuscripts,  they  corresponded  with 
each  other  and  with  Welsh  and  English  literati,  and  they 
instructed  and  encouraged  younger  bards  and  scholars 
such  as  Goronwy  Owen  and  Evan  Evans.  Pichard  and 
Lewis  "  were  the  founders  of  the  Honourable  Society  of 
Cymmrodorion  in  1751,  and  through  the  means  of  the 
Society,  and  by  their  own  personal  efforts  they  succeeded 
in  interesting  all  classes  of  Welshmen  in  the  history  and 


^  "  Within  the  last  20  years,"  says  Sharon  Turner  in  his  Yindica' 
tion,  1803,  p.  29,  adding,  "  I  will  presume  that  it  has  been  only 
borrowed,  and  that  it  will  be  honourably  returned  to  the  coUection 
at  Hengurt ". 

2  Report  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lang.,  ii,  p.  91. 

3  Avch.  Brit.,  1707,  p.  258. 


Taliesin.  1 1 

literature  of  their  native  land".'  Evan  Evans  (1731- 
1789),  whom  the  Morrises  called  "  leuan  Brydydd  Hir",' 
by  which  sobriquet  he  is  generally  known,  and  not  by  his 
own  bardic  name  of  leuan  Fardd  ac  Offeiriad,  corres- 
ponded  with  them  regularly,  as  well  as  with  Gray,  Percy, 
and  others.  He  explored  the  little-known  field  of  Welsh 
manuscripts,  and  communicated  his  discoveries  to  thë 
Morrises.  Lewis  Morris,  writing  to  Edward  Richard  of 
Ystrad  Meurig  on  August  5th,  1758,  tells  him  that  he  has 
at  his  elbow  "  no  less  a  man  than  leuan  Brydydd  Hir, 
who  hath  discovered  some  old  MS.  lately,  that  nobody  of 
this  age  ever  as  much  as  dreamed  of ;  and  this  discovery 
is  to  him  and  me  as  great  as  that  of  America  by  Columbus. 
We  have  found  an  Epic  Poem  in  the  British  called 
Gododin  ".^  Later,  Lewis  Morris  acquainted  himself  with 
the  poetry  of  the  Cynf  eirdd  in  the  Hengwrt  Library  itself, 
and  "  had  a  design  of  printing  many,  or  most  of  those 
ancient  poems  ".*  Evans's  Specimens  of  the  Poetry  of  the 
Ancient  Welsh  Bards,  including  his  De  Bardis  Dissertatio, 
was  published  by  Dodsley  in  1764.  "  It  was  first  thought 
of,  and  encouraged,"  he  says  in  his  Preface,  "  some  years 
before  the  name  of  Ossian  was  known  in  England." 
During  the  greater  part  of  his  life  Evans  spent  much  of 
his  time  in  copying  Welsh  manuscripts  ;  he  transcribed 
all  the  works  of  the  old  and  medieval  bards,  together  with 
the  Bruts  and  other  prose  works,  which  he  hoped,  in  vain, 
to  see  published.  In  great  penury  in  his  last  days,  he 
handed  over  his  transcripts  to  Paul  Panton  of  Plas  Gwyn, 
Pentraeth,  Anglesey,  in  return  for  an  annuity  of  £20  a 

1  J.  II.  Davies,   Tke  Letters  of  Lewis,  Hichard,  William  and  John 
Morris,  vol.  i,  1907,  p.  xx. 

■^  leuan  Brydydd  Ilir  is  the  name  of  a  fifteenth  century  bard  of 
Merioneth. 
'   3  lieport  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lang.,  ii,  p.  809. 

*  Myi\  Areh.,^  i,  p.  xiii. 


1 2  Taliesiìi. 

jear.'  The  scheme  which  he  had  projected  was,  however, 
carried  out  later  by  Owen  Jones  [Owain  Myfyr),  who 
edited  in  collaboration  with  William  Owen  [Pughe]  and 
Edward  Williams  (lolo  Morganiug),  and  published  at  his 
own  expense,  the  Myvyrian  Archaiology  of  Wales  in  three 
large  octavo  volumes,  the  first  two  of  which  appeared  in 
1801,  and  the  third  in  1807.  The  editors  had  access  to 
Lewis  Morris's  collection  of  manuscripts  containing 
"  chiefly  ancient  poetry ",  and  they  dedicate  the  fìrst 
volume  to  Paul  Panton,  ^Z«,  for  "his  liberality  in  lending 
his  manuscripts  "  which  they  acknowledge  (vol.  i,  pp.  xiii, 
xiv)  to  consist  mostly  of  transcripts  by  Evan  Evans ;  they 
describe  Evans's  labours  at  some  length,  mentioning 
his  intention  of  "  putting  a  part  of  what  he  had  thus 
collected  to  the  press  ".'  The  fìrst  volume  of  the  Myvyrian 
contains  poetry  only,  and  includes  all  the  reputed  poems 
of  the  Cynfeirdd,  and  practically  all  the  known  work  of 
the  medieval  bards.  The  reproduction,  is,  for  the  time,  a 
very  creditable  perf ormance  ;  it  evidently  f ollows  with  care 
the  copies  used,  and  of  most  of  our  medieval  poetry  it 
remains  to  this  day  the  only  available  printed  text.  The 
whole  work  was  reprinted  in  one  bulky  volume  by  Gee 
of  Denbigh  in  1870. 

1  Emvogion  Cymru,  1870,  pp.  544,  806 ;  Myv.  Arch.,^  i,  p.  xiv ; 
Rejìort  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lang.,  ii,  part  3,  page  v. 

^  It  seeras  due  to  them  to  mention  these  things  in  the  face  of  the 
charge  brought  against  them  by  Mr.  6wenogvryn  Eyans  in  the  lieport 
on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lang.,  ii,  part  3,  p.  vi,  that  they  were  "wilhng 
to  accept  credit  for  the  work  of  another  ".  The  statement  that  ''  it 
is  a  pity  that  the  name  of  Evan  Evans  was  omitted  from  the  title 
page"  is  most  unjust,  suggesting,  as  it  does,  that  their  own  names 
appear  there,  which  is  not  the  case.  They  printed  okl  poetrj',  which 
must  be  from  copies  made  by  somebody,  and  they  acknowledge  tliat 
many  of  those  used  by  them  had  been  made  by  Evan  Evans,  just  as 
Evans  himself  acknovvledges  that  most  of  his  Specimens  are  taken 
from  the  manuscripts  of  WiUiam  Morris. — Spec.  Reprint,  p.  90. 


Taliesin.  1 3 

The  Myvyrian  text  of  the  Cynfeirdcl,  which  was  printed 
from  late  copies,  was  superseded  in  1868  by  the  aj)pear- 
ance  of  Skene's  Four  Ancient  BooJcs  of  Wales,  the  second 
Yolume  of  which  contains  a  tolerably  accurate  reproduc- 
tion  of  the  text  of  the  Black  Book  of  Carmarthen,  the 
Book  of  Aneirin,  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  and  of  the  okl 
poetry  in  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest.  In  recent  years 
Dr.  Gwenogyi'yn  Evans  has  published  the  whole  of  the 
first  three  both  in  photographic  facsimile  and  in  printed 
reproductions  which  attain  the  highest  degree  of  accuracy 
that  seems  humanly  possible.' 

The  first  substantial  contribution  to  the  discussion  of 
the  authenticity  of  these  poems  was  A  Vindication  of  the 
Genuineness  of  the  Ancient  British  Poems  of  Aneurin,  Tal- 
iesin,  Llywarch  Hen  and  Merdliin,  loith  Specimens  of  the 
Poems,  by  Sharon  Turner,  T.A.S.,  1803.  The  author  had 
cited  the  Welsh  bards  in  his  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons ; 
and  the  Yindication  was  called  forth  by  an  attack  on  that 
work  in  the  Critical  Reviev)  of  January  1800,  and  by  the 
pronouncements  of  Pinkerton  and  Malcohn  Laing  against 
the  genuineness  of  the  poems.  Sharon  Turner  effectively 
exposes  his  critics'  ignorance  of  the  -subject,  but  he  is 
more  interested  in  following  up  the  inquiry  which  their 
strictures  induced  him  to  undertalce.  His  Yindication  is 
a  sane  and  temperate  statement  of  the  case.  His  argu- 
ments,  disentangled,  and  summarised  as  briefly  as  possible, 
are  as  follows  : — 

1. — British  bards  existed  in  the  sixth  century.  This 
is  proved,  among  other  things,  by  the  invective  of  Gildas, 
who  accuses  the  British  kings  of  listening  only  to  "  their 

^  I  have  discovere(1  only  one  actual  error  in  these  reproductions  : 
ìoaeawau-r  for  waeiraìrr,  B.A.,  918.  In  the  Black  Rook.  51  9,  two 
t's  are  printed  as  u  with  two  accents  above  it,  which  represents  the 
appearance  of  the  original,  but  the  correct  reading  is  ii. 


1 4  Taliesin. 

own  praises  .  .  .  from  the  mouths  of  scoundrel  pro- 
claimers  "  pp.  105-6. 

2. — The  Nennian  memorandum  clearly  names  Taliesin 
among  the  bards  of  the  sixth  centurj ;  and  Turner, 
following  Evans,  correctlj  takes  the  misreadiug  Nueyin  to 
mean  Aneirin,  and  supposes  Bluchbard  to  be  Llywarch, 
pp.  116-7. 

3. — He  quotes  from  the  bards  of  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth  centuries  numerous  passages  which  show  that  they 
knew  of  Taliesin,  Aneirin,  Myrddin  and  Llywarch  as 
bards  of  a  past  age,  and  were  acquainted  with  their  re- 
puted  works,  pp.  40-82.  GeofPrey  of  Monmouth  in  a 
Latin  poem  makes  Taliesin  and  Myrddin  contemporaries 
of  Gildas,  p.  123. 

4. — Giraldus  says  that  the  bards  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury  had  "  ancient  and  authentic  books  written  in  Welsh", 
p.  142.  The  memory  of  Myrddin's  prophecies  had  been 
retained  among  them,  "verbally  by  many,  in  writing  by 
very  few  ",  p.  147.  They  had  added  to  the  genuine  ones 
many  of  their  own ;  but  Giraldus  could  distinguish  be- 
tween  the  genuine  and  the  spurious  by  the  language  and 
style,  p.  147. 

5. — Manuscripts  of  the  twelf th  and  two  succeeding  cen- 
turies,  containing  the  reputed  works  of  these  bards,  have 
been  preserved,  pp.  25-30.  The  non-existence  of  earlier 
manuscripts  is  satisfactorily  accounted  for :  "  Time  and 
accident  consume  MSS.  as  well  as  buildings  and  men. 
Old  copies  decay  or  are  lost,  and  new  ones  succeed,"  p.  21. 
Wales  was  peculiarly  exposed  to  the  ravages  of  invaders, 
p.  24.  The  value  and  importance  of  old  MSS.  is  a  com- 
paratively  late  discovery ;  MSS.  were  preferred  for  other 
considerations  than  age,  p.  22.  (He  might  have  added  that 
Old  Welsh  manuscripts  were  written  in  a  difficult  ortho- 
graphy  and  obsolete  script.)     "  It  is  therefore  a  matter  of 


Taliesin.  15 

pure  chance  that  any  ancient  MS.  of  a  book  has  descended  to 
us,"  p.  22.  Lack  of  ancient  MS.  authority  is  not  peculiar 
to  these  poems :  •"  Of  the  numerous  Greek  and  Latin 
works,  which  we  possess,  how  few  are  there  of  which  very 
ancient  MSS.  can  be  adduced  !"  p.  21.  We  admit  their 
genuineness  although,  if  we  examined  the  evidence  for  it, 
"  we  should  find,  that  far  as  antiquity  of  MSS.  was  con- 
cerned,  it  is  very  slight  ",  p.  22.  Li  this  respect  there- 
fore  these  Welsh  poems  stand  on  the  same  footing  as 
most  other  ancient  writings. 

6. — Summing  up  the  above  evidence,  Turner  submits 
"  that  unless  the  internal  evidence  of  these  poems  is  very 
clearly  and  decisively  hostile  to  their  antiquity,  no  reason- 
able  man  can  discredit  their  genuineness,"  p.  15L  For 
our  present  purpose  the  internal  evidence  may  be  classified 
thus  :  the  evidence  of  (a)  the  matter,  (6)  the  versification, 
(c)  the  language. 

(a)  Under  this  head  Turner  maintains  "  That  the  sub- 
jects  of  this  poetry  coukl  answer  no  purpose  of  interest  in 
the  twelfth  century.  That  their  subjects  were  the  most 
unlikely  of  all  others  for  a  forger  to  have  chosen.  That 
Ai'thur  is  spoken  of  in  a  manner  inconsistent  with  the 
supposition  of  forgery.  That  the  subjects  are  such  as,  if 
genuine,  might  be  expected  from  their  real  authors.  .  .  . 
That    their    historical    allusions    are    true,"   pp.    19-20, 

151  fie. 

(6)  Rhyme  is  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  the 
versification.  It  liad  been  objected  that  rhyme  was  un- 
known  in  Europe  before  the  eighth  century;  Turnershows 
that  it  was  practised  in  the  fourth,  pp.  250-254. 

(c)  "  On  the  language  of  these  bards,  it  is  very  favour- 
able  to  the  genuineness  of  these  poems,  that  .  .  .  they 
have  not  been  found  intelligible  by  many  modern  Welsh- 
men.     Evans  .  .  .  mentions  this  several  times,"  p.  197. 


i6  Taliesin. 

This  is  the  only  point  made  bj  Turner  under  this  head ; 
and  it  is,  of  course,  a  substantial  one,  since  it  establishes 
some  presumption  of  antiquity.  But  with  the  progress  of 
linguistic  science  philological  considerations  have  formed 
the  chief  obstacle  to  the  acceptance  of  the  view  which  he 
shows  to  be  probable  on  other  grounds.  In  a  later  section 
of  this  paper  I  propose  to  discuss  the  question  whether 
these  considerations  are  of  such  weight  as  to  turn  the 
scale  decisivelj  against  all  other  evidence. 

Turner  knew,  of  coui'se,  as  Giraldus  knew  in  the 
twelfth  centurj,  that  manj  poems  attributed  to  these 
bards  are  later  productions.  He  therefore  gives  a  list  of 
the  poems  which  he  considers  genuine ;  those  of  Taliesin 
are :  "  The  Poems  to  Urien,  and  on  his  battles.  His 
dialogue  with  Merdhin.  The  Poems  on  Elphin.  And  his 
Historical  Elegies,"  p.  33.  He  adds,  "  There  are  several 
others,  however,  especiallj  of  Taliesin,  which  maj  be 
genuine,"  p.  34. 

Thomas  Stephens,  in  his  Literature  of  the  Kymry,  1849, 
finds  himself  in  general  agreement  with  Turner's  conclu- 
sions  :  "  I  regret ",  he  writes,  "  being  compelled  to  differ 
in  opinion,  respecting  this  \_Armes  Prydein  Vawr]  and  the 
poems  of  Merddin,  from  the  eminent  historian  and  critic, 
to  whose  learning,  intelligence,  and  candour,  the  litera- 
ture  of  mj  native  land  is  so  greatlj  indebted  ;  but  it  is  a 
source  of  sincere  gratification  to  reflect,  that  in  nearlj 
everj  other  essential  point,  mj  own  researches  have  tended 
to  ratif  j  his  conclusions,  as  to  the  genuineness  of  most  of 
the  poems  attributed  to  the  earlj  bards,  Aneurin,  and 
Lljwarch,  and  manj  of  those  of  Taliesin,"  p.  288.  With 
respect  to  the  last  mentioned  poems,  he  sajs  that,  as 
manj  of  them  "maj  upon  most  substantial  grounds  be 
shown  to  be  genuine,  it  becomes  of  importance  to  distin- 
guish  between  those  which  are,  and  those  which  maj  not 


Taliesin.  1 7 

be  of  his  production,"  p.  281.  As  the  result  of  his  own 
study  of  seventj-seven  poems  attributed  to  Taliesin, 
Stephens  divides  them  into  five  classes,  of  which  the  first 
two  are  the  following,  p.  282  : — 

HlSTORICAL,   AND   AS   OLD   AS   THE    SlXTH    CeNTURY. 

-  Gwaith  Gwenystrad  -Yspail  Taliesin 
Gwaith  Argoed  Llwyvain  Canii  i  Urien  Rheged 

Gwaith  Dyíìryn  Gwarant  Dadolwch  Urien  Rheged 

■   I  Urien  I  Wallawg 

I  Urien  -  Dadolwch  i  Urien 

Canu  i  Urien  -  Marwnad  Owain  ap  Urien 

DOUBTFUL. 

»Cerdd  i  Wallawg  ap  Lleenawg     Gwarchan  Kynvelyn 
Marwnad  Cunedda  Gwarchan  Maelderw 

Gwarchan  Tutvwlch  Kerdd  Daronwy 

Gwarchan  Adebon  -  Trawsganu  Cynan  Garwyn 

All  the  rest  he  relegates  to  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries,  dividing  them  into  Romances,  Predictive,  and 
Theological  Poems.  The  actual  number  of  poems  in  his 
list  is  not  77,  but  73 ;  and  many  of  these  are  not  found 
in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  while  only  the  fourth  of  tlie 
gorchaneu  (Gorchan  Maelderw)  is  attributed  to  Taliesin  in 
the  Book  of  Aneirin.  In  a  series  of  articles  which 
appeared  subsequently  in  the  Archaeologia  Gambrensis, 
1851-3,  Stephens  added  to  the  class  of  genuine  poems 
three  previously  classed  as  doubtful  and  two  others. 

In  1853  Stephens  wrote  for  the  Aberga^enn}'  Eistedd- 
fod  a  valuable  treatise  on  the  Gododdin,  with  text  and 
translation,  which  was  edited  by  Professor  Powel,  and 
published  by  the  Honourable  Society  of  Cymmrodorion  in 
1888.  In  the  historical  illustrations  and  the  Introductory 
Essay  "  he  had  on  certain  points,"  says  the  editor, 
"  anticipated  by  a  whole  generation  conclusions  which 
have  been  subsequently  drawn  by  other  writers."  Two 
poems  of  Taliesin  are  translated  in  the  Essay,  pp.  67,  73. 


1 8  Taliesin. 

In  1858,  D.  W.  Nash  publislied  liis  Taliesin ;  or,  the 
Bards  and  Druids  of  Britain.  The  greater  part  of  the 
work  is  devoted  to  the  refutation  of  the  druidical  inter- 
pretation  of  the  Cjnfeirdd  poems  proposed  by  the  Rev. 
Edward  Davies,  whose  two  volumes,  Celtic  Researches,  1804, 
and  The  Mythology  and  Rites  of  the  British  Druids,  1809, 
Nash  rightly  characterises  as  "  monuments  of  misapplied 
learning",  p.  7.  Davies  had  embraced  the  fantastic 
theory  of  Jacob  Bryant  that  all  ancient  mythology  was 
derived  from  a  corruption  of  revealed  religion  which  took 
place  after  the  Flood.  It  occurred  to  him  that  this  grand 
idea  must  supply  tlie  key  to  the  obscurities  of  ancient 
Welsh  literature ;  he  satisfied  himself  that  druidism  was 
a  form  of  helio-arkite  worship  ;  that  the  bards  cherished 
its  doctrines  in  secret  down  to  the  middle  ages ;  and  that 
the  works  of  the  Cjaifeirdd  are  full  of  helio-dsemoiiic  lore 
and  arkite  mysteries.  Now,  to  approach  these  poems 
with  a  preconceived  theory  is  fatal ;  their  language  is  so 
obscure  and  difficult  that  a  person  with  a  fixed  idea, 
especially  if  his  notions  of  Welsh  inílexion  and  syntax  are 
a  little  vague,  is  certain  to  discover  in  them  exactly  what 
he  is  looking  f or.  Edward  Davies  looked  f or  liis  mysteries, 
and  found  them ;  and  his  views  gained  such  acceptance 
that  it  was  perhaps  necessary,  even  in  the  late  fìfties,  to 
refute  them.  This  task  Nash  accomplishes  vigorously 
and  successfuUy.  The  apparent  good  sense  of  his  trans- 
lations  heighten  by  contrast  the  obvious  nonsense  of 
Davies's.  The  contrast  is  often  more  striking  than  it 
would  be  if  that  sense  were  the  sense  of  the  original ;  but 
in  many  cases  ISTash's  renderings,  when  compared  witli 
the  text,  are  even  more  ludicrous  than  Davies's  own. 
Thus  Pawh  i  Adonai  ar  weryd  Pwmpai,  rendered  by  Davies 
"We  all  attend  on  Adonai  on  the  area  of  Pwmpai  ", 
which   is   literal   except  that   "we"   and    "attend"    are 


Taliesiìi.  1 9 

supplied,  is  rendered  by  Nasli  "  Every  one  of  the  idiots 
ban<^ing  on  the  ground  ",  p.  257.  Not  being-  restrained 
by  any  inconveniently  exact  knowled»e  of  Welsh  inflex- 
ions  and  word-formations,  Nash  plays  fast  and  loose  with 
thera,  and  produces  anything  which  seems  to  be  sensible, 
and  to  fit  the  case.  Thus  Unynt  tanc  gan  aethant  gollu- 
ddioìi,  which  means  "  They  joined  (i.e.,  made)  peace,  for 
they  liad  become  weary "  is  translated  by  liim  "  They 
were  quiet  whose  entrails  went  (out  of  their  wounds) ",' 
p.  98.  But  with  all  the  freedom  he  allows  himself  he 
does  not  always  succeed  in  evolving  any  possible  sense, 
though  he  is  not  in  the  least  put  out  by  that,  for  he  has 
that  naîve  type  of  mind  which  naturally  assumes  that 
what  it  does  not  understand  is  mere  silliness.  For 
example,  four  lines  referring  to  a  cow,  which  mean 
"At  mid-day  it  will  be  lowing,  at  midnight  it  will  be 
boiling ;  it  will  be  boiled  on  land,  it  will  be  eaten  in 
ships  ",  are  rendered  by  him  "  On  a  fine  day  lowing,  on 
a  fine  night  boiling ;  in  the  land  of  the  boiler  the  timid 
shall  be  in  tranquility ",  witli  a  footnote  pointing  out 
that  "  these  lines,  though  unintelligible,  are  not  more 
so  than  the  prophecies  of  Merlin  in  Geoíîrey",  etc,  p.  258. 
He  never  suspects  that  there  may  be  a  meaning  which 
he  has  failed  to  discover.  His  positive  contribution  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  poems  has  been  over-estimated ; 
even  Matthew  Arnold  was  deceived  by  his  plausibility. 
He   renders,  on   tlie   absurdest   grounds,    "  Politeness   is 

*  The  H  in  go-lluddion  "rather  weary"  (compare  go-lbcng,  etc.) 
ghould  have  obviated  the  possibility  of  its  being  even  momen- 
tarily  mistaken  for  coluddioyi  "  ontrails  ".  Nash  could  not,  of  course, 
be  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  the  verb  "  to  go  "  is  used  to  mean 
"become"  with  all  adjectives  in  Welsh  as  it  is  in  English  with  some, 
e.g.  "  to  go  mad  " ;  he  could  not  therefore  have  guessed  "  had  become 
weary  "  ;  and  so  he  read  loignt  "  joined  "  as  if  it  were  oeddynt  "  were  ", 
and  made  the  noun  tanc  "peaee"  iuto  an  adjective  "  quiet". 

c2 


20  Taliesin. 

natural,  says  the  ape  ",  and  Matthew  Arnold  "  can  hardly 
doubt  that  Mr.  Nash  is  quite  right".' 

The  refutation  of  Davies's  theories  formed  only  part 
of  Nash's  purpose,  which  was  to  cast  doubt  on  the  authen- 
ticity  of  all  the  old  Welsh  poetry.  He  held  that  it  was 
forged  in  the  twelfth  century  or  later.  He  is  as  intent 
on  proYÌng  his  theory  as  Davies  was.  Matthew  Arnold  is 
under  no  misapprehension  with  regard  to  this  :  "  his  de- 
termined  scepticism  about  Welsh  antiquity  seems  to  me, 
however,  to  betray  a  preconceived  hostility,  a  bias  taken 
beforehand,  as  unmistakable  as  Mr.  Davies's  preposses- 
ions".^  His  bias  comes  out  most  clearly  when  he  is  deal- 
ing  with  the  historical  poems,  for  here  he  seems  half 
conscious  that  he  cannot  establish  his  contention.  His 
treatment  of  the  Gododdin  is  hesitating  and  uncertain  ; 
he  seems  almost  to  admit  that  the  poem  may  be  ancient, 
then  suggests  a  qualification,  and  when  you  think  he  is 
about  to  come  to  a  decision  he  goes  off  to  something  else, 
and  leaves  the  decision  in  the  air.  Even  when  he  deals 
with  the  historica.l  poems  of  Taliesin,  we  have  the  admis- 
sion  that  the  corrupt  state  of  one  of  them  may  arise  "  per- 
liaps  from  the  antiquity  of  the  original  songs,  fragments 
of  which  have  thus  been  orally  preserved,"  p.  90 ;  but  the 
idea  is  not  followed  up.  Having  given  his  own  transla- 
tions  of  the  poems  he  proceeds  to  show  that  they  must  be 
spurious  by  taking  that  which  "  bears  the  most  apparently 
genuine  character  ",  namely  Gwaith  Ârgoed  Lhuyfain,  and 
showing  that  it  contains  an  anachronism  which  proves  it 
late,  pp.  119-120.  This  is  done  as  follows  :  in  the  poem 
the  Saxon  chief  appears  and  calls  for  hostages  ;  two 
speeches  follow — a  reply  by  Owein  ap  Urien,  and  a  call  to 
his  men  by  Urien  himself.     Owein's  reply  is  to  the  effect 

'  The  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,  popular  ed.  1891,  p.  32, 
2  Ibid.,  p.  28-9. 


Taliesin.  2 1 

that  "  they  will  not  give  hostages,  and  Ceneu   ap   Coel 
would    have   suffered   torture  before  he  gave  hostages ". 
Nash  puts  only  the  fìrst  part  of  this  speech  in  inverted 
commas,  and  pretends  that  the  rest  represents  a  speech 
by  Ceneu  ap  Coel,  who  had  long  been  dead.     He  gives  a 
genealogical  table  to  show  that  Owein  was  a  descendant 
of  Ceneu  ap  Coel  in  the  fifth  degree.     But  the  obvious 
meaning  of  the  passage  is  that  Owein  declares  that  he  will 
not  be  unworthy  of  his  ancestor ;  and  in   the  translation 
in  Sharon   Turner's   book  iìie  wìiole  speech  is  included   in 
inverted  commas.     It  is  therefore  difficult  to  acquit  Nash 
of  the  charge  of  disingenuousness  brought  against  him  by 
Skene  {F.A.B.,  ì,  15).      After  this  piece  of  special  plead- 
ing,  Nash    goes   on   to  say  that  "  without   venturing  to 
decide  that  these  Songs  to  Urien  were  not  rewritten  in  the 
twelfth  century  from  materials  originally  of  the  date  of 
the  sixth,  and  that  there  are  no  poetical  remains  in  the 
Welsh  language  older  than  the  twelfth  century,  we  may 
nevertheless  assert  that  the  common  assumption  of  such 
remains  of  the  date  of  the  sixth  century  has  been  made 
upon  very  unsatisfactory  grounds",  and  to  put  the  onus  of 
proof  on  those  who  differ  from  him.     He  ends  the  chap- 
ter  by  stating  that  "  the  internal  evidence,  even  of  the 
so-called  '  Historical  Poems '  themselves,  is,  in  some  in- 
stances  at  least,  opposed  to  their  claims  to  an  origin  in 
the  sixth  century  ",  which  Matthew  Arnold  calls  "  an  un- 
satisfactory  turn  to  gìve  to  tlie  matter,  and  a  lame  and 
impotent  conclusion  to  his  chapter  ".'     His  lameness  here 
is  no  doubt  caused  by  a  feeling  that  in  his  examination  of 
these  particular  poems  he  has  not  found  much  to  support 
his  theory :  indeed,  he  has  found  some  facts  which  seeni 
to  run  counter  to  it.     But  his  "  determined  scepticism  " 
was  not  to  be  shaken  by  a  few  facts,  for  it  was  too  firmly 
1  Tke  Study  of  Celtic  Literature,  popular  ed.,  1891,  p.  48. 


2  2  Taliesin. 

rooted  in  the  a  priori  probabilities  of  the  case.  It  was  an 
attitude  natural  to  him,  and  typical  of  the  time.  "  It  has 
been  the  mission  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  says  Mr. 
Sainsbury,  "  to  prove  that  everybody's  work  was  written 
by  somebody  else,  and  it  will  not  be  the  most  useless  task 
of  the  twentieth  century  to  betake  itself  to  niore  profitable 
inquiries  ". 

The  texts  which  appear  in  the  second  volume  of 
The  Four  Aìicient  BooJcs  of  Wales  had  been  transcribed 
and  printed  some  years  bef  ore  the  appearance  of  the  work  in 
1868,  and  Skene  had  obtained  translations  of  the  printed 
texts  from  two  Welsh  scholars :  the  Book  of  Taliesin 
was  translated  by  the  Eev.  Eobert  Williams,  and  the 
other  texts  by  the  Eev.  D.  Silvan  Evans.  Most  of  the 
historical  poems  relate  to  the  strug-gles  between  the 
Britons  of  the  north  and  the  men  of  Deira  and  Bernicia  ; 
and  Skene,  with  the  aid  of  the  translations,  examined  them 
in  the  light  of  such  information  concerning  the  Northern 
kingdoms  in  that  obscure  period  as  can  be  gleaned  from 
other  sources,  and  made  out  a  strong  case  for  their  sub- 
stantial  genuineness.  He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
was  not  till  the  seventh  century  that  they  "  were  brought 
into  shape,  and  assumed  a  consistent  form  ....  It  is 
in  the  seventh  century  that  I  place  these  poems  in  their 
earliest  consistent  shape,  and  I  do  not  attempt  to  take 
them  further  back  ",  i,  p.  243.  He  was,  of  course,  aware 
of  the  fact  that  in  oral  transmission  the  pronunciation  of 
the  words  changed  insensibly  with  the  changethät  went  on 
in  the  spoken  language,  and  that  when  written  down  they 
appeared  in  the  orthography  in  use  at  the  date  of  the  manu- 
script,  i,  p.  216.  Some  of  Skene's  identifications  of  places 
in  the  North  are  more  than  doubtf  ul ;  and  his  philological 
chapters  are  of  no  value.  But  the  work  as  a  whole  forms  a 
most  important  contribution  to  the  study  of  the  poems. 


Taliesin.  23 

Since  the  publication  of  Skene's  work  it  has  been 
generally  recognised  that  the  Gododdin  and  other  histori- 
cal  poems  are  older  than  the  twelfth  century;  but  there 
has  been  little  disposition  to  admit  that  any  of  them  is 
what  it  claims  to  be.  Sir  John  Rhŷs  in  his  Lectures  on 
Welsh  Philology,  1879,  p.  139,  says  that  "  they  date,  in 
some  form  or  other,  from  the  nintli  century,  if  not 
earlier*'.  In  his  Arthurian  Legend,  1891,  p.  241,  he  points 
out  that  parts  of  the  Gododdin  appear  in  the  manuscript 
in  an  orthography  which  may  be  as  old  as  the  ninth  cen- 
tury ;  but  he  would  not  think  of  calling  its  author  Aneirin 
— no,  he  is  "  the  poet  of  the  Gododin,"  p.  242.  Similarly 
he  treats  the  Book  of  Taliesin  in  his  Hihhert  Lectures, 
1888,  as  a  repository  of  traditional  lore  having  its  roots  in 
Celtic  heathendom  ;  but  he  suggests  that  Taliesin  himself 
is  a  myth,  and  equates  the  second  element  of  his  name 
with  the  name  of  Ossin,  better  known  as  Ossian,  "  the 
great  mythic  poet  of  the  Goidels  ",  p.  551.  In  1892,  he 
tacitly  gave  up  this  equation  by  explaining  Ossîn  or  Oishi 
as  Pictish  (Proc.  Ant.  Scot.,  329) ;  but  the  name  actually 
occurs  as  the  Irish  form  of  the  Saxon  name  Oswin 
(Plummer's  Bede,  ii,  p.  163).  A  cruder  attempt  to  etymo- 
logize  Taliesin  into  a  myth  was  made  by  Mr.  J.  Rogers 
Rees  in  the  Arch.  Gamh.,  1898,  p.  331  :  "  Taliessin,  Telessin 
or  Telyessin  is  clearly  Norse  for  bard  or  skald  .  .  .  tal 
{tali)  =s'peech,  language,  a  tale  .  .  .  á  sý»i=appearance, 
shape."  The  futility  of  this  sort  of  argument  was  wittily 
exposed  by  Henry  Rogers  in  the  Eclipse  of  Faith,  1852, 
wliere  it  is  sliown  how  a  future  Dr.  Dickkopf  would  prove 
the  impossibility  of  the  "papal  aggression"  of  1850.  The 
names  "  tell  their  own  tale,  and  almost,  as  it  were,  pro- 
claim  of  themselves  that  they  are  allegorical.  Wiseman, 
Newman  (two  of  them,  be  it  observed).  .  .  Thus  the  name 
'  Wiseman  '  is  evidently  chosen  to  represent  the  proverbial 


24  Taliesin. 

craft  which  was  attributed  to  the  Church  of  Rome ;  and 
Nicholas  has  also  been  chosen  (as  I  apprehend)  for  the 
purpose  of  indicating  the  sources  whence  that  craft  was 
derived.  .  .  .  The  word  Newman  again  (and  observe  the 
significant  fact  that  there  were  two  of  them)  was  in  all 
probability,  I  may  say,  certainly,  designed  to  embody  two 
difîerent  tendencies,  both  of  which  claimed  .  .  .  to  intro- 
duce  a  new  order  of  things  ".^  It  is,  of  course,  true  that 
legends  gathered  round  the  name  of  Taliesin  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  that  a  so-called  "  Mabinogi  Taliesin "  was 
written  at  a  late  period;  but  this  no  more  justifies  the 
assumption  that  he  is  a  myth  than  the  fact  that  Yirgil 
became  a  weird  necromancer  in  the  medieval  imagination 
proves  the  Roman  poet  to  have  been  a  heathen  god. 

Sir  Edward  Anwyl  has  discussed  the  poems  of  the 
Cynfeirdd  in  two  papers  contributed  to  the  Transadions  of 
the  Honourable  Society  of  Gymmrodorion  :  "  Prolegomena  to 
the  Study  of  Old  Welsh  Poetry,"  which  appears  in  the 
volume  for  1903-4,  and  "The  Book  of  Aneirin,"  with  a 
translation,  in  the  volume  for  1909-10.  In  the  first  he 
refers,  as  Rhys  had  done,  to  the  stanzas  in  Old  Welsh 
spelling  in  the  Book  of  Aneirin  as  "  revealing  a  part  of 
the  poem  in  its  pre-Norman  dress,  and  even  in  a  form 
which  comes  near  to  that  of  the  glosses  of  the  eighth  and 
nintli  centuries,"  p.  69 ;  and  as  these  are  mere  fragments 

^  Take  a  more  modern  example,  the  present  leader  of  the  nation. 
Is  it  not  evident  that  David  Lloyd  George  is  a  mythical  name, 
typifying  the  unity  of  Kelts  and  Angles  in  the  war  against 
Prussianism?  "  Saint  David  for  Wales "  you  may  read  in  the 
Houses  of  Parliament ;  the  smallest  nationahty  naturally  represents 
the  Kelts.  St.  George  for  England.  Lloyd  is  not  *  grey'  here,  but 
'  holy  '  as  in  Duw  Iwyd,  and  indicates  that  the  patron  saints  are 
meant ;  coming  between  the  two  names  it  may  go  with  either ;  Dewi 
Sant — Saint  George.  Incidentally  also  it  signifies  that  the  war  is  a 
holy  war,  St.  George  v.  the  Dragon,  etc. 


Taliesin.  25 

he  concludes  "that  the  original  poems  from  which  they 
are  taken  .  .  .  were  older  stilL"  He  also  quotes  old 
spelHng-s  from  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  p.  62.  He  carefully 
guards  himself  against  drawing  hasty  inferences  about 
the  lateness  of  the  poems  from  certain  isolated  allusions ; 
thus,  "the  reference  in  1.  885  of  the  Gododin  to  the  death 
of  Donald  Brec,  who  died  in  642,  shows  that  the  line,  at 
any  rate  in  the  form  there  founcl,  is  subsequent  to  that 
date";  and  a  reference  to  Bede  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin 
proves  *'  that  the  poem  containing  the  reference  was  later 
than  his  time,  that  is,  nnless  the  line  or  the  reference  loas 
interpolated,"  ibid.  The  words  which  I  have  italicised 
show  that  he  did  not  wish  to  commit  himself  to  the  state- 
ment  that  the  Gododdin  was  not  older  than  642,  or  that 
the  Taliesin  poem  was  not  older  than  Bede.  Yet  he  is 
even  more  careful  not  to  suggest  that  the  poems  are  by 
Aneirin  or  Taliesin.  To  show  what  reliance  is  to  be 
phiced  on  such  ascriptions  he  points  out  a  discrepancy 
which,  by  his  own  error,  he  thinks  he  has  found  in  the 
Book  of  Aneirin.  The  stanzas  in  old  spelling  follow 
Gorchan  Maelderw ;  but  Anwyl  erroneously  took  them  to 
be  part  of  it,  and  notes  that  Gorchan  Maelderw  is  attri- 
buted  to  Taliesin,  while  some  of  the  old  stanzas  appear  in 
the  Gododdin  proper,  which  is  attributed  to  Aneirin, 
p.  70.  As  the  Gorchan  does  not  include  those  stanzas 
there  is  no  discrepancy.'  Much  of  this  poetry,  he  says, 
"  reflects  the  period  of  lieroic  struggle  against  the 
English,"  p.  68 ;  in  his  second  paper  he  devotes  con- 
siderable  space  to  the  discussion  of  the  events  of  the 
period,  and  the  identification  of  men  and  places  in  the 
North.  But  it  is  taken  for  granted  throughout  that  none 
of  the  poems  can  be  in  any  sense  contemporary  with  the 
events.  Two  questions  then  arise.  (1)  Whij  were  they 
1  See  Ifor  Williams,  Y  Beirniad,  1911,  p.  254. 


20  Taliesin. 

written  ?  (2)  ìlow  were  tliey  written  ?  (1)  Anwyl's 
answer  to  the  first  question^  scattered  through  his  papers, 
may  be  condensed  into  a  phrase  thus  :  For  the  g-lorifìca- 
tion  of  the  Welsh  families  descended  from  the  Northern 
heroes.  But  who  were  those  families  ?  The  answer  is 
remarkable  (Trans.  1909-10,  p.  95):  "Even  in  medieval 
times  some  of  the  ruling  families  of  Wales  styled  them- 
selves  Gwyr  y  Gogledd  (the  men  of  the  North),  as  in 
Hengwrt  MS.  536."  The  reference  is  clearly  to  "Bonhed 
Gwyr  y  Gogled",  printed  by  Skene  in  F.A.B.  ii,  454  (from 
Hen.  536  =  Pen.  45),  where  Gwyr  y  Gogled  are  not 
medieval  Welshmen  at  all,  but  Urien,  Llywarch  Hên, 
Rhydderch  Hael,  etc,  North  Britons  of  the  sixth  century  ! 
He  proceeds  "  It  may  therefore  be  fairly  assumed",  and 
goes  on  assuming  for  a  whole  page,  thus :  "  There  is  no 
convincing  proof",  "  It  is  not  impossible  ",  "  It  is  there- 
f  ore  conceivable  ",  "  It  is  not  impossible  ",  "  Possibly  ". 
But  there  is  no  answer  to  Sharon  Turner's  simple  state- 
ment  that  Aneirin's  heroes  "  form  part  of  no  genealogies" 
{Vincl.  p.  152),  or  to  his  general  case  against  this  very 
theory  of  glorifìcation.  It  may  therefore  be  said  that  the 
glorifìcation  of  imaginary  families  has  not  been  shown  to 
afford  even  a  probable  motive  for  the  composition  of  the 
poems.  (2)  How  were  the  poems  written — how  could 
Welsh  bards  in  later  centuries  know  of  the  persons  and 
places  in  the  North  with  which  the  poems  deal  ?  Anwyl's 
reply  is  given  in  his  fìrst  paper,  p.  64.  There  were  annals 
such  as  the  old  memoranda  appended  to  the  work  of 
Nennius  ;  and  "  it  is  highly  probable  that  chronicles  of 
similar  type  [to  these]  supplied  tlie  personal  and  local 
names  whicli  have  been  incorporated  in  the.  poems  of  the 
Four  Ancient  Boohs.'''  The  systematic  faking  implied 
here  seems  to  me,  I  confess,  -improbable.  In  his  second 
paper,  p.  97,  he  suggests  (in  brackets)  a  modifìcation  of 


Taliesin.  27 

this  view,  He  is  speaking  of  a  tradition  of  Northern 
names  in  Wales  :  "  It  does  not  follow  necessarily,  how- 
ever,  that  the  tradition  should  have  been  continuous  on 
its  poetic  side  (though  it  is  possible  that  this  may  to  some 
extent  have  been  the  case)  ".  Thus  it  is  possible  that 
some,  old  poetry  was  handed  down.  This  admission  of  the 
possibility  of  a  living  tradition  seems  to  render  unneces- 
sary  the  assumption  of  the  dry  bones  of  annals  being 
triched  out  into  a  semblance  of  life. 

It  is  seen  that  the  difficulties  of  explaining  the  histori- 
cal  poems  as  late  fabrications  have  not  been  surmounted. 
The  possibility  of  a  continuous  poetic  tradition  is  admitted 
"  to  some  extent ".  Why  is  it  not  admitted  frankly  and 
f ully  as  tlie  simple  and  obvious  explanation  of  the  facts  ? 
The  reason  is  that  linguistic  theory  stands  in  tlie  way. 
The  reason  is  not  dwelt  on,  but  it  is  mentioned  once  in 
Anwyl's  "  Prolegomena",  page  63  :  "  it  is  obvious  from  the 
rhyme  alone  that  all  the  old  poems  were  composed  after 
the  old  declensional  and  conjugational  endings  had  been 
entirely  lost."  That  is  true  :  but  unless  we  know  at  what 
period  the  loss  took  place  it  determines  nothing.  The 
period  is  not  stated,  probably  because  it  was  considered  to 
be  too  well  known.  It  was  generally  assumed  that  the 
inflexions  were  not  lost  in  the  sixth  century ;  the  poems, 
therefore,  must  be  later.  *  Tlie  Ancient  British  language 
by  the  loss  of  those  endings  became  the  Welsh  language  ; 
the  British  name  3Iaglocunos  became  the  Welsh  name 
Mailcun,  later  Maelgwn.  What  the  above  statement 
implies,  then,  is  this  :  No  poems  can  have  been  written  in 
the  Welsli  language  in  the  sixth  century,  because  iii  the 
sixtli  century  the  Welsh  language  itself  did  not  exist. 

It  is  clear  that,  if  this  hypothesis  as  to  tlie  antiquity 
of  the  language  is  well  founded,  it  over-rules  every  other 
consideration  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  under 


28  Taliesin. 

its  iuíluence  little  value  has  been  attached  to  the  tradition 
concerning  the  poems.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
it  is  no  more  than  an  hypothesis.  It  is  based  on  the 
foUowing  facts.  Gildas  uses  the  British  forras  of  proper 
names ;  he  calls  Maelgwn  Maglocune,  and  Cjnlas  Cvneglase, 
the  fìnal  e  being  in  each  case  the  ending  of  the  Latin 
vocative  (it  would  doubtless  be  the  same  in  British).  Tn 
the  sixth  and  seventh  century  inscriptions  the  names  have 
their  inflected  forms :  Cadvan  appears  as  Catamanus 
(Rhys,  Welsh  PhiL,'  p.  364),  Brochfael  in  the  genitive  as 
Brohomagli  (ibid.,  p.  372).  It  was  therefore  naturally 
assumed  that  these  were  the  ordinary  forms  of  the  names 
in  the  language  of  the  period,  and  that  the  revolution 
which  converted  British  into  Welsh  occurred  between  the 
sixth  or  seventh  and  the  ninth  century.  Ehys  in  1879 
considered  that  there  was  no  occasion  to  prove  the 
"  identity  "  of  the  language  "  in  the  first  and  sixth  cen- 
tury,  though  that,  it  must  be  admitted,  would,  owing  to 
the  scantiness  of  our  data,  be  only  less  difficult  than  to 
establish  the  negative "  (ibid.,  p.  141).  He  was  fully 
aware  that  it  was  an  unproved  assumption  ;  but  he 
thought  it  probable,  and  was  wiUing  to  "  wait  until  the 
latter  [the  negative]  has  found  an  advocate." 

Before  attempting  to  state  the  case  for  the  negative, 
that  is,  for  sixth  century  Welsh,  it  will  be  well  to  examine 
a  little  more  closely  the  case  for  sixth  century  British. 
It  rests  entirely  upon  tbe  names  in  Gildas  and  in  the  in- 
scriptions.  Because  Gildas,  writing  in  Latin,  addressed 
a  certain  prince  as  Maglocune,  therefore,  it  is  assumed 
that  that  prince  cannot  have  been  called  Mailcun  in  the 
vernacular.  To  put  it  in  another  way,  if  the  prince  was 
generally  called  Mailcun,  Gildas  would  probably  have 
written  Mailcune.  What  the  argument  implies  is  that  it 
is  improbable  that  an  old  form  was  preserved  in  Latin 


Taliesin.  29 

side  by  sicle  with  a  new  form  in  the  vernacular.  But  in 
reality  it  is  not  improbable,  but  probable.  In  a  modern 
Latin  document  the  name  of  a  man  called  Henry  is  not 
written  Heìirius  but  Henricus,  because  the  latter  is  the 
traditional  Latin  form,  a  form  preserved  in  Latin  from  the 
time  when  the  guttural  existed  in  the  name.  Latin  was  in 
use  in  Britain  from  the  British  period,  and  native  names 
entered  into  it  in  their  British  forms.  Personal  names 
were  mostly  compounds  of  pairs  of  common  elements,  such 
as  cuno-,  maglo-,  vindo-,  catu-,  etc.  Latin  being  preserved 
in  writing,  and  in  the  speech  of  the  educated,  these  forms 
would  naturally  be  preserved  in  it,  so  that  when  Magîo-, 
for  example,  had  been  reduced  to  Mail-  in  spoken  British, 
it  remained  unchanged  as  the  standard  Latin  form.  The 
work  of  Gildas  and  all  the  inscriptions  are  written  in 
Latin  ;  we  may  hold,  then,  that  they  prove  nothing  as  to 
the  forms  of  the  spoken  British  of  the  period.  Archaic 
forms  were  also  preserved  in  the  Irish  Ogams:  "the  Ogam 
language,"  says  Macbain',  "  seems  to  have  been  a  pre- 
served  literary  language ;  its  inflexions  were  antique  com- 
pared  to  the  spoken  language,  and  old  Irish,  so  near  it  in 
time  as  almost  to  be  contemporary,  is  vastly  changed  and 
decayed  compared  to  it".  The  change  was  more  com- 
plete,  and  therefore  probably  earlier,  in  British  than  in 
Goidelic. 

To  come  to  the  evidence  for  Rhys's  "  negative,"  the 
inscriptions  do  not  suggest  that  Old  British  was  a  living 
language.  Most  of  the  names  are  in  the  genitive,  in  -i 
for  the  masculine,  and  -e  (=classical  Latin  -ae)  for  the 
feminine.  The  simplest  inscriptions  contain  the  name 
only,  as  if  the  implied  noun  were  "  stone  ",  thus  "  [the 
stone]  of  A  son  of  B  ".  But  the  genitive  is  frequently 
retained  when  hicjacit  follows,  as  if  it  were  mistaken  for 
1  Utpn.  Dic.  ofthe  Gaelic  Language,  2  1911,  p.  v. 


30  Taliesiii. 

a  nominatiye,  though,  of  course,  it  may  be  that  a  difPerent 
noun  is  then  implied,  thus  "  [the  body]  of  A  son  of  B  lies 
here".  But  the  numerous  false  concords  sug-gest  very 
forcibly  that  the  Latin  was  not  written  by  persons  who 
spoke  a  highly  inflected  language  themselves,  thus  CuUdori 
jacit  et  Orwite  mulier  secundi,  which  Ehys  takes  to  mean' 
mulieris  (for  uxoris)  secundae  (Welsh  Phil.,  p.  363);  so, 
Dervaci  filius  Justi  ic  jacit  (ibid.,  p.  381),  etc.  Again  the 
distinction  of  British  declensions  is  lost ;  the  stem  catu- 
has  a  genitive  in  -i  as  Dunocati  (ibid.,  p.  381),  which  seems 
to  be  formed  by  adding  the  usual  -i  to  Dunocat  (the  Dino- 
gat  of  the  Book  of  Aneirin).  In  some  cases  uninflected 
forms  are  used,  as  Yictor  for  the  genitive  Yictoris  (ibid., 
p.  172)  ;  these  become  commoner  in  the  later  inscriptions, 
as  the  tradition  wanes. 

Bede,  writing  in  731,  in  his  fìfty-ninth  year,  uses  the 
suffixless  forms  Car-legion,  Ban-cor,  Broc-mail  (H.E.,  ii,  2) ; 
he  probably  found  them  in  older  English  accounts  of  the 
battle  of  Chester  (613  or  616  ?),  to  which  they  relate,  and 
was  unacquainted  with  earlier  British  forms.  Welsh, 
then,  goes  back  to  the  seventh  centuiy,  and  there  is  no 
room  for  the  period  of  two  or  three  centuries  requisite  for 
the  development  of  a  new  language. 

But  a  clearer  indication  that  the  change  in  the 
language  is  earlier  than  has  been  assumed  is  afforded 
by  the  practical  identity  of  Welsh  and  Breton  in  the 
ninth  century.  Zimmer  observes  that  it  required  the 
acumen  of  a  Bradshaw  to  discover  the  criteria  by  which 
we  can  distinguished  them.^  If  the  Bretons  had  taken 
over  with  them  to  Armorica  the  Ancient  British  language, 
it  is  not  likely  that  they  would  have  evo]ved  out  of   it 

^  He  subsequently  attempted,  not  very  successfuUy,  to  explain  it 
as  better  Latin,  Y  Cymmrodor,  xviii,  p.  12. 
^  Auf  loelchem  Wege,  etc,  p.  15. 


Taliesin.  3 1 

between  the  sixth  and  ninth  century  a  new  language 
identical  with  that  evolved  independently  at  the  same  time 
in  Wales.  For  the  developément  of  the  new  language 
did  not  consist  merely  in  the  mechanical  loss  of  syllables 
which  was  bound  to  give  the  same  result  wberever  it 
happened,  but  it  involved  considerable  reconstruction  in 
the  building  up  of  a  new  system  of  inflexion  with  the 
remains  of  the  old.  Thus  the  British  catus  '  battle '  would 
naturally  give  cai  in  both  Old  Welsh  and  Old  Breton, 
and  its  pliiral  catoues  would  as  regularly  give  catou  in  botli 
(cadau  in  Modern  Welsh) .  Tlie  ou  which  originally  formed 
part  of  the  stem,  seemed  now  to  be  a  plural  ending.  It 
belonged  originally  to  it-stems  only,  which  formed  the 
equivalent  of  the  Latin  fourth  declension.  Other  stem- 
endings,  such  as  -ion,  -i,  -et,  -er,  etc,  also  survived  as 
plural  endings.  But  it  happened  that  -ou  came  to  be 
chosen  as  the  ending  to  be  added  to  most  nouns  which, 
by  the  loss  of  the  old  inflexions,  had  no  distinctive  plural 
forms ;  and  thus  an  element  which  belonged  to  a  small 
class  of  words  in  British  became  the  commonest  plural 
termination  in  Breton  and  Welsh.  Is  it  probable  that 
such  an  accident  occurred  independently  in  Welsh  and 
Breton  in  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  ?  It  seems  more 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  reconstruction  had  taken 
place  before  the  separation  of  Breton  and  Welsh  ;  and  if 
so,  the  new  language  was  already  in  existence  in  the  first 
half  of  the  sixth  century. 

On  general  grounds  also  this  view  is  the  more  probable. 
In  the  first  century  the  language  was  undoubtedly  British, 
largely  retaining  its  Aryan  inflexions.  But  why  should 
"  its  identity  in  the  first  and  sixth  century  "  be  assumed 
as  a  sort  of  axiom  requiring  no  proof  ?  Surely,  tlie  in- 
terval  between  the  first  and  sixth  century  is  that  which 
naturally  offers   itself  as  the  transition    period  ;    it  pre- 


32  Taliesin. 

sents  the  necessary  conditions,  and  provides  the  reqinsite 
time.  During  the  Ronian  occupation  the  well-to-do 
classes  among-  the  Britons  adopted  the  speech  of  their 
rulers.  British  became  the  depised  patois  of  the  lower 
strata  of  the  population,  and  ceased  to  be  under  the  con- 
trol  of  the  more  important  social  influences  which  make 
for  conservatism  in  speech — emulation  and  regard  for 
precedent,  pride  and  prejudice.  That  this  is  not  mere 
fancy  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  precisely  the  same  thing 
happened  later  in  Enghmd.  After  the  Norman  conquest 
the  nobility  and  those  who  imitated  them  spoke  French 
down  to  the  fourteenth  century,  and  the  old  Saxon  speech, 
says  Ranulph  Higden  about  1340,  "  with  difficulty  sur- 
vived  among  a  few  rustic  folk  ".^  It  was  during  this 
period  that  the  old  lang-uage  threw  off  its  remaining  inflex- 
ions :  it  entered  the  period  as  Anglo-Saxon  and  emerged 
as  English.  The  parallel  is  still  more  complete  :  the  new 
vocabulary  in  each  case  contained  a  large  admixture  of 
words  from  the  speech  of  the  conquerors;  at  the  end  of  the 
period  in  each  case  the  new  language  percolated  from  the 
lower  strata  to  the  higher,  and  became  the  national  speech  ; 
and,  lastly,  the  new  speech  was  employed  in  each  case  as 
the  vehicle  of  song — by  Talhaearn,  Taliesin  and  Neirin  on 
the  one  hand,  and  by  Chaucer  and  Gower  on  the  other. 
Talhaearn  is  styled  tataguen  "  the  father  of  the  muse  " ; 
Chaucer  is  "  the  father  of  English  poetry  " ;'  obviously, 
it  must  be  for  the  same  reason :  the  one  is  the  earliest 
Welsh  poet,  the  other  the  earliest  English.  Other  paral- 
lels  inevitably  suggest  themselves :  Ennius  (summus  poeta 
noster,  says  Cicero)  mai'ks  the  definite  formation  of  classi- 
cal  Latin,  Dante  of  modern  Italian.  That  the  Cynfeirdd, 
famed  in  later  ages,  composed  their  poems  in  an  effete 

'  In  paucis  adhuc  agrestibvis  vix  remansit. — Polychronicon,  i.  59. 
2  Dryden,  Poetical  Works,  Globe  ed.,  1894,  p.  499. 


Taliesin.  33 

tonofue  whicli  was  soon  to  become  obsolete  seems  to  me  to 
be  not  only  contrary  to  analogy  but  unlilcely  in  itself ; 
their  names  would  have  perislied  with  the  idiom  which 
they  used.  It  is  more  probable  that  they  sang  the  birth- 
song  of  the  new  speech,  and  that  their  names  and  songs 
were  handed  down  because  the  language  lived. 

One  other  point  remains  to  be  considered  ;  can  the 
change  in  the  language  be  as  early  as  is  here  suggested, 
seeing  that  in  some  languages  it  tookplace  so  much  later? 
Yes,  because  it  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  time ;  on  the 
documentary  evidence  alone  it  must  have  happened  ex- 
ceptionally  early  in  British.  "Parent  Aryan,"  says 
Sweet,'  "is  an  example  of  a  naturally  unstable  language  "; 
and  the  remark  applies  of  course  to  tlie  derived  languages 
whicli  still  preserved  its  inflexions.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  phonetic  decay  to  which  the  old  Aryan 
tongues  were  peculiarily  liable  must  always  proceed  at  a 
uniform  rate  ;  conditions  may  arise  at  any  time  which  will 
hasten  and  precipitate  it.  That  such  conditions  obtained 
in  Britain  in  the  period  in  question  cannot,  I  think, 
be  doubted.  Ziramer  describes  the  state  of  things  about 
A.D.  400  thus  :'  "  In  the  vicinity  of  tlie  towns,  part  of 
the  pojaulation  was  bi-lingual ;  those  of  less  culture,  lilce 
Patrick,  spolce  a  Low  Latin  dialect  as  well  as  their  native 
British,  while  Latin  was  the  language  of  the  educated. 
In  this  connection  it  is  noteworthy  that  even  in  the  first 
lialf  of  the  sixth  century  Gildas  still  calls  Latin  (by  which 
he  doubtless  means  the  literary  as  distinguished  from  the 
popular  form)  '  nostra  lingua  '."  Popular  Latin  was  sub- 
ject  to  the  same  conditions  as  British,  and  suffered  simi- 
lar  reduction:    thus  we  learn  that  in  the  mouth  of  the 

'  7'he  Histonj  of  Lawjuaíje,  1900,  p.  82. 

2  The  Celtic  Church  in  Britain  and  Ircland,  trans.  A.  Meyer,  1902, 
p.  57. 

D 


34  Taliesin. 

illiterate  Patriclc,  gratias  agimus  had  become  gratzacJiam 
in  the  early  fifth  centurj.^  A  period  of  about  three  and 
a  half  centuries,  extending  from  the  middle  of  the  second 
to  the  end  of  the  fìfth,  would  be  sufficient  under  these 
conditions  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  change  in 
British.  The  new  language  evolved  from  it,  having  dis- 
carded  its  perisliable  features,  was  of  a  remarkablj  stable 
character,  comparable  in  this  respect  with  Arabic,^  and 
very  similar  to  it  in  structure ;  it  raade  much  use  of  vowel 
permutations,  and  had  no  useless  endings  to  be  lost.  It 
underwent  no  material  chanfîe  between  the  sixth  and 
ninth  century — this  is  proved  by  the  practical  identity  of 
Old  Welsh  and  Old  Breton  ;  and  since  the  ninth  it  has 
chang'ed  much  less  than  the  varying  orthography  of 
different  periods  would  lead  us  to  suppose.  It  has  been 
modified  in  detail  in  many  ways,  butit  retains  its  essential 
character ;  as  Rhys  says,  "  we  need  not  hesitate  to  assume 
the  identity  of  the  Welsh  language  of  the  nintli  century 
with  that  of  the  ninteenth."  '  In  tliis  sense  its  identity 
goes  back  to  the  sixth.  The  term  heniaith,  which  is  some- 
times  applied  to  it,  is  not  a  mere  rhetorical  ílourish ;  it  has 
the  additional  merit  of  being  true  to  fact. 

If  this  is  well  founded,  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  the  poems 
attributed  to  the  Cynfeirdd  assume  quite  a  new  interest 
and  importance.  They  have  been  under  a  cloud  for  more 
than  a  generation.  It  was  believed  that  not  a  single  line, 
not  a  single  word,  in  any  of  them  could  represent  anything 
written  or  spoken  by  the  bards  of  the  sixth  century,  because 
it  was  supposed  that  those  bards  (their  existence  was 
not  generally  denied)  must  have  written  in  Ancient 
British.  This  theory  is  based  upon  the  Latin  forms  of 
native  names;  it  is  the  corollary  of  the  improbable  assump- 

1  Ibiíl.,  p.  52;  Stokes,  Tripartite  Lifn  of  Patrick,  1887,  p.  291. 

2  Sweet,  loc,  cit.  '  Welsh  Fhiloloyy,  1879,  p.  141. 


Taliesiii.  35 

tion  that  these  reflect  literally  the  living  forms.  It  serves 
no  purpose  of  philology,  and  only  hampers  the  interpreta- 
tion  of  the  inscriptions  tlieniselves.  On  tlie  criticism  o£ 
these  poems  its  effect  has  been  banefal.  Anwyl  in  his 
two  papers  is  eng-aged  for  the  most  part  only  in  an  unsuc- 
cessful  struo-CTJe  with  the  difficulties  which  it  creates — 
divining  "motives"  and  attempting  to  discover  possible 
materials  for  the  great  forgery,  a  forgery  for  wliich  we 
have  to  assume  that  even  the  models  had  to  be  conjured 
up.  The  idiosyncracies  and  mannerisms,  and  the  forms  of 
verse,  which  characterize  and  distinguish  tlie  songs  of 
Taliesin,    the     stanzas     of     Aneirin,    the    englynion    of 

Llywarch all   this   is   easily  imitated,  and   has  been 

imitated ;  but  can  it  all  have  been  invented,  imagined, 
created  out  of  nothing  ? 

Immediately  the  theory  is  dropped  these  difficulties 
vanish,  and  a  more  hopeful  field  of  inquiry  is  opened  up. 
I  ain  not  pleading  for  tlie  substitution  of  a  rival  theory, 
but  only  for  an  unprejudiced  investigation  of  the  facts. 
The  relinquishment  of  this  theory  enables  us  to  resunie 
tlie  traditional  and  natural  view  that  the  language  of  the 
Cynfeirdd  v^as  the  New  British  which  we  call  Welsh,  and 
therefore  admits  the  possibility  of  some  of  their  verses 
being  handed  down.  Let  this  possibility  be  tested  by  a 
patient  examination  of  the  poems  as  we  find  them.  Their 
vocabulary  should  be  studied  with  minute  care  in  order 
that  tlieir  obscurities  may,  if  possible,  be  cleared  up  ;  for 
it  is  not  to  be  fororotten  tliat  botli  tliose  wlio  defended  and 
those  wlio  condemned  them  in  the  past  understood  them 
only  imperfectly,  and  those  who  condemned  loudest,  like 
Nasli,   understood  them  least.'      The   inquiry  should   be 

^  Good  worlí,  mostly  unpublished,  has  alreatly  been  done  on  the 
hmguage  of  the  poems.  My  colleague,  Mr.  Ifor  Williams,  submitted 
a  disseitation  on  the  Book  of  Aneirin  for  his  M.A.  degree  in  the 
University  of  Wales  in  19Ü7.    The  dissertation  was  read  bv  Professor 

"  d2 


o 


6  Taliesin. 


taken  up  at  the  point  wliere  it  was  left  by  Stephens  and 
Skene  ;  and  the  ordinarj  canons  of  criticism  should  be 
applied.  It  should  be  admitted  that  a  description,  say,  of 
a  sixth  century  battle,  especially  if  it  gives  the  impression 
of  nearness  and  vividness,  is  more  likely,  other  considera- 
tions  apart,  to  have  been  written  at  the  time  than  at  any 
subsequent  time.  It  should  be  recognised  that  the  age  of 
a  manuscrij)t  imposes  only  one  limit  on  the  age  of  the 
matter — it  cannot  be  later ;  it  is  seldom  contemporary — 
autograph  copies  and  first  copies  are  rare ;  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  the  manuscript  is  a  copy  of  another, 
that  again  of  another,  and  so  on ;  the  age  of  the  matter 
may  be  anything  that  other  evidence  indicates.  Due 
weight  should  be  accorded  to  tradition,  which  may  suggest 
and  corroborate  if  it  cannot  be  accepted  as  proof.  These 
are  not  theories  but  axioms  which  must  guide  all  such 
inquiries  ;  all  questions  of  the  date  and  authorship  of 
ancient  works  repose  on  internal  evidence,  the  evidence 
of  manuscripts  often  centuries  later  than  the  date  of  the 
work,  and  tradition.  Many  of  Sliaron  Turner's  argu- 
ments  (such,  for  example,  as  the  extreme  improbability  of 
a  disaster  like  the  battle  of  Catraeth  being  chosen  in  later 
ages  as  the  subject  of  a  long  poem)  have  never  been 
answered ;  and  we  may  hold  that  there  is  a  prima  facie 
case  for  the  survival,  in  some  form,  of  sixth  century  verse. 
And,  to  quote  Matthew  Arnold  once  more,  "  since  a  con- 
tinuous  stream  of  testimony  shows  the  enduring  existence 
....  from  the  sixth  century  to  the  twelfth,  of  an  old 
national  literature,  it  seems  certain    that   much   of   this 

Anwyl,  wlio  was  also  working  oiì  the  subject,  Anwyl's  paper  appeared 
in  the  Transactions  for  1909-10,  see  above  p.  24 ;  his  translation  now 
requires  revision.  Mr.  WilHams  has  since  published  some  articles  on 
the  subject  in  Y  Beirniad,  1911-12,  and  has  carried  further  his 
researclies  iuto  the  yocabulary.  His  work  will,  I  trust,  be  ready  for 
publication  before  long. 


Taliesin.  y] 

must  be  traceable  in  the  documents  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  the  interestin^  thing  is  to  trace  it  ".^ 

But  there  is  still  one  theory  that  stands  in  the  w'ay ;  it 
is  Dr.  Gvvenogvryn  Evans's  Taliesin  theory,  expounded  in 
the  introduction  and  notes  which  unfortunately  accom- 
pany  his  beautiful  reproduction  and  facsimile  of  the  text 
of  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  and  in  the  companion  volume  of 
"  amended  "  text  and  translation.^  Dr.  Evans  is  a  belated 
disciple  of  the  Nashian  school  of  thoug-ht ;  his  theory 
rests  ultimately  on  an  unwillingness  to  believe  that  any- 
thing  contained  in  the  manuscript  can  be  much  older  than 
the  manuscript  itself — it  may  be  a  little  older,  say  a 
century,  but  to  admit  any  real  antiquity  would  be  con- 
temptible  credulity.  This  is  the  mid-nineteenth  century 
scepticism,  which  is  akin  to  that  of  the  person  who  is  too 
knowing  to  be  taken  in  by  the  truth.  So  Mr.  Evans,  like 
Nash,  denies  that  anything  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin  was 
written  before  the  twelfth  century.  But  a  mere  negation 
affords  no  resting  place  to  the  mind  ;  how  is  the  composi- 
tion  of  these  poems  in  the  tvç^elfth  centur^'to  be  accounted 
for?  Dr.  Evans's  great  contribution  is  his  answer  to  this 
question  :  Taliesin  himself,  though  nobody  suspected  it 
before,  lived  in  the  twelfth  century.  That  is  the  theory. 
He  examined  the  text,  and  naturally,  like  Edward  Davies 
before  him,  found  confirmation  of  the  theory  everywhere. 
He  believes  in  it  passionately  ;  his  contempt  for  those  who 
take  the  traditional  view  lie  fails,  after  many  brave 
attempts,  adequately  to  express,  and  is  "  reduced  to  a 
melancholy,  thoughtful  silence  ",  p.  xxv. 

I  yield  to  no  one  in  my  admiration  for  Dr.  Gwenogvryn 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  44. 

2  Facsimile  and  Text  of  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  Llanbech-og,  1910; 
Poems  from  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  edited,  amended  and  Trans/ated, 
1915.  Thougli  thus  (lated,  the  volunies  weie  not  issued  until  1916. 
References  here  are  to  the  first  volunie,  unless  marked  II. 


''S  TaÌiesin. 


ö 


Evans's  reproductions  of  old  Welsh  texts,  or  in  my  apjDre- 
ciation  of  their  value  to  students  of  the  Welsh  hinguage 
and  literature.  I  believe  they  surpass  anything  that  has 
ever  been  achieved  in  the  way  of  printed  texts ;  Dr.  Evans 
has  developed  the  art  of  printing  in  facsimile  to  a  point 
never  before  reached.  As  a  decipherer  of  WeJsh  manu- 
scripts  he  has  never  been  approached;  1  have  seen  him 
make  out  in  a  few  seconds  an  obliterated  initial  which  had 
not  only  baffled  me,  but  had  been  misread  by  a  previous 
copyist  at  least  200  years  before.  He  possesses  the  end- 
less  patience  which  absolute  accuracy  demands,  a  very 
exceptional  power  of  sight,  and  a  real  faculty  for  finding 
out  the  original  ink-marks  in  what  aj)pears  to  be  a  hope- 
less  blotch.  The  service  he  has  rendered  by  his  gift  far 
exceeds  in  lasting  value  that  of  any  theorist  however 
briUiant,  for  he  has  provided  the  student  with  the  funda- 
mental  facts.  Unhappily,  for  himself  and  for  us,  he  is 
not  satisfied  with  this.  Why  should  he  be  a  mei-e  tran- 
scriber,  a  mere  machine?  Why  should  not  he,  too,  have 
liis  say  on  matters  of  textual  criticism  and  literary  history  ? 
His  friends,  he  says,  have  tried  to"  dissuade  him.  "  Do 
you  think  that  you  are  going  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  stuff 
like  tliat  "  ?  he  is  aslced  (II,  p.  vii).  In  spite  of  dis- 
couragements  like  these  he  has  persuaded  himself  that  he 
does  understand  Taliesin,  and  has  discovered  the  bard's 
secret.  He  issues  his  revelation  m  the  tone  and  mauner 
of  a  challenge  to  tlie  world.  A  reply  is  due  not  so  mucli 
for  the  sake  of  demolishing  the  theory,  for  that  has  little 
chance  of  acceptance,  but  because  in  the  process  some 
constructive  work  can  perhaps  be  done. 

It  is  strange  that  theaccurate  palaeographer  who  most 
faithfully  supplies  us  witli  the  absolute  facts  of  the 
manuscripts  has  no  idea  how  to  use  the  facts  himself,  or 
of    the    value    of    any    evidence.      His    reasoning, — the 


Taliesin.  39 

effective,  whicli  is  not  always  the  expressecl,  part  of  it, — 
is  all  purely  subjective.     The  conclusion  he  arrives  at  is 
that  which  he  thinlcs  ought  to  be,  or  wishes  to  be.     When 
the  evidence  is  ag-ainst  it,  he  simply  asserts  it  against  the 
evidence.      Thus    Llywarch    ap    Llywelyn,   a   bard   who 
flourished  about    ]200,   is    called    Prijdydd  y  Moch.     Mr. 
Evans  calls  him  "  Prydydd  yMochnant  ",  and  in  English 
*'the  Bard  of  Mochnant  " ;  but,  as  his  if  nieans  the  pre- 
'position  ym,  the    expression   "  Prydydd   yMochnant"   is 
indefinite  and  can  only  mean  "a  poet  in  Mochnant  " — he 
really    has    only    the    vag-uest   notions  of   Welsh  syntax. 
There  is  no  analogy  whatever  for  such  a  formula.^     What 
evidence  is  there  for  it  here?     He  confesses  that  there  is 
none  :  "  Always  mistakenly  written  '  Prydydd  y  moch  '  ", 
p.  xii.     Li  other  words,  ''never  written  anywhere  'Prydydd 
yMochnant'".     Stephens  {Lit.  Kym.,  1849,  p.  276)  men- 
tions  as  one  suggested  expkination  of  Prydydd  y  Moch  that 
the  word  Moch  here  means  not  "  pigs  "  but  "  the  men  of 
Mochnant":  and  he  rejectsthe  expLanation  on  the  ground 
that  the  Prydydd  had  nothing  to  do  with  Mochnant.'     He 
isright;  the   wele   (holding)   of   "  Pridith   Mogh "  was  at 
"  Wyckewere  "  near  St.  Asaph,  according  to  the  Extent  of 
Denbigh,  1335  (Seebohm,  Trib.  Sys.,  1895,  p.  31).     Now 
observe   the  worlcing  of   Dr.  Gweuogvryn  Evans's  mind. 
Prydydd  y  Moch  is   a   poet  who  happens  to  possess   his 
esteem  ;  he  cannot  entertain  the  idea  that  a  person  whom 

1  There  is  no  Eos  yn  Nyfed,  Bardd  ym  Môn,  etc,  but  only  Eos 
Dyfed,  Bardd  Môn,  etc. 

-  Steplious's  own  explanatioji  of  tlie  name  Prydydd  y  Mocli  is  tliat 
tho  bard  was  tho  author  of  the  stanzas  oalled  Jloianeu,  each  of  which 
begins  with  "  Listen,  httle  pig",  and  which  are  attributed  to  Myrddin. 
As  Skene  {F.A.B.  i,  222)  shows,  the  supposition  is  not  a  Hkely  one. 
Perhaps  the  explanation  after  all  is  that  there  Avas  no  sharp  lino  of 
doniarcation  between  bardic  nanies  and  nicknaines;  and  even  kings 
aiid  princes  had  the  latter. 


4Ô  Taliesin. 

he  rather  approves  of  could  or  should  have  such  a  name 

as  "the  poet  of  the  pigs  "  ;    in  reading  Stephens  an  idea 

strikes  him  :  "  he  muú  he  the  Bard  of  Mochnant"  ;    tlien 

he  asserts,  in  defiance  of  all  the  evidence,  that  the  bai'd  ìs 

"  Prydjdd  yMochnant  ".     The  evidence  of  manuscripts  is 

nothing — it  is   the  record  of  a  mistate ;    his  inner  light 

tells  him  that  the  name  is  the  solecism  whicli  he  himself 

has  invented. 

That  is  a  characteristic  sample  of  the  method.     Now 

let  us  see  how  it  is  applied  to  the  history  of  Taliesin  : — 

That  Taliesin  flourished  in  the  middle  of  thetwelfth  century 
there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt ;  and  he  was  held  in  such  high 
esteem  that  his  manner,  his  style  was  imitated.  '  But ',  it  has 
been  objected,  '  there  niight  have  been  another  Taliesin  who 
]ived  in  the  sixth  century'.  Where  is  the  evidence  for  this 
ghost,  this  birth  of  fraud,  this  tattle  of  public  platforms  ? 
Might-have-been  is  not  evidence,  but  the  ofFspring  of  indolent 
belief,  which  shirks  the  effort  to  think.  To  say  this  is  to  fly  in 
the  face  of  Providence  which  provides  for  the  simple,  but  the 
man  who  has  seen  a  truth  cannot  be  as  if  he  had  not  seen  it 
(p.  iii). 

It  is  no  use  quarrelling  with  the  style  ;  the  style  is  the 
man.  But  this  tirade  means  only  that  there  is  no  evidence 
for  the  Taliesin  of  tradition.  The  answer  to  it  is  that 
there  is  evidence ;  that  he  himself  quotes  some  of  it, 
misquotes  some  more,  and  ignores  the  rest. 

The  oldest  reference  to  Taliesin  occurs  in  the  well- 
known  entry  in  the  additamenta  to  Nennius  in  the  British 
Museum  HarL  MS.  3859,  foL  188b,  printed  below.  A 
facsimile  of  part  of  the  original  page  containing  the 
words  appears  as  the  frontispiece  to  this  volume. 

(I)da  ^Yuts  e°bba  tenuit  regiones  in  sinistrali  parte  brittanniç, 
id  est,  umbri  maris,  &  regnauit  annis  duodeci?;t,  &  uncxit  din- 
guayrdi  guurth  berneich. 

(T)unc  dutigirn  in  illo  tempore  fortitr-?'  dimicabat  contra 
gente7/î  angloru7?i.  Tunc  talhaeni  tat  aguen  in  poemate  claruit, 
&  neirin  &  taliessin  ŵ  bhichbard  &  cian  qui  vocatMr  gueinth 
guaut  simul  uno  tempore  in  poemate  brittannico  claruerwwí. 


Taliesin.  \\ 

'  Ida  the  son  of  Eobba  held  the  regions  in  the  northern'  part 
of  Britain,  that  is  of  the  Umbrian  sea,  and  reigned  twelve  ycars, 
and  joined  Dingnayrdi  [Dingnoaroy  =  Bamhorough''^]  to  Bernicia.^ 

'  Then  Dutigirn  at  that  time  bravely  fought  against  the 
nation  of  the  Angles.  Then  Talhaern,  father  of  the  muse,  shone 
in  poetry,  and  Neirin  and  Taliessin  and  Bluchbard  and  Cian  who 
is  called  gueinth  guaut[gwenith  gwawd  =  wheatof  song]together 
at  the  same  time  shone  in  British  poetry '. 

Dr.  Evans  begins  liis  Introduction  by  quoting  these 
woi'ds  in  a  translation,  in  which  the  errors  occur  only  in 
the  first  part,  and  do  not  affect  the  argument.  He  notes 
that  "  Ida  founded  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria  in  the 
year  547,  and  died  in  559.  Thus  we  have  a  precise  state- 
ment  that  a  man  of  the  name  of  Taliesin,  who  wrote 
poetry  in  the  Britannic  tongue,  lived  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century  ",  p.  vii.  That  is  so  ;  it  is  evidence  against 
him,  and  he  has  to  rebut  it  if  he  can.  Let  us  examine 
the  attempt.  In  his  report  on  the  Welsh  manuscripts  in 
the  British  ]VIuseum*  he  had  dated  this  manuscript  "  cii-ca 
1100".  He  now  says,  p.  viii,  that  it  "  was  written  after 
1125",  giving  no  reasons,  and  making  no  reference  at  all 
to  his  own  official  report  of  1910.  He  then  tacitly  assumes 
that  the  memorandum  is  not  older  than  the  manuscript ; 
"  thus  over  five  centuries  intervene  between  the  bard  and 
the  record,  a  period  long  enough  to  wear  away  tlie  sharp 

1  Sinistralis  is  nndoubtedly  British  Latin,  rendering  the  Welsh 
ffoffledd  '  lef t,  north ',  and  formed  on  the  analogy  of  australis.  See 
Stevenson,  Assers  Life  of  Riwj  Aìfred,  1904,  p.  234.  "  East  of  the 
Umbrian  sea"  is  nonsense ;  the  district  is  iYo/'íÄumbria. 

-  Dr.  Evans,  for  some  reason  only  known  to  him,  renders  this 
Durham;  in  a  later  entry  in  the  same  tract  Diiìffuoaroy  is  espressly 
stated  to  be  Bebbanburch.  In  Uinffucyrdi  the  second  d  ìs  a  scribal 
error  for  o. 

3  The  writer  either  leaves  ffunrth  untranslated,  or  drops  himself 
into  his  native  Welsh.  Whether  unc.nt  is  read  ?is,jim.rit,  as  in  some 
later  MSS  ,  or  as  rin.rit,  as  by  Zimmer,  the  preposition  after  it  would 
be  fftiurth  in  Welsh  ;  cf.  caloìi  icrth  ffahm,  etc. 

*  Report  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lanff.,  vol.  ii,  p.  9."3!). 


4  2  Taliesin. 

edges  of  fact  ".  This  assumption  I  deal  with  below.  He 
then  says  that  "  the  alleged  evidence  is,  at  hest,  second 
hand,  and  purelj  dogmatic.  It  is  not  supported  by  any 
detail.  There  is  no  hint  that  Nennius  had  seen  a  line  ", 
etc.  As  the  tract  is  a  skeleton  history  containing  no 
details,  this  argument  is  mere  quibbling.  Lastly,  "we 
have  a  bald  statement,  which  .  .  .  requires  to  be  closely 
scrutinized.  This  we  shall  now  attempt  to  do  by  direct- 
ing  attention  to  the  earliest  recorded  use  of  words  in  our 
text",  that  is,  by  inquiring  into  something  else.  He  looks 
the  fact  straight  in  the  face,  and  passes  by  on  the  other 
side. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  argument  which  ends  in 
this  pitiful  evasion  attempts  only  to  discredit  the  memo- 
randum  as  evidence  for  the  Taliesin  of  the  sixth  century ; 
the  question  how  it  is  to  be  reconciled  with  a  twelfth 
centurv  Taliesin  is  not  discussed  at  all.  As  the  one  and 
only  Taliesin  was  the  poet  who  "  f rom  1146  to  1176" 
sang  "  the  fortune  of  the  house  of  Gwynedd  ",  p.  xxxiii, 
no  one  else  can  possibly  be  alluded  to  in  the  meniorandum. 
This  is  touched  upon  once  :  Taliesin  "  shone  early  :  to  be 
chosen  for  special  mention  in  the  Nennian  additamenta  he 
must  have  attained  a  foremost  place  about  1130  ",  p.  xxxvi. 
It  is  seen  that  "  after  1125  "  becomes  now  "  about  1130  ". 
Eesultino-  from  this,  "  Taliesin  lived  between  1105  and 
1175,  or  thereabouts  ",  p.  xxix.  "  To  be  chosen  for  special 
mention  "  is  a  very  curious  phrase  for  being  the  subject 
of  a  gross  blunder.  Mistakes  in  dating  persons  long  dead 
are  common  enough,  but  it  is  noi  usual  to  mistake  dis- 
tinguished  contemporaries  for  ancients ;  such  an  error  is 
so  unlikely  as  to  be  almost  inconceivable,  and  no  trick  of 
language  which  attempts  to  disguise  its  extreme  improb- 
ability  can  be  allowed  to  pass.  Now  let  us  put  the  whole 
case  of  the  bearing  of  the  niemorandum  upon  Dj-.  Evans's 


Taliesin.  43 

theory.  Taliesin,  who  satig  "  from  1146  to  1176  ",  might 
have  been  born  about  1105,  and  might  have  been  dis- 
tinguished  "  about  1180  ",  he  might  have  been  brilliant  in 
youth,  prolifîc  iu  age.  The  Harl.  MS.  might  have  been 
written  "  about  1130"  (though  previously  dated  "  circa 
1100  "  by  our  palaeographer  himself)  ;  the  memorandum 
might  have  been  a  composition  of  that  date  (this  assump- 
tion  involves  the  "  well-known  error  "  of  talíing  "  the 
date  of  the  first  attestation  of  a  fact  to  be  the  date 
of  the  fact  itself  "');  and  its  author  might  have  been 
muddle-headed  enough  to  name  a  young  poet  of  the 
day  among  the  British  bards  of  the  sixth  century.  It 
might  have  been  ;  but  I  have  to  remind  Dr.  Evans  that 
"  might-have-been  is  not  evidence  ".  Or  rather,  perhaps 
one  ought  to  say  that  all  this  might-have-been,  much  of 
which  is  improbable  in  the  highest  degree,  is  very  satis- 
factory  evidence  tliat  the  theory  which  calls  for  it  is  a 
delusion. 

But  this,  of  course,  is  ouly  half  the  matter.  We  have 
now  to  consider  the  credentials  of  the  document  which 
Dr.  Gvvenogvryn  Evans  impugns.  The  manuscript  is 
written,  according  to  the  Keeper  of  the  MSS.  in  the 
British  Museum,  in  "  an  English  hand  of  the  early  twelfth 
century"  (F  Cymmrodor,  ix,  p.  146).  The  "  Historia 
Brittonum  "  proper  is  followed  by  a  number  of  shorter 
ti'acts  relating  to  British  history.  The  memorandum  in 
question  occurs  in  a  tract  called  "  Saxon  Genealogies ", 
which,  according  to  Mr.  PhiUimore,  is  "  itself  of  earlier 
composition  than  the  Historia",  and  "was  embodied  with 
it  (approximately  at  theend  of  the  ninth  or  begiiiuing  of  the 
tenth  century)  ",  ibid.,  p.  14o.  "The  Genealogies,  accord- 
ing  to  M.  de  hi  Borderie,  are  the  most  authentic  and,  from 
an  historical  point  of  view,  the  most  valuable  portion  of 

^  Piufessor  Hiigh  WiUiams  in  Zeitschriftfür  celt.  Phil.,  iv,  p.ôô7. 


44  Talicsin. 

the  whole  work  "  (F  Gymmrodor  vii,  p.  157).  Zimmer,  in 
his  Nennius  Yindícatus,  1893,  p.  78,  analyses  the  tract,  and 
fìnds  that  it  contains  genealogies  coming-  down  to  685, 
with  interpolations  reaching  down  a  century  later,  foUowed 
by  "a  history  [beginning  with  our  quotation,  Ida  jilius 
Eohha,  etc.]  of  North  and  Mid  Britain  down  to  the  death 
of  Ecgfrid  of  Northumberland,  who  fell  in  685,  in  a  battle 
against  the  Picts.  We  have  thus  a  history  of  the  Britons 
and  Angles  from  547  to  685  in  short  memoranda  before 
us  ".  He  concludes  that  "  the  time  of  its  composition  can 
therefore  only  be  the  year  685  itself  or  686  ",  p.  78,  though 
in  its  first  form  he  thinks  the  tractmust  have  been  written 
in  679,  p.  96.  The  interpolations  are  not  later  than  the 
date  of  the  "Historia"  proper,  which  he  puts  at  796,  p.  82. 
As  an  authority  the  "Historia"  proper  is,  he  says,  "  abso- 
lutely  worthless  "  ;    but  the  tract  on  the   other  hand   is, 

"  for  the  history  of  Welsh  and  Irish  literature of 

the  very  highest  importance  {von  allerhochsler  Bedeutuìig)'', 
p.  282.  Mommsen,  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  of  the 
Historia  Brittonum,  1894,  p.  119,  gives  the  date  of  the 
manuscript,  Harl.  3859,  as  the  endof  the  eleventh  century 
according  to  Henry  Bradshaw  {CoUected  Papers,  p.  466)  or 
the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  in  the  opinion  of  Sir  E. 
Maunde  Thompson  (Keej3er  of  Manuscripts,  ah'eady  quoted 
above).  He  accepts  Zimmer's  conclusion  as  to  the  date 
of  the  tract  "  Saxon  Genealogies  ",  but  believes  that  the 
"  Historia"  proper  may  have  been  written  about  the  same 
time,  and  expanded  during  the  eiglith  centuiy,  as  was  the 
case  witli  the  tract  itself,  p.  117.  There  is  thus,  among 
diíîerences  on  other  points,  a  most  weighty  and  authorita- 
tive  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  the  date  and  va]ue  of  our 
tract.  To  the  question  "  where  is  the  evidence "  that 
Taliesin  lived  in  tlie  sixtli  century,  we  can  rej)ly,  tlien, 
that  it  is  to  be  found  in  a  document  pronounced  by  all  the 


Taliesin.  45 

most  comj^etent  judges  to  have  been  written  in  the  seventh 
centurj,  and  to  be  of  the  highest  historical  value.  The 
date  of  the  inanuscript  which  contains  it  is,  in  the  judo^e- 
ment  of  the-most  eminent  pahieographical  authorities,  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  or  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  ; 
and  there  is  no  need  to  waste  words  on  the  ineptitude  of 
the  sugg-estion  that  the  Taliesin  named  in  it  is  a  person 
who  was  composing  poetry  in  1176. 

The  Welsli  names  in  the  tract  are  in  archaic  spelling. 
Talhaern  for  Talhaearnis  an  Old  Welsh  form  lilíe  gaem  for 
gaeaf  {WeUh  Gram.,  1913,  p.  100).  Neirin  must  be  the 
old  form  of  this  name.  Thoug-h  written  Aneirin  it  counts 
as  a  dissyllable  in  the  Gododdin,  Book  of  Aneirin,  p.  12  : — 

mi  na  vi  (a)neirin  5 
ys  gwyr  talyessin  5 
ovec  kywienhin         5 

The  a-  is  an  inorganic  sound  which  is  sometimes  intro- 
duced  before  inital  n-  as  in  anadred  for  nadredd  '  snakes  ', 
annifer  for  nifer  'number'  {Welsh  Gram.,  p.  25).  The 
form  with  A-  became  the  common  written  form  of  this 
name,  and  the  correct  form  is  known  to  us  only  through 
this  memorandum.  Zimmer,  though  he  noted  the  "high 
antiquity  and  clearness  "  of  the  Welsh  names  in  this  tract 
{Nenn.  Vind.,  p.  80),  thought  that  Neirin  was  an  error, 
p.  103.  The  author  of  679,  he  suggests,  wrote  Aneirin, 
and  Nennius  in  796  mistoolc  this  for  the  Welsh  '•'  a 
Neiriu  ",  and  wrote  et  Neirin,  '•  destroying  the  construc- 
tion  and  sense  ",  as  it  seems  to  the  mechanical  German 
mind  :  most  of  us  would  say  that  et  Neirin  is  much  the 
more  likely  reading.  He  then  takes  this  as  a  proof  that 
the  Welshman  in  796  did  not  know  the  sixth  een- 
tury  North  Biitish  bards  (" even  by  their  names  ",  p.  283) : 
the  poems  attributed  to  Aneurin  [sic\,  Taliessin,  etc,  are, 
at  the  earliest,  products  of  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries, 


46  Taliesin. 

called  forth  bv  the  Northern  tractknown  throiio-h  Nennius. 
A  rather  larg-e  deduction  from  his  own  bad  guess.  One 
would  like  to  ask  how  it  came  about,  in  that  case,  that  the 
Nennian  form  Neirin  is  not  found  in  Welsh  manuscripts ; 
where  the  Welsh  g-ot  the  "correct"  Aneirin  from,  seeing 
that  their  only  knovvledge  of  him  was  derived  from 
Nennius  ;  why  Talhaearn,  the  father  of  the  muse,  was  so 
shabbily  treated  by  the  forgers,  who  have  not  honoured  hini 
with  a  single  flashnote:  Talhaearn — what  a  name  it  would 
have  been  to  conjure  with  !  No,  Nennius  is  rig-ht ;  the 
correct  reading-  is  Neirin.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that 
there  is  no  authority  for  Aneurin,  which  is  simpl}'  due  to 
the  false  notion  that  the  name  contains  the  adjective  eurin 
'  g'olden '.  The  name  of  Talhayarn  occurs  twice  (20"4, 
21*16),  and  KiaM  once  (19-4)  in  a  poem  in  the  Book  of 
Taliesin.     Bluchhard  is  unknown  elsewhere.' 

The  next  piece  of  evidence  occurs  in  f.  29a-b  of  the 
oldest  Welsh  copy  of  the  Laws,  the  Black  Book  of  Chirk, 
which  Dr.  Evans  dates  "  about  1200".'  It  is  the  record 
of  a  tradition  concerning  the  orig-in  of  certain  privi]eges 
enjoyed  by  the  men  of  Arvon.  The  text  will  be  found  in 
the  Ancient  Laws  and  lìistitutes  of  Wales.,  vol.  i,  p.  104. 
The  orthography  of  this  manuscript  is  peculiar;  the  foot- 
notes  to  the  following  translation  give  the  MS.  spelling 
of  the  names  where  it  has  been  altered  or  corrected. 

1  Evan  Evans  suggested  (see  above  p.  14)  that  it  is  an  error  for 
Llywarch,  which  seems  to  be  the  name  required.  But  one  hesitates 
to  accept  this,  though  there  are  many  mistakes  iu  the  MS.  due  to 
one  or  more  transcribers'  ignorance  of  Welsh  {Y  Cipnmrodor,  ix,  146). 
The  oldest  form  of  Llywarch  is  Loumarc,  ib.  178,  but  lugmarc  might 
be  an  earlier  form,  and  an  initial  dl-  is  possible  (cf.  Loth,  Voc.  Vieux- 
Bret.,  107).  But  the  errors  in  the  MS.  scarcely  justify  the  transfor- 
mation  required,  so  that  the  suggestion  is  improbable.  Bluchbard 
had  better  be  classified  with  C'ian  and  Tulhaern  as  poetswhose  works 
did  not  survive. 

2  Report  on  MSS.  in  the  Welsh  Lang.,  voL  i,  p.  359. 


Taliesin.  47 

Elidir  Mwynfawr,*  a  man  of  the  North,''  was  slain  here,  and 
after  his  death  the  nien  of  the  North^  canie  here  to  avenge  him. 
The  nien  who  came  as  their  leaders  were  Ch'dno  Eydin,  aiid 
Nudd'^Hael  son  of  Senillt,  and  Mordaf  Hael  son  of  Serwan,^and 
Rhydderch®  Hael  son  of  Tiidawal  Tutclut'  ;  and  they  came  to 
Arvon  ;  and  because  Elidir  was  slain  at  Aber  Meuhedus  in  Arvon 
they  burned  Arvon  as  a  further  revenge.  And  then  RhunS  son 
of  Maelcun,  and  the  men  of  Gwynedd''  with  him,  rose  up  in  arms, 
and  came  to  the  bank  of  Gweryd'  in  the  North*^ ,  and  there  they 
were  long  disputing  who  áhould  take  the  lead  through  the  river 
Gweryd.'  And  then  Rhun''  dispatched  a  messenger  to  Gwy- 
nedd'  to  ascertain  who  were  entitled  to  lead.  Some  say  that 
Maeldaf  the  ehler,  the  lord  of  Penart  adjudged  it  to  the  men  of 
Arvon ;  Yoruert  son  of  Madauc  on  the  authority  of  tlie  story, 
affirms  that  it  was  Idno  Hên  to  the  men  of  the  black-headed 
shafts.  And  thereupon  the  men  of  Arvon  went  in  the  van,  and 
were  good  there.     And  Telyessin  sang — 

Ivikleu  oduref  1  eu  Uaneneu 
kan  run  en  rudhur^  bedineu 
gu^r  aruon  rudyon  eu  redyeu.^ 

I  heard  the  clash  of  their  blades 
With  Rhun  in  the  rush  of  armies — 
The  men  of  Arvon  of  reddened  spears. 

«•muhenuaur.     *>  kocled.     °  nud.     '^feruari.     ^  retherc.     '  tudaual 
tutclit.     ^rud.     ''guinet.     '  guerit.     ''rudn.     '  hid  eghwynet. 

This  is  at  least  a  g-enuine  bit  of  tradition.  All  the 
persons  named  in  it  (except  the  lawyer  lorwerth  ap 
Madawc  who  is  contemj)orary  with  the  record)  lived  in 
the  sixth  century.  Rhùn''s  father,  Maelgwn,  died  in  547 
according  to  the  "  Annales  Canibriae  "  [Y  Cymmrodor,  ix, 
155);  and  the  incidents  recorded  took  place  presumably  in 
Rhün's  reign.  Bhyddercìi  Hael  was  king  of  Alclyde  (Dum- 
barton)  ;    he  is    called    "  Riderch    hen "    in    the    "  Saxon 

1  The  f  is  probably  an  error  for  f,  and  the  preceding  e  is  silent  as  in 
llaueneu  pronounced  llatnou  (see  my  Gram.  §  16,  v,  (1) ),  so  that 
the  word  in  modern  spelling  is  (f/)odwrf. 

2  hur  faint  and  ur  blotched,  but  er  (as  in  Anc.  Laws)  is  incorrect. 

3  Read  reidyeu.  The  preceding  eu  should  probably  be  omitted,  as 
it  makes  the  line  long.  The  form  in  Modern  Welsh  would  be — Gwŷr 
Arfon  ruddion  i'eiddiau. 


48  Taliesin. 

Genealogies  ",  ancl  named  as  one  of  the  British  kings  who 

fought  ag-ainst  Hussa  (5t)7-574).     In  Adamnan's  Life  of 

Cohimba,  written  about  695,  there  is  an  anecdote  "  de  rege 

Roderco   filio   Tothail    qui   in   Petra   Cloithe   regnavit ", 

Eeeves'   ed.,    p.    43.     He  is  called  Rederech   by  Jocelin, 

and  described  as  a  Christian  king-,  and  friend  of  Kentigern 

{Historians  of  Scotland,  v,  pp.  213,  218,  241).     He  foug-ht 

at  Arfderjdd  in  573.    Chjdno  Eidyn  was  his  father's  cousin 

(Y  Cymmrodor  rx,  173);   Mordaf  Hael  and  possibly  Nudd 

Hael   were   his   cousins    (Skene,    F.A.B.   i,    169).     Elidir 

Mwynfawr,  who  had  been  slain  in  Arvon,  w^as  his  father's 

cousin  (ibid.).     Here,  then,  we   have   a   tradition   Avhich 

seems  to   preserve  pretty   accurately'   the   memory    of   a 

historical  event ;    and  it  represents  Taliesin  as  the  con- 

temporary  of  Rhün  ap  Maeìg-wn  and  Rhydderch  Hael.     It 

corroborates,    on   Welsh    ground,   the   testimony   of   the 

Northern   memoi'andum    in   the    "  Saxon    Genealogies ". 

Even  by  itself,  it  is  absohitely  decisive  against  the  theory 

that  Taliesin  lived  in  the  twelfth  century. 

How  does  Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans  deal  with  this  evi- 

dence  ?     He  does  not  mention  it  at  all  as  bearing  on  the 

question  of  Taliesin's  date.     He  misquotes  part  of  it  to 

prove  that  y  Gogledd  (the  JSTorth)  was  the  district  around 

Chester.     Thus  (p.  xvii) : — 

1  There  seems  to  be  an  error  in  one  detail.  Afon  Gweryd  is  the 
Forth,  which  is  7ìorth  of  Strathclyde,  while  the  long  dispute  and  the 
sending  of  a  messenger  to  Gwynedd  imply  that  Rhùn  had  friendly 
territory  behind  him,  and  was  about  to  enter  Cimibria.  Camden  says 
that  an  old  wall  at  Lancaster  was  called  W'eri/  Wall,  which  he  takes 
to  come  from  the  British  name  of  the  town  ;  this,  he  says,  was  Caer 
Wei-id  {Britannia,  1594,  p.  587;  Gibson's  ed.  1695,  795).  He  does  not 
state  his  authority ;  perhaps  it  was  local  tradition.  The  name  of 
Afon  Gweryd  survived  in  AYelsh  tradition  longer  than  that  of  Caer 
Weryd,  which  would  account  for  the  substitution  of  the  one  for  the 
other.  It  would  íit  in  better  with  the  rest  of  the  story  if  we  supposed 
the  sentence  originally  read,  "  came  to  Caer  Weryd  in  the  North  and 
disputed  long  who  should  take  the  lead  ". 


Talicsin.  49 

The  Chirlí  Codex  of  the   Laws  adds  the  further  testinioiiy 

that  '•Rhuii raised  an  army  and  went  with  the  men  of 

Gwyneò  to  tlie  bank  of  the  Gweryì)  in  Gogleh  where  they  spent 
a  considerable  time  in  disputing  who  shouhl  lead  through  the 
Gweryb '",  i.e.,  the  sacred  stream,  or  Dee  Now,  in  this  border 
expedition  Rhun,  son  of  Owein  Gwyneb,  sicltened  and  died,  hence 
the  dispute  as  to  who  should  lead  ;  and  the  "  despatch  of  a 
messenger  to  Gwynef>"  on  the  subject. 

In  his  "  quotation  "  he  gives  the  name  of  Rhun,  son  of 

Maelgwn,  as  "  Rhun  ....    ",  and  then  palms  him  off  as 

Rhun  son  of  Owein  Gwynedd.    He  represents  the  expedition 

as  having  taken  place  in  the  twelfth  century  by  omitting 

every  detail  which  proves  it  to  have  taten  place  in  the 

sixth.     If  there  is  anything  at  all  that  this  paragraph  in 

the   Chirk    Codex    proves,    it   is   that   the   North   meant 

Cumbria   or   Strathclyde   to   the   Welsh    of   the   twelfth 

century ;    he   inakes  use  of  it  to   prove   that   the    North 

meant    Cheshire    by   flagrant   misrepresentation,  and   by 

omitting  the  names  of  the  Northern  leaders,  including  the 

famous  Rhydderch  Hael.     Another  thing  that  the  para- 

graph  conckisively  proves  is  the  date  of  Taliesin  in  twelfth 

century  tradition ;  of  this  he  says  nothing  at  all. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  of  this  tradition.    Sharon 

Turner   has    collected   a   large   number  of   references    to 

Taliesin  and  the  other  Cynfeirdd  in  the  works  of  the  bards 

of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  the  natural  inter- 

pretation  being   in  each  case  that   the  bard  referred  to 

lived  in  the  remote  past.     Turner   also   quotes  passages 

from  a  Latin  poem  attributed  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 

in  which  Telgesinus  and  Merlinus  appear  as  fellow-bards 

and  as  contemporaries  of  "  rex  Cumbrorum,  Rodarcus  ", 

Yind.,  pp.   120-3.     The  poem  is  not  by  Geoffrey,   but  it 

bears   witness  to  the  twelfth  century  tradition.'     Wace, 

^  The  poem,  "  Vita  Medini ",  was  printed  by  San  Marte  in  Die 
Sagen  vun  Merlin,  Halle,  18ü8,  pp.  273-316.  It  was  written  after 
Geoffrey's  "  Historia "  had  become  famous,  and   was   addressed   to 

K 


50  Taliesin. 

who  wrote  his  "  Roman  de  Brut"  about  1155,  spealís  iii  it 
of'  Thelesin  as  a  prophet  who  foretold  the  birth  of  Christ !' 
The  tale  of  Kulhwch  was  written,  according  to  Dr.  Evans 
(W.  B.  Mab.,  p.  xiv)  before  1135;  and  in  that  Teliessin 
penn  beirb  figures  as  one  of  Arthur's  men  (ibid.,  col.  4G2). 
In  the  tale  of  Branwen  Talyessin  is  one  of  the  seven  who 
escaped  from  Ireland  in  the  time  of  Bendigeidvran  (ibid., 
col.  56-7).  These  are  tales,  and  prove  nothing  about 
Taliesin's  real  date,  but  they  prove  that  he  had  become  a 
legendary  character  in  the  twelfth  century.  Avaon  ap 
Talyessin  is  named  with  Uryen  and  Aneirin  in  a  triad  in 
the  detached  portion  of  the  White  Book  (Y  Cymìnrodor, 
vii,  p.  128).  In  the  Black  Book  of  Carmarthen,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  íirst  poem  is  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue 
between  Myrddin  and  Taliesin.  That  was  written  down 
in  the  twelfth  century ;  and  in  the  twelfth  century  Life  of 
Gruffudd  ap  Cynan  (ed.  Arthur  Jones,  p.  110)  Myrddin  is 
an  ancient  prophet  who  foretold  this  prince.  In  the 
Gododdin,  Aneirin  mentions  "Talyessinof  noble  thought", 
see  above,  p.  45 ;  the  words  may  not  be  his,  but  they 
prove  that  it  was  helievecl  that  the  two  bards  were  con- 
temporaries.  What  does  Dr.  Gwenogwryn  Evans  say 
about  all  this  ?  Not  one  word.  And  he  has  the  effronterv 
to  ask  "Where  is  the  evidence  for  this  ghost,  this  birth  of 
fraud?"  I  will  not  bandy  charges ;  the  facts  speak  for 
themselves. 

We   come  now  to  the  subject  matter  of   the  poems. 
Our    editor,    turning    aside,  as    we   have  seen,  from  the 

Robert,  bp.  of  Lincoln,  who  miist  be  either  Robert  de  Chesney,  ]148, 
or  Robert  Grosteste,  ]23ô.  San  Marte  thinks  the  latter  ;  biit  as 
Geoífrey's  work  was  written  about  1]36,  the  former  is  possible. 

^  San  Marte,  op.  cit.,  150;  R.  II.  Fletcher,  The  Arthurian  Mctterial 
in  the  Chron.  (vol.  x  of  Studies  and  Notes  in  Lit.  and  Phil.),  Boston, 
1906,  p.  91.  Wace  did  not  get  l)is  Thelesin  from  Geoffrey,  but  from 
vague  Bretou  tradition. 


Taliesiìi.  5 1 

inconyenient  Nenniíin  memorandum,  proceeds  to  consider 
certain  proper  names  in  his  text.  He  makes  a  great  show 
of  following  a  scientific  method,  and  evinces  his  usual 
confusion  of  thouo-ht.  He  will  deal  with  Welsh  names 
and  their  use  in  times  anierior  to  the  surviving  Welsh 
records  as  an  English  student  would  deal  with  steaìner, 
raihuay,  aeropìane,  etc,  in  contemporary  records.  The 
Latin  Britannia  meant  '  Wales  '  iu  the  twelfth  century  ; 
and  "  it  is  precisely  at  this  stag-e  that  Prydein  appears  in 
our  text  as  an  expression  for  "  Wales,  p.  ix.  He  imagines 
that  by  malcing  that  statement  he  has  proved  that  the 
text  was  written  in  the  twelfth  century  and  that  Prydein 
in  it  means  Wales,  whereas,  of  course,  he  has  only 
assumed  both.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Prydein  is  used 
for  Wales.  Where  it  is  not  an  error  for  Prydyn  '  Pict- 
land,  Scotland ',  it  means  the  same  as  it  does  in  Yìiyn 
Prydein.  For  example,  tbe  ninth  century  poem  "Armes 
Prydein  Vawr"  contains  a  prophecy  that  the  men  of 
Brittany,  Cornwall,  Ireland,  Wales,  Strathclyde  will  unite 
to  drive  the  Saxons  out  of  Prydein ;  they  will  ask  them 
"  what  is  their  title  to  the  land  they  hold  ",  pp.  16,  17; 
see  Ifor  Williams  in  Y  Beirniad,  1916,  pp.  207-12. 

The  word  Cymry  '  the  Welsh,  Wales '  is  of  some 
importance.  "  It  is  sig-nificant  ",  sa}"^  Dr.  Evans,  "  that 
the  term  Kymry  takes  the  place  of  Prydein  for  the  first 
time  in  Brut  y  Tywyssogion  in  the  year  1135",  p.  x.  The 
unsuspecting  reader  will  gather  from  that  that  Prydein  is 
regularly  used  for  Wales  in  the  Brut  down  to  the  year 
1135,  that  is  in  pp.  257-308  of  the  Red  Book  Bruts,  and 
that  Kymry  then  takes  its  place.  The  unsuspecting  reader 
will  be  deceived.  I  turn  the  name  up  in  tlie  index,  and 
find  that  in  those  fìfty-two  pages  Prydein  occurs  once 
only,  and  then  means  Scotland,  p.  278.  But  even  if  the 
statement  were  true,  it  would  be  significant  of  nothing  but 


5  2  Taliesin. 

the  fact  tliat  the  editor  supposes  that  tracing  a  word  in  a 
history  book  is  the  same  as  tracing-  it  in  a  fully  recorded 
contemporary  literature.  The  word  Kyìnry  is  not  only 
older  than  any  record,  but,  as  a  common  noun,  is  as  old  as 
the  Welsh  lang-uage  itself .  It  is  the  plural  of  Gymro,  and 
there  is  no  foundation  for  the  modern  modification  which 
treats  it  as  Cyniru  when  it  means  'Wales  '.  The  feminine 
form  Gymra-es  and  the  feminine  adjective  Gymra-eg  can 
hardly  have  been  formed  after  the  Old  British  period, 
since  the  change  of  o  to  a  in  the  root  seems  to  belong  to 
British  rather  than  to  Welsh  phonetics.'  Gymro  means 
'  a  fellow-countryman ',  and  to  a  Briton,  who  alone  used 
it,  it  naturally  denoted  a  Briton.  Skene  says  that  the 
first  appearance  of  the  word  as  a  national  name  occurs  in 
Ethelwerd's  Latin  Chronicle,  written  between  975  and 
1011,  in  whicli  the  Peohtas  (Picts)  and  Straecled  Wealas 
(Strathclyde  Welsh)  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle  are  rendered 
Pidis  Gumhrisque.''  But,  surely,  this  can  be  no  indication 
whatever  of  the  first  use  of  the  word  as  a  national  name 
by  the  Welsh  themselves ;  the  fact  that  it  was  used  by 
the  Welsh  both  of  the  North  and  of  Wales  seems  to  imply, 
as  Rhys  intimates  in  his  Geltic  Britain,  1884,  p.  116,  that 
it  "  acquired  the  force  and  charm  of  a  national  name  " 
before  they  were  separated  as  a  result  of  the  battle  of 
Chester  in  616.  But  Rhys  is  wrong  in  seeing  in  it  an 
expression  of  the  union  of  Northern  and  Southern  Britons  ; 
it  was  more  probably  at  first  a  common  noun  representing 
the  British  equivalent  of  the  Latin  civis  as  opposed  to 
hostis  or  -peregrinus.  When  Gildas  wrote  Ex  eo  tempore 
nunc  cives,  7iunc  hostes,  vincebant,  §26,  1,  a  phrase   echoed 

1  See  my  Welsh  Gram.,  p.  85.  The  only  othei-  word  in  which  the 
intcrchanye  has  snrvive(l  is  troed,  phiral  traed,  from  British  ^troyet-, 
*tra(/et-  respectively,  as  Cymro  is  from  * Kom-bro(/-os  and  Cymrae.t  from 
*Kom-  bra(j-issa. 

'  Historians  of  Scotland,  vol.  v,  p.  332, 


Talicsin.  53 

later  by  the  author  of  the  "  Saxon  Genealogies  ",  §63,  his 
use  of  cẃes  doubtless  corresponded  to  the  British  use  of 
cymrij,  which  did  not  mean  '  fellow-countrymen '  in  the 
abstract,  but  '  our  fellow-countrymen  ',  and  was  on  the 
way  to  become  among  the  British  a  synonym  of  '  Britons  '. 
In  any  case  the  word  itself  is  older  than  any  Welsh  poem  ; 
and  the  dates  of  the  chaiiges  in  its  meaning  are  to  be 
determined,  if  at  all,  by  Welsh,  not  by  Latin,  documents, 
if  these  can  be  otherwise  dated.  Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans 
draws  from  his  absurd  deduction  from  the  Bruts  the 
equal]y  absurd  inference  that  "Breint  Teihiw"  in  Liber 
Landavensis  (ed.  J.  G.  Evans,  p.  120)  is  not  older  than* 
1135  because  it  contains  Cymry  for  Wales  ;  this  is  putting 
the  cart  before  the  horse — the  document  proves  that 
Cymry  meant  Wales  in  the'Old  Welsli  period.  In  the 
Book  of  Aneirin  the  Britons  are  called  Brython ;  Cymry 
can  hardly  be  meant  by  ìiemre,  32*15,  gymre  30*9,  for 
the  latter  rhymes  with  gre  and  bre.  I  have  ]ooked  up  the 
references  in  Dr.  Evans's  index,  and  find  that  in  the 
Book  of  Taliesin  Eymraec  occurs  once,  Eymro  once,  and 
Kymry  thirty  times.  Of  these  occurrences  the  single 
Kymro  and  fourteen  Kymry  are  in  one  poem,  "  Armes 
Prydein  Vawr ",  which  was  written,  as  shown  by 
Mr.  Wiliiams,  in  the  late  ninth  or  eariy  tenth  century  at 
latest';  in  this  poem  Kymry  means  '  Weishmen  ',  the  men 
of  Strathclyde  being  called  Cludwys.-     Of  the  remaining 

1  r  Beiniiad,  1916,  p.  212.  About  two-thiids  of  the  poem  is 
printed  in  the  Camhrian  llff/iater,  ii,  p.  5ö2ff.  with  a  translation,  and 
an  introdiiction  in  which  it  is  attributed  to  Golyddan,  circa  630. 
This  is  the  work  of  the  Rev.  E.  Davies  (Cainbrian  Quart.  Mai/.,'ú\, 
p.  416)  whose  suçfgestion  as  to  the  authorship  is  accepted  as  probable, 
and  acknowledged,  in  the  Myv.  Areh.,  i,  1801,  p.  Iô6. 

2  The  nanie  is  not  in  Mr.  Evan.s's  index  though  rendered  correctly 
by  E.  Davies  and  R.  Williams.  But  the  "theory"  doos  not  iidiuit 
the  existence  of  the  Clydemen,  and  the  index  suffers. 


54  Taíiesin. 

sixteen  examples  of  Cymì-y,  only  five  appear  in  poems 
dealing  with  events  of  Taliesin's  time :  tlie  first  is  anti- 
tlietical  to  aralhro  'stranger',  29"  15  ;  tlie  second  and  third 
come  together  and  refer  to  the  Cumbrians  from  Penren 
Wleth  (in  Glasgow)  to  Luch  Eeon  (Loch  Eyan),  34-1-2 ; 
the  fourth  comes  af'ter  arallvro  38"15;  the  fifth  hymry 
Jcaeruedawc,  41*23,  is  obscure ;  in  no  case  does  such  a 
phrase  as  "  Kymry  a  Saesson  ",  for  example,  occur,  as  in 
the  later  "Armes",  14-17.  How  does  Dr.  Evansdeal  with 
the  matter  ?  He  lumps  together  the  earlier  and  later 
poems.  He  states  that  Brython  and  Prydein  occur  to- 
gether  in  eleven  poems,  both  with  Kymry  in  five,  Kymry 
alone  iu  nine,  and  calls  that  "  evidence  conclusive  of  a 
transition  period".  The  bards  of  1150-1225  similarly  use 
Prydein  and  Brython  and  Kymry ;  he  tells  us  how  many 
times,  and  then  — 

Taliesin  was  certainly  contemporaiy  with  Gwalchmei  and 
Kynbel,  for  all  three  sing  to  Owein  Gwyneò,  who  died  in  1170. 
Taliesin,  therefore,  lived  in  the  xiith  century  (p.  xii). 

There  is,  of  course,  no  mention  of  Owein  Gwynedd  in  the 
Book  of  Taliesin  ;  that  seems  to  be  all  that  it  is  necessary 
to  say  in  answer  to  this  non  seguitur.  In  this  connexion 
tliere  is  one  other  assertion  to  be  noticed  : 

As  the  Welsh  rendering  of  Scotti  was  Brithon,  vel  Britltion, 
confusion  with  Brython  was  inevitable.  And  to  this  day  learned 
professors,  writing  on  our  history  and  literature,  do  not  appear 
to  have  noticed  the  di.stinction  (p.  xi). 

They  do  not.  They  are  perverse  people,  these  professors  ; 
and  I  fear  they  will  be  unreasonable  enough  to  demand 
some  proof  of  the  equation  "  Scotti=Brithon  ",  and  wiU 
simply  refuse  to  accept  it  on  the  mere  dictum  of  the  seer 
of  Tremvan.  Brithon  is,  of  course,  only  an  old  spelling  of 
Brython,  whicli  is  the  Welsh  continuation  of  the  British 
Brittones,  as  Frydein  is  of  the  British  Pritannia. 


Taliesin.  5  5 

Aiiother  class  of  names  wliich  are  stiU  more  importaiit 
for  the  determination  of  the  dates  of  the  poems  consists 
of  names  of  towns,  rivers  and  districts  in  Britain.  The 
poems  deal  largely  with  the  northern  districts,  which 
accords  with  an  early,  rather  than  a  medieval,  origin. 
Dr.  Evans  is  therefore  obliged  by  the  exigencies  of  his 
theory  to  show  that  all  northern  names  denote  places  in 
Wales  or  its  borders.     Let  us  examine  his  attempts. 

Y  Gogledd. — I  have  ah-eady  quoted  his  flagrant  misuse 
of  the  Chirk  Codex  to  prove  that  "  the  North  "  is  the 
"  country  bordering  on  the  lower  half  of  the  Dee  ".  He 
opens  his  argument  in  his  own  genial  manner,  thus  : 

We  have  been  taught  to  look  for  Gogleh  in  the  land  of  mists, 
but  as  Owein  Gwyneh  never  was  in  Scotlanci,  it  loüks  as  if  our 
mentois  had  losttheir  way  in  a  fog  of  their  own  creation.  The 
warrior-poet  Gwalchmei,  who  was  ever  at  Owein's  side,  knevv  his 
geography  better.  '•  Owein  bears  the  palm  within  the  f our  corners 
of  Wales :  Homage  is  rendered  to  him  from  the  fort  on  the  Clud 
in  Gogleò ;  and  he  is  a  dragon  in  Dyved— in  the  far  away 
South." 

Dychlud  glod  Brydein  bedrydaneu  : 
Dywystlir  iîìaw  o  (>in  al-Clud  Ogleb— 

draig  yw  ynYved,  draw  yn'Eheu.'^  *  ^f^ì/i'-  144. 

Here  Gogleb  and  Deheu  are  clearly  antithetical,  indicative  of  the 
extreme  limits  of  Owein's  dominance  (p.  xvii). 

In  order  to  represent  Prydein  '  Britain  '  as  Wales,  and  to 

include  in  it  North  and  South,  lie  foists  the  words  yN-YvED 

(in    Dyved)    into   his   quotation.     Tn    Myv.   144,    to    wliich 

reference  is  made,  the  last  two  lines  read : 

Dygwystlir  idaw  o  Din  Alclud  gogled 
Draig  yw  yn  dyhed  drawen  yn  deheu. 

The  word  dyhed  is  dyheè  '  war ' ;  it  rhymes  with  GogleS  (as 
is  usual,  though  not  essential,  in  the  metre),  and  answers 
in  consonantism  to  Deheu.  Thus  he  begins  with  a  gross 
misquotation  ;  he  substitutes  one  word  for  another,  and 
says  nothing  about  it.     The  next  point  is  that  in  his  text 


5Ó  Taliesin. 

13"13  "  gwyr  GogleS  are  the  men  of  Hugh  Lupus,  Earl  of 
Chester  ".  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  there  is  no  Hugh 
Lupus  in  the  text,  which  is  that  of  the  ninth  century 
"  Armes  ".  We  have  here  only  another  exaniple  of  tbe 
editor's  habit  of  arguing  in  a  circle — of  proving  a  thing 
by  assuming  it  in  his  premises.  It  is  because  Gogledd  is 
Cheshire  that  Hugh  Lupus  is  dragged  in ;  and  because 
Gwyr  Gogledd  are  Hugh's  men,  therefore  Gogledd  is 
Clieshire.  We  are  referred  next  to  the  Red  Book  Bruts, 
j)p.  292-3,  where  it  is  stated  that  a  host  "  o'r  Gogleb  a'r 
Alban  "  are  led  by  Alexander  mac  Malcolm  and  a  son  of 
Hugli  Lupus.  Dr.  Evans  simply  inverts  the  order,  and 
says  "  Alban  and  Gogleb  ",  to  give  them  ''  tlieir  respectẁe 
princes";  tlie  result  is  "  Scotland  and  Cheshire  " — what 
a  likely  combination  !  In  "  Brut  y  Saeson  ",  Myv.  672, 
only  holl  prydyn,  i.e.,  "  all  Scotland  "  goes  with  them,  so 
that  y  Gogledd  a'r  Alhan  is  merely  another  way  of  saying 
"  all  Scotland  ".  Next  there  is  a  statement  about 
Mwrchath,  with  no  reference — clearly  because  it  wiU  not 
bear  examination ;  and,  lastly,  there  comes  the  enormity 
of  the  "  further  testimony "  of  the  Chirlí  Codex.  And 
that  is  the  proof  !  It  is  as  remarhable  for  what  it  omits 
as  forwhat  it  contains.  We  have  seen  that  all  the  details 
in  the  j)assage  from  the  Chirk  Codex  which  show  what 
y  Gogledd  really  meant  are  suppressed.  So  withthe  Bruts. 
One  passage,  in  which  "  the  North  and  Scotland  "  can  be 
twisted  into  "  Scotland  and  Cheshire  ",  is  quoted  ;  but  the 
passages  which  show  indubitably  wliat  y  Gogledd  meant 
are  not  mentioned.  For  example,  here  are  three  from 
accounts  of  partitions  of  tlie  island :  "And  Albanactus 
took  y  Gogledd  which  is  called  after  his  name  yr  Alban 
(Scotland)  ",  p.  60.  "  And  there  came  to  Morgan  beyond 
the  Humber  y  Gogledd  to  its  boundaries,"  p.  69.  "  Eng- 
land  and  Wales  and  Cornwall  to  Owein,  and  y  Gogledd  to 


Taliesin.  57 

Peredur,"  p.  81.  Agaiii,  "  f rom  Humber  to  the  sea  and 
Catyneis  (Caitbness)  in  y  Gogledd",  p.  185.  Lastly, 
Catwallawn  niade  for  y  Gogledd  to  attack  Edwin,  wbo, 
bearinf^  of  it,  set  out  and  met  bini  at  Hefynffylt  (Heaven- 
field=St.  Oswald's  in  ISrortbuniberland,  Plummer's  Bede. 
ii,  122),  p.  248.  Dr.  Evans  cannot  bave  been  unaware  of 
tbese  passages ;  tbey  are  all  indexed  in  bis  Bruis  volume, 
so  tbat  I  was  able  to  find  tbe  five  in  as  many  minutes. 
He  tbus  manifestly  bolds  back  tbe  relevant  evidence, 
wbile  be  insultingly  aecuses  otbers  of  inventing  its  plain 
implication,  and  calls  tliis  "  a  fog  of  their  own  creation  ". 
It  is  almost  incredible  to  wbat  lenoftbs  an  illoçfical  mind 
may  be  driven  wben  labouring  under  a  "strong  delusion". 
Penryn  Blathaon. — Tbere  is,  bowever,  one  otber  reference 
in  Dr.  Evans's  Introduction  to  Gogledd  in  tlie  Bruts  ;  it  is 
as  foUows :  ^' Penryn  Blataon  yn  y  Gogledd,  B.  292-25. 
Tbis  is  tbe  beadland  of  Wirral  between  tbe  Balas  of  the 
Dee  and  tbe  Mersey.  Blataon  is  clearly  a  scr(ibal)  err(or) 
for  Balaon/'  p.  xxiv.  Unfortunately  for  bim  bala  is  not 
tbe  mouth  of  a  river  but  its  "  efflux  from  a  lake  " ;  tbe 
hala  of  tbe  Dee  is  at  Bala  in  Merionetb.  Tbis  disposes  of 
Wirral.  Now  for  tbe  facts.  In  tbe  Cbirk  Codex,  tbe 
lengtb  of  tbis  Island  from  Penryn  Blathaon  in  Prydeyn  to 
Penryn  PenioaeS  in  Eernyw  is  stated  to  be  900  miles,  Anc. 
Laws,  {,  p.  l^I'.  Tbe  latter  point  is  in  tbe  extreme  soutb- 
west  of  Cornwall,  and  is  marked  in  modern  maps  "Tol- 
peden-penwitb  "  ;  clearly,  tberefore,  Penryn  Blathaon  is  in 
the  extreme  nortb,  íiiìà  Prydeyn  bere  is  Prydyn  '  Scotland'. 
Tbe  same  measurement  is  given  in  tbe  White  Book,  "o 
Benryn  Blat[h]aon  ym  Brydein  byt  ym  Peni-yn  Penwaeb  yg 
Kerniw,"  Y  Cymmrodor,  vii,  p.  124.  In  "  Brut  y  Saeson  " 
Myv.  672,  we  bave  "  from  tbe  extreme  point  of  Cornwall 
wbicb  is  called  Pengwayh  to  tbe  extreme  point  of  Prydyn 
wbicb  is  called  Penhlathaon  ".     Tbis  is  clearly  tbe  Medieval 


58  Talíesin. 

Welsh  equivalent  of  "from  Laud's  End  to  Jolui  o'Groats". 
A  yariant  is  found  in  the  R.  B.  Mab.,  p.  109 :  "  o  Gelli 
Wic  yg  Kernyw  hyt  yni  Fenn  Blathaon  yni  Prydein  ".  So 
nmch  for  the  ridiculous  "  Balas "  and  the  Cheshire 
Gogledd. 

Gaer  Liioelydd. — This  is  the  Welsh  name  for  Carlisle ; 
the  Old  Welsh  form  occurs  in  the  Nennian  Additamenta 
in  HarL  3859  as  Gair  ligualid  [Y  Cymmrodor,  ix,  p.  183). 
The  name  occurs  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  69-12.  The 
editor,  of  course,  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  Carlisle, 
because  it  is  in  the  real  North.  In  his  notes  he  says 
that  a  chaer  Hwelyê  of  the  text  is  an  error  for  "  a  cherir 
lyw  elvyô  ",  p.  118,  and  adds  : 

The  Kair  liÿualid  oî  Harl.  MS.  3859,  fol.  195,  is  possibly  a 
cpd.  üf  Lli -I- Gwelyò,  ?  the  stream  of  the  Laches.  Prydyb 
yMochnant  knew  this  to  be  Chester.     Witness  : 

Lliwelyb  lettawd  dy  yoliant,  Llewelyn!  P.  1 66-25. 
LliwelyS  tvill  spread  wider  thy  fame,  Llewelyn.     M.  212a'47. 

Here  we  have  a  pointed  reference  to  the  alliance  of  Ll'n  with  the 
earl  of  Chester. 

There  is  no  reference  to  anything  of  the  kind.  The  bard, 
Llywarch,  Prydydd  y  Moch,  after  speaking  of  Llywelyn's 
kindness  to  himself,  proceeds  thus  (to  give  the  sense  of 
the  couplet  infull)  :  "  to  Lliwelydd  thy  praise  will  spread, 
Llywelyn,  and  Llywarch  has  sung  it  ".  Llywarch  is  the 
bard  himself.  It  is  seen  that  the  words  oinitted  by  Dr. 
Evans  put  a  different  complexion  on  the  matter.  Lliwelydd 
is  accusative  of  motion  to,  and  the  verb  in  both  texts 
referred  to  has  initial  II-,  nofc  l-.  We  have  the  usual  mis- 
quotation,  mis-translation,  and  suppression  of  context. 
I  need  not  labour  tlie  point,  or  notice  the  etymology 
"Lli-|-Gwelyh  ",  which  belongs  to  the  same  class  as  "  the 
Balas".  I  come  to  the  facts.  Camden  (Brit.,  1594, 
p.  602)  says,  "  Romani  &  Britanni  hanc  Lvgv-vallvm,  & 


Taliesin.  59 

LvGV-BALLivM,    sive    LvGVBALiAM,    Saxones,    teste    Beda, 

ILucll Nennius   Caer  Lualid  .  .  .  nos  ©niiílc,   & 

Latini  Garleolú,  recentiori  vocabulo  dixêrunt".  Tlie  pass- 
age  referred  to  in  Bede  is  in  Vita.  S.  Cuthberti,  cap.  xxvii : 
"virDomini  Cuthbertus  .  .  .  venit  ad  Lugubaliam,  quae 
a  populis  Angloruni  corrupte  Luel  vocatur ".  The  form 
in  the  Antonine  Itinerary  is  Luguvallium  (see  Iter  V). 
Now  it  is  well  lcnown  that  British  -ion  (Latinised  -ium), 
being  pronounced  -iion,  under  certain  conditionsof  accent 
gave  Welsh  -ydd ;  this  was  discovered  by  Ehjs  long  ago.^ 
It  is  therefore  clear  that,  as  British  Lugu-helinos  gaveWelsh 
Llyìuelyn,  so  British  Lugu-balion  gave  Welsh  Llyioelydd' 
exactly.  The  spelling  Lliuìelydd  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  word  had  gone  out  of  common  use  before  i  and  y  were 
distinguished  in  writing,  in  the  thirteenth  century.  It  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  nothing  in  British  topography 
is  more  certain  than  tliat  Gaer  Liioelydd  raeans  Carlisle. 

Gaer  Llion. — In  tlie  Nennian  Additamenta  this  name 
occurs  in  the  ancient  form  Gair  legion  (Y  Gymmrodor,  ix, 
p.  183).  The  Medieval  Welsh  form  is  Gaer  LAion  or  Gaer 
Lleon ;  in  the  spoken  language  the  second  element  is  now 
lost,  »nd  the  name  is  Gaer  '  Chester  '.  Dr.  Evans,  having 
shifted  Gaer  Liwelydd  to  Chester,  is  obliged  to  seekanother 
location  for  Gaer  Lliou.  "  Can  it  be  that  the  Cair  legion 
of  the  [Nennian]  list  means  Holt,  to  which  the  name  of 
'Caer  lleon  '  has  adhered  ?  "  II,  p.  xiii.  The  name  has 
not  "  adhered  "  to  Holt.     The  medieval  Welsh  name  of 

1  C'est  à  Rhys  qne  ron  doit  la  (1écouverte  d'un  fait  de  phonóticjue, 
aujoui-d'hui  considéré  conime  banal :  la  transformation  du  J  indo- 
européen  [that  is  {]  en  la  sifflante  galloise  représentée  aujourd'hui 
par  dd.  En  Allemagne,  où  l'on  donne  le  nom  de  "  loi"  à  hi  phis  potite 
découverte,  cela  s'appellerait  la  "  Un  de  Rhys ".— Gaidoz,  lìente 
Inteniationale  de  l'J'JnMÙ/nejnent,  1917,  p.  19. 

2  Llywelydd  may  represent  Lugubalion  or  Lnffuralion, hut  it  impliea 
a  sinsle  /. 


6o  Taiiesin. 

Holt  appears  to  have  been  Castell  Llion,  whicli  is  found 
written  ChasteUion  in  1311  (Arch.  Camb.,  1907,  p.  9);  this 
was  rendered  into  Latin  as  Villa  Leonum  (ib.,  p.  4),  or 
Castrum  Leonis  (ib.,  p.  11),  and  into  English  as  Castle  of 
Lyons.  The  form  Caerleon  is  found  once  only,  in  a  license 
bj  Edward  II,  dated  1319  (ib.,  p.  10).  But  Caer  Lleon  has 
adhered  to  Chester  bj  a  tradition  so  universal  and  so  insis- 
tent  thatour  editor  himself  cannot  escapefrom  its  grip  :  he 
writes  "Caer  lleon  on  the  Dee, orChester",  p.ix,and  renders 
larU  Kaer  Llion  "  earl  of  Chester  ",  p.  100.  The  attempt 
to  make  Gueith  Cair  Legion  in  the  "  Annales  "  s.a.  613 
into  "  the  Battle  of  Holt  "  instead  of  "  the  Battle  of 
Chester  "  can  be  refuted  easily  by  two  quotations  :  Bede 
in  his  account  of  the  battle,  uses  the  words  "  ad  civitatem 
Legionum,  quae  a  gente  Anglorum  Legacaestir,  a  Brettoni- 
bus  autem  rectius  Carìegion,  appellatur ",  H.E.,  ii,  2. 
William  of  Malmesbury,  also  spealíing  of  the  battle,  says 
"  Legionum  civitas,  quae  nunc  simpliciter  Cestra  vocatur  ", 
i,  47  (cited  in  Plummer's  Bede,  ii,  p.  77).  Thus  Carlegion 
is  the  city  of  the  legions,  which  in  the  early  twelfth  cen- 
tury  was  called  simply  "  Chester  ". 

Alclud. — The  Welsh  nanie  Alclud  became  in  Euglish 
Alclyde,  which  was  superseded  by  the  Irish  name  Dûnhrettan 
"fortress  of  the  Britons  ",  now  Dumbarton.  Bede  calls 
the  town  "  Alcluith,  quod  lingua  eorum  significat  petram 
Cluith ;  est  enim  juxta  fluvium  nominis  illius  ",  H.E.,  i, 
12 ;  Adamnan,  even  earlier,  calls  it,  as  we  have  seen,  Petra 
Cloithe;  these  si^ellings  represent  the  Irish  pronunciation 
of  the  name.  The  Welsh  form  is  seen  in  the  "  Annales  " 
s.a.  870  :  "  Arx  alt  clut  a  gentilibus  f racta  est,"  and  in  the 
R.  B.  Bruts:  "870  oeb  oet  Criât  pan  .  .  .  torret  Kaer 
Alclut  y  gan  y  paganyeit,"  p.  259.  No  one  has  ever  sug- 
gested  before  that  Alclut  in  Welsh  literature  does  not 
meaii  Dumbarton  ;  Din  Alclud  is  in  Gogledd  according  to 


Taliesin.  6 1 

Gwalchmei,  see  cibove  p.  55 ;  Kae,r  Alclut  was  opposite 
Yscotlont  (i.e.  Scotland  nortli  of  tlie  Clyde),  R.  B.  Bruts, 
p.  63.  But  for  Dr.  Evaiis,  Dunibarton  will  not  do  at  all, 
and  he  has  by  hook  or  by  crook  to  find  an  Alclud  in  his 
North.  There  is  a  Clutton  in  Chesliire ;  the  brook  which 
flows  by  is  therefore  the  Glud.  "  This  brook  name  is  old 
and  authentic,  for  it  appears  in  the  Doinesday  CLUT-tone", 
p.  xix.  Because  the  town-name  is  old,  therefore  Clud 
must  be  the  brook  !  Aldford  is  on  this  brook ;  this  sup- 
plies  the  Al-.  .Therefore  Alclud  is  Aldford.  Our  good 
editor  invites  us  to  accept  a  name  made  by  himself,  à  la 
Lewis  Carroll,  from  the  Al  of  Aldford  and  the  Clut  of 
Clutton,  in  place  of  the  Alclyde  of  history.  But  eveii  this 
wiU  not  always  do :  "  ryt  alclut  is  pure  gibberish  here. 
?  Ryt  y  Gors  ",  p.  97  ;  and  Din  Clut,  which  happens  to  be 
spelt  dynclut  in  the  text,  73- 7,  is  explained  in  the  index  as 
"  O.  ap  Kadwgan  ". 

Caer  Weir. — This  occurs  twice  in  the  text.  The  first 
time,  13*7,  the  editor  suggests  that  it  is  an  error  for 
"  Weri,  i.e.  Gwery(ò),  a  name  of  part  of  tlie  lower  Dee  ", 
see  below ;  the  second  time,  6912,  it  is  an  error  for 
"K(aer)  Feir,  i.e.  Bangor  Cathedral,  which  is  dedicated 
to  Meir  ".  So  is  the  church  of  Llan-fair  PwU  Gwyngyll, 
and  I  put  in  a  claim  for  this,  though,  I  confess,  I  have 
never  heard  either  church  called  a  caer.  But,  unhappily 
for  both  of  us,  Kaer  Weir  is  in  the  North  ;  it  is  iiamed  in 
the  text  with  Kaer  Liioelydd,  and  is  probabl}',  as  has  been 
suggested,  Durham.  The  ancient  name  of  the  Wear  was 
Vedra  ;  and  as  Latiii  cat[h)edra  gives  Welsh  cadeir,  so  tlie 
ancient  Vedra  gives  Welsh  Gweir  exactly. 

Gweryd. — This  is  the  Welsli  nanie  of  the  Forth.  Skene, 
F.A.B.,  i,  p.  5G,  quotes  a  description  of  Scotland  written 
in  1165  and  printed  in  his  Chronicles  of  the  Picts  and  Scots, 
p.  136,  which  says  that  the  river  was  "  Scottice  vocata 


62  Taíiesin. 

Froch,   Britaniiice    Werid ".      Tlie   Welsli    Gwenjd   is,    as 

Slcene  dimly   saw,  tlie  plionetic   equivalent  of   the  Irisli 

Forth  ;  the  Irish  th  implies  that  a  vowel  once  separated  it 

from  the  r — it   corresponds  to  Welsh  d  from  original  t.' 

The  name  occurs  in  our  text :  o  wawl  hyt  weryt,  18'5,  'from 

the   (southern)  wall   to  the   Forth  '.     But  the  editor  will 

have  it  that  ruawl  is  "Doraesday's   Waure,  now  Woore  in 

the  parisli  of  MuckIestone  (!)...     This  Wawi  has  noth- 

ing  to  do  with   anj  Eoman,   or  other   Wall,  or  vallus ", 

p.  86.     To  which  assertion  it  is  only  necessary  to  oppose 

the  testimony  of  the  "Historia  Brittonum  "  (Harl.  3859) 

that  the  wall  was  called  "  Brittannico  sermone  Guaul ",- 

§  23.     The    editor's    next   note    begins,  "  werí/í=Gweryb, 

i.e.  Dee  ".     But  final  -t  in  this  manusccript  does  not  mean 

-8,  but  -d  :  and  it  is  simple  misrepresentation  to  write  the 

name  GweryS,  as  he  persists  in  doing.     But  what  is  the 

evidence  for  associating-  the  name  with  the  Dee?     Here 

it  is : 

According  to  Descriptio  Albcmie^  the  river  Forth  dÌYÌded 
'regna  Anglornm  et  Scottorum  '  at  Stirling  in  1165,  and  was 
'  Scottice  vocata  Froíh,  Britannice  Wend\  Similai'ly  part  of 
the  lower  Dee  divided  Saxon  and  Brython  (p.  86). 

Because  the  Dee  is  "  similar  "  to  the  Forth  in  being  on  a 
border,  therefore  he  considers  that  he  is  justified  in  assert- 
ing,  without  a  scrap  of  evidence,  that  it  had  the  same 
name. 

Prydyn. — This  is  the  Welsh  phonetic  equivalent  of  the 

1  For  the  aífection  of  the  o  to  e  in  Welsh  cf.  the  verb  giceryd 
'saves'  which  appears  in  Old  Welsh  (Juv.  cod.)  as  giiorit ;  cf.  al.so 
eegin  from  Latin  coqmna,  etc. 

'  Welsh  gwawl  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Irish/i'f/  '  a  hedge  ',  and  is 
not  derived  from  the  Latin  vallum\  cf.  Fick-Stokes,  p.  275  f. 

2  This  is  another  title  of  Dr.  Evans's  invention.  He  quotes  at 
second  hand  from  F.A.B.,  and  gives  no  reference.  If  he  had  con- 
sulted  the  Chron.  he  wouJd  have  seen  that  the  Latin  title  is  De  Sì'tu 
Albanie,  p.  135. 


Ta/icsin.  63 


\vìú\  Cruithni  '  Picts '.  It  ineans  '  Picts  '  and  'Pictland', 
as  Cymry  meftns  'Welshineii'  and  '  Wales',  and  as  Ffrainc 
nieans  '  Frenchmen  '  and  '  France  '.  Naturally,  Frydyn  is 
often  used  more  loosely  for  Scotland;  it  occurs,  as  we  have 
seen,  as  a  synonym  of  y  Gogledd,  and  is  often  niis-written 
Prydein.  What  is  it  in  the  new  geog;rapliy  ?  It  is  "the 
modern  counties  of  Flint  and  Denbigh  "  !  This  is 
"  proved "  in  the  usual  way.  The  words  "  Gwybyl 
iwerhon  mon  aphrydyn  "  in  the  text,  13'9,  which  mean 
'  The  Goidels  of  Ireland,  Mona  (probably  Man),  and  Scot- 
hìnd  ',  are  quoted  thus  :  "  Gwybyl  (rhyboethon)  Von  a 
Phrydyn  ",  and  rendered  "  the  Gwyhyl,  who  had  come  to 
Mon  and  Prydyn  ",  p.  xx.  Ag-ain,  the  line  "  Kyniry  eigyl 
gwybyl  prydyn ",  75"  19,  that  is,  '  Welshmen,  Angles, 
Goidels,  Picts ','  is  misquoted  as  "  Gwybyl,  Eingl,  a  gwyr 
Prydyn  "  and  rendered  "  the  Gwybyl,  the  Angles,  and  the 
men  of  Prydyii",  ibid.  Kymry  is  left  out  in  order  that  it 
may  appear  that  "  gwyr  Prydyn  "  are  Welshmen;  and 
thus  we  have  the  funn}^  collocation  "  Irishmen,  English- 
ínen,  and  men  of  Flint-and-Denbigh  ",  whicli  reminds  one 
of  "  Cymru,  Lloegr,  a  Lhmrwst ".  Then  we  are  told 
that  a  f)oet  in  the  Black  Boolc,  49-3,  "  prophecies  that 
there  wiU  be  war  in  Prydyn  :  (the  Kymry)  will  defend 
their  coast".  The  proof  here  rests  on  "  the  Kymry  " 
which  the  editor  himself  has  put  in — it  is  not  in  the  text. 
It  is  clear  that  he  is  quite  unable  to  detect  in  his  reason- 
ing  the  childish  fallacy  of  petitio  frincipii.  He  has  satis- 
fìed  himself  that  Prydyn  is  Denbighshire,  and  states  that 
"  It  was  the  translators  of  the  Bruts,  towards  1200,  who 
started  the  Scottish  figments,"  p.  xxi.  A  few  moments 
aoro  these  same  "  öofments  "  were  the  "  own  creation"  of 
"  our  mentors  ",  p.  xvii ;  now,  they  were  started   by  the 

1  Cf .  Nennins  §  7,  "  in  ea  habitant  quattuor  gentes,  Scotti  Picti 
Saxones  atque  Brittones".     Scotti=Welsh  Gwyddyl,  'Goidels'. 


64  Taliesin. 

translators  of  the  Bruts,  who  by  a  sort  of  miracle  antici- 
pated  the  discovery  of  niodern  philology  that  Welsh 
Trydyn=lx\ú\.  Cruithnì.  I  have  only  to  say  that  no  such 
miracle  ever  happened,  ThevFord  Prydyn  with  its  signifi- 
cation  was  handed  down  by  tradition  like  any  other  Welsh 
word  which  philologists  equate  with  its  Irish  cognate  ;  it 
was  used  long  before  1200  in  the  lines  which  the  editor 
misquotes  from  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  and  it  clearly  bears 
its  traditional  signification  in  these  lines  as  they  appear  in 
the  text. 

Rheged. — Urien  of  Rheged,  Y^^ho  is  mentioned  in  the 
"  Saxon  Genealogies  "  as  having  fought  against  Ida's  sons 
Hussa  and  Deodric,  is  the  subject  of  several  of  the  Taliesin 
poems  which  have  some  claim  to  be  considered  authentic. 
The  exact  position  of  his  kingdüm  has  not  been  ascertained 
with  certainty.  In  the  Welsh  translation  of  Geoffrey's 
Brut,  Rheged  is  identified  with  Geoffrey's  Mureif,  which, 
according  to  the  context,  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Loch  Lomond.  Dr.  Evans  charges  all  modern  scholars 
with  blindly  accepting  this  identification  : — 

And  the  learnedof  all  ages  and  eminence  have  trod  thepath 
of  faith,  lost  in  '  wandering  thoughts '  and  notions  vain,  without 
once  verifying  their  references  (p.  xiii). 

This  forcible-feeble  rant  bears  the  same  relation  to  the 
truth  as  his  "  further  testimony "  of  the  Chii-k  Codex. 
The  facts  are  as  foUows.  Lewis  Morris  says  that 
"  Rheged  is  supposed  to  be  Cumbria,  now  Cumberland" 
(Stephens,  Lit.  Kym.,  p.  267).  Sir  Francis  Palgrave 
placed  Rheged  in  the  South  of  Scotland  about  Dumfries- 
shire,  see  the  map  opp.  p.  30  in  his  History  of  England,  i, 
1831.  The  E.ev.  T.  Price  (Carnhuanawc),  in  his  Hanes 
Cymru,  1842,  p.  278,  identified  it  with  the  modern  Cum- 
berland.  Stephens,  in  his  Literature  of  the  Kymry,  1849, 
p.    53,    objects    that   it   was    within   a   night's    ride    of 


Taliesiìt.  65 

Maelienydd  (misunderstanding  a  poem  of  Hywel  ab  Owein 
Gwynedd,  noticed  below),  and  places  it  between  tlie  Tawy 
and  the  Towy  (Gower,  Kidwe]ly,  etc.)  on  tlie  authority  of 
the  lolo  MSS.,  which  of  course  is  worthless.'  In  1852 
Stephens  identified  it  with  Lancashire  (T//e  Gododin,  p.  371) 
and  in  1853  extended  it  to  the  river  Swale  (ib.,  p.  238). 
Nash,  in  his  Taliesin,  1858,  p.  50,  correcting  Palgrave, 
puts  Rheged  in  Cumberland.  Skene,  F.A.B.,  1868,  i, 
p.  59,  accepts  the  identification  of  the  Welsh  ver^on  of 
Geoffrey.  Rhys,  in  his  Arthurian  Legend,  1891,  p.  238, 
refers  to  this  identification,  but  treats  Rheged  as  mythical ; 
"  the  Welsh  translator  who  identified  Rheged  with  Mureif 
confounded  it  thereby  with  the  province  of  Moray ", 
p.  240  ;  and  he  thinks  that  "it  may  possibly  be  regarded 
as  somewhat  less  mythical  that  Ui'ien  should  be  styled 
Ruler  of  Catraeth  ",  ibid.  Professor  Oman,in  his  Engìand 
hefore  the  Norman  Conquest,  1910,  p.  239,  dealing  with  the 
northern  British  kingdoms  in  the  sixth  century,  speaks  of 
the  "  main  principality  "  as  "  comprising  Clydesdale  as  its 
central  nucleus,  but  with  its  caj)ital  at  Alclyde,  north  of 

the  Firth,  on  the  rock  of  Dumbarton South  of  it 

was  another  state,  called  Reged,  which  seems  to  represent 
the  modern  Cumberland  with  so  much  of  Northumberland 
as  had  not  yet  been  conquered  by  the  Angles.  Possibly 
the  name  Redesdale  preserves  a  memory  of  this  forgotten 
realm".  These  are  the  views  that  have  been  held,  and  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  point  out  with  what  reckless  irre- 
sponsibility  our  editor  writes  when  he  uses  such  language 
as  that  quoted  above.     His  own  view  of  Rheged  is  that 

'  Dr.  G\venogvryn  Evans  quotes  from  it  when  it  siiits  his  purpose, 
but  is  not  candid  enouíîh  to  give  references.  His  "Caw  .  .  .  '  Lord 
of  Cwm  Cowlyd  in  Prydyn ' ",  p.  xxi,  is  taken  from  the  lolo  MSS., 
p.  116.  It  is  rendered  "Caw  .  .  .  lord  of  Cwm  Cawlwyd,  in  North 
Britain",  ib.,  p.  515,  so  that  a  reference  would  in  this  case  have  been 
doubly  embarrassing. 

F 


66  Taliesin. 

it  is  the  country  surrounding-  Oswestry ;  the  name  "uieans 
a  Run  or  March,  for  it  is  obviously  a  metathesis  of 
Ehedeg'  ",  p.  xiii.  "  Obyiously  "  !  thoug-h  neither  rhedecj 
in  Welsh  nor  run  in  English  ever  means  a  '  march  '  or 
^  border '.'  He  quotes  a  line  f  roni  Cynddelw  in  which 
redeg  has  its  usual  meaning,  gives  the  word  a  capital  B, 
and  because  tervyn  Caer  lleon  occurs  four  lines  before, 
claims  that  Rheged  is  not  far  frora  Chester.  The  only 
other  proof  offered  is  the  following- : — 

Again,  Howel,  soii  of  Owein  Gwyneb,  approaching  it  froin 
the  soiith,  mounts  his  Roan,  travel]ing  from  Maelenyb  to  the 
land  of  Rheged  in  one  night. 

Esgyneis,  ar  Yelyn,  o  Vaelenyh 
hyd  yn'hir  Reged  rhwng  nos  a  àyh.    (Myv.,  198b.) 
Rlieged  thus  lies  between  the  border  of  the  earldom  of  Chester 
and  a  night's  ride  from  Radnorshire  (p.  xiii). 

Here  he  is  borrowing  without  acknowledgment  Stephens's 
mistake ;  rhwng  nos  a  dydd  cannot  in  any  case  mean  '  in 
one  night ',  nor  does  it  mean  the  intei-val  of  twilight ;  but 
rhwng  has  the  meaning  in  which  it  is  still  used  when  we 
say  rhwng  y  naill  heth  aW  llall  'between  one  thing  and 
another ',  i.e.,  '  taking  one  thing  with  another '.  The 
exact  sense  of  the  phrase  in  question  is  put  beyond  doubt 
by  a  passage  in  tbe  R.  B.  Mab.,  p.  88,  where  it  is  stated 
that  Maxen's  messengers  rode  from  Carnarvon  to  Rome 
yrwng  dyô  a  nos,  "  and  as  their  horses  failed  they  bought 
fresh  ones  ".  This  shows  that  "  a  night's  ride  "  is  non- 
sense;  Rheged  is  a  long  distance  from  Maelienydd.  The 
context,  which  Dr.  Evans  as  usual  omits,  not  only  con- 
firms  this,  but  supplies  a  clue  to  its  position : 

1  "  Run  or  March  "  shows  that  he  believes  that  march  '  a  border ' 
is  a  verbal  noun  (like  ritn)  coming  from  the  verb  to  mareh.  If  there 
is  any  relation  between  the  words,  which  is  very  doubtful,  it  is  the 
verb  that  comes  from  the  noun  ;  march  is  a  cognate  of  Latin  margo, 
etc,  and  the  meaning  'border '  goes  back  to  Priraitive  Aryan. 


Taliesin.  67 

Arglwyt^  nef  a  llawi*  gwawr  gwyndotlyt 

Mor  bell  o  geri  gaer  lliwelyt 

Esgynneis  ar  velyn  o  vaelyenyt 

Hyd  ynhir  reged  rwg  nos  ymy''  a  dyt. — Myi\  198b. 

''Final  -t  =  -S  througliout.     "^  ymy  makes  the  line  too  long.     Omit. 

'  [By  the]  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  Lord  of  a  Yenedotian, 
How  far  from  Ceri  [is]  Carlisle  ! 
I  mounted  a  bay  [and  camej  from  Maelienydd 
To  the  land  of  Rheged  [riding]  night  and  day.' 

Ceri  is  a  commote  of  IMaelienydd  (wliich  is  roughly  Ead- 

norshire),  see  R.  B.   Bruts,  p.  409;    and  Hywel,  having 

ridden  from  IMaelienydd  to  Rheged,  exchiinis  "  how  far 

from  Ceri  is  Carlisle !  "    As  Ceri  was  in  Maelienydd  we  may 

infer  that  he  regarded  Carlisle  as  being  in  Eheged.     This 

evidence  is  older  tlian  that  of  the  Welsh  Brut,  for  Hywel 

died  in  1170.     As  Urien  was  the  chief  antagonist  of  the 

Bernician  lcings  of  Bamborough  his  kingdom  may  have 

extended  northwards  as  far  as  the  Southern  Wall  or  even 

the  Cheviot  Hills.'    But  he  is  called  "  Prince  of  Catraeth  " 

(%w   Catraeth,  Book  of   Taliesin    62-22,  cf.  56-14)  ;    and 

Catraeth    is    probably    Catterick'    in    Yorkshire,    which 

Bede  calls  Catarada  (twice)  and  Catarado  (once),  Ptoleray 

KaTovpaKT6vcov,    Antonine    Catarado,    an    important   town 

1  In  the  eighteenth  century  there  were  "  some  Vestiges  of  .  .  .  . 
a  street  that  goes  from  the  Border,  viz.,  from  Hownam  to  Tweed, 
called  the  Roman  Causey,  comnionly  called  by  the  vulgar  the  rugged 
Causey  ",  Macfarlane's  Geoyraphical  Colloctions,  iii,  1749  {Scot.  Hist. 
Soc,  vol.  liii,  1908),  p.  159.  The  descriptive  ruyyed  may  be  a  sub- 
stituted  homonym,  see  below,  p.  69,  fn. ;  and  this  may  have  been  the 
Rheyed  Causeway,  or  road  to  Rheged.  Watling  Street  runs  north- 
wards  about  two  miles  west  of  Hounam,  and  can  be  traced  as  far  as 
the  Tweed. 

2  This  identification  was  made  by  Stephens,  I' frWoŴn,  pp.  30-L 
Rhys's  objection  {Arth.  Leyend,  p.  240)  that  Cataract-  should  give 
Welsh  Cadraeth  has  been  answered  by  Mr.  Ifor  Williams  in  V Bcirniad, 
1911,  pp.  76-7.  As  he  notes,  tr  for  dr  is  common  in  Medieval  Welsh  ; 
but  the  /•/•  of  Catarracta  (K-aTa/)/jáKT)/s)  would(if  sounded)  give  Welsh 
rh,  which  would  necessarily  provect  the  d  to  t. 

f2 


68  Taliesin. 

on  the  great  Roinan  road  to  the  north,  though  in  Camden's 
time,  as  now,  "  magnum  nil  nisi  nomen  habet",  Brit., 
1594,  p.  565.  Here,  after  Urien's  day,  was  fought  the 
battle  of  Catraeth  commeniorated  in  the  Gododdin.  It 
seems  probable,  then,  that  Rheged  extended  southwards 
beyond  Catterick,  possibly  to  the  northern  border  of  the 
kingdom  of  Elved,the  nanie  of  which  survives  in  Barwick- 
in-Ehnet  near  Leeds.  Communication  between  Catterick 
and  Carlisle  was  aíîorded  by  a  Roman  i-oad,  which 
branches  from  the  main  north  road  a  little  to  the  north  of 
Catterick,  see  the  map  in  Codrington's  Roman  Roads  in 
Britain.  Urien  is  also  called  in  our  text  "  Uryen  yr 
Echwyb",  57-14,  and  "  Uh  yr  Echwyò  ",  58-2,  00-17  ;  and 
in  the  elegy  attributed  to  Llywarch  "  he  was  shepherd  in 
(yr,  read  yn)  Yrechwyh  ",  Red  Book,  coL  1039.  Echwydd 
means  a  '  waterfall ','  as  in 

Wylhawt  eil  echwyh  yn  torroeh  mynyí),  75']. 
'  WiJl  weep  like  a  cataract  on  the  breasts  of  a  rnountain.' 

It  seems  therefore  that  yr  Ecliwydd  is  the  Welsh  counter- 
part  of  the  Latin  Catarracta.     Thus  üdd  yr  Echwydd  '  Lord 

'  There  seem  to  be  two  quite  distinct  words  similarly  spelt,  but 
diífering  in  sound:  {])  echwt/dd  'flow',  rhyming  with  dydd,  mynydd, 
etc. ;  redecauc  duwyr  echwit,  B.B.  88,  '  numing  water  ílow';  dwfyn 
dwfyr  echwyS,  B.T.  32,  '  deep  flowing  water ' ;  yìi  dufyr  echuyt,  Myv. 
227b,  'in  flowing  water'  (' water  of  baptism  '  is  absurd,  and  Silvan 
Evans's  reason  for  it  more  so).  As  a  verb,  we  have  Mor,cv  threia  cud 
echioit,  B.B.  88,  '  the  sea,  whither  does  it  ebb,  whence  does  it  flow  ?' 
Allt  ac  echwyS  B.T.  69,  doubtful  :  a'r  hallt  ar  echuit  B.B.  87,  seems 
to  suggest  'salt  and  fresh  (i.e.,  running)  water  '.  (2)  echwydd  rhymed 
with  -ŵydd,  as  by  H.  ab  O.  G.  in  Myv.  199a,  in  B.T.  35  2,  and 
apparently  in  the  Llywarch  Hén  englyn  F.A.B.,  ii,  285,  though 
generally  confused  with  the  other  word.  This  echŵydd  corresponds 
in  form  and  meaning  to  the  Breton  echoaz  '  heures  et  lieux  du  repos 
du  bétail  à  l'ombre  pendant  les  grandes  chaleurs',  Troude,  s.v. 
"  More  usual  was  a  broken  shield  coming  from  battle  than  an  ox  to 
the  noon-day  rest,  ych  y  echwy8'\  F.A.B.,  ii,  285.  Awr  echwydd  and 
pryd  echiuydd  are  given  in  the  dictionaries  as  'evening',  and  Silvan 


Taliesin.  69 

of  jr  Echwydd'  is  parallel  to  Ll^v)  Catraeth  'Princeps 
CatarractíE  '.  The  scribe  of  the  Book  of  Taliesin  evidentl y 
understands  yr  as  the  definite  article ;  but  the  article 
could  hardJy  occur  in  a  name  which  is  undoubtedly  old. 
The  element  is  more  probably  the  prefix  Er-  (=  Ar  in 
Ar-von,  with  a  reguhirly  affected  by  the  y  of  yddy^  tlie  name 
is  written  ErechwyS  four  tinies  in  the  Red  Book,  cols. 
1040-1,  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.  271.  It  occurs  once  without  the 
prefix :  "when  he  returned  to  Ech wy 8  írom  the  land  of 
the  Clydemen  ",  38*21,  but  this  may  be  an  error.  The 
prefix  denotes  'a  district  adjoining',  as  in  Ar-von;  and 
Erechwydd  is  not  the  town  but  the  district,  as  seen  in 
"  gwenwlat  yr  echivy8  ",  40-2,  'the  fair  land  of  Erechwydd'.^ 
In  the  ninth  century  "  Armes  "  it  is  extended  to  the  king- 

Evans  quotes  two  examples  from  Llyfr  yr  Ancr,  under  this  meaning, 
though  both  transhite  the  Latin  /lora  diei  tertia.  The  meaning  'even- 
ing'hasbeen  wrongly  deduced  from  the  ^.'yf,  à.\ai\ect&\  god-echivydd 
or  gwed-echwydd,  'afternoon',  as  if  the  prefìx  meant  nothing  ;  bnt 
the  yod-  or  yiced-  is  yicedy  '  after-'  (^Old  Welsh  yuotuj,  yuetiy),  so  that 
echicydd  is  '  noon  '.     There  is  uo  foundation  for  '  evening  '  or  *  west ". 

'  Ptolemy's  Raroi)-  (=  Catu-)  is  certain,  see  MüUer's  ed.,  Paris, 
1883,  pp.  96-7  ;  and  provesthat  theoriginal  British  name  had  nothing 
to  do  with  a  cataract.  It  had  two  forms:  (1)  a  shorter  form  Catu- 
ractö,  genitive  Caturacton-os,  and  (2)  a  derived  form  Caturacton-ion ; 
the  former  may  have  been  the  name  of  the  camp  at  Thornbrough 
(the  original  site),  the  latter  the  name  of  the  town.  Caturacto, 
liabie  to  become  later  Cataracto  (cf.  Gaulish  Catumandus,  late  Brit. 
Catamanus),  was  very  naturally  taken  by  the  Romans  for  Catarracta. 
Popular  etymology  is  apt  to  substitute  for  a  name  of  unknown  or 
forgotten  meaning  another  similar  in  sound  but  made  up  of  familiar 
Yocables,  as  sparroicgrass  for  asparagus.  Place-names  are  peculiarly 
liable  to  be  so  treated  ;  EngHsh  examples  are  The  Hicals  for  Yr  Eivl ; 
Barmouth  for  Abórmaw  ;  Money  Farthiny  llill  (Heref.)  for  Mynydd 
Fferddun  ;  Bridgewater  for  Burgh  de  Walter  ;  Waterford  for  Widder 
Fjord,  etc.  As  the  examples  show,  the  appositeness  (if  any)  of  the 
suì)stituted  homonym  is  accidental  and  fanciful.  Caiarracta  is  such 
a  homonym,  and  it  wovUd  be  a  mere  coincidence  if  there  were  falls 
at  the  spot ;  Codrington's  suggestion  that  '*  the  river  may  have  been, 
for  defence,  held  up  by  a  weir ",  op.  cit.,   19ü."j,  p.   178,  is  therefore 


JO  Taliesin. 

dom  of  Eheged:  after  "from  the  Wall  to  the  Forth " 
quoted  above,  p.  62,  comes  the  liiie — 

Llettatawt  eu  pennaetli  tros  yr  Echicy^,  18'6 
'  Their  sovereignty  will  extend  (llettaÄawt)  over  Erechwydd '. 

How  Geoffrey  came  to  give  Mureif  to  "Uriaii" — whether 
he  coufused  him  with  the  Pictish  king  Brude  Urgant, 
or  whether  he  thought  Mureif  had  something  to  do  with 
the  wall,  I  cannot  say ;  but  since  Mureif  was  assigned 
in  the  original  to  Urien  it  was  natural  for  the  translator 
or  copyist  to  gloss  it  as  Eheged.  The  South  Wales 
Eheged  is  also  a  pretty  obvious  fìction  ;  if  there  had  been 
a  Eheged  "  between  the  Tawy  and  the  Towy  "  medieval 
Welsh  literature  would  not  have  been  wholly  silent  about 
it.  It  appears  to  be  one  of  the  numerous  fabrications  of 
the  authors  of  the  lolo  M88.  Urien  had  ah-eady  been 
brought  down  to  Gower  and  Kidwelly,  seemingly  to  bolster 
up  the  claim  of  Gruffudd  ap  Mcolas  to  be  descended  from 
him.  Tlie  pedigree  is  given  in  Giuaith  Lewis  Glyn  Cothi, 
1837,  p.  130,  and.  represents  Gruffudd  as  a  descendant  of 
Urien  in  the  fifteenth  degree — fifteen  generations  in  nine 
centuries  !  In  a  life  of  his  grandson,  Sir  Ehys  ap  Thomas, 
written  in  the  early  seventeenth  century  and  printed  in 
the  Camhrian  Register,  1795,  Gruffudd's  "  descent"  is  said 

unnecessary.  Camden  derived  the  name  froni  the  falls  "hard  by  " 
(loc.  cit.),  though  he  added  later,  "  but  nearer  Richmond",  ]600  ed.. 
p.  656.  Ilorsely  "  did  not  perceive  or  hear  of  any  fall  of  water 
nearer  than  Richmond,  which  is  three  miles  from  Cataract  bridge 
.  .  .  though  Thornborougli  stands  higher  up  the  water  and  a  little 
rìe&ver  the  îaWs",  Britannia  liomana,  1732,  p.  399.  We  niay  assume 
that  these  falls  were  called  Echicydd  (or  its  Old  British  equivalent), 
and  that  the  district  Erechicydd  took  its  name  froni  this.  The  fact 
that  the  town  stood  in  this  district  must  have  seemed  a  very  satis- 
factory  explanation  of  tlie  fortuitous  name  Caturracta,  which 
apparently  ous'ted  the  original  forms  in  ordinary  use.  The  Welsh 
Catraeth  cannot  come  from  Cataracìô  or  any  case  of  it,  but 
represents  Catarracta  (even  to  the  double  rr,  see  above,  p.  67,  fn.  2). 


Taliesin.  7 1 

to  go  "  upward  in  a  direct  series  and  long  concatenation 
of  worthie  progenitors  up  to  Sir  Urian  Rlieged,  king  of 
Gower  in  Wales,  prince  of  Murriff  in  Scotland,  lord  of 
Kidwellj,  and  knight  of  the  round  table  to  King  Arthur  ", 
p.  56.  This  is  fabulous  enough  ;  but  Rheged  is  not  yet 
identified  in  it  with  Gower  and  Kidwelly — that  was  the 
finishing  touch  of  the  lolo  romancers. 

Llwyfenydd. — Dr.  Evans  had  already  in  his  introduc- 
tion  to  the  BlacJc  Book,  1906,  p.  xxvi,  identified  a  Coed 
Llwyfein,  the  scene  of  one  of  Owein  Gwynedd's  battles 
{Myv.  150a)  with  a  defile  in  Flintshire ;  he  now  refers  to 
Edward  Lhwyd's  Parochialia  {Arcli.  Camh.,  SuppL,  April, 
1909,  p.  85)  where  an  "  Afon  Lwyven  "  is  mentioned  near 
riint.  There  is  an  Argoed  in  the  parish  of  Mold  (as  in 
several  other  places)  ;  so  this  country  is  "  demonstrably  " 
Argoed  Llwyfein.  "  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  a 
Foi'est  15  miles  long  by  4^  miles  wide  stretched  along  the 
Flintshire  littoral  (Prof.  Lloyd,  Trans.  Cymmr.,  1899-1900, 
p.  139)  ....  I  identify  this  Forest  .  .  .  .  as  the 
Llwyvenyh  of  Kymric  poetry  ",  p.  xxii.  This  forest  is  the 
smiling  land  in  the  North  described  by  Taliesin,  p.  65, 
the  land  whose  riches  and  amenities  and  luxuries  it  is  his 
to  enjoy !  There  was,  no  doubt,  a  Llwyvein  in  Fiintshire, 
and  there  are  plenty  of  Levens,  which  may  possibly  repre- 
sent  the  same  name.  Skene,  accepting  the  Brut  story  of 
a  Rheged  north  of  the  Clyde,  found  a  Leven  at  hand, 
running  froni  Loch  Lomond  to  the  sea  at  Alclyde,  and  set 
Urien's  LIwyvenydd  down  there,  under  the  nose  of 
Rhyddercli  Hael.  There  is  a  Leven  in  Fifeshire,  and  a 
Leven  in  Cumberland,  running  from  Windermere  to  the  sea; 
but  there  is  nothing  to  connect  these  with  Urien.  Llwy- 
venydd  and  Llwyvein  represent  diít'erent  accentuations  of 
■  the  same  British  stem  ^Leimanio-.  In  Yorlcshire  original 
m  iu  British  names  remains  in  Euglish,  as  in  Elmet ;   and 


Talù 


lesin. 


the  EíOman  road  running  south  froni  Catterick,  in  a  line 
so  straight  as  to  be  noticeable  on  the  map,  is  called 
Leeming  Lane.  This  may  well  be  the  Eoad  of  Llwyvein, 
which  in  sixth  century  Welsli  would  be  ^Lcmein,  with 
slightly  softened  m  and  a  palatal  n  liable  to  become  7ig  in 
Welsh  itself,  as  in  Eingion  for  FJinion.  Taliesin's  Lloy- 
fenyh  tireh,  65*13,  are  the  home  lands  of  Urien  ;  and  this 
district  with  its  Roman  road  and  Roman  town,  and  doubt- 
less  many  Roman  villas  then,  answers  well  Taliesin's 
description  of  Llwyvenydd  as  a  land  of  affluence  and 
refinement. 

GoSeu. — Oneof  the  most  amusing  things  in  Dr.  Evans's 
Introduction  is  his  explanation  of  this  name.     It  is  the 
plural  of  cod :  "  tliis  bears  the  same  meaning  as  the  second 
element  in  the  English  word  peas-cocZ ",  p.  xiv.    Apparently 
he  does  not  know  that  the  Welsh  cod  is  borrowed  from  the 
English.     To  explain  the  initial  G  he  assumes  that  it  is 
the  softened  form  found  in   the  compound  Gwyh-godeu, 
the    second    element    being    "  used    poetically "   for   the 
whole  !     Can  any  Welshman  imagine  a  name  such  as  Hen- 
goed,  let  us  say,  being  treated  "poetically  "  as  Goed  ?    As  if 
a  g  in  that  position  were  not,  to  every  Welsh  speaker's  in- 
stinct,  radically  c,  even  now — to  say  nothing  of  the  twelfth 
century  !     ISTe^t  we  are  told  that  gwyS  ('  wood  '  or  '  trees  ') 
means  brushwood,  and  '■' gioyh-godeu  signìûes  j^od-hearing 
scrub.     What  is  /S/wop-shire  but  the  schrohbes  (pl.)  country 
of  which   our   Gwjò-godeu  is   a  translation  ",  ib.     But  if 
giuyè-godeu  is  a  compound  as  here  assumed,  it  must  mean 
'  tree-pods  ',  just  as  cannwyll-hrennau  means  'candle-sticks '. 
It  appears  that  foot-note  21  is  due  to  a  dim  consciousness 
of  this  difficulty:  "  Bean-pods  =  coc^eMjrt ;    hui  ffa-godeu 
=  bean-stalks  tied  in  bundles  ".      But  if  ffa-godeu  means 
'  bean-stalks ',    why    does    not    gwyh-godeu   mean    '  scrub- 
stalks  '  ?     It   is  unnecessary   to    dwell   on    this    helpless 


Taliesín.  73 

ílounderiiìg,  further  thau  to  say  \k\^\,  ffa<jodeu  has  nothìng 
to  do  with  ffa  or  codeu,  but  is  siniply  the  Welsh  plural  of 
the  English  woráfaggot.  The  usual  pronunciation  of  the 
nanie  is  not  Godeu  but  GoBeu,  and  there  is  good  evidence 
that  this  is  right.  As  a  common  noun  goBeu  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin  clearly  means  a  forest' ;  and  the  expression 
givn8  go8eu,  32-18,  is  not  a  compound,  but  two  separate 
words,  separately  written  in  the  MS.,  and  meaning  '  trees 
of  a  forest ' — a  blaen  gwyè  go8eu  '  and  the  tips  of  forest 
trees '.  The  other  example  referred  to  is  not  even  gwy8 
go8eu,  but  gtvy8  a  go8eu,  25*24  {gwyd  first  written  gwydeu, 
and  eu  deleted  by  underdots) ;  the  context  is  as  follows  : — 

o  yriallu  a  blodeu  |  bre,  o  vlawt  gwyb  a  gobeu, 
o  prib,  o  pribret,  |  pan  ym  digonet. 

'Of  primroses  and  the  flowers  of  the  hill,  of  the  blossom  of  wood 
and  foi'est, 
Of  soil,  of  earth,  have  1  been  made.' 

A  poem  entitled  "  Kat  goòeu",  pp.  23-7,  '  the  battle  of  the 
forest ',  contains  a  fanciful  account  of  the  mustering  of 
the  trees  (the  second  godeii  in  24'8  is  the  unrelated  abstract 
noun  go8eu  '  intention ').  As  a  place-name  Go8eu  seems 
to  mean  the  country  between  the  two  walls.  Taliesin 
speaks  of  Urien,  "Ae  varch  ydanaw  yg  gobeu  gweith 
mynaw",  59-11  ;  as  "  Goòeu  gweith  Mynaw  "  is  a  peculiar 
expression,  we  may  perhaps  assume  that  GoSeu  is  a  gloss, 
and  render,  "  with  his  horse  under  him  at  the  battle  of 
Mynaw  (Goòeu) ".  The  battle  of  Mynaw  or  Manaw  is 
probably  the  "  Cath  Manand  "  of  Tighernach  and  the 
"  Bellum  Manonn  "  of  the  Annals  of  Ulster,  which  both 

^  Rhys,  Arth.  Letj.,  p.  246,  connects  it  with  f/irŷoy  and  equates  it 
with  the  Irish  Fidach,  the  eponymus  of  an  unltnown  district  in 
Scotland.  B>it  he  does  not  exphiin  how  the  Welsh  o  is  deiived; 
yirŷò,  from  *rid-,  is  cognato  witli  Enghsh  vood;  and  tlie  Anglo-Saxon 
wudu  wíis  originally  ìridti  according  to  Skeat.  A  forni  //«o-  could 
come  from  *rid-,  cf.  gŵr  from  *vir-. 


74  Taliesin. 

date  582  or  583  {Chron.  of  Picts  ancl  Scots,  pp,  67,  345]. 
In  any  case  Manaw,  generally  identified  with  the  country 
round  Slamannan,  south  of  the  Forth,  either  is,  or  is  in, 
Gobeu.  In  Brit.  Mus.  Vesp.  A,  xiv,  f.  lla  (early  thirteenth 
centurj)  among  the  daughters  of  Brychan  is  named 
"Gurycon  Godheu  .  .  .  uxor  Cathraut  calchuynid ", 
Y  Cymmrodor  xix,  p.  26,  i.e.,  Gwrygon  Gobeu,  wife  of 
Cadrawd  Calchfynyb.  Skene  has  identified  Calchfynydd 
with  Kelso,  formerly  Calchow,  where  there  is  "acalcareous 
eminence  ....  stiU  called  the  Chalk  Heugh  ",  i^..I.i^.  i, 
p.  173.  Dr.  Evans  refers  to  the  memorandum  in  a  foot- 
note,  p.  xiv :  "  Gurycon  (Vricon-ion)  is  not  a  pei'son  but  a 
place,  i.e,,  the  Wi'ekin,  which  is  in  Godheu  [dh  =  modern 
d,  not  8]  ".  The  statement  in  brackets  is  not  true ;  dh 
occurs  only  thrice  elsewhere  in  the  document :  twice  in 
Tudhistil,  which  appears  in  the  Domitian  version  as 
Tuthistyl,  the  original  form  of  the  name  beiug  probably 
Tuduistil  ;  and  once  in  Gugan  Cledyhurdh,  f.  llb, 
which  is  clearly  Gwgawn  Glebyfrub,  R.  B.  Mab.,  pp,  159, 
304,  306,  and  proves  that  dJt  means  8.  But  how  did 
the  Wrekin  become  a  saint  ?  We  are  to  read  "  [Meilien 
del  Gurycon ".  In  support  of  this  we  are  told  that 
"  Milburga  established  a  convent  at  Much  Weulock,  which 
tradition  asserts  to  have  been  called  Llan  Meilien  ", — no 
reference,  no  proof  of  any  kind  that  "  Meilien  "  is  meant, 
or  was  a  daughter  of  Brychan,  or  the  wife  of  Cadrawd. 
"Thus",  continues  the  editor,  "a  Saxon  lady  becomes  a 
Welsh  saint,  thougli  the  MS.  judiciously  omits  her  name." 
"  Judiciously  omits  " — as  when  he,  for  example,  writes 
"  Rhun  ..."  for  "  Ehun  vab  Maelcun  " — it  saves  so 
much  explaining  away.  Whatever  view  be  taken  of  tlie 
children  of  Brychan,  we  have  in  the  memorandum  quoted 
above  a  record  of  a  tradition  which  connects  Godheu  with 
Calchfynydd  ;   and  if  Skene  is  right  in  his  identification 


Talìesin.  7  5 

of  the  latter,  it  implies  that  Go8eu  extencled  down  to  the 
Scottish  border.  In  the  historical  poems  in  the  BQok  of 
Taliesin  "  Gobeu  a  Reget"  occurs  twice  (60*10,  62*7),  and 
seems  to  stand  for  the  British  regions  of  the  North,  as 
Deira  and  Bernicia  stood  for  the  Anglian. 

Aeron. — According  to  Dr.  Evans  this  was  "a  district — 
extending,  apparently,  from  Eulo  to  Chester ",  p.  xix,  a 
distance  of  about  six  niiles  as  the  crow  ílies — it  has  been 
difficult  to  find  room  for  this  "district  ".  This  identifica- 
tion  is  supported  by  three  "  quotations  "  ;  in  the  first, 
Ylph  is  assumed  to  be  Ranulf,  son  of  Hugh  Lupus,  and 
JJrien  is  rendered  "  Owein  ",  and  assumed  to  be  Owein 
Gwynedd ;  thus  the  proof  is  founded,  as  usual,  on  his  own 
assumptions.  The  second  is  similar  :  "  When  Henry  II 
disappeared  from  the  Ceiriog  valley  in  the  rain,  he  went 
to  '  sojourn  and  shelter  in  Aeron',  63-6".  In  the 
passage  refei-red  to  there  is  no  mention  of  Henry  II,  or  of 
Ceiriog,  or  of  "  sojourn  "  or  "  shelter  ".  The  third  is  as 
follows  :  "  Owein  Gwyne^  extended  his  rule  f rom  Anglesey 
to  Tegeingl,  to  Aeron,  to  Chester  ".  Here  w^e  find  the 
names  beautifully  arranged,  so  that  Aeron  takes  its  place 
nicely  between  Tegeingl  (Flintshire)  and  Chester,  as  it 
should  according  to  the  theory.  Turning  to  tlie  reference 
Myv.  153,  we  find  something  quite  difFerent.  The  words 
occur  in  Cynddelw's  elegy  on  Owein  Gwynedd  ;  here  is  a 
literal  translation  of  as  much  of  the  context  as  is  necessary 
to  make  the  meaning  clear — the  first  two  and  last  four 
lines  of  the  stanza  : — 

It  is  not  a  falsehood  [to  say  tliat]  he  [was]  the  best  hero 
From  the  German  Ocean  to  the  Irish  Sea; 

To  Canterbnry,  to  maintain  the  privilege  of  the  Britons, 
To  Leicester  and  to  Choster, 
To  East  Anglia,  to  Anglia,  to  Aeron,  went  forth 
His  snpremacy  from  Penmon. 


76  Taliesin. 

The  passage,  tlieii,  does  not  bear  the  coiistruction  which 
Dr.  Evans  puts  upon  it ;  and  it  contains  no  reference  at 
all  to  Tegeingl.  This  name  he  has  himself  substituted  for 
Ystrei(n)gl  '  East  Anglia '  (cf.  Bede's  Estrangli,  H.E.  iv, 
17),  and  Eingl  '  Anglia ',  so  that  we  have  here,  on  a 
smaller  scale,  something  ]ike  the  "  further  testimony  "  of 
the  Chirk  Codex.  This  is  followed  by  the  assertion 
that  "Aeron  was  also  the  Welsh  name  of  the  '  Pulford ' 
brook  ".  It  is  not  thought  necessary  to  offer  any  proof 
of  this  astonishing  statement,  but  a  confirmation  is 
suggested :  "  This  identification  is  confirmed  by  the 
association  of  Aeron  with  Clud  : 

Priodawr  clodva\vr   Clud  ac  Aeron.     (Myi\  160.) " 

The  line  occurs  in  Cynddelw's  elegy  on  Cadwallawn  mab 
Madawc ;  it  means  "  the  renowned  ruler  of  Clud  and 
Aeron  ",  and  refers  to  "  Gwryal  Gwron ",  to  whom  the 
dead  man  is  compared.  (In  passing,  is  not  the  "renowned 
ruler  "  of  two  little  brooks  a  trifle  absurd  ?)  The  person 
meant  is  obviously  the  first  named  in  the  triad  of  the 
"  kings  who  rose  from  serfs ",  namely,  "  Gwryat  vab 
Gwryon  yn  y  Gogleò  ",  E.  B.  Mab.,  p.  308,  Y  Cymmrodor 
vii,  p.  132.  Aeron  then  is,  like  Clud,  in  the  North  ;  which 
is  nothing  new,  for  it  is  clearly  in  the  North  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin  and  the  Book  of  Aneirin,  though  in  the 
former  the  Cardiganshire  Aeron  is  also  mentioned,  73*4. 
But  where  is  this  northern  Aeron  ?  Skene  identifies  it 
with  tlie  river  Avon  which  runs  between  Linlithgow  and 
Stirlingshire ;  this  view  rests  on  most  precarious  grounds, 
and  must  be  rejected,  as   Mr.  Williams  has  shown' ;    so 

'  Y  Beirniad,  1912,  p.  118.  Skene  rearl  dylleinic  aeron  in  his  own 
reproduction  of  B.A.  172,  and  saw  anon  {avon)  in  other  copies ;  he 
jumped  to  the  conchi.sion  that  aeron  =avon.  Mr.  Williams  has  not 
noticed  that  in  the  MS.  the  reading  i.s  auon,  which  someone  has  tried 
to  correct  into  aeron  (see  Facsimile).     Dr.  Evans  rightly  piints  auon. 


Taliesin.  jy 

must  liis  own  hesitating  suggestion  that  Aeron  maj  have 
been  south  of  Rheged.  Dr.  Evans  is  no  doubt  quite  right  in 
attaching  importance  to  the  association  of  Aeron  with 
Clud  in  the  line  which  he  quotes — his  error  is  the  funda- 
mental  one  of  mistaking  the  Clyde  for  a  Cheshire  stream- 
let ;  the  passage  proves  the  existence  of  a  tradition  in  the 
twelftli  century  that  the  kiiigdoms  of  Clud  and  Aeron 
were  united  under  Gwryat.  Clud  is  Strathclyde  :  wliat 
can  Aeron  be  but  Ayr,  which  lies  between  Strathclyde  and 
the  sea — the  outer  Firth  of  Clyde?  The  union  of  the 
kiiigdoms  took  phice  after  the  period  with  which  we  are 
dealing;  and  it  may  be  that  Gwryat  was  the  king  w'hose 
death  is  recorded  in  the  Annals  of  Ulster,  s.a.  658:  "Mors 
Gureit  regis  Alochiaithe  ",  Chron.  of  Pids  and  Scots,  p.  349. 
It  is  not  inconsistent  with  this  identification  that  in  one 
of  Taliesin's  poems  Urien  "came"  to  Aeron,  61-9,  or  that 
in  another  he  is  called  a  "  defender  in  Aeron  ",  63*5-6. 
He  is  the  first  of  the  four  kings  named  in  the  "  Saxon 
Genealogies  "  as  having  fought  against  the  sons  of  Ida, 
the  three  othersbeing  Rhydderch,  Gwallawg  and  Morgant. 
The  hist  two,  like  Urien  himself,  were  descended  from 
Coel,  whose  kingdom  was  in  Aeron,  and  whose  name  still 
clings  to  the  district  of  Kyle  ;  and  either  or  both  may 
have  ruled  in  that  region.  In  any  case  Urien  fighting  in 
Aeron  would  be  defending  the  territories  of  liis  kinsnien. 
Eidyn. — Dr.  Evans  writes  this  name  Ei8in.  This  is  a 
late  and  incorrect  form  ;  the  -in  is  due  to  the  assimilation 
of  unaccented  y  in  the  ultima  to  i  in  the  penult,  as  in  the 
spolcen  gwreiddin  for  giweiddyn,  see  my  Welsh  Gram. 
p.  111,  iii ;  but  tlie  o  for  d  can  only  be  explained  as  due  to 

Curiously  enough,  aeron  seems  from  38"2  to  be  the  true  reading,  aucl 
dylleinw,  as  Mr.  Williams  lias  seen,  is  an  error  for  dyleith,  so  that 
there  was  no  'flood'  and  no  'river'  in  the  stanza  originally,  and 
Skene's  Avon  is  a  ghost. 


78  Taliesin. 

misreading  tlie  written  forui,  owing  to  the  fact  that  both 
à  and  8  are  written  d  in  late  medieval  orthography.  In 
the  old  poetry  the  name  always  rhymes  with  -yn  ;  thus  in 
the  Black  Book,  in  which  %  and  ij  are  not  distinguished 
in  the  spelling,  but  are  distinct  in  the  rhymes,  Eidyn 
rhymes  with  a  chinhin  {cynhymi,  '  dog-heads ')  and  cuitin 
{cwySyn  '  tliey  fell '),  95 '8,  and  with  tytin  (tyèyn)  in  one 
englyn,  and  hrin  (bryn)  in  another  in  64-1 -4  ;  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin  it  rhymes  with  hritìiwyn,  22*22,  and  kyverhyn, 
30"  1  ;  in  the  Book  of  Aneirin  with  arwynn,  5 '9,  and  gwehin 
{gwehyn),  disgin  {disgyn),  33"16;  in  eacli  case  the  rhyme 
is  -ynn,  distinguished  from  -yn  in  early  verse.  In  the 
Blaclc  Book  medial  S  is  generally  written  t,  but  this  name 
is  consistently  written  witli  d,  as  eidin  94*14,  95*7,  idin 
64'2*5 — contrast  tytin,  cuitin,  above.  In  the  Welsh 
Genealogies  in  Harl.  3859,  it  is  written  eitin  {Y  Cymm- 
rodor  ix,  p.  173),  which  is  decisive,  for  in  the  Old  Welsh 
spelling  of  this  document  medial  t  regularly  stands  for 
d,  and  medial  d  for  è.  The  correct  form  of  the  name 
then,  in  modern  and  late  medieval  spelling,  is  Eidyn.  In 
spite  of  the  clear  and  conclusive  evidence  of  the  manu- 
scripts  our  editor  not  only  writes  the  name  EiSin,  but 
actually  cites  this  as  the  form  in  the  Black  Book. 
'■'Eièin",  he  says,  "  is  in  the  border  country " — the 
Welsh  border.  The  pi'oof  divides  itself  into  two  parts. 
The  fìrst  part  is  as  follows  : — "In  Prydein  in  EiSin  (Owein 
Gwyneb)  is  acknowledged  chief:  also  at  Gavran  on  the 
Brecon  border,  30*20 ".  History,  he  says,  accords  with 
this,  "  but  there  is  not  so  much  as  an  old  wife's  tale  to 
vouch  for  his  sway  on  the  Forth  ",  p.  xxiii.  The  editor 
himself  indicates  that  the  name  "  Owein  Gwyneb  "  is  not 
in  the  text  by  including  it  in  brackets — it  is  his  own 
assumption  ;  and  on  this  assumption  the  proof  entirely 
depends.      The   second   part    consists    of    identifìcations 


Taliesin.  79 

whicli  depend  eutirely  upon  tlie  mistaken  forni  EiSin. 
Thus  the  Bhiclc  Book  is  said  to  refer  to  '■'■  mynyh  Eibin 
95-7,  which  is  synonymous  with  Bre  Eibin,  now  Breiòin 
Hill ".  Now  in  the  first  phice  the  reading  in  the  Black 
Book  is  "minit  eidin  ",  which,  correctly  transcribed,  is 
mynyB  Eidyn  ;  and  medieval  d  cannot  be  equated  with 
modern  8.  In  the  second  place  the  argument  implies  that 
BreiBin  is  a  modern  contraction  of  a  name  Avhich  was  Bre 
EiSin  in  the  twelfth  century ;  but  as  the  hill  was  called 
BreiSin  in  that  century,  the  ar^ument  falls  to  the  ground. 
The  name  occurstwiceinGwalchmai's  "Gorhoffedd";  fi.rst 
in  Dygen  FreiSin,  rhyming  with  hin,  trin,  ffin,  and  many 
other  words  all  ending  in  -in  {Myv.  142b) ;  secondly  in 
hre  Freidyn,  which  is  hre  Freièin,  since  it  rhymes  with 
trin  (ib.  143a)  ;  in  the  original  manuscript  the  symbol 
for  8  is  used  in  both  cases.  Bre  FreiSin  finally  disposes 
of  the  I?re  í/iSm  theory ;  and  the  twelfth  ceiìturj  BreiSin 
cannot  possibly  have  anything  to  do  with  the  Eidyn  of  the 
Book  of  Taliesin.  The  other  identifications  repose  upon 
the  same  error,  so  that  it  would  be  waste  of  time  to 
discuss  them.  Eidyn  is  certairily  in  the  JSTorth ;  this  is 
sufficiently  evidenced  by  the  narae  of  Clydno  Eidyn,  one 
of  the  four  leaders  of  the  men  of  the  North  whose  names 
Dr.  Evans  "  judiciously  omits  "  in  g"iving  the  "testimony" 
of  the  Chirk  Codex.  Ab  Ithel  identifies  "  Eiddin  "  with 
Edinburgh  {Gododin,  1852,  p.  99)  ;  Stephens,  about  the 
same  time,  writes  it  "  Eidyn,  or  Eiddyn,  or  Eiddin  ",  and 
equates  it  with  the  Edin  of  "  Edinhurgh,"  {Gododin,  1888, 
p.  178).  Eeeves  {Jita  S.  Columhce,  1857,  p.  202)  says  that 
Etan  (in  "the  siege  of  Etan  ",  Tig.  638,  An.  Ult.  637)  "  is 
not  Edinburgh  ....  but  Cair  Eden,  the  Eiddyn  of 
Aneurin  .  .  .  now  Carriden,  a  parish  on  the  Forth,  in 
Linlithgowshire,  the  identification  of  which  we  learn  from 
the  interpolator  of  Gildas'  History  :    '  Kair  Eden,  civitas 


So  Taliesin. 

antiquissima,  duorum  ferme  miUium  spatio  a  moiiasterio 
Abercurnig,  quod  nunc  vocatur  Abercorn.'  (Capit.  9, 
Monument.  p.  5.)  ".  Skene  adopts  this  view  :  "  Etain  was 
no  doubt  Eiddyn  or  Caereden "  {F.A.B.,  i,  p.  178,  cf. 
p.  172).  Eidyn  ysgor  occurs  in  the  Book  of  Aneirin,  4*5; 
and  esgor  Eiclyn,  29*12  ;  Skene's  note  on  the  former  is  "The 
fort  of  Eiddyn  or  Caredin  "  (ib.,  ii,  p.  374) ;  Eidyn  gaer, 
27'15,  comes  still  nearer  in  form  to  Caredin.  But  Dûnedin 
is  the  old  name  of  Edinburgh :  Skene  quotes  from  a  life 
of  Saint  Monenna  "  Dunedene  que  Anglica  lingua  dicitur 
Edineburg'  "  (ib.,  i,  p.  85),  Dineidyn  occurs  in  the  Book 
of  Aneirin,  33-5,  and  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  29*18;  and 
few  will  disagree  with  Skene  when  he  says  that  this  "  can 
hardly  be  anything  but  Dunedin  "  (ib.,  ii,  p.  367).  It  is 
therefore  futile  to  ask  "where  is  thereanything  to  connect 
Eiòin  with  Edinburgh  ? "  Mynyh  Eidyn  in  the  Black 
Book  is  doubtless  Edinburgh  too.  In  the  Book  of  Aneirin, 
Mynyòawc  Mwynvawr  is  'lord  of  Eidyn ',  111'  Eidyn,  35*11, 
about  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  ;  a  generation  earlier 
Clydno  Eidyn  led  the  raid  to  Gwjaiedd  to  avenge  Elidyr 
Mwynvawr,  see  above,  p.  47.  As  Eidyn  survived  both  in 
Carredin  and  in  Dunedin,  it  has  been  assumed  that  it  was 
the  name  of  a  district  including  both  ^^  it  would  lie  just 
to  the  east  of  Manaw.  The  supposition  is  likely  in  itself, 
and  suggests  that  the  unintelligible  o  herth  Maw  ac  Eidin, 

1  Edwineshwf/  (Skene,  Celtic  Scotland,  i,  p.  240)  is  not  older  than 
the  twelfth  century,  and  seems  to  be  a  theoretical  form,  which  failed 
to  supplant  the  actual  name.  In  the  tenth  century  Pictish  Chronicle 
the  town  is  called  Opjndum  Eden  {Chron.  P.  cỳ  S.,  p.  10).  The  name 
Edin  must  be  older  than  Edwin,  and  there  appears  to  be  no  old 
authority  for  his  supposed  connexion  with  the  town.  Bede,  for 
example,  says  much  about  Edwin  but  is  silent  about  Edinburgh. 

2  Transcribed  mechanically  from  a  twelfth  century  copy,  in  which 

3  Baring-Gould  and  Fisher,  Lives  of  British  Saints,  ii,  1908,  p.  lôS: 
Y Beirniad,  1911,  p.  255. 


Taliesin.  8i 

B.T.  29*26,  sliould  be  o  hartli  Manaiu^  ac  Eidyn.  But 
originally  the  name  may  well  have  been  the  appellation  of 
one  of  the  two  strongholds,  more  probaLly  perhaps  of  the 
"  civitas  antiquissima  "  Kair  Eden.^ 

1  have  now  dealt  with  the  more  important  northern 
names  occurring  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  and  with  Dr. 
Gwenogvryn  Evans's  attempt  to  prove  that  they  denote 
places  on  the  Welsh  border.  His  argument  is  a  tissue  of 
false  reasoning  which  betrays  a  mind  that  has  never 
properly  understood  what  "  evidence  "  or  "  proof  "  means. 
He  founds  categorical  statements  on  purely  suppositional 
grounds.  He  has  not  realized  that  the  basis  of  an  argu- 
ment  must  be  an  undisputed  fact ;  he  even  builds  on  the 
very  suppositions  that  are  disputed.  The  greater  part  of 
his  argument  is  one  gigantic  petitio  priìicipii,  or  begging 
of  the  question.  WJuit  he  has  to  prove  is  that  Taliesin  lived 
in  the  twelfth  century,  and  sang  to  Owein  Gwynedd ;  in 
order  to  prove  this,  he  has  to  show  that  northern  names 
denote  places  on  the  Welsh  border ;  he  shows  that  they 
are  on  the  border  and  not  in  the  North  by  insisting  that 
"Owein  Gwynedd  never  was  in  Scotland  ",  p.  xvii,  and 
that  "there  is  not  so  mucli  as  an  old  wife's  tale  to  vouch 
for  his  sway  on  the  Fortli  ",  p.  xxiii ;  but  this  is  only  the 
minor  premise,  it  has  no  force  without  the  implied  major 
premise  that  Owein  Gwynedd  is  meant  (thoughnot  named) 
in  the  poems.  It  is  quite  clear  that  this  is  implied,  and  is 
the  basis  of  the  argument ;  it  is  also  tlie  conclusion  of  the 
argument:  and  the  whole  is  worthless,  because  there  is 
nothing  that  you  cannot  prove  if  you  start  by  assuming 

^  Alaw  by  the  commonest  of  scribal  errors,  the  error  of  aiiticipa- 
tion,  by  which  the  scribe  in  writing  the  first  a  took  it  for  the  second. 

2  Ptoleray's  nrepwTÒi'  crTpaTÓ-eSoi'  was  on  tlie  Moray  Firth,  and 
is  identified  by  Skene  with  Burghead  {Celtic  Scotland,  i,  p.  74). 
Camden,  wrongly  identifying  it  with  Edinburgh,  explains  the  latter 
as  'Castrum  Alatum  ',  cjnoting  Welsh  adain  '  wing'  as  a  cognate. 

G 


82  Taliesin. 

it.  Tlie  argument  frora  the  poems  is  wholly  of  this 
character;  the  middle  term  is  iiot  always  Owein  Gwynedd 
— it  may  be  Hugh  Lupus  or  Henry  II ;  but  the  conclusion 
is  always  implied  in  the  premises.  The  misquotations 
from  tlie  text  are  dictated  by  the  same  fallacy ;  it  is 
hecause  the  poems  were  written  in  the  twelfth  centurj'^ 
that  the  text  is  altered  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  the  con- 
ditions  of  that  time — there  is  absolutely  no  other  reason 
for  the  nnmerous  alterations  of  perfect  lines  ;  and  the 
text  thus  altered  is  quoted  to  prove  that  the  geography  is 
that  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  therefore  that  the  poems 
rvere  written  in  that  century — where  we  began  :  it  is 
alwa^'s  the  same  vicious  circle.  The  rest  of  the  "proof  ", 
apart  from  ridiculous  etymologies  such  as  Godeu  from 
cod,  consists  of  deductions  from  misquotations  of  passages 
from  the  medieval  poets  and  from  the  Chirlc  Codex.  The 
context,  and  all  details,  which,  if  quoted,  would  reveal  the 
true  meaning  of  the  passages,  are  suppressed  ;  a  common 
noun  dyheS,  for  example,  is  quietly  changed  into  a  proper 
name  Dyved ;  names  are  re-arranged  to  give  an  effect 
foreign  to  the  original.  Dr.  Evans  is,  of  course,  quite 
unaware  of  practising  any  deception  ;  he  hasunconsciously 
practised  it  all  upon  himself,  and  in  his  Introduction  he  is 
presenting  in  good  faith  the  arguments  by  which  he  him- 
self  has  been  convinced.  Like  many  others  who  labour 
under  delusions  he  believes  that  he  alone  is  sane : 

It  will  be  more  service;ible  to  the  stiuìent  to  canvass  the 
geograpliy  of  such  names  as  Gogleh,  Prydyn,  Aeron,  Clud, 
Argoed  Llwyvein,  Llwyveuyò,  and  Eihin,  which  have  so  hypno- 
tized  my  precursors  as  to  paralyse  their  critical  faculty  (p.  xix). 

He  has  ari-ived  at  this  conclusion  by  intuition,  not  by 
studying  the  works  of  his  "  precursors ",  with  which  he 
shows  little  acquaintance.  The  literature  of  tlie  subject 
is  referred  to  only  in  the  vaguest  terms  ;  there  is  no  hint 


Taliesin.  8 


j 


of  any  divergence  of  views  among  its  writers ;  they  are  all 

included  under  a  common  Lan  ;  tliey  are  "our  mentors  ", 

"our  high  priests",    "learned  professors  ",  etc.     Sharon 

Turner's    Yindication,  the  main   points   of  wliich  remain 

unanswered,  is  not  mentioned.     There  is  no  mention  even 

of  Nash's  Taliesin,  in  which  a  twelfth  century  origin  of 

the  poems  was  maintained  sixty  years  ago.     There  is  no 

reference  to  Stephens's  classification  of  the  poems,  or  to 

Carnhuanawc's  earlier  discussion  of  thepersonsand  places 

named    in    them.     Zimmer's    Nennius    Yindicatus    is    not 

referred  to ;  there  is  a  reference  in  a  footnote  to  Mommsen's 

edition  of  Nennius,  which  is  stated  to  be  "  edited  by  Prof . 

Zimmer",  p.  viii.     Skene's  Four  Äncient  Books  Dr.  Evans 

has  read,  how  carefuUy  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 

that  he  asks  (II,  p.  v),  "  did  he  not  understand  and  trans- 

late  the  whole?"    when    Skene  expressly    states  (vol.  i, 

p.  17)  that  the  translation  was  prepared  for  him  at  his 

request  by  the  Reverend  D.  Silvan  Evans  and  the  Reverend 

Robert   Williams,  "  in    order ",   he    says,  "to  avoid  any 

risk  of  its  being  coloured  by  my  own  views  " — how  unlike 

Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans  !      However,  Dr.  Evans  has  some 

acquaintance  with  Skene,  whose  views  he  assumes  to  be 

representative :  Skene  accepted  the  Brut  Rheged,  which 

our  editor  then  recklessly  attributes  to  "  tlie  learned  of 

all  ages  and  eminence  ",  in  the  same  breath  accusing  them 

of  not  "  once  verifying  their  references  "  !     At  one  time 

the  "  Scottish  figments  "  were  started  by  the  translators 

of  the  Bruts,  p.  xxi ;    at  another  they  are  tliö  "  creation  " 

of  "  our  mentors  ",  p.  xvii,  chiefly  Skene,  of  course.     Rhys 

in  his  Celtic  Britain,  is  sneeringly  stated  to  liave  "followed 

the  Scot's  lead  ",  II,  p.  v  ;    he  followed   the  lead  of   all 

his  predecessors   from  Lewis  Morris  and  Evan  Evans  to 

Stephens  and  Skene. 

The  twelfth  çentury  geography  of  the  poems,  which 


84  Taliesin, 

lias  been  revealed  only  to  Dr.  Evans,  is  the  coniplement  of 
another  revelátion,  namely,  that  the  sixth  century  per- 
sonal  names  are  eponyms  of  twelfth  century  characters. 
To  his  mind  tlie  one  proves  the  other.  Urien  is  Owein 
Gwynedd  because  Urien  prevailed  "  in  Gogleb " ;  and 
Gogleb  is  Cheshire  because  "  Owein  Gwyneb  never  was 
in  Scotland ".  That  is  exactly  the  reasoning  at  the 
bottom  of  p.  xvi  and  the  top  of  p.  xvii.  I  have  shown  that 
the  last  statement  is  valueless  for  the  argument  without 
the  assumption  that  Owein  Gwynedd  is  Urien,  that  is, 
without  assuming  what  has  to  be  proved.  The  geo- 
graphical  theory  is  based  on  the  eponym  theory,  and  on 
misrepresentations ;  the  proof  of  the  eponym  theory  from 
the  geographical  theory  must  therefore  be  disallowed. 
Let  us  see  if  there  is  anj^  independent  evidence  of  it : 

Turn  we  then  to  Urien  of  whom  we  read  that  he  fought 
Ida's  successors,  and  was  pre-eminent  among  his  compeers  as  a 
military  leader.  So  was  Owein  Gwyneh  among  Kymric  princes  : 
hence  is  nom  de  guerre  of  Urien.  That  this  is  not  an  assnmption 
witness  the  elegy  by  his  contemporary,  Kynòel,  who  describes 
Owein  as  "  lord  of  Penmon  .  .  .  shepherd  of  Mon  ....  the 
war-lord  of  the  confiict  of  Argoed  Llwyvein  ....  dragon  of 
Coeling  ....  terror  of  Bernicia  .  .  .  .  ^  blessed  dragon  of  the 
West".  These  lines  might  come  from  Taliesin's  poems  to  Urien, 
so  familiar  do  they  soiind  (p.  xvi).  ^  Myv.  152. 

A  detail  which  is  omitted  here,  and  which  invalidates  the 
comparison,  is  that  in  Cynddelw's  elegy  Owein  Gwynedd 
is  named : 

Am  Oìoein  Gwyne^  yd  gwynant. — Myv.  151b. 

Owein  Gwynedd's  "  lordship  "  doubtless  "  extends  f rom 
Penmon  ",  and  he  is  "  shepherd  of  Môn  ",  but  where  is 
Urien  called  "  lord  of  Penmon  "  or  "  shepherd  of  Môn  "  ? 
Owein  Gwynedd  is  not  "  war-lord  of  Argoed  Llwyvein  ", 
but  is  compared  to  Owein  ap  Urien  {yngiuryd  Owein  '  with 
the  valour  of  Owein'),  whose  spirited  reply  to  the  foe  is 


Talíesin.  85 

given  in  Taliesin's  poem  on  Argoed  Llwyvein,  to  which 
Cynddelw  clearly  alludes.  Urien  is  not  called  a  "  dragon 
of  Coeling"  or  a  "blessed  dragon  of  the  West " :  he 
is  JJdà  yr  EcJmydd,  and  Echwydd  is  not  "West",  but 
"  Cataract ".  As  to  "  the  terror  of  Bernicia ",  if  taken 
literally,  it  would  rather  prove  that  the  twelfth  century 
poet  wrote  in  tlie  sixth  ;  but  we  know  that  Deifr  and 
Bryneich  were  used  by  the  bards  down  to  the  fourteenth 
century  and  even  later,  e.g.,  Lewis  Glyn  Cothi,  p.  155. 
The  fancied  resemblances,  then,  amount  to  this :  that 
Cynddelw  calls  Owein  Gwynedd  one  thing,and  Taliesin  calls 
Ui'ien  another  thing,  and  that  Cynddelw  compares  Owein 
Gwynedd  to  Taliesin's  hero  Owein  ap  Urien.  That  is  the 
whole  of  the  proof  so  far  as  it  is  not  directly  founded  on 
the  geographical  theory.  The  next  point  is  that  "  Owein 
was  the  generalissimo  of  all  Wales,  and  Urien  was  '  lord 
of  Prydein',  61*2o ".  The  argument  here  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  Prydein  is  Wales  ;  this  assumption  has 
been  refuted  above,  and  the  argument  disallowed.  The 
next  is  similar : 

Kynbel  tells  us  that  he  was  "  the  prime  hero  as  far  as 
Chester ;  that  his  sovereignty  spread  as  far  as  the  March  of  the 
Angles — as  far  as  Aeron." 

This  is  the  passage  of  which  a  different  rendering  is 
quoted  above,  p.  75.  Here  East  Anglia  and  Anglia 
become  "  the  March  of  the  Angles  "  ;  for  another  purpose, 
as  quoted  above,  they  were  Tegeingl,  between  which  and 
Chester  Aeron  was  so  neatly  placed.     Lastly  : 

TaHesin's  Ui-ien  prevailed  at  Rhuhlaii  ;  in  the  Aeron  country  ; 
in  Gogleh  ;  at  Arhunwen,  i.e.,  in  that  towuship  of  Mold  in  which 
Montalt  is  situated  ;  and  at  y  Rhodwy^). 

On  tìiis  then  depends  the  proof  that  Taliesin's  Urien  is 
Owein  Gwynedd.  We  have  ah-eady  disposed  of  Gogledd 
and  Aeron  as  begging  the  question.     RhodwyS  occurs  in 


86       ■  Taliesin. 

the  text  as  a  common  noun,  62'2,  and  the  reference  is  not 
indexecl.  There  is  no  ArSunwen^  in  the  text,  but  Arddunyon 
occurs,  30'9,  also  not  indexed ;  there  was  a  battle  at 
Arddunyon,  but  who  fought  or  who  fell  is  not  stated. 
There  reraains  the  stateinent  that  "  Taliesin's  Urien  pre- 
yailed  at  Rhuòlan  ".  This  looks  like  a  pure  inyention, 
and  one  wonders  how  tlie  editor  came  to  make  such  a 
statement.  I  turn  up  litfMan  in  the  index,  and  find  the 
references  "  xvi,  n.  35"7".  The  referenee  "  xvi  "  is  to 
tliis  verj  statement ;  the  other  is  to  this  note  :  "  35' 7  teir 
caer  =  ?  Conwy,  Deganwy,  and  Rhublan".  The  ex- 
pression  teir  caer  occurs  in  a  cryptic  poem,  in  whicb 
Arthur  is  mentioned  but  Urien  is  not.  It  is  seen  then 
that  on  the  assumption,  which  the  editor  himself  queries, 
that  E.hublan  may  be  one  of  "three  forts  "  alluded  to  in 
an  obscure  poem  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  Urien,  he 
bases  the  categorical  statement  that  "  Taliesin's  Urien 
prevailed  at  Rhublan  ". 

Such  are  the  grounds  on  which  the  editor  confidently 
asserts  that  Taliesin's  Urien  is  Owein  Gwynedd.  But  the 
equation  lands  him  in  many  difficulties,  of  whicli  he  makes 
no  mention  in  his  Introduction.  Glytv  Reget  '  prince  of 
Rheged ',  57*7,  is  "  corrected "  to  glyw  rygas  'behated 
prince ',  p.  109,  II,  p.  158;  but  this  prince  is  Urien,  so 
Urien  here  must  be  0.  ap  Kadwgan,  and  "  TJrien,  57*8,  is 
used  for  Owein  because  of  cynghaneb ".  By  cynghaneô 
here  he  means  rhyme  ;  similarly  in  42-7  Urien  is  "  Owein 
(K.)  to  rhyme  with  Dygen  ",  p.  100;  so  if  the  easy 
demands  of  the  rhyme  require  it,  Urien,  the  special 
eponym  of  Owein  Gwynedd,  may  be  used  for  Owein  ap 
Kadwgan  or  Owein  K(yveiliog)  at  will !      Again  Taliesin's 

^  Pfofessor  Lloyd  says  that  the  nanie  is  propei'ly  Arddynicent,  and 
that  Montalt  is  not  situated  in  this  township  though  the  township  is 
in  t\ie  parish  of  Mold. 


Taliesin.  87 

TJrien  is  U^w  Eatraeth,  'prince  of  Catraeth  ',  62-22,  which 

is   harclly  appropriate  to  Owein   Gwynedd  ;    this  is  "  cor- 

rected  "  to  "  lly  w  can  draeth  ",  and  explained  as  Henry  II, 

'along  the  shore  ' !  p.  112,  II,  p.  114.     Again,  Taliesin's 

Urien,  and  the  Urien  of  history,  had  a  son,  the  famous 

Owein  ap  Urien,  whose  elegy  appears  in  the  text.     Now 

Owein  Gwynedd  cannot  be  the  son  of  Urien  if  he  is  Urien, 

for  even  Dr.  Evans  understands  that  a  man  cannot  be  his 

own  son  ;  and  Owein  Gwynedd  had  no  son  of  the  name  of 

Owein.     Therefore  the  very  name  Owein  ap  Urien  shatters 

the  theory — unless  it  can  be  got  rid  of.     Let  us  see  how 

the  editor  attempts  to  explain  it  away.     Tlie  elegy  opens 

thus : 

Eneit  Oweiii  ap  Vryen 

Gobwyllit  y  ren  oe  reit. 

Each  line  contains  seven  syllables,  and  the  last  word  in 
the  first  (üryen)  rhymes  with  a  word  in  the  middle  of  the 
second  (ren)  ;  all  the    couplets    end  in  -eit.     Dr.  Evans's 

notes  are  as  follows  : 

67"  18  ap  Urien  does  not  occur  elsewhere  in  Tal.  The  ap  is 
unintelligible  here.  Urien  might  be  a  gloss  on  Owein.  Cyng- 
haneb  ancl  metre  make  both  impossible. 

67'18  ren  antcpn.  of  r^id.  Read  :  ner=bp.  of  Bangor  .  .  .  . 
Ren,  i.e.  rëen  is  a  dissyllable  always. 

The  ap  is  perfectly  intelligible,  and  is  stated  to  be  "  un- 
intelligible "  only  because  it  is  inconsistent  with  his 
theory.  For  tlie  statement  that  "  cynghanec)  and  metre 
make  botli  [Owein  and  Urien]  impossible "  there  is  no 
justification  whatever.  Ren  is  stated  to  be  a  scribal 
error  in  which  the  re  of  reid  is  anticipated,  so  the  editor 
changes  it  to  ner,  destroying  what  cynghanedd  there  is  in 
the  line,  (the  alliteration  of  ren  and  reií),  as  in  dozens  of 
other  cases  in  his  absurd  list  of  scribal  errors.  Turning 
to  II,  p.  124,  we  find  that  he  gives  the  couplet  thus  : 

Eneid  Owein,  rhywyssid, 

Gobwyllid  y  ner  o'i  raid, 


88  Taliesin. 

and  renders  it — 

The  Soul  of  Owein  has  hcien  siimmoned, 

&  his  (spiritual)  lord  has  come  to  his  rescue. 

Instead  of  af  Uryen  he  puts  in  his  own  "  rhywyssid  "  to 
rhjme  with  Gohwyllid;  and  pretends  in  his  note  that 
cjng'hanedd  and  metre  demand  this  garbling,  when 
nothing  but  his  theory  demands  it.  Now  let  us  see  what 
the  metre  does  demand.  He  is  right  in  saying  that  ren 
is  a  dissyllable  reeìi ;  therefore  the  second  line  is  too 
long.  But  it  is  obvious  tliat  reen  here  denotes  the  Deity, 
and  in  that  sense  it  is  never  preceded  by  the  article  y, 
and  such  a  proclitic  as  y  '  his '  is  unusual.  The  only 
emendation  required  therefore  is  the  omission  of  this  y. 
The  lines  will  then  read — 


that  is — 


Eneit  Owein  ap  Uryen, 
Gobwyllit  Reen  oe  reit, 

The  soul  of  Owein  ap  Uryen, 

May  the  Lord  have  regard  to  its  need. 


This  very  simple,  almost  beautiful,  couplet  has  to  be 
mutihited  and  turned  into  bathos  in  the  interests  of  a  mad 
theory.  But  the  theory  alone  does  not  aecount  for  the 
vandalism  ;  there  is  incompetence  and  blindness  as  well. 
Dr.  Gwenogvr3'n  Evans  has  the  haziest  ideas  of  tenses,  of 
the  uses  of  words.  He  renders  gobivyllit  as  a  perfect :  the 
third  singuhir  active  termination  -it  (or  -id)  can  only 
be  either  present  indicative,  or  present  imperative ;  the 
latter  is  a  survival  of  the  old  optative,  and  is  the  part 
generally  found  before  Dmv  or  Rìiên,  as  in  gwrthlehit  Duw 
lìoh  drwc  '  may  God  ward  off  all  evil ',  Llyfr  yr  Ancr,  p.  26. 
Of  the  meaning-  of  reit,  modern  rhaid,  '  need ',  in  this 
connexion  he  has  not  a  glimmer,  though  it  and  angen  are 
frequently  tlius  used,  as  in  the  Red  Book,  gwares  Duw  dy 
anghen  '  may  God  relieve  thy  need ',  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.    220, 


( 


Talicsin.  89 

and  as  late  as  the  sixteeuth  century  Gras  Duiv  i'n  rhaid 
'  the  grace  of  God  (provide)  for  our  need  !  '  Gorchestion, 
1773,  p.  296.  For  his  mistranslation  he  has  no  excuse 
but  his  own  blindness,  for  Robert  Williams  renders  the 
line  correctlj,  except  that  he  includes  ij  '  its  '  before  Ren  : 
"MayitsLord  consider  its  need".  Another  example  of 
the  same  denseness  isseen  in  our  editor's  rendering  of  the 
last  line  of  this  poem.     The  line  is 

Ny  rannet  rac  y  eneit. 

The  inital  n  is  a  Hiberno-Saxon  r  misread  as  n ;  reading 
the  positive  ry  instead  of  the  negative  ny,  the  line  means 
'it  [his  weallh]  was  given  away  for  his  soul'.  The  editor 
never  sees  any  error  of  reading  from  the  IIiberno-Saxon 
script,  because  it  upsets  his  theory ;  but  he  sees  that  the 
phrase  is  positive,  and  emends  ny  to  in  '  to  us  ',  which  is 
a  jarring  false  note.  He  gives  the  rest  of  the  line  as 
"  rhagor  i  Eneid  "  (w^iich  makes  it  too  long),  and  renders 
this  "  his  soul  goes  marching  on  "  !  As  "  rhagor  i  Eneid  " 
is  an  idiom  of  his  own  invention,  he  can  of  course  make  it 
mean  anything  he  likes.  But  why  make  any  change  at 
all?  Clearly  because  he  is  ignorant  of  the  common  ex- 
pression  rhag  i  enaid  '  for  his  soul ',  although  it  occurs, 
for  example,  in  the  Black  Book  84-4-5,  ha  heth  oreu  rac 
eneid  '  what  is  best  for  the  soul  ? '  and  in  the  most 
farailiar  of  Dafydd  ap  Gwilym's  "  poems  of  the  fancy  "  : 

A'r  gog  rhag  feyiaid  a  gân  .  .  . 
Paderau  ac  oriau  .  .  . 

'  And  the  cuckoo  for  my  soid  shall  sing  paternosters  and 
hours,'  1789  ed.,  p.  60.  Dr.  Evans  has  often  transcribed, 
but  never  grasped,  the  idiom,  and  so,  wLile  he  flatters 
himself  that  he  knows  "  the  dainty  tread  of  the  Chief  of 
Bards"  p.  xxix,  he  recognises  it  as  the  tramp  of  "  John 
Brown's  Body  ".     To  returu  to   liis    diflìculties,   there    is 


90  Taliesin. 

rather  a  formidable  one  in  the  eleventh  line  of  this  elegy, 

which  reads — 

Pan  laòawh  Owein  Fflambwyn. 

It  means,  '  When  Owein  tilled  the  Flamebearer '.  Now 
Owein  Gwynedd  did  not  kill  Henrj  II.  How  is  the  theory 
to  be  saved  in  the  face  of  this  ?  By  misti-anslating  the 
line  thus  :  "  When  Owein  pressed  the  Flame-bearer 
hard  "  !  It  will  not  do.  Lladd  does  not  mean  '  to  press 
hard';  in  other  combinations  it  may  mean  '  to  cut',  or 
'  to  strike  ' ;  but  Uadd  dyn  means  '  to  kill  a  man  ',  and  no 
quibblino-  can  make  it  mean  anything-  else.  No  one  has 
ever  dreamt  that  Na  ladd  means  '  thou  shalt  not  press 
hard ',  or  imagined  the  ghost  of  an  ambiguity  in  this  very 
form  lladdodd  in  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel,  Gen.  iv,  8  ; 
and  what  is  true  in  this  respect  of  the  Welsh  Bible  is  true 
of  Welsh  literature  generally. 

It  is  certainly  a  little  unsatisfactory  that  Owein 
Gwynedd's  eponym  should  be  used  of  others ;  to  add  to 
the  confusion,  Owein  Gwynedd  has  other  eponyms.  The 
first  of  these  is  Cunedda.  The  editor  has  fouiid  it  rather 
difficult  to  discover  reasons  for  the  appropriateness  of  this 
eponym.  He  tell  us  that  Cunedda  "  is  said  to  have  been 
the  first  to  bestow  land  on  a  church",  p.  xxiv.  By  whom, 
or  where,  it  "  is  said "  we  are  not  told.  Baring-Gould 
and  Fisher  know  nothing  of  it;  they  give  "  S.  Cunedda" 
a  place  "  among  the  Welsh  Saints  more  as  the  ancestor  of 
one  of  the  three  great  lines  of  Saints  than  for  any  other 
claim  he  may  have  had  ",  Lives  of  British  Saints,  ii,  p.  191. 
Dr.  Evans  goes  on  to  say  that  Cunedda  "  became  thus  the 
eponymus  of  such  as  did  likewise  ".  We  have  only  his 
unsupported  statement  that  Cunedda  "  is  said  "  to  have 
done  it,  and  the  proof  that  Owein  Gwynedd  "  did  like- 
wise  "  is  the  fact  that  he  was  buried  at  Bangor : 

Tradition   assigns   to   his   [Cunedda's]  alleged   descendant, 


Taliesin.  91 

Maelgwn,  the  credit  of  being  the  first  benefactor  of  Bangor 
Cathedral,  which,  after  it  was  burnt  down  in  1102,  stiU  found 
friends  in  the  house  of  Gwynec).  Witness  the  honour  of  burial 
near  the  altar  given  to  the  remains  of  Griffyb  ap  Kynan,  and  to 
those  of  üwein  Gwyneb. 

As  a  proof  of  the  theory  that  Cunedda  means  Owein 
Gwynedd,  this  reasoning  may  be  allowed  to  speak  for 
itself.  It  is  followed  by  an  aceount,  summarised  from 
Professor  Lloyd's  history,  of  Owein  Gwynedd's  ecclesias- 
tical  troubles,  which  the  editor  shows  to  be  referred  to  in 
69-70  by  quoting-  his  own  translation  of  the  text  as 
"  amended  "  by  himself.  In  the  emendations  the  theory 
is  of  course  assumed,  so  that  we  have  here  only  another 
example  of  the  editor's  persistent  habit  of  proving  a  thing 
by  assuming  it  in  his  premises.  After  this  circular  argu- 
ment  there  is  a  digression  intended  to  throw  discredit  on 
the  Welsh  genealogies  in  Harl.  3859  : 

But  "Cuneòa"  is  an  impossible  derivative  of  Cuno-dag,  * 
which  would  give  Cynba  in  twelfth  century  Welsh.  The  very 
form  "  Cuneha  "'  shows  that  the  compiler  of  the  Harleian  pedi- 
grees  was  combining  material  of  various  dates  and  origin. 

^  I  do  not  question  Cuno-dag  being  an  ancient  form  piched 
up  somewhere.  But  its  transf  oi'mation  into  "  Cunedda  "  proves 
that  the  compiler  was  a  late,  i.e.,  twelfth  century  fabricator. 

The  form  in  the  Welsh  genealogies  is  Cíineda,  see 
r  Cymmrodor  ix,  pp.  170,  172,  178  bis,  181,  182  ;  and  this 
is  a  quite  possible  form  for  the  end  of  the  tenth  century, 
when  these  pedigrees  were  compiled.  In  the  "  Saxon 
Genealogies  "  we  find  the  older  fbrm  Cu7iedag,  see  the 
frontispiece  to  this  volume,  1.  14;  this  is  the  form  that 
would  be  written  at  the  time  of  tlie  final  redaction  of  the 
tract  about  the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  or  even  at  the 
time  when  it  was  first  written,  a  century  earlier.  "  Cuno- 
dag "  does  not  occur  at  all !  It  is  a  hypothetical  or 
imaginary  form  "  picked  up  somewhere "  by  Dr.  Evan8 
himself .     The  statement  that  the  fad  (Ciineèa)  is  "  im- 


92  Taliesin. 

possible  "  because  it  does  not  accord  with  the  swpfosition 

(Gtino-dag)    is    characteristic ;     and   the  'suggestion    that 

Cune-  is  twelfth  century  betrays  the  editor's  ignorance  of 

the  fact  that  the  stein-vowel  often   appears  as  -e-  in  the 

sixth  centurj,  as  in  Gildas'  Ctine-glase.^ 

A  third  eponym  of  Owein  Gwynedd  is  Maelgwn  : 

Maelgwn,  likewise,  is  the  eponym  of  Owein  Gwjmeb,  whose 
son  Rhun  is  said,  in  the  Chirk  Codex,  to  be  the  son  of  Maelgwn 
,  .  .  the  first  Gwledig  of  Gwyneò  (pp.  xxv-xxvi). 

This  is  the  "  further  testimony  "  of  the  Chirlc  Codex  over 
again.  There  is  not  a  syllable  of  truth  in  the  statement 
that  Owein  Gwynedd's  "  son  Rhun  is  said,  in  the  Chirk 
Codex,  to  be  the  son  of  Maelgwn".  Rhun  ab  Owein 
Gwynedd  is  not  mentioned  at  all  in  the  manuscript ; 
nothing  "  is  said "  about  him.  Rhun  vab  Maelcun  is 
mentioned,  and  the  context  and  the  whole  purpose  pf  the 
memorandum,  which  is  to  account  for  ancient  privileges, 
show  that  Rhun  vab  Maelgwn  is  meant.  Dr.  Evans  is 
not,  of    course,  consciously  uttering    a   falsehood ;    he  is 

1  The  tiist  element  in  Cime-dda  is  not  the  usual  British  Cuno-  or 
Cune-,  which  gives  Old  Welsh  Cin-,  Medieval  and  Modern  Cyn-,  as 
in  Cin-glas,  (  Y  Cymmrodor  ix,  p.  172),  now  Cyn-las,  but  the  equivalent 
of  cun  '  lord  ',  which  would  be  '^houno-  in  British  (perhaps  Caune  is 
the  fem.,  genitive).  The  British  form  then  would  be  *kouno-dagos. 
The  stem-vowel  of  the  first  element  of  a  compound  is  usually  lost, 
so  that  one  would  expect  Cun-Sa ;  but  it  may  be  retained,  as 
shown  by  Dino-yat,  which  exists  as  well  as  Din-yat.  The  vowel  in 
the  inscriptions  often  appears  as  e  or  i,  see  my  Gram.,  p.  190, 
possibly  representing  the  obscure  vowel  e,  written  y  in  Welsh.  But 
the  obscure  vowel  tended  to  become  e,  so  that  we  have,  for  example, 
re-medau{t)  in  Old  AYelsh  (Juvencus)  for  rhy-fcddaicd  from  original 
*{p)ro-med-.  In  Ogam  the  stem-vowel  appears  as  a,  which  is  the 
Irish  modiíication  ;  it  appears  as  a  in  Welsh  in  Dinacat ,  s.not\\fìv  form 
of  Dinyat.  It  is  a  regularly  before  u\  as  in  Tudawal,  Dyfnawal, 
beside  Tudiual,  Dyfnual.  The  o  of  Dino-gat,  the  e  of  Cune-Sa, 
and  the  a  of  Dina-cat  probably  mean  that  the  forms  became  stereo- 
typed  at  difterent  times.  The  last  element  *dayos  in  the  original 
f orm  of   Cune^a  is  the  adjective  which  is  now  da  '  good '. 


Talíesin.  93 

simply,  as  usual,  mistalcinw  his  assumptious  for  facts.     He 

thinhs  that  Ehun  vab  Maelgwn  in  the  Codex  means  Rhun 

vab  Owein  Gwynedd,  and  proceeds  to  state  this  as  a  fact. 

He  probably  intended  to  say  that  Ehun  ab  Owein  is  called 

ìn  the  Codex  the  son  of  Maelgwn  ;  but  "ts  said,  ìn  the 

Chirk  Codex,  to  he  the  son  of  Maelgwn  ",  is  more  effective, 

and  gives  the  impression  that  the  Codex  itself  says  so. 

Undoubtedly  the  editor  deceives  himself  by  these  verbal 

tricks,  as  much  as  he  deceives  his  confiding  readers.     The 

underlying  assumption  in  this  statement  is  that  Maelgwn 

in   the  memoranduni   is  an  eponym  of  Owein  Gwynedd ; 

this  explains,  though  it  does  not  excuse,  the  "Rhun  .  .  ." 

of  p.  xvii,  see  above  p.  49.     It  is  only  necessary  to  note 

further  the  confusion  of  thought  which,  from  assuming 

the  use  of  eponyms  for  special  reasons  by  Taliesin,  pro- 

ceeds  to  extend  the  assumption  to  a  prose  record  to  which 

no  such  reasons  apply. 

Brochfael   Ysgythrog   was   Prince   of    Powys   in   the 

middle  of  the  sixth   century,  and  was   succeeded  by  his 

son  Cynan  Garwyn.     The  poet  says  that  he  sang  before 

Brochvael  Powys,  33' 7;    and  a  poem   to  his  son,  Cynan 

Garwyn,  appears  on  p.  45.     Dr.  Evans  notes  these  refer- 

ences  to  Brochfael  and  Cynan,  and  comments  thus  : 

If  we  credit  the  Chronicles,  Brochvael  died  in  662 ;  while  his 
son,  Cynan  Garwyn,  was  living  in  870,  i.e.,  208  years  later."^  Add 
to  this  the  account  of  Taliesin  being  "renowned'"  around  550. 
History  of  this  sort  reduces  one  to  a  melancholy,  thoughtful 
silence — not  with  regard  to  Taliesin,  but  in  respect  of  his  com- 
mentators  (p.  xxv).  *  Lloyd,  250. 

One  need  waste  no  time  in  discussing  the  rhetoric  of  the 
last  sentence ;  but  the  libel  on  the  writers  of  Welsli 
history  which  is  insinuated  in  the  whole  quotation  is  not 
to  be  tolerated,  and  its  misrepresentations  must  be  exposed. 
In  the  Annales  Cambrise,  a  certain  "  Brocmail  "  is  said  to 
have  died  in  G62 ;    so  far  from  talcing   this  to  refer  to 


94  Taliesin. 

Brochvael  Ysgythrog,    Mr.    Phillimore,   in   the   stanclard 

edition  of  the  text,  expressly  says  in  a  note  that  "  Broch- 

wel  Ysgjthrog  .  .  .  cannot  possibly  be  meant  if  the  date 

662  is  right",  Y  Cymmrodor  ix,  p.  158.     ISTe^t,  Professor 

Lloyd  is  accused  of  stating  in  his  Hütory  of  Wales,  p.  250, 

that    "Cynan    Garwj^n    was    living   in    870".     Professor 

Lloyd  of  course  says  nothing  of  the  hind  ;    what  he  says 

is    that    tlie    dynasty  of    Meirionydd    was    "represented 

about  870  by  a   certain   Cynan    ap    Brochwel " ;    and    he 

refers  in  a  footnote  to  "Pedigree  xviii  in  Harl.  MS.  3859 

[Gymmroclor  ix,  178)",  which  shows  that  this  Cynan  was 

the    son    of   "  Brochmail   map    lutnimet ",    while   Cynan 

Garwyn  was  the  son  of  "  Brocmayl  map  Cincen  ",  pedigree 

xxii.     Further,  on  p.  180,  Professor  Lloyd,  speaking  of 

the  "  Brocmail  "  who,  according  to  Bede,  was  responsible 

for  the  protection  of  the  monks  at  the  battle  of  Chester, 

adds  this  footnote : 

"  Brocmail  "  can  hardly  be  Brochwel  Ysgythrog,  ruler  of 
Powys,  for  his  grandson,  Selyf  ap  Cynan,  was  slain  in  this  very 
battle.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  he  is  the  "  Brocmail '"  of  the  year 
662  in  Harl.  MS.  3859  {Cymmrodor  ix,  158).  The  name  was,  in 
fact,  a  very  common  one ;  see  Cymmrodor  ix,  177,  178,  179,  181, 
182,  and  for  the  early  form,  "  Brohomagli  ",  hìscr.  Chr.  No.  158, 
Lap.  W.  202,  W.  PhÜ.  (2)  372. 

Even  if  our  historians  were  guilty  of  the  anachi-onisms 
which  they  are  thus  careful  to  avoid,  what  has  that  to  do 
with  Taliesin's  commentators  ?  The  argument  apparently 
is  this :  thehistorians  do  not  know  the  period  of  Brochfael 
Ysgythrog  and  Cynan  Garwyn,  who  are  assigned  to  the 
seventh  or  ninth  centuries,  and  therefore  could  not  be  the 
contemporaries  of  a  mid-sixth  century  Taliesin  ;  hence 
words  fail  the  editor  to  express  his  contempt  for  the 
"  commentators  "  wlio  regard  a  sixth  century  Taliesin  as 
singing  to  the  real  Brochfael  and  Cynan. 

What  then   is   the  explanation   of   Brochvael   and   Kynan 


/ 


Taliesin.  9  5 

Garwj'n  ?  They  are  respectively  the  eponyms  of  Owein  Keveilo^, 
prince  of  Powys,  and  of  Kynan  ap  Owein  Gwynef).  lord  of 
Meirionyb,  which  was  once  rnled  by  Kynan  Garwyn. 

A  "  Correction  "  on  p.  xlvii  bids  us  "For  Owein  Keveliog 

[sic]  read  Owein  Gwyneh  "  ;    so  during  the  passage  of  the 

book  through  the  press  Owein  Gwyneò  acquired  a  foiirth 

eponym.     The  purpose  of  the  alleged  "  History  of  this 

sort"  is  now  clear.     If  the  personages  of  the  poems  lived 

in    the   age    when   tradition    says   Taliesin   'flourished,    a 

twelfth  century  hypothesis  is  unnecessary  and  improbable. 

But  if   the  persons  named   lived   at  different  times,  the 

eponym  theory  furnishes  a  possible  "  explanation  ".     Por 

the  editor's  theory,  then,  this  is  a  test  case ;  and  there  is 

one  simple  fact  which  decides  it  against  him.     Selyf,  the 

son  of  Cynan  Garwyn,  fell  in  the  battle  of  Chester,  in  616 

at  the  very  latest ;  his  father  Cynan  and  his  grandfather 

Brochfael    must  therefore,  by  normal  computation,  have 

been  contemporaries  of  the  Taliesin  of  tradition. 

"  Besides    the    eponynious    we    also    have   an   epithetic 

class",  p.  xxvi.     This  class  comprises  Haearbur,  Hyfeib, 

Gwallawc  and  Mabon.     The  first  name  is  changed  by  the 

editor  to  "  Haearneib  "  and  explained  as  a  "man  of  iron". 

"  Hyveib  means  the  intrepid,  courageaux — suggested,  per- 

haps,  by  Courcy  "  !     Someone  seems  to  have  pointed  out 

to  him  that  courageaux  is  a  rather  unusual  spelling,  so  he 

inserts    the    correction,    "  Delete    x    in    '  courageau-x ' ", 

p.    xlvii;     he    evidently    misread    his    friend's    a   as   x\ 

"  Gwallawg  means  missing  or  lost  (at  sea)  ",  and  therefore 

denotes  Henry  íìtz  Henry  !     It  is  scarcely  necessary  to 

remark  that  gwall-  in  personal  names   (e.g.,  Cad-wall-on) 

has  nothing  to  do  with  gwall  '  want,  defect  "  ;    if  it  had, 

^  It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  element  val-  is  allied  to  Latin 
valére,  etc,  Fick-Stokes  p.  Í262 ;  vaU-  is  probably  from  the  same  root, 
thongh  Stokes  derives  it  from  the  root  vel-  'to  wish '  on  acconnt  of 
the  Gaulish  vell-  (in  Cassi-vellaunos,  etc),  ib.  p.  276  ;  tlie  "  fuU-grade  " 
Yowel  is  e  in  either  case,  and  the  assumption  of  two  roots  is 
unnecessary. 


96  Taliesin. 

gwaîlawg  would  be  the  adjective  which  means  'negligent'. 
There  are,  of  course,  gwall-gof  arìà  gwall  syiinwijr,  so  that, 
if  something-  is  to  be  supplied,  '  wanting  (in  sense) '  is 
more  likely  than  '  lost  (at  sea)  ' ;  and  there  are  plenty  of 
people  to  whom  such  an  "  epithet  "  would  apply.  "  Mahon 
is  the  scion  of  a  princely,  or  royal,  line  ",  and  there  are 
two  or  tliree  of  him.  The  method  is  a  very  elastic  one, 
especially  in  Dr.  Evans's  hands  :  he  alters  Haearddur  to 
bring  it  within  his  comprehension  ;  he  translates  Hyveidd 
into  French  which  he  cannot  spell ;  he  mis-translates  a 
false  etymology  of  Gwallawg,  in  order  to  get  rid  of 
Gwallawg  vab  Lleenawg,  the  contemporary  and  kinsman 
of  Urien.  Such  is  the  proof  of  the  theory  of  the 
"  epithetic  class  ". 

In  what  he  calls  "  The  Argument "  in  II,  p.  1,  Dr. 
Evans  writes  :  "The  bard,  or  bards,  after  the  fashion  of 
this  time,  sang  of  contemporaries  under  assumed  names  ". 
The  suggestio  falsi  "  after  the  fashion  of  this  time  "  is 
inserted  in  oi'der  to  make  the  statement  more  convincing. 
Anyone  who  will  run  his  eye  over  the  Contents  of  tlie 
Myvyrian  will  see  at  once  how  false  the  suggestion  is  ;  all 
tlie  bards  of  the  twelfth  century  sing  of  the  princes  under 
their  own  names.  The  nearest  parallel  that  Dr.  Evans 
has  discovered  to  what  he  postulates  of  the  Taliesin  poems 
is  Cynddelw's  elegy  on  Owein  Gwynedd ;  but  in  that,  as 
pointed  out  above,  p.  84,  Owein  is  called  byhis  own  name, 
a  fact  whicli  Dr.  Evans  omits  to  mention.  It  is,  how- 
ever,  a  fact  that  is  vital ;  it  constitutes  a  difference  not  in 
degree,  but  in  character,  between  the  things  compared. 
A  bard  commonly  enough  styles  his  patron  "  Nudd  "  if  he 
is  generous,  "  Artliur  "  if  he  is  valiant,  "  Cei  Hir  "  if  he 
is  tall,  and  so  on  ;  but  it  is  always  a  passing  compliment, 
predicated  of  an  e^jjressed  suhject.  There  are  no  poems 
"To  Nudd,"  "To  Arthur,"  "  To  Cei,"  in  which,  as  in 


Taliesin.  97 

Milton's  '^  Lycidas  "  for  example,  the  pseudonyra  is  itself 
the  suhject  of  the  poeni,  falcing  the  place  of  the  real  name. 
Yet  Dr.  Evans's  assumption  is  that  all  Taliesin's  poems 
are  of  this  nature.  Tlie  puzzle  to  me  is  how  anybody 
could  have  conceived  so  improbable  an  idea.  He  is,  of 
course,  honestly  convinced  of  it.  When  he  implies  that 
the  use  of  '*'  assumed  names  "  was  "  the  fashion  of  this 
time  ",  he  is  not  consciously  equivocating;  he  is  thinlíing 
of  the  use  of  pseudonyms  as  predicates,  which  was  com- 
mon  ;  he  confuses  that  with  their  use  as  suhjects,  which 
was,  to  say  the  very  least,  unusual ;  and  he  adduces  the 
commonness  of  the  íirst  use  in  support  of  his  assumption 
of  the  second.  In  sj^ite  of  this  self-deception  he  is  at 
other  times  conscious  of  tlie  fact  that  the  practice  which 
he  attributes  to  Taliesin  is  exceptional,  for  he  gives  special 
reasons  for  tlie  poet's  resorting  to  it : 

When  times  are  out  of  joint,  nien  aud  places  are  not  spoken 
of  by  their  normal  names.  Mystifìcation  becomes  expedient  in 
order  to  protect  life  and  liherty  ....  Under  sncli  circumstances 
when  the  friendships  of  one  day  were  the  enmities  of  the  next, 
a  border  bard  like  Taliesin  couhl  not,  perhaps,  sing  with  safety 
to  himself  aiid  his  patrons,  except  cryptically  and  pseudonym- 
ously  (p.  xv). 

So    he    did   it  to  save  his  skin.     And  the    curious    thing 

is  that  he  was  never  found  out — until  our  editor  divined 

his  secret!     His  being  "a  border  bard  "  is  rather  a  poor 

excuse  for   the   despicable  cowardice   which    so   signally 

marks  him  off  from  his  fellow  bards.     The  works  of  the 

twelfth   century  poets  present   many  difficulties,  but  tliis 

particular  form  of  intentional  "  mystification  "  is  not  one 

of  them. 

It  will  have  been  noticed  that  in  the  above  quotation 

from  II,  p.  1,  Dr.  Evans  speaks  of  ''  The  bard,  or  hards  ". 

The  reason  is  that  he  believes  that  the  historical  poems 

"  deal  with  events  from  the  death  of  Rhun  in  1147  tothat 

H 


98  Taliesin. 

of  John  in   1216",  p.  xxviii.     They  cannot  therefore  all 

be    by  a  "  Taliesin  "  who  was   horn  about  1105,   and   so 

"  those  referring  to  Eichard  and  John,  as  well  as  their 

Kymric  contemporaries,  are,  in  my  opinion,  by  some  other 

poet  or  poets  ",  p.  xxix.     Only  two  references  to  the  text 

are  g-iyen  in  the  Introduction  in   support  of  the  view  that 

some  of    the   poems   deal    with  Richard  and  John.     The 

fìrst  is  as  foUows  : 

We  hHve  an  echo  of  the  Crusades,  aiid  plaints  about  taxing 
the  monasteries  to  release  King  Richard  fiom  the  Hual  Eurin, 
.or6  (p.  xxviii). 

The  reference  is  to  a  poem  on  Alexander  the  Great,  of 
which  the  beginning  is  lost.  Pages  49-50  of  the  manu- 
script  are  missing.  The  catchword  at  the  end  of  p.  48  is 
Jí.i/neihvat,  which  means  'poet;  supporter'.'  But  to  Dr. 
Evans  it  "  suggests  a  ^alling  together  of  men  for  the 
Crusades  ",  p.  105;  he  mistakes  tlie  -at  for  an  abstract 
noun  ending,  and  takes  the  stem  to  be  galw  '  call '.  He 
finds  in  this  misconception  a  chie  to  the  drift  of  the  lines 
at  the  top  of  p.  51,  two  pages  further  on.  The 
poem     on     that    page    he     therefore     takes     to    be     an 

1  The  termination  -{i)ad,  when  it  afl'ects  a  preceding  vowel,  ahyaj-s 
denotes  the  agent.  It  affects  a  as  in  ceiduad  from  cadw,  or  e  as  in 
neii'thiad,  from  nerth.  The  base  here  is  cynnelw  '  composition,  song ', 
whence  tlie  verb  hynnehcaf  '  I  compose,  sing  ' ;  both  generally 
followed  by  0  '  of  '  as  kynelv  o  douit,  B.B.  18,  '  a  song  of  the  Lord  ' ; 
hynnelw  0  Seiri  (0  misprinted  «)  Myv.  194a  ;  Teithi  cerSorion  cynne/wi  o 
haelon,  ib.  123a,  '  it  is  the  privilege  of  minstrels  to  sing  of  the 
generous';  am  ker^  a'm  hynhelw  ohonaìc,  ITHa,  187a.  The  person  is 
also  introduced  by  gan,  as  Neud  cennyd  cerdd  ylyd  cynnelwaf,  iyOa 
'  Of  Thee  I  will  compose  a  song  of  praise',  cf.  \&2&,  166a.  Cf.  also 
Prydesteu  kymry,  hymrodyal  hynhelic,  188a,  and  hynnelicaf  as  a 
syiìonym.  oi  prydaf 'm  189a  54-5.  Eynheilweit  '  singers',  182b.  The 
verb  has  the  above  meaning  when  it  is  intiansitive,  or  has  cerS,  etc, 
for  its  object;  when  íl  lìerson  is  the  direct  object,  the  verb  means  '  to 
support',  as  by  testimony  m  a  court  of  law,  Anc.  Laws,  i,  p.  156"2. 
Rynheilwat  '  supporter ',  Myv.   183a,  ŵ'jb, 


Taliesin.  99 

Elegy  011    Eichard    T,  except  lines    10-21;    "  tliese  lines, 

which  are  raanifest  interpolations,  deal  with  the  story  of 

Alexander  ",  p.   106.       But  Alexander  occurs  in  1.  6;  the 

editor   suorsrests   that   it   means   there  "PSaladin"!     As 

Mr.    Ifor    Williams    has    pointed    out    T  Beirniad,  191G, 

p.  137,  Dr.  Evans  has  not  seen  that  the  name  of  Darius 

also  occurs  twice  in  the  first  nine  lines  (it  is  wilful  blind- 

ness,  for  Skene's  translator  gives  the  name  in  each  case). 

Thus  : 

Ef  torres  ar  dnr  teir  gweith  yg  kat. 

'  He  defeated  Darius  thrice  '  rendered  literally  in  Skene 
(i,  p.  566) :  "  He  broke  upon  Darius  three  times  in  battle  ". 
In  Irish,  hrissim  cath  for  '  I  break  battle  on  '  is  a  common 
idiom  (Windisch,  Ir.  Texte,  I,  p.  404)  :  and  Mr.  Williams 
has  pointed  out  to  me  that  it  occurs  several  times 
in  the  Irish  story  of  Alexander  printed  in  the 
Irische  Texte,  II,  ii,  as  hris  in  caih  sai  for  Dair,  p.  25, 
literally,  '  broke  that  battle  on  Darius '.  But  Dr.  Evans 
changes  ar  dar  into  ardal,  and  renders  the  sentence 
"  He  burst  our  borders  three  times  in  war "  !  II,  131. 
Further  on,  he  changes  the  name  dar  into  i  dad  "  his 
father  "  !  But  the  whole  poem  is  clearly  about  Alexander 
and  Darius ;  in  line  6  Alexander  overtakes  him  in  his 
flight  from  the  third  battle  (Arbela) ;   thus  : 

gyrth  y  gobiwawò  alexander ; 

yn  hual  eurin  gwae  a  garcharer, 

ny  phell  garcharwyt ;  angeu  dybu 

ac  lle  ef  kafas  ergyr  o  ki. 
*  Swiftly  Alexander  overtook  him  ;  in  golden  fetter  woe  to 
him  who  is  imprisoned,  he  was  not  imprisoned  long;  death  came, 
aud  he  where  {ac  eflle)  he  was  wounded  by  (his  own)  host.' 

It  is  an  unmistakable  allusion  to  tbe  storytold  by  Orosius, 

and  repeated  in  the  middle  ages,  that  Darius  was  bound 

in   golden  fetters   by  his  own  people  (vinctum  compedihus 

liureiSf — in    King  Alfj'ed's    English,    (lehundcn    .    .    .  mid 

n2 


I  oo  Taliesin. 

gyldenre  racentan^),  and  that  Alexander  found  him  all 
alone  dying  of  his  wounds.  And  yet  the  hual  eurin 
'golden  fetter'  is,  according'  to  Dr.  Evans,  King  Eichard's 
piùson,  though  no  authority  for  such  an  interpretation  is 
even  hinted  at.'  As  for  the  "  plaints  about  taxing  the 
monasteries  ",  there  is  not  so  much  as  his  own  translation 
to  vouch  for  their  being  dreamt  of  in  the  poem. 
The  other  reference  is  as  follows : 

We  have  also,  hereand  there,  detailsnotfound  in  the  Briits. 
For  instance : 

John  disarmed  the  Promontory  at  the  Gate  of  Godobin  : 
And,  at  the  great  Ubbanford,  the  shank-plaided  King ; 
I  leave  the  Scot  to  his  fears.     424. 
This  refers  to  John's  northern  expedition  in  1209  when  he  took 
Berwick  Castle,  built  on  a  promontory,  etc. 

The  italics  are  the  editor's  own,  and  denote  that  the 
words  so  printed  are  supplied  by  himself.  There  is  no 
John  in  the  text- — the  verb  is  in  the  first  person  singular 
'  I  disarmed  ' ;    and   there  is  nothing  about  a   "  promon- 

1  See  both  the  Old  English  translation  and  the  original  in  Kvìff 
Alfreds  Orosius,  E.E.T.S.,  no.  79,  pp.  128,  129.  In  the  Irish  story, 
abovö  referred  to,  the  expression  is  i  cüimrigib  ordnige  '  in  honourable 
fetters ',  where  ordnige  is  an  obvious  error  for  ördigih  '  golden '. 

2  In  dealing  with  the  linés  which  he  himself  recognises  as  being 
concerned  with  Alexander,  the  editor  shows  little  more  understand- 
ing  of  the  text.  Mr.  If or  Williams  notes  the  following  three  egregious 
blunders  in  lines  18-21  : — (1)  bron  loscedigion  '  breast-burnt '  refers  to 
the  Amazons,  who  ai;e  called  cìchloiscthi  '  breast-burnt '  in  the  Irish 
tale  also,  p.  50 ;  cf .  aTráo-aç  S'  €TrLKeKav(rôaL  ròi'  ôe^iciv  jxa(Trov,  Strabo, 
xi.  504.  Dr.  Evans  changes  the  text  to  bron-loscent  "  whose  breasts 
burnt  (with  constant  humiliation)."— (2)  Ogadeu  afor,  i.e.  o  gadeu  â 
Phor  '  of  battles  with  Porus'  is  emended  by  Dr.  Evans  to  a  godei  afar 
and  rendered  "  which  gave  rise  to  fresh  sorrow".— (3)  miluyr  magei- 
dawn  'the  soldiers  of  Macedon'  is  turned  into  mihcyr  ragent  ^awn, 
and  rendered  "the  soldiers  received  a  boon"-  How  magu  can  mean 
'  to  receive  '  no  note  explains.  Ale.rander  magidawr  '  Alexander  of 
Macedon '  occurs  on  the  next  page,  with  the  common  mistake  of  r 
for  n ;  but  this  suggests  nothing  to  the  editor  but  "  ?  mygròawn "', 
p.  106, 


Taliesin.  i  O  i 

tory  "  or  "  Ubbanford  "  or  a  "King",  or  about  leaving 
anyone  to  his  fears.  In  II,  p.  193,  the  ''  John"  is  "Fe", 
with  "  John  "  as  antecedent  rendering  Ynyr  in  a  previous 
line.  Ynyr,  then,  is  an  "eponym  "  of  John.  These  later 
poets,  it  seems,  imitated  "  Taliesin "  in  the  use  of 
eponyms  ;  were  they  also  "  border  poets  "  afraid  to  name 
even  Eno-lish  lcinofs  ?  There  are  severa]  more  of  their 
eponyms  in  the  notes.  "  The  Teyrnon  of  34-15 — 26  is, 
clearly,  Richard  I,  who  figures  as  Arthur  in  54-1 5  to  56. 
Richard  was  a  poet,"  etc,  p.  94.  Corroi  m.  Dayry,  the 
Irish  Cüröi  mac  Dairi  of  the  Cüchulinn  legend,  is  John, 
p.  115  ;  and  "  Mab  Dairi  =  mab  íTarri,  i.e.,  John,"  p.  1 16. 
I  find  from  the  Index  that  John  also' "  =  Caw  72*11; 
=  Ercw(lff)  65-26,  66-2-6;  =  Erov  65-24."  Cocholyn, 
that  is  Cûchulinn,  is  Llywelyn  ap  lorwerth,  p.  115.  I  do 
not  propose  to  tax  the  reader's  patience  (or  my  own)  with 
a  detailed  examination  of  these  absurdities. 

The  reconstruction  of  Taliesin's  biography  is  perhaps 
as  remarkable  as  anything  in  the  book.  "  I  quit  the 
question  of  authorship  ",  we  read,  p.  xxix,  "  to  summon 
the  poet  to  tell  his  own  story  ".  Tliis  theatrical  utter- 
ance  represents  the  editor's  attempt  to  express  vividly, 
and  thus  to  communicate  to  his  readers,  the  illusion  under 
wliich  he  himself  labours, — the  illusion,  namely,  that 
when  he  is  quoting  his  own  translation  of  his  own  sophis- 
ticated  text,  it  is  Taliesin  that  speaks. 

The  first  item  connects  hiin  with  a  border  settlement. 

I  played  at  Llychwr — I  slept  at  Pnlford,  i'6-8. 

Pnlford  is  situated  five  miles  south  of  Chester  on  the  road 
to  Wrexham.  To  the  North  of  Pulford  js  thetownship  of  Lache. 
The  Enghsh  Dialect  Dictionary  defines  Lache  as  "  a  pond,  a 
pool,  a  swamp,"  etc.  This  too  is  the  meaning  of  the  "Welsh 
Llychwr.  Now  every  chihl's  "  sleeping  place  "  is  liis  lionie,  and 
his  "playground"  is  usuaüy  near,  as  Lache,  or  Llychwr,  is  to 
Pulford  (p.  xxx). 


102  Taliesín. 

In  the  "  Corrections ",  p.  xlvii,  this   is   to    be   amended 

thus — 

The  rhyme  suggests  Llychfforb  for  Llychwr,  and  topography 
confirms  it,  for  the  English  of  the  emendation  is  Lache  Lane. 
Lache  means  "a  pool,  ditch,  deep  cart-rut'",  etc.  Now  what 
playground  can  be  imagined  more  delightful  to  a  boy  than  a  lane 
abounding  in  ruts  fìlled  with  water  "r     The  lane  runs,  etc. 

There  are  boys  and  boys,  no  doubt;  speaking  for  niyself, 
puddles  awaken  no  joy£ul  memories  in  me.  But  all  this 
about  Taliesin's  being  born  at  Pulford  and  delighting  in 
puddles  is  derived  from  a  hopeless  misunderstanding'  of 
the  following  short  couplet : 

Gwaryeis  yn  llychwr,  I  played  in  the  daytime, 

Kysceis  ym  porffor,  26-8.        I  slept  in  purple. 

The  name  of  Pulford  is  written  Porford  in  Breuddwyd 
Rhonabwy,  E.  B.  Mab.,  p.  144 ;  and  as  the  place  is  near 
Chester,  it  was  perhaps  inevitab]e  that  Dr.  Evans  should 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  porffor  in  the  couplet  was  a 
mistake  for  Porforh.  At  first  he  was  satisfied  with 
Llychwr—the  rhyme  did  not  matter  ;  but  then  it  occurred 
to  him  that  if  this  were  changed  into  Lhjchfforö  it  would 
correspond  better  to  Lache  Lane,  and  then  the  rhyme  did 
matter.  And  now  observe  "  the  '  Art  of  Lubrication ',  or, 
so  to  sp6ak,  '  greasing  '  the  descent  from  the  Premises  to 
the  Conclusion  "•.'  Taliesin  slept  at  Pulford— that  is 
absolutely  all  the  text  says  on  that  point,  even  if  we 
admit  that  'porffor  is  Pulford  ;  it  is  quoted  as  if  it  meant 
that  he  slept  there  regularly  ;  thus  we  are  led  smoothly  to 
the  first  conclusion,  that  Pulford  was  the  bard's  home 
(when  young,  for  he  played) ;  this  again  is  almost  imper- 
ceptibly  stretched  so  as  to  mean  his  original  home,  and 
"the  Pulford  origin  of  Tal."  is  spoken  of  as  proved, 
p.  102.     Thus  by  suffixing  a  mere  -(/,  and  adding  a  Httle 

'  Edwin  A.  Abbot,  Philomythus,  1891,  p.  213. 


Talicsin.  103 

meaning  at  eacli  step,  the  editor  believes  tliat  from  words 
which  uiean  '  I  slept  in  purple  '  he  has  legitimately  drawn 
the  eonclusion  that  Taliesin  was  a  native  of  Pulford.  It 
is  not  cunning,  but  niere  inability  to  handle  words  with 
accuracy;  a  plain  examp]e  of  this  is  seen  in  note  44'2, 
p.  102,  wbich  spealís  of  "  Tal.  being  formerly  a  native  of 
the  district  "  :  the  italics  are  his  own,  and  show  that  he 
wrote  "  native "  without  the  least  thought  of  what  it 
means.  Now  let  us  exannne  tlie  couj)let  and  its  context. 
The  rhyme  is  -or,  which  is  continued  in  tlie  next  couplet, 
as  is  often  done  in  these  poems.  The  -wr  of  llychwr  is  a 
lialf-rhyme,  which  is  called  proest  by  Welsh  prosodists, 
and  frequently  takes  the  place  of  exact  rhyme  in  the 
oldest  poetry.  There  is  therefore  every  reason  to  suppose 
that  both  llyclíwr  and  porffor  are  correct  readings.  The 
meaning  of  Uychwr  may  be  gathered  from  its  compound 
cyf-lychwr,  which,  like  cyf-nos  and  cyf-ddycìd,  means 
'  twilight ' ;  llycJiwr  tlien  must  mean  either  'night'  or 
'  day  ',  '  darlcness  '  or  '  light ',  and  as  it  may  be  derived 
from  the  fertile  root  which  gives  the  Latin  lux,  we  cannot 
be  far  wi'ong  in  inferring  that  it  means  'daylight'.^ 
Again,  gwaryeis  does  not  necessarily  refer  to  the  period 
of  youth  at  all,  as  is  proved  by  tlie  phrase  pan  aeth  pawh 
allan  y  chware  '  when  everybody  went  out  to  play  ',  R.  B. 
Mab.,  p.  llfi,  or  rather  '  to  disport ',  for  it  is  not  said  of 
little  children.  The  meaning  of  our  couplet,  then,  is  that 
the  bard  at  the  time  spoken  of  led  a  royal  life  ;  he  amused 
himself  during  the  day,  and  at  night  slejìt  in  purple.  It 
occurs  in  "  Cad  Gobeu  ",  one  ot'  the  so-called  transforma- 
tion  poems,  which  are  the  last  in  whicli  most  people  wouhl 

^  The  prefix  *kom-  (cügiiate  witli  L:itin  com-)  is  regularly  cyf- 
before  n-  and  /-,  as  in  ct/f-nos  and  ci/f-/t/c/iirr:  but  ci/f-ddydil  nuist  lie 
due  to  false  analogy  (for  *kom-il-  beconies  *kon-(ì-.  and  ultiniately 
cyn-n-),  and  is  therefore  necessarily  a  late  furuiation.  It  seenis  to  be 
a  forra  that  sprang  iip  to  take  the  place  of  cyf-lychur. 


104  Tahesin. 

thinlc  of  looking  for  biographical  details.  The  poem 
besrins  "  I  have  been  in  manv  f orms ",  and  goes  on  to 
name  them  :  "  I  have  been  a  swoi'd  ...  I  have  been  a 
tear  in  the  air  ...  I  have  been  a  word  .  .  .  a  book  .  .  . 
a  bridge  .  .  .  a  coraele  .  .  .  a  drop  in  a  shower  .  .  .  a 
sword  (again)  .  .  .  a  shield  .  .  .  a  harpstring ",  etc. 
There  follows  the  fanciful  account  of  the  trees  fighting 
in  the  battle  of  Gobeu  or  the  Forest ;  then,  a  statement 
that  he  was  not  born  of  father  and  mother,  but  created 
out  of  fruits  and  ílowers  (see  above  p.  73)  ;  he  was  called 
into  existence  by  the  spell  of  Math,  by  the  spell  of 
Gwydion.  He  is  a  fine  poet.  He  has  lived  royally. 
That  is  the  context.     The  next  two  couplets  are  : 

neu  bum  yn  yscor  I  have  been  in  a  fortress 

gau  dylan  eil  mor,  With  Dylan  Eil  Môr, 

ywg  kylchet  ym  perveb  On  a  couch  in  the  centre 

rwwg  deulin  tej'rneb.  26  9         Between  the  knees  of  kings. 

Dylan  Eil  Môr  is  Dylan  Eilton  of  the  Mabinogion,  con- 
nected  with  the  sorcerers  Gwydion  and  Math,  who  are 
purely  mythological  personages, — degraded  gods,  in  fact ; 
all  three  are  related  to  Dôn,  the  Welsh  equivalent  of  the 
Irish  fZea  Da^iM  or  Dorm,  'the  goddess  Danu'  or  '  Donu ', 
the  mother  of  the  Irish  gods,  the  tùatha  dë  Danann.  And 
out  of  this  mj'stical-mythical  stuff  Dr.  Evans  derives  the 
information  that  Taliesin  was  a  native  of  Pulford  !  To 
proceed,  we  are  next  told  that 

His  second  item  shews  him  a  bard. 

Ceint,  er  yn  vychan,  I  sang,  though  I  was  httle,  in  the 

yng"hâd  Godeu-vrig  fight  at  the  north  end  of  Godeu, 

rhag  Prydein Wledig.  2320.         against  Prj'dein's  ruler.       ii,  29'25. 

In  1121  Meredyò   ap  Bleòj'n  sent  young  bowmen   over  the 
borders  to  Powys  to  intercept  Henry  I  in  a  wihl  woody  height 

Note  that  the  bard  is  youthful ;   that  Pulford  is  not  far 

oíì';    and  that  he  is  affainst  the  Powysland  ruler  (pp.  xxx-i). 

This  quotation  comes  from  the  same  poem.     The  words 


Taliesin.  105 

are  wrenched  from  their  context,  and  a  word,  Äreẅií,  is 
omitted  without  notice.     The  full  passage  is  as  follows  : 

nyt  mi  wyf  ny  gan,  I  am  not  one  who  sings  not, 

keint  yr  yn  bychan ;  I  have  snng  since  I  was  little  ; 

keint  yng  kat  godeu  biic  I  have  sung  in  the  battle  of  tree-tops 

rac  prydeiu  wledic.  Befure  the  Gwledig  of  Britain. 

The  first  point  to  note  is  that  two  prepositions  are  wrongly 

rendered  by  our  editor.     The  use  of  er  ì/íi  for  er/t/  moà  yn 

'  though  I  was  '  is  modern  journalistic  Welsh,  imitating 

Eng-lish  though ;  in  idiomatic  Welsh  er  yn  means  '  since  I 

was '.'     In  a  poem  attributed  to  Dafydd  ap  Gwilym  in  the 

appendix   of    the    1789    ed.,   p.    498,   the   poet    says    (of 

Morfudd),  "  I  have  set  my  affection  on  her  er  ynfah,  since 

I  was  a  boy  "  ;    in  the  Bardd  Gwsc,  p.  28,  we  read  "  agos 

er  yn  hlant  {;yn  misprinted   ein),  ahnost  since  they  were 

children";  and  Hugh  Maurice,  in  Eos  Ceiriog,  i,  p.  313, 

uses  the  very  words  of  our  text : 

Goreu  'i  fuchedd  er  ynfychun,  \ 

'  Best  conducted  since  he  icas  little,' 

speaking  of  a  man  in  years.  As  we  have  seen  more  than 
once,  Dr.  Evaiis  lacks  the  instinct  for  these  things  :  so 
undeveloped  is  his  feeling  for  the  genius  of  the  laiiguage 
that  he  mistakes  an  old  idiom  for  modern  journalese. 
Next,  rhag  is  rendered  by  him  "  agaiust  "  ;  and  the  chief 
point  of  his  application  of  the  quotation  rests  on  this 
mistranslation,  which  is  not  only  given  the  emphasis  of 
italics,  but  is  further  specially  insisted  on  in  a  footnote. 
And  yet  the  very  words  heint  rac  (33*6,  34*5),  '  I  sang 
before  ',  are  rendered  correctly  by  him  on  pp.  xxv  and 
XXXV.     Why  does  keint  rac,  which  meant  '  I  sang  before,' 

'  The  modern  er  yn  iexianc  'thougli  young'  is,  like  the  niodern 
pan  yn  ieiianc  '  when  yuung',  a  slavish  rendering  of  the  English  ;  but 
the  literal  equivalent  of  the  idiomatic  er  yii  ieuane,  namely  '  since 
young',  is  not  English. 


I  o6  Taliesin. 

on  p.  XXV,  and  means  'I  have  sung  before '  again  on 
p.  XXXV,  so  emphatically  mean  '  I  sang  against '  on  p.  xxxi  ? 
Simply  because  ''against"  is  what  the  theory  requires 
here  ;  and  the  editor  is  free  to  follow  its  requirements 
because  he  is  not  bound  by  any  precise  conception  of  the 
usao-es  of  the  word.  The  mistranslation  of  these  two 
prepositions,  with  the  omission  of  the  first  line  and  the 
second  keint,  falsifies  the  whole  meaning  of  the  passage, 
which,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  has  nothiug  to  do 
with  Henry  I  or  the  Powysland  ruler.' 

Again,  when  Taliesiu  was 

a  slender  twig,  inexperienced  in  craft,  7*15, 
he  went  to  a  congress  of  the  bards  where  he  was  tested : 

I  was  sifted  in  every  faculty  by  the  Brython  bards,  71 3. 
The  use  here  of  the  adjective  Brython  suggests  that  he  himself 
was  not  a  Brython.     If  he  was  a  native  of  Aeron,  this  would  be 
true  geographically,  and  might  be  ethnologically  (p.  xxxi). 

The   argument  rests  on  the  second  quotation.     Turn- 

ino-  to  7-13,  I  fìnd  that  the  words  have  been  evolved  out 

of  the  obscure  opening  lines  of   "  Buarth  Beirdd " ;    the 

text  is — 

Ed  ympeilli  &  ympwyllat. 

y  veird  brython  prydest  ofer. 

ymryorsseu  ymrj'orsed. 

The  first  and  third  lines  are  miintenigible.  The  second, 
which  seems  to  be  a  comment  on  the  first,  means  '  To  the 
bards  of  the  Britons  (it  is)  inane  poetry ' ;  apparently, 
therefore,  the  first  is  a  quotation.  It  is  certainly  re- 
miniscent  of  a  line  in  one  of  the  additional  stanzas  of  the 

'  Pryänn  wìedic  is  probably  the  I)nx  L'ritamuarum,  if  Rhys  is 
right  in  supposing  G;c/ediff  to  be  the  Welsh  rendering  of  both  Comes 
and  Du.v{Celt.  Brü.t  1884,  p.  104).  The  title  does  not  seem  to  have 
8urvived  into  the  sixth  century— Maelgwn  is  not  styled  a  gyledir/ 
(LUiyd,  Uist.  of  Wales,  100,  128  fn.).  The  line  is  probably  to  be 
classed  with  Bmn  .  .  .  ffan  Dylan,  etc,  and  as  mythical  as  the 
Battle  of  the  Forest  itself. 


Taliesin.  107 

Book  of  Aiieirin  :  eàili  edili  ui  imilhjat  37*4.  The  third 
may  be  an  expansion  of  '  inane  poetry  ' ;  but  emendation 
is  too  hazardous  to  be  useful.  To  Dr,  Evans,  howeyer» 
the  triplet  is  plain  ;  he  amends  it  thus,  II,  p,  6 : 

Ev  y'm  peillied  ym'hob  pwyllad, 
gan  veirb  Brython,  a'r  cawceiniad, 
Pryhest  over  ynfj'hyicrysse^ : 
A'm  rhyor'seif  a"m  rhyor'seh 

and  gives  the  following  translation,  II,  p,  7 : 

I  was  siîted  iii  ei-eì-y  faculty  by  the 
Brython  bards,  and  the  croicned  minstrel. 
Poetising  is  futile  in  competition  ; 
My  competitor,  however,  chairs  me. 

The  italics  denote  the  editor's  insertions ;  in  the  text 
the}'  are  his  own  ;  in  the  translation  they  are  mine,  because 
he  has  not  been  candid  enough  to  own  them.  These  italics 
furnish  the  only  comment  which  it  is  necessary  to  pass  on 
the  version,  But  attention  may  be  called  to  two  points. 
First,  the  preposition  hy  in  the  editor's  quotation,  which 
gives  it  the  meaning  required  for  his  purpose,  is  his  own 
insertion,  Secondly,  the  word  Brython  on  which  the 
argument  is  founded  is,  in  all  probability,  a  misreading. 
To  show  this  I  must  quote  the  fourth  line  : 

digawn  gofal  y  gofan  gorb, 

that  is,  '  Sufficient  care  to  the  smith  (is  his)  hammer', 
meaning,  no  doubt,  '  Let  the  cobbler  stick  to  his  last '. 
The  line  is  quite  simple,  and  the  editor  understands  it' ; 
but  he  cannot  keep  his  fingers  off  a  plain  line  like  this. 

^  Except  that  he  inserts  "young"  before  "smith'"  because  he 
thinlís  that  the  -aìi  of  yofan  is  a  dimiinitive  suffix.  Ile  is  clearly 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  yofan  is  the  full  form  of  the  word,  repre- 
senting  the  stem,  which  is  seen  in  the  plural  yofcin,  in  the  nanie 
Gofann-on,  in  the  Irish  genitive  yobann,  in  tlie  Gaulish  (iobann-icnos, 
etc. 


I  o8  Taliesin. 

To  satisfy  some  perverse  whim  of  his  own  he  turns  it 
inside  out,  thus  (II,  p.  6): 

I'i'  govan  goval  bigawn  gorh. 

He  upsets  the  metrical  balance  of  the  verse  because  he  has 
no  notion  that  such  a  thing  exists.  The  cynghanedd  in 
the  original  is  of  the  form  technically  called  hraidd 
gyjfwrdd,  which  consists  in  two  words  with  similar  initial 
syllables  being  set  in  the  middle  of  the  line,  so  that  the 
rhagivant,  or  caesura,  comes  after  the  first,  and  divides  the 
line  into  two  equal,  or  approximately  equal,  parts ;  thus 
{Myv.  143a) : 

Gwalchmai  ym  r/e/wir  |  gplyn  y  Saeson. 

The  verse  under  consideration  is  an  obvious  example  : 

digawn  gof-A\  |  y  (/o/an  gorò. 

Dr.  Evans's  lop-sided  caricature  of  the  line  betrays  his 
complete  igiiorance  of  its  structure  ;  he  had  clearly  no 
inkling-  of  it.  Now  line  two  is  an  imperfect  example, 
which  has  very  much  the  appearance  of  having  been 
mutilated  by  a  scribe  wlio,  like  Dr.  Evans,  had  no  ear  for 
cynghanedd.  And,  when  one  comes  to  think  of  it,  heirS 
Brython  is  a  somewhat  odd  expression'  ;  surely,  the  read- 
ing  must  be  heirS  Frydein  as  in  48-21.  By  making  the 
substitution  the  line  is  suddenly  transfig'ured  : 

y  veirb  Prt/dein  \  prydest  ofer. 

It  should  be  noted  that  'prydest  is  the  correct  f orm  of  this 
word  ;  prySest,  which  Dr.  Evans  writes,  is  a  modern  mis- 

1  The  normal  form  wonld  be  òetrS  o  M-ython  as  in  64'2,  as  we  say 
seiri  0  Saeson,  not  seiri  Saeson  ;  bnt  the  o  would  niake  the  line  too  long. 
Phoyf  Brython  72-23,  73-] 8,  and  pobl  Brython,  77-13  'the  nation  of  the 
Britons'  are  diíFerent,  the  genitive  here  being  the  genitive  of  apposi- 
tion,  as  in  tref  Lundein,  etc.  Brython  is  niit  an  "  adjective"  as  stated 
by  Dr.  Evans. 


Taliesin.  109 

reading  of  the  medieval  spelling.'  In  all  probability,  tlien, 
the  author  of  this  line,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  never 
wrote  the  "  adjeetive  "  Brython,  on  which  Dr.  Evans,  by 
manipulating  a  preposition,  founds  his  argument  that 
Taliesin  was  not  a  Briton. 
The  editor  continues — 

His  parentage,  like  that  of  Myibin,  is  wrapt  in  mystery  ;  it 
might  be  nnlcnown  even  to  himself.  Hence  the  play  of  fancy  as 
to  his  magical  origin. 

'Twas  not  of  father  and  mother  that  I  was  born. 

I  was  created,  after  a  new  fashion,  from  nine  constituents : 

From  the  essence  of  f ruits  ;  from  primrose  flowers  ;  .  .  25-21 . 

We  are  now  back  again  in  the  transformation  poem  "  Cad 
Gobeu  "  ;  and  this  is  the  interpretation  of  its  mysticism. 

A  passage  like  that  suggests  that  Taliesin  sought  to 
escape,  in  imagination,  from  a  cruel  experience.  His  father 
might  have  been  a  bird  of  passage— say  a  Norman  baron : 
his  mother  might  have  perished,  or  abandoned  him  before 
memory  began  ;  thus  leaving  him  utterly  forlorn  in  the  world, 
without  kin  or  the  knowledge  of  kin  (pp.  xxxi-ii). 

So  it  is  not  the  mystery  of  man's  existence  that  the  poet 
essays  to  express,  but  the  mystery  of  his  own  parentage. 
Taliesin  was  a  bastard !  His  father  might  have  heen  a 
ílitting  Norman  baron ;  his  mother  might  have  abandoned 
him.  As  deductions  from  the  evidence,  it  will  be  agreed 
that  these  suggestions  are  preposterous.  I  prefer  to  say 
nothing  further  on  this  matter. 

Taliesin  chides  the  monks  for  their  praise  of  poverty, 
according,  'of  course,  to  the  editor's  translation  of  a 
passage  which  he  does  not  understand.  As  for  Taliesin 
himself — 

i  It  seems  to  be  a  formation  like  ylodd-e^t,  derived  from  the  stem 
of  pri/du,  -to  compose  poetry '.  In  the  Williams  MS..  in  whicii 
medial  (and  fìnal)  b  is  regularly  written  t,  this  word  appears  as 
prydest,  4(Ja,  42a.  In  cynyhanedd  we  tind  pryáest  corresponding  in 
consonantism  io  pryi.\er  in  Myv.  179a  28,  Aná  pry>\ein,  lölb  7. 


I  lo  Taliesin. 

He  was  worse  than  poor.     The  fate  of  St.  Patriclc  overtqok  him ; 
he  was  capturecl,  and  set  to  herd  (?)  swine : 

I  was  a  slave  of  Kynbyn  ;  I  was  a  herd  besides.     26-2]. 
Kyn);yn  was  the  father  of  Blehyn,  the  founder  of  the  historical 
house  of   Powys.     "Kynvyn"  here   must  be  the  eponymus  of 
Meredyh  ap  Blehyn,  who  died  in  1132. 

Here  again   tlie    quotation    is   from    "  Cad   Gobeu ".     It 

occurs  in  one  of  the  transformation  passages ;    I  give  it 

with  the  two  preceding  lines,  in  order  that  it  may  he  seen 

in  its  setting : 

bum  neidyr  vreith  y  mryn.  I've  been  a  specliled  snake  on  a  hill  ; 

bum  gwiber  yn  llyn.  rve  been  a  viper  in  a  lake ; 

bum  ser  gan  gynbyn.  I've  been  a  bi]lhook  (cutting  ?); 

bum  bwystuer  hyn.  I've  been  a  pointed  beast-spear. 

Dr.  Evans,  of  course,  quotes  his  own  translation  of  his 
own  text  (II,  p.  38),  in  which  spa-  '  billhook '  has  heen 
changed  into  an  imaginary  serio  from  tlie  Latin  sewus,^' 
and  hwystuer,  =  hwyst-ver  '  beast-spear ',  a  natural  and 
likely  compound  to  denote  a  hunting-spear,  has  been 
changed  into  hwyst-ner  '  beast-lord ',  an  absurdly  improb- 
able  designation  for  a  herdsman.  He  changes  gynhyn 
into  Gynvyn,  though  h  and  v  were  not  easily  confused  in 
writing  before  the  fourteenth  century.  The  form  cynhyn 
occurs  in  a  chinhin  in  the  Black  Book  95*8  ;  Arthur  con- 
tends  at  Mynydd  Eidyn  against  cynhyn  '  dog-heads  ',  and 
"  they  fell  by  the  hundred  before  Bedwyr  " ;  it  seems  to 
denote  a  race."     It  may  of  course  be  an  error  in  our  text ; 

'  Latin  seriucs  Mjould  give  serw  in  Welsh,  so  that  this  might  have 
.  been  a  word  for  'slave'   in   Welsh.      But  "  might-have-been  is    not 
evidence " ;    and   no   evidence  is  adduced,  not  a  single  reference  is 
siven,  to  show  that  such  a  word  exists. 

2  Apparently  a  vague  recollection  of  the  fabulous  Cynocephali, 
Augustine,  Civ.  Dei,  xvi,  8.  The  Irish  equivalent  is  conchend.  The 
race  of  Partholon  were  slain  by  Concheind  'Dogheads'  {Proc.  Royal 
Irish  Aead.,  xxviii,  sec.  C,  p.  125).  Later  iii  the  same  MS  ,  the  race 
of  P.  were  destroyed  "  by  plague  "  ib.  126.  In  Irische  Te.rte  i,  p.  217, 
conchend  is  used  f  or  a  spear  (or  battle-axe  ?) :  "  he  shakes  the  dog- 
head  {conchend)  of  battle  slaughter  in  f  ront  of  his  sword  ", 


Talíesiìi.  1 1 1 

in  that  case  the  most  probable  emendation  is  &er  gijnhyn 
'cutting-  billhook',  as  h  and  h  were  easily  confused ;  the 
form  occurs  as  a  plural  noun,  cynhynneu,  in  the  Eed  Book, 
col.  1151,  1.  35,  and  the  sin<^ular  of  this  became  later 
cinnin  *a  snippet'.'  Lastly,  Dr.  Evans  changes  hyn  to 
ar  hipi  '  upon  this ',  which  he  renders  "besides".  The 
lines  are  of  five  and  six  syllables,  and  five  seems  to  be  the 
standard  length.  The  fourth  line  is  of  five,  hwum  being  a 
dissyllable,  of  which  hum  is  a  medieval  contraction.  As 
r  +  rh  sounded  like  r  +  h,  hwystver  hyn  is  very  probably  for 
hívystver  ryn  '  pointed  speár';-  cf.  gwaewaur  rrinn,  B.B. 
46-3.  In  any  case  the  leading  words  are  all  clear,  and  of 
the  tenor  of  the  passage  there  can  be  no  possible  doubt ; 
the  bard  has  been  a  snake  and  a  viper,  a  billhook  and  a 
hunting'-spear.  We  need  not  at  the  moment  inquire  into 
the  meaning  of  this  mysticism,  but  it  is  clearly  all  of  a 
piece ;  yet  the  editor  supposes  the  second  couplet  to  be 
autobiographical.  He  substitutes  for  the  word  for  '  bill ' 
a  supposititious  word  for  '  slave  ' ;  and  he  replaces  the 
word  for  a  '  hunting-spear '  by  an  incredible  compound 
'  beast-lord ',  which  he  renders  "herd".  He  quotes  his 
version  of  the  text  thus  garbled  without  giving-  any 
indication  of  the  changes  made ;  in  fact,  the  reference  he 
gives  is  26*21,  as  if  the  version  represented  the  original 
text  and  not  the  garbled  text  of  II,  38.  And  this  is  what 
he  calls  summoning  the  poet  to  tell  his  own  story. 

^  Cynhynn  may  be  from  *kon-ten(I-,  in  which  tend-  is  the  Arj-an 
root  meaning  'to  cut '  seen  in  its  o-grade  in  the  Latin  tondeo.  The 
root  occurs  in  Irish :  ro-s-temd ;  see  WaUle  s.v.  tondeo.  For  cy- 
becoming  ci-,  cf.  ilialectal  cimint.  The  final  -ym  {irom-nd-)  is  require(l 
by  the  rliynie ;  and  cymyn  is  ruled  out.  as  it  has  -n;  cymynn  '  to  cut '. 

-  Prohably  rhynn  in  f/waeu-a^tr  rrinn  is  cognate  with  Iri-';h  rind 
'point' of  a  spear,  etc,  and  tlie  verb  rindaim  '1  stick,  thrust ' ;  also 
Welsh  rhynnaf  '  I  thrust,  push  '  ?  The  expression  appears  in  our 
text  as  Gwaywaicr  ryn,  4410;  the  initial  /-  stands  for  rh-. 


I  12 


Taliesin. 


Taliesin's  bondag'e,  thus  demonstrated  by  citing  as  the 

bard's  own  words  a  text  iu  which  improbable  "  emenda- 

tions  "  take  the  place  of  lucid  readings  and  pervert  the 

plain  purport  of  the  passage,  is  of  course  treated  by  the 

editor  as  an  estahlished  faet.     Taliesin  may  have  learnt 

Welsh    "  in    servitude,   as    the   youthful    Patrick   learnt 

Irish  "  ! 

Like  him  too  he  ran  away,  27"6. 

I  wandered  in  the  earth  beforel  touched  Hterature(p.  xxxii). 

"  I  wandered  in  the  earth  "  is  proof  positive  ;    it  cannot 

mean  anything  but  "  I  ran  away  from  bondage"  ! 

Out  of  Powys  he  steps  into  Llwyyenyb,  &  sings: 

Mine  its  wikl  places  ;  mine  its  cultivated  parts  .  .  .  65'13. 

The  gwyleô  and  llareS  of  the  oris^inal  do  not  mean  "  wild 

places  "  and  "  cultivated  parts  "  ;    but  really  one  cannot 

discuss  all  these  mistranslations.      Taliesin    sings — com- 

poses  a  finished  poem  in  a  language  just  picked  up  as  a 

"  (swine)herd  ";  it  is  all  so  delightfully  probable. 

In  Llwyvenyb  he  was  not  only  beyond  the  power  of  Powys,  but 
once  tnore  under  his  native  lord,  Ranulf,  the  earl  of  Chester,  for 
whom  he  has  a  good  word  to  say. 

ScmuM  did  not  molest  his  enemies 

until  Urien  arrived  one  day  in  Aeron.     61'8. 

The  manuscript  does  not  mention  Banulî,  and  says  the 
exact  opposite  about  Ulph  :  "  when  Ulph  came  to  oppress — 
yny  doeth  vlph  yn  treis  ".  The  "good  word"  is  the  editor's 
own,  who  changed  yny  '  where,  when  '  into  ny  'not'. 
Then  Owein  Gwynedd  appears  on  the  scene : 

Taliesin  felt,  as  all  feel,  towards  an  invading  stranger  and,  it  is 
clear,  opposed  the  power  of  Gwyneb  in  song  or  action  (cp.  n.  66). 
But  he  soon  changed  his  attitude,  &  wrote  a  poem  to  propitiate 
the  new  lord  of  Llwyvenyb.  .  .  .  He  was  received  into  favour, 
and  never  had  prince  a  more  loyal  bard  than  Taliesin  proved  to 
the  lord  of  the  West  (p.  xxxiii). 
ThusTaliesin  was  a  renegade  Englishman,  a  Herr  Houston 
Stewart  Chamberlain,  whose  Kaiser  was  Owein  Gwynedd  ! 


Taliesin.  1 1 3 

I   refrain    from    comment   because   it   is   clear   tliat   the 
imputation  is  as  fatuous  as  it  is  odious. 

"  Such,  in  outline  ",  writes  the  editor,  "  is  the  life  of 
the  bard  ".  But  some  further  details  are  added,  which  it 
would  be  waste  of  space  to  follow  point  by  point.  The 
way  in  which  the  poem  which  relates  howTaliesin  released 
•  Elphin  from  Maelgwn's  prison  is  treated,  p.  xxxv,  reminds 
one  of  the  "  testimonj  "  of  the  Chirk  Codex.  Maelgwn  is 
stated  to  be  the  son  of  Owein  Gwynedd,  and  is  identified 
with  Elphin,  the  latter  name  being  an  eponym.  "  To 
contend  with  Maelgwn — amrysson  d  MaelgiV7t"  is  rendered 
"  to  take  the  part  of  Maelgwn  " ;  the  name  Elphin  is 
suppressed  to  disguise  the  absurdity  of  the  identification  ; 
and  the  order  of  two  passages  is  inyerted  to  suggest  that 
the  former  is  consequent  on  the  latter.  But  one  other 
point  must  be  noticed  because  of  the  light  it  throws  on 
the  editor's  mentality.  Taliesin  falls  out  with  the  bards. 
He  wins  the  chair,  and  the  bards  are  envious. 

I  won  the  chair,  and  am  the  bard  of  the  Hall. 

The  bards  are  highly  incensed — loud  their  anathemas. 

The  original  of  this  couplet  is  : 

wyf  barò  neuaîì,  wyf  kyw  kadeir  : 
digonaf  y  vehh  Ihifar  llesteir,  8'17, 

which   means,  '  I   am  the   bard   of   the   hall,    I    am    the 

occupant  {civis)  of  the  chair  :  I  cause  the  bards  to  keep 

silence ',  literally  'I  cause  the  bards  hindranceof  speech'.' 

Dr.    Evans,    not    comprehending    the    meaning,    sees    in 

llesteir  '  hindrance  '  an  imaginary  llysceir  (II,  10),  which 

he   understands   as    "  anathemas ",  and   thoughts   crowd 

upon  hiui  : 

As  it  was  in  the  days  of  Taliesin  so  it  is  still :  if  a  man  excel 
in  any  direction,  were  it  only  in   industry  and   single-niinded 

^  The  incident  iu  the  Tale  of  Taliesin  (Lady  Guest's  Mal/.  iii,  837) 
of  Maelgwn's  bards  being  unable  to  utter  anything  but  "  blerwm  "  iii 
the  presence  of  Taliesin^  seems  to  be  derived  from  this  verse. 

I 


114  '         Taliesin. 

devotion  to  dnty,  there  is  iio  calnmny  too  foiil  for  envy  to 
whisper  by  tliose  who  wander  upon  ev^ry  high  hill,  and  play 
nnder  every  green  tree  (p.  xxxiv). 

It  is  ininecessary  to  clwell  on  the  confused  phraseology 
("  for  envy  to  whisper  by  those  ")  of  this  efPusion,  nor  am 
1  concerned  with  its  application,  and  the  delicate  way  in 
which  the  slanderers  are  repaid  in  kind.^  I  wish  only  to 
point  out  that  it  bears  no  relation  to  anything  in  the 
text,  but  arises  f rom  the  editor's  own  ideas  read  by  him 
into  a  verse  which  he  did  not  understand.  He  proceeds 
thus  : 

Taliesin  revenged  himself  by  studying  the  books  of  the  bards, 

their  round,  and  all  that  pertains  to  them. 

They  bring  forth  whut  is  in  theni : 
Wliat  is  in  theni,  that  is  what  they  are. 
What  they  are  on  tonr,  that  is  their  true  character.     20'22. 

The  origiual  text  is  subjoined  with  a  translation  : 

Ystyrywyt  yn  llyfreu  It  is  recorded  in  books 

pet  wyiit  pet  ffreu,  How  many  winds,  how  many  streams, 

pet  fFreu  pet  wynt,  How  many  streams,  how  many  winds, 

pet  auon  ar  hynt,  How  many  rivers  in  their  courses, 

pet  auon  yh  ynt.  How  many  rivers  there  are. 

What  happened  is  this  :  fet  '  how  many ',  the  British 
cognate  (not  derivative)  of  the  Latin  g-íioí,  used  to  this 
day  in  Breton,  with  a  singular  noun  as  in  our  text — a 
word  familiar  to  every  Keltic  scholar,  was  unknown  to 
Dr.  Evans  ;  this  is  seen  from  his  note  "  22-1  pet  .  .  .  pet 
.  .  .  pet  ?  cler(ical)  er(ror)  íor  poh  ",  p.  88.  Here  he  took 
it  for  hetìi ;  and  pet  avon,  '  how  many  rivers  ',  he  made 
into  heth  a  vont,  "  what  they  are  ",  II,  p.  18.  The  rest 
follows,  but  not  without  the  most  violent  transmogTÌfica- 
tion  of  the  text,  including  the  interpolation  of  a  whole 
line  composed  by  the  editor  himself,  and  rendered  by  him 
"  of  the  bards,  their  round,  and  all  that  pertains  to 
them  ",  II,  p.  17.  The  evidence  which  he  adduces  turns 
i  See  Jeremiah,  ii,  20 ;  iii,  6, 


Taliesin.  1 1  5 

on  the  words  wliicli  he  has  insertecl;  he  bring-s  forth  what 
is  in  him,  not  what  is  in  the  text.  And  what  is  iu  him, 
that  is  what  he  is  :  Taliesin  inyeig'liing  against  the  bards 
is  Dr.  Gwenogyryn  Evans  denouncing  '•  the  Eiste8vodic 
spirit  "  (Bruts,  p.  xvi),  or  unburdening  his  mind  on  the 
subjeet  of  "  the  Welsh  Atomist  ",  who  "  cannot  construe 
a  do7,en  lines  of  earlj  Welsh  poetry,  nor  write  a  modern 
dozen  with  decency  "  (II,  p.  xiv).  As  the  amended  text 
is  for  the  most  part  the  product  of  the  editor's  imagina- 
tion,  it  is  natural  that  it  should  breathe  his  sentiments 
and  gibbet  his  pet  aversions.  The  Taliesin  whom  he  sees 
in  it  and  behind  it  is  liis  own  shadow — a  distorted  shadow 
one  is  ghid  to  admit,  for  Dr.  Evans  is  not,  like  liis 
Taliesin,  a  coward  and  a  renegade. 

Any  detailed  examination  of  the  "  amended  "  text  and 
translation,  and  of  the  notes,  is  altogether  out  of  the 
question  here.  Mr.  Ifor  Williams,  in  his  review  of 
Vol.  II,  started  to  note  the  errors  in  the  emendation  and 
rendition  of  the  late  and  comparatively  easy  poem  "  Armes 
Prydein  ",  and  after  filling,  in  small  type,  more  than  six 
of  the  large  pages  of  Y  Beirniad  (1916,  pp.  207-214),  had 
to  desist  half  way  through.  I  can  only  deal  in  a  general 
way  with  Vol.  II  and  the  notes,  citing  a  few  characteristic 
mistalces.  These  have  been  chosen  almost  at  random  ; 
I  have  not  looked  for  them,  but  have  nierely  marlced  them 
in  pencil  in  my  working  copy  when  I  have  had  occasion  to 
refer,  for  tlie  purposes  of  the  above  paragraphs,  to  these 
portions  of  the  work.  Nothing  could  induce  me  to 
undergo  the  ordeal  of  systematically  reading  through  the 
volume  of  "  amended  "  text  and  "  translation  ". 

In  the  first  place,  Dr.  Evans  is  ignorant  of  the  mean- 

ing  of  a  large  number  of  old  words  which  are  familiar  to 

Welsh  scholars,  and  most  of  which  were  made  out  long 

ago.     Many  of  his  "  emendations  ",  as  we  have  seen,  are 

i2 


1 1 6  Taliesin. 

due  to  tliis ;  anything  not  immediately  intelligible  to  him- 
self  he  has  at  once  altered,  without  attempting  to  under- 
stand  it  as  it  is.  He  re-writes  a  whole  passage,  dragging 
in  the  bards  and  "what  they  ai*e  ",  instead  of  trying  to 
discover  the  meaning  of  fei,  which  he  would  have  found 
in  Pughe,  or  in  Richards,  who  says,  "  Pet,  aä.  How 
many  ?  iu  Taliesin.  So  in  Arm(oric)  .  .  .  Vid.  ex.  in 
Dôs  ",  or  in  Dr.  Davies  :  "  *Pet,  Qnot.  apud  Tal.  vid.  Ex. 
ẃ  Dos ".  The  example  is  pet  dos  22*1;  so  here  is  our 
editor's  difficulty  solved  in  the  17th  century.  Whenever 
an  old~  word  has  the  same  form  as  a  modern  one,  he 
always  takes  it  for  the  latter  ;  llys  '  plant,  herb ',  the  old 
singular  of  llìjssev,  ìs  mistaken  b\' him  for  Uys  'court'; 
so  he  changes  plagatut  lys  to  "  Pryderi  lys  ",  II,  p.  62, 
and  asserts,  for  no  other  reason  than  his  own  ignorance, 
that  plagaiot  is  a  "  bogus  form  ",  n.  70*7  ;  plagawt  lys 
appears  to  be  the  fungus  from  {y  ar)  which  Gwydion 
formed  his  magic  horses  and  trappings,  W.  B.  Mab.,  col.  85. 
He  mistalces  hlawt  '  blossom ',  the  old  singular  of  hlodeu, 
for  hlawt  '  flour  ',  and  renders  it  "  pollen  ",  II,  p.  37  ;  the 
two  words  are  not  connected,  see  my  Welsh  Grammar, 
pp.  76,  77.  He  mistakes  gwyS  'wild'  (=  Irish  fîad, 
Fick-Stokes,  265)  with  gwýô  'trees'  (=  Irìshfid,  ib.  280), 
a  distinction  both  of  sound  and  sense  known  to  Pichards, 
and  to  Dr.  Davies  (1632);  and  consequently  changes  what 
he  supposes  to  be  gwyhviltt  into  hwystviled,  II,  p.  174, 
because  "  g%oyh-v(ú)Qà  with  coed  is  tautological  ",  n.  29'13. 
He  confuses  AJadws  '  due  time,  (it  is)  time '  (known  to 
Eichards  and  Davies),  with  mad  '  good ',  and  renders  it 
"It  is  well ",  II,  p.  9.  He  confuses  canìiwr  '100  men  ' 
with  the  New  Testament  canioriad,  and  renders  it 
"centurion",  II,  p.  39.  He  mistakes  hylchet  'bedding' 
(from  Latin  culcita,  as  shown  by  Rhys,  Welsh  Phil.,  1879, 
p.  115)  for  cylch  '  circle ',  and  renders  it  "  borders  ",  II, 


Taliesin.  1 1  7 

p.  39.     Llad  '  liquor '  (=  Cornish  Zaá)  was  not  understood 

by  the  old  lexicographers,  but  has  long  been  known  to 

modern  scholars  (e.g.,  Loth,  Yúc.  Vieux-Br€t.,  1884,  p.  171), 

and  is  given  by  Walde  as  a  derivative  of  Latin  latex ;  our 

editor  renders  it  "  wafer  "  in  II,  p.  27,  1.  2,  and  "  good  " 

at  the  bottom  of  the  same  page ;    on  p.  149   llestreu  llad 

'  drinking  vessels  '  is  rendered  *'  goodly  vessels  "  ;    this  is 

understood    as    "  ships  ",    aud   the    text    is    "  amended " 

accordingly.       Meinoeth    or   meinyoeth    '  midnight ',    from 

Latin   mediâ  nocte,  was  not  made  out  until  recentlj  ;  but 

the  clue  to  its  meaning  is  to  be  found  in  our  text.     The 

reference  is  given  in  my  Grammar,  p.  93  ;    but  Dr.  Evans, 

instead  of  following  it  up,  merely  says  "Prof.  J.  M.  J. 

falls  mto  a  strange  er(ror)   here  ",  n.  68*13,  his  own  idea 

being  that  the  word  in  this  passage  should  be  "  meingoeth  ". 

The  passage  which  determines  the  meaning  occurs  in  the 

poem  on  the  "Plagues  of  Egypt ",  and  reads  (45'6)  : 

T>ecvet^  veinyoeth  mwyhaf  gwynyeith  ar  plwyf  kynrein, 

that  is,  'Tenth  (plague),  at  niidnight  the  greatest  venge- 

ance  on  the  ruling  people',  an  obvious  reference  to  "About 

midnight  wiU  I  go  out  into  the  midst  of  Egypt :  and  all 

the  firstborn  in  the  land  of  Egypt  shall  die  ",  Ex.  xi,  4-5. 

Dr.  Evans,  not  knowing  that  veinyoeth  makes  a  perfect 

proest  witli  gwynyeith,  and  that  proest  is  used  instead  of 

rhyme  in  these  poems,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  great 

lacuna  existed  here,  and  proceeded  to  fill  it  thus  (n.  45*7) : 

Degved  meini  coeth  roed  inni  yan  Egiptiein 

Iha  mabiceith,  mwyhav  gwynyeith  ar  blwyv  Cynrein. 

Thus  meinyoeth  '  midnight '  becomes  ^'meini  coeth  "  !    Meini 

is  as  old  as  the  Welsh  Bible  ;   but  is  not  used  by  the  early 

modern,  not  to  speak  of  medieval,  bards.     The  medieval 

plural   is  mein.     Meini  coetìi    '  refined   stones '    is   a  good 

'  vet  omitte<l  in  the  MS.,  by  the  scribe's  running  on  from  the  re  of 
vet  to  the  ve  of  veinyoeth  in  passing  on  to  a  new  line. 


Ii8  Taliesin. 

exainple  of  the  hopeless  bungling  of  these  "emendations"  : 
coeili^  '  refined  (by  fire) ',  f  rom  Latin  coctus,  is  used  of 
metals,  not  of  stones  (mein).  Boed  inni  is  slipshod  niodern 
Welsh  [roed  for  a  roed)  for  what  wouhJ  be  in  the  twelfth 
century  an  roSed.  Eyiptiein  is  a  form  invented  by  the 
editor  himself.  Mahweith  is  the  missing  word,  to  rhyme 
with  gwynieith,  and  to  mean,  somehow  or  other,  'slaughtei^ 
of  sons '  !  Can  anything  more  helplessly  futile  be 
imagined  ? 

The  "  amended  "  text  bears  witness  on  every  page  to 
ignoi'ance  of  the  history  of  the  language  :  medieval  forms, 
spurious  modern  forms,  dialect  and  even  slang  words, 
jostle  each  other  in  the  most  grotesque  confusion.  The 
traditional  form  hriallu  25'23  gives  place  to  hriall  II,  p.  36, 
a  bogus  nineteenth  century  form.  Eièot  ti,  II,  p.  38,  is 
not  older  than  the  late  fifteenth  century  ;  the  medieval 
form  is  íew.'  Y  WeryS,  II,  p.  6,  for  "  the  Ocean "  is 
modern  newspaper  Welsli.  Hwé,  II,  p.  72,  is  the  South 
Walian  colloquial  corruption  of  hyweS.  Godrev,  II,  p.  22, 
is  a  spurious  modern  form  coined  by  the  editor  himself  ^ 
and  is  similar  to  the  common  mock-literary  hŷv,  which  he 
also  uses,  n.  25*9;  the  words  are  godre  aiid  hy,  the  former 
from  the  root  ^tregh-  (as  in  Greek  rpé^w),  the  latter  from 
tlie  Keltic  *segos,  the  fìnal  lenition  of  g  disappearing  in 
Medieval  Welsh.  The  medieval  arogléuaf,  79*16,  stiU 
retained  as  ogléuaf  in  North  Wales  dialects,  is  replaced  by 
the  modern  artiöcial  arúglav  in  the  "  emendation "  in 
n.  79'14.  Broled,  II,  p.  92,  substituted  for  molet,  is 
formed  by  adding  tlie  medieval  verbal  ending  -et  to  tlie 

^  "  Mebyant,  val  y  niae  meu,  teu,  eiSaic",  says  the  Red  Book 
Grammar,  col.  1124.  In  the  late  fìfteenth  and  sixteenth  centnry  this 
series  of  possessive  adjectiyes  was  re-formed  as  ei8"f,  eioot,  eiSo ;  and 
Dr.  Evans  uses  eì'^ot  in  an  "  emendation ''  of  a  twelfth  century  text. 

^  The  usual  modern  false  spelling  of  ffodre  is  godrau. 


Taliesin,  1 1 9 

stein  of  tlie  modern  sliingy  hrolio  'to  brag',  which  doubt- 
less  comes  froni  the  English  hrawl.^  Rhonc  is  a  dialectal 
borrowing  of  English  ranîc  'utter';  the  explanation  of 
"ronc  wleS  ^  ü  '  swag '  feast ",  n.  13-14,  is  that  Pughe 
gives  rhonc  the  meaning  "a  swag "  to  correspond  with 
rhonca,  and  Dr.  Evans  mistook  Pughe's  "  swag "  for 
thieves'  slang.  Gtuarogaeth,  II,  p,  172,  is  a  late  corruption 
of  gwr-ogaeth  '  hom-age '.  Gan  nad  pioy,  II,  p.  24,  is  a 
recent  senseless  corruption  of  the  South  Walian  gynnag 
■pwy  for  hynnag  pivy,  a  curious  late  inversion  of  pivy  hynnag 
'  whoever ',  see  Silvan  Evans's  Dictionary  s.v.  cynnag. 
The  correct  ceneu  of  tlie  original  is  replaced  in  this  text 
by  the  late  cenaio  (II,  pp.  80,  116)  fabricated  out  of  the 
plural  cenaivon  (properly  canawon)  in  ignorance  of  Welsh 
phonetic  law,  and  in  defiance  of  tlie  spoten  form,  which 
everywhere  represents  the  standard  form  ceîieu.'  Athraw 
is  a  similar  fabrication  from  the  plural  athraxvon ;  the 
medieval  singular  is  invariably  athro,  see  references  to 
twenty  examples  in  my  Grammar,  p.  108.  But  Dr.  Evans 
sees  the  bogus  athraw  in  Athraw  ydygen  42"6,  which  he 
changes  to  Athraw  yn'Ygen,  and  renders  "a  preceptor 
in  Dygen ",  II,  p.  192,  thereby  raising  difficulties  for 
himself,  which  need  not  detain  us.  Wliat  then  is  the 
explanation  of  the  Athraw  of  the  original  text?  The 
answer  is  simple :  in  medieval  manuscripts  proclitics  like 
a  and  y  are  generally  joined  to  tlie  words  that  follow 
them ;  and  the  phrase  in  question,  divided  into  its  com- 
poneut  words,  is  A  thraw  y  Dygen.  '  and  beyond  Dygen ', 
without  the  alteration  of  a  single  letter.     Any  competent 

^  Tliere  is  a  brolet  in  the  text  lower  down,  4o'21 ;  this  is  an 
adjective  conipounded  of  hro  aiid  Ued,  aiid  doubtless  nieaning  '  of 
wide  dominions '. 

^  Final  -eu  becomes  -e  or  -a  in  tlie  dialecls;  final  -aw  liecomes  -o. 
The  relation  between  the  sg.  and  pl.  in  ceneu,  canawon  is  the  same  as 
that  in  llcidr,  lladron  ;  see  my  Gram  ,  p.  212,  Note. 


ì  20  Taliesin. 

Welsh  scholar  would  read  it  so  ;  but  lest  there  should 
remain  the  faintest  shadow  of  a  doubt,  it  may  be  stated 
that  the  same  geographical  expression  is  found  in  fuller 
and  absolutely  explicit  form  in  the  poetry  of  the  Red 
Book  :  ac  o^r  hi  draw  y  Dygen,  Skene,  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.  277. 

As  with  words,  so  with  idi'oms.  Old  idioms  are  mis- 
understood — several  examples  of  this  have  been  dealt  with 
above,  see  pp.  6Q,  88,  89 ;  and  new-fangled  constructions 
are  brought  into  tlie  text.  Thus,  in  Welsh,  absolute 
clauses  are  introduced  by  a;  as  a  mi  yn  vyw,  W.B.  Mab., 
col.  504;  A  mi  .  .  .  yn  cVaros  D.  ap  G.,  1789,  p.  512  ;  or 
Paham,  a  mi  yn  disgivyl,  Esai.  v,  4;  but  in  the  last  century 
a  fashion  arose,  under  the  influence  of  English,  to  write' 
ira  instead,  producing-  a  construction  which  is  neither 
Welsh  nor  English  :  tra  mi  yn  aros,^  'while  I  waiting'  ! 
This  muddle-headed  neologism  we,  of  course,  find  in  our 
"amended"  text :  Tra  mi  'm'Uêugre,  II,  p.  144.  The 
preverbal  relative  y,  which  comes  properly  after  adverbs, 
as  in  pryd  y  '  at  the  time  when  ',  is  often  used  by  un- 
instructed  writers  after  conjunctions ;  and  one  of  the  first 
warnings  given  to  learners  of  Welsh  composition  is  not  to 
insert  it,  f or  example,  after  os ;  yet  in  our  "  amended  " 
text  we  find  os  y  dygwyS,  II,  p.  116.  The  omission  of  the 
relatival  a  before  a  verb  witli  softened  initial  is  unknown 
in  Medieval  Welsh,  except  after  mi,  ti,  etc^ ;  it  probably 
does  not  occur  in  Dafydd  ap  Gwilym,^  and  is  rare  in  the 

1  I  say  '•  write  "  adviseclly,  because  in  the  spohcn  language  the  old 
idiom  with  a  is  still  exclusively  nsed. 

2  In  the  hynm-boolís  of  the  present  day  this  construction  is  íittri- 
buted  to  WiUianis,  Pant-y-celyn,  as  Tra  sercn  yn  y  ne' .  But  WiUiams 
wrote  Tr'o  sercn  yn  y  ne' ,  see  1811  ed.,  p.  S67,  where  tr'o  is  a  colloquial 
contraction  of  trafo.     Similarlj'  trwi,  ib.,  p.  129,  etc,  for  traficyf  i. 

3  And  except  before  forms  of  the  verb  '  to  be  '  in  constructious  in 
which  a  never  existed,  and  the  leuition  is  analogical. 

^  Contraction  with  a  vowel  occurs  :  Delici  icnenthum,  1789  ed., 
p.  14,  should  be  dehui^  a  loneuthum,  etc.  (sandhi  contraction). 


Taliesin.  1 2 1 

later  cyîvyddau ;  it  is  absent  from  the  Welsli  Bible,  and  is 
avoided  by  all  Welsli  prose  writers  of  repute  before  tlie 
present  generation  ;  it  began  to  become  common  in  the 
verse  written  in  the  free  metres  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
Yet  this  elision  occurs  over  and  over  again  in  our 
"  amended  "  text,  Indeed  the  editor  himself  refers  to 
the  dropping  of  the  relative,  assuming  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  it  takes  place  in  the  original.  and  giving  as  an 
example  Taliesin  gan,  II,  p.  xii,  which  he  thus  supposes  to 
mean  '  Taliesin  sings  '.  But  no  Welsh  scholar  need  be 
told  that  Taliesin  gan,  59*2,  means  '  tlie  song  of  Taliesin  ', 
just  as  Reget  iiS,  67'19,  means  '  the  lord  of  Rheged '. 
Again,  the  syncopated  forms  'm,  Hh  of  the  pronouns 
usually  written  fy,  dy  occur  in  Medieval  Welsh  onl}'^  after 
the  monosyllables  a,  na,  no,  y,  0 ;  the  free  use  of  'm  and 
'th  is  an  artificial  innovation — artificial  because  it  corre- 
sponds  to  nothing  in  the  spoken  language — resorted  to  by 
late  writers  of  verse.  We  find  this  misuse  of  'm  in  the 
text  before  us  :  a  draetho'm  tavawd,  II,  36,  ystyriawm, 
awen,  42.  What  these  modernisms  and  solecisms  show  is 
not  merely  that  the  "  emendations  "  which  contain  them 
are  worthless,  but  that  the  emendiitor  is  unable  to  dis- 
tinguish  not  only  between  medieval  and  modern,  but 
between  good  and  bad  Welsh. 

Errors  in  the  use  and  formation  of  verbal  inflexions 
abound  in  his  text  and  notes.  The  third  sg.  pres.  sub- 
junctive  él  is  taken  out  of  the  dependent  clause  in  which 
it  appropriately  stands  in  63*4,  and  is  treated  as  if  it  were 
indicative,  II,  114.  The  aorists  cant  and  darogant  are 
rendered  as  futures,  "  shall  sing  and  prophesy  ",  II,  p.  13; 
and  the  false  rendering  is  quoted  in  the  Introduction, 
p.  xxvii.  The  verbal  noun  diŷ'ryd  is  misspelt  diffrid,  II, 
58,  and  used  for  the  third  sg.  pres.-fut.  indicative,  the 
proper  form   of  which   is   differ.     The  old  third  sg.  pres. 


122  Taliesin. 

subjunctiye  giunech  '  may  do  '  is  altered  to  gicrech,  rendered 
"  he  wrecks  ",  II,  4,  and  to  gwnelher,  II,  80  ;  the  former 
is  corrected  in  n.  37'18,*  where  it  is  stated  that  gwrech 
"  assumes  a  possible  form  gwrychu,  to  heap  together  "  : 
how  givrychu  can  mean  "  to  heap  together  ",  how  that  can 
mean  "to  wreck  ",  and  how  gwrech  can  possibly  be  a  third 
sg.  pres.  of  a  "  possible  "  gwrychu,  we  are  not  told.  The 
old  third  sg.  pres.  subj.  duwch  is  "amended  "  to  duccwy, 
II,  46,  a  mis-spelling  of  dyccwy  (cf.  dycco,  W.B.  Mab., 
col.  465);  but  in  n.  28-20  tlie  form  duwch  is  recognized, 
and  explained  as  a  "  metath(esis)  of  duc-hw"  ! '  A  Cheneu, 
60-15,  is  "  amended  "  to  A  theirei,  II,  90  ;  the  ending  -ei 
ajffects  no  vowel  or  diphthong — the  correct  form  is  taerei, 
as  every  pass  student  knows.  The  old  third  sg.  pres. 
indic.  erlynyt  is  "amended"  to  erlid,  II,  42,  which  in 
Medieval  Welsh  is  the  verbal  noun  only  :  it  is  not  a  stem 
of  the  verb — erlidiaf  is  a  modern  re-formation.  In  the 
old  perfect  cigleu  '  1  have  heard  ',  ci-  is  the  reduplication, 
and  -gleu  represents  the  root  ^Meu- ;  in  our  "  amended  " 
text  an  unheard-of  passive  form  ciglwyd  appears,  II,  22, 
as  if  cigl-  were  the  stem.  Similarly  it  is  suggested  that 
deryê  is  a  derivative  of  taro,^  'to  strike  ',  n,  69*9 ;  the  stem 
of  iaro  in  Medieval  Welsh  is  traw-,  and  the  form  meant 
would  be  trewyS.  The  stem  of  difa,  'to  destroy ',  is  difa- 
itself;  probably  it  is  formed  from  di-  íiuá  ma{g),  '  place ', 

^  A  Welsh  Granunar,  1913,  had  appeared  iii  the  nieantime ; 
Strachan  in  his  Intr.,  1909,  had  not  discovered  the  form,  see  p.  69, 
Note  2.  That  Dr.  Evans  looked  up  the  verb  in  the  Gram.  is  proved 
by  his  note  26' 18. 

2  For  the  true  explanation,  see  Strachan,  Litr.,  p.  69,  and  my 
Gram.,  pp.  339,  and  113,  x. 

■'  "  Some  conimitted  the  elementary  mistake  of and  pave 

'  taraf  '  as 'the  pres.  indic.  of  taro"".  Ceutral  Welsh  Board,  6r>we/'a/ 
Report  of  E.iaminers,  1917,  p.  67.  Tery^  is  the  same  school-boy  eri-or 
as  taraf. 


Talíesin.  123 

cf .  di-le-af,  '  í  delete  ' ;  tlie  a  is  of  coursë  kept  throughout, 
or  is  affected  to  e  before  i,  thus  di-va-wys,  di-va-awS, 
di-fa-ed,  di-ve-ir,  all  quoted  by  Silvau  Evans,  s.v.  ;  but  iu 
his  n.  56-9,  our  editor  suggests  difir,  "  will  be  destroyed  ", 
as  if  the  steui  were  dif-  l  Following-  this  childish 
"howler"  is  the  oracular  statement  that  Sir  John  Rhys's 
translation  of  the  poeni  "may  be  assigned"  "to  the  realm 
of  twilight  and  darkness  ". 

To  the  ordinary  reader  phonological  arguments  are 
apt  to  be  somewhat  mysterious ;  they  cannot  be  more 
incomprehensible  than  Dr.  Evans's  phonological  pro- 
nouncements  are  to  the  phonologist.  For  example,  "  It 
looks  as  if  Mabin-ogion  were  a  corrupt  form  of  Mahon- 
ogion.  If  it  were  based  on  Mahan  we  should  have  Mehin- 
ogion",  p.  xxvii,  fn.  How  i  can  come  from  either  a  or  0 ; 
how  it  would  aíîect  a  preceding  a  in  one  case  and  would 
not  in  tlie  other ;  or  rather  how  the  editor  conceives  that 
such  things  can  be,  must  remain  a  mystery.  Again,  what 
is  known  in  Welsli  philology  as  "vowel-affection"  (Zeuss's 
"infectio")  is  a  change  in  a  vowel  caused  by  a  sound  in 
the  syllable  that  foUows  it ;  the  only  known  "  aftection 
caused  by  í5"  is  that  which  is  caused  by  ö  in  a  lost  ending, 
as  the  affection  of  a  in  lleidr  from  the  Latin  latrö.  But 
the  "  affection  caused  by  ö"  in  Dr.  Evans's  index,  p.  162, 
is  as  follows:  '■'■Moryd  is  often  spelt  Morud,  the  y  being 
affected  b}'  long  ö  ",  n.  77"11.  The  0  here  is  not  long  ;  it 
is  not  in  a  lost  ending  ;  and  it  precedes  the  vowel  it  is  sup- 
posed  to  affect.  The  statement,  so  far  as  it  reveals  its 
author's  understanding  of  the  principles  of  the  subject,  is 
on  a  level  with  the  schoolboy's  "  A  circle  is  a  round 
straight  line  with  a  hole  in  the  middle  ".  It  is  the  i)lain 
fact  that  Dr.  Evans,  when  lie  deals  with  phonetics,  does 
not  know  the  meaning  of  tlie  terms  he  uses:  ý'  is  an 
"  explosive ",   and   so  is  //<,  n.   6o-25.      To  speak  of   the 


1 24  Taliesin. 

"explosive_^"  is  like  speaking  of  the  '^planet  Sirius"  or 
the  "  metal  sulphur  ".  He  uses  the  sign  >  instead  of  < 
throughout^,  and  discovers,  or  is  informed  of,  the  diíîerence 
between  them  only  just  in  time  to  paste  in  front  of  the 
pagfe  of  "  Corrections ",  a  small  slip  of  paper  with  the 
following  legend  :   "  For  >  read  <  wlierever  it  occurs  ". 

The  ideas  of  Welsh  metric  brought  to  bear  on  the 
construction  of  the  "  araended  "  text  are  of  the  crudest. 
Mr.  WiUiams  has  shown  (Y  Beirniad,  1916,  p.  207)  how 
30  lines  out  of  58  in  one  poem  have  been  altered  in  order 
to  reduce  the  whole  to  a  uniform  length  of  nine  syllables, 
although  the  actual  lengths  arrange  themselves  in  obvious 
patterns.  He  has  also  pointed  out  (ib.  pp.  203-5)  that 
numerous  rhyming  words  have  been  changed  simply 
because  the  emendator  was  ignorant  of  the  rules  of 
rhyme  in  the  oldest  poetry.  The  rhymes  which  he  failed 
to  see  are  usual  in  Irish  verse,  and  follow  definite  rules : 
the  rhyming  syllables  end  in  different  consonants,  but 
they  must  be  consonants  of  the  same  class,  so  that  the 
rhyme  is  not  a  mere  assonance ;  thus  -el  rhymes  with  -er 
and  -eS  (voiced  spirant  finals),  but  not  witli  -ec  (explosive 
final).  Of  these  things  Dr.  Evans  had  not  dreamt.  We 
have  seen  above,  pp.  103,  117,  that  Iie  was  also  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  proest  (wliich  Icelandic  poets  call  "  half- 
rhyme  ")  often  takes  the  place  of  rhyme  in  tliese  poems  ; 
in  loroest,  the  vowels  of  the  answering  syllables  vary.^ 
Finally,  his  remarks  on  cynghanedd  are  on  a  par  with  his 
phonetic  notes.  He  Iias  never  appreciated  or  understood 
this  distinctive  feature  of  Welsh  poetry;  he  has  noear  for 
its  eíîects,  and  therefore  has  never  been  able  to  grasp  its 
principles ;  the  "  secret  of  the  bards",  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  is  a  closed  book  to  him;  see,  e.g.,  p.  108  above. 

1  For  a  detailed  account,  in  Welsh,  of  2>roesi  see  the  Iransactions, 
1908-9,  pp.  24-31. 


Taliesiìi.  125 

Turn  we  tlien,  as  Dr.  Evans  would  say,  to  palaeography, 
which  is  his  subject,  and  in  which  no  one  will  deny  his 
proficiency.  The  Book  of  Taliesin  on  the  whole  gives 
little  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  his  special  skill;  the 
manuscript,  as  he  says,  "  is  beautifully  written,  and  one 
of  the  easiest  to  read  ",  p.  i.  Hence  Skene's  reproduction 
was  a  good  working  text;  its  few  errors  were  mostly 
obvious,  such  as  xí  for  n,  or  c  for  t.  Dr.  Evans's  text  is, 
of  course,  free  from  such  errors ;  and  it  contains  the 
reading  of  the  fragment  at  the  end  of  the  last  page,  which 
Skene  says  "  is  nearly  illegible,  only  a  few  words  beiiig 
distinct ",  F.A.B.,  ii,  217.  The  reading,  even  where 
marked  uncertain,  seems  correct ;  and  an  examination  of 
the  photographic  facsimile  cannot  but  give  the  impression 
that  the  decipherment  of  the  lines  was  a  great  feat.  It 
was,  of  course,  accomplished  many  years  ago,  tliough 
probably  thirty  years  after  Skene  abandoned  the  attempt 
as  hopeless. 

Dr.  Evans  tells  us  that  "the  style  of  the  writing  is 
that  of  about  1275 — it  certainly  appears  to  be  earlier  than 
a  MS.  dated  1282.  But  if  written  by  an  elderly  man,  it 
might  be  25  years  later  ",  p.  xliii,  fn.  And  again,  "  Other 
manuscripts  written  apparently  by  the  same  hand  are  the 
'  Gwentian  Code  '  at  the  British  Museum,  and  Geoíîrey's 
Brut  at  Mostyn  Hall ",  p.  81.  The  information  con- 
tained  in  these  excerpts  is  valuable  as  far  as  it  goes ;  and 
tlie  opinions  expressed  will  be  received  with  deference. 
But  by  a  peculiar  perversity  Dr.  Evans  hardly  deigns  to 
discuss  matters  on  which  he  is  entitled  to  speak :  the  first 
statement  is  huddled  into  a  footnote  at  the  end  of  the 
Introduction ;  the  second  occurs  in  a  note  in  small  type  at 
the  end  of  the  Text.  The  "  MS.  dated  1282  "  is  not  even 
named ;  the  "  manuscripts  written  apparently  by  the 
same  hand  "  are  named  vaguely  with  no  references,  and 


120  Taliesin. 

one  lias  to  huiit  up  tlie  volumes  of  the  Refort  to  kriow 
precisely  what  maiiuscripts  are  meaut  (Harl.  4863  aiid 
Mostyn  117).  In  the  Rejport  (vol.  i,  p.  300)  these  are 
definitely  said  to  be  "  in  the  sarae  hand  ",  here  they  are 
"  apparently  by  the  same  hand  ".  No  facsimiles  are  given  ; 
no  grounds  for  tlie  original  opinion,  or  for  the  later 
modification,  are  stated :  the  matter  is  simply  not  dis- 
cussed.  In  the  larger  type  of  the  Introduction  we  are 
told  tliat  "  the  Book  of  Taliesin  belongs  to  the  Margam 
school  of  writing-;  its  orthography  is  '  South-Walian ', 
while  its  '  hjnj'  for  '  yny '  staraps  the  scribe  as  a  native  of 
Glamorgan  .  .  .  Palaeogi-aphy  thus  teaches  that  our 
manuscript  was  written  at  Margam,  by  a  native  of  the 
district  ",  p.  xliii.  Palaeography  may  or  may  not  teach 
it,  but  the  reason  given  is  not  palaeographical  but 
linguistic,  and  is  worthless.  Dr.  Evans  raay  have  good 
palaeographical  reasons,  such  as  the  style  or  certain 
characteristics  of  tlie  hand,  for  supposing  the  writing  to 
belong  to  "the  Margam  school  "  ;  if  he  has,  he  has  not 
disclosed  them.  íf  the  Brit.  Mus.  Gwentian  Code  is  in 
the  same  hand — he  seems  less  sure  of  this  than  formerly — 
it  furnishes  a  presumption  tliat  the  manuscript  was  written 
in  Glamorgan,  though  not  necessarily  at  Margam.  But 
this  is  not  the  consideration  urged ;  the  argument  used  is 
that  "  '  hjuj  '  for  '  yny  '  staraps  the  scribe  as  a  native  of 
Glamorgan ",  which  proves  nothing  but  the  editor's 
ignorance  of  the  fact  that  hyny  is  the  old  form  of  this 
word,  found,  for  exaraple,  in  Llyfr  yr  Ancr  and  the 
W.B.  Mab.,  Welsh  Gram.,  p.  446.  The  arguraent  tliat 
e  for  y  points  to  a  Powysian  archetype  betrays  similar 
ignorance  (see  Gram.,  p.  16).  The  date  is  determined  by 
a  confused  orthographical  argument,  noticed  below,  Avhich 
is  based  on  an  actually  non-existent  form  irevbret,  while 
palaeographical  arguments  are,  as  above  stated,  relegatecl 


Taliesin.  127 

to  a  footnote.  Instead  of  a  discussion  of  palaeogTapliical 
questions  we  have  í^eneral  reniarks  on  tlie  "  Scienee  of 
Diplomatics  ",  and  a  liandsome  tribute  to  its  master — by 
the  same. 

The  manuscript  is  one  of  the  easiest  to  read.  "Alas," 
says  Dr.  Evans,  "  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  difficult  to 
understand,  because  it  is  among  the  least  faithful  of 
transcripts,"  p.  i.  He  makes  the  statement  apparently 
without  a  thought  of  how  it  reflects  on  his  theor}^ 
Taliesin,  he  thinks,  died  about  1176  ;  our  manuscript  was 
written  about  1275.  Thus  all  the  mutilations  so  elo- 
quently  described  by  the  editor,  p.  xxxvi, — "  hundreds  of 
lines  ....  marred  in  transcription ;  syllables,  words, 
chiuses,  sentences,  lines,  .  .  .  dropped,"  etc,  etc, — must 
have  taken  place  in  the  work  of  the  "  chief  of  bards  " 
within  a  short  century  of  his  death,  while  the  works  of 
less  famous  poets,  who  indisputably  lived  in  the  twelfth 
century,  such  as  Gwalchmai  and  Cynddelw,  are  in  an  ex- 
cellent  state  of  preservation.  The  supposition  has  only  to 
be  stated  to  show  how  incompatible  it  is  with  common 
sense.  "  But  alas  !  what  text  has  suffered  like  the 
Taliesin  text  at  the  hand  of  scribes,"  asks  Dr.  Evans, 
p.  xxxvi.  I  answer  at  once,  "  the  Aneirin  text  "  ;  and  for 
the  same  reason.  But  what  I  wish  to  point  out  here  is 
the  editor's  sublime  unconsciousness  of  the  fact  that  the 
question  so  innocently  put  by  him  knocks  his  theory  on 
the  head. 

The  detection  of  scribal  errors  depends  upon  meaning 
and  construction  ;  errors  are  only  suspected  when  the 
text  as  it  stands  is  unintelligible  or  in  some  other  way 
unsatisfactory.  Even  in  such  a  case  there  need  be  no 
error ;  the  unintelligibility  of  the  text  may  be  due  to  our 
imperfect  knowledge  of  its  language,  or  only  to  the  ignor- 
ance  of  tlie  particular  reader.     Tliis  never  occurs  to  Dr. 


128  Taliesin. 

Evans ;  what  is  viniiitelligible  to  ìiim  is  corrupt,  and  we 
have  seen  that  a  large  number  of  his  "scribal  errors " 
have  no  other  basis  tlian  his  owii  lack  of  acquaintance 
with  the  commonplaces  of  Welsh  scholarship.  A  con- 
siderable  proportion  of  the  remainder  of  his  "  errors  "  are 
assumed  because  the  text  as  it  stands  does  not  square  with 
his  theory  :  Owein  ap  Urien  is  "  unintelligible  ",  see  above, 
p.  87 ;  Cian  (the  sixth  century  bard)  is  an  "  error  "  for 
ciawr,  11.  19'2  ;  GodoSin  is  an  "  error  "  for  gorSin,  n.  61*  11 ; 
a  Gheneu  vab  Coel  is  an  "  error  "  for  a  theirei  i  vah  TJoel, 
II,  90  {teirei  !  and  Hoel,  monosyllabic,  for  Howel  iii  the 
twelfth  century!);  elsewhere,  Ceneu  is  an  "error"  for 
the  recent  and  spurious  cenaw,  II,  116;  a  Chludwys  '  Rnà 
the  Clydemen  '  is  an  "  error "  for  achludyn,  II,  160 ; 
Iwerèon  is  aii  "  error  "  for  rhy-Soethon,  ib.  ;  o  Lydaw  is  an 
"  error "  for  oludawg,  II,  168;  wyr  Bryneich  '  men  of 
Bernicia '  is  an  "  error  "  for  i  ArSunwent,  II,  122  ;  Jcech- 
myn  Danet  is  an  "  error  "  for  JSormanieid,  II,  162  ;  Argoet 
Llwyfein,  "  Locality  and  metre  both  wrong  ....  Read 
.  .  .  cynrein'\  n.  60*7;  etc,  etc.  Many  passages  of  tlie 
text  are,  of  course,  unintelligible  to  others  as  well  as  to 
Dr.  Evans ;  the  solutions  lie  offers  of  these  difficulties  are, 
to  say  the  least,  remarkable.  Thus  Sychediedi  euroi,  74-21  : 
"s?/c(li)edi-edi,  metatli.  for  yseáìc  eẁi.  eur oi  sipeìt  back- 
wards=ioruc,  a  Soutli  Waliaii  gloss  on  ei8i=ìvy  ",  p.  124. 
The  form  eièi  seems  to  have  been  evolved  in  the  editor's 
brain  out  of  a  confusion  of  the  Welsh  eièew  and  the 
English  ivy ;  ioruc  (the  S.W.  dial.  iortug  for  eièiorwg) 
"  spelt  backwards  "  by  a  niedieval  glossator  is  a  suggestion 
so  desperately  crazy  that  one  knows  not  what  to  say;  but 
many  of  the  editor's  other  corrections,  tliough  perhaps 
less  ludicrous,  are  inherently  iiot  less  absurd.  The  "  List 
of  Scribal  Errors,"  pp.  130-144,  is  a  classification  of  tliese 
"  emendations  ",  which  are  arranged  in  the  alphabetical 


Taliesin.  129 

order  of  the  letters  supposed  to  be  misreadings.  The  first 
in  the  list  is  aryher,  14'6,  amended  to  0  ryher  rendered 
"from  insubordination  ",  II,  163,  which  is  obviously  wide 
of  the  mark.  The  second  is  the  "  emendation  "  of  the 
correct  medieval  mawr  a  eir  14*11  into  the  modern  mawr 
0  eir ;  the  editor  in  all  his  copying,  has  never  noticed  that 
the  medieval  preposition  in  such  phrases  is  a  (see  E..  B. 
Mab,  7-4-28,  etc.  Gram.,  p.  401,  11.  4-6).  The  third  is 
tlie  "emendation"  of  eur  ac  aryant,  17'19,  '  gold  and 
silver '  into  cur  a  gorian,  which  is  not  Welsh,  gorian  being 
a  Pughean  perversion  of  goriein,  the  standard  form  from 
gawr,  with  the  same  ending  as  llefein,  wylofein,  germein, 
etc. ;  this  change  is  suggested  because  the  editor  failed  to 
understand  a  fairly  easy  sentence  (see  Beirnaid  1916, 
p.  214).  And  so  on.  There  are,  of  course,  numerous 
errors  of  one  kind  and  another  in  the  text ;  and  this  list 
contains  good  corrections  of  some  of  them  :  about  the 
middle  of  the  fìrst  column,  for  example,  draganawl,  68"25, 
is  obviously  an  error  for  dragonawl,  which  is  given  as  the 
correction,  though  the  error  is  more  likely  to  be  due  to 
the  anticipation  of  the  following  a  tlian  to  mistaking  0  for 
a  as  the  classification  implies.  But  these  form  only  a 
small  proportion  of  the  whole  ;  a  large  number  of  the 
"  errors  "  are  imaginary,  and  the  bulk  of  the  solutions 
chiraerical.  Some  knowledge  of  palaeography  is  no  doubt 
essential  for  the  emendation  of  such  a  text  as  this — 
knowledge,  for  example,  of  the  fact  that  u  and  n  are 
liable  to  be  confused  ;  that  m  may  be  mistaken  for  in,  ni, 
iu  or  ui',  that  c,  t,  r  are  frequently  confounded — but  the 
fundamental  requisite  is  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
language,  and  this,  as  we  have  abundantly  seen,  Dr. 
Evans  is  very  far  from  possessing.  He  uses  the  possible 
palaeographical  permutations  of  letters  to  justify  emenda- 
tions  which  can   easily  be  proved,  on   grammatical  and 


1 30  Talíesin. 

metrical  grounds,  to  be  absurd.  But  a  large  number  of 
his  emendations  have  not  even  this  justification,  and  are 
therefore  not  included  in  the  list;  and  one  sometimes 
wonders  why  he  thought  all  this  juggling-  with  letters 
necessary  when  he  can  at  one  stroke  "  correct  "  Owein  ap 
Vryen  into  Owein  rhywyssid,  or  wyr  Bryneich  into  i  Arèun- 
went,  and  can  even  introduce  into  his  text  whole  lines 
written  in  a  blundering-  travesty  of  Medieval  Welsh,  and 
representing  nothing  in  the  manuscript. 

The  most  interesting,  and  perhaps  the  most  important, 
palaeographical  question  connected  with  the  Book  of 
Taliesin  is  whether  it  contains  any  evidence  of  transcrip- 
tion,  direct  or  indirect,  from  a  copy  in  "  Hiberno-Saxon  ", 
or  Insular,  script.  Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans's  theory  is 
based  on  the  supposition  that  nothing  in  the  book  is  older 
than  the  twelfth  century,  and  Insular  script  gave  place  to 
Continental  about  the  end  of  the  eleventh  [Y  Cymmrodor, 
ix,  146) ;  if,  therefore,  tlie  manuscript  bears  witness  to  a 
prototype  in  the  older  character,  the  foundation  of  his 
theory  is  swept  away.  The  possibility  of  such  a  thing 
does  not  seem  to  have  suggested  itself  to  him ;  in  his  own 
domain  of  palaeography,  as  in  other  matters,  he  is  blind 
to  everything  which  tells  against  the  theory.  It  becomes 
necessary,  then,  to  examine  the  evidence  in  the  text  for 
transcription  from  Insular  script. 

The  question  is  not  an  exclusive]y  palaeographical  one, 
for  all  the  Welsh  written  in  Insular  script  appears  in  Old 
Welsh  orthography  (see  above,  p.  6),  which  is  found  in 
the  later  Continental  script  only  when  the  scribe  is  copy- 
ing  literally  or  mechanically  from  an  older  document. 
The  old  hand  and  the  old  spelling  go  together;  both 
belong  to  the  earlier  period,  and  the  evidence  of  the  one 
corroborates  thatof  the  other.  In  Old  Welsh  orthography 
a  mutated  consonant  is  represented  by  its  radical ;    the 


Taliesin.  '  131 

mutation  liad  taken  place,  but  tlie  spelling  survived  from 

the  time  when  the  mutated  sound  could  still  be  regarded 

as  a  soft  or  loose  pronunciation  of  the  radical.     The  sound 

V  (now  written/)  was  written  m  or  6  according  as  it  came 

from  the  one  or  the  other — this  could  be  distinguished 

by  the  sound  being  nasal  in  the   former  case ;  thus  the 

modern  nifer  was  spelt  nimer,  and  tref  was  spelt  treh.     In 

Medieva]  Welsh  the  sound  v  was  usuallv  written  u  or  v 

medially   (tliese    were   two   forms   of    one   letter),  and  / 

finally ;  thus  the  above  words  were  written  7iiuer  and  tref. 

But/appears  not  only  at  the  end  of  a  word,  but  at  the 

end  of  any  element  in  a  word ;  thus  trefred  is  not  written 

treuret  but  trefret,  in  our  text,  51*25,  57'22,  58-26,  and  the 

prefix  cyf-  appears  as  Jcyf-  oftener  than  as  hyu-  ;  /  also 

appears    medially   sometimes   in   certain   other   combina- 

tions,    such  as  after  go-,  as  in  gofyn,  or  before  silent  y 

as  in  diofyn,  etc.     In    the    first    half    of    the    fourteenth 

century   this    medial  /  had    sometimes    an    added    u   to 

show  that  it  meant  v,  and  not  the   hard  /  (English  /), 

as   Jcyfuanneè,    {g)ofuynny  (Pen.   14,  W.B.   Mab.,  p.   286). 

Now  Dr.  Gwenogvryn  Evans  argues,  p.  xliii,  that  a  "form 

like  'trei'&ret'  is  not  a  'mistake'  but  evidence  of  our  MS. 

being  written  at  the  very  beginning  of  a  transition  period. 

After   1300  it  was  not  an  uncommon   practice  to  flank 

(6  and)  /  by  a  v  or  w  when  they  had  the  sound  of  v  ". 

Why  does  he  put  "  (h  and) "  in  brackets  ?     Because  the 

statement  is  not  true  of  h,  wliich  is  not  sounded  v  after 

1300,  and  is  not  "flanked"  by  v  to  denote  such  sound. 

Thus  vh  is  taken  to  indicate  the  beginning  of  a  period  in 

which  no  vh  for  v  is  ever  used.     Furtherniore,  will  it  be 

believed  that  the  vh,  on  which  the  argument  is  founded, 

actually  does  not  exist  in  our  MS.  ?     The  form  in  the 

MS.  is  tref-  \  hret,  p.  45-11-12,  the  tref-  coming  at  the  end 

of  1.  11   and  the  bret  at  the  beginning  of  1.  12.     It  is, 

K  2 


132  Taliesin. 

despite  Dr.  Evans's  denial,  a  "  raistake  ".  The  explana- 
tion  is  as  follows.  A  scribe  was  peculiarly  liable  to  make 
a  inistake  in  passing  from  one  line  to  another  ;  this  was 
known  to  Dr.  Evans  in  1887,  for  in  his  E.B.  Mab.  he 
marked  the  end  of  a  line  bj  a  stroke  |  where  he  found 
(under  Rhys's  guidance)  "  any  peculiarity  in  the  ortho- 
graphy ",  p.  xvii ;  in  this  I  followed  his  example  in  my 
Elucidarium,  1894,  see  p.  xv.  The  Old  Welsh  spelling'  of 
the  word  now  under  notice  would  be  trehret.  The  scribe 
began  to  write  his  usual  trefret,  and  wrote  tref,  vrhich 
brought  him  to  the  end  of  his  line  ;  just  before  beginning 
the  next  line  he  instinctively  looked  at  his  copy  again, 
and,  seeing  hret,  transcribed  it  mechanically.  It  is  more 
likely  that  the  mistake  is  his  own,  comingas  it  does  in  the 
division  of  his  lines,  than  that  he  was  transcribing  linefor 
lìne  a  copy  in  which  it  had  been  previously  made.  Thus, 
transcription  from  Old  Welsh  is  practically  certain,  as 
there  can  be  no  other  source  of  the  h  ;  and  its  position 
makes  it  probable  that  the  transcription  was  direct. 
Again,  on  p.  56-24-25  we  find  the  following  couplet : 

ynamwyn  gwen  ystrat  ygwelit 
gofur  hag  agwyr  llawr  lluòedic. 

'  Defending  Gwen  Ystrad  there  were  seen 
A  low  rampart  .  .  .  and  dejected,  tired  men.' 

What  is  the  hag  which  I  have  left  untranslated  ?  Final 
g  can  only  mean  ng,  and  there  is  no  hang  in  Welsh.  I 
need  not  discuss  at  length  Dr.  Evans's  attempts  at 
emendation.  In  his  note,  p.  109,  he  confesses  that  II, 
158'16  is  a  bad  shot,  and  suggests  "  gofur  hag : 
go*vuríhawr,  feehle  resistance'^ :  a  í  is  supplied,  and  the  g 
is  assumed  to  be  an  error  for  wr  !  The  true  explanation 
is  very  simple  and  obvious.  In  Old  Welsh  a  '  and '  was 
almost  always  written  ha ;  and  a  gwŷr  '  and  men  '  would 
be  spelt  haguir.     This  is  what  the  scribe  had  before  him  ; 


Taliesin.  133 

he  started  copying  it  mechanically,  but  when  he  had 
written  Img  he  realised  what  it  was,  and  began  again, 
writing  it  this  time  correctly  in  the  orthography  which  he 
used  throughout — agwyr.  He  doubtless  intended  later  to 
delete  the  liag  by  under-dotting  the  letters,  but  forgot  all 
about  it,  as  he  often  did,  much  to  the  bewilderment  of 
Dr.  Evans.  That  the  hag  is  superfluous  is  also  shown  by 
the  length  of  the  line,  which  should  be  8  syllables :  in  the 
other  line,  ystrai  was  a  monosyllable,  strat,  in  Old  Welsh. 
Here  then  we  have  unmistakable  evidence  of  transcription 
f rom  a  copy  in  Old  Welsh  spelling ;  but  as  the  scribe 
might  be  copying  the  mistake  of  a  previous  copyist  there 
is  no  proof  that  the  transcription  here  was  direct. 

The  preposition  wrth  appears  as  gurt  or  giirth  in  Old 
Welsh,  but  in  the  scribe's  ortliography  it  is,  of  course, 
wrth.  In  61"  6  he  began  to  write  the  Old  Welsh  g-  of  his 
copy,  but  left  off  before  drawing  the  indispensable  tag  at 
the  top  right-hand  corner,  and  put  a  dot  of  deletion  under 
the  unfinished  letter.  Dr.  Evans  in  his  diplomatic  text 
represents  the  result  in  type  thus  :  g(uth  ;  but  in  his  notes 
he  ignores  this  eloquent  sUp  of  the  pen.  Did  he  fail  to 
perceive  its  plain  significance  ?  It  shows  the  scribe  in  the 
act  of  checking  himself  in  an  error  of  transliteration 
which  proves  that  he  was  transcribing  the  poem  from  a 
copy  in  Old  Welsh  orthography. 

Sir  Edward  Anwyl's  examples  of  Old  Welsh  spelling 
in  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  referred  to  above,  p.  25,  are  the 
three  following,  all  f rom  one  poem,  "  Trawsganu  Kynan 
Garwyn  " :  trefhret  for  trefret,  which  I  have  deaU  with  ; 
pympwnt  for  pymhtunt  '  fifty  ','  45'14í  ;  and  dymet  for  dyuet, 
i.e.,  Dyved,  45"20.  There  are  at  least  four  other  examples 
in  the  same  short  poem,  which  takes  up  only  twenty-one 

*  Dr.  Evans  does  not  know  this  nunieral ;   he  guesses  it  wrongly 
each  tinie  ;  here  it  is  "  pytri  j)iont,  tìve  spikes"!  II,  92,  93. 


5 
5    2 


1 34  Taliesm. 

lines  of  the  inaiiuscript :  ebrifet,  45-17,  for  efrtfet,  modern 
afrifed  ' innumerable ' ;  Myglcynnelw,  45*24  f or  uyg  Tiynnelw,^ 
in  modern  spelling  fy  ngliynnelw, — tbe  Old  Welsh  form 
would  be  mi  cinnelu,  cf.  mi  coueidid,  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.  2,  so 
the  scribe  seems  to  have  discovered  the  meaning  after 
writing  the  M ;  Tegyrned,  45-26,  for  TeyrneS  'king-s' 
dy  gynan,  46-4,  for  y  gynan,  niodern  i  Gynan  '  to  Cynan 
Anwyl  remarlís  that  his  three  exaniples  "  suggest  that  the 
poem  was  copied  from  a  manuscript  in  which  the  spelling 
was  uniformly  of  an  older  type  ".  It  will  be  agreed  that 
the  evidence,  more  fully  stated,  is  not  merely  suggestive 
but  conclusive. 

To  the  medieval,  as  to  the  modern,  reader  the  chief 
cause  of  stumbling  in  the  old  script  lay  in  the  similarity 
of  the  minuscule  forms  of  r  and  n.  The  second  limb  of  r, 
instead  of  being  a  mere  tag  attached  to  the  top  of  the 
first  was  brought  down  to  the  line,  or  very  nearly  to  the 
line,  at  fìrst  with  a  curl  outwards  at  the  bottom,  but  this 
became  an  angle  quite  early,  as  seen  in  the  following 
exampleof  northern  writingfrom  the  Book  of  Lindisfarne, 
written  about  700,  reproduced  from  the  facsimile  in 
Bihliographica,  iii,  p.  271  : 

OftöJcIitB^mibit>enaruu 

Ostendite  mihi  denarium 


1  In  his  n.  4524  Dr.  Evans  takes  Mi/ÿ  to  be  the  modern  mì/g.  He 
has  copied  tens  of  thousands  of  final  -c  for  modern  -y,  but  that  has 
not  availed  to  impress  on  his  mind  the  fact  that  -e  is  the  only 
possible  medieval  spelling.  Medieval  -ff  means  -n</  only.  The  fuU 
phrase  liere  is  Mi/nff  hynnelw  o  Gynan ;  for  the  meaning,  see  above, 
p.  98  fn. 

^  Other  minor  indications  occur,  such  as  /  for  II  twice  in  A  lafyn 
giüyarlet,  45'18 ;  etc. 


Taliesin.  135 

A  survival  of  an  earlier  form  is  seen  in  iudri,  side  by  side 
with  more  usual  forms  in  iudnerth  and  clericis  in  the 
following  example  taken  from  the  names  written  about 
the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  in  the  margin  of  p.  218  of 
the  Book  of  St.  Chad,  and  reproduced  fron)  the  full-sized 
photograph  in  Pi'ofessor  W.  M.  Lindsay's  Early  Welsh 
Script,  plate  ii : 

iudri.  f.  iudnerth.     De  clericis 

There  is  a  tendency  to  produce  the  first  limb  below  the 
line ;  this  is  niore  pronounced  in  the  r  of  pater  in  the 
following  example  from  the  englynion  in  a  tenth  century 
hand  at  the  top  of  the  first  page  of  the  Cambridg'e 
Juvencus  manuscript,  reproduced  from  a  tracing  of  the 
words  in  tlie  photograph  which  forms  Professor  Lindsay's 
plate  vii : 

dicones  pater  harimed  presen 

In  later  hands  this  is  carried  much  further,  and  the  fìrst 
stroke  of  r  is  brought  down  as  far  as  thatof  p  or  minuscule 
s,  so  that  confusion  of  r  and  n  is  less  likely  in  copying 
from  a  late  than  from  an  earlier  type  of  Insular  script. 
In  some  of  the  freer  forms  of  the  earlier  writing,  of  wliich 
few  samples  have  survived,  r  and  n  must  often  have  been 
almost  indistinguishable,  as  may  be  gathered  from  the 
following  example  of  early  ninth  century  Welsh  (or,  as 
Professor  Lindsay  thinks,  Cornish')  script,  given  in  his 
plate  iv  : 

^  The  evidence  is  later  and  not  conchisive ;  tlie  v  form  of  u  shows 
that  it  belongs  in  any  case  to  the  Welsh  type  of  script. 


136 


Taliesin, 


"YT"  "r)T     autem  generatio  sic  erat  Cum  esset   dis 
A    I      I       ponsata  mater  eius  mai'ia  ioseph  antequam 

conuenirent  inuenta  est  in  utero  habens  de  spiriíu  sancío. 
^         ioseph  autcm  uir  eius  cum  esset  homo  iustus  et  nolet 
eam  tradvcere  uoluit  occulte  dimittere  eam. 
Ha?c  autem  eo  cogitante  ecce  angelus  domini  in  sompnls 
apparuit  ei  dicens  ioseph  íìlii  darid  noli  timere 
accipej-e  mariam  coiugem  tuam  quod  enim  in  ea  natum  est 
de  spirjíu  sancío  est  pariet  autem  ülium  eí  uocabis  nomen  eius  ies!(m  ipse 

Now,  in  the  Continental  hands  used  in  the  twelfth 
century  and  later,  r  and  n  differ  just  as  much  as  do  the 
r  and  n  of  ordinary  modern  print;  see  for  example  the 
frontispiece  to  this  volume.  Hence  confusion  of  r  and  n, 
especially  if  it  occurs  repeatedlj,  is  a  sure  sign  of  tran- 
scription  from  a  copy  in  Insular  script.  In  the  poem 
*'  Trawsganu  Cynan  Garwyn  ",  in  which  we  have  found 
several  traces  of  Old  Welsh  spelling,  an  example  of  this 
confusion  occurs  in  the  first  line  :  am  arllofeis  ket,  45' 10, 
for  am  anllofes  Jcet  '  bestowed  on  me  a  gift ' ;  the  correct 
form  of  the  word  is  seen  in  anllofet,  58-26.  Another 
example  is  probably  Nac,  4520,  for  rac.  The  error  -eis 
(in  arllofeis)  for  -es  is  also  more  likely  to  happen  in 
copying  from  the  old  than  from  the  new  script.  The  d 
written  for  a  and  then  deleted  in  hyfdarchet,  45*22,  sug- 
gests  an  original  with  an  occasional  tall-backed  a,  like  d, 
such  as  our  fourth  specimen  above.  There  is  thus  palaeo- 
graphical  as  well  as  decisive  orthographical  evidence  that 


Taliesin.  137 

this  poem  Avas  transcribed  from  a  manuscript  of  the  Old 
Welsh  period. 

To  come  back  to  the  confusion  of  r  and  n,  reference 
has  been  made  above,  p.  89,  to  ì^y  rannet,  68'i;  for  ry 
rannet,  and  to  Dr.  Evans's  clumsy  correction.  We  also 
find  Ny  cìiyrcìiafi  gogleS,  65'10,  for  ry  chyrchaf;  and  ny 
golychaf,  64*2,  for  ry  golychaf;  the  former  wî/ was  corrected 
to  neu  by  Dr.  Evans,  II,  94,  a  pahieographically  violent 
emendation  ;  he  subsequently  changed  his  mind,  and  read 
ni,  n.  64"  10,  because  his  Cheshire  Gogleb  seemed  a  place 
to  which  his  Taliesin  would  not  wish  to  go.  His  list  of 
scribal  errors  contains  one  good  example  of  n  for  r: 
mawnut,  26*1,  for  mawrut,  which,  however,  he  takes  for 
mawr  u8  ;  but  u8  is  hardly  applicable  to  a  sorcerer,  and 
we  have  here  to  do  with  hut  'magic'.  Possibly  also 
Gnissynt,  6l-o,for  gryssynt.  But  although  he  notes  these 
two  errors  of  n  for  r,  and  imagines  others,  his  theory 
affords  no  explanation  of  them.  They  are  mere  shots, 
like  liis  emendation  of  magidawr,  52*20,  to  "mygrSawn", 
p.  106,  which  he  suggests  because  he  failed  to  see  that 
Alexander  magidawn  was  '  Alexander  of  Macedon '. 

In  40*16  we  come  upon  the  scribe  in  the  act  of  catch- 
ing  himself  tripping;  the  phrase  is  y  gwin  ar  cwrwf  ar 
meh  '  the  wine  and  the  beer  and  the  mead  ' ;  he  wrote  the 
second  ar  as  an,  but  discovered  his  mistake  x,^^%t^jnS 
before  going  on  ;  he  put  a  dot  under  the  fìrst 
stroke  of  the  n  to  delete  it,  and  added  the  tag  to  the 
second  to  make  this  into  an  r,  as  shown  in  the  margin. 
The  space  between  the  n  fìrst  written  and  the  m  is  much 
wider  than  the  usual  space  between  words  ;  that  between 
the  r  and  the  m  is  normal ;  thus  the  mistalce  was  dis- 
covered  and  corrected  before  the  next  word  was  written. 

A  phrase  in  which  the  scribe  repeatedly  goes  wrong  is 
ar  wawd  '  in  song  '.     In  Old  Welsh  spelling  this  would  be 


138  Taliesin. 

arguaut,  for  iv  was  written  u,  and  the  initial  consonantal 
w  of  wawd  would  appear  in  its  radical  form  of  gu ;  and  ar, 
not  nieaning  '  upon  ',  would  be  ar,  not  guar,  cf.  ar  i  hit, 
etc,  in  Llyfr  Llan  Daf,  159,  etc.  In  the  old  script  the 
phrase  would  appear  somewhat  as  shown  in  the  accom- 
,  panying    block.       In    our    scribe's    ortho- 

«fí^Hninr  gj-aphy  it  should  be  written  ar  wawt,  the 
w  being  represented  either  by  w  or  the  equivalent  symbol 
0.  In  19'25  he  writes  an  góaót,  copyiiig-  the  r  as  n, 
and  not  mutating  the  giv ;  in  56'16  he  writes  an  waót, 
mutating  the  gw  this  time,  though  his  an  shows  that 
he  did  not  understand  the  phrase ;  in  64*2  he  has  an 
gnaót,  where  the  first  u  as  well  as  the  r  is  mistaken 
f or  n ;  the  error  immediafely  follows  ny  golychaf  for  ry 
golychaf  mentioned  above,  the  whole  expression  being- 
properly  ry  golychaf  ar  wawt  '  I  pi-aise  in  song  '.  But  the 
most  instructive  case  appears  in  26*7,  where  the  scribe 
writes  harè  harS  huS  an  gnaót  ar  waót.  Here  one  of  two 
things  happened :  either  the  scribe  discovered  his  error 
and  wrote  the  correction  ar  waót  intending  later  to  delete 
the  mistaken  an  gnaót,  as  he  clearly  intended  to  do  with 
the  hag  noticed  above,  p.  133  ;  or  some  previous  reader  of 
the  old  manuscript,  beiiig  at  fìrst  puzzled  by  arguaut, 
,  aT"mMvẃr  glossed  it  «r  watvt,  in  the  manner  shown 
•-'  m  tne  margm,  and  our  scribe,  as  was  his 

wont,  incorporated  the  gloss  in  his  text.  The  first  alter- 
native  is  perhaps  less  likely  than  the  second,  for  if  the 
scribe  had  discovered  his  error  in  26-7,  he  would  probably 
not  have  repeated  it  in  56*16  and  64*2.  But  in  either 
case  the  error  proves  that  each  of  the  poems  in  which  it 
occurs  is  ultimately  derived  from  a  copy  in  Insular  script. 

There  is  thus  ample  evidence,  though  Dr.  Evans  has 
been  blind  to  it  all,  that  many  of  the  poems  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin  have  been  copied  from  manuscripts  of  the  Old 


Taliesin.  1 39 

Welsh  period.  The  evidence  is  cumulative  and  self- 
consistent;  it  is  partly  orthographical,  partly  palaeo- 
graphical,  and  the  parts  dovetail  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
admit  of  only  one  conclusion.  This  conclusion  is  further 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  a  considerable  number  of 
glosses  have  been  incorporated  in  the  text.  Dr.  Evans 
recognises  this  as  one  of  the  sources  of  the  manifest 
corruption  of  the  textas  wefind  it,  and  imaginesnumerous 
o^losses  where  none  exist.  But  he  does  not  see  how 
extremely  improbable  it  is  thatall  the  glossing  and  mixing 
up  of  glosses  and  text,  which  have  undoubtedly  taken 
place,  can  have  come  about  in  a  work  which  was  quite 
modern,  its  author  being  barely  a  century  dead  at  the  date 
of  the  manuscript. 

When  we  examine  Dr.  Evans's  list  of  Glosses,  p.  144, 
we  find  that  hardly  any  of  them  is  in  the  least  likely  to  be 
a  gloss.  He  explains  that  his  abbreviation  ^  means  "  a 
gloss  on  or /or".  By  a  "  gloss  f or  "  we  are  to  understand 
that  the  word  so  described  might  have  been  a  gloss  on  a 
word  which  is  not  in  the  manuscript,  but  might  have  heen 
in  the  scribe's  copy  !  Most  of  the  "  glosses  "  in  the  list 
are  "  glosses  for  "  ;  thus  hetwyr  16-15  and  milwyr  18"10 
are  glosses  for  "  rheinyB "  whicli  does  not  exist  in  the 
manuscript,  or  anywhere  else,  as  far  as  I  know,  outside 
Pughe's  dictionary.  Why  is  it  suggested  that  milwyr  and 
hetwyr  are  "  glosses  for  "  this  bogus  rheinyS  ?  Because 
the  rhyme  is  -yS,  and  Dr.  Evans  did  not  know  that  -yr 
formed  a  good  rhyme  with  -yB  at  the  period  when  the 
poem  was  coraposed,  see  above,  p.  124.  Mynych  16*19  is 
a  gloss  "  for  "  aml  because  the  editor  thinks  that  the  line 
as  it  stands  is  too  long,  which  is  not  the  case.  Many  of 
the  others  are  suggested  for  a  similar  reason  :  a  oryw 
66*13  is  a  gloss  "for"  wnaeth,  in  a  poem  of  lines  of 
irregular  length ;  apart  from  the  fact  tliat  the  a  cannot 


1 40  Taliesin, 

be  omitted,  is  it  possible  to  imagine  that  wnaeth,  one  o£ 

the  commonest  words  in  the  language,  can    have   been 

glossed  (that  is,  explaÌ7ied)  by  oryw'?     It  may  be  true  that 

gaìvr  53' 10  should  be  hloeS,  for  the  latter  rhymes  (so  does, 

or  did,  gwoeê,  now  gwaeS,  a  preferable  emendation) ;    but 

even  if  it  is,  it  is  most  unlikely  that  gawr  was  a  gloss  on 

the  comnion  word  hloe8,  and  that  the  gloss  was  written  by 

the  copyist  instead  of  the  word  in  the  text ;  a  much  more 

probable  explanation   in  such  a  case  would  be  that   the 

copyist  attempted  to  improve  the  original  by  substituting 

a  more  effective  word.     "  Gloss  for"  is  in  every  case  an 

extremely  improbable  hypothesis ;  and  thus  the  bulk  of 

Dr.  Evans's  list  is  worthless.     In  one  or  two  cases  where 

the  gloss  is  "  on  "  a  word  in  the  text,  as  in  Uiiv,  43-19, 

gloss  on  ehoec,  the  suggestion  is  not  unreasonable.     But 

he  has  seen  none  of  the  obvious  cases.     For  example,  there 

are  three  in  the  first  part  of  "  Yspeil  Taliessin  ",  p.  62. 

The  second  line  of  the  poem  ends  with  the  words  a  wellwyf 

yn  hertli  (read  welhwyf)    '  what  I  see  for  certain  ' ;  this  is 

f ollowed  by  wir  '  true ',  which  stands  disconnectedly  be- 

tween  the  verse  and  the  next ;  it  is  quite  clearly  a  gloss 

on  certh  (from  Latin  certus)  ;  it  is  mutated  because  the  yn 

is    implied    before    it — yn    wir.      As    certh    had    lost    the 

primary  meaning  in  which   it  is  used   in   the  poem,  it  is 

just  the  word  which  we  should  expect  to  be  glossed.     Dr. 

Evans  does  notunderstand  it,  and  so  changes  it  to  gydnerth, 

II,  p.  112.     The    gloss   wir   he   takes   to  be  the   modern 

exclamation  Gwir !  '  True  !  '  whicli  he  puts  at  the  begin- 

ning  of  the  next  line.     The  second  example  occurs  in  tlie 

line 

Gwerth  vy  nat  mawr  vyb  y  radeu. 
'ln  recognition  of  my  song  great  are  his  gifts.' 

In  the  text  y  vu8  '  his  bounty  '  occurs  immediately  bef  ore 
y  radeu  '  his  gifts  ',  and  is  clearly  a  gloss  on  it,  f or  rhad 


Taliesin.  1 4 1 

had  already  come  to  mean  '  grace ',  and  was  used  in   its 

primary  meaning  only  in  the  stereotyped  phrase  yn  rhad 

'  gratis  '.     Dr.  Evans  does  not  know  the  word  nat  [nâd) 

'  song ',    although    it    still   survives  in   marw-nad  '  death- 

song ' ;  he  "  amends  "  Gwerth  vy  nat  to  "  Gwyrth  vy  nu8  " 

"  A  marvel  is  ni}'-  lord  ",  although  gwerth  vy  gwennwawt 

'm   virtue  of  my  minstrelsy  '  occurs  in  the  most  famous 

stanza  of  the  Godobin   (B.A.,  6'22) ;  he  drops  the  copula 

vyh  and   renders  the  rest  of  the  line    "  great  to    us    the 

benefit  of   his  gifts  ",  admitting  the  gloss  into  the  line. 

The  third  example  is  in  the  next  line 

pen  maon  am  de^  preib  lydan. 
'  The  chief  of  warriors  awards  (?)  me  a  great  herd.' 

Following  tlie  obsolete  maon  is  the  explanatory   mihoyr 

'  warriors ',  a  most  obvious  gloss.     It  would  be  waste  of 

space   to   discuss   Dr.  Evans's  wild  "  emendations "  ;    of 

course,  he  did  not  see  the  gloss.     It  is,  however,  only  right 

to  say  tliat  he  has  suspected  one  gloss  in  p.  3  in  a  passage 

where   there   are   many.     In    his   note  on    3*14   he    says 

"  Dhi=Domini  has  no  app.  place  here  ".     In   his  list  of 

Glosses,  p.  144,  he  gives  dwvyn  domini,  3*14,  as  a  gloss. 

The  passage  is  as  follows  : 

Ri  rex  gl'e  am  gogyfarch  yn 
gelvyb.     Aweleisti  dns  fortis.  darogan  dwfyn  dni 
bubyant  uflFern.  hic  nemo  in  por  .pgenie.     Ef  di- 
Uygwys  ythwryf  dîis  yirtutù.  kaethnawt  kyn- 
nullwys  estis  iste  est. 

Dr.  Evans  reads  in  the  third  line  "inper  .pgenio  ".  The 
page  had  served  as  outer  cover  for  the  manuscript  for  a 
long  time  before  it  was  bound,  and  considering  its  state 
and  the  forms  of  the  doubtful  letters  here,  it  is  strange 
that  Dr.  Evans  did  not  adopt  the  reading  of  the  Red 
Book  {F.A.B.,  ii,  304)  whose  scribe  copied  the  lines  five 
hundred  years  before  him,  when  the  page  was  clean,  and 
^  Cf.  aììi  dyro  am  de,  41 '20, 


142  Taliesin. 

the  first  leaf  had  not  been  torn  off.^  Dr.  Evans  believes 
that  dwfyn  dni  is  a  gloss  ;  dni  (domini)  certainly  is,  but 
dwfyn  can  only  be  an  error  for  dofyò  '  of  the  Lord  '  on 
which  domini  is  a  self-evident  gloss.  In  fact  all  the  Latin 
words  in  the  passage  are  glosses.  The  Welsh  words 
arrange  theinselves  into  four  very  regular  lines  of  eight 
syllables,  rhyming  in  couplets  ;  thus  : 

Ri  am  gogyfarch  yn  gelvyb 

A  weleist-  darogan  dofyS 

Bubyant  ufì'ern  Ef  dillywgwys 

Y  thwr(y)f3  kaethnawt  ^kynnullwys. 

'  The  King  asketh  me  in  skilful  wise, 
Hast  thou  seen  the  prophecy  of  the  Lord  ? 
HelFs  prey  He  hath  set  free, 
Its  captive  host  He  hath  gathered  together  '.'' 

That  is  clearly  the  original  text.  A  more  obvious  case  of 
interpolating  glosses  it  would  be  difficult  to  canceive. 
Analysis  of  the  scribe's  medley  seems  to  show  that  in  his 
copy  the  division  of  the  lines  and  the  relative  positions  of 
the  giosses  were  approximately  as  follows  (omitting  marks 
of  contraction)  : — 

rex  gle 

Ri  am 

'  dns  fortis 

gogyfarch  yn  gelvyb  aweleist 
darogan  dofyb  bubyant  uffern  din.  pot. 

dns  Yirtutu  pgeniets] 

Ef  dillygwys  ythwryf  kaethnawt 

est  is.  iste  est 

(Ef)  kynnullwys 

^  The  letters  arenot  marked  doubtful  in  the  reproduction,though 
they  are  obviously  not  certain ;  and  there  is  no  note  discussing  the 
reading,  and  no  reference  to  the  reading  of  the  Red  Book.  In  the 
midst  of  the  grammatical  and  historicai  inanities  of  the  notes  we 
look  in  vain  for  the  palaeographical  notes  we  had  a  right  to  expect. 

^  The  affixed  pronouns  -i,  -ti,  etc,  are  generally  scribal  insertions, 
not  counting  in  the  metre. 

^  The  y  in  twryfìs  non-syllabic,  or  silent. 

*  Cf .  "  Christus  infernum  despoliavit,  et  .  .  .  raptos  inde  in 
paradiso  collocavit",— JE'/MCtrfanwwt,  1894,  p.  187. 


Taliesin.  143 

As  ri  ^  king '  here  denotes  the  Deity,  it  was  glossed  rex 
gloriae ;  as  the  glossator  (unlike  our  editor)  kne\v  the 
twenty-fourth  psahn'  by  heart  in  Latin,  he  added,  below 
the  line,  dominus  fortis,  and  similarly,  havingf  explained 
dofyè  as  domini,  added  dominus  virtutum  below  the  line ; 
est  is,  iste  est,  also  an  echo  of  the  psalm,  may  be  intended 
to  denote  that  the  subject  of  hynnullwys  is  also  He.  The 
gloss  progenies  explains  the  rare  word  nawt,  which  Mr.  Ifor 
Williams  has  shown  (without  i-eference  to  this  example) 
to  mean  '  race,  nation ',  etc,  Y  Beirniad,  1916,  pp.  275-6. 
There  was  no  room  between  the  lines  for  a  gloss  on 
twryf,  so  it  was  inserted  in  abbreviated  form  in  the  margin; 
it  was  probably  a  reference  to  the  biblical  mention  of  this 
'•'turba  magna  "  who  had  come  out  of  the  great  tribula- 
tion  (Rev.  vii,  9,  14),  and  the  reading  may  have  been 
h{an)c{?]nemo din{umerare)  pot{erat).'-  Whatever  the  exact 
form  of  the  original  may  have  been,  it  was  clearly  an 
enigma  to  our  scribe,  who  copied  it  mechanically  and  not 
quite  correctly.'  The  restoration  of  the  phrase  is  of  less 
importance  than  the  conclusion  that  it,  like  all  the  other 
Latin  phrases  in  the  passage,  forms  no  part  of  the  original 
text,  and  of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  sug-g'ested 
reconstruction  of   the   scribe's   copy  seems   to   provide  a 

^  Quis  est  iste  rex  glorise  ':'      Dominus  fortis  et  potens 

Quis  est  iste  rex  glorise  ?  Dominus  virtutum,  ipse  est  rex  gloriîB. — 
Ps.  xxiv,  8,  10. 

2  Post  haec  vidi  turbam  magnam,  quam  dinumerare  nemo  poterat. 
.  .  .  Hi  sunt  qui  venerunt  de  tribulatione  magna. — Rev.  vii,  9,  14; 
Cf.  "  Vinctos  vocat  qui  erant  in  poenis  .  .  .  quos  omnes  absolvit,  et 
in  gloriam  duxit  rex  glorioe". — Elucid.,  p.  214. 

^  His  por  for  pot  suggests  that  the  glosses  were  in  Continental 
script  in  which  r  and  t  are  easily  confused.  The  d  of  dìn.  may  have 
been  blotched,  like  the  inserted  o  of  Eobba  in  our  frontispiece,  or 
otherwise  made  illegible.  It  is  common  in  glosses  to  write  only  the 
first  few  letters  of  a  word,  whether  the  abbreviation  is  a  recognised 
çontractiou  or  not, 


144  Taliesin. 

natural  explanation  of  the  curious  positions  in  which  we 
find  the  glosses  in  our  text/  as  the  reader  may  see  by  com- 
paring  the  two;  but  the  fact  that  they  are  glosses  does 
not  depend  upon  the  reconstruction,  for  it  is  proved  by 
the  metre,  and  by  the  origin  and  application  of  the  phrases 
themselves.  I  have  dealt  with  the  lines  somewhat  fully 
because  they  supply  the  clearest  proof  of  the  scribe's  per- 
sistent  habit  of  introducing  glosses  into  the  text.  Dr. 
Evans  has  caught  none  of  the  allusions ;  his  treatment  of 
the  passage  (II,  70,  71)  is  a  truly  pitiable  performance 
which,  to  use  his  own  words,  "reduces  one  to  a  melancholy, 
thoughtful  silence  ". 

To  summarise  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  the 
orthographical  and  palaeographical  evidence,  we  may  state 
that  it  establishes  the  fact  that  many  of  the  poems  are 
derived  from  old  copies  probably  of  the  ninth  century. 
Some  of  the  errors  are  explicable  only  under  the  sup- 
position  that  the  scribe  was  transcribing  directly  from 
such  an  early  copy ;  even  where  the  evidence  is  not 
decisive  on  this  point,  as  in  the  case  of  hag  agivyr  56*25, 
another  error  in  the  same  poem,  an  wawt  56-15,  indicates 
direct  copying  of  that  poem.  There  do  not  appear  to  be 
any  traces  of  twelfth  century  spelling  in  these  poems,  and 
the  probability  is  that  the  scribe  copied  them  himself 
from  manuscripts  of  the  early  period.  He  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  Welsh  of  his  own  day,  and  used  a 
consistent  conteraporary  orthography  into  which  he  trans- 
literated  what  he  copied.  But  much  of  wliat  he  copied 
was  unintelligible  to  him,  and  he  had  no  ear  for  metre  or 
rhythm  ;  consequently,  he  transcribed  mechanically  and 
incorrectly  at  times,  and,  fancying  that  glosses  were  meant 

^  Nash,  who  failed  even  to  see  that  ffle  was  glorice,  calls  the  poem 
a  "remarkable  farrago"  {Tal,  p.  71),  which  is  much  easier  than 
analysing  it,  and  making  out  the  sense. 


Taliesin.  145 

to   supply  oraissions,  he   interlarded   the  original  verses 
with  disconnected  words  and  bits  of  prose. 

I  have  now  dealt  in  sonie  detail  with  the  evidence,  and 
with  the  use  niade  of  it  by  Dr.  Evans  to  bolster  up  his 
theory ;  but  sonie  general  questions  relative  to  his  work 
remain  to  be  considered.  He  tells  us  (II,  p.  vi)  that  when 
he  copied  the  Book  of  Taliesin  he  "found  the  ineaning-  of 
a  multitude  of  passages  as  clear  as  daylight"  (fond 
delusion  !)  "  To  account  for  the  obscurity  of  the  other 
parts  I  conceived  the  theory  that  the  'sixth  century  ' 
work  of  Taliesin  had  been  vamped  in  the  twelfth  " — /ie, 
Dr.  Evans,  conceẁed  Matthew  Arnohl's  theory,  express]y 
set  forth  and  defended  in  his  Celtic  Literature.^  "  I 
elaborated  my  theory  on  609  folios  of  foolscap " — his 
theory  !  I  have  to  say  that  this  is  news  to  me ;  but  609 
is  precise.  "After  a  week  or  two  I  set  to  the  work  of 
testing  my  thesis  at  every  point," — what  had  he  been 
doine:  when  he  wrote  the  609  folios?  What  does 
"  ehiborating  "  a  theory  mean  if  it  does  not  include  test- 
ing  it  at  every  point? — "  and  by  degrees  demolished  my 
own  superstructure  to  the  last  line  ".  This  is  very  unlike 
anything  we  see  him  do  in  the  present  work;  whenever 
he  has  to  puU  down,  which  is  pretty  often,  he  sets  up 
something  else  in  a  frantic  attempt  to  prop  up  the  ram- 
shackle  structure.     "  To  my  credit  be  it  recorded  the  609 

1  "  To  the  sixth  century  the  universal  "Welsh  tiadition  attaches 
the  great  gtoup  of  British  poets,  Taliesin  and  his  fellows.  In  the 
twelfth  century  there  began  for  Wales  .  .  .  another  burst  of  poetry. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Nash  wants  to  make  it  the  real  author  of  the  whole  poetry, 
of  the  sixth  century  as  well  as  its  own.  No  doubt  one  caunot  pro- 
duce  the  texts  of  the  poetry  of  the  sixth  century ;  no  doubt  we  have 
this  only  as  the  twelfth  and  succeeding  centuries  wrote  it  down  ;  no 
doubt  they  mixed  and  changed  it  a  great  deal  in  writing  it  down. 
But  since  a  continuous  stream",  etc.  See  the  rest  of  the  quotation, 
and  ref .,  above,  p.  36-7.  The  theory  was  foreshadowed  by  Nash  ;  see 
above,  p.  21. 

li 


146  Taliesin. 

folios  of  foolscap,  with  all  their  prettily  turned  passages, 
were  consigned  to  the  flames,  leaving  me  sadder,  but  no 
whit  wiser."  No  whit  wiser,  after  so  successfully  dispos- 
ing  of  the  tradition  !  This  is  said  (p.  vii)  to  have  taken 
place  about  the  time  when  Professor  Zimnier  visited 
Tremvan,  that  is,  about  1900.  Yet  in  1906,  Dr.  Evans  in 
liis  TMach  Book  speaks  of  Taliesin  being  associated  with 
the  court  of  Maelgwn,p.  161,  and  states  that  the  sixteenth 
century  Hanes  Taliesin,  which  tells  of  "  Taliesin  contend- 
ing  with  the  bards  in  the  court  of  Maelgwn  Gwyneb ", 
"  is  confirmed  by  our  twelfth  century  manuscript",  p.  xvi. 
In  those  years  he  justly  prided  himself  on  having  no 
theory.  In  1909,  he  wrote  in  a  footnote  to  p.  xxiii  of  his 
White  Booh  : — 

Nothing  is  more  dangerous  to  inquiry  than  an  attempt  to 
bring  discoveries  into  conformity  with  some  system  or  theory. 
It  leads  to  undue  emphasis  being  laid  on  what  supports,  and 
undue  neglect  of  what  saps  such  theory  or  system. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  has  not  clung  to  this  opinion. 
But  one  must  have  some  sort  of  working  hypothesis,  and 
I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  that  he  may  not  have  accepted 
Matthew  Arnold's  idea  for  such  a  purpose.  But  the 
romantic  account  of  the  holocaust  of  folios  is  intended  to 
convey  tbe  impression  that  he  liad  examined  the  tradi- 
tional  view  "  at  every  point ",  and  completely  demolished 
it  before  conceiving  his  present  theory.  How  thoroughly 
he  had  assimilated  the  known  facts  of  sixth  century 
history  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  in  the  BlacJc 
Book,  1906,  p.  ix,  he  speaks  of  Maelgwn,  who  died  in  547, 
as  being  present  in  573  at  tlie  battle  of  Arderyò.  But 
what  we  are  concerned  with  now  is  that  of  the  demolition 
of  which  he  tells  us  there  is  no  sign  in  the  present  work. 
The  testimony  of  the  Nennian  memorandum  is  met  by 
assertions,  and  the  issue  evaded ;    the  other  evidence  of 


Taliesin.  147 

Taliesin's  date  is  wholly  ignored ;  see  above,  pp.  42,  48,  50. 

The  one  attempt  to  prove  an  anachronism  under  the  tradi- 

tional  view  relates  to  Cynan  Garwyn,  and  is  based  in  part 

on  a  statement  made  in  Professor  Lloyd's  History,  whieh 

appeared  in  1911  ;    see  above,  p.  93.     The  new  geography 

would,  of   course,  have  amounted  to    demolition    of    the 

tradition  in  the  eyes  of  its  discoverer;  but  this  had  not 

yet   been    thought   of — in   the    Blach   Book,    1906,  p.    x, 

Prydyn  is  stiU  "  North  Scotland".     Dr.  Evans  does  not 

deny  that  the  historical  TJrien  lived  in  the  sixth  century ; 

but  where  does  he  "  demolish  "  the  idea  that  he  is  the 

Urien   of   the   poems  ?      Urien,    he   says,   "fought   Ida's 

successors,  and  was  pre-eminent  among  his  compeers  as  a 

militar}'"  leader.     So  was  Owein   Gwyneb  among  Kymric 

princes:  hence  his  nom  de  guerreoî  Urien  ",  p,  xv.     Instead 

of  the  overthrow  of  Urien  we  have  the  feeble  plea  that 

Owein  Gwyneb  has  a  similar  claim.     What  has  become  of 

the  line  by  line  demolition  of  1900  or  thereabouts  ?     Again 

Urien's  opponent  Vlph  is  held  by  Dr.  Evans  to  be  Ranulf, 

Earl  of  Chester.     If  he  could  prove  that  the  name  did  not 

exist  in  the  sixth  centurj^  or  that  no  person  of  the  name 

could  possibly  be  an  opponent  of  the  real  Urien,  it  would 

be   a   case  of   demolition  ;    but  Frithwald,  son  of  Ida,  is 

also  called  Frithwulf  (Oman,  op.  cit.,  242),  and  no  such 

demolition  is  possible.     The  fact  is,  Dr.  Evans's  theory  is 

not  the  result  of  any  detailed  examination  and  demolition 

of  Matthew  Arnold's  theory,  but  represents  his  attempt 

to   find    a    solution    of    the    problem     presented    by    the 

reluctance  which  he  ktiew  to  be  felt  by  scholars  like  Rhys 

and  Anwyl  to  accept  a  sixth  century  origin  of  auy  of  the 

poems.     He  imbibed  the  scepticism  that  was  in  the  air, 

and    it   became    an    intuition,    an    instinctive   conviction 

within  him.     This   is   the  foundation  of  his  theory,  and 

the  source  of  his  confidence  in  it.     He  writes — 

l2 


1 48  Taliesin. 

Even  if  it  be  proved  that  I  have  macle  a  mistake  in  every 
line  the  time  of  composition,  the  chief  actors,  and  the  geo- 
GRAPHY  will  remain  nnaffected  (II.  p.  xiii). 

Can  a  structure  stand  if  the  foundatioiis  be  destroyed? 

No  ;  but  it  would  be  a  nnstake  to  suppose  that  Dr.  Evans's 

theory  ìsfounded  on  his  readings  of  the  text.     These  may 

be  "  proved  "  to  be  all  wrong,  but  the  theory  "  will  reniain 

unaíîected  ".     They  support  ít,  no   doubt ;  but  it  is   not 

founded   on  them,  or  on  any  facts ;    the  actors  and   the 

GEOGBAPHY  rest  securely  on   the    time,   and   this  has  its 

foundation    in    an    inner    conviction    which    nothing    can 

shake.     It  gives  him  such  strength  that  he  feels  he  could 

wipe  the  floor  with  all  his  "  precursors  "  : — 

Unregenerate  man  might  delight  in  making  our  high  priests 
bite  the  dust.  It  would  be  easy  writing,  and  entertaining 
reading  (p.  xvi). 

Of  which  "  easy  writing"  we  have  had  an  example  in  the 
passage  about  Cynan  Garwyn  and  the  "  history  of  this 
sort ".  It  is  not  exactly  "  entertaining- "  ;  or,  if  it  is,  it  is 
iiot  at  the  expense  of  the  "  high  priests  ". 

It  may  have  occurred  to  the  reader  long-  before  this  to 
ask  whether,  if  Dr.  Evans's  work  is  as  bad  as  I  make  it 
out  to  be,  it  was  worth  while  devoting  all  this  space  to 
criticism  of  it.  I  answer  in  the  aíîirmative  for  two 
reasons.  The  first  is  the  reason  I  gave  at  the  outset : 
"  because  in  the  process  some  constructive  work  can 
perhaps  be  done  ",  p.  38.  It  will  be  agreed  that  some- 
thing  positive  has  been  attained  ;  I  put  it  forward  as 
tentative ;  I  claim  no  fìnality  for  it — in  the  present  state 
of  our  know]edge  of  the  subject  finality  is  far  from  being 
in  sight.  But  criticism  of  false  theories  is  necessary,  and 
is  a  niethod  of  discussion  that  has  its  advantages  ;  it  is 
an  efîective  way  of  presenting  saner  views,  and  it  often 
helps  the  writer  to  form  clearer  ideas,  because  wrong- 
headed  notions  often  suggest  points  of  view  which  would 


Taliesin.  149 

not  have  occurred  to  him  in  a  detached  study  of  the 
subject.  Dr.  Evans  knows  this  from  experience  :  "  I  have 
never  received  an  inspired  answer  to  a  '  wise '  question  ; 
but  the  imprudent  sort  is  apt  to  find  a  hot  response  ", 
p.  vi*^.  He  fully  accepts  the  position  :  "Better  then  a 
'howler'  that  may  herald  tlie  light  than  all  the  respect- 
ability  of  empty  silence.  I  am  content  to  become  the 
whipping-boy  of  light  &  truth  ",  ib. 

The  other  reason  is  that  criticism  of  this  book  to  be  of 
real  use  had  to  be  fairly  full  and  systematic.  It  is  often 
easy  to  pick  out  a  large  number  of  incidental  errors  and 
slips  in  a  work  which  is  sound  on  the  whole ;  my  task  was 
to  show  not  how  many  mistakes  the  book  contains — this 
is  impossible,  for  their  number  is  legion — but  that  the 
whole  work  (excepting  the  mechanical  and  diplomatic 
reproductions)  is  one  huge  mistake.  Few  would  believe 
without  conclusive  proof  that  an  editor  of  Dr.  Gwenogvryn 
Evans's  reputation  can  be  so  utterl}^  incompetent  to  deal 
with  the  questions  which  he  sets  himself  to  discuss  in 
this  book  as  he  in  fact  proves  himself  to  be.  Dr.  Evans 
is  an  honorary  Doctor  of  Letters  of  two  Universities ;  but 
the  distinction  was  conferred  upon  him  for  repit)ducing 
texts,  not  for  interpreting  them.  He  had  done  supremely 
well  what  had  previously  been  done  only  imperfectly.  He 
had  for  the  first  time  supplied  Welsh  scholars  with  reliable 
texts  to  work  upon.  He  had  already  published  his  repro- 
ductions  of  the  Mabinogion  and  Bruts  from  the  Eed  Book 
of  Hergest,  his  facsimile  of  the  B]ack  Book  of  Carmarthen, 
and  his  superb  edition  of  the  Book  of  Llan  Daf.  In  the 
latter  he  wisely  entrusted  the  philological  work  to  Sir  John 
Rhys;  but  the  laborious  and  valuable  topographical  work 
is  his  own  ;  and  his  recovery  of  the  original  readingof  the 
priceless  Breint  Teilaw,  which  a  late  medieval  vandal  has 
mutilated  with  knife  and  pen,  is  a  service  to  Welsh  learn- 


1 50  Taliesin. 

ing  greater  than  many  for  which  honorai'j  degrees  have 

been  conferred.     Of  late  years  he  has  manifested  a  grow- 

ing  disposition  to  pose   as   an  authority  on  the  language 

and  subject-matter  of   his   texts.     He  is  aware  that   his 

knowledge  is  somewhat  hazy,  and  that  he  may  fall  into 

many  errors  ;    and  he  is  shrewd    enough    to    attempt  to 

forestall  criticism  : — 

A  critic  may  dispute  my  rendering,  but  it  does  uot  follow 
that  he  is  right  because  he  differs  from  me,  or  cannot  in  7  minutes 
see  what  it  has  taken  me  7  years  to  'grip'  (II,  p.  xiii). 

It  will  be  "  the  usual  difference  of  opinion  between 
experts ".  This  suggestion  seems  to  me  to  render  it 
necessary  to  state  the  truth,  which  is  that  Dr.  Evans  has 
not  mastered  some  of  the  elements  of  Welsh  grammar, 
and  has  less  of  the  scholar's  instinct  than  almost  any  of 
the  Eisteòfodic  bards  whom  he  scoffs  at  in  his  footnotes. 
He  has  tried  to  persuade  scholars  to  cooperate  with  him 
in  the  preparation  of  his  critical  editions.  He  proposed 
to  "  a  Welsh  scholar  of  repute  "  that  they  "  should  jointly 
attempt  to  amend  and  translate  the  text  of  Taliesin  ".  He 
was  advised  "  to  attempt  no  such  thing — he  certainly 
would  not  cooperate  ;  '  in  short  I  funk  it '  were  liis  parting 
words ",  II,  p.  vii.  The  refusal  is  intelligible,  though 
perhaps  not  to  Dr.  Evans.  He  has  rejected  the  advice  of 
his  friends,  and  apparently  interprets  their  good  inten- 
tions  as  "  envy  ".  This  is  the  reason  for  the  bitterness 
with  which  he  speaks  of  his  fel]ow-workers  in  the  fîeld  of 
Welsh  studies.'     They  are  jeered  at,  and  accused  of  taking 

1  For  myself,  I  am  special]y  abused  only  once,  in  the  screaming 
footnote  on  p.  xlii.  I  pointed  out  in  my  Gram.  p.  10,  that  his  state- 
ment  that  the  writing  in  Pen.  54,  pp.  359  ff.,  is  in  "  bardic"  characters 
is  wrong,  and  that  the  writing  "  is  the  hand  of  an  iUiterate  person  ". 
A  facsimile  has  now  been  published  in  Y  Cymmrodoì-  xxvi,pp.  92, 113  ; 
and  Prebendary  Clark-Maxwell  came  independently  to  precisely  the 
same  conclusion  ('' probably  by  an  illiterate  carver")  regarding  the 
similar  lettering  of  the  Llanfair-Waterdine  inscription,  p.  90.  Abuse 
is  no  answer  to  a  definite  conviction  of  error. 


Taliesin.  1 5 1 

'^  their  ease  in  the  Halls  of  learning  ",  p.  i.  The  references 
to  the  late  Sir  John  Rhys,  in  particular,  are  deplorable ; 
and  I  have  no  doubt  Dr.  Evans  hiniself  regrets  them  now. 
Finally,  I  wiU  only  say  that  his  friends  Avere  wiser  than 
himself,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  he  did  not  follow  their 
advice.  It  offends  niy  sense  of  the  fìtness  of  thing-s  to  see 
any  purely  ephemeral  matter  bound  up  with  perfect  repro- 
ductions  which  are  for  all  time  ;  but  that  all  this  trash 
should  be  printed  in  the  best  ink  on  the  finest  paper — 
including  125  copies  on  Japanese  vellum,  and  of  the  con- 
centrated  nonsense  of  the  smaller  volume  four  copies  on 
vellum  itself — to  share  the  permanence  of  the  text  and 
facsimile,  is  sad  indeed.  But  posterity  will  Iook  kindly  on 
the  editor's  follies,  and  will  honour  his  memory  for  the 
good  work  he  has  done. 

Our  investigation  has,  I  believe,  established  the  follow- 
ing  conclusions  : — 

The  existence  in  the  sixth  century  of  a  bard  of  the 
name  of  Taliesin  is  a  historical  fact  as  well  authenticated 
as  most  facts  of  British  history  in  that  century. 

The  Book  of  Taliesin  is  a  collection  of  poems  pur- 
porting  to  be  his  work.  The  date  of  the  manuscript  is 
the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;  but  many  of  the 
pieces  show  unmistakable  traces  of  having  been  copied 
from  manuscripts  of  the  ninth  century. 

Several  of  the  poems  are  quite  obviously  of  later  date 
than  the  sixth  century  ;  but  there  are  others  which,  with- 
out  obvious  anachronisms,  deal  witli  events  of  that 
century,  and  with  persons  with  whom  Taliesin  is  associated 
by  tradition.  The  question  is  whether  these  can  in  any  sense 
represent  his  worJc. 

Nash,  though  he  would  not  venture  to  decide  that 
these  poems  "  were  not  re-written  in  the  twelfth  century 


152  Taliesin.. 

from  materials  originally  of  the  date  of  the  sixth  ",  see 
above,  p.  21,  iievertheless  believed  tliat  they  were  forgeries 
of  the  twelfth  century .  Ziinmer,  who  was  better  acquainted 
with  the  evidence,  believed  them  to  be  forgeries  of  the 
niiith  or  tenth  century,  see  above  p.  45.  The  Welsh,  he 
thought,  only  learned  of  the  namesoi  Taliesin  and  Aneirin 
from  Nennius  ;  but  some  clever  fellows  conceived  the  idea 
of  composing  soiigs  such  as  these  poets  might  have  written, 
and  succeeded,  iii  some  cases  at  least,  in  projecting  them- 
selves  in  imagination  into  the  bard's  period  aiid  point  of 
view.  The  admitted  f orgeries  and  imitations  of  the  twelfth 
century  give  evidence  of  no  such  historic  sense  ;  are  we  to 
suppose  that  it  was  highly  developed  in  the  ninth  ?  Or  is 
it  more  likely  that  the  substaiice  of  the  poems  in  question 
was  traiismitted  through  the  seventh  and  eighth  ?  Poetry 
is  more  easily  remembered  than  prose — rhymes,  allitera- 
tion  and  metre  aid  the  memory ;  and  if  we  are  to  suppose 
that  the  substance  was  transmitted,  we  must  assume  that 
its  original  form  was  substantially  that  in  which  we  find 
it  recorded. 

The  question  can  be  settled  only  by  a  careful  study  of 
the  poems.  As  a  result  of  the  philological  work  done  in 
the  last  fìfty  years  we  are  in  a  much  better  position  to  get 
at  the  meaning  of  the  poems  than  Eobert  Williams  and 
Silvan  Evans  were  in  the  sixties,  and  Stephens  in  the 
fifties,  to  say  nothing  of  Nash,  who  was  not  a  good  scholar 
even  for  his  time.  The  solution  of  many  of  the  probleins 
presented  by  the  vocabulary  justifies  the  expectation  that 
many  more  will  be  solved  in  time  ;  but  much  work  remains 
to  be  done,  and  we  are  perhaps  more  conscious  of  the 
limitations  of  our  knovvledge  thaii  the  scholars  of  the  mid- 
nineteenth  century  can  have  been.  I  propose,  however, 
to  give  an  amended  text  and  translation  of  such  of  the 
historical  poems  of  the  Book  of  Taliesin  as  I  have  been 


Taliesin.  1 5 


able  in  some  measure  to  make  out.  I  eonsider  Dr.  Evans's 
method  of  altering  tlie  text,  often  without  notice,  and 
always  without  giying-  any  indication  of  %i:ì\at  has  been 
altered,  to  be  most  misleading  and  unsatisfactorj ;  it 
saves  ìiim  trouble  at  the  expense  of  the  reader,  who  has  to 
be  constantlj  referring'  to  the  diplomatic  text  to  verify 
the  emendations.  The  manuscript  reading-  should  alwaj^s 
be  given,  either  in  footnotes,  marg-inal  notes,  or  in  some 
other  manner.  In  the  text  of  the  following  poems  every- 
thing  that  appears  in  the  manuscript  is  printed  in  Roman 
Type  ;  letters  or  words  that  are  not  to  be  read  are  included 
in  round  brackets  (  ) ;  my  own  insertions  are  printed  in 
Italics.  By  omitting  the  italics  and  ignoring  the  brackets 
the  reader  gets  the  manuscript  text ;  by  omitting  every- 
thing  contained  in  brackets,  and  reading  the  rest,  he  has 
the  amended  text.  But  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary 
to  follow  the  division  of  lines  in  the  manuscript,  in  which 
the  poems  are  written  as  prose,  or  to  adhere  to  its  primitive 
punctuation.  I  have  used  capital  letters  at  the  beginning 
of  lines  and  in  proper  names  ;  I  have  not  distinguished 
between  the  two  forms  of  w  or  r  or  s  ;  I  have  used  v  for 
u  where  it  has  the  v  sound,  and  vice  versa,  since  v  and  u 
were  then  one  letter  with  two  sounds ;  d  is  printed  ò  when 
it  is  so  sounded;  g,  when  it  means  ng,  is  printed  ng; 
silent  or  excrescent  y  has  been  put  in  brackets,  as 
gwyst(y)l,  (y)strat,  not  because  it  is  not  a  regular  spelling 
in  Medieval  Welsh,  but  because  it  is  not  written  in  Old 
Welsh,  and  does  not  count  in  the  metre ;  y  forming  a 
word  by  itself ,  when  it  had  the  clear  sound  which  has  now 
become  i  (meaning  '  to  ',  '  his  ',  '  her  ',  now  misspelt  ei  in 
the  latter  senses),  is  dotted  thus,  ý,  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  article  and  preverb  y.  The  circumflex  is  used  to  mark 
long  vowels  in  cases  of  possible  ambiguity.  Mere  con- 
jectures  are  queried,  thus  (?). 


1 54  Taliesin. 

I  take  first  "  the  Battle  of  Argoed  Llwyfein  ",  p.  60. 
This  is,  according  to  Nash,  "the  poem,  which  of  the 
whole  series  bears  the  most  apparentlj  genuine  historical 
character  "  ;  his  attempt  to  prove  an  anachronism  in  ithas 
been  dealt  with  above,  pp.  20-1 ;  it  rests  on  'ùi^  supposition 
that  hyhei  Tíymwyawc  '  would  be  tortured  '  means  '  said  he 
would  be  tortured '.  It  is  some  excuse  for  Nash  that 
Stephens  had  fallen  into  the  error,  Lit.  Kym.,  p.  267, 
following"  Lewis  Morris  ;  but  Carnhuanawc,  Hanes,  p.  280, 
sees  as  clearlyas  Sharon  Turner  (see  above,  p.  21)  that  the 
words  form  part  of  Owein's  speech.  There  is  no  "  said  " 
in  the  text,  nor  anything  else  to  suggest  that  the  poet 
reg'arded  Ceneu  ap  Coel  as  being-  present.  So  far  from 
prejudicing  the  authenticity  of  the  poem,  ithe  words  have 
exactly  the  opposite  effect :  Owein  in^olcing-  the  example 
of  his  ancestor  is  a  detail  which  a  late  f  org-er  would  hardly 
have  thought  of .  As  to  Fflamòwyn  '  the  flamebearer ', 
Lewis  Morris  says  that  he  "  is  supposed  to  be  Ida,  líing 
of  Northumberland  ",  Stephens,  loc.  cit.  Turner  makes 
the  same  statement,  Vind.,  p.  247.  Carnhuanawc,  Hanes, 
p.  276,  and  Stephens,  l.c,  accept  the  identification ;  but 
Skene  identifies  him  with  Deodric,  son  of  Ida,  on  the 
ground  that  the  "  Saxon  Genealogies "  expressly  states 
that  Urien  "with  his  sons  "  foug-ht  against  Deodric ;  he 
even  suggests  that  the  chronicler  might  have  had  this 
poem  in  mind,  F.A.B.,  i,  232,  Stephens,  after  1853, 
"  had  independently  come  to  the  same  conclusion  ",  Y 
Gododin,  1888,  p.  67,  fn. 

The  following  tag  is  added  to  the  poem  in  the  manu- 
script,  as  to  six  of  the  other  poems  to  Uryen : 

Ac  yny  vallwyf(y)  hen, 
Ym  (lyg(y)n  awgheu  a?ighen, 
Ny  bybif  ymb(y)zrwen 
Na  molwyf  Uryen.     60*L^ö. 


Taliesin.  1 5  5 

'  And  until  I  perish  in  old  age 
In  my  death's  sore  need, 
I  shall  not  be  happy 
If  I  praise  not  Uryen '. 

The  other   occurrences  are  -571],  58-10,  59-4,  60-5,  6214,  65-22. 

The  only  variations  in  the  text  are  in  the  scribe's  own  afBxed  pronoun 

after  i'rt //«•?//■  (which  he  omits  in  58,  59.  and  writes  i  in  605  and  65), 

and  in  the  spelHng  aiid  division  of  ym^iruen.     A  more  defective  copy 

of  the  lines  is  seen  tacked  on  to  "  Anrec  Uryen  "  in  the  White  Book 

and  Red  Book ;  the  reading  is  identical  in  the  two  manuscripts  :  I 

quote  the  lines  from  the  White  Book  as  printed  in    Y  Cymmrodor 

vii,  p.  126: 

Ny  dalywyf  yn  hen 

Ym  dygyn  anghen 

ony  molwyf  .i.  vrien :  Amen. 

The  initial  v  of  valbcyf  represents  the  radical  b  in  our  scribe's 
copy,  and  the  W.B.  scribe's  d  must  be  an  error  for  b  (the  two  letters 
being  somewhat  similar  in  some  old  hands),  for  we  can  hardly  sup- 
pose  that  our  scribe  repeated  the  same  error  seven  times.  The 
word  seems  to  come  from  an  obsolete  verb  ballu  '  to  perish',  of  which 
a  compouud  aballu  (from  *ad-ball-)  has  survived,  e.g  ,  yn  aballu  rac 
newyn  R.  B.  Bruts  197  'perishing  from  huuger';  cf.  Irish  atbail 
'  perishes',  atballat  'they  perish'. 

Although  the  W.B.  scribe  has  yn  hen,  it  is  possible  that  at  a  very 
early  period  the  adjective  might  stand  in  apposition  to  the  subject 
of  the  verb  witliout  yn,  as  it  may  be  the  complement  of  a  verb 
without  it,  as  in  gan  aethayit  (jolluhyon  571,  '  since  they  had  become 
weary',  see  above  p.  19,  and  below  p.  161. 

ym^irwen.  The  scribe  first  copied  this  yn  diricen  57"12  ;  elsewhere 
ym^iricen,  with  the  yjnclearly  joiiied  in  59'5  and  6215,  and  apparently 
separated  eJsewhere;  -hyr-  only  appears  on  this  page,  60  626.  On 
the  whole  'in  my  happiness '  is  less  likely  than  'happy';  and 
ymSirweyi  is  probablyan  adjective,  Iike  yjnSifad,  hut  with  the  intensive 
dir  instead  of  the  negative  di.  This  implies  that  tlie  base  yuên  is 
adjectival ;  the  root  niay  be  *ucìi-  '  to  Iike,  to  desire ',  cf.  the  Sanskrit 
adjective  vanú-s  'eager,  Ioving';  this  is  not  the  root  of  yictm  'smile', 
which  the  Irish  gen  '  laugh'  shows  to  be  from  *g"hen-  or  *ghuen-. 

Na  in  the  last  line  is  a  very  questionabIe  use  of  the  word,  and 
makes  the  line  short.  We  can  therefore  confidentlj'  supply  the 
correct  reading  from  the  W^.B.:  ony. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  this  tag  might  bave  beenappended  to  one 
or  more  of  the  songs  to  Urien  ;  but  it  probably  has  no  place  at  the 
end  of  "Gweith  Argoet  Llwyfein". 


156  Taliesin. 

GWEITH   ARGOET    LLWYFEIN. 

CANU    URYEN. 

1     (E)  Bore  duw  Sadwrn  kat  vawr  a  vu 
O'r  pan  bwyre  heul  hyt  pan  gynnu. 
Dygrysswys  Flambwyn  yn  petwar  llu, 
Gobeu  a  Reget  ÿ  ymbullu. 
5     Dyv(wy)2í  o  Argoet  hyt  Arvynyò : 
Ny  cheíFynt  eiryos  hyt  yr  un  dyb. 
Atorelwis  Flambwyn  vawr  trebystawt, 
"  A  bobynt  y?zg  wgwystlon,  a  ynt  parawt  ?  " 
Ys  attebwys  Owein,  dwyrein  flbssawt, 

10     "  Ny(t)  bobynt,  nyt  ydynt,  nyt  ynt  parawt ; 
A  Cheneu  vab  Coel,  bybei  kymwyawc 
Lew,  kyn  as  talei  o  wyst(y)I  nebawt." 
Atorelwis  Vryen,  Ub  Yrechwyb, 
"  O  byb  ymgyf arvot  am  gerenhyb, 

15     Dyrchafwn  eidoeb  obucli  mynyb, 
Ac  amporthwn  wyneb  obuch  emyl, 
A  dyrchafwn  peleid(y)r  obuch  pen  gwŷr, 
A  chyrchwn  Fflambwyn  yn  ÿ  liiyb, 
A  llabwn  ac  ef  ae  gyweithyb." 

20  A  rac  (gweitli  Arg)  Coet  Llwyf ein 

Bu  Ilawer  celein, 
Rubei  vrein  rac  (ryfel)  gwaet  gwj'r. 
A  gwerin  a  grysswys,  (g)cân  ei(n)/iewyb 

24     (Arinaf  y)  Amliaws  (?)  blwybyn  nât  wy  kynnyb. 

THE    BATTLE    OF    ARGOET    LLWYFEIN. 

SONG   OF    URYEN. 

1     In  the  morning  of  Saturday  there  was  a  great  battle 
From  when  the  sun  rose  till  when  it  set. 
Fflambwyn  marched  in  four  hosts 
To  wage  war  against  Gobeu  and  Rheged. 

5     He  came  from  Argoed  to  Arfynyb  : 

They  were  not  sufl'ered  to  remain  for  that  one  day. 
Fflambwyn  of  great  bluster  exclaimed, 
"  Would  they  give  hostages,  are  they  ready  ?  " 
Hini  answered  Owein,  eager  for  the  fray, 
10     "  They  would  not  give  [hostages],  they  are  not  ready  ; 
And  Ceneu,  son  of  Coel,  would  have  suffered  torture 
Stoutly,  ere  he  would  cede  anyone  as  hostage." 


Taliesin.  157 

Uryen,  Lord  of  Yrechwyb,  esclaimed, 

"  If  it  must  be  an  encounter  for  kith  anrl  kin, 
15     Let  us  raise  [our]  lines  above  the  mountain, 

And  let  us  hold  up  [our]  faces  above  the  edge, 

And  let  us  raise  [our]  spears  above  [his]  men's  heads, 

And  let  us  attack  Fflambwyn  in  his  hosts, 

And  let  us  kill  both  him  and  his  company." 
20  And  before  Llwyfein  Wood 

There  was  many  a  corpse  ; 
Ravens  were  red  with  the  blood  of  men. 

And  the  men  who  charged — the  minstrel  shall  sing 
24     For  many  (?)  a  year  the  song  of  their  victory. 

NOTES   ON   "  GWEITH   ArGOET   LlWYFEIN  ". 

Many  translations  of  this  poem  have  appeared.  Lewis  Morris*'s 
version,  written  in  1763,  was  printed  in  Myv.,  i,  54  (248).  Turner 
gives  a  version  in  his  Vind.,  p.  248;  he  acknowledges  his  indebtedness 
to  Mr.  Owen  [Piighe]  for  assistanne  in  his  translations,  p.  247  fn. 
Carnhuanawc  gives  a  Welsh  paraphrase  in  his  Hanes,  p.  280.  Later 
versions  are  by  Stephens,  Lit.,  p.  266,  F  God.,  p.  67;  Nash,  Taliesin, 
p.  100;  Robert  Williams,  F.A.B.,  i,  365. 

Metre. — The  metre  is  that  which  is  called  "  cyhydedd  naw  ban  ", 
(Dosp.  Ed.,  p.  xxxi) ;  the  normal  length  of  the  line  is  nine  syllables  ; 
but  in  old  examples  an  extra  syllable  very  often  occurs;  in  this  poem 
there  are  13  lines  of  nine,  and  8  of  ten  syllables,  assuming  the  emen- 
dation  in  11.  8  and  10  suggested  below.  At  line  20  there  is  a  change 
in  the  metre,  marking  the  end  of  üryen's  speech,  and  introducing 
the  concluding  verses.  The  metre  is  5,  5,  6,  the  two  fives  rhyming, 
and  the  rhyme  carried  on  in  the  third  syllable  of  the  six  (i.e.  wein). 
This  unit  of  metre  is  the  last  part  of  "  clogyrnach "  (see  prosody 
books,  e.g.  Dosp.  Ed.  ib.),  and  is  of  the  same  length  as,  and  in  fact  is 
a  mere  variant  of  "  toddaid  byr",  the  couplet  of  10,  6,  which  fornis 
the  fìrst  component  part  of  an  ordinary  englyn.  It  is  certainly  one 
of  the  very  earliest  forms  of  verse  in  Welsh. 

•The  system  of  rhymes  is  obvious.  Note  that  -aivc,  1.  11,  rhymes 
with  -awt;  and  -yl,  I.  16,  and  yr,  II.  17,  22,  rhyme  with  -?/S.  The  last 
syllable  of  the  "toddaid  byr"  rhymes  with  the  ends  of  the  verses 
that  precede  and  follow  it. 

Title.—See  note  on  1.  20. 

Liue  1. —  E,  tliat  is,  the  article  Y,  should  certainly  be  omitted, 
especially  as  Bore  has  a  dependent  genitive.  The  article  does  not 
occur  iu  the  piece  except  in  line  6,  where  it  means  'that'.  The 
systematic  omission  of  the  article  is  a  good  sign  of  antiquity.     It  is 


158  Taliesin. 

of  coiirse  absohitely  wrong  to  mutate  the  B  of  Bore,  as  Dr.  Evans 
does,  II,  88;  in  Medieval  Welsh  no  word  is  miitated  at  the  head  of  a 
senteiice  except  prochtics,  siich  as^T/,  dy  (radical  my,  ty). 

Line  2. — Both  verbs  are  in  the  present  tense ;  the  -u  of  gynnu  is 
not  an  ending,  but  part  of  the  stem.  With  cynnu  '  sets ',  cí.  Pan 
dyyynnu  nos  2riO  '  when  night  falls  ',  hid{y)l  meu  yt  gynnu,  F.A.B.,  ii, 
282,  'copiously  my  (flood  of  tears)  falls '. 

Line  5. — The  scribe  seems  to  have  read  the  u  of  his  copy  as  w,  and 
added  the  y. 

Line6. — If  arhos  '  to  stay'  is  from  *ari-soss-  (see  my  Gram.,  343), 
eiryos  is  a  possible  variant  of  it,  since  is  or  es  before  a  vowel  niight 
become  consonantal  i,  which  would  affect  the  a  to  ei. 

Line  8. — I  take  dodynt  to  be  doSynt  (cf.  rho-8ynt)  or  dodynt  from 
dodaf  {Tpossihly  for  doSaf)  '1  give'  (as  well  as  'I  pvit'),  Gr.  332,  rather 
than  doSynt  '  they  have  come '  (for  doethynt),  as  I  suppose  this  to  be 
a  comparatively  late  analogical  formation,  the  old  perfect  being 
dy-vuant  (cf.  dyv\\  above).  The  phrase  yg  girystlon,  would  be  in  Old 
Welsh  in  guuistlon,  which  can  also  be  transliterated  yn  wystlon ;  but 
there  is  no  absolute  line  of  demarcation  between  the  two  construc- 
tions — we  have  ynihell  and  yn  bell,  etc.  The  literal  meaning  seems  to 
be  'would  they  give  [men]  as  hostages?'  It  is,  however,  more 
likely  that  the  original  phrase  was  simply  a  dodint  gimistlon 
'  would  they  give  hostages  ? '  which  gives  a  line  of  normal  length. 

Line  9. — dwyrein  'rising'  may  be  an  adjective  as  well  as  a  noun, 
e.g.,  haul  ddwyrain  'rising  sun ',  D.G.  16,65;  cf.  cyu-rain  'skilful'; 
the  phrase  seems  to  be  a  compound  (like  haeS-watcd  '  deserving  of 
praise '  D.G.  413,  or  erlid-lanw  '  hunted  by  the  flood  '  D.G.  195)  mean- 
ing  'rising  for  battle'.     I  have  given  a  free  rendering. 

Line  10. — It  is  diíBcult  to  believe  that  this  line  was  not  originally 
the  exact  covinterpart  of  the  challenge,  viz. : 

Ny  bobynt  (yng  wg)wystlon,  nyt  ynt  parawt. 

It  does  not  seem  possible  that  nyt  ydynt  can  be  an  old  construction  ; 
but  it  is  not  easy  to  account  for  its  appearance  here.  The  nyt  may 
quite  well  be  a  mis-copy  of  the  ing  of  inguuistlon,  as  t  and  g  are  liable 
to  confusion  in  Insular  script ;  and  the  rest  of  the  phrase  may  have 
been  indistinct  in  the  copy. 

Line  12. — I  take  lew  to  be  a  mutation  of  gleiu  not  of  lleìc. 

Line  14. — amgerenhyh;  qnery  a gerenhyS  'O  kinsmen',  or  inicer  .  . 
'my  kinsmen'. 

Line  15. — There  seems  to  be  no  fonndation  for  the  supposition 
that  eidoeS  means  'banners'.  It  represents  a  British  stem  *ati-, 
which  may  well  be  from  the  root  *j)etè-,  like  Welsh  edeu  '  thread ', 


Taliesin.  159 

English/ffíÄoî??,  German  i^ŵẁí?  'thread.string',  Gothic/oMrt  'hedge'. 
The  singular  niight  be  eidyn,  and  Caer  Eidyn  at  the  end  of  the 
Northem  Wall,  see  above  p.  81,  niay  be  '  the  fort  of  the  line,  hedge, 
or  wall '. 

Line  20. — gweith  Ar-  seems  to  be  a  gloss  or  scribal  insertion 
from  the  title.  I  have  therefore  read  A  rac  Coet  Lhiyfein  'and 
before  Llwyfein  Wood ',  taking  rac  in  its  literal  and  original 
sense.  The  line  might  be  a  syllable  long,  so  that  we  niight  read 
A  rac  gioeith  coet  LL,  '  and  from  the  battle  of  Ll.  wood',  or  A  rac 
Argoet  Llicyfein  'and  before  A.  Ll.,'  which  might  be  regularized  in 
metre  by  omitting  the  A  '  and' ;  but  none  of  these  possibilities  is  as 
lilîely  as  the  natural  and  simple  reading  suggested,  especially  as 
rac  Coet  means  the  same  as  yn  Argoet. 

Line  "22. — The  line  shoiild  be  six  syllables,  and  an  extra  syllable 
is  improbable  in  a  line  of  six  syllables  divided  into  two  threes.  The 
long  word  seems  to  be  ryvel:  and  the  abstract  'war '  or  'warring'  is 
obviously  much  less  likely  to  have  been  used  by  the  bard  than  the 
concrete  'blood'.  We  may  therefore  confidently  assume  that  the 
oi'iginal  word  was  either  gicaet  (old  yoit  or  giioit)  or  creu  (old  croú) ; 
I  choose  giraet  because  of  its  alliteration  with  gwŷr.  How  either 
word  could  have  been  mistaken  for  ryrel  is  not  quiteclear;  but  if 
gnoit  were  misread  gueit{h),  the  scribe  might  substitute  the  un- 
ambiguous  ryvel  for  it  (gìceith  '  battle  ;  work  ' ;  7-yvel '  war '). 

Line  23. — gwerin  means  the  'crew'  of  a  ship,  the  'rank  and  file' 
of  an  army  ;  here  it  is  obviously  the  ìuen  ("the  men  were  splendid  "). 
The  translators  have  taken  it  in  the  distinctively  modern  sense  of 
'  common  people '. 

The  initial  of  gan  as  well  as  of  cân  would  be  c  in  Old  Welsh,  so 
that  the  ^y  is  in  any  case  the  scribe's  own  spelling;  the  sense  seems 
to  require  eŵí.  This  implies  that  girerin  a  gryKSii-ys  is  noniinative 
absolute,  followed  by  a  new  sentence  beginning  with  the  verb  cân 
with  its  radical  initial,  which  is  exactly  what  happens  in  the  Gododdin 
line  Gicyr  a  gryssyassant,  buant  gytneit,  B.A..  9'3,  cf.  1.  10.  and  2"2l! 

eineuyS  for  eilieuyS  '  minstrel '  is  a  mistake  made  often  by  the 
scribe.  It  shows  that  /  was  short  in  his  copy  ;  and  makes  it  fairly 
certain  that  his  copy  for  this  poem  was  in  the  same  hand  as  that 
from  which  he  copied  "  Gweith  Gwen  Ystrad  ",  which  was  in  Insular 
script,  as  seen  below. 

Line  24. — Arinaf  y  is  obviously  a  corrupt  reading  ;  hut  emendation 
can  only  be  conjectural.  The  y  is  the  scribe's  own  affixed  pronoun, 
cf.  above,  p.  142,  fn.  2,  and  p.  15511.  6-7.  The  suggested  emendation 
assumes  the  reading  of  li  as  n,  as  in  the  preceding  line,  and  the 
common  error  of  taking  m  for  /7".  The  error  of  reading  us  as  m 
(transliterated/),  is  that  which  we  meet  with  in  1.  21  of  the  next 


1 6o  Taliesin. 

poem,  where  uis  was  read  im,  the  down-stroke  of  the  s  being  taken 
for  the  last  stroke  of  the  m.  Cf.  lliaics  blynedd,  Myv.  275  b  43,  and 
Uiaws  awr  ib.  142  b.  3.  I  have  not  found  an  old  example  of  the  com- 
pound  amliaws,  but  it  is  a  very  probable  one,  as  shown  by  amnifer, 
and  the  frequency  of  lliaìüs  in  these  poems.  For  amnifer  see  Myv. 
151a,  amniverioch  167  b  59,  amnivereit  B.T.  14.  Am  liaws  as  two 
words  cannot  be  assumed,  for  this  use  of  the  preposition  am  does 
not  seem  to  be  old.  But  the  meaning  is  made  fairly  certain  by  the 
rest  of  the  line. 

All  the  translators,  from  Lewis  Morris  to  Dr.  Evans,  have  gone 
hopelessly  wrong  over  the  last  two  lines  because  they  failed  to 
understand  the  last  three  words  ;  they  took  nat  '  song '  to  be  the 
conjunction  nat  '  that  not ',  and  understood  kynny8  in  its  modern 
sense  of  'increase,  prosper(ity) '.  Carnhuanawc  alone  is  candid 
enough  to  admit  that  he  does  not  understand  this  line.  Dr.  Evans 
renders  it,  "  but  I  prophesy  that,  for  a  year,  they  will  not  prosper  ", 
which  is  no  better  and  no  worse  than  the  others.  It  is  to  Carn- 
huanawc's  credit  that  he  saw  that  the  poem  could  not  end  in  such 
bathos.  Nät  is  'song',  see  above  p.  141  ;  wy  is  a  medieval  form  of 
yw,  modern  iiü,  '  to  their',  see  my  Gram.,  pp.  xxvii,  277;  JcynnyS 
'  victory',  cf.  ar  hinit  (i.e.,  ar  yynny^)  B.B.  51-13,  'victorious,  in  the 
ascendant' ;  ky7iy8îvys  W.  B.  Mab.,  col.  37,  '  he  conquered,  annexed'; 
hynySu,  R.  B.  Bruts  254-5,  '  to  conquer';  kynySasant  ib.  112-18, 
'conquered'.     Hence  nât  wy  kynny8  'a  (or  the)  song  to  their  victory'. 

The  poem  that  naturally  comes  next  for  consideration 
is  "the  Battle  o£  Gwen  Ystrat ",  pp.  56-7.  Stephens 
takes  Gwen  Ystrad  to  be  Winsterdale  (iiear  Windermere), 
which  seems  rather  far  west  for  the  men  of  Catraeth  to 
be  fìghting  Angles,  whom  he  assumes  to  be  the  enemy 
in  the  poem.  Skene  identifies  it  with  the  valley  of 
the  Gala  Water,  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.  412,  because  he  sees  in 
Garanwynion  the  name  of  the  scene  of  Arthur's  eighth 
battle  {;in  Gastello  Guinnion),  which  he  believes  to  have 
been  fought  in  Wedale  i,  55,  and  because  Gala  seems  to 
be  mentioned  in  Galystem.  Stephens  takes  the  latter  to 
be  a  reference  to  a  previous  battle,  Y  Gododin,  p.  73  ;  and 
this  seems  to  be  rig-ht,  for  the  desci-iption  of  this  battle 
ends  naturally  with  the  surrender  of  the  enemy,  1.  22.  It 
seems  safer  to  look  for  Gwen  Strat  nearer  Catraeth,  and 


Taliesin.  1 6 1 

I  suggest  that  it  is  Wensleydale,  formerly  called  "Weiitse- 
dale  (Camden,  1594,  p.  562).  The  poem  describes  an 
irruption  of  Picts  (with  allies,  Scots  and  Angles?)  who, 
coming  probably  from  Galloway  and  entering  the  valley 
from  the  west,  held  it  until  they  were  routed  by  Urien. 

GWEITH  GWEN    YSTRAT. 

1     Arwyre  gwŷr  Catraeth  gan  byb 

Am  wledic  gweithvubic  gwarthegyb. 

Uryen  hwn  a(n)?-  wawt  ei(n)/?e(u)2i'yb  ; 

Kyfeb(eily)  teyrneb  ae  gofy(n)S; 
5     Ryfelgar  rwy(sc)  enwir  rwyf  bedyb. 

Gwŷr  Pryd(ei)î/n  a  (dwythein)  gyrchyn  (?)  yn  llüyb 

Gwen  (Y)strad,  (y)stad(y)«l  kat  kyvygyb. 

Ny  (n);"obes  na  maës  na  choedyb 

(tut)  Achles  bý  ormes  pan  byvyb. 
10     Mal  tonnawr  tost  eu  gawr  dros  elvyb 

Gweleis  w}'r  gwychyr  yn  llüyb  ; 

A  gwedy  boregat  briwgic. 

Gweleis  (i)  twr(w)f  teii'íBn  trawghedic, 

Gwaeb  gohoyw  gofaran  gochlyw(3al)t7  ; 
15     Yn  amwyn  Gwen  (Y)strat  y  gwelit 

Gofur  (hag)  a  gw^'r  llawr  Ilubedic. 

Yn  drws  ryt  gweleis(y)  wj'r  Iletrubyon, 

Eir(y)f  biUwMg  (y)  rac  blawr  go(f)redon  ; 

Unynt  tanc  gan  aethant  gollubyon, 
20     Llaw  }'«g  croes  (gryt)  ywgro  G(.a)ranwynyon  ; 

Kyfe(d)?avynt  (y)  gynrein  kywy(md)*-í/on — 

Gwanecawr  gol(Iy)chynt  rawn  eu  kaífon. 


Gweleis  (i)  wŷr  gospeithic  gospylat, 
A  gwyar  a  vaglei  ar  billat, 
25     A  dullyaw  diaflym  dwys  wrth  kat ; 

Kat  gwortho,  (n);-y  bu  ffo  pan  pwyllat(t), 
Glyw  Reget,  revebaf  (i)  pan  veibat. 

Gweleis  (i)  ran  reodic  am  Uryen, 
Pan  amwyth  ae  alon  yn  Llech  (w)F(?/en.  (Galystem) 
t(oeb  llafyn  yn  aessawr  gwyr) 
30     Y'^  wytheint  fgoborthit  wrth  a;;ghen. 
Awyb  kat  a  b(i)yffo  e  Ur(owyn)j;ew. 
Ac  yny  vallwyf,  etc. 

M 


102  Taliesin, 

THE  BATTLE  OF  GWEN  YSTRAT. 

1     The  men  of  Catraeth  arise  with  the  dawn 

Aroiind  their  prince,  victorious  raider  of  cattle. 

Uryen  is  he,  in  the  minstrel's  song ; 

The  banquet  of  princes  is  siibject  to  him  ; 
5     Warhlíe,  he  is  named  the  lord  of  Christendom. 

The  men  of  Prydyn  advanced  (?)  in  hosts 

To  Gwen  Ystrat,  the  territory  (?)  of  the  fìghter  of  battles. 

Neither  fìeld  nor  woods  aflforded 

Shelter  to  aggression  when  it  came. 
10     Like  waves  loud  roaring  over  the  land 

I  saw  impetuous  men  in  hosts  ; 

And  after  the  morning  battle,  mangled  flesh. 

I  saw  the  throng  of  three  regions  dead. 

A  rueful  suUen  cry  was  heard  ; 
15     Defending  Gwen  Ystrat  were  seen 

A  low  rampart,  and  dejected  tired  men. 

At  the  gate  of  the  ford  I  saw  bloodstained  men 

Laying  down  their  arms  before  the  hoary  weirs. 

They  made  peace,  for  they  had  become  weary, 
20     With  hand  on  cross  on  the  shingle  of  Granwynion. 

The  leaders  named  their  hostages — 

The  waves  washed  the  tails  of  their  horses. 


I  saw  men  haggard  (?),  ragged  (?), 
And  the  blood  that  stained  [their]  clothes, 
25     And  keen  intense  fighting  in  the  battle ; 

Battle-coverer,  they  took  to  flight  when  they  knew : 
Prince  of  Rheged,  I  marvel  that  he  was  dared. 

I  saw  a  noble  band  (?)  about  Uryen, 
When  he  contended  with  his  foes  at  Llech  Velen.* 
30     His  spears^  were  supplied  at  need. 

May  the  desire  of  battle  come  to  Uryen. 
And  until  I  perish,  etc. 

*  Gloss  :  Galystem.     '^  Gloss  :  the  blade  would  be  in  men's  shields. 

NOTBS   ON    "  GWEITH    GwEN   YSTRAT ". 

This  and  the  preceding  poem  are  the  only  two  of  which  transla- 
tions  appear  in  the  Myryrian.  The  version  of  this  is  by  Evan  Evans, 
i,  p.  52  (248).  Carnhuanawc  paraphrases  II.  1,  2,  11-14,  Hmies,  p.  280. 
Stephens,  The  Gododin,  p.  73,  quotes  a  very  loose  metrical  version 
frora  Edward  Jones's  Musical  and  Poetical  üelichs,  1794,  p.  20.     Nash's 


Talicsin.  163 

translation,  Taliesin,^.  98,  has  been  referred  to  above,  p.  19.  Robert 
Williams's  version  appears  in  F.A.B.,  i,  p.  343 ;  and  Dr.  Evans's  in 
II,  p.  159.  All  the  versions  are  very  inaccurate.  Evan  Evans  omits 
what  he  can  make  nothing  of,  and  Carnhuanawc  attempts  only 
a  few  lines.  Dr.  Evans  hasnot  asingle  line  right ;  liis  version  bears 
almost  no  relation  to  the  original. 

Metre. — The  metre  is  '•cyhydedd  fer"  (Z)oí!p.  ^c?.,  pp.  xxix-xxx) ; 
the  length  of  the  line  is  eight  syllables ;  but,  as  before,  an  extra 
syllable  may  be  added.  In  the  above  amended  text  I  have  left  nine 
lines  of  nine  in  the  first  22  lines ;  but  as  seen  in  the  following  notes 
this  number  ought  probably  to  be  considerably  reduced.  After  line 
22  tiie  metre  is  "  cyhydedd  naw  ban  "  :  this  confirms  the  suggestion 
already  made  that  these  lines  do  not  belong  to  the  poem.  The 
change  of  metre  which  we  saw  in  the  first  poem  is  quite  different 
from  this,  for  "toddaid"  and  "toddaid  byr"  have  regularly  been 
joined  to  other  metres, — it  is  indeed  their  function:  ''cyhydedd 
naw  ban  "  -|-  "  toddaid  "  forms  the  metre  "  gwawdodyn  "  ;  "  cyhydedd 
fer  "  -|-  "  toddaid  byr  "  forms  "  byr  a  thoddaid  ",  and  "  clogyrnach  ", 
which  is  a  variant  of  it.  But  a  change  from  one  length  to  another  of 
equal  lines,  as  from  "  cyhydedd  fer  "  to  "  naw  ban  "  is  improbable. 

Tìtle. — The  poem  has  no  title  in  the  manuscript. 

Line  3. — ar  loawt,  see  above  pp.  137-8 ;  the  error  as  well  as  the 
haff  in  1.  16  shows  that  the  poem  is  copied  from  an  Old  Welsh  MS. 

eineict/8  is  the  error  we  have  already  met  with  in  the  first  poem 
I.  23,  see  note,  p.  1>59  ;  and  see  next  note. 

Line  4, — KyfeZeily.  No  doubt  eilieuid  {i.e.eiliewt/S)  did  look  rather 
like  eineuid  in  the  old  MS.,  so  a  reader  inserted  the  correct  reading 
eili  in  the  margin,  probably  with  some  mark  against  the  letters  (which 
looked  like  ein)  in  the  line.  But  our  scribe  copied  them  ein  all  the 
same,  and  inserted  the  marginal  eili  (in  his  own  spelling  eily)  in  the 
text  where  it  happened  to  come  ;  evidently  hyfe^  was  the  last  word 
in  the  line.  On  the  scribe's  habit  of  introducing  marginal  and  other 
glosses,  see  above  pp.  140-4. 

gofyn.  I  correct  the  n  to  S  not  because  n  and  5  cannot  rhyme, 
but  because  the  n  of  gofyn  is  double  {gofynn),  and  cannot  answer  the 
single  consonant.  GofyS  '  is  under '  is  the  opposite  of  goifyS  '  is  over', 
i.e. 'conquers ',  etc.  Owing  to  the  shortness  of  long  strokes  in  his 
copy  the  scribe  seems  sometimes  to  have  confused  a  straight  backed 
d  with  n ;  cf.  1.  21. 

Line  ò.—riry  is  the  perfective  particle  ry  (older  ro)  joined  to  the 
infixed  accusative  pronoun  y  'him';  substituting  the  modern/<?  for 
ro,  the  construction  is  fe'i  henuir.  The  scribe  failed  to  understand 
it,  and  took  it  for  an  incomplete  word.  On  òedyS  see  note  on  line  1 
of  the  next  poem,  p.  173  below. 

m2 


1 64  Taliesin. 

Line  6. — Prydein  is  the  usual  error  for  Prydyn.  Although  I  have 
marked  the  emendation  of  âwythein  into  gyrchyn  conjectural,  I  think 
it  probable.  A  verb  is  required  here,  and  yyrchyn  fits  exact]y.  It 
would  be  spelt  circhint  in  Old  Welsh  ;  in  Insular  script  ir  is  often 
very  like  ui  (as  the  second  stroke  of  u  was  sometimes  produced  below 
the  line  like  the  first  stroke  of  ;■),  and  c  and  t  might  be  confused, 
as  in  later  hands  ;  and  we  have  only  to  assume  that  our  scribe  read 
circh  as  tidth.     He  would  naturally  make  it  rhyme  with  Pryâein. 

Line  7. —  Ystrat.  monosyllable,  generally  written  strat  in  Old 
Welsh.  The  word  ystadyl  seems  to  be  stadal  which  occurs  in  the 
Book  of  Aneirin,  379,  where  spelling  and  metre  prove  it  to  be  a 
dissyllable  ;  stadal  vlei8iat  '  defender  of  a  border'?  cf.  blei8yat 
ryt,  ib.  2o'10.     In  our  text  we  have  also  ystadyl  tir  Penprys.  65"4. 

kyvygy8  'fighter':  cyvygu  '  to  ûght  \  goi'-chyrygu  '  to  siírpass  in 
fight ',  i.e.,  '  to  conquer ',  now  ^orcÄyy^M.  Dr.  Evans  reads  kyny  gy8  ; 
I  have  only  two  facsimiles  to  go  by,  but  I  think  the  MS.  i-eading  is 
kyu-.  In  any  case  u  is  the  correot  reading. — Since  theabove  was  put 
in  type  Mr.  Gwynn  Jones  has  been  kind  enough  to  verify  the  reading 
for  me  in  the  original  MS.  He  writes,  ''  I  believe  the  letter  is  u, 
though  it  is  very  easy  to  taTíe  it  f or  n  ". 

Line  8. — Perhaps  the  first  na  should  be  omitted. 

Line  9. — tut  faint,  as  if  obliterated  early — but  we  look  in  vain  for 
the  desired  palaeographical  notes  in  Dr.  Evans's  book.  It  begins  the 
line  and  seems  to  be  a  Iine-division  error,  consisting  of  an  incorrect 
repetition  of  the  tid,  which  formed  the  last  syllable  of  choedy8  in  the 
copy. 

8ŷ,  the  Old  Welsh  di  half  transliterated ;  so  in  464,  see  above, 
p.  134.     The  medieval  form  \s  y  'to'. 

dyvy8,  present.  The  present  after  joorn  in  a  past  sense  survives  in 
Medieval  Welsh  :  a  phan  8aw  nit  oe8  .  .  .  'and  when  he  came  there 
was  not  .  .  .  '  W.B.M.,  c.  74. 

Line  10. — Probably  eu  should  be  omitted. 

Line  11. — givychyr  (though  spelt  ^mcAr  in  the  Ox.  alphabet,  if  it  is 
the  same  word),  is  a  dissyllable  guichir  as  a  gloss  on  effrenus  in  the 
Juv.  Cod.  So  in  Medieval  Welsh :  Eryr  gwychyr  gwtith  Yeigen 
(7  syll.),  Myv.  205b. 

Line  13. — tivr(iv)f  is  common  in  these  poems  for  the  modern  torf 
'throng,  host',  see  above,  p.  142,  and  below  "  Yng  NgoríFowys",  I.  17. 
On  the  present  line  (56'23)  Dr.  Evans  has  the  sapient  note,  "  Gweleis 
t?OTíi;f  =  Isaw  thunder!  Read  :  torov  =  torv  ",  mistaking,  as  usual, 
the  old  twrufîor  the  modern  ticrw,  'noise,  thunder'. 

Line  14. — gohoyw,  cf.  2015;  govaran,  '  wrathful',  B.A.  815; 
gochlyioit  should  perhaps  be  clywit,  reducing  the  line  to  8  syll. 


Taliesin.  165 

Lines  15  and  16. — See  pp.  132-3  above.  The  meaning  of  llaior  as 
an  acijective  is  elusive  is  some  passages  ;  but  it  seems  in  some  cases 
to  denote  'cast  down ' ;  e.g.,  "  There  was  no  contention  in  which  a 
host  was  not  //«?«;?•  to  him,"  B.A.  11  ■8.  Cf.  portheis  i  laicrweS,  ìi.T. 
19'15,  by  the  side  oî  porthi  heint  a  hoed,  B.B.  SrS. 

Line  18. — yofedon.     The   scribe   seems   to  have  read  r  as  «  and 
transcribed  it/. 

Line  19. — See  above,  p.  19. 

Line  20. — Perhaps  gryt  represents  the  original  word,  ?  an  oblique 
case  cric  {cryy)  of  croc  '  cross ',  on  which  croes  was  a  gloss. 

G(a)ranivynyon.  This  seems  to  be  the  name  of  a  ford  or  place  on 
the  river.  Tliere  is  a  reference  tothis  description  of  the  enemy  being 
brought  to  bay  at  Granwynion  in  the  ninth  century  poem  "  Armes 
Prydein " :  Blaen  with  vôn  Granwynyon  hyryng  oe^yn,  B.T.  14'23, 
'  Front  against  back  [i.e  ,  closely  packed]  at  Granwynyon  hard-pressed 
were  they '.     Granioyn  also  occurs  in  432. 

Line  21. — Kyfedwynt.     See  note  on  gofyn  in  line  4. 

kywym  don.  I  have  no  doubt  this  is  an  error  for  Jcywystlon,  &s  tl 
is  (Uke  cl)  very  frequently  mistaken  for  a  straight-backed  d,  and 
vice  versa.  The  word  Icywystlon  would  be  written  in  Old  Welsh 
ciguuistlon,  the  s  being  like  the  familiar  continental  r  but  with  its 
stroke  brought  down  a  little  below  the  line.  The  scribe  copied  cigu 
as  Jcyw,  as  usual;  the  iiis,  which  had  the  form  mp,  he  read  as  im  (the 
tag  of  the  s  being  merged  in  the  top  stroke  of  the  following  t),  and 
wrote  them  ym ;  he  read  tlon  as  don.  He  evidently  had  no  idea 
what  the  line  meant.  (For  cigu-  cf.  cigueren  B.A.  38"1,  ciyuercint 
3821.  It  might  have  been  cou-,  cf.  coueidid.  F.A.B.  ii,  2.  But  the 
vowel  of  the  syllable  was  ui,  not  i,  so  that  there  were  two  us  in  any 
case.) 

Line  22. — Gwanecawr,  pl.  of  gwanec  '  wave  ' ;  the  pl.  givenyc  would 
give  a  line  of  right  length. 

goUychynt.  The  scribe  seems  to  have  hesitated  between  golchynt 
and  gwlychynt,  but  yolchi  is  the  verb  used  of  waves.  In  Old  Welsh 
we  find  (rarely)  a  silent  i  medially  between  spirants,  as  centhiliat  for 
centhliat;  and  as  /  before  ch  may  be  voioeless,  the  original  may  have 
had  guollichint  for  golchynt. 

rairn  'horsehair',  specifically  "  the  hair  of  a  horse's  tail ",  P\ighe. 

kaffon  *  horses  '  for  ^cafon  froni  caboncs  pl.  of  cabù  (which  occurs  as 
a  Latin  gloss,  see  Walde  s.v.cahallus)oì  which  caballos  is  adiminutive. 
The  latter  gives  Welsh  cafall.  The  change  oî  f  io  ff  in  caffon  and 
the  moderii  cpffyl  is  obscure.      Tyllei garn  gaffon  B.A.  2(v21. 

As  with  the  concluding  lines  of  the  previous  poem,  none  of  the 
translators  has  come  anywhere  near  understanding  tliese  two  lines. 


i66  Taliesin. 

Evan  Evans  and  Carnhuanawc  omit  them.  The  renderings  of  the 
others  are : 

"They  are  a  feast  for  the  worms  rising  oiit  of  the  earth. 
The  pale  birds  of  prey  are  wet  with  grasping  the  gore." — Nash. 

"  The  tribes  revel  over  the  rising  wave. 
The  billows  protect  the  hair  of  their  captures."— R.  Williams. 

"  (Owein's)  chief  tains  know  the  triumphant  note  ;  as 
it  is  poured  forth,  they  hide  the  tumult  in  their  hearts." 

— Dr.  Evans. 

The  average  number  of  worHs  correctly  rendered  is  one.  Nash  has 
none,  for  even  '  are  wet '  is  not  right  for  'made  wet'.  R.  Wilhams 
has  '  biUows'  and  '  hair  ',  and  Dr.  Evans  has  'chieftains  '. 

Line  23. — I  have  already  referred  twice  to  the  break  here.  The 
metre  changes  from  8/9  to  9/10.  The  initial  G  of  this  line  is  much 
larger  in  the  manuscript  than  ordinary  gothic  initials  in  the  middle 
of  the  line ;  and  Dr.  Evans  represents  the  diíFerence  graphically  in 
his  diplomatic  reproduction.  I  believe  lines  23-27  and  28-31  are 
fragments  of  another  poem  or  poems— snatches  remembered  by  the 
minstrel  who  recited  them  to  the  Old  Welsh  writer.  The  large 
initial  G  and  the  gothic  G  of  line  28  suggest  that  these  lines  formed 
two  paragraphs  in  the  original  MS.,  marked  ofif  from  the  preceding 
lines  and  in  a  lesser  degree  from  each  other. 

gospeithic  {?)  gospylat{?).  The  suggested  renderings  are  mere 
esses. 

Line  24. — vaglei  '  stained  ',  from  the  Latin  maculo  'to  cover  with 
spots,  to  stain '. 

Line  28.— reodic  'noble';  i-eodic  rec  '  noble  gift',  Myv.,  195a  39; 
pl.  ryhodigyon,  B.T ,  33-21 :  derivative  of  ryhaict,  631.  I  have 
rendered  ran  reodic  'noble  band',  but  this  is  very  doubtful.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  reodic  here  is  a  misreading  for  Deodric,  a  word 
which  would  niean  nothing  to  the  ninth  century  minstrel,  and  for 
which  he  would  be  like]y  to  substitute  a  known  word.  '  I  saw  the 
fate  of  Deodric  at  the  hands  of  Uryen'(?)  For  am  in  this  sense  see 
note  on  1.  20  of  "  Uryen  Yrechwydd  "  below. 

amìcyth.  See  my  Gram.,  p.  371,  iv  (2).  Dr.  Evans's  note  "  amwyth 
ae.  Inadmissible  construction"  is  one  of  his  incomprehensible 
utterances  on  points  of  grammar.  Amìcyn  is  always  folloAved  by  a; 
see  Gr.  371,  11.  4,  ö,  and  his  own  Intr.,  p.  xx,  near  bot. 

Llech  Wen. — The  rhyme  is  -en  (single  n)  and  wen  is  in  fuU  irenn  ; 
the  rhyming  of  single  with  double  consonants  was  the  one  thing 
that  was  not  done.  I  take  Wen  to  be  an  error  for  Yelen.  Llech 
Velen  is  'yellow  stone',  and  it  seems  clear  that  Galystem  is  a  gloss  on 


Taliesin.  1 67 

it,  representing  a  corruption  of  the  later  name — Old  English  geolu 
stán  '  yellow  stone '.  Was  the  battle  at  Galston,  when  Urien  was 
fighting  in  Aeron  (Ayr)  ? 

Line  80. — nytheint,  'blades'?  The  line  En  llogborth  y  gueleise 
vitheint  B.B.  72  begins  an  englyn  which  is  followed  by  others  in  a 
series  of  the  kind  in  which  the  beginning  is  repeated  with  slight 
variations  :  in  the  other  englynion  uytheint  is  replaced  by  ciminad 
'felling'  or  'cntting  down',  gottoev  'spear',  aiuev  'arms'.  In  B.T. 
20'18  19  guytheint  seems  to  be  echoed  by  llafnawr  '  blades ',  1.  24.  In 
36'13  the  a  after  it  seems  an  error.  The  glossator  seems  to  have 
understood  it  as  'blades';  the  gloss  explains  why  they  had  to  be 
supplied.  The  line  ends  at  llaf  |  and  the  oraission  of  the  second  yn 
seems  to  be  a  line-division  error. 

Line  31. — The  curious  error  Urouyn  (with  the  o  under-dotted)  is 
repeated  in  a  slightly  different  form  in  the  Urincyìi  of  62'14.  The 
Old  Welsh  spelling  of  the  name  is  Urhgen,  see  î'  Cymmrodor,  ix, 
p.  173.  The  o  in  the  scribe's  first  mistake  is  clearly  a  misreading  of 
6  in  a  flat-topped  hand.  The  u  in  the  second  mistake  is  his  usual 
transliteration  of  medial  b  as  v.  In  the  old  script  e  was  tall  like  the 
/  of  moderu  writing ;  before  n  it  was  sometimes  (verj'  rarely)  turned 
back  below  the  Iine(instead  of  forward  on  the  line),  thus,  J^ ;  see  two 
examples  in  Professor  Lindsay's  Plate  xiii,  acccntis  line  3,  accidentis, 
line  9.  There  is  a  peculiar  broken  form  of  it  in  nomen  in  the  last  line 
of  the  specimen  on  p.  136  above.  It  seems  that  our  scribe  toük  this 
rare  and  peculiar  e  for  the  contraction  for  ui  (cf.  Skene  F.A.B.,  ii, 
p.  2,  last  line),  which  had  the  form  iP  made  up  of  a  y  with  the  second 
stroke  carried  up  and  an  i  hanging  from  its  end.  He  regularly 
transliterates  gui  as  ivy.  Of  coiu'se  where  Urbgen  was  written 
in  the  ordinary  way,  he  regularly  transliterates  it  Uryen.  (The 
spelling  urbgen  represents  the  pronunciation  urryeìì,  where  y  =  English 
y  ;  but  the  v  had  vanished  in  the  pronunciation  before  the  twelfth 
century.)  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Lindsay  for  the  form  of  the 
contraction  for  ui.  It  is,  as  Skene  calls  it,  an  Iiisli  contraction  ;  but 
"  in  abbreviation  the  Welsh  and  Irish  systems  are  practically  identi- 
cal ",  Early  Welsh  Script,  p.  40. 

In  the  above  translations,  as  "vvell  as  in  those  that 
follow,  I  have  aimed  at  literalness  rather  than  eíîect,  in 
order  thatthe  reader  niay  the  niore  easilj  and  fully  under- 
stand  the  original,  in  wiiich  alone  it  is  possible  to  study 
the  wording  and  appreciatethe  forni.  The  definite  article 
is  not  used  in  either  of  the  poems  except  once  as  a  deuion- 


i68  Taliesin. 

strative ;  I  do  not  wish  to  lay  too  rnuch  stress  upon  this, 
for  it  is  a  feature  of  the  language  of  the  oldest  poetry 
that  persisted,  aud  was  imitated  in  the  twelfth  century. 
The  yocabulary  is  purely  British  and  Latin  ;  it  does  not 
contain  one  word  borrowed  from  Irish  or  English,  not  to 
mention  French.  No  doubt  later  forms  have  in  some 
cases  been  substituted  for  earlier  ones,  but  it  bas  not  been 
done  to  the  extent  of  seriously  affecting  the  metre.  The 
chief  difficulty  of  the  poems  (apart  from  the  unintelligence 
of  copyists)  lies  in  the  number  of  old  words  which  they 
contain — not  in  the  style,  wliich  is  perfectly  simple,  and 
quite  unlike  the  involved  and  laboured  diction  cultivated 
by  the  twelfth  century  bards.  It  is  not  only  simple  but 
reticent  in  a  higli  degree.  The  effect  is  gained  as  much 
by  what  is  left  unsaid  as  by  what  is  said.  In  "  Gweith 
Argoet  Llwyfein  "  we  see  the  blustei'ing  Fflamddwyn  ;  we 
hear  his  moching  challenge  ;  Owein's  defìance;  Urien's 
speech  to  his  men,  unfolding  the  plan  of  attack ;  of  the 
battle  itself,  nothing ;  we  infer  from  the  speech  what  took 
place,  and  are  told  only  the  result.  The  pause  is  marked 
by  a  change  of  metre  ;  we  drop  suddenly  from  the  high- 
pitched  flowingmovement  of  the  speech  tothe  low  staccato 
of  the  "  toddaid  byr  "  ;  then  for  the  final  note  of  triumph 
the  original  rhythm  is  for  a  moment  resumed.  In 
"Gweith  Gwen  Ystrat  "  we  have  glimpses  of  the  battle  at 
different  stages,  so  vivid  that  the  mind  instinctively  fills 
in  the  details.  The  invaders  come  in  hosts  like  waves 
rolling  over  the  land  ;  in  the  morning  battle  they  are  cut 
up  ;  tlie  remnant  defend  the  valley ;  weary,  they  lay  down 
their  arms — the  hoary  weirs  behind  them  ;  they  make 
peace,  hand  on  cross ;  they  name  their  hostages ;  the 
waves  wash  the  tails  of  their  horses.  That  picture  is 
drawn  from  nature ;  it  is  the  work  of  a  man  who  painted 
what   he   had   seen.      It   is    drawn    with   clear    eye   and 


Taliesin.  169 

imerring  hand  ;    it  bears  the  impress  of  actuality.     The 

manuscript  evidence  takes  it  back  to  the  ninth  century. 

Are    we  to  stop  there  ?      Is  this  the  picture  of  a  ninth 

century  battle  drawn  by  an  unknown  artist  who  changed 

the  proper  names  and  fathered  his  work  on  Taliesin  ?     It 

seems  to  require  a  sturdier  faith  to  believe  this  than  to 

accept  the  tradition. 

Reference  has  been  made  above,  p.  85,  to  Cynddelw's 

allusion  to   "  Gweith  Argoet  Llwyfein"  in  his  elegy  on 

Owein  Gwynedd.     The  passage  is  as  follows  : — 

Ywgwrfoes  yngorfaes  kyf(y)rgein ; 
Y?îgorva\vr  gwryawr  goradein ; 
Ywgwryal  ywgwryd  Ywein 
Ywgorun  aergun  argyfrein' 
Yn  aergad  yn  A(e)rgoed  LIwyvein ; 
Ym  penn  dreic  dremynt  oet  kelein. 

— Wms.  MS.  36a,  Myv.  152a. 

'ln  manliness  in  the  field  [he  was]  superb; 
In  a  mighty  onrush  [he  was]  swift; 
In  attack  [he  foughtj  with  the  valour  of  Owein 
In  the  tumult  of  the  war-lord's  doom 
In  the  battle  in  Argoed  Llwyfein; 
In  the  dragon's  head  the  glance  was  death  [lit.  corpse].' 

That  is  the  twelfth  century  style,  in  Avhich  resounding 
words  are  piled  up  with  a  minimum  of  connectives,  and 
lucidity  is  the  last  thing  thought  of.  If  my  rendering  of 
the  fourth  line  is  correct  Cynddelw  believed  that  the 
'  war-lord  '  was  killed  in  the  battle  ;  we  havethe  testimony 
of  "  Marwnad  Owein  ",  given  below,  that  Owein  killed 
Fflambwyn,  but  neither  of  the  Taliesin  poems  states  that 

^  In  the  MS.  an  e  is  inserted  above  the  line  in  a  later  hand  after 
a-  in  this  word.  It  is,  however,  probable  that  argyfrein  is  the  correct 
reading :  it  is  a  fairly  common  word,  and  is  usually  taken  to  niean 
'obsequies';  but  in  .'iuch  a  line  as  Kyn  n<>e.  aryyvrein  e  uaet  e  laur 
B.A.,  'l'ÌO,  '  before  his  a.  his  blood  was  shed  '  it  is  used,  as  I  take  it 
to  be  above,  in  a  more  general  sense  as  'death'.  The  Old  Welsh 
arciòrenou  (=  argytreinou)  is  a  gloss  on  "  sepulti  ". 


1 70  Taliesin. 

he  was  killed  at  Argoed  Llwjfein ;  it  was,  however, 
natural  to  assume  that  his  defeat  at  Argoed  in  one  poem 
and  his  death  at  the  hands  of  Owein  in  the  other  referred 
to  the  same  event,  and  there  may  have  been  a  tradition  to 
that  efFect.  Tliere  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  "  Ywein  "  of 
the  above  passage  is  Owein  ap  Urjen,  or  that  "the  battle 
in  Argoed  Llwyfein  "  is  the  battle  commemorated  in  our 
poem.  But  when  Cynddelw,  in  the  earlier  eulogy  of 
Owein  Gwynedd,  spealcs  of  a  battle  which  he  himself  had 
seen,  "  above  the  Caer,  above  the  wood  of  Llwyfein  "  : 

Gweleis  aer  uch  caer  uch  coed  Llwyfein,  Myv.  ]50a, 
and  in  which,  he  goes  on  to  say,  Owein  Gwynedd  and  his 
men  distinguished  themselves,  it  is  obvious  that  he  cannot 
possibly  be  referring  to  our  "  battle  of  Argoed  Llwyfein". 
As  stated  above,  p.  71,  there  was,  no  doubt,  a  Llwyfein  in 
Flintshire ;  and  Dr.  Evans  may  be  right  in  supposing, 
p.  xxi,  that  Cynddelw  is  speaking  here  of  the  battle  in 
which  Owein  Gwynedd  defeated  Henry  II  near  Coleshill 
in  1157  (Lloyd,  497).  His  mistake  consists  in  the  not 
unnatural  supposition  that  the  two  Llwyfeins  are  one  and 
the  same;  this  error  of  rolliug  twoplaces  into  one  became 
the  starting  point  of  the  new  geography  and  the  eponym 
theory;  it  brought  Taliesin  into  the  twelfth  ceritur}',  and 
made  Owein  Gwynedd  his  hero.  But  Llwyfein,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  a  pretty  common  place-name ;  and  as  the 
word  means  '  elms '  it  must  have  denoted  a  '  wood ' 
wherever  it  is  found ;  there  is  therefore  no  conceivable 
reason  why  there  should  not  be  a  coed  Llwyfein  in 
riintshire  in  the  twelfth  century  and  a  coed  Llwyfein  in 
the  North  in  the  sixth.  But  Cynddelw  has  another 
reference  to  our  poem  of  Argoed  Llwyfein,  which  shows 
when  and  to  Avhom  he  regarded  Taliesin  as  having  sung  it. 
A  notable  feature  of  the  poem  is  that  it  does  honour  not 
only  to  Uryen  and  liis  son  Owein  but  to  their  giverin  or 


Taliesin.  i/i 

army.  The  use  of  tliis  very  word  by  Cjnddelw  shows 
that  he  has  this  poem  in  mind : 

Ny  bu  warthlef  kert  Kynverching  werin 

O  benn  Talyessin  bartrin  beirtriwg.' — Myv.  169a. 

'  Not  inglorioiis  was  the  song  of  the  army  of  the  house  of  Cynfarch 
From  the  mouth  of  Taliesin  of  bardic  lore,  exemp]ar  of  bards.' 

This  comes  from  the  eleg-y  on  Ehiryd  Yleidd.  According 
to  Cjniddelw,  then,  Taliesin  sang-,  not  to  the  men  of 
Gwynedd,  but  to  the  men  of  Kynverching,  or  the  house  of 
Cynfarch,  that  is,  to  the  army  of  the  historical  Urien  and 
Owein,  who  were  respectively  the  son  and  grandson  of 
Cynfarch  ;  see  the  pedigree  (from  Harl.  3859)  in  Y  Cym- 
mrodor,  ix,  173.  This  twelfth  century  referenceto  Taliesin 
is  not  mentioned  by  Dr.  Evans,  so  true  is  his  remarlc  of 
1909,  quoted  above,  p.  146,  about  "  undue  neglect  of  what 
saps  "  a  theory  ;  "  undue  neglect"  is,  however,  much  too 
mild  a  term  to  apply  to  his  treatment  of  the  evidence  that 
tells  against  him. 

I  come  now  to  the  simpler  songs  in  praise  of  Urien  : 
"Uryen  Yrechwydd  ",  57-14  ;  "  Eng  ngorffowys  ",  58-13  ; 
and  "Dadolwch  Uryen  ",  65*5. 

URYEN   YRECRWYDD. 

1     Uryen  Yrechwyb,       haelaf  dyn  bedyò, 

Lliaws  a  robyò       ý  òynyon  elvyb  ; 

Mal  y  líynnuUyb       vial  yt  wesceryb. 

Llawen  beirb  bedyb       tra  vo  dy  vuchyb ; 
5     Ys  mwy  Uewenyb       gan  clotvan  clotryb  : 

Ys  mwy  gogonyant       vot  Uryen  ae  plant, 

Ac  ef  (yn)  arbennic,       (yn)  oruchel  wledic, 

(yn)  Dinas  pelleiinic,       (yn)  keimat  kynteíc. 

Lloegrwys  ae  gwybant      pan  ymadrobant: 

^  Medial  and  finalí  =  8.  BarSrin  is  a  recognised  compound, 
'bardic  lore';  also  used  adjective]y  as  a  "posf^ssive"  compoinid 
('possessing  bardic  lore ')  :  but  heir^rmg  is  a  word  coined  for  the 
nonce;  I  take  'ittohe  beir?>-^rÌ7iy,  in  sonie  sucli  sense  as  '  to  whom  the 
bards  aspire '. 


172  Taliesin. 

10     Angheu  a  gawssant      a  mynych  gobyant — 

Llosci  eu  trefret      a  dwyn  eu  tubet 

A(c  eimwnc)  mynych(?)  collet       a  mawr  anghyffret, 

Heb  gaffel  gwaret       rac  Uryen  Reget. 

Reget  òiffreidyat,       clot  iôr,  awgor  gwlat, 
15     Vy  mob  yssyb  arnat       o  pop  erclywat. 

Dwys  dy  peleidrat       pan  erclywat  kat. 

Kat  pan  ý  kyrchy(nt)S,       gwî/nyeith  a  wne(it)t/S, 

Tân  yn  tei  kyn  dyb       rac  ub  Yrechwyb, 

Yrechwyb  teccaf       ae  dynon  haelhaf  : 
20     Gnawt  Eingl  heb  waessaf       am  tëyrn  glewhaf. 

Glewhaf  eissyllyb,       t(yd)i  goreu  yssyb, 

(o'r)  A  vu  ac  a  vyb, —       ny'th  oes  kystedlyb. 

Pan  dremher  arnaw       ys  ehalaeth  (y)  braw. 

(gnawt)  Gwyleb  amdanaw,       am  tëyrn  gocnaw. 
25     Amdanaw  gwyleb,       a  (Uiaws)  mawr  maranheb, 

Eurtëyrn  Gogleb,       arbenhic  tëyrneb. 
Ac  yny  vallwyf,  etc. 

URYEN   OF   YRECH'WYDD. 

1     Uryen  of  Yrechwydd,  most  generous  man  in  Christendom, 

Much  dost  thou  give  to  the  men  of  the  world  ; 

As  thou  gatherest,  so  thou  scatterest. 

Happy  the  bards  of  Christeudom  while  thy  life  lasts ; 
6     It  is  greater  happiness  to  the  hero's  eulogist ; 

It  is  greater  glory  that  Uryen  and  his  sons  live, 

Since  he  is  the  chief,  the  lord  paramount, 

Stronghold  of  the  stranger,  foremost  íighter. 

The  Lloegrians  know  it  wben  they  converse : 
10     Death  have  they  suffered  and  many  vexations — 

The  burning  of  their  homes  and  the  taking  of  their  attire, 

And  many  (?)  a  loss  and  much  tribulation, 

Without  fìnding  deliverance  from  Uryen  Rheged. 

Rheged's  defender,  famous  lord,  anchor  of  [his]  country, 
15     My  heart  is  [set]  on  thee  of  all  [men  of]  renown. 

Intense  is  thy  spear-play  when  [the  din  of]  battle  is  heard. 

To  battle  when  thou  goest,  vengeance  thou  wreakest, 

Houses  on  fire  before  dawn  in  the  van  of  the  lord  of  Yrechwydd, 

The  fairest  Yrechwydd  and  its  most  generous  men  : 
20     The  Angles  arg  without  security  on  account  of  the  bravest  prince. 

Of  the  bríivest  stock,  thou  art  the  best  that  is, 

That  has  been  and  wiU  be, — thou  hast  no  peer. 

When  men  gaze  on  him  widespread  is  the  awe. 


i 


*> 


Taliesin.  1 7 

Courtesy  around  him — around  the  glorious  prince. 
25    Around  him  courtesy  and  great  resources, 
Golden  prince  of  the  North,  chief  of  princes. 
And  iintil  I  perish,  etc. 

NoTEs  ON  "Uryen  Yrechwydd". 

Nash's  text  was  corrupt,  and  his  translation  of  that  {Tal.  106)  is 
very  inaccurate.  R.  Williams's  version  appears  in  F.A.B.,  'i,  p.  344; 
also  inaccurate.  Dr.  Evans,  ii,  77,  corrects  some  of  the  errors  of  his 
predecessors,  and  falls  into  other  errors  of  his  own :  but  he  comes 
nearer  the  meaning  of  the  original  here  than  in  most  of  his  efforts. 

Metre. — Half-lines  of  lìve  syllables,  rhyming  in  pairs,  and  forming 
lines  of  ten  syllables.  That  ten  syllables  is  the  unit  is  shown  by 
'•  Dadolwch  Uryen"  below,  in  which,  in  some  cases,  the  arrangement 
of  the  rhymes  within  the  compass  of  the  ten  syilables  is  different. 
When  the  lines  are  divided  into  short  periods,  as  here,  we  can  hardly 
assume  long  or  short  lines. 

Title. — The  poem  has  no  title  in  the  MS. 
Line  1. — Bedydd  is  not  '  baptism ',  but  an  abstract  or  collective 
noun  denoting  the  V)aptized  as  opposed  to  the  heathen.  Another 
form  is  bedysaict  from  ba{p)tizâti,  which  became  a  feni.  sg.  noun,  as  in 
O'r  croc  creulet  y  deuth  guared  i'r  ledissyaud,  B.B.,  41,  'From  the 
bloody  cross  came  salvation  to  Christendom  '.  In  late  literature  it  is 
spelt  bydysawd  and  used  for  'universe'  on  the  mistaken  supposition 
that  it  is  a  derivative  of  byd. 

Line  2. — roSyS ;  the  -y8  is  the  termination  of  the  2nd  sg.  pres.  ind.. 
now  -i;  Modern  Welsh  rhoddi  'thou  givest'.     So  in  line  3. 

Line  3. — The  second  half  of  this  line  is  a  syllable  short.  The 
missing  syllable  is  perhaps  mal  before  yt  to  answer  inal  y  in  the  first 
part.  In  the  later  language  theformsare  val  .  .  .  veUy  '  as  .  .  .  so ', 
but  velly  is  a  reduction  of  val  hyn,  and  the  demonstrative  hyn  need 
not  have  been  used  originally. 

Line  5. — clotran  '  highly  praised '  from  clod  'praise'  and  buìi 
'high';  it  is  often  used  as  a  noun,  as  in  Myv.,  188  b  18,  194  b  37; 
hence  we  may  render  it  'hero'.  clotrydd  '  freely  praising',  cf. 
gwaiudrydd  the  epithet  of  Aneirin;  hcre  used  as  a  noun  'eulogist'. 
The  first  noun  dependsonthe  other  in  the  genitive,like  lieget  ?/8,  etc. 

Line  6. — The  rhyme  is  taken  up  in  line  9  and  contiuued  in  line  10. 

Line  7. — This  and  the  next  line  are  two  syllables  long;  the 
redundant  syllables  are  doubtless  the  repeated  yn  introducing  a  com- 
plement,  which  might  be  omitted  in  the  early  period  ;  see  note  on 
yn  hen  above,  p.  15.5. 

arbennic  is  a  noun,  as  in  line  26,  not  an  adjective  qualifying 
oruchel  wledic. 


174  Taliesin. 

Line  ^.—pellennic  isusually  anoun,  'stranger',  in  Medieyal  Welsh, 
•çA.  pellennigyon,  R.B.M.,  p.  162:  and  dinas  peìlennic  wonld  hardly  be 
used  for  dinas  jìe/l '  far  city'.  Words  like  stronghold,  fort.  wal],  etc, 
are  frequently  used  figuratively  for  '  defender  '  in  the  old  poetry. 

Keimat  is  a  'fighter'  (from  ca??ip),  not  a  '  companion '  froni  cam 
'step '.     Dr.  Evans  renders  correctly  both  halves  of  this  line. 

Line  'è.—Lloegrwys  '  men  of  Lloegr '.  In  Geoffrey's  Brut  Lloegr  is 
the  central  part  of  the  Island  (of  Britain),  R.B.B,,  p.  60.  I  ani  not 
aware  that  the  name  has  been  explained ;  but  it  seems  to  denote  the 
territory  of  the  Angles.  In  line  20  the  people  are  called  Eingl 
'  Angles ',  which,  it  need  bardly  be  pointed  out,  is  historically  correct 
for  the  opponents  of  Urien.  There  are  no  Saeson  for  Dr.  Evans  to 
"  demolish  ". 

Line  12. — Ac  einunic.  It  seems  as  if  the  scribe  of  the  copy  had 
begun  to  write  a  word  Ìike  eò-im  {eirif),  and  then  gone  on  to  write 
minic  {mynych),  which  our  scribe  copied  as  mwnc.  The  word  mynych 
occurs  ih  line  10,  but  its  repetition  is  not  improbable. 

Line  lA.—clot,  from  Aryan  ^lcbdóm,  '  that  which  is  heard,  fame', 
may  also  be  the  perf.  part.  pass.  *khctós,  and  so  may  be  an  adjective. 

Line  15. — The  first  half-line  is  long :  the  relatival  form  yssyS  is 
used  as  in  Medieval  and  Medern  Welsh  ;  in  Old  Welsh  the  verb 
would  be  the  siniple  form  ys  or  yw. 

The  scribe  puts  a  stop  after  ai-nat  and  uses  a  capital  O  in  O  pop 
erclyicat,  thus  connecting  it  with  the  following  lines,  and  therefore 
understanding  it  to  mean  something  like  '  By  all  report '.  Sueh  a 
break  in  the  middle  of  the  hne  is  not  improbable ;  but  the  sense  it 
gives  here  can  hardly  be  the  right  one.  In  any  case  erclyimt  is  a 
perf.  part.  pass.  here,  and  in  the  next  line  a  passive  verb  (the  same 
form  with  the  verb  '  to  be '  understood).  It  may  be  added  that 
0  bob  .  .  .  and  o  bawb  are  commonly  used  after  verbs  of  choosing, 
appreciating,  etc. 

Line  17. — There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  ending  of  the  verbs 
should  be  that  of  the  2nd  sg.  pres.  ind.,  to  rhyme  with  the  next  line. 

Line  20.  —am  '  on  account  of ',  '  at  the  hands  of ' ;  this  proves  the 
meaning  assumed  in  the  note  on  1.  28  of  the  last  poem,  p.  166. 

Line  23. — The  article  y  makes  the  line  too  long,  and  must  be 
omitted. 

Line  24. — am  '  around ',  as  in  1.  2  of  "  Gweith  Argoet  Llwyfein  "  ; 
the  use  of  the  word  in  this  sense,  even  with  personal  suffixes,  is  put 
beyond  doubt  by  llu  nef  ymdanaw,  11'9,  'the  host  of  heaven  around 
Him'. 

gocnaw,  perhaps  '  triumphant '.  Giryr  a  aeth  OdoEin,  chwerthin 
ognaw,  B.A.  2"13,  '  Men  went  to  Gododdin  with  exultant  laughter', 


Tahesin.  175 

probably:  chwerthin  wanar,  ib.,  1.  18,  does  not  help.  Cynddelw  has 
wryd  looíjnaio  'of  trinmphant  (?)  valour  (manliness)'  Myi\  168b  ;  and 
Prydydd  y  Moch  has  teyrn  hedyrn  caä  opnaio  whicli  apparently  means 
'  prince  of  mighty  ones  yictorious  in  battle  ",  ib.  i^OSb.  The  word  may 
possibly  be  a  form  related  to  goyoniant,  but  with  difl'erent  vowel 
gradation. 

Line  25. — llîaios  should  probably  be  niawr,  or  some  similar  mono- 
syllable;  maior  is  probable  because  it  alliterates  with  maranhedd,  cf. 
lines  4,  5,  8. 

maranneS  'store,  provision,  supplies  ',  etc. ;  see  e.g.  R.B.M.  12  18. 

Line  26.— The  second  half-line  is  long:  arbenhic  may  be  a  sub- 
stitution  for  a  dissyllable  such  as  rieu,  or  unben(Dv.  Evans),  suggested 
by  such  a  phrase  as  arbenhic  milwyr,  W.B.M.,  col.  123. 

FNG    NGORFFOWYS. 

1     Eng  MgorS'owys      can  ry  chedwys 

Parch  a  chynnwys,       (a)  meb  meuebwys  ; 

Meueòwys  meb       ÿ  orvoleb, 

A  chein  tireb       im(i)  yn  ryfeb, 
5     A  ryfeb  mawr      (ac  eur)  ó  cet  ac  awr, 

Ac  awr  a  chet       achyfrivet, 

Achyfrivyant,       a  robi  chwant. 

Chwant  oe  robi,       yr  vy  llochi, 

Yt  lab,  yt  gryc,       yt  vac,  yt  vyc, 
10     Yt  vyc,  yt  vac,       yt  lab  yn  rac. 

Racweb  ro(thi)5yt       j  (veirb  y)  8ynyon  byt. 

Byt  yn  geugant       itt(i)  yt  webant 

Wrth  d(y)  ewyllis.       Duw  ry'th  peris 

Rieu  yng{ni)rys       rac  of(y)n  dy  br(i)ys. 
15     Annogyat  kat,       difi'reidyat  gwlat,  * 

Gwlat  bift'reidyat,       kat  annogyat, 

Gnawt  amdanat       twr(w)f  pystylat, 

Pystylat  twr(w)f      ac  yfet  cwr(w)f. 

Kwr(w)f  oe  yfet       a  chein  trefret 
20     A  chein  tubet       (imi)  ry'm  anllofet.     ' 

Llwyfenyb  vân       a(c)'fÄ  eirch  achlân 

Yn  un  trygan       mawr  a  bychan. 

Taliessin  gân       ti(di)  ae  diban. 

Ys  ti(di)  goreu       o'r  a  gigleu 
25  ý  wrblideu. 

Molaf  inheu       dy  weithredeu. 
Ac  yny  vallwyf,  etc. 


17Ó  Taliesin. 

AT    HOME. 

1     In  [his]  home  since  he  has  given  [me] 

Honour  and  welcome,  with  mead  has  he  dowered  me  ; 

He  has  dowered  me  with  the  mead  of  his  glory, 

And  [has  given]  íine  lands  to  me  in  abundance, 
5     And  great  abundance  of  gifts  and  gold, 

And  gold  and  gifts  unnumbered, 

Innumerable,  and  has  given  [my]  desire. 

'Tis  to  give  my  desire  in  order  to  gratify  me 

That  he  kills,  that  he  hangs,  that  he  rears,  that  he  feeds, 
10     That  he  feeds,  that  he  rears,  that  he  kills  again. 

He  gives  ref ection  to  the  men  of  the  world. 

The  world  indeed  does  homage  to  thee 

At  thy  will.     God  has  made  thee 

Master  in  assault  for  fear  of  thy  onslaught. 
15     Inspirer  in  battle,  defender  of  country, 

Country's  defender,  battle  inspirer, 

Usual  around  thee  is  a  host's  tramping, 

The  tramping  of  a  host  and  the  drinking  of  beer. 

Beer  to  drink  and  a  fine  homestead 
20     And  fine  raiment  have  been  bestowed  on  me. 

The  people  of  Llwyfenydd  greet  thee  all 

In  one  chorus,  great  and  small. 

The  song  of  Taliesin  entertains  thee. 

Thou  art  the  best  of  all  I  have  heard  of 
25  as  to  thy  merits. 

And  I  wiU  praise  thy  works. 

And  until  I  perish,  etc. 

NoTES  ON  "Yng  Ngorffowys". 

Nash's  translation  appears  in  his  Tal.  113  ;  R.  Williams's  in  F.A.B. 
ì,  p.  346  ;  Dr.  Evans's  in  II,  107.  All  are  forthe  most  part  hopelessly 
astray. 

Metre. — The  metre  is  "  cyhydedd  fer"  (see  above,  p.  163).  In  this 
poem  each  line  of  eight  syllables  is  divided  into  two  rhyming  half- 
lines  of  four.  The  rhyme  is  in  some  cases  carried  over  two  or  three 
lines ;  but  in  ten  consecutive  lines,  5-14,  the  half-line  rhyme  is  limited 
to  the  line.  An  exti'a  half-line  is  added  to  1.  24  ;  it  would  be  unsafe 
to  assume  that  a  half-line  is  missing,  as  the  three  half-lines  form  the 
unit  of  the  metre  called  "  rhupunt ",  which  might  have  been  used  just 
before  the  end,  like  the  "  toddaid  byr  "  in  "  Gweith  Argoet  Llwyfein  " 
above. 

The  poem  is  full  of  what  is  technically  called  "  cymeriad  "  (*  taking 


I 


Taliesin.  iyy 

up '),  which  is  regarded  by  the  bards  as  a  desirable,  if  not  necessary, 
ornament  of  verse,  the  absence  of  which  is  called  "  tor  cymeriad  ". 
It  consists  in  the  repetition  of  words  or  soiinds  of  a  line  in  the  next 
line,  and  is  obviously  a  convention  designed  to  aid  the  memory. 
Where  the  meaning  suggests  what  is  to  follow,  the  sequence  is  called 
"  cymeriad  synhwyrol  ",  and  no  other  "  cynieriad  "  is  necessary.  The 
examples  of  ''cymeriad"  in  this  poem  are  as  follows: — (1)  "Cymeriad 
geiriol", — a  word  at  the  end  of  a  line  repeated  at  the  beginning  of 
the  next;  ryfe^  11.  4-5,  achyfrẁ-  6-7,  rac  10-11,  byt  11-12.  This 
is  an  early  form  of  *'  cymeriad  "  which  survives  in  later  verse  only 
in  the  connexion  between  the  englynion  in  a  "  cadwyn  "  or  "  chain". 
A  more  elaborate  form  of  it,  which  is  very  common  in  the  Taliesin 
poems,  consists  in  the  repetition  in  reverse  order  of  the  words  of 
a  half-line,  as  me^  meueSwys  1.  2,  meue^ioys  nie8  1.  3 ;  the  other  examples 
in  this  poem  are  7-8,  9-10,  17-18,  18-19,  and  15-16,  in  which  the 
whole  line  is  repeated  in  inverse  order.  We  can  quite  confidently 
amend  the  corrupt  second  half  of  line  5  in  conformity  with  this 
principle  of  "cymeriad".— (2)  "Cymeriad  cynganeddol", —  consonants 
repeated  :  anlìoîet,  1.  20,  hhuyîenyS,  1.  21  ;  this  is  only  recognised  at 
the  beginning  of  the  two  lines  by  the  late  prosodists. — (3)  "  Cymeriad 
Ilythrennol ", — the  repetition  of  the  initial  consonant  of  the  line ; 
this  is  the  commonest  form  in  later  verse,  but  only  one  example 
occurs  in  this  poem,  II.  16-17. — (4)  Most  of  the  other  sequences 
are  examples  of  "  cymeriad  synhwyrol  "  ;  and  probably  the  carry- 
ing  on  of  the  line-rhyme  into  the  next  line  was  regarded  as 
a  "cymeriad  ". 

Dr.  Evans,  who  knows  nothing  whatever  about  these  things, 
violates  half  the  "  cymeriadau"  in  his  "amended"  text. 
Title. — The  poem  has  no  title  in  the  manuscript. 
Line  1. — Eg  gorffon^ys.  The  eg  is  the  preposition  yng,  mutation  of 
yn.  The  g  is  the  usual  symbol  for  ng.  Dr.  Evans  thunders  against 
the  spelling  yng  ng-  in  almost  every  boolc  he  publishes;  here  his 
diatribe  is  in  II,  p.  xii.  Consonants  are  not  to  be  doubled  (even  in 
separate  words !)  "  except  under  the  accent ",  by  which  he  means 
after  an  accented  vowel.  We  must  write  ywEfyn  instead  of  yn 
Nefyn  (as  if  oiie  iiisisted  on  in-Eirport  for  in  Neirport  in  English). 
He  implies  that  the  twoconsonants  are  never  written  in  fnll  in  MSS., 
which  is  untrue,  for  yn  n-,  ym  m-,  and  yg  g-  are  frequent.  Further,  the 
preposition  yn  followed  by  the  nasal  mutation  is  accented,  see  my 
Gram.,  pp.  173-5;  but  Dr.  Evans  is  unalile  to  understand  thi.s,  and 
will  probably  continue  to  rave  against  doubling  "  e.icept  under  the 
accent".  In  tlie  early  seventeenth  century  it  was  a  "  merrye  jest '' 
to  pretend  that  yn  Nyfed  was  yn  yfed  (Owen's  Pm.,  i,  9,  310  fn.);  Dr. 
Bvans  writes  yw  Yved  in  all  seriousness,  p.  xvii,  see  above  p.  55,  and 

N 


178  Taliesin. 

is  angry  with  others  because  they  are  not  equally  laclîing  in  a  sense 
of  humour. 

yorffowys,  literally  'rest';  here  probably  inthe  sense  of  '  residence, 
mansion,  manor ' ;  cf .  Powysfa  Dewi  in  Llyfr  Llan  Daf  158,  260. 
Dr.  Evans  takes  this  to  be  yor  Bowys,  "  The  border  of  Powys " ; 
he  imagines  that  in  the  compound  yor-or  it  is  the  prefix  yor-  that 
means  '  border ' !     Of  course  or  '  border  '  has  no  y-. 

chedwys,  3rd  sg.  aorist  of  a  denominative  from  ced  'gift'. 

Line  2. — meue^wys,  3rd  sg.  aor.  of  a  denominative  of  meueS  '  pro- 
perty',  literally  'mine',  from  meu  '  my  ' :  hence  meueSwys  'made  mine '. 

Line  3. — y  orvole8.  I  have  rendered  this  literally,  withoutattempt- 
ing  to  decide  whether  it  means  '  for  which  he  is  famed  ',  or  '  for  his 
praise  ',  or  '  in  which  he  glories '. 

Line  4. — ryfeS  from  *pro-med-,  '  beyond  thought  or  measure'  where 
^med-  is  the  root  '  judge,  thinlî,  measure'  (Gr.,  378),  is  used  in  a  more 
primitive  sense  than  in  Medieval  and  Modern  Welsh,  in  which  it  has 
come  to  mean  '  strange '. 

Line  5. — ac  eur  ac  awr.  The  Old  Welsh  word  for  '  gold '  is  aur 
(i.e.,  aicr)  which  is  the  regular  derivative  of  the  Latin  auriivi.  The 
form  eur  was  originally  the  adjective,  derived  from  aiireus  {Gr.  106), 
and  cannot  make  sense  here.  The  "  cymeriad  "  makes  it  practically 
certain  that  ac  eur  is  an  error  for  o  cet  (0  yed),  or  a  chet ;  the  f ormer 
makes  better  sense.  I  suggest  that  the  original  text  was  written 
thus — hoc&  hacaur  ;  that  the  scribe  misread  hoc  as  hac,  and  could 
make  nothing  of  the  &,  for  which  he  substituted  eur,  which  may 
have  existed  as  a  gloss  on  aur. 

achyfrẁet.  For  ach-  as  a  variant  of  anyh-,  cf.  achen  beside  anyhen 
'  need'  {Gr.  151).     -et  is  a  perf.  part.  pass.  ending. 

Line  6. — achyfrẁyant.  -yant  is  the  pres.  part  act.  ending ;  it 
adds  only  a  shade  of  meaning  to  the  adjective  achyfrif^  anyhyfrif 
*  numberless ' ;  cf .  dilys  and  dilysiant. 

Line  8. —  Chwant  oe  roSi,  literally,  '  Desire,  [it  is]  to  give  it'; 
Chwant  is  nominative  absolute ;  oe\s  wy,  now  i'w  'to  .  .  it';  see  next 
note. 

Line  9. —  Yt  is  the  oblique  relative  '  that ',  which  is  used  because 
the  antecedent  is  an  adverbialphrase  (preposition  -\-  nonn,  tw  roddi), 
exactly  as  y  is  stiU  used ;  thus  i''w  roddi  y  lladd  '  [it  is]  to  give  it  that 
he  kills  (his  fat  stock) '. 

(/rí/c,  obviously  3rd  sg.  pres.  ind.  of  cro^fí/ '  I  hang  ' :  '  lie  liangs 
(the  carcasses) '. 

vac,  3rd  sg.  pres.  ind.  of  mayaf  '  I  rear,  bring  up',  etc. 

vyc,  3rd  sg.  pres.  ind.  of  an  obsolete  verb  *myyaf  from  *muk-  (not 
related  to  myy,  edmyy,  etc,  from  *smik-) ;  the  primitive  perf.  part. 
pass.  or  supine  stem  is  represented  by  mwyth,  moeth  '  luxury ',  micyth 


Taliesin.  1 79 

werin  *  well-niirtiirerl  host',  Myv.  206a;  a  secondary  perf.  part.  pass. 
is  myffet,  as  in  emys  yraicthwys  graicnryged,  ib.  208a,  '  horses,  fast- 
trotting,  grain-fed';  Gicytuiled  gyfred  grat{y)cyged  graicn,  169  al, 
'(horses)  as  fleet  as  wild  beasts,  for  fleetness  fed  on  grain  '.  The  verb 
means  'to  foster,  to  pamper',  and  is  almost  synonymous  with  magaf, 
and  sometimes  used  with  it,  as  here ;  e.g.,  Ny  mag  .  .  .  Ny  mye,  204  b 
lines  1  and  2. 

Line  10. — y7i  rac.  The  preposition  rhag  comes  from  an  adjectival 
form  *prokos  cognate  with  the  second  element  in  the  Latin  reci- 
procus  :  yn  with  adjectival  rhag  fornis  an  adverb  *  progressively '. 

Line  11. — raciceS  is  'provision'  literally  and  etymologically  ;  as 
seen  above,  rac  is  an  extension  of  original  *pro,  and  weS  is  *uida,  root 
*ueid^  'see\  It  seems  generally  to  mean  '  preparation ' ;  but  many 
words  of  this  meaning  are  used  for  'provision'  of  food. 

ý  veir5  y  òyt.     The  deíìnite  article  y  before  byt  is  suspect ;  there 

can  be  no  doubt  that  veir8  í/  is  a  (bardic)  substitution  for  Sytiyoti,  as 

in  "  Uryen  Yrechwydd  "   line  2,  see  above  p.  171,  where  Synyon  elvy8 

(synonymous  with  Synyon  byt)  is  used   in  making  almost  the  same 

statement.     Thouo^h  di/nion  is  not  found  in  Cornish  and  Breton  it 

.....  * 

may  well  be  old  in  Welsh  ;    if  it  is  not,  it  may  be  a  substitution  in 

these  phrases  for  a  collective  noun  like  dynin  (24*17) ;  cf.  gwerin,  from 

gicŷr. 

Line  13. — The  proclitic  dy  was  probably  á'  before  a  vowel  from  the 

earliest  period.     It  may  be,  however,  that  the  original  reading  here 

was  íth  eiüyllis,  see  next  note. 

ewyllis.  This  word  is  generally  spelt  ewyllys ;  but  in  the  W.B.M. 
we  find  ith  eiüyllus  y8  ydym,  c.  90,  '  we  are  at  thy  wiU  ',  and  in  the 
next  line  ewyllwys,  but  lower  down  ewyllus  again.  It  seems  as  if  the 
u  were  a  roundiug  of  i  due  to  the  influence  of  tlie  w ;  in  that  case  -ys 
is  a  later  modification  of  -us,  and  the  original  form  is  -is.  The 
spelling  eicyllis  oceurs  elsewere  in  our  text,  1317. 

Line  14. — ygnis  ....  dy  bris.  The  exact'  form  of  these  words 
also  is  doubtful,  though  the  meaning  is  clear.  In  Old  Welsh  both  i 
and  y  were  written  /,  and  the  distinction  between  them  in  our  MS. 
depends  entirely  upon  its  scribe.  Probably  gnis  should  be  grys 
{áespite  g7iissynf  oî  6\"2'3  a,n(\  gììissint,  Ji.A.  37'lî))  froni  *grd-t-,  cog- 
nate  with  Irish  grêss  '  attack '  from  *gre)idt-  (Fic]v-Stükes,  118), 
allied  to  Sanskrit  grdhyati  '  strides  out ',  Lat.  gradior,  gressus.  In 
661 9,  dy  bris  dy  brys  should  probal)ly  be  dy  breu  dy  brys,  found  in- 
verted  in  dy  brys  dy  breti,  I.  24,  'bursts,  breaks  ' ;  tlie  form  is  therefore 
probably  brys  cognate  with  Irish  brissÌ7ti  '  1  break ',  and  allied  to 
English  burst,  etc.  (Fick-Stokes,  184).  The  b  is  thus  the  Old  Welsh 
radical  which  the  scribe  should  have  mutated  :  dy  vrys. 

Line  17. —  twr{iü)f.     See  note  on   "Gweith  Gwen   Ystrat ",   I.   13, 

îí2 


1 8o  Taliesin. 

p.  164  above.  The  medieval  tirr{ic)f  ox  tii-r{y)f  (sÚQXit  u-  and  y)  inter- 
changed  with  ticrn:  in  which  the  last  ic  is  nonsyllabic,  being  a  modi- 
fication  of  the  consonant/(=i)).  Similarly  cwr{îv]f,  cicric.  The  final 
nonsyllabic  lo  has  now  become  a  syllable  twr-w,  cwr-w. 

Line  20. — imi  ry:  read  ry'm.  This  emendation  has  actually  been 
made  by  Dr.  Evans,  II,  p.  108. 

Line  21. — van  is  certainly  not  rmm  as  taken  by  R.  Williams  and 
Dr.  Evans,  for  it  rhymes  with  aehlân,  and  the  rhyme  is  carried  on  in 
the  next  two  lines.  It  clearly  means  '  men '  or  '  people  ' ;  it  might 
be  from  Lat.  maìius  in  the  sense  of  '  a  band  or  body  of  men '.  But  I 
see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  Aryan  *manu-  (Sanskrit  mánu-s 
'  man,  mankind ')  survived  in  Keltic,  since  it  is  found  in  Germanic. 
Troude  records  an  old  Breton  77ian  '  homme ',  which  he  compares 
with  the  German  Maìin  ;  but  it  cannot  be  derived  frora  the  Germanic 
since  in  Germanic  the  stem  is  maìin-  (for  manu-,  see  Kluge  s.v. 
Mann) ;  in  Welsh  the  Old  Eng.  mann  appears  dialectaljy  as  mon,  in 
ìacsmon,  etc.  That  mân  'people'  is  not  used  in  Medieval  or  Modern 
Welsh  is  no  argument  against  its  occurring  in  this  poem,  if  it  is 
genuine,  for  obsolete  words  like  mán  and  caffon  are  to  be  expected, 
and  are  fewer  in  these  poems  than  they  would  be  but  for  substitu- 
tions.  The  word  seems  to  have  survived  as  an  adjective  mân 
'plebeian',  as  wlien  D.  ap  Gwilym  says  that  he  is  not  a  yŵr  mân 
(Pughe,  s.v.  mân),  where  mân  can  hardly  be  the  adjective  '  small ' 
used  with  pl.  nouns,  as  cerrig  mân,  etc. 

achlân.  This  word,  like  some  other  adverbs  such  as  yrháwg,  pre- 
served  its  old  accentuation  in  Medieval  and  Early  Modern  Welsh, 
being  used  commonly  bj'  the  bards  down  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century ;  it  means  '  wholly,  altogether '.  In  Old  Welsh  the  accent 
generally  fell  on  the  ultima,  and  the  original  rhythm  and  rhyme  of 
such  a  poem  as  this  may  be  seen  by  restoring  the  accentuation  of  the 
rhyming  words  in  such  lines  as  these;  thus : — 

Llwyfenyb  vân  |  a'th  eirch  achlân, 
Yn  un  trygân  |  mawr  a  bychân. 
Taliessin  gân  1  ti  ae  dibân. 


ö^ 


Incidentally  also  the  restoration  shows  why  vann  is  absolutely  im- 
possible,  as  well  as  Dr.  Evans's  trigan(n)  for  trigant,  and  generally 
why  a  double  final  cannot  rhyme  with  a  single. 

Line  23. — ae.  I  leave  this  unchanged  because  the  old  form  of 
the  relative  was  ae  (Old  Welsh  ai,  hai) ;  and  I  leave  the  initial  of 
diBan  unmutated  because  the  accusative  relative  was  followed  by 
the  radical,  as  in  U  heSeu  ae  gulich  y  glav,  B.B.  63,  'the  graves  which 
the  rain  wets '.  In  ordinary  Medieval  or  Modern  Welsh  the  phrase 
under  notice  would  be  ti  a  ddiddan  '  (it  is)  thou  whom  it  entei'tains'. 


Taliesin.  1 8 1 

Line  25.  — On  this  half-line  see  note  on  metre  above.  Probably 
wrhlideu  is  an  error  for  ewllideu  'merits',  though  a  compound 
gwr^  +  llideu  is  not  impossible.  The  second  eleraent  is  also  found 
compounded  in  delideu  '  merits  ',  which  Prydydd  y  Moch  uses  in  the 
singular  dlid,  Myv.  204.  In  Breton,  "  Ce  mot  ne  s'emploie  qu'au 
pluriel  dellidou,  au  sens  de  mérites,  terme  de  dévotion  ",  Troude  s.v. 

DADOLWCH    URYEN. 

1     Ll(euu)ywyb  echassaf,         mi  nyw  dirmygaf  ; 

Uryen  a  gyrchaf,        ibaw  yt  ganaf. 

Pan  òêl  vy  Jîgwaessaf,         kynnvvys  a  gaffaf, 

A'r  parth  goreuhaf         y  dan  eilassaf. 
5    Nyt  mawr  ym  dawr  by(th  gweheleith  a  welaf) 

Nyt  af  attabunt,  ganthunt  ny  bybaf : 

(n)i?y  chyrchaf  (i)  Gogleò         a(r)7zmeií  teyrneh. 

Kyn  pei  am  lawer(eò)         y  gwnelwn  (gyngh)wystleí), 

Nyt  reit  ym  hoffeb,         Uryen  nym  gomeb. 
10     Ll(o)?oyfenyb  tireb,        ys  meu  eu  reufeb 

Ys  meu  ỳ  gwyled,         ys  meu  ý  llareb, 

Ys  meu  ý  (de)/hdeu         ae  gorefrasseu — 

Meb  o  vualeu,         a  da  dieisseu 

Gan  tëyrn  goreu,        haelaf  rygigleu. 
15     Tëyrneb  pob  ieith         yt  oll  yb  ynt  geith. 

Ragot  yt  gwynir,  ys  dir  dy  oleith. 

Kytef  mynasswn         (gweyhehi  henwn) 

Ny(t  oeb)  well  a  g(e)arwn         kyn  ys  gwybybwn. 

Weithon  y  gwelaf         y  meint  a  gaffaf, 
20     Nam«yn  (y)  Duw  uchaf         nys  dioferaf. 

Dy  tëyrn  veibon,         haelaf  dynebon, 

(wy)  Ka(n)Äan  eu  (hy)sc(yrr)/yyon        yn  tireb  (eu)  galon. 
Ac  yny  vallwyf,  etc. 

EULOGY    OF    URYEN. 

1     Most  valiant  chief,  I  will  not  slight  him  ; 

Uryen  I  will  seek,  to  him  I  will  sing. 

When  my  warrant  comes,  welcome  shall  I  receive 

And  the  best  place  under  the  chieftain. 
5     I  care  not  much  what  [bidding  I  get] 

I  wiU  not  gü  to  them,  I  will  not  be  with  them : 

I  will  repair  to  the  North  at  the  beck  of  princes. 

Though  it  were  for  much  that  I  gave  a  pledge, 

I  need  not  reckon  it,  Uryen  will  not  refuse  me. 


1 8  2  Taliesin. 

10     The  lancls  of  Llwyfenydd,  mine  is  tlieir  wealth, 

Mine  is  their  courtesy,  mine  is  their  bounteousness, 
Mine  are  their  feasts  and  their  luxuries — 
Mead  out  of  horns  and  good  tliings  without  stint, 
Frora  the  best  prince,  the  most  generous  I  have  heard  of. 

15     The  princes  of  all  nations  are  all  thrall  to  thee  : 

In  thy  advance  there  is  wailing,  thou  must  be  evaded. 
Though  I  had  wished  it  [  ?  ] 

There  was  none  I  loved  better  before  I  knew  him ; 
Now  that  I  see  how  much  I  obtain, 

20     I  will  no  more  forswear  him  than  the  most  high  God. 
Thy  princely  sons,  most  generous  men, 
Get  their  booty  in  the  lands  of  their  foes. 
.  And  until  I  perish,  etc. 

NoTEs  ON  "  Dadolwch  Uryen  ". 

Translations  :  Nash  in  his  Taliesin,  p.  107;  R.  Williams  in  F.A.B., 
i,  p.  352  :  Dr.  Evans  in  II,  95. 

Metre. — Lines  of  ten  syllables  divided  into  rhyming  half-lines  of 
five,  the  raetre  of  "  Uryen  Yrechwydd ",  see  above  p.  173.  But  in 
this  poem  three  lines,  ö,  6,  16,  have  internal  rhyme  instead  of  the 
half-line  rhyme  ;  see  note  on  line  5. 

Title. — Golwch  means  'praise';  and  the  prefix  dad-  may  be  in 
eü'ect  merely  intensive,  as  in  dat-gan  '  to  declare '.  In  twelfth  cen- 
tury  titles  dodolwch  generally  raeans  'reconciliation,  propitiation ', 
and  is  applied  to  poeras  addressed  to  patrons  who  have  been  oífended ; 
but  there  is  no  suggestioii  of  Uryen's  displeasure  in  this  poera.  It 
implies  that  the  bard  was  about  to  return  to  him  after  an  absence  in 
Gwynedd. 

Line  l.—Lleimi/S,  i.e.  Llt/wt/S.  The  spelling  in  the  scribe's  copy 
was  probably  Louid ;  he  misread  Lou-  as  Lleu-,  ou  being  the  regular 
Old  Welsh  form  of  Medieval  eti  as  well  as  of  yw  with  obscure  y  (see 
Gram.,  p.  31)  ;  on  seeing  his  mistake  he  wrote  another  u  to  make  the  u 
into  double-M,  i.e.  lo ;  though  not  generally  used  by  him  two  u&  might 
stand  for  iv,  as  in  B.B.  2'1 ;  conversely  w  might  stand  for  uu 
{=vu)  as  in  wtic  for  vu8ic  B.B.  8311,  wt  for  vu8  do.  86"3.  As 
the  scribe  himself  sometimes  uses  e  ior  y  (see  above  p.  126),  he  left 
the  e  uncorrected.  Dr.  Evans  (like  Nash)  guessed  Llywy8  *  chief ' ; 
but  as  he  cannot  postulate  an  Old  Welsh  original  he  has  no  expla- 
nation  to  offer  of  the  curious  spelling,  which  he  finds  it  convenient 
to  ignore. 

echassaf.  The  prefix  is  probably  ech- ;  and  echas  seems  to  bear  the 
same  relation  to  dias,  as  ehofn  {echofn)  does  to  diofn  '  fearless '  and 


Talíesm.  183 

apparently  the  root  idea  is  similar  in  both  pairs.  Dias  seems  to  be 
an  adjective  in^/e«' ŵs  ŵwas  e  lu  ovnam  B.A.  10-8  '  bold,  fearless, 
[he  was]  a  stronghold  to  a  timid  host '  and  a  noun  in  dinas  y  8ias  do. 
154  'a  stronghold  [was]  his  valour';  am-Òias  and  diasseS  are  adjec- 
tives,  used  with  gwrhyd  'manliness'  and  greid  'courage'  (Breton 
gret  '  courage ',  Troude,  s.v.),  as  gicrhyt  am^ias  B.A.  \"2,  gwrhyt  diasseô 
B.T.  598,  greid  am-Sias,  Myv  145  a  3.  Hence  I  talte  the  superlative 
echassafto  mean  '  most  valiant '.  It  cannot  well  be  from  cas,  for  from 
c-  only  ach-  is  possible  (and  achas  exists),  which  can  become  ech-  only 
before  i  or  //.  The  previous  renderings  of  these  opening  words  of  the 
poem,  based  upon  the  mistaken  derivation  from  cas,  are — 

Though  the  chief  is  angry. — Nash. 
Thelionwill  be  most  implacable. — R.  Williams. 
The  Chief  I  do  not  dislike. — Dr.  Evans. 

Line  3. — hynnwys  '  admission  '  rendered  correctly  by  R.  Williams  ; 
see  Silvan  Evans,  s.v.  But  cynnu-ys  is  something  more  than  mere 
'admission';  it  is  still  used  dialectally  in  Gwynedd  for  'welcome 
admission,  encourageraent '. 

Line  4. — eilassaf  '  chieftain  '.  Cf.  Hywel  haelaf  vaur  eilassaw 
gorescynhwy  B.B.  76.7  (fìnal  -aw  -=  af);  men  yS  ynt  eilyassaf  (e)lein 
B.A.  14  14  '  where  the  chieftain's  blades  are' ;  dor  angor  beèin,  òuÔ 
eilyassaf  do.  155  'the  door,  the  anchor  of  an  army,  victorious  chief '; 
llu  eilassafB.T.  64-22,  context  obscure,  possibly  'chief  of  a  host'. 

Line  5.  — As  it  stands  the  line  means  '  Not  much  do  I  care  ever 
for  the  race  that  I  see '.  Byth  '  ever '  comes  in  awkwardly,  and  seems 
to  be  the  scribe's  guess,  to  rhyme  with  his  gwehelyth  (which,  however, 
he  spells  gioeheleith;  cí.  gwehelieith,  F.A.B.,  ii,  p.  225).  The  original 
word  may  have  been  either  pi,  Medieval  py,  hy  'w^hat',  or  jiet  'how 
many'.  The  next  word  I  take  to  have  been  guahaud,  which  the 
scribe  read  .ç/?<a/í«/íV/,  and  understood  as  yw-eÄy/j/íÄ,  which  makes  the 
line  too  long.  The  mistake  of  reading  u  as  li  is  the  converse  of  the 
error  of  reading  li  as  n,  which  we  have  come  across  more  than  once; 
with  ^Mor  M  he  would  be  familiar;  also  with  the  vocaIism  of  the 
supposed  guahalid,  with  which  cf.  Ligualid  above,  p.  58.  I  caimot 
explain  w<?/«/except  as  the  scribe's  substitution  for  gaffaf  ov  gahaf 
which  made  no  sense  with  his  misreadings.  I  take  the  original  line 
to  have  been — 

Nyt  mawr  ym  dawr  by  gwahawh  a  gaffaf, 

to  be  rendered  as  above.  The  line  has  internal  rhyme,  and  there- 
fore  was  not  necessarily  divided  into  two  fìves  ;  dairr  forms  a  good 
rhyme  wìih.  gwahawS:  and  the  line  is  of  the  right  length. 

Byth  is  most  readily  explained  as  derived  from  Irish  ;  but  ás  it  is 


184  Taliesin. 

found  in  Cornish  and  Breton  also  such  derivation  isdoubtful,  though 
as  British  its  formation  is  obscure ;  see  Thurneysen's  Alt-Irischen 
Gram.,  p.  222.  As,  however,  it  is  probably  a  late  insertion  here,  the 
date  of  the  poem  is  not  aflfected. 

Line  7. — armeiteyrned,  so  joined  in  the  MS.,  as  if  the  scribe  had 
run  on  from  the  final  t  of  -meit  to  the  initial  t  of  teyrne^.  The  most 
probable  reading  seems  to  be  anmeit  '  nod,  beck ' ;  Old  Welsh  plural 
emneituon,  gloss  on  "  per  nutus  ".  In  the  later  language  metathesis 
took  place,  and  the  word  is  now  amnaid.  With  anmeit  teyrneS  cf. 
deorum  nutu,  Cicero,  Cat.  iii,  9,  21. 

Line  8. — laivereZ  — Tlie  -e8  was  added  by  the  scribe  because  he  did 
not  see  that  the  -er  of  lawer  formed  a  good  rhyme  with  the  -eh  of 
wystle^. 

Line  9. — hoffe^.  The  original  meaning  of  hoffi  seems  to  be  '  to 
value,  appreciate ',  etc,  from  which  the  modern  'to  ]ike'  is  natur- 
ally  derived  (cf .  Eng.  dear  '  precious  ;  loved ').  The  prüverb  Hanner 
y  uiedd  hoffedd  yw  means  '  Half  the  feast  is  the  appreciation  of  it ' 
(not  "  is  fondness",  as  Pughe  renders  it).  Tripheth  a  hoffa  ker8,  Red 
Book,  col.  1141,  '  three  things  that  give  value  to  a  song  '.  Gor-hoffeò 
R.  B.  Bruts  215  'boasting'  (cf.  Eng.  over-weeninff),  whence  sometimes 
hoffeS  '  boast'.  Here,  however,  the  word  is  used  in  its  primary  sense 
of  'setting  a  value  upon'. 

Line  12. — delideu.  There  seems  to  be  no  foundation  for  Pughe's 
*  hard  substance ;  metal ',  except  his  silly  derivation  of  the  word 
from  dèl  which  he  renders  "  obdurate  ".  Here  it  makes  the  line  too 
long,  and  seems  to  be  a  compound  (cf.  dilidcu  '  feasts ',  Myv.  144  a  27) 
substituted  for  the  archaic  uncompounded  llideu  'feasts',  pl.  of  llid, 
which  survives  in  Breton  as  lid  'feast',  pl.  lidou;  the  exact  phonetic 
equivalent  appears  in  Old  Irish  as  llth  *  feast '.  The  same  substitu- 
tion  as  the  above  occurs  in  our  text  in  19'8  ;  thus, 

Gwneynt  eu  peiron         a  verwyntheb  tân, 
Gwneynt  eu  (de)/lideu         yn  oes  oesseu. 

'  They  make  their  cauldrons  which  boil  without  fire, 
They  make  their  feasts  for  ever.' 

gorefrasseu,  apparently  '  superfluities,  luxuries '.  It  is  diflicult  to 
fix  the  meaning  of  efras,  but  it  seems  to  denote  '  resource  '  of  power 
or  wealth  :  ys  evras  ywrth  (read  r/wrS)  'he  is  mighty  of  resource', 
F.A.B.,  ii,  271  ;  the  efras  of  the  white  town  by  the  wood  is  ever  '  her 
blood  on  the  face  of  her  grass',  do.  285;  lleto  lluch  efras  'lion  of  im- 
petuous  might',  Gwalchmei,  Myv.  144b  ;  yiür  gwrb  i  evreis  '  man  of 
mighty  resources  ',  do.,  ib.  143b  ;  evras  cad  '  fighting  force  ',  Prydydd 
y  Moch,  ib.  21 2b;  Pedyr  per  y  etras  227a  ;  cf.  152  a,  b,  B.B.  868.  In 
the  ouly  medieval  example  of  goreoras  known  to  me  it  seems  to  be 


Taliesin.  185 

newly  compounded :  Gwr  gorevras,  gwas  gwenwyn,  Cynddelw,  Myv. 
184a,  '(he  was)  a  man  of  great  might,  a  youth  of  yirulence'. 

Line  15. — ieith  '  nation  '  so  iised  as  late  as  the  fifteenth  centnry ; 
see  an  example  in  a  couplet  by  Gutun  Owain  in  my  Gram.,  p.  34. 

Line  16. — goleith.  All  the  lexicographers  have  gone  wrong  in 
taking  this  to  be  a  compound  of  lleith  '  death '.  Mr.  Williams  has 
seen  that  it  means  'toavoid,  evade,  elude'.  Pughe's  examples  are 
Dywal  dirfydd  ei  olaith,  which  he  renders  "  The  death  of  the  fierce 
is  certain  ",  though  it  obviously  nieans  '  The  fierce  must  be  avoided ', 
and  iVt  ellid  ei  olaith,  which  he  renders  "  he  could  not  be  slain  ",  in- 
stead  of  'there  was  no  escape  from  him  '.  A  good  example  is  Ny  oleith 
lleith  yr  llyfyrder  '  he  will  not  shirk  death  from  cowardice',  Cynddelw, 
Myv.  176a,  Strachan,  Intr.  233.  Anoleith  'inevitable'  (not  "  death- 
f ul "  as  given  by  Silvan  Evans) ;  lleith  anoleith  '  inevitable  death ', 
B.T.  1513,  Prydydd  y  Moch,  Myv.  211  b  4. 

Line  17. — gweyhelu  henwìi.  This  half-line  is  obviously  corrupt, 
and  I  am  unable  to  suggest  any  satisfactory  emendation. 

Line  18. — Nyt  oeS  well;  the  oeS  is  superflous;  the  reading  might 
be  Nyt  gioell  or  Ny  well;  cf.  Na  well,  W.B.M.  c.  84. 

gerwn,  scribal  error  for  garwn. 

kyn  ys  gwyby^wn :  kyn  '  before ',  Gram.  446.  The  distinction 
between  gwybod  '  savoir '  and  adnabod  '  connaître '  goes  back  to 
British,  for  it  is  found  in  Breton  as  well  as  in  Welsh  ;  but  ad-nabod  is 
literally  'to  recognise,  to  be  acquaiiited  with';  and  as  ^?ry5  still  means 
'  presence '  it  is  possible  that  *gwy8bod  might  be  used  in  Early 
Welsh  for  '  meeting '  or  '  mahing  the  acquaintance  of ",  which  is  the 
sense  required  here  (as  its  Greek  cognate  eî8ov  might  be  used  for 
'seeing'  a  person  in  the  sense  of  'meeting'  him).  The  meaning  of 
the  sentence  can  hardly  be  doubtful,  and  the  use  of  gwybySwn  points 
to  an  antiquity  well  beyond  the  middle  ages. 

Line  19. — The  article  is  hardly  ever  found  before  jceithon  {=weith 
Äon)  in  Medieval  Welsh  ;  and  its  regular  omission  {whiìe  y  prytwìi,  y 
wershon,  etc,  are  never  without  it)  may  be  a  survival  from  the  period 
when  the  article  was  not  essential  before  the  demonstrative  hw7i,  hon. 

Line  20. — The  scribe  inserted  y,  which  makes  the  line  too  long, 
because  namyn  meant  nothing  to  him  but  '  except ' ;  he  took  the 
phrase  to  mean  '  except  ybr  the  most  high  God  ',  a  reservation  which 
weakens  the  declaration  for  no  intelligible  purpose.  The  meaning  is 
clearly  '  1  will  no  more  forswear  Uryen  than  I  will  forswear  the 
most  high  God '.  NamiLy{n)  is  literally  '  not  more ' ;  it  was  used,  like 
its  Irish  cognate  nammä  in  the  sense  of  'only '  to  strengthen  a  word 
meaning  'but';  thus  Irish  acht  .  .  .  nammä  '  but  .  .  .  only',  üld 
Welsh  ho7iit  nammui  '  but  onl}' ' ;  in  Welsh  the  word  for  '  but '  came 
to  be  omitted,  and  namwyn  itself  was  used  for  '  but '  (cf .  the  collo- 


i86  *  Taliesin. 

quial  use  of  only  for  '  but '  in  Englisli).  In  the  Shirburn  Brut  it 
occurs  as  '  only  '  after  nyt  in  the  passage  of  Lludd  corresponding  to 
W.B.M.,  c.  192-21:  'nyt  na  mwy  '  not  only'(I.  Williams,  Lludd  a 
Llerelys,  p.  18 ;  in  the  W.B.  wrongly  copied  nyt  mwy).  In  Medieval 
Welsh  nanuryn  has  no  other  meaning ;  in  Old  Welsh  it  occurs  as 
an  adverb  qualifying  '  but ',  and  as  '  but '  itself,  Book  of  Llan  Daf , 
p.  120,  and  apparently  'only',  do.  p.  xliii ;  and  its  use  here  in  its 
literal  and  etymological  sense  of  '  not  more ',  with  a  dependent 
genitive  of  comparison  Duw  uchaf  '  than  the  most  high  God ',  which 
was  unintelligible  to  the  medieval  scribe,  takes  the  phrase  back 
beyond  the  Old  Welsh  period. 

dioferaf  is  the  verb  of  which  the  verbal  noun  is  diofryd,  as  the 
verbal  noun  of  cymeraf  is  cymryd,  of  differaf  is  diffryd,  of  adferaf  is 
edfryd,  of  gochelaf  is  gochlyd  {Gram.,  p.  391).  This  well-known  sur- 
vival  of  Aryan  vowel-gradation  in  Welsh  was  unknown  to  Dr.  Evans, 
who  "  amends  "  dioferaf  'mto  "  àiowYyd-AÌ  ",  II,  96. 

Line  22. — Medieval  ysclyvon  would  be  written  sclimon  in  Old 
Welsh  (cf.  Gr.  159,  11.  17-8) :  and  we  have  here  another  proof  thatZ  was 
short  in  the  scribe's  copy.  He  read  the  l  as  i,  and  the  four  strokes 
of  im  as  rr. 

It   is  probable  that  some  lines  are  missing  at  the  end   of   this 
song. 

It  has  been  seen  in  the  notes  that  there  is  a  consider- 
able  amoünt  of  evidence  that  the  above  three  songs  to 
Urien  have  been  cojîied  from  a  manuscript  in  a  flat-topped 
hand  of  the  ninth  centurj,  and  many  grammatical  and 
etymological  indications  of  the  matter  being  still  older. 
It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  necessarj  tö  arg-ue  that  the 
Urien  in  whose  honour  thej  were  written  is  the  Urien  of 
history.  They  have  all  the  appearance  of  ha^ing-  been 
composed  to  be  suno'  in  his  presence.  He  is  referred  to 
promiscuously  in  the  second  and  third  person.  The  singer 
addresses  him  as  "  thou  ",  and,  addressing  the  company, 
speaks  of  him  as  "  he ".  Is  this  also  a  piece  of  ninth 
century  realism? 

I  subjoin  the  elegy  on  Owein  son  of  Uryen  67*18,  re- 
ferred  to  at  some  length  above,  pp.  87  ff. 


Taliesin.  187 

MARWNAT    OWEIN. 

1     Eneit  Owein  ap  Uryen, 

gobwyllit  (y)  Reen  oe  reit. 
Reget  ub  ae  cnh  tromlas — 

nyt  oeb  vas  ý  gywydeit. 
5     Iscelljsryí,  kerh  glyt  clotvawr; 

escyll  gíí'awr,  gwaywawr  llifeit, 
Cany  cheffir  kj'stedlyb 

ŷ  uh  llewenyh  llatAreit. 
Medel  galon,  geveilat — 
10  eisaylut  y  tat  ae  teit. 

Pan  labawò  Owein  Fflamhwyn, 

nyt  oeb  vwy  noc  et  kysceit. 
•  Kyscit  Lloeg(y)r  llydan  nifer, 

a  /leuver  yn  eu  Uygeit ; 
15     A  rei  ny  fföynt  hayach 

a  oeòynt  hyac\\  no  reit. 
Owein  ae  cospes  yn  brut, 

mal  cnut  yn  dylut  deveit. 
Gẃr  gwiw  uch  ý  amliw  seirch, 
20  a  robei  veirch  ý  eircheit. 

Ky?j(t)  as  cronyei  mal  calet, 

(n)ry  rannet  rac  ý  eneit. 
Eneit  Oicein  ap  Uryen, 
24  gohwyllit  Reen  oe  reit. 

THE    DEATHSONG    OF   OWEIN. 

1     The  soul  of  Owein  ap  Uryen, 

may  the  Lord  have  regard  to  its  need. 
Rheged's  priiice,  whom  the  heavy  sward  covers, 
not  shallow  was  his  judgement. 
5     At  supper  time  [he  heard]  the  acclaiming  song  of  praise, 

with  the  wings  of  dawn  [he  hurled]  the  whetted  spears, 
For  no  peer  is  to  be  found 

to  the  prince  of  radiant  cheer. 
Reaper  of  enemies,  cai^tor — 
10  heir  of  liis  fatlier  and  forebears. 

When  Owein  killed  Fílambwyn, 

it  was  no  greater  [featj  than  sleeping. 
The  wide  host  of  Lloegr  sleep 

with  the  light  in  their  eyes  ; 
15     And  those  that  fled  not  amain 

were  bolder  than  [they  had]  need  [to  be]. 


i88  Taliesin. 

Owein  punished  them  grievously 

like  a  pack  [of  wolves]  chasing  sheep. 
A  fine  man  [was  he]  above  his  many-coloured  trappings, 
20  who  gave  horses  to  [his]  suitors. 

Before  he  would  lay  up  a  hoard  like  a  miser, 

it  was  distributed  for  his  soul, 
The  soul  of  Owein  ap  Uryen, 
24  may  the  Lord  have  regard  to  its  need. 

NOTES    ON    "  MaRWNAT    OWEIN  ". 

Translations :  Nash,  Taliesin,  108;  R.  Williams,  F.A.B.,  i,  366  ; 
Dr.  Evans,  II,  125,  on  which  see  above,  pp.  87-90. 

Metre.     The  metre  is  '•  awdl  gywydd  "  {Dosp.  Ed.,  p.  lxvii).     The 

unit  is  a  line  of  fourteen  syllables  divided  into  two  half-lines  of  seven  ; 

the  last  syllable  of  the  first  half-line  rhymes  with  any  final  syliable 

from  the  second  to  the  fifth  of  the  second  half-line ;  in  some  cases  it 

rhymes  with  tico  woi'ds  in  the  latter,  as  clotvaior  1.  5,  'wìth  gicuwr  and 

gwaewaicr  in  1.  6,  and  drut  1.  17  with  cnut  and  dylut  1.  18.     The  end  of 

the  f  uU  line  rhymes  throughout ;  in  this  poem  the  rhyme  is  -eit.     The 

line  is  now  regarded  as  a  couplet,  and  the  half-lines  as  lines ;  and  I 

have  so  nurabered  them  above.     The  metre  was  rarely  üsed  by  the 

cynghanedd  poets,  who  preferred  the  ordinary  cywydd :  there  is  an 

example   by   Dafydd   ab   Edmwnd  in  Peniarth  MS.  77,  p.  392,  be- 

ginning — 

Llawenaf  lle  o  Wynedd 

Yw  llys  medd  a  Uysiau  Môn. 

But  stanzas  of  three  couplets  of  the  metre  becamé  later  one  of  the 
favourite  forms  of  peniilion  to  sing  to  the  harp ;  a  good  example  is 
Lewis  Morris's  "  Caniad  y  Gog  i  Feirionydd '",  of  which  one  stanza 
may  be  quoted: 

Annwyl  yw  gan  adar  hyd 

Eu  rhyddid  \\yd  y  coedydd  ; 
Annwyl  yw  gan  faban  \aeth 

Ei  {•Amaeth  oá\aeth  ddedwydd  ; 
O  !  ni  ddwedwn  yn  fy  myw 

Mor  annwyl  yiv  Meirionydd. 

The  oldest  extant  poem  of  Meilyr,  the  earliest  historical  medieral 
bard,  is  in  this  metre,  Myv.  142a;  it  was  composed  at  Mynydd  Carn 
in  1081.  Some  of  the  oldest  Irish  poetry  is  written  in  stanzas  of 
four  half-lines  of  seven  syllables  each.  Sanctan's  hymn,  Irische 
Texte,  i,  49,  which  contains  a  comparatively  large  number  of  obscure 
passages,  is  in  that  metre  ;  it  is  attributed  to  the  Briton  Sanctän, 
whü  is  said  to  be  the  son  of  Samuil  Pennissel  {Lives  of  Brit.  Saints, 


Taliesin.  189 

iv,  175),  son  of  Pabo,  third  in  descent  from  Ceneu  ab  Coel  (ib., 
iv,  38) ;  the  author  would  therefore  be  a  conteniporary  and  líinsman 
of  Owein  ap  Uryen.  The  internal  rhyme  of  the  "awdl  gywydd " 
occurs  in  the  early  Latin  hymns.  Kuno  Meyer  {Pnmer  of  Irish 
Metric^,  p.  9)  quotes  as  an  example  : 

Conclamantes  Deo  Aigìmm      hymnum  sanctae  Mariae. 
ut  voxpulset  omnem  aurem       per  \audem  YÌcariam. 

There  is  thus  no  reason  at  all  to  doubt  that  the  raetre  is  as  old  as 
the  late  sixth  century ;  both  the  rhyme-system  and  the  length  and 
division  of  lines  are  probably  much  older. 

Line  1. — ap.  In  Medieval  Welsh  generally  this  is  written  vab,  but 
the  V  had  already  disappeared  in  the  twelfth  century,  e.g.  Ouein  ab 
Urien,  B.B.  64-7.  In  the  scribe's  copy  the  form  would  doubtless  be 
map. 

Line  2, — gobicyllit :  the  o  was  begun  as  6,  i.e.  w,  by  the  scribe, 
which  shows  that  this  poem  also  was  copied  from  a  MS.  in  Old  Welsh 
orthography,  in  which  the  prefìx  go-  is  always  written  guo-.  Dr. 
Evans  notes  the  error,  but  has  nothing  to  say  about  it. 

On  lines  1  and  2  see  above  pp.  87-8. 

Line  3. — ae  is  the  old  form  of  the  relative,  which  when  accusative 
was  followed  by  the  radical  initial  of  the  verb  ;  see  note  on  line  23  of 
"Yng  Ngorffowys"  above,  p.  180. 

tromlas  '  heavy  green '  occurs  as  an  adjective  in  5J:'20  qualif ying 
caduyn  'chain',  the  phrase  denoting  the  prison  of  earth,  the  grave. 

cywydeit,  derivative  in  -eit  (v.n.  ending,  cf.  gorSyfneit,  synnyeit)  of 
cywyd  '  mind',  written  hytid  in  B.B.  76-13,  where  íinal  -d=d  (not  8). 

Line  5.— This  line  is  a  syllable  short  in  the  MS.  The  expression 
kerS  glyt  clotvawr  (read  glotmiur)  is  complete,  and  JcerSeu  clyt  is  not  a 
probable  emendation.  The  missing  Avord  therefore  probably  came 
after  Iscell;  and  the  internal  rhyme  of  line  3  suggests  that  it  rhymed 
with  clyt ;  the  word  pryt  fulfils  this  condition,  and  exactly  fills  the 
gap  in  the  sense ;  see  below. 

JsceW,  according  to  Bichards,  is  'broth,  pottage,  gruel,  supping'; 
the  English  sup  is  hterally  'to  imbil)e',  and  is  allied  to  soiip;  one 
might  sup,  or  partake  of  iscell,  at  any  hour,  but  as  siipper  in  Eng.  has 
come  to  denote  the  last  meal,  so  the  time  ^ar  í^o^'/i'  for  iscell  was 
the  evening;  thus  pryt  'time'  is  required  to  bring  out  the  contrast 
with  '  dawn  '  in  the  next  line. 

ker8  glyt.  This  cìyt  has  nothing  to  do  with  clyd  '  sholtered ' 
(which  is  from  *Ä:Ẅ-  originally  *klt-,  root  *kel-  'cover'),  but  comes 
from  the  genitive  *kiuti  of  the  neuter  noun  whose  nom.-acc.  sg.  was 
*klutóm,  which  has  given  Welsh  clod ;  the  root  is  *kleu-  '  hear '. 
Briefly,  the  old  genitive  of  elod  survived  iu  the  expression  cerdd  glyd, 


igo  Taliesin. 

which  was  still  used  in  the  twelfth  century,  e.g.  by  Cynddelw  in  Myv. 
190a  quoted  above,  p.  98  fn.  It  occurs  in  the  late  part  of  "  Anrec 
Urien  "  :  Ef  a  '^aw  hyt  ny  hyS  ker8  glyt,  ny  by^  kelvyS,  F.A.B.,  ii,  292, 
Y  Cym.,  vii,  125,  '  A  time  wiil  come  when  there  will  be  no  song  of 
praise,  when  there  will  be  nö  accomplished  (singer) '. 

Line  6.— This  line  is  liuked  to  the  preceding  by  the  "  cymeriad 
cynganeddol "  iscell  /  escyll,  rendering  the  reading  of  the  two  words 
certain,  and  disproving  the  ignorant  "  emendation"  of  II,  124. 

escyll  yawr  should  undoubtedly  be  esyyll  yiaawr,  for  the  words 
occur  in  4213  in  the  same  connexion  :  glessynt  escyll  gwaior,  escorynt 
{wy)  wayioator  '  the  wings  of  dawn  became  grey,  they  brought  forth 
spears'. 

llifeit  '  whetted ' ;  a  whetstone  is  still  called  maen  llifo  in  North 
Wales. 

Line  ^.—Medel  is  usually  a  feminine  noun  {y  fedel)  meaning,  like 
its  Irish  cognate  methel,  '  a  corapany  of  reapers' ;  but  it  seems  also  to 
have  been  a  masculine  noun  in  Welsh,  meaning  'a  reaper ',  e.g.  y 
medel  B.B.  45-9  ;  in  this  sense  it  has  been  replaced  by  medelwr.  Cf. 
medel  e  alon,  B.A.  26-15,  '  reaper  of  his  enemies '. 

yefeilat  is  the  derivative  in  -{i)ad  of  gafael  '  to  seize ' ;  this  ending, 
wheu  it  affects  the  stem-vowels,  as  here,  denotes  the  agent ;  see  p.  98 
fn.     The  word  therefore  means  '  seizer,  captor'. 

Line  10.— On  teit  '  ancestors  '  see  my  Gram.  p.  219.  The  bard  is 
thinking,  not  of  Owein's  "grandsire"  (11,  125),  but  of  his  ancestors, 
Ceneu  and  Coel. 

Liue  11.— Nash  renders  this  line  "  When  Fflamddwyn  slew 
Owain",  with  a  footnote  stating  that  "The  ordinary  construction 
would  give  '  When  Owein  slew  Fflamdwyn'.  But  in  an  elegy  on 
Owain  the  circumstances  of  his  death  are  more  naturally  mentioned 
[why  "more  naturally"  than  the  exploits  of  his  life  ?! ;  and  the  reading 
renders  the  following  liues  more  intelligible,"  Tal,  p.  109.  By  the 
"foUowing  lines"  he  means  1.  ]2,whichhe  completely  misunderstood. 
How  it  is  "more  intelligible "  that  "following"  his  death  Owein 
should  punish  his  enemies,  Nash  does  not  say ;  the  poet  is  of 
course  continuing  his  account  of  Owein's  prowess.  R.  Williams 
adopts  Nash's  rendering,  and  we  are  assured  in  a  note  (ii,  418) 
that  this  "is  the  natural  construction ".  Professor  Powel  observes 
that  "if  by  'natural'  is  meant  'iu  accordance  with  Welsh  usage ', 
then  the  assertion  cannot  be  accepted  " ;  it  *s,  in  fact,  the  exact 
reverse  of  the  truth.  In  a  direct  statement,  a  noun  object  may 
precede  the  noun  subject,  as  BygystuS  deuruS  dagreu,  F.A.B.,  ii,  282, 
'  tears  afflict  tlie  cheeks ' ;  but  this  is  very  rare,  and  in  a  dependent 
clause  such  an  inversion  is  hardly  to  be  found.  The  order  is  sub- 
ject  object ;   as  Ac  velly  y  kavas  Kulhivch  0/ími,  R.B.M.  143,  'And 


Taliesin.  .       191 

[it  was]  so  tliat  Rulhwch  won  Olwen '.  Carnhuanawc  and  Stephens 
understood  the  line  in  its  natural  sense,  '  When  Owein  líilled 
Fílamddwyn ',  see  Professor  Powel's  note  in  The  Gododin,  p.  09. 
On    Dr.   Evans's  mistranshition,   see   above,  p.  90. 

Line  12. — This  line  appears  to  be  correct,  for  the  "cymei-iad" 
kyscit  \n  the  next  line  makes  the  reading  hysceit  practically  certain. 
It  means  literally  *  it  was  no  more  than  sleeping ',  which  means,  I 
suppose,  that  it  required  no  greater  eífort  on  the  part  of  Owein. 

noc  et  is  usually  written  noyet  or  nogyt  in  Medieval  Welsh.  The 
et  is  an  extension  also  found  in  Breton  eget  '  than  ',  Cornish  ages. 
The  ìi-  iu  Welsh  is  the  old  ending  of  the  comparative  tacked  on  to 
the  original  oc  Hhan':  see  my  Gram.  pp.  243,  447. 

The  early  modern  prosodists  allowed  an  initial  consonant  to  be 
brought  forward  to  the  end  of  a  preceding  word  to  form  a  rhyme, 
which  was  called  odl  yudd  '  hidden  rhyme  ' ;  thus,  ivxj  followed  bj'- 
laicen  could  rhyme  with  hunjl  (J.  D.  Rhvs,  1592,  p.  284;  in  reproducing 
information  suppHed  to  him  J.D.R.  completely  misses  the  point,  and 
thinks  that  the  words  wy'  laioen  actually  are  loyl  awen,  which  would 
form  an  ordinary,  not  a  "  hidden  "  rhyme).  Ffiam^wyn  and  incy  n- 
form  an  "odl  gudd'";  but  it  is  unthinkable  that  the  author  of  this 
poem  dreamt  of  such  a  thing ;  "odl  gudd''  is  a  comparatively  late 
device — I  cannot  recollect  even  a  medieval  example  of  it.  To  the 
author  vioy  here  was  clearly  vwyn,  and  probably  '  than '  was  ocet.  The 
Irish  forms  suggest  that  miry  oomes  from  *ìnâiüs ;  I  have  suggested  a 
doublet  *mäison,  formed  with  the  ordinary  British  comparative  end- 
ing  (=Gk.  twi'),  as  the  origin  of  mwyn  {Gram.  98).  Even  if  that  be 
not  so,  mwyn  niust  have  been  formed  at  an  early  period  on  the 
analogy  of  other  comparatives,  for  its  existence  is  proved  by  namwyn 
by  the  side  of  namwy,  of  which  the  former  alone  survived,  and  became 
namyn  ;  in  this  the  n  cannot  come  from  no,  for  7io  'than'  is  not  used 
after  it;  see  note  on  1.  20  of  the  last  poem,  p.  185.  All  this  goes  to 
prove  that  this  couplet  was  written  before  the  Old  Welsh  period 
when  mwyn  was  already  obsolete. 

Line  15. — hayach  with  the  negative  usually  means  in  Medieval 
Welsh  '  not  much  ;  hardly  at  all ' ;  here  it  must  mean  '  actively '  or 
'  energetically',  a  more  primitive  sense  from  the  root  *segk-;  cf.  Skr. 
sáha-s  '  mighty ',  etc,  sáhasä  "(forcibly),  suddenly,  precipitately '. 

Line  16. — The  last  word  on  p.  67  of  the  MS.  is  oeSynt ;  a  piece  of 
the  top  corner  of  the  leaf  has  been  torn  ofF,  so  that  only  ch  remains 
of  the  first  word  on  p.  68;  there  is  a  dot  before  it,  which  represents 
the  bottom  of  the  a ;  the  rhyme  proves  that  the  word  ended  in  -ach. 
There  is  room  for  only  three  letters  beforo  ch  ;  I  have  measured  hy 
in  lines  20  and  21,  and  find  tliat  their  width  with  that  of  «  tìts  the 
space  exactly.     It  appears  to  me  that  hyach  fits  the  sense  esactly  too. 


192      .  Taiiesin. 

Line  21. — Kyt  is  a  conjunction  proper,  followed  immediately  by 
the  veri),  as  A-î/í  ti/bychych,  .  .  A-yt  keffych  W.B.M.,  c.  480  ;  the  as 
which  separates  it  from  the  verb  here  could  therefore  only  be  the  in- 
fixed  objective  pronoun  of  the  3rd  sg.  or  pl.  The  only  possible 
antecedent  is  meirch  '  horses ' ;  but  cronni  '  to  hoard '  is  hardly  a 
word  that  would  have  been  used  of  horses.  (The  singular  infixed 
pron.  after  kyt  is  <?/  in  "  Dadohvch  Üryen  ",  1.  17,  see  above,  p.  181.) 
But  we  have  seen  in  "  Gweith  Argoet  Llwyfein",  1.  12,  p.  156  above, 
that  kyn  as  was  used  with  the  imperfect  for  '  bef ore  (he  would)'  in 
the  sense  of  'rather  than  ',  where  as  cannot  be  an  infixed  pron.,  and 
seems  to  be  a  conjunction  'that'.  I  take  the  construction  here  to 
be  the  same.  In  an  ordinary  temporal  clause,  with  the  aor.  or  pres. 
subj  ,  no  conjunction  follows  cyn  (Gr.  446).  It  occurs  with  inf.  pron. 
ys  in  "  Dadolwch  Uryen  ",  1.  18,  p.  181  above. 

calet  '  hard  ' ;  as  a  noun  it  has  two  meanings  :  (1)  '  hard  fight', 
e.g.  B.B.  65-13,  B.A.  20-21.— (2)  '  hard  man',  in  the  sense  of  Matt. 
XXV,  24.  I  have  rendered  it  '  miser '  although  a  line  in  one  of  the 
"Englynion  Eiry  Mynydd",  Myv.  358a,  tells  us  that 

Nid  cybydd  yw  pob  caled. 
*  Every  hard  man  is  not  a  miser.' 

Line  22. — ry,  which  the  scribe  stupidly  copied  as  the  negative  ny 
is  the  perfective  particle,  which  is  positive  and  emphatic.  The  im- 
personal  raìinet  has  no  expressed  object ;  it  means  'there  was  a  dis- 
tributing  '.     On  rac  y  eneit  see  above  p.  89. 

The  last  word  of  the  poem  repeats  the  first.  This  became  a  rule 
in  Irish  poetry :  "  The  concluding  word  of  every  poem  must  repeat 
either  the  whole  or  part  of  the  first  word  (or  first  stressed  word)  of 
the  poem,"  Kuno  Meyer,  op.  cit.,  p.  12.  The  object  is  to  provide  a 
catchword  to  lead  back  to  the  beginning,  so  as  to  end  the  poem  with 
the  couplet  or  stanza  with  which  it  begins.  The  word  eneit  at  the 
end  of  our  poem  forms  a  "  cymeriad  "  with  the  Eneit  of  the  first  line 
which  is  therefore  to  foUow  it,  as  Kyseit  of  I.  13  follows  kysceit  of 
I.  12;  see  notes  on  "cymeriad"  above,  pp.  176-7.  The  scribe  writes 
only  the  beginning  of  the  couplet  which  is  to  be  repeated ;  see  ex- 
amples  of  abbreviated  first  line,  or  merely  tìrst  words,  repeated  with 
"  cymeriad ''  in  B.B.  3610,  7011.  There  are  many  examples  in  the 
oldest  Irish  poems  ;  e.g.  Ultan's  Hymn,  which  begins  Briyit  be  bith- 
maith,  ends  ron  soera  Briyit,  which  is  followed  in  the  MS.  by  Briyit 
bé;  see  Ir.  Te.rte,  i,  25.  As  the  form  of  "cymeriad"  on  which  the 
repetition  of  tlie  first  word  is  based  is  a  distinctive  feature  of  Welsh 
verse,  frequent]y  occuring  as  a  link  between  lines  in  the  middle  of  a 
poem  (e.g.  in  "  Yng  Ngorffowys  "  above),  it  seems  probable  tbat  the 
device  was  borrowed  by  the  Irish  bards  from  the  British.     In  Welsh 


Taliesin.  1 93 

we  also  have  the  repetition  of  openinp;  lines  without  "  cymeriacl",  as 
in  B.B.  248,  71  11,  which  shows  that  the  'f  cymeriad "'  was  not  the 
essential  feature  it  became  in  Irish,  but  only  a  help  to  secure  the 
repetition  to  the  first  lines. 

Line  23. — Tlie  abbreviated  first  line  appears  thus  in  the  MS. : 
Eneit.  O.  ap  vryen.  Thiis  the  reading  which  Dr.  Evans  asserts  to  be 
"  impossible  "  is  repeated  and  confirmed,  a  fact  which  he  passes  over 
in  silence. 

The  subject  of  tliis  poem  is  not  the  Owein  ap  Uryen 
of  the  medieval  imagination,  Rnight  of  tlie  Rouncl  Table, 
hero  of  the  tale  of  "the  Lady  of  the  Fountain  ",  the 
"  Chevalier  au  Ljon  "  of  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  the  Ywain 
of  "  Ywain  and  Gawain  ",  but  the  historical  Owein  ap 
Uryen  wlio  fought  Avith  his  father  against  the  sons  of  Ida 
iii  the  latter  half  of  the  sixth  century.  He  is  seen  not  in 
the  glamour  of  romance,  not  even  through  the  haze  of  a 
century  or  two,  but  as  the  jeal  prince  of  Rheged  by  a  man 
who  lcnew  him,  and  loved  him.  Such  idealization  as  the 
poem  contains  consists  in  that  heig-htening  of  the  actual 
which  is  expected  and  taken  for  granted  in  an  elegy.  I 
believe  that  the  impression  which  the  reading  of  the  poem 
wiU  leave  on  most  readers  is  that  it  breathes  an  intiraacv 
which  could  hardly  be  simulated  in  a  production  founded 
on  hearsay  or  tradition. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  comment  on  this  poem 
which  a  fifteenth  century  bard  has  written  on  the  top 

margin  of  p.  68  : 

goreu  ynghymry  o  gerdd  taliessin  benn  heirdd 
'  The  best  in  Wales  of  the  work  of  Taliessin,  Chief  of  Bards.' 

Tliis  opinion  is  no  doubt  chiefly  based  on  the  form ;  the 
poem  is  an  exquisite  example  of  a  metre  that  was  still  in 
use ;  the  requirements  of  the  rhyme  are  more  than  met, 
one  "  prif-odl  "  or  •' chief-rhyme  "  binds  tlie  couplets 
together  into  a  single  whole,  and  tlie  "  cymeriad  "  at  tlie 
end  introduces  the  opening  couplet  which  serves  as  a  most 
eíîective  conclusion.     But  apart  from  the  forni,  which  is 


1 94  Taliesin. 

not  more  elaborate  tlian,  in  its  waj,  that  of  "  Yng 
Ngorffowjs  ",  the  matter  of  this  poem  seems  to  indicate 
that  it  is  tlie  work  of  a  man  of  maturer  years.  This 
accords  with  the  view  that  the  poems  are  «^enuine,  for 
an  elegy  on  Owein  would  naturally  have  been  written  a 
good  many  years  later  than  songs  to  his  father/ 

What  has  been  said  above  of  the  Owein  of  the  elegy  is 
also  true  of  the  Urien  of  the  songs.  He  is  not  a  medieval 
Sir  TJryance,  or  even  a  traditional  hero,  but  the  veritable 
li^inof  Urien,  Prince  of  Rheofed.  That  thesense  of  actual- 
ity  which,  despite  all  hyperbole,  the  songs  undoubtedly 
convey,  in  the  description  of  Urien  as  a  present  terror  to 
the  Angles  and  a  personality  that  commands  the  respect 
of  tliose  around  liim,  in  the  expression  of  the  bard's 
personal  obligation  to  him,  in  the  account  of  the  good 
things  of  Llwyfenydd  in  which  Ije  himself  participates, — 
that  this  can  have  been  simulated  in  the  ninth  century 
does  not  appear  to  be  altogether  probable ;  but  Yoltaire 
has  said  that  "  it  is  ever  to  the  improbable  that  the  sceptic 
is  ready  to  give  ear  ". 

An  old  tradition  connects  Taliesin  with  Llyn  Geir- 
ionnydd  situated  above  the  Conway  valley  about  two 
miles  west  of  Llanrwst.  Medieval  evidence  of  the  tradition 
is  found  in  one  of  the  lines  added  at  the  end  of  "  Anrec 
Uryen  "  (  Y  Cynimrodor,  vii,  p.  126  ) : 

miiieu  dalyessin  o  (iawn)  lann^  llyn  geirionnyò 
*  And  I,  Talyessin,  from  the  bank  of  Llyn  Geirionnydd.' 

^We  expect  a  palaeographer  to  take  some  notice  of  interesting 
marginalia;  in  this  case,  for  example,  he  mù/ht  be  able  to  tell  us  in 
whose  hand  the  note  is  written.  But  Dr.  Evans  simply  ignores  it. 
The  reason  is,  of  course,  that  it  conveys  nothing  to  him  :  he  has  no 
kno\vledge  of  metres,  and  the  poem  as  mangled  by  him  is'  rather  a 
poor  thing. 

^lt  is  very  unlikely  that  {ciirn  here  is  anything  but  lann  misread  as 
iaun,  which  was  the  spelling  of  iaim  down  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century. 


é 


Taliesin.  195 

île  would  thus  have  been  brought  up  in  the  purlieus  of  thé 
court  of  Maelgwn  at  Degannwy.  This  is  quite  in  accord- 
ance  with  his  position  in  the  songs.  At  the  court  of  Urieu 
he  was  a  visitor.  Doubtless  his  stay  was  prolonged,  for 
he  was  provided  with  a  fine  home.  But  he  leaves  and 
conies  again.  "  I  will  repair  to  the  North  ",  he  says  in 
"  Dadolwch  Uryen  ",  a  song  which  might  well  have  been 
entitled  "Urien  Eevisited. " 

There  are  several  other  historical  poems  in  the  Book 
of  Taliesin,  all  more  difficult  than  the  above,  but  not 
therefore  less  likely  to  be  genuine.  The  other  poems  to 
Urien  are  the  following :  (1)  "Ar  un  blyneb  ",  p.  59,  in 
which  the  reference  to  him  '^  with  his  horse  under  him  at 
the  battle  of  Mynaw  (Goòeu)  ",  see  above,  p.  73,  comes  in 
rather  incoherently,  and  is  followed  by  a  number  of 
mysterious  lines,  ending  with  a  description  of  Urien's 
prowess. — (2)  "  Arbwyre  Reget  rysseò  rieu  ",  p.  61,  which 
contains  the  reference  to  Ulph,  and  to  Urien  coming  to 
Aeron  ;  there  are  many  other  historical  allusions  in  the 
poem,  including  a  list  of  Urien's  battles. —  (3)  "  Yspeil 
Taliessin  ",  p.  62  ;  some  inserted  glosses  in  the  first  part  of 
this  are  noted  above,  pp.  140-1.  It  refers  to  Urien  as 
a  "defender  in  Aeron  ",  G3*5,  and  contains  a  more  pic- 
turesquely  figurative  description  of  Urien  that  anything 
contained  in  the  poems  translated  above  ;  but  its  diffi- 
culties  are  formidable. 

"  Anrec  Uryen  ",  which  has  been  referred  to  several 

times  in  the  above  pages,  does  not  appear  in  the  Boolc  of 

Taliesin,  but   is  found   in   the   detached   portion   of   the 

White  Book  (Y  Gymmrodor,  vii,  125),  and  in  the  Red  Book, 

col.  1049   (F.A.B.,  ii,  291).     Stephens  saw  that  the  poem 

consists  of  three  unrelated  parts  ;  of  these  he  considered 

the  fîrst  and  third  genuine,  the  second  làte  (Arch.  Camh., 

1851,  pp.  204  ff.).     Skene,  who  misrepresents  Stephens  by 

o2 


1 9Ó  Taliesin. 

ignoi'ing  his  clear-sighted  analysis  of  the  poem  and  speak- 
ing-  of  his  view  of  tlie  second  part  as  if  it  applied  to  the 
whole,  attenipts  to  prove  that  the  whole  is  old  {F.A.B.,  i, 
211-4);  but  Stephens  is  undouhtedly  right  in  his  view 
as  to  the  second  part.  This  is  of  the  sanie  character 
as  the  medieval  predictive  poems ;  and,  as  Stephens 
observes,  no  poem  that  can  be  attributed  to  Taliesin 
"  assumes  the  predictive  form  "  (op.  cit.,  p.  210).  The 
first  and  second  parts  are  in  the  "  rhupunt  "  metre,  which 
consists  of  lines  of  twelve  syllables  divided  into  three  fours, 
of  which  the  first  two  usually  rhyme  together  and  the 
third  carries  the  "  chief-rhyme".  In  both  of  these  parts 
the  chief-rbyme  is  -y8  throughout,  with  the  variant  -yr 
once  (at  the  end  of  the  first  part  according  to  Stephens's 
division) ;  this  identity  of  rhyme  provides  a  sufficient 
reason  for  their  ha^ing-  been  run  together,  without  the 
assumption  that  the  second  was  deliberately  composed  as 
an  addition  to  the  first,  to  which  it  bears  no  relation.  The 
first  part  deals  with  Urien,  and  with  leuaf,  Keueu  and 
Seleu,  whom  Skene  takes  to  be  the  sons  of  Llywarch  Hen, 
p.  212.  The  third  part,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
others,  consists  of  tag-s.  The  first  of  these  is  the  well- 
known  assertion  of  Urien's  preeminence,  which,  with  two 
emendations  noted  below,  reads  as  follows  in  the  W.B. : 

Uryen  o  Reget,  haehif  yssyb, 

Ac  a  vu  yr  Ahaf,  ac  a  vyb^ ; 

Lletaf  ý  gleby/,^  balch  ý  gynteb, 

Or  tri  tliëyni  ar  bec  or  Gogleb. 

Uryen  of  Rheged,  most  generous  that  is, 
That  has  been  since  Adani,  and  that  will  be ; 
Of  broadest  sword — proud  in  his  hall — 
Of  the  thirteen  princes  of  the  North.' 

^  ac  a  vi/8  comes  after  haelaf  i/ssyS  in  the  MS.,  an  obvious  displace- 
ment. 

'ff/eS  in  the  MS.,  which  makes  the  line  short  (the  metre  is 
"  cyhydedd  naw  ban  ").     The  form  cle8  is  an  artificial  curtailment  of 


Taliesin.  197 

This  was  followed    by    "  whose    nauie    I    know,    Aneirin 
Gwawdrydd  the  poet,  and  I,   Taliessin,"  etc,  as  above,  p. 
194,  which  seems  to  be  a  nonsensical  couplet  framed  by  a 
scribe  out  of  a  misunderstanding  of  a  previous  coj^yist's 
statement   that  he  did  not  know    the  name  of   the   poet, 
wliether   it    was  Aneirin   or  Taliesin.     Lastly   coines  the 
defective  copy  of  the  ymj  vallw\jf  i-à.^,  quoted  above,  p.  155. 
There  are  refei-ences  to  Urien  in  other  poems.     "  Teithi 
etmygant ",  p.  41,  contains  the  following  line,  42*6  : 
A  thraw  y  Dygen         meu  molawt  Uryen. 
'  And  beyond  Dygen  mine  is  the  praise  of  Uryen.' 

Perhaps  Maelgwn's  kingdom  extended  as  far  as  Dygen  on 
the  present  English  border,  and  "  beyond  Dygen  "  meant 
beyond  his  boundaries.  In  "Golychafì  gulwyb  ",  p.  33, 
the  poet  says  that  he  sang  before  Brochvael  of  Powys  and 
before  Urien,  33-6  : 

Keint  rac  ub  clotleu  yn  doleu  Hafren, 
Rae  Brochvael  Powys  a  garwys  vy  awen ; 
Keint  yn  aòvwyn  rodle  ymore  rac  Uryen. 

'  I  sang  before  a  faraous  prince  in  the  meadows  of  the  Severn, 
Before  Brochvael  of  Powys  who  loved  my  muse  ; 
I  sang  on  a  fair  lawn  on  a  morning  before  Uryen.' 

This  poem  is  a  curious  medley  of  mythology  and  reminisc- 
ence.  Preceding  the  above  lines  is  the  statement  "  I  sang 
before  the  sons  of  Llyr  at  Aber'   Henvelen,  "  33*3.     Lower 

thtí  word,  adopted  by  medieval  and  iater  bards,  but  never  used  in 
ordinary  speech.  The  e  of  cleddyf  is  an  a  afìected  by  the  y  of  -yf; 
without -?</"the  word  wüuld  have  been  cla^.  Thus  cleB  is  as  if  one 
had  deduced  plent  froni  plentyn.  ít  canuot  be  much  oldor  than  the 
MS.,  but  the  metre  shows  that  the  origiual  word  was  c/fSyf 

1  E//yr  ìn  the  text  seems  to  be  an  oblicjue  case  of  a/)er  rather  than 
the  pl.  The  reference  appears  to  be  to  a  version  of  the  "Ysbyddawt 
Urddawl  Ben  "  story  which  dift'ered  somewhat  from  that  preserved 
in  "  Brauwen  ",  in  which  the  feast  was  not  at  Abor  IIenvelen  itself  ; 
see  W.B.M.,  c.  ö7,  where  also  it  is  stated  that  Taliesin  was  present, 
a  detail  evidently  borrowed  from  this  poem 


içS  Taliesin. 

down,  following  some  lines  wliich  appear  to  be  later 
interpolations,  eonies  tlie  famous  passage  about  the  re- 
lease  of  Elphin,  33-19: 

Dübwyf  Deganhwy  ŷ  amrysson 
A  Maelgwn  vwyhaf  y  achwysson  ; 
Elly?igeis  vy  arglwyb  j'wg  ?igwyb  cleon, 
Elphin  pendefic  ryhodigyon. 

'  I  carae  to  Deganhwy  to  contend 
Witli  Maelgwn  of  greatest  prerogatives; 
I  set  free  my  lord  in  the  presence  of  goodmen, 
Elphin,  chief  of  nobles.' 

This  is  followed  immediately  by  the  statement  "  I  was  in 
the  battle  of  Goòeu  with  Lleu  and  Gwjdion  ...  I  was 
with  Brân  in  Ireland,  "  33-23.  The  poem  ends  with  the 
charming  glimpse  of  the  Kelticother-world  of  which  E,hjs 
has  given  a  substantiallj  correct '  translation  in  his  Celtic 
FolMore,  p.  678.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  all  the  historical 
personages  named  in  the  poem  are  the  contemporaries  of 
the  historical  Taliesin. 

"  Kjchwedyl  am  doòjw  ",  p.  38,  treats  of  the  cattle- 
raids  and  battles  of  Owein.  "  When  he  returned  to 
Erechwjò^  f rom  the  land  of  the  Cljdemen,  not  a  cow  lowed 
to  her  calf  ",  38-21.  The  poem  raises  manj  interesting 
questions.  Who,  for  example,  is  the  Mabon  mentioned  in 
it?  In  Roman  times  Deus  Maponus  was  the  Apollo  of 
Rheged ;  three  inscriptions  in  liis  honour  have  been  dis- 
covered,  at  Ribchester,  Ainstable  and  Hexham  respect- 
ivel j  (O.Z.L.,  vii,  nos.  218,  332,  131o).  One  statement 
about  Mabon  in  the  poem  is  intelligible  :  "  Unless  thej  were 

'  In  spite  of  Dr.  Evans's  sneers,  p.  94,  which  can  harm  no  one  but 
himself. 

*  The  reading  in  the  MS.  is  Pan  ymchoeles  echicy^,-  I  have  siig- 
gested  above,  p.  69,  that  echuy8  here  may  be  an  error.  We  have 
seen  above,  p.  164,  that  the  present  was  used  in  a  past  sense  after 
pan ;  hence,  pan  ymchoeles  echiryè  may  well  be  an  error  for  pan 
ymchoel  erechwyS,  as  s  and  r  might  be  confused  in  the  old  script. 


Talicsin.  199 

to  fly  with  wings  tliey  could  not  escape  f  rom  Mabon  with- 
out  slaughter",  39-3.  Is  Mabon  a  couiplimeiitary  term 
appliecl  to  Owein  ?  Or  had  he  a  brother  who  had  been 
called  af  ter  the  local  god  ?  In  the  tales,  Mabon  is  the  son 
of  Modron  (e.g.  E.B.M.  124) ;  and  accordingto  Triad  i,  52, 
Modron  was  the  name  of  Owein's  mother  {lhjv.  392). 
But  the  problems  of  the  text  have  to  be  solved  before 
questions  relating  to  the  subject-matter  can  be  answered. 

"  En  enw  Gwledic  Nef  gohidawc  ",  p.  29,  and  "  En  enw 
Gwledic  Nef  gorchoròyon  ",  p.  63,  are  songs  to  Gwallawc, 
who  was,  like  Urien's  father,  third  in  descent  from  Ceneu 
ap  Coel  (Y Cymmrodor  ix,  173).  The  first  poem  consists  in 
great  part  of  a  list  of  his  battles;  both  are  very  diíficult, 
owing  largely,  as  in  other  cases,  to  a  corrupt  text,  as  ny 
golychaf  an  gnawt,  64-2,  shows,  see  above,  p.  138  ;  it  con- 
tains  old  forms  such  as  tbe  subjunctive  gicnech,  and  was 
obviously  only  very  imperfectly  understood  by  the  scribe. 

''Trawsganu  Kynan  Garwyn  ",  p.  45,  has  been  dealt 
with  above,  pp.  133-4,  as  a  poem  that  contains  a  goodly 
number  of  words  in  Old  Welsh  spelling.  I  liave  also 
shown,  p.  95,  that  Cynan  Garwyn  and  liis  father  Brochvael 
Powys  must  liave  been  contemporaries  of  Taliesin.  They 
are  descended  from  Cadell  Ddyrnllug'  ;  see  the  pedigreein 
Y Cymmrodor  ix,  179 ;  and  ''the  line  of  Cadelling,'  i.e.  of  the 

^  This  was  made  by  lat.e  copyists  into  Teyrnlliry  ;  in  tlie  pedigree 
it  is  spelt  (lunlurc,  biit  elsewhere  in  the  MS.,  in  Nennius  §  35,  correctly 
durnhic;  see  Mr.  Phillimore's  notes  in  i'  Cymmrodor,  vii,  119,  ix,  179. 
Late  Welsh  writers  could  not  leave  d-rn  in  any  name  without 
changing  it  to  deyrn ;  as  in  Edcyrn  for  Edern  or  Edyrn,  and  Edeyrnion 
for  Edeirnion  from  JEterniän-a. 

2  Eatelling  ystret ;  ystret  appears  to  be  cognate  with  Irisii  sreth 
'  row.  series ' ;  see  Pedersen,  J'eryl.  Grain.,  ii,  6i'7.  But  it  is  a  dis- 
syllable  liere,  and  therefore  probabl}'  estret  from  '^e.r-str-.  Piighe's 
"Silurian"  ystred  'village',  quoted  by  Pedersen,  is  probably  a 
dialectal  forni  of  ystryd  '  street '.  Richards  has  "  Ystrêt,  .<  a  row,  a 
rank,  E.  Lh.  AI.so,  a  rate ;  i.e.  tlie  paper  containing  tho  names  of 
the  personsrated  ".— "Last  meaning  prob.  from  estreat."  —  VroL  Lloyd. 


200  Taliesin. 

liouse  of  Cadell  ",  the  poet  tells  us,  "has  been  unshakeii  in 
battle  "  45*16.  Soiiie  of  their  battles  are  iiamed  :  there  was 
*'  a  battle  on  the  Wye  to  which  were  brought  spears  innu- 
merable  ;  Gwentians  were  slain  with  bloody  blade  ",  45*16. 
There  was  a  battle  in  Anglesey  "  famed  and  renowned  ", 
45*18.  Also  a  battle  in  Cruc  Dymet  (i.e.  Crug  Dyved),  and 
Aercol  was  ar  gerSet  (apparently  '  put  to  ílight '),  45*20. 
Aergol  Lawhir  was  Ring-  of  Dyved  early  in  the  sixth 
century ;  Mailcun  and  Aircol  Lauhir  were  among  the 
regihus  contemporaneis  of  Teilo  according  to  the  Book  of 
Llaii  Daf,  p.  118.  In  the  pedigree  of  the  house  of  Dyved, 
Y  Gymmrodor,  ix,  171,  Aircol  is  the  father  of  Guortepir, 
who  was  reigning  when  Gildas  wrote,  and  whom  he  add- 
resses  as  "  boni  regis  nequam  fili  .  .  Demetarum  tyranne 
Yortipori  ",  §  31;  cf.  Lloyd's  Hist.,  262.  His  tombstone  was 
discovered  near  Llanfallteg  in  1895,  bearing  the  inscription 
in  Roman  Capitals  memoeia  yoteporigis  protictoris,  and 
in  Ogam  Yotecorigas,  the  Early  Irish  genitive,  ^  Arch.  Camh., 
1895,  pp.  303  íî,  1896,  p.  107.  Crug  Dyved,  says  Mr. 
Phillimore,   is  "  not  identified  "   (Owen's  Pemhroheshire,  i, 

'  The  forms  on  the  stone  prove  that  the  first  r  in  Guortepù-  and 
Yoriepori  is  an  intrncler,  though  an  early  one.  Both  Rhys  and 
Stolíes  attempt  to  explain  the  name  as  T'ofe-porms,  for  which  it  may 
be  said  that  Poriits  occurs  (Hübner,  Insc.  Brit.  Christ.,  no.  131).  But 
it  is  strange  that  it  occurred  to  neither  of  them  that  the  stem 
*votepo-  is  implied  in  ^rotepäcos,  which  gives  Godehauy,  the  epithet  of 
Cocl.  The  Latin  and  Irish  genitives  on  the  stone  prove  that  the 
nom.  was  J'otepo-ri.T ;  this  would  give  Guotepir  in  Old  Welsh,  as 
Maylo-rLv  gives  the  Medieval  Meilyr.  It  follows  that  Vortipori  in 
the  text  of  Gildas  is  not  the  voc.  of  Vo{r)tiporius  but  an  error  for 
Votepori.v.  In  fact,  Mommsen's  only  authorities  for  Tortipori aie  the 
printed  editions  of  1525  and  1568.  The  oldest  MS.  (C,  llth  cent.) 
has  iiortipor*  ;  the  next  oldest  (A,  12th  ceut.),  uortipore ;  the  latest 
(D,  14th  cent.)  uertepori.  Dr.  Lloyd  rightly  writes  the  name  Vote- 
pori.T  in  his  Ilist.,  1911,  p.  115;  and  Mr.  Ifor  Williams  analysed  it 
and  showed  its  relation  to  Godebatry  in  Y Beirniad,  1915,  pp.  275-6. 
The  evidence  of  the  stone  determines  the  form  beyond  dispute. 


I 


Taliesin.  20 1 

223).  After  naining'  these  battles '  the  poet  comes  to 
Cynan  himself  "  the  son  of  Bi'ochvael  of  wide  dominions", 
45'21 ;  his  "  songis  of  Cjnaii  ",  45" 24,  but  he  only  mentions 
one  of  his  battles,  fought  in  the  land  of  Brachan,  45"25. 
But  Cynan  is  Ryngeìi  Jcymangan,  46*2,  that  is,  of  the  same 
nature  as  his  grandfather  Cyngen  (Cincen  in  the  Har- 
leian  pedigree)  who  doubtless  fought  in  the  earlier  battles  ; 
hymangan  is  (excepting  the  hy-)  a  beautiful  example  of  Old 
Welsh  spelling,  not  quoted  above  because  I  liad  not  de- 
tected  it :  transliterated  into  modern  spelling  it  is  as  clear  as 
daylight — cyf-anian.'  Finally  all  the  world  is  "  thrall  to 
Cj'uan,  "  46*4,  a  remark  which,  it  will  be  remeuibered,  the 
poet  also  made  of  Urien.  The  metre  of  the  poem  is  rhym- 
ing  half-lines  of  five  syllables,  which  is  that  of  "  Uryen 
Yrechwydd"  and""Llywydd  echassaf "  above  ;  and  old 
rhymes  occur  :  -eh  and  -ec  (  =  -eg )  rhyrae  with  -et  (  =  -ed). 
The  poera  ends  with  Rynan,  with  whicli  it  begins  ;  on  this 
return  to  the  beginning  see  note,  p.  192  above ;  trawsganu 
in  the  title  seems  to  be  an  obsolete  technical  term  denoting 
a  poem  containing  this  feature,  as  traius-gynghanedd  is  a 

1  Mr.  Phillimore  in  Owen's  Peííi.,  part  iii,  p.  '281,  nnderstands  all 
the  battles  to  be  Cynan's;  but  I  do  not  think  that  is  the  natural  in- 
terpretation.  It  is  also  difficult  chronologically,  though  not  ini- 
possible  :  Cynan's  son  died  at  Chester  about  Ú13;  this  niakes  Cynan 
rather  young  to  have  fought  Aircol,  whose  son  had  presumably  been 
reigning  some  time  before  Gihlas  wrote,  which  was  before  547. 

-The  actual  Old  Welsh  spelling  would  be  chnanr/an.  The  modern 
cyf-  would  of  couise  be  chn-;  and  the  fact  that  the  consonantal  i  of 
anian  dues  not  afiect  the  preceding  vovvel  proves  tliat  it  coines  from 
(/,  like  the  i  of  arian  'sih'er'  from  *ar(/ant-,  or  of  Vrien  wliich  in  Old 
Welsh  spelling  is  urhyen  as  above  noted.  The  Old  Hritish  form  of 
anian  would  be  *an(lo-(/an-,  cognate  (except  for  the  do  of  the  prefix) 
with  the  Latiii  in-yenium;  see  Grani.  p.  2(39.  Dr.  Evans  reads 
'■  yynyhein  yymanyan'\  which  he  renders  "  harmoiiizes  tlie  orchestra  " ! 
lÌ,  94,  95. 


202  Taliesin. 

cynghanedd  in  which  the  answering  consonants  are  at  the 

two  ends  of  the  line.^ 

"  Mydwyf  Taliesin  deryò  ",  p.  69,  has  been  understood 

to  be  an  eleg-y  on  Cunedda.     In  the  ]\Lyvyrian,  p.  60,  it  is 

entitled  "  Marwnad  Cunedda  "  ;  but  the  sole  source  of  the 

Myvyrian  text  is  the  Book  of  Taliesin,  in  which  the  poem 

has  no  title.     Thus  for  "  Marwnad  Cunedda  "  there  is  no 

manuscript    authority.     Cunedda    Avas    Maelgwn's    great- 

grandfather,  accordiug  to  the  Harleian  pedigree  {Y Cym- 

mrodor,  ix,  170)  ;  he  came  from  Manaw  Gododdin  in  the 

North,  and  drove  out  the  Irish  from  Gwynedd  with  great 

slaughter  146  years  before  the  reign  of  Maelgwn,  as  we 

learn   on  the  excellent  authority  of  the  "  Saxon  Genea- 

logies "   in    a    passage    reproduced    in    our  frontispiece. 

Possibly  the  "  cxxxxvi  "  whicli  has  been  rendered  in  words 

in  our  facsimile  had  an  x  or  two  too  many ;  but  the  great- 

grandfather  of  Maelgwn,  must  belong  to  the  early  part  of 

the  fifth  century,  and  could  hardly  have  been  the  subject 

of  au  elegy  by  Taliesin.     Stephens   deals  with   this  diffi- 

culty  in  an  article  in  the  Arch.   Camb.,  1852,  reprinted  in 

The  Gododin,  p.  356 ;  he  says  : 

This  poem  has  been  a  great  stumbling-bloclí  in  the  way  of 
all  rational  accovints  of  Taliesin  and  his  poems.  Is  it  an  ancient 
or  a  modern  poem  ?  If  read  withont  any  misgivings  as  to  the 
chronology,  the  poem  carries  with  it  all  the  marks  of  antiqnity  ; 
there  is  an  ntter  absence  of  any  romantic  or  fictitious  element ; 
it  has  all  the  appearance  of  an  historical  poem,  and  possesses  all 
the  attributes  which  belong  to  the  other  poems  of  Tahesin. 

His  proposed  solution  consists  in  an  attempt  to  prove, 
despite  the  Nennian  evidence,  that  Cunedda  lived  till 
about  550  !  It  is  a  curious  juggling  with  figures  which 
Skene  rightly  dismisses  as  "  very  inconclusive  ",  F.A.B., 

^  It  is  of  course  absurd  to  suppose  that  this  poem  is  a  "  satire  "  ; 
and  there  is  no  more  reason  for  supposing  that  trawsffanu  is  a 
'  satirical  song  '  than  there  wouhl  be  f  or  tahing  traws-yynr/haìiedd  to 
mean  a  '  satirical  cynghanedd '. 


Taliesin.  20 


ö 


ii,  418.     Nash  sujçgests  anotlier  explanation  {Taliesin,  p. 

85): 

It  is,  howevGr,  possible  that  this  poein  may  originally  have 
been  a  production  of  the  sixth  century.  There  wonld  be  a 
reason  why  one  of  the  bards  who  ministered  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  court  of  Maelgwn  Gwynedd  should  have  selected  as  a  subject 
for  his  muse  the  praise  of  the  renowned  ancestor  of  that  chief- 
tain. 

This   suggestion    overlooks  the  fact  that  it  must  at  any 

time  have  seemed  somewhat  unreal  to  mourn  the  death 

of  a  person  who  has  been  more  than  a  centurj  in  his  grave. 

As  Nash  admits  the  possibility  of  the  poem's  genuineness 

only  to  reject  it,  it  seems  strange  that  he  did  not  fix  upon 

the  apparent  anachronism  as  proving  his  case :   Taliesin 

mourning    Cunedda    is  just  the   sort  of  mistake  that  a 

medieval  fabricator  would  be  likely  to  make —  it  is,  in  fact, 

a  mistake  that  the  medieval  copyist  did  make.     Nash's 

argument  is,  however,  quite  different :  he  takes  canonhydd 

to  mean  "  according  to  the  canons  ",  so  that  the  line  which 

contains  it  must  be  late,  and  proceeds — 

Like  the  rest  of  its  chiss,  the  piece  exhibits  no  marks  of 
antiquity  in  its  language  or  sentiments ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
smoother  and  mnre  polished  than  many  other  pieces  in  the 
same  collection. 

That  a  person  who  is  so  ignorant  of  Welsh  as  to   render 

i  yilydd  "  the  retreat ",  and  to  miscopy  ei  ofn  ai  arswyd  Miis 

fear  and  dread'  as  ei  ofn  ai  arfwyd,  rendering  it  "  fear  of 

his  arms  ",  should  take  upon  himself  to  lay  down  the  law 

as  to  marks  of  antiquity  in  the  language  is  a  piece  of  im- 

pudence  which  is  unfortunately  not    unparalleled  in  the 

criticism    of    these  poems.     Every  Welsli-speaking  cliild 

understands  i  yilydd  'each  other ' ;  yet  it  is  a  phrase  tliat 

goes  back  to  Primitive  Keltic,  for  it  is  found  not  only  in 

Breton  (e  yile),  but    also    in    Irish    (a    chêle).      Thus    the 

phrase,  though  still  repeated  by  us  every  day,  was  used  by 

our  ancestors  more  than  a  thousand  years  before  the  time 


204  Taliesin. 

of  Taliesin.  But  this  poem  does  iiot  contain  many  phrases 
that  are  easily  understood  ;  so  far  from  exhibiting  "  no 
marks  of  antiquity ",  it  exhibits  more  than  most.  The 
text  is  more  corrupt  than  that  of  the  majority  of  the  songs 
to  Uryen  ;  and  the  poem  contains  a  relatively  larp^er  num- 
ber  of  rhymes  of  the  early  type.  Professor  Rice  Rees,  in 
his  Essay  on  the  Welsh  Saints,  p.  114  fn.,  regards  it  as 
"  perhaps  the  earliest  specimen  of  Welsh  poetry  extant  "  ; 
it  was  composed,  he  suggests,  not  by  Taliesin,  but  by  an 
earlier  bard  of  tlie  same  name  !  Its  difficulty  is  such  that 
it  has  entirely  baffled  the  translators:  Stephens's  version  is 
mostly  wild  guess-work  ;  Nash's  I  have  already  spoken  of — 
it  is  characteristic  of  him  to  talk  about  the  "  sentiments  " 
of  a  poem  which  is  entirely  beyond  his  comprehension ; 
Erobert  Williams  is  content,  as  he  usually  is  in  cases  of 
difficulty,  with  producing  mere  nonsense.  Dr.  Evans 
translates  his  own  re-hash  of  the  poem,  which  is  not  even 
in  the  metre  of  the  original,  and  in  which,  as  usual,  half 
the  "  cymeriadau  "  are  violated. 

The  poem  laments  the  death  of  a  representive  of  the 
house  of  Cunedda  Avho  has  been  lcilled  in  a  fratricidal  war 
with  his  kinsmen  of  the  clan  of  Coel  Godebawc.  Cune- 
dda's  father  was  Edern ;  his  mother  is  said  to  have  been 
Gwawl,  daughter  of  Coel ;  in  the  poem  the  descendants  of 
Cunedda  are  called  Edyrn,  and  the  descendants  of  Coel, 
Coeling  or  Coelyn.  In  the  original  forni  of  the  poem  the 
dead  prince  was  referred  to  by  name  at  least  thrice  and  by 
lineage  twice.  Taking  the  latter  fìrst,  these  fìve  refer- 
ences  are  as  follows  :  (1)  In  line  43  of  the  poem  he  is 
called  mah  Edern,  70"  11 ;  this  is  literally  true  of  Cunedda, 
and  if  it  is  the  original  reading  it  would  convince  the 
medieval  glossator  or  copyist  that  this  obscure  poem  which 
names  Cunedda  several  times  niust  be  an  elegy  on  him. 
But  in  poetry,  and  even  the  prose  of  antiquity,  "son"  may 


Taliesin.  205 

denote  a  '  descendant ',  in  the  singular  as  well  as  in  the 
plural,  as  Mephibosheth  is  called  the  "  son  of  Saul  " 
his  grandfather,  2  Sam.  xix,  24,  so  tliat  the  expression 
is  ambiguous.  When  the  person  meant  is  otherwise 
known  he  may  be  called  the  "  son  "  of  his  ancestor,  as 
everj  man  is  a  son  of  Adam.  The  next  reference  clears 
up  the  ambiguity.  (2)  In  line  21  the  dead  prince  is 
called  yscyìiyal  GuìieSaf,  69'21,  which  the  scribe  did 
not  understand,  for  he  wrote  the  ys  separately ;  the 
"  cymeriad "  with  asciurn  confirms  the  reading  yscynyal. 
This  is  a  participial  form,  e.g.,  wyhyr  ysgynnyal  B.A.  15*1 1 
'  sky-ascending  ' ;  as  a  noun  '  ascendant '  it  was  rephiced 
by  esgynnyS.  It  may  seem  strange  that  this  should 
be  used  for  a  tíescendant ;  nevertheless  it  is  a  fact : 
the  degrees  of  descent  are  usually  given  as  niab,  ûyr, 
gorwyr,  goresgynnyh  (e.g.,  Anc.  Laws,ìì,  p.  86) ;  itis  obvious 
that  originally  ítyr  and  gorwyr  must  have  been  followed 
by  esgynnyB  and  goresgynnyS,  and  thus  esgynnyh  would  be 
the  orrecit-srreat-o'randson.  I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  that 
yscynyal  is  used  here  in  this  strict  technical  sense,  though 
it  would  be  exactly  right,  for  we  do  not  know  how  old  the 
narrowed  sense  can  be,  and  it  is  more  likely  that  by 
yscynyal  CuneSa  the  poet  meant  simply  '  descendant  of 
Cunedda '.     (3)  Line  15  of  the  poem  reads  thus,  69'17  : 

Marw  Cunebaf  a  gwynaf  a  gwynit. 
The  end-rhyme  is  -yS;  the  last  words  should  therefore  be 
a  gwynaf,  a  gipynyS,  or  rather  ae  cwynaf,  ae  ciüynyh,  see 
note ;  this  is  made  certain  by  the  "  cymeriad  "  and  by  a 
parallel  passage.  The  line  should  be  eight  syllables  long; 
as  it  stands  it  is  ten ;  it  seems  therefore  that  the  name 
CuneSaf  has  been  substituted  for  a  name  of  one  syllable. 
(4)  The  prince's  death  is  referred  toin  line  29  as  A8oet  hun 
'  the  death  of  huìi '  and  (5)  in  line  50  as  difa  hun  0  Goeliwg 
'  that  hun  was  slain  by  the  Coeling ',  0  being  the  regular 


2o6  Taliesin. 

preposition  used  to  introduce  the  agent  afìer  a  verbal 
noun.^  In  Old  Welsh  the  deraonstrative  pronoun  liwn 
'  this  one  '  is  written  ìiunn ;  final  -nn  is  written  quite 
regularly  even  in  syllables  that  became  unaccented  later  ; 
our  scribe  must  have  been  quite  familiar  with  hunn,  which 
he  writes  Jmn  (4o"24);  the  fact,  therefore,  that  here  he 
wrote  hun,  not  once  but  twice,  proves  that  the  original 
word  was  not  hunn.  In  an  Insuhir  hand  in  which  the  tall 
strokes  are  little  longer  than  others  h  and  r  were  liable  to 
be  confused  ;  and  as  hun  makes  no  sense  in  either  of  these 
passaoces,  it  seems  that  it  must  be  an  error  for  run,  and 
that  the  poem  is  an  elegy  on  Rhf/n,  the  son  of  Maelgwn. 
This  is  in  accordance  with  everything  we  know  of  RJiun', 
almost  the  ouly  information  that  tradition  has  handed 
down  to  us  about  him  is  that  he  fought  against  the  men  of 
the  North,  and  that  Taliesin  sang  on  one  of  his  expeditions  ; 
see  above  p.  47.  Maelgwn  is  not  mentioned  ;  but  there  is 
clearly  a  lacuna  in  the  poem ;  and  the  bard  is  mainly  con- 
cerned  with  Rhun's  descent  from  Cunedda  and  Coel. 

In  the  printed  editions  of  the  poem  (I  am  of  course 
not  referring  to  the  diplomatic  text)  the  metre  is  deranged, 
and  internal  rhymes  are  confused  with  end  rhymes ;  none 
of  the  editors  has  guessed  what  the  metre  is,  or  understands 
the  nature  and  position  of  the  rhymes.  As  these  things 
must  be  determined  before  any  verbal  emendations  are 
attempted,  I  insert  notes  on  metre  and  rhyme  before  the 
text.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  rhymes  not  only  bear 
witness  to  the  great  aiitiquity  of  the  poem,  but  throw 
further  light  on  the  early  system  of  rhyming, 

^  Difa  is  a  yerbal  noun:  when  the  verb  is  transitive  the  agent  of 
the  verbal  noun  is  put  before  it  with  i,  or  after  it  with  o,  as  I  pointed 
out  in  Y  Genineìi,  1887,  p.  181.  The  latter  construction,  though 
obsolete  in  the  spoken  ianguage,  is  familiar  from  its  frequent  use  by 
the  translators  of  the  Bible,  as  cyn  canu  ó'r  ceiliog,  Matt.  xxvi,  34  ; 
for  other  references  see  Pedr  Hir's  Key  and  Guide  [1911],  pp.  26,  27. 


Taliesin.  207 

The  Metre  and  Rhymes  of  "Marwnad  Rhun". 

The  inetre  is  "  Byr  a  Thoddaid".  This  is  made  up  of  "  cyhydedd 
fer  "  and  "  toddaid  byr  ",  in  other  words,  of  lines  of  8  syllables  inter- 
spersed  with  couplets  of  10,  6.  The  end  of  the  "  toddaid  byr",  o 
couplet  of  10,  0,  must  rhyme  with  the  group  of  hnes  of  8  to  which  it 
is  joined  ;  this  "  chief-rhyme  "  may  also  occur  in  the  Hne  of  10,  two 
or  three  syllables  froui  the  end,  as  in  the  first  line  of  an  ordinary 
englyn  ;  but  this  is  optional.  In  the  "  toddaid  byr  "  the  short  second 
line  is  connected  with  the  íìrst  either  by  a  correspondence  of  con- 
sonants  at  the  end  of  the  first  and  heginning  of  the  second,  as  'm  ginr 
and  (jwrawl  in  lines  47-8 ;  or  by  the  end  of  the  first  rhyming  with  the 
third  syllable  of  the  second,  as  in  tydiced  and  ici/neb 21-2  {-ed  and  -eb\& 
a  good  rhyme).  It  is  improbable  that  any  lines  in  this  metre  were 
orisinally  lons  or  short ;  lines  of  9  would  confuse  the  metre  with  that 
later  called  "  gwawdodyn  "  which  consists  of  lines  of  9  mixed  with 
"toddaid"  couplets  (10,  9).  Extra  syUables  are  in  all  cases  doubtful 
in  lines  of  8,  and  probably  the  whole  of  "  Gweith  Gwen  Ystrat", 
lines  1-22,  above  p.  161,  should  have  been  regularized,  e.g.,  by  sub- 
stituting  iiZ  for  lüledic  in  Hne  2,  omitting  ricy  in  Hne  5,  etc,  as  well  as 
malíing  the  corrections  suggested  in  the  notes. 

The  chief-rhyme  in  the  first  fifteen  lines  is  -^S,  with  variants  -ijr, 
-ijl  as  foHows;  hijferjyr,  1.  7  ;  probably  myr,  1.  8  ;  yyfyl,  1.  12. 

These  Hnes  are  foUowed  by  three  lines  with  the  rhyme  -vn,  and 
two  with  the  rhyme-«'??i  or  -wrn.  I  do  not  know  that  any  minimum 
of  rhyming  Hnes  was  prescribed  ;  but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  a 
iacuna  exists  here  consisting  of  the  last  lines  of  the  -im  group  and 
the  first  Hnes  of  the  -wm  group.  It  may  be  suggested  that  one  of  the 
rhyming  words  in  the  lost  Hnes  of  the  first  group  may  have  been  the 
name  of  llhun. 

Lines  21  to  28  have  the  rhyme  -wyt;  the  irregularities  are  due  to 
textual  corruption  and  are  dealt  with  in  thenotes. 

Lines  29  to  38  have  the  rhyme  -cf,  with  variants  -ay  and  -aw.  It 
has  been  supposed  that  the  fact  that  Cune^a  rhymes  here  with-o/,  and 
is  even  spelt  CuneSaf,  proves  that  the  poem  is  quite  late.  Dr.  Evans 
says  that  there  is  no  CuneSaf,  but  there  is  a  CuneSa,  for  which  his 
authority  is  "  B(ruts)  317"!  But  he  says  "  the  rhyme  demands  a 
final  V  here.  Read  ryji  cu  nav " !  The  explanation  of  the  spelling 
Cu7ie8af  in  our  text  is  that  the  scribe,  or  a  glossator  whose  "  cor- 
rections"  he  copied,  was  as  ignorant  as  Dr.  Evans  of  the  old  system 
of  rhyming,  and  beHeved  that  "  the  rhyme  demands  a  final  v  here  ". 
As  already  stated  above,  p.  91,  the  oldest  spelling  of  this  name  is 
Cuneday  which  is  seen  in  our  frontispiece,  line  14;  this  represents 
the   pronunciation  CuìieSay,  in  which  y   is  the  soft  mutation  of  y. 


2o8  Taliesin. 

which  was  sounded  as  a  very  soft  ch ;  it  bears  the  same  relation  to 
ck  that  V  does  to^,  or  that  8  does  to  th.  By  the  universal  loss  of  y 
iii  Welsh  the  name  became  Cune^a.  But  before  it  was  lost  -aj  formed 
a  good  rhyme  with  -au  (written  -af),  and  also  with  -aw. 

The  correspondence  of  y  and  w  is  also  seen  in  the  next  group, 
lines  39  to  44.  The  rhyme  is  -ew  :  but  two  of  the  rhyming  words, 
cyjleio  and  anaeleui,  are  so  spelt  because  the  scribe  thought  that 
"  the  rhyme  demands  a  fìnal "  iü.  The  words  are  cyjle  and  anaele, 
which  must  have  been  originally  cyjiey  and  anaeley  ;  thus  -ey  rhymes 
with  -ew. 

An  important  result  follows.  We  have  seen  in  this  and  other 
poems  that  8  frequently  rhymes  with  r  ov  1,\  but  we  have  come  across 
no  example  of  S  rhyming  with  /  {v).  Again  in  the  above  examples 
we  find/rbyming  with  7  and  w,  but  not  with  8.  It  seems  therefore 
that  the  rhyming  of  soft  spirants  was  not  indiscriminate  ;  they  were 
instinctively  divided  into  two  classes,the  clear  (dental)  8,  /,  /•,  and  the 
dull  (labial  and  guttural)/,  ic,  y  ;  and  clear  were  rhymed  with  clear, 
and  duU  with  duU.  Examples  of  the  former  rhymes  are  very 
numerous  ;  the  latter  are  comparatively  rare.  We  find,  however,  in 
the  old  poems  in  B.B.  18-27  the  following  rhymes,  which  confìrm  the 
above  classification  : — (1)  clear :  reuve8,  argel,  p.  20  ;  merweryS, 
even(/yl,  22;  ylythwyr,  dievyl,  26;— (2)  dull :  youchaf,  day' {oî  course 
spelt  da)  24  ;  tanySpf,  anuyrey  (spelt  tayde,  arrere)  25  :  see  tany^rf,  B.A. 
26-14,  arwyre  B.T.  56-14.  The  distinction  does  not  apply  to  explo- 
sives,  for  b,  d,  g  are  rhymed  with  each  other  indiscriminately. 

The  last  rhyme-group  in  the  poem,  lines  45  to  50  has  the  rhyme 

-yny,    with   the   variant   -ynn   in    unbyn,  1.  48.     The  spelling  -my  in 

dieSmg,  1.  45,  and  Coeling,  1.  50,  represents  the  medieval  and  modern 

modification   of  -yny.     A  double  nasal  can  correspond  to  any  com- 

bination  of  consonant  and  nasal,  because  the  nasal  sound  predomi- 

nates ;  thus  lw)n  (i.e.  Iwmm,   for  m  is  always  double)  rhymes   with 

ascwrn   in  11.   19-20.     That  is  why  the  3rd  pl.  of  the  verb  so  often 

ends  in   -yn,  -an,  etc,  in    these  poems ;    it   is   not   because   it   was 

sounded  -yn   or   -an  when    the    poems  were    written,   but   because 

-ynt    and    -ytiìi    formed    a    good    rhyme ;    but    late    copyists,   who 

themselves    dropped    the    -t,    naturally    imagined    that    the    bard 

dropped    it.      A    good  example    of    nasal   rhymes   occurs  in  41  "S'^, 

where    all    the   foUowing   are    rhymed    together :    dybySynt,   bnjnn, 

ronynn,   mechteyrn.      In   line    13   of   our   poem  we   find   Etwyn   and 

Coelyn  rhyming  ;  the  ìvy  must  be  ir  misread  as  ui  (one  of  the  com- 

monest  errors,  see  above  p.  164,  II.  4-6),  and  the  rhyme  is  Edyrn  and 

Coelyng  (the  name  Edioin  rhymes  with  breenhin  B.B,  75"7).     The  -yng 

of    Coelyng  is  probably  for  *-yyn  from  -iknì,  the  plural  of  -ihnos,  the 

Keltic  suíKx  used  to  form  patronymics,  as  in  the  Gaulish  Toutissicnos 


Taliesin.  209 

'son  of  Tüutissos  ';  tho  pl.  occnrs  in  the  North  Itiilian  Todi  inscrip- 
tion  :  Tanotalihnoi  'sons  of  üannotalüs'.  (The  Ohl  Eng.  patrony- 
mic  -ing  is  a  different  formation,  coniing  from  original  *-enkos, 
Brugniann  IP  i,  485.)  It  is  evi(1ent  that  (jwin,  1.  49,  with  its  single 
n  and  long  i  (from  Lat.  vhmm)  cannot  rhyme  with  the  words  of 
the  gronp,  and  must  tlierefore  be  a  mis-reading. 

The    "cymeriadau"   are  shown  by  the  mark  t  placed  after  the 
catchword. 

-  MARWNAD    RHUN. 

1     Mi'ydwyf  Taliessin  deryb  ar  gwawt; 
Ry  godolaf  vedyb, 
Bedyò  rwyb  r(i)yfebeu  (ei)Do(l)/yb. 

Kyfrwnc  allt  a(c)  Aallt  ac  echwyb 
5  Ergrynawr  Cuneba(f)  c(reiss)e?/ryb 

Yng  Kaer  Weir  a  Chaer  Liwelyb  ; 
Ergrynawt  kyfma(t)wt  kyfergyr.     t 

Kyf(a)?<n  ^wanec  t(a)on  tra  mŷr  ton  llupaw 
Lhipawt  glew  ŷ  gilyb, 
10  Kan  ^af/a^s^í  (ywh);yí?el  uch  elv^b 

Mal  ucheneit  gwynt  wrth  onwyb  ; 
Kef(y)nder«'  c(h)y(n)i'ygi(n)í  ý  gyfyl  <^y'ach) — 
Et(w)y;-n  a  Choelyn^  kerenhyb. 
Gwiscant  (?)  veirb  kywrein  ka(n)//onyb  : 
15  Marw  (Cunebaf)  Run  a  gwynaf  a  gvvyn(it)yS.     t 

Cwynitor  tewbor  tewb(u)m,  diarchar, 
Dychyfal,  dychyfun  ; 
D(yf)iynveis  dyf(y)ngleis  dychyfun. 


Ymadrawb  (cwded-)?wíÄ  ^awb  (?)  caletlwm, 
20  Caletach  wrth  (elyn)  âl  noc  ascwrn.     t 

Yscynyal  Cuneba(f)  kyn  k(y)wys  (a)  t(h)ytwet 
Y  wyneb  a  gatw(e)yt ; 
Kanweith  kyn  bu  lleith  yn  dorglwyt 
Dych(ludent);/)-c/iei  wŷr  Bryneich  (ym)  pymlwyt; 
2ö  (ef)  Canet  rac  y  of (y)n  ae  arswyt 

Oergerb(et)  kyn  bu  dayr  dog(y)n  ý  (d)y/w(e)yt. 
Heit  haval  am  wybwal  gẃn  e(b)re,^wy(t)s  gw(ei)an(aw)^ 
Gwaeth  llyfreb  noc  abwyt.     t 

Aboet  (h)7t'un,  (dimyaw)  dymhun  (?)  a  gwynaf 
30  Am  lys  am  ;tví'g(r)ys  Cuneba(f)y. 


2IO  Taiiesin. 

^Ani  hyd(y)rver  mór,  ^am  ry-aflaw  ^,  ^  in  MS. 

Hallt,  am  breib  a  (f)swrn  aballaf. 
Gwawt  veirb  a  o(g)íZon  a  o{g)ííaf, 
A(c)e  (-reill)r2/a  r(e)/fon  a  rifaf  :     f 
35  R(y)2fedavvr  yn  ervlavvb  anaw 

Cant  gorwyb  (kyn)  ky(m)/un  Cunebay. 
Rymafei  oe  biw  blith  y(r)M  haf , 
Rymafei  ebystrawt  (y)  gaeaf, 
Rymafei  win  gloyw  ac  olew, 
40  Rymafei  tor(o)f  keith  rac  un  trew. 

(ef )  Dy(f  waS.  ogressur  o  gyfle(w)')', 
Gw(e)o;ladur,  pennadur  pryt  llew.     t 
Lludwy  v(e)j!/bei  gywlat  rac  mab  Ed(e)7/rn 
Kyn  Edyrn  anaele(w)7. 

45  (ef)  Dywal,  diarchar,  dieb(i)î/ng, 

Ann-yf/reu  a(g)?-cheu  dychyfyng. 
(ef)  Goborthi  aes  yman  r(e)írgorawl  gwir, 
Gwrawl  oeb  ý  unbynw. 
Dymhun  (a)  c(h)yfatcun  a  (thal  gwin)  d'éyrn  ; 
50  Kamdí-a  diva  (h)fiun  o  Goel(i)yMg. 

THE    DEATHSONG    OF    RHUN. 

1     I  am  Taliesin  ardent  in  song  ; 
I  rejoice  in  Baptism, 
Baptism,  the  grace  of  the  fulness  of  the  Lord. 

Between  hill  and  sea  and  river 
5  The  strongholds  of  Cunedda  are  shaken 

Tn  Durham  and  Carlisle  : 
The  conflict  of  kinsfolk  shakes  them. 

Like  the  surge  over  seas  of  wave  [devouring]  wave 
The  brave  devour  each  other, 
10  For  war  has  been  waged  in  the  land, 

Like  the  sigh  of  the  wind  among  ashtrees ; 
Cousin  fights  his  fellow  (^/oss,  relative) — 
Edern's  sons  and  the  Coeling,  their  kinsmen. 
The  bards  adorn  (?)  [theirj  ingenious  conceits : 
15  It  is  the  death  of  Rhun  that  I  mourn  and  shall  mourn. 

Mourned  is  [he  who  was  our]  bulwark  [atid]  stronghold — fearless 
Peerless,  matchless ; 
In  the  depths(?)  of  [his  ?]  deep  wound,  matchless. 


Taliesiii.  1 1 1 

His  answer  to  insult  (?)  was  hard  and  short, 
L'O  He  was  harder  to  an  enemy  than  a  bono. 

Descendant  of  Cnnedda,  till  tlie  cutting  of  the  sod  [of  his  grave] 
His  honour  was  kept ; 
A  hundred  times  before  he  was  hiid  on  a  hurdle, 
He  joined  battle  with  the  men  of  Bernicia  ; 
25  There  was  sung  from  fear  and  dread  of  him 

A  song  of  woe  ere  his  portion  of  earth  was  his  covering. 
A  horde  like  a  pack  of  hounds  around  a  cover  beset  him — 
Cowardice  is  worse  than  death  ! 

By  the  death  of  Rhun  I  mourn  the  fall 
30  Of  the  court  and  girdle  of  Cimedda. 

For  the  tide  of  the  sea,  for  the  salnion 

Of  the  brine,  for  herds  and  abundance  I  shall  fail. 

The  song  of  the  bards  that  they  sing  I  wiU  sing, 

And  the  numbers  that  they  number  I  will  number ; 
35  There  are  numbered  as  princely  largess 

A  hundred  steeds  such  as  Cunedda  [gave]. 

He  gave  me  of  his  milch  kine  in  summer, 

He  gave  me  horses  in  winter, 

He  gave  me  sparkHng  wine  and  oil, 
40  He  gave  me  a  guard  of  serfs  against  ill  omen. 

He  was  a  doughty  assailant  in  a  rencounter — 

Ruler,  chieftain  with  the  aspect  of  a  lion. 
The  land  of  the  enemy  would  be  ashes  before  the  son  of  Edern 
Ere  the  overthrow  of  Edern's  sons. 

45  He  was  doughty,  fearless,  generons — 

To  manifohl  requests  openhanded. 
He  bore  his  shield  in  the  very  van, 

[Though]  his  captains  were  brave. 
It  is  the  fall  of  a  noble  king  ; 
50  It  is  a  tragedy  that  Rhun  was  slain  by  the  Coeling. 

NoTES  ON  "  Marwnad  Rhun  ". 

Translations :  Stephens,  reprinted  in  The  Gododin,  362 ;  Nash, 
'raliesin,  82  ;  Robert  WilUams,  F.A.B.,  i,  257  ;  Dr.  Evans,  II,  121. 

Line  1. — I  take  gicawt  to  be  the  phrase  arguaut  (ar  ìoatot)  which  the 
scribe  has  repeatedly  miscopied  ;  see  above  pp.  137-8. 

Line  2. —  Ry  (/odulaf;  cf.  ry  yolychaf  i'iA-'l,  p.  138  above.  The  con- 
sonantism  y«Yí«'rt'|//oẁ/í  implies  a  d,  not  5.  Godoli  'to  rejoice  in ' : 
Godolei yle^yf  e  yare8,yodolei  lemein  e  ryvd  B.A.  12*20,  '  He  rejoiced  in 

p2 


2  1 2  Taliesin. 

the  sword  of  his  vengence  (?),  he  rejoiced  in  leaping  into  war  ' ;  O  loin- 
weith  a  meSwieth  dt/f/odoh/n  ib.  15'9,  godolei  o  heit  meirch  37"20.  Irish 
tol  'will,  desire '. — Baptism=Christianity,  see  p.  173. 

Line  3. — The  line  is  a  syllable  long  in  the  MS.  Probably 
eidoly^  is  an  error  for  Dofyo ;  this  is  suggested  by  the  line 
Nis  rydraeth  ryreSeu  {kyvoeth)  rivy8eu  Dovy8,  B.B.  27  '  Not  [all 
the]  wealth  of  the  Lord's  works  can  relate  it'  [viz.,  what  wiU 
be  done  on  jndgement  day],  where  kyvoeth  is  an  obvioas  gloss  on 
ryveSeu,  confirming  the  old  meaning  'abundance',  see  note  abovç, 
p.  178.  Jiicy8  as  a  noun  (oi'ig.  '  course ')  survives  only  as  an 
abstract  noun  suffix,  and  in  the  phrase  Duid'n  rhicydd!  '  God 
prosper  [you]'.  The  corresponding  form  riadh  in  Sc.  Gaehc 
means  '  interest '.  Perhaps  '  produce  '  would  be  near  the  meaning 
(cf.  ricySheu,  rwyS,  B.A.  29"19'22),  and  as  applied  to  the  Diety  'bless- 
ing,  grace'.  Ryfeheu  '  abundance,  fulness' ;  cf.  "Of  his  fulness  have 
all  we  received,  and  grace  for  grace  ",  John,  i,  16.  I  am  unable  to 
exp]ain  the  error  eidoly^  for  dofyS,  unless  there  was  some  confusion 
in  the  copy  between  ryfeSeu  Dofyh  and  ryfeheu  elfyS  '  the  fuhiess  of 
the  earth',  which  seems  to  have  been  a  common  phrase,  cf  remedaut 
elbid  in  the  Juv.  Cod.  F.A.B.,  ii,  p  1.  Although  eidoìyd  appears  to 
be  a  misreading  here,  it  seems  to  be  a  real  Avord,  as  it  occurs  again, 
spelt  eidyolyd  in  74'16,  though  Silvan  Evans  states  that  "  the  only 
known  instance  of  its  occurrence  "  is  here  (6910). 

Line  4. — a  hallt,  see  above  p.  68  fn. 

Line  5. — The  line  is  a  syllable  long;  creisse)'y8  is  a  ghost-word  ; 
the  translators  take  it  to  mean  '  burner '  (from  crasu  'to  bake'!), 
except  Dr.  Evans,  who  makes  it  '  crosier-bearer ' !  It  must  be  a  dis- 
syllable,  and  it  seems  possible  that  it  represents  the  scribe's  bung- 
ling  over  ceirid  (i.e.  ceyry8).  The  medieval  plurals  of  caer  are  caereu, 
ceyry8  <and  caeroe8  ;  and  as  they  are  all  re-formations  it  is  impossible 
to  say  that  any  one  is  older  than  any  other. 

Line  6. — See  pp.  61  and  58-9  above. 

Line  7. — kyfat-\wt.  The  error  is  partly  due  to  the  Iine-division. 
The  word  niust  be  a  dissyllable ;  and  hyfnawt  satisfies  rhyme,  metre 
and  sense;  on  nawt  cf.  p.  143  above. 

Lines  8,  9.— The  couplet  is  two  s^'llables  short,  and  there  is  no 
catchword  at  the  end  of  the  first  line ;  a  word  with  the  consonants  of 
llupawt  would  most  ]ike]y  be  some  form  of  this  word  itseif ;  and  the 
v.n.  used  participially  is  possible,  and  accouiíts  for  tlie  omission, 
because  to  a  scribe  wlio  understood  little  of  metre  or  matter  it  might 
seem  to  be  an  error  of  repetition  in  tlie  copy  (as  such  metrical 
correíîpondences  so  often  seem  to  Dr.  Evai)s).  Kyfan  shouid,  doubt- 
less,  be  hyfun,  a  form  used  severa!  times  in  tiie  poem.  Llupaw,  ?a 
denominative  from  Lat.  lûpus,  cf.  Eng.  to  wolf. 


Talíesin.  2  1 3 

Line  10. — ywhel  is  the  scribe's  transliterution  of  iulwì,  wliich  is 
doubtless  his  misreading  of  ribel  (i.e.  ryveì),  the  first  stroke  of  the  /• 
being  mistaken  for  i  which  was  often  producerl  below  the  line. 

Line  Il'. — kefyn(ioych\yn  y  ydn  (the  i  or  u  begun  as  6).  There 
seems  to  be  a  Iine-di\'ision  error,  and  incorrect  copying  of  what  the 
scribe  failed  to  understand.  It  is  difficult  to  amend  the  line  ;  but 
when  it  is  remembered  that  ch  is  geiierally  a  transHteration  of  c,  the 
emendation  suggested  will  not  .seem  improbable.  Thoiigh  not  so 
near  to  tlie  MS.  reading,  hyryyit  '  fights  '  is  perhaps  niore  likely, 
owing  to  its  echo  in  kyvyl,\k\2M  kynnyyn  'opponent',  which  is  also 
a  .syllable  short.      That  kyfach  is  a  gloss  on  kyfyl  seems  evident. 

Line  13. — Eticyn;  ir  misread  as  ui,  see  note  on  rhyme  above. 
Edyrn  seems  to  be  used  as  an  adjective  '  heavy '  by  the  late  medieval 
bards ;  as  haich  edyrn  o  bechodeu,  Myv.  313a  18  ;  but  this  use  does  not 
seem  to  be  early.  Li  B.A.  4'17  there  seems  to  be  a  reference  to  the 
war  between  the  Edyrn  and  the  sons  of  Coel  Godebawc : 
Edyrn  diedyrn  amygj'ní  dir 
A  meib(yon)  Godebawc,  gwerin  enwir. 

Tlie  pl.  verb  amyyyn  '  defended '  shows  that  Edyrn  is  pl. ;  diedyrn  is 
obviously  diedyny  (dieSyny)  made  to  "  rhyme "  with  Edyrn ;  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  rhymes  well  enough  without  the  scribe's  emenda- 
tion,  and  vve  have  here  another  example  of  nasal  rhymes  -yrn,  -yny, 
-ynt.     We  can  render  the  couplet  then — 

*  The  generous  Edyrn  defended  [their]  land 
Against  the  sons  of  Godebawg,  faithless  host.' 

Line  14. — Perhaps  ywiseant  is  an  error  for  yicëant  (Old  Welsh 
^yneyant)  'they  weave';  canonhyS  is  probably  the  word  transcribed 
ka/lovy8  in  41 '19:  "A  ŵyr  kerb  gelvyò,  py  gêl  kallony8'',  '  he  who 
knows  a  cunning  song,  why  does  he  conceal  his  wisdom  ?'  We  have 
found  that  the  scribe  sometimes  copies  li  as  71 ;  here  lie  seems  to  have 
read  //  as  ìi ;  in  that  case  the  word  is  a  derivative  of  call. 

Line  15. — a  ywynit  \  the  rhyme  shows  that  the  ending  should  be 
-y8;  a  yirynnf  n  ywyny8  has  an  exact  parallel  in  the  first  line  of 
"Anrec  Uryen",  Y  Cymmrodor,  vii,  125; 

Gogyvercheis,  gogyfarchaf,  gogyferchyö, 
'I  have  greeted,  I  greet,  I  shall  greet.' 

In  my  Gr.,  p.  333,  vi,  I  have  shown  that  -y8.  which  became  the  ending 
of  the  2nd  sg.  pres..  would  probably  be  common  to  all  three  persons 
originally  in  accented  verbs,  and  referred  to  traces  of  it  in  the  3rd. 
These  two  examples  seem  to  be  clear  cases  of  its  use  in  tlie  Ist 
person,  in  both  cases  fut.,  as  opposed  to  the  pres.  in  -nf.  Anolher 
example,  hitherto  unexplained,  of  -i  for  old  -y8,  used  in  the  Istas 


2  14  Talíesm. 

well  as  the  2ncl  sg.,  also  futiire,  occurs  in  Mi  ae  guaredi,  a  thi  ae  gueli 
B.B.  94'ö  'I  wiU  deliver  them,  and  thou  shalt  see  them '.  The 
relative  a  should  probably  be  ae  with  the  radical,  see  above  p.  189. 

Line  16. — tewSun  should  probably  be  teiü-^in  'thiclí  fort ' ;  it  may 
be  intended  for  a  proest  with  -un  of  the  other  liues,  as  it  is  unlikely 
that  the  i  was  rouuded  to  u  by  the  w  in  Early  Welsh  as  it  seems  to 
have  been  later  after  u  in  Creu^un.  But  as  noted  above,  a  rhyme  is 
not  absülutely  necessary  in  this  position.  Note  the  rhj'me  diarchar, 
dychyfal,  connectiug  the  two  lines,  see  p.  207,  11.  11-13. 

Line  17. — dy-  with  spirant,  negative.  We  are  wholly  dependent 
oii  the  scribe  here,  as  i  and  y  are  not  distinguished  in  Old  Welsh. 
The  prefix  is  di-,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  might  not 
be  followed  by  ch  (for  the  usual  y)  like  dy-,  ry-  and  go-  ;  e.g.  gochlyt 
beside  goglyt,  etc.  The  initial  foUowing  these  pretìxes  was  sometimes 
doubled  in  British  ;  the  ch  represents  cc. 

Line  18. — dyfynveis  should  be  three  syllables  :  it  also  occurs  in 
dwiiyn  dyvynveÌ8  B.A.  291 5,  and  in  the  sg.  as  diynvas  (3  syll.)  in 
"  Anrec  Uryen  ",  1.  14  ( Y  Cymmrodor,  vii,  125).  Possibly  this  spelling 
supplies  a  clue  to  the  formation. 

Line  19. — cwdedawd;  the  suggested  emendation  assumes  gurtc 
misread  as  cudet. 

Line  21. — There  is  no  reason  for  yatwet  where  the  rhyme  requires 
gatwyt.  The  scribe  misread  i  as  e  in  several  words  in  this  poem, 
e.g.  dwet  1.  26,  ve^ei  1.  43. 

Line  24. — Dychludent ;  irc  read  as  lut,  and  ei  read  as  -et  and  tran- 
scribed  -ent  (the  3rd  pl.  ending  is  -ynt,  not  -ent,  in  the  imperf.). 

Liue  25. — <=/"is  a  scribal  insertion  which  makes  the  iine  too  long; 
so  in  11.  41,  4o,  47. 

Line  26. — oeryer^ ;  gerSet  f or  gerS  is  clearly  a  scribal  error.  The 
use  of  oer  for  '  sad,  painful ',  etc,  survived  in  poetry  down  to  the 
16th  cent.  and  later. 

dwet :  the  scribe  toolc  cluit  for  duet ;  the  confusion  of  d  and  cl  is 
common,  see  above  p.  165  :  e  for  i,  see  note  on  1.  21. 

Line  27. — ehncyt,  apparently  an  error  for  erchwys  *  pack  ',  possibly 
written  ehruis,  and  lead  ehruit  by  the  scribe. 

gweinaw  makes  the  line  too  long,  aud  is  meaningless.  A  verb  in 
the  3rd  sg.  aorist  is  required,  which  should  be  a  monosyllable  with 
the  ÌDÌtial  of  gwaeth;  gwant  'struck,  attacked ',  satisfies  the  con- 
ditions. 

Line  28. — aSwyt  seems  to  be  an  oblique  case,  after  {n)oc,  of  aSoet 
cf.  yn  ŷ  aSu-yt  '  at  his  death  '  43' 13,  rac  a8wyt,  F.A.B.,  ii,  235. 

Line  29. — ASoet.  The  use  of  abstract  and  verbal  nouns  without 
prepositions  in  an  oblique  case  of  cause  survived  in  poetry  ;  an  exact 
parallel  to  the  construction  here  is  seen  in  the  following  couplet  from 


Taliesín.  215 

the  elegy  on  leuan  ap  Hywel  Swrdwal  by  Hywel  Dafydd  about  1475 
(Pen.  MS.  100,  f.  12Ö): 

Marw  leuan  aeth  fy  mron  i 

Mor  oer  â  thrum  Eryri. 

'•By  the  death  of  leuan  my  breast  has  gone 
As  cold  as  the  ridge  of  Eryri.' 

dimyaio,  which  seems  a  late  denominative  '  to  annihilate '  (from 
dim),  is  perhaps  substituted  for  dymhim  (rhyming  with  linn)  which 
appears  to  mean  '  overthrow ',  see  note  ou  1.  49. 

Line  30. — am  grys.  Rhys,  Celt.  Brit.,  1884,  p.  119,  says  that  "  the 
cognate  Irish  criss  always  meant  a  girdle  ",  and  suggests  that  crys  is 
a  girdle  here  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  crys  or  its  Breton  equiv- 
alent  had  that  meaning ;  and  as  the  metre  requires  a  dissyllable 
there  can  hardly  be  any  doubt  that  the  correct  reading  is  yuregys. 
Pedersen  explains  this  as  *gice-grys:  Gven  if  this  is  right  the  Breton 
grouis  shows  that  the  metathesis  is  too  old  to  allow  us  toassurae  that 
grys  is  simply  an  error  for  we-grys.  Auother  explanation  of  gwregys 
is  assumed  by  Walde  s.v.  rica. — The  "girdle"  was  doubtless,  as  Rhys, 
l.c,  suggests,  the  emblem  of  authority  of  the  Gwledig,  representing 
the  gold  belt  which  was  the  badge  of  oíBce  of  the  Dux  Britanniarum. 

Lines  31,  32. — The  scribe  seems  to  have  jumped  from  one  «m  to 
the  other  and  written  the  second  plu'ase  first ;  he  then  wrote  the 
second,  and,  not  perceiving  the  rhyme  which  had  been  thus  misplaced, 
neglected  to  insert  the  usual  marks  f  or  '  transpose  '.  The  word 
hydyrver  '  tide  '  hardly  gives  a  satisfactory  sense,  and  may  be  a  mis- 
reading. 

/wr7i ;  it  is  clear  that  '  f  urnace '  makes  no  good  sense ;  swrn  is 
suggested  by  am  swrn  am  gorn  Ruhelyn,  B.A.  26"13;  sicrìi  'great 
qtiaiitity  or  number  ',  cf.  L.  6.  Cothi,  459,  1.  20  of  poem. 

Line  33. — a  ogon  a  ogaf  ior  a  icodon  a  ?ro^í«/'(«' is  generally  lost 
before  o,  as  in  the  prefix  gwo-);  the  scribal  error  consists  in  the 
commou  misreading  of  t  as  c,  the  original  form  of  the  verbs  being 
probably  guotont,  gìiotam,  from  a  verbal  noun  guotim  from  guatit 
'  song  ',  like  noddi  from  nawdd,  etc. 

Line  34. — The  analogy  of  1.  33  shows  that  refon  cont:iius  the  error 
so  often  made  in  these  lines  of  reading  i  as  e ;  tho  scribe  made  the 
same  mistake  in  rim  which  he  ought  to  have  transliterated  as  rif; 
but  he  read  the  î'as  e,  and  the  m  as  ill,  an<l  so  took  tlie  word  to  be 
ereill.  The  original  reading  was  probably  hai  rim,  that  is  ae  rif. 
Possibly  r//'means  '  rliyme  '  and  a  play  on  the  word  was  iutended. 

Line  35. — Byfedaicr ;  probably  rifedor,  -edor  being  the  strictly 
correct  medieval  form  of  the  passive  ending  usually  written  -etor 
{Gr.  334). 


2 1 6  Taliesin. 

ewlauB-  The  dictionaries'  explanation  of  blaicdd  as  'activity'  and 
and  as  an  udj.  '  active '  is  to  be  traced  back  to  a  bad  guess  of  Wni. 
Lli'n's,  see  Dr.  Davies,  s.v.  As  the  word  may  be  the  exact  phonetic 
equivalent  of  the  Sanskrit  inürdh-án-,  it  occurred  to  me  some  years 
ago  that  it  might  be  the  same  word,  and  meant  'head,  leader,  chief ', 
etc.  Silvan  Evans's  examples,  which  completely  belie  the  meaning 
he  gives,  seem  to  confirm  this  :  Ef  rlcac^  Jxi/frieu  'he  is  the  chief  of 
his  fellow-princes  ' ;  Blaidd  blaenf/ar,  blairdd  tri/dar  trais,  Avhere  blairdd 
is  obviously  in  apposition  with  blaidd  blaengar ;  taric  triìi,  ayi  (?  read 
ar)  vì/8in  blaicdd,  'leader  of  an  army'  immediately  followed  by 
arbenic  llu  'chief  of  a  host'  (B.B.  97'13).  Turning  to  the  com- 
pounds,  under  aerjlaìcdd  we  find  aercleiS,  aerrlaicS  tei/rneS  '  battle- 
wolf,  battle-leader  of  kings',  and  naicB  aerJlaicÒ  aerjleih\  under 
cadjìaicdd  again,  Cof  cadjiaicè  à'm  caicS  cCni  carai  '  the  memory  of  a 
battle-chief  who  Ioved  me  grieves  me  ' ;  what  sense  did  Silvan  Evans 
imagine  "  battle-tumult "  made  in  that  line  ;  or  in  his  next  example? 
Dos  .  .  .  ar  (/atvlaic8  '  Go  to  the  battle-chief ' — where  the  bard 
addresses  a  messenger  whom  he  is  sending  to  Llywelyn  ap  Madawc, 
Mi/v.  281a.  In  the  B.T.  we  have  u8  tra  blatcS  634,  where  blatcS  is  an 
adj.     Hence  I  have  rendered  e/-i'Zaíí:S  'princely'. 

aìiaw.  Mr.  Ifor  Williams  has  shown  that  this  word  means  not 
'  muse,  music ',  etc,  as  the  dictionaries  say,  but  '  bounty,  largess  ', 
etc,  Gemaur  Goyynfeirdd,  1910,  pp.  100-2. 

Line  36. — The  line  is  a  syllable  long,  and  Jcyn  should  be  omitted  ; 
hyniun  is  the  Old  Welsh  ciniun  partly  transliterated  ;  it  should  be 
kyfun,  a  word  used  also  in  J.  8,  and  compounded  in  11.  17,  18.  The 
repetition  of  a  word  is  a  feature  that  is  noticeable  in  some  of  these 
poems;  that  is  why  I  think  the  emendation  in  p.  172,  1.  3  above,  not 
improbable;  see  note,  p.  174.  The  meaning  of  ìîyfun  here  is  'like, 
similar  to  ',  as  iu  dy-chyfun  •  matchless  ',  1.  17,  cf.  cimun  idaic  '  an  equal 
to  him',  B.A.  38-14 

Lines  37-40. — Bymafei.  In  B.B.  91  we  have  De-us,  re-en,  rymaicy 
awen  ;  this  is  a  syllable  long,  and  the  facsimile  seems  to  show  that  an 
attempt  has  been  made  to  delete  they,  which  would  give  rymaw  awen  ; 
thus  rymaw  seems  to  mean  'grant '  or  •  grant  me',  taking  the  in  as 
the  infixed  pronoun  'me':  '  grant  me  a  muse '.  In  B.T.  3'12  we 
have  rymaicyr  dy  ìceSi  foUowed  by  rymyicares  dy  voli,  which  we  may 
take  to  mean  '  may  [my]  prayer  to  Thee  be  granted  me ',  and  '  may 
praise  of  Thee  save  me';  the  latter,  which  is  certain,  confirms  the 
former.  In  4"2  occurs  ryìnawyr  ym  jKit[er'\  ym  pechawt:  the  first  ym 
is  an  unconscious  repetition  of  the  -m-  and  makes  the  line  too  long ; 
the  meaning  seems  to  be  '  may  [my]  prayer  be  granted  me  in  sin '. 
Lastly,  Meen,  rymawyr  titheu  herreifant  om  kare8eu,  3ö"22;  here  titheu 
seenis  to  be  an  error  for  inheu  supplementing  -??i-  ;  for  '  may  thei'e  be 


Talicsiìi.  2  1 7 

given  me  '  cannot  have  a  subject  *  thou  ',  as  the  subject  is  '  foi-give- 
"  ness  of  niy  sins  '.  We  seem  then  to  have  two  forms  surviving  in 
prayers  only  :  ri/maw  'grant  uie' ;  rymaìci/r  {—rymaic-uyr),  pres.  subj. 
passive  (properly  impersonal)  'may  there  be  given  me ' ;  these  arç 
the  parts  of  the  verb  mostly  iised  in  prayer ;  cf .  Dyro  inni  heddyw  .  .  . 
Gimeler  dy  eioyllys.  Though  the  evidence  is  confused  by  misreadings, 
owing  to  the  phrase  being  obsolete,  it  seems  to  justify  the  assump- 
tion  that  rymafei  stands  for  ry-m-aicei  '  he  gave  me  '• 

Line  40. — un  treic,  literally  '  one  sneeze  ' ;  this  was  an  iU  omen  ; 
cf.  "  I  hear  one  sneeze.  ...  I  wiU  not  believe  an  omen  {cocl) ;  for  it 
is  not  true  {certh,  cf.  p.  140  above) :  the  Lord  wlio  created  me  wiU 
fortify  me."  B.B.  82*4'6,  on  starting  on  a  voyage.  Superstitions 
connected  with  sneezing  ai'e  widespread.  The  custom  of  saying 
"  God  bless  you"  to  one  who  sneezes  is  well  known ;  in  ancient 
Greece  the  salutation  was  "  Zeíì  a-Q>(Tov"  ;  among  the  Romans, 
"Salve";  in  India  it  is  "Live",  to  which  the  sneezer  replies  "  with 
you  "  ;  similar  salutations  were  and  are  used  among  the  Hebrews  and 
Mahometans  ;  T ylor,  Priniitive  Culture,  1891,  i,  100-1.  It  was  vari- 
ously  regarded  as  a  good  or  bad  omen ;  see  Liddell  and  Scott,  s.v. 
*T7ra.'ipM.  In  India  "  It  is  an  iU  omen,  to  which  among  others  the 
Thugs  paid  great  regard  on  starting  on  an  expedition  ",  Tylor,  op. 
cit.  101  ;  so  "  in  Keltic  folk-lore  in  a  group  of  stories  turning  on  the 
superstition  that  anyone  who  sneezes  is  liable  to  be  carried  away  by 
the  fairies,  unless  their  power  be  counteracted  by  an  invocation,  as 
'God  bless  j'ou'",  op.  c,  103.  There  is  probably  significance  in  the 
"one"  sneeze  :  "  The  rabbins  .  .  .  say  that  before  Jacob  men  never 
sneezed  but  once  and  then  immediately  ŵd,"  hence  the  "  salutary 
exclamation,"  I.  D'Israeli,  Curiosities  of  Lit.,  Routledge,  1S93,  p.  48. 
See  other  references  in  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  97-104. 

Line  41. — oyressur.  There  seem  to  be  two  stems,  cryss-  (in  yicŷr  a 
yry.ssyassant  B  A.  9'3'10,  etc.)  which  seems  to  be  allied  to  cerdd-ed 
(vowel  gradation  er  :  ry) ;  and  yryss-  connected  with  Lat.  gradior, 
yressns.  As  the  forni  in  the  text  may  be  a  compound  of  the  former 
with  ywo-,  yo-,  there  seems  no  reason  to  amend  it.  The  e  may  be  for 
y,  original  i,  see  note  on  1.  21. 

cyfle.  Here  again  the  literal  meaning  seenis  to  give  the 
required  sense  ;  the  word  now  means  '  opportiniitj',  convenience ' ; 
formerly  it  meant  also  'convenient  place  '  (see  Sihan  Evans,  s.v.) ; 
the  latter  which  is  the  more  primitive  meaning  is  clearly  derived 
froin  '  adjacent  place',  cyf-le\  hence  probably  o  yyfie  '  at  close 
quarters '. 

Line  43. — Llndwy.  That  this  isthe  Early  Welsh  snund  is  proved  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  only  jìossible  oiiginal  of  the  two  modern  forms: 
(1)  North  Walian  and  modern  literary  lludio,  cf.  Gromo  for  Gromoy, 


2  1 8  Taliesin. 

etc. ;  (2)  South  Walian  lludy  (or  lludu),  cf.  Moicddy  îov  Mauddicy : 
see  Ŵ-.,  §  78,  i  (2),  ii  (1). 

veèei\  e  for  y,  original  i ;  see  note  on  line  21.  The  forms  of  the 
verb  '  to  be ',  bydd,  byddei,  bu,  oedd,  etc,  were  not  preceded  by  the 
relative  a  when  they  came  immediately  after  the  complement,  or  (in 
other  words)  where  they  correspond  to  yiü  in  the  present  tense  ;  the 
relative  is  regularly  used  when  it  is  itself  the  subject,  thus  a 
vy8ei  corresponds  to  sydd  in  the  present  tense.  Fn.  3,  p.  120  above, 
refers  to  the  former  cases. 

ryiclat  'adjoining  country',  chiefly  used  as  a  "possessive"  (or 
bahiii-rìhi)  compoiind,  meaning  a  '  man  of  an  adjoining  country',  '  an 
enemy';  here  it  appears  to  be  used  literally,  as  in  B.A.  STIS. 

Edern,  probably  the  old  genitive  Edyrn  forming  a  perfect  rhyme 
with  Edyrn  in  the  next  line  ;  but  of  course  a  "  proest  "  or  half-rhyme 
is  possible. 

Line  44. — anaeleic.  The  word  is  an-aele ;  cf .  aele,  Prydydd  y 
M.och.,  Myv.  207  a,  Elidir  Sais  240b,  Gwalchniai  ]49b;  aele,  anaele,  an. 
355  b.  Dr.  Davies  attributes  anaeleu  to  D.  Benfras,  but  that  is  a 
misreading  for  anadleu  220 b  35.  Anaeleu  B.T.  144  and  Myv.  ì'èlh 
should  be  aeleu  '  sorrows ',  probably  p].  of  aelaic:  anaeleu  315  b  is  a 
compound  of  this.  Aele  may  be  from  '^ad-ley-  (as  it  is  probable  that 
d  might  be  so  treated  before  as  well  as  after  a  front  vowel)  from  the 
root  *legh-  '  to  lie,  lay ';  cf.  Irish  do-lega  '  qui  destruit '. 

Ar,.—di-e^-yny  ;  e^-yny,  prefix  a^-  from  *ad-  intensive :  same 
meaning  as  cyf-yny  ;  di-  negative. 

Line  46. — Amryfreu,  '  manifold  ' :  Gicae  yebydd  ó'i  yabl  amryffrau 
(the  V.]. //y/ryí^á  is  obvious]y  a  misreading)  Myv.  271  a  'Woe  to  the 
miser  because  of  liis  manifold  iniquities' ;  with  dissimilation,  r  .  .  .  l 
for  r  ...?•:  Ampryfieu  donyeu  dynya^on,  Myv..  201  b,  '  Various  are 
the  gifts  of  men';  substantiva] : //■í«Yä  a  freu  a  fop  ainriffre?/,  BB. 
88"  1   '  fiuits  and  berries  (?)  and  every  diversity  '. 

'agheu,  i.e.  angheu,  would  be  spelt  ancou  in  old  Welsh  (it  occurs 
so  spelt  in  Old  Breton,  Loth,  Voc.  39) ;  archeu  would  be  spelt  arcou ; 
by  merely  misreading  r  as  n  the  latter  would  be  converted  into  the 
former. 

àychyfyng  in  me^mxìg=di-gyfyng  {Myv.  155  a  26,  164  a  10)  ;  see 
note  ün  I.  17. 

Line  47. — Goborthi :  -i  is  tlie  old  ending  of  the  3rd.  sg.  impf., 
variant  of  -ei,  niodern  -ai. 

yman-\regoraìcl.  The  most  probable  reading  seems  to  be  yman 
ragoraicl  '  in  the  foremost  place,  in  the  van ',  since  rhagori  is  used 
in  this  Fense,  as  in  Ragorei,  tyllei  tricy  ry^inawr  B.A.  9']9  '  he  went 
in  the  van,  he  cut  his  way  through  armies'.  Whetlier  tlie  following 
word   is  gioir  or  gicŷr   would   not   be  indicated  in  the  Old  Welsh 


Taliesin.  219 

spelling,  in  which  both  would  appear  as  (juir.  The  scribe  evi(lently  took 
it  for  yioir,  and  he  may  be  right ;  for  the  meaning  cf.  Eng.  very  frora 
01(1  Fr.  vprai,  Fr.  vrai.  The  word  connects  in  sound  with  yuraicl  in 
the  next  line,  but  the  metre  requires  a  pause  at  the  end  of  the  long 
line  so  that  yicŷr  yicrawl  is  improbable — apart  from  the  tautology 
'  manly  men '. 

Line  ■19.—Dy7nhu7i  seems  to  mean  '  overthrow,  fall '.  Gwalchmai 
has  lJy7ìiìiunis  to7i  icyrS  tcrth  Abei-ffraic  'A  green  wave  broke  near 
Abertì'raw ',  repeated  with  variations  in  his  "  Gorhofledd  ",  Myv.  144a. 
The  prefix  is  probably  dym-  as  in  dym-chicelyd  'overthrow  ' ;  and  the 
steni  probably  stands  for  *ch{w)im  perhaps  cognate  with  Ml.  Bret. 
choìieìi  '  (lying)  on  one's  back ',  Ir.  fôen  (^sôen)  allied  to  Lat.  supttius 
(Fick-Stokes,  305) ;  zi  is  the  regular  Welsh  equiva]ent  of  üld  Irish  öe. 
The  author's  habit  of  repeating  words  makes  it  probable  that  this 
was  the  word  used  in  I.  29  to  rhyme  with  Rhìm. 

chyfatciin  ;  the  h  may  be  taken  to  be  the  scribe's.  It  would  be  too 
risky  to  amend  this  to  catciai  '  war-lord ',  as  amatyun  occurs,  2"410, 
though  the  meaning  there  is  obscure.  I  take  cyf-at-cim  to  be  an 
adjectival  compound  of  cun  '  lord,  prince',  and  therefoi-e  to  mean 
'  noble,  princely '.  The  construction  would  also  admit  of  a  substan- 
tive  in  tliis  position,  as  caicr  in  cawr  o  ddyn  ;  see  next  note. 

thal  ywÌ7i ;  the  h  as  before.  It  has  been  shown  above,  p.  209,  that 
yinin  cannot  possibly  be  the  rhyming  word.  As  the  scribe  constantly 
misreads  ir  as  ui,  we  can  be  fairly  certain  that  his  yicin  represents 
yt'r»?  in  his  copy  ;  it  cannot  be  an  error  îorywipi  '  white  ',  for  that  would 
be  yuiim  in  the  copy,and  couhl  not  be  mistaken  for  yicin.  Now  yÌ7-n 
can  hardly  be  anything  but  the  last  syllable  of  the  word  tey7-n,  which 
would  be  written  teyÌ7'n  or  tiyirn  in  the  copy  ;  he  read  it  as  tlyuin, 
and  supplied  the  a  to  make  it  tâl  yicin  (which  Nash  alone  of  the 
translators  accepts  as  the  reading).  The  modern  o  introducing  a 
noun  dependent  on  an  adjective,  as  in  truan  o  ddy7i,  was  a  in 
Medieval  and  Old  Welsh,  see  above  p.  129,  II.  5-8,  hence  cyfatcun  a 
dcyr7i  '  a  noble  prince  '  or  '  king  ',  literally  '  a  noble  [one]  of  a  king '. 

Line  öO. — Kamda  seems  to  be  an  error  for  ka77idra  literally 
'crooked  turn ',  hence  '  ill  turn,  calamity '.  But  it  may  be  that  the 
original  was  cam  hu  (i.e.  camfu)  and  that  h  was  misread  as  d,  and  u 
as  a.     The  meaning  would  be  substantially  the  same. 

diva  o,  see  above  p.  206  and  fn. 

Coeliny.  "  Whether  Coeling  is  a  proper  name  or  not,  is  unknown", 
says  Nash,  Tal.  84.  It  was  unknown  to  him,  and  apparently  to  every- 
body  else  at  that  tirae,  and  to  Dr.  Evans  in  our  own  days.  Stephens 
and  R.  WiIIiams  render  it  "believer",  Nash  "testimony",  and  Dr. 
Evans  '"  superstitious  (dread)"!  There  is,  of  course,  no  foundation 
of  any  kin(l  to  any  of  these  renderings :  -y7iy  is  not  a  suílìx  that  forms 


2  20  Taliesin. 

names  of  the  agent  or  abstract  nouns.  I  have  not  troubled  to  look 
up  Edward  Davies's  translation  in  his  Claims  of  Ossian,  but  Nash 
says  that  he  translates  the  last  line  "  the  race  of  a  colonial  city  " ! 
None  of  the  translators  has  understood  the  force  of  the  o  before 
Coeliny  ;  Stephens  thought  it  introduced  the  object !  Davies  renders 
it  "  of  ",  the  others  "  from  ".  Each  of  them  is  attempting  to  trans- 
late  with  the  aid  of  a  dictionary  from  a  language  of  which  he  does 
not  know  the  grammar.  Stephens  takes  dymhun  to  be  dim  hun  '  no 
sleep ' ;  Nasli  understands  it  as  dymunaf  '  I  desire  '.  Dr.  Evans's 
Cysc,  vad  gun  "  sleep,  dear  lord  "  for  cyfatcun  shows  that  he  is  more 
ignorant  of  Welsh  grammar  than  the  quarryman  poet,  Glan  Padarn, 
author  of  "  Cwsy,  fy  anwylyd  di-nam  ".  Nash  renders  the  last  two 
lines  thus : 

I  respectfully  request  a  share  of  the  banquet,  and  a  recompense 

in  wine. 
This  has  been  with  difficulty  restored  from  testimony. 

With  this  trivality,  which  must  have  seemed  plausible  enough  to 
those  who  had  no  knowledge  of  the  language,  and  absolutely  con- 
YÌncing  to  Nash  himself,  contrast  the  incoherent  raving  of  Robert 
WiUiams : 

Sleepiness,  and  condolence,  and  pale  frotit, 

A  good  step,  wiU  destroy  sJeep  from  a  believer. 

Did  he  think  the  poet  was  mad  ?  Stephens's  translation  is  only  a 
shade  more  sensible ;  and  Dr.  Evans  alone  understands  his.  The 
rendering  of  these  lines  is  typical  of  thewhole;  obscurum per  ohscurius. 
I  refer  to  it  only  to  show  that  no  value  is  to  be  attached  to  judge- 
ments  based  on  such  an  understanding  of  the  poem  as  it  reveals. 

Many  points  of  detail  remain  doubtful,  as  the  notes 
show;  most  of  these  difficulties  wiU  no  doubt  be  solved 
when  the  whole  of  the  old  poetry  has  been  systematically 
studied.  But  I  think  it  may  be  claimed  that  the  general 
purport  of  the  poem  is  clear  throughout.  In  the  opening 
triplet  tlie  bard  declares  that  he  is  a  supporter  of  the 
Christian  cause,  of  which  the  house  of  Cunedda  were  the 
guardians,  as  the  upholders  of  Roman  traditions.  Though 
Cunedda's  own  name  is  British,  those  of  his  immediate 
forebears  were  Latin  :  Edern  (^ternus),  Padarn  (Pater- 
nus),  Tegid  (Tacitus) ;  and  Peisrudd  'of  the  red  tunic  '  the 
epithet  of  his  grandfather  Padarn  probably  had  reference, 


Taliesin.  221 

as  Rhys  suggests,'  to  the  purple  of  office.  Cunedda's  title 
of  "  Gwledig  "  was  in  full,  no  doubt,  "  Prydein  Wledic  ", 
23-21,  which  is  clearly  Welsh  for  "  Dux  Britanniarum  " ; 
and  it  is  doubtless  in  virtue  of  his  rule  being  "  recog- 
nised  as  that  of  the  Gwledig  or  perpetuator  of  the  com- 
mand  of  the  Dux  Britanniarum  "^  that  he  exercised  his 
authority  as  overlord  of  the  British  kings.  Later,  "  Prydein 
Wledic  "  was  in  turn  rendered  into  Old  English  as  Bì-yten- 
walda,  Bretwalda,  etc,  and  ^thelstán's  "Brytenwalda 
ealles  -Syses  iglands  "  corresponds  to  "  rector  totius  huius 
Britanniae  insulae".'  Although  Maelgwn,  Cunedda's 
great-grandson,  is  not,  so  far  as  we  know,  actually  styled 
"  Gwledig  ",  it  is  evident  that  he  retained  something  like 
his  ancestor's  position.  Gildas,  who  describes  him  as  ex- 
celling  the  British  kings  not  only  in  stature  but  in  power, 
calls  him  Insularis  Draco,  "meaning  probably  thereby  " 
as  Rhys  says,  "  the  Dragon  or  Leader  of  the  Island  of 
Britain.  "  *  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  next  paragraph 
Ehys,  speaking  of  "  Maelgwn's  son  and  successor  Ehûn  " 
making  war  in  the  North,  suggests  that  it  was  "probably 

1  The  Welsh  People,  1900,  p.  106. 

2  Rhys,  Celtic  Britain,  1884,  p.  121. 

^  The  Neìo  Eni/lish  Diotionary,  s.v.  Bratwalda,  quoted  in  Welsh 
People,  p.  108. 

*  The  Welsh  People,  p.  106.  Zimmer  suggests  that  the  insnla  im- 
plied  in  insularis  is  Anglesey,  Nenn.  Vind.  101.  For  this  vie\v  the 
only  thing  to  be  said  is  that  Maelgwn  is  called  "  Maelgwn  Môn  "  in 
B.T.  407  and  "  Maelgwn  o  Vôn "  41-26,  though  he  is  usually 
"Maelgwn  Gwynedd".  On  the  other  hand  insidaris  qualiíies  draeo  ; 
and  since  as  Zimmer  himself  exp]ains  (p.  286  fn.)  draco  to  the  Britons 
was  "the  symbol  of  the  military  power",  insularis  draco  seems  more 
likely  to  be  'the  dragon  of  the  Island'  than  'the  insular  man  who  is 
a  dragon '.  In  Welsh  poetry  yr  l'nys  and  even  Tnys  (defìnite  with- 
out  the  article  ]ike  a  proper  name)  is  used  for  Britain  from  tlie 
Ynt/s  of  "  Armes  Prydein  ",  B.T.  181.5,  in  the  9th  century  to  the 
lluoedd  Ynys  of  Deio  ap  leuan  Du  in  the  15th  (F  Flodeuyerdd 
Neicydd,   ed.  W.  J.  Grufìydd,:i909,  p.  77). 


222  Taliesin. 

in  order  to  retain  his  father's  power  ",  A  tradition  of  his 
wielding  this  power  is  reflected  in  the  medieval  tale  of 
"  Ehonabwy's  Dream".  In  the  dream  Arthur  is  seen 
receÌYÌng  from  the  enemy  a  request  for  a  six  weeks'  ti'uce  ; 
he  determines  to  take  counsel,  and  goes  with  his  advisers 
to  the  spot  where  a  tall  man  with  curly  auburn  hair  sits 
apart.  Rhonabwy  asks  the  meaning  of  this,  and  is  tokl 
that  the  tall  man  is  Rhun  vab  Maelgwn  Gwynedd,  whose 
privilege  it  is  that  all  shall  come  and  take  counsel  of  him.' 
"  The  privileged  positîon  held  by  Ehun  in  the  story,  "  snys 
Dr.  Lloyd,  "  may  well  be  an  echo  of  a  real  predominance 
held  by  him  as  gwledig  in  succession  to  his  father."  ^  But 
apparently  the  sons  of  Coel,  or  some  of  them,  rebelled 
against  him :  a  couplet  in  the  Gododdin,  as  we  have  seen, 
speaks  of  the  Edyrn  defending  their  land  against  the 
faithless  sons  of  Godebawc.  Our  poem  tells  us  of  a  war 
between  kinsmen,  the  sons  of  Edern  and  the  sons  of  Coel, 
in  which  22ün  was  slain  by  the  Coeling- — i?un,  who  was  as 
generous  as  the  hostile  Gildas  admits  his  father  to  have 
been.^  By  the  death  of  -Run  the  bard  laments  the  fall  of 
the  court  and  girdle  of  Cunedda,  the  Gwledig'. 

The  mystification  which  has  caused  the  poem  to  be  a 
"  stumbling-bloclí  "  is  tlie  work  of  the  thirteenth-century 
scribe,  who  understood  the  poem  only  a  little  better  than 

1  R.  B.  Mab.,  pp.  159-60. 

2  History  of  Wales,  pp.  167-8. 

3  A  reference  to  Rhun  fighting  in  the  North  is  seen  in  B.T.  29*17  : 
"  the  fortification  {myyedorth)  of  Rhun  frowns  {a  wc)  between  Kaer 
Rian  and  Kaer  Riwc,  between  Din  Eidyn  and  Din  Eidwc  " ;  the  second 
and  fourth  names  I  cannot  identify,  but  Kaer  Rian  must  have  been 
near  Loch  Ryan,  and  Din  Eidyn  is  Edinburgh  ;  between  these  lay  the 
landof  the  Coeling.  Inthe  dictionaries  wyyer/o?'íÄis  givenas  "funeral 
pile  ",  which  is  only  the  usual  bad  guess.  The  meaning  is  clear  f  rom  B.  A. 
8"5  :  "  ashen  [spears]  were  sowii  from  the  fingers  [lit.  four  divisions] 
of  his  hand  from  the  myyedorth  of  stone  ";  and  R.B.M.  SOl'lO:  "the 
myyedorth  of  the  host  of  Gwenòoleu  at  Arderyb  ". 


Taliesin.  223 

the  nineteenth-century  translators,  and  knew  less  of  sixth- 
century  liistory.  He  transcribed  the  dead  king's  nanie 
twice  as  "  /lun",  and  in  one  place  expanded  it  to  "  Ouneja  ", 
thereby  makinw  that  line  two  syllables  too  long.  Now,  is 
it  likely  that  the  monosyllable  Imn  represents  Cunedda  ? 
or  that  in  the  statement  "  By  the  death  of  a;  I  mourn 
the  fall  of  the  court  and  girdle  of  Cunedda ",  x  is 
Cunedda  himself  ?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  the  meaningr  is 
that  by  his  deatli  something  greater  than  himself  has 
fallen —  a  great  tradition  inherited  frora  an  illustrious 
ancestor?  And  if  there  could  be  any  doubt  about  the 
answer  to  this  question,  it  is  set  at  rest  by  the  fact  that  a 
few  lines  earlier  he  is  explicitly  called  the  "  Descendant  of 
Cunedda ",  Thus,  when  the  poem  is  subjected  to  the 
criticism  without  which  it  cannot  be  understood  at  all,  the 
"  stumbling-block  "  is  found  to  be  a  landmark.  The  poera 
commemorates  a  war  wliich  could  hardly  have  been  fous"ht 
either  before  or  after  the  time  of  Taliesin,  and  laments  the 
fall  of  the  power  of  Cunedda  in  the  person  of  his  descend- 
ant  Rhun  ap  Maelgwn,  Taliesin's  contemporary. 

The  upshot  of  our  survey  of  the  historical  poems  is 
that,  excluding  allusions  to  mythological  characters  such 
as  Brân,  they  relate  to  persons  and  events  of  the  middle 
and  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century.  Like  the  poems  of 
the  bards  of  all  ages  they  contain  references  to  famous 
ancestors  of  the  persons  in  whose  honour  they  are  sung : 
Ceneu  ap  Coel,  the  ancestor  of  Uryen ;  Cyngen,  the 
ancestor  of  Cynan  Garwyn ;  Cunedda,  the  ancestor  of 
Rhün.  The  poet  either  addresses  directly  the  princes  to 
whora  he  sings,  or  speaks  of  them  as  contemporaries, 
living  or  recently  deceased.  He  sings  their  praises  in  the 
manner  which  we  know  to  have  been  tlien  customary 
because  it  roused  the  ire  of  Gildas ;  but  his  eulogy  is  not 
a  mere  repetition  of  conventional  phrases — it  has  charac- 


2  24  Taliesin. 

ter  and  life.  He  mentions  many  battles,  souie  fought  in 
earlier  ^enerations;  one  or  two  he  says  lie  has  himself 
witnessed,  and  the  vividness  of  his  descriptions  in  these 
cases  stamps  his  gweleis  '  I  saw '  as  a  true  word  and  not  a 
mere  figure  of  speech.  The  poems  are  in  a  variety  of 
metres,  but  there  are  phi'ases  and  turns  of  expression,  and 
a  certain  delight  in  antithesis  and  repetition,  which  are 
characteristic  of  all,  and  indicate  very  clearly  that  theyare 
the  work  of  one  man.  He  calls  himself  Taliessin.  I  sub- 
mit  that  the  reasonable  conclusion  is  that  the  poems  are 
the  work  of  the  bard  of  that  name,  who  is  stated  in  the 
"  Saxon  Genealogies  "  (our  oldest  and  best  authority)  to 
have  ílourished  in  the  time  of  Ida  of  Northumberland, 
547-559,  and  whom  "the  universal  Welsh  tradition  "  as 
Matthew  Arnold  sa^^s,  see  above  p.  145  fn.,  "  attaches  to 
the  sixth  century". 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  only  possible  alter- 
native — a  twelfth  century  origin  is  not  a  possible  alterna- 
tive,  for  the  evidence  is  decisive  that  the  poems  were 
copied  from  a  ninth  century  manuscript.  What  does  the 
assumption  that  they  are  fabrications  of  the  ninth  century 
imply  ?  It  implies  that  there  lived  in  Wales  at  that  time 
a  man  (or  let  us  say  men,  if  a  conspiracy  is  more  likely), 
who  had  learnt  a  good  deal  about  men  and  things  in  the 
sixth  centuiy,  not  only  in  Wales  but  in  the  North  ;  who 
liad  develüped  in  a  remarkable  degree  the  modern  histori- 
cal  sense  of  the  unity  of  time,  and  avoided  anachronisms, 
especially  references  to  later  events  ;  who  was  a  great 
realist — mixed  his  pronouns  to  produce  the  effect  of  actu- 
ality,  simulated  emotions,  drew  vivid  pictures  of  ancient 
battles ;  who  was  a  rare  poet  and  a  great  master  of  the 
Welsh  language ;  and  who  applied  his  extraordinary  gifts 
to  forge  poems  to  attribute  to  Taliesin. 

Thomas  Stephens,  who  was  by  far  the  greatest  critic 


Taliesin.  225 

in  the  nineteenth  centurj  of  old  Welsh  literature,  and 
whose  leaning  is  aclcnowledged  to  have  been  in  the  direc- 
tion  of  scepticism  rather  than  credulity,  believed  these 
poems  to  be  genuine,  It  is  true  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand  them  very  well ;  but  he  understood  the  proper 
names,  and  could  divine  the  drift  of  many  passages,  and 
his  instinct  in  these  matters  was  sensitive  and  sure. 
Zeuss,  the  founder  of  Keltic  philology,  and  his  editor 
Ebel,  have  no  difficulty  in  accepting  the  possibility  of 
verses  by  Aneirin  and  Taliesin  surviving  and  being  trans- 
literated  into  medieval  orthography,  Gram.  Celt.,  1871, 
p.  965.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  scholars  of  the  last 
generation  did  not  regard  any  such  possibility  as  wortliy 
of  serious  consideration.  When  Rhys  says,  see  above 
p.  23,  that  the  poenis  ""  date  in  some  form  or  other,  from 
the  9th  centur}^,  if  not  earlier  ",  he  is  not  attacking  the 
tradition,  but  only  qualifying  a  statement  that  their 
language  is  medieval.  He  does  not  trouble  to  deny  a 
sixth  century  origin,  but  speaks  of  "  the  poetry  commonly 
assigned  to  the  sixtli  century  ",  and  leaves  it  there.  His 
argument  is  as  follows  {Welsh.  Phil.,  1879,  pp.  188-9): 

As  to  the  language  of  this  poetry  it  is  generally  not  much 
older,  if  at  all,  than  the  manuscript  on  which  it  is  written.  I 
say  the  ianguage,  for  the  matter  may  be  centuries  older,  if  we 
may  suppose  each  writer  or  rehearser  to  have  adapted  the  form 
of  the  words,  as  far  as  concerns  the  reduction  of  the  mutable 
consonants,  to  the  habits  of  his  own  time,  which  one  might  well 
have  done  unintentionally,  and  so,  perhaps  without  tainpering 
much  with  the  matter.  .  .  .  The  poenis  ascribed  to  tlie  Cynfeirdd 
or  early  bards  belong,  as  far  as  concerns  us  now,  to  the  Mediíeval 
period  of  Welsh,  though  the  metre,  tlie  aJhisions,  and  the 
archaisms,  which  some  of  them  contain,  tend  to  show  tliat  they 
date  in  some  forni  or  other,  from  the  9th  century,  if  not  earh'cr. 

It  behoves  us  to  examine  these  words  carefully.  The 
words  "  the  9th  century,  if  not  earlier  "  inevitably  convey 
the  meaning,  and  are  doubtless  intended  to  mean,  "  the 

Q 


2  26  '  Taliesm. 

9th  century,  or  possibly  the  8th ".  The  reasons  for  re- 
ferring-  to  that  period  poems  which  appear  in  a  medieval 
garb  are  three  :  metre ;  aHusions  ;  archaisms.  It  is  not 
a  logical  order,  for  a  reason  of  content  is  sandwiched 
between  two  reasons  of  form.  Let  us  take  them  in  the 
following  order  :  (1)  outer  form,  or  metre;  (2)  inner  form, 
or  lang-uage — archaisms  ;  (3)  content — allusions.  (1)  Some 
of  the  metres  were  obsolete  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  all 
are  okI ;  but  what  possible  reason  can  there  be  for  sup- 
posing  that  they  are  not  older  than  the  eighth  century  ? 
Had  not  Gildas'  praecones  metres  ?  What  reason  of  history 
or  tradition  is  there  for  the  assumption  that  there  was  a 
prolific  inrention  of  metres  in  the  eighth  century  ?  (2) 
Archaisms  may  prove  that  a  composition  is  old ;  but  how 
can  they  determine  a  limit  to  its  age?  Do  archaisms  prove 
that  it  is  not  older  than  theperiod  just  before  they  became 
obsolete?  (3)  Allusions.  Tlie  allusions  in  the  poems  we 
have  studied  above  are  to  men  and  things  of  the  sixth 
century  or  earlier.  How  can  allusions  to  men  and  things 
of  the  sixth  and  earlier  centuries  prove  that  the  poems 
were  composed  in  the  eighth  or  ninth  ?  It  is  seen  that 
the  two  reasons  of  form  are  not  reasons  against  the  tradi- 
tion — they  tell  more  f  or  than  against  it ;  and  the  reason  of 
content  is  a  reason  decidedly  for  the  tradition,  and  dead 
against  Rhys's  view.  How  could  he  draw  such  a  conclusion 
f rom  such  premises  ?  What  made  him  fìx  on  the  ninth  or 
possibly  the  eighth  century?  Had  he  any  hnowledge  of 
any  gifted  poet  or  poets  busily  engaged  in  faking  early 
poems  about  that  time  ?  None  at  all.  He  writes  in  his 
Hihhert  Lectures,  1888,  pp.  543-4  : 

It  is  convenient  to  follow  the  long-established  ciistom  of 
spealcing  of  certain  Welsh  poems  as  Taliessin's,  and  of  a  manu- 
script  of  the  13th  centiu'y  in  which  they  are  contained  as  the 
Book  of  Taliessin.  These  poems  represent  a  school  of  Welsh 
bardism,  but  we  know  in  reality  nothing  about  their  authorship. 


Taliesin.  227 

He  knew  notliing — liad  no  sort  of  historical  or  traditional 

evidence  for  his  statement.     He  made  it  because  he  saw 

that  these  poems  are  as  old  as  anything  in  Welsh,  and 

believed  that  the  Welsh  language  could  not  go  back  in  its 

uninflected  form  beyond  the  eighth  century.     This  belief 

followed  necessarily  from  his  assumption  that  thelanguage 

of  the  sixth  century  was  identical  with  the  fully  inflected 

lang'uage   of  the  first ;  but  it  has  no    other   foundation. 

He  himself  admitted  that  that  was  an  assumption  which 

he  could  not  substantiate,  see  above  p.  28.     Thus  when 

Rhys  flouted  tradition  and  contemptuously  set  at  naught 

the  considered  view  of  Stephens,  which  was  based  on  the 

facts  of  the  poems,  his  own  view  rested  on  nothing  but  an 

unproved  assumption.     He  made   the   assumption   under 

the  influence  of  a   gross  error :  lie  thought  he   had   dis- 

covered  the  actual  British  speech  of  the  sixth  century  in 

the  archaic  Irish  of  the  Ogams,  Welsh  PhiL,  1879,  p.  14Ö. 

In  the  Latin  inscriptions,  he  says,  the  names  "  have  their 

terminations    Latinised " ;    but   he  believed   that   in   the 

Ogams  he  had  the  real  British   forms.     This  erroneous 

view    he   stoutly   maintained,   op.    cit.,    pp.  154  íî. ;    and 

though  lie  formally  renounced  it  shortly  afterwards,    Celt. 

Brit.,  1884,  p.  215,  his  statement  about  the  poetry  of  the 

Cynfeirdd  was  made  when  he  held  it,  and  is  dictated  by 

it.     This  can  be  made  clearer  by  taking  a  concrete  ex- 

ample  typical  of  the  argument :    he  thought  that  maqui 

in  the  Ogams  was  the  genitive  of  the  sixth  century  forni 

of  the  Welsh  mah,  see  Welsh  PhiL,  pp.  155-6 ;  he  had  also 

read  the  genitive  Brohomagli  on  a  stone  not  much  later 

than  the  sixth  century,  do.,  p.  264 ;  he  concluded  that 

Taliesin  could  not  have  written  mah  Brochvael  45*21,  even 

in  its  oldest  spelling  map  Brochmail,  but  must  have  written 

maquos  Brohomagli,  which  upsets  the  metre  !     When  he 

discovered  his  error  he  did  not  abandon  the  conclusion, 

cì2 


2  28  Taliesm. 

for  he  still  believed  that,  though  maqui  is  Irish,  the  con- 
temporary  British  form  was  mapi,  which  for  the  purjsoses 
of  the  arg-ument  comes  to  the  same  thing.  But  of  this  there 
isno  evidence  at  all,  and  it  invo]ves  the  absurd  supposition 
that  a  new  lang-uage  was  suddenly  developed  in  Wales 
about  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  and  also  that  an 
identical  new  languagewas  suddenly  developed  in  Brittany 
about  the  same  time.  I  believe  he  had  considerably  modi- 
fied  his  views  on  this  point  in  recent  years — no  scholar 
was  ever  more  ready  to  revise  his  theories  in  the  liglit  of 
new  facts  ;  thus  in  1893  he  makes  no  comment  on  a  state- 
ment  of  Dr.  Evans  in  a  work  in  wliich  he  collaborated 
(Llyf r  Llan  Daf ,  p.  xlvi)  that  a  document  written  in  Welsh 
goes  back  to  Teilo's  time  ;  and  when  he  read,  in  1912,  the 
proof  of  pages  190-1  of  my  Grammar,  in  which  the  prob- 
ability  is  urged  that  the  loss  of  the  inflexions  had  already 
taken  place  in  the  sixth  century,  he  raised  no  objection. 

Holding  the  view  that  the  poems  are  spurious,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  Rhys  was  never  sufficiently  interested  in 
them  to  make  them  the  subject  of  sustained  and  serious 
study.  He  has  given  renderings  of  some  of  tliem  and  of 
parts  of  others,  but  he  never  worked  systematically  at 
their  prosody  and  vocabulary  ;  and  thus,  though  he  had 
the  insight  to  perceive  that  metre,  language  and  content 
bore  witness  to  their  antiquity,  he  never  had  any  concep- 
tion  of  the  true  extent  and  force  of  the  evidence  to  which 
he  refers. 

Zimmer  had  reasons  of  his  own  for  asserting  that  the 
poems  are  still  later  fabrications.  He  analysed  the  tract 
"  Saxon  Genealogies ",  and  discovered  most  convincing 
proofs  that  it  was  written  towards  the  end  of  the  seventh 
century,  was  enlarged  by  interpolations,  and  was  then 
copied  b}'  Nennius  at  the  end  of  the  eighth,  see  above, 
p.  44.     But  he  was  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  a-  may  be 


Talíesin.  229 

inorganic  or  excrescent  before  initial  n-,  and  therefore 
tliouí^ht  that  Aneirin  was  the  original  form  of  this  name, 
and  that  Nennius  mistoolc  it  for  a  Neirin  and  wrote  et 
Neirin,  in  error,  see  p.  45.  In  maldng  what  he  no  doubt 
be]ieved  to  be  a  brilliant  suggestion,  Zimmer  forgot  that 
'  and  '  was  usually  ha  before  a  consonant  in  Old  Welsh, 
and  appears  as  ha  in  the  very  oldest  piece  of  written 
Welsh  (the  Surexit  memorandum  noticed  below).  From 
the  assumption  of  an  error  where  there  is  no  error  Zimmer 
deduced  the  further  assumption  that  the  Welshman 
Nennius  had  never  heard  of  "Aneirin";  from  this  par- 
ticular  assumption  he  deduced  the  general  assumption 
that  Welshmen  generally  had  never  heard  of  any  of  the 
sixth  century  poets  ;  from  this  egregious  fallacy  of  arguing 
from  a  special  case  to  a  universal  rule  he  deduced  the 
further  assumption  that  the  Welsh  people  only  learnt  of 
even  the  names  of  these  poets  in  Nennius's  compilation, 
forírettinof  as:ain  that  the  Nennian  form  Neirin  is  not 
found  in  Welsh.'  From  the  last  assumption  it  follows 
that  Neirin  and  Taliesin  were  first  heard  of  in  Wales  at 
the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  that  they  became  famous 
only  during  the  ninth,  and  consequent]y  that  the  poems 
attributed  to  tliem  were  forged  in  tlie  ninth  or  tentli  cen- 
tury  at  the  earliest.  Zimmer's  "  emendation  "  is  an  il]- 
considered  piece  of  tampering  with  a  good  text;'  but  even 

'  Since  the  Welsh,  by  Zimmer's  snpposition,  only  learnt  the  name 
from  Nennins,  they  mvist  have  got  it  in  the  fui m  Xeiri7ì.  It  is  found 
later  among  them  as  Aneirin ;  this  is  theiefore  a  late  form  with 
exorescent  «-,  siiice  the  snpposition  that  they  got  it  fi'om  anotlier 
source  is  excludecl  e.v  hypotheni.  And  tliis  form,  which  is  denion- 
strably  late  on  liis  own  hypothesis,  is  the  form  which  Zimmer  assumes 
to  be  the  original  form  misunderstood  by  Nennius ! 

- 1  have  always  regarded  it  as  a  marc's  nest,  see  my  noto  in 
Y  h'eirniad,  lí)l],  p.  öü ;  and  1  l)eliuve  no  one  would  iiave  acce[>ted  it 
for  a  moment  but  for  the  exaggerated  deference  formerly  paid  to 
every  suggestion  made  V)y  a  German.      Anwyl  derived  Aneiriu  from 


230  Taliesin. 

if  it  were  sound,  the  superstructure  raised  upon  it  is  about 
as  extreine  an  example  as  ean  well  be  found  of  a  pyramid 
set  on  its  apex. 

The  view  thus  conceived  in  error,  and  later  supported 
by  preposterous  fallacies,  has  been  accepted  without  ques- 
tion,  and  repeated  by  other  writers.  I  have  not  accepted 
it  myself,  but,  when  I  have  had  occasion  to  refer  to  the 
Cynfeirdd,  I  have  expressed  the  opinion  that  some  of  the 
poems  attributed  to  them,  though  naturally  modernised 
by  copyists,  may  be  genuine.^  My  study  of  the  language 
has  been  the  outcome  of  an  interest  in  its  poetry  ;  and, 
approaching  the  subject  from  that  side,  I  have  been 
naturally  impressed  with  the  evidence  of  the  poems;  the 
argument  from  the  inscriptions  was  not  conclusive  ;  it 
was  a  mere  hypothesis,  and  might  be  fallacious.  Rhys, 
who  was  the  first  Welshman  to  apply  strict  modern 
methods  to  the  study  of  the  language,  was  conscious  of 
the  importance  of  induction,  or  drawing  inferences  only 
from  facts,  a  process  which  yielded  such  fruitful  results 
in  his  hands  as  compared  with  the  barren  philosophizing 

Honörinus ;  but  ö  gives  u  in  Welsh  ;  and  even  if  it  were  shortened, 
0...Ì  gives  e...i,  not  ei...i,  as  in  ceffin  from  coquma.  Tlie  sequence 
eirin  can  only  come  from  egrln-  (or  with  a  or  0  instead  of  e ;  or  with 
mj  or  (1  instead  of  g).  As  i...i  tends  to  become  e...i  in  Welsh  (e.g. 
dewin  from  dimni(s)  it  had  occurred  to  me,  and  (I  learnt  after  the 
appearance  of  the  above  note)  independently  to  Professor  W.  J. 
Gruffydd,  that  Neirin  may  come  from  Nigrinus. 

1  As  in  Y  Gwyddoniadur,  new  ed.,  art.  "  Cymraeg  ",  p.  68b,  written 
in  1891  ;  and  in  Chambers'  Encyc,  art.  "  Wales  (Lang.  and  Lit.) ", 
pp.  528-9.  In  1900  I  wrote  (in  Welsh),  "  Although  the  Gododin  of 
Aneirin  in  its  present  form  Avas  not  written  in  the  sixth  century  as 
was  formerly  supposed,  it  has  not  yet  been  proved  that  it  cannot  in 
substance  be  as  ohl  as  that  ",  Trans.  Lirerj^ool  Nat.  Soc,  1900-1,  p.  31. 
Cf.  also  my  Caniadau,  1907,  p.  56  (written  in  1892).  Rhys's  Hibh. 
Lfíct.  had  appeared  in  1888;  Zimmer's  Nenn.  Vind. ,wh.\ch.  contains, 
pp.  103,  283,  the  precious  argument  dissected  above,  was  published 
in  1893. 


Taliesin.  2x1 


of  tlie  old  etymoloí^ists.  But  perliaps  he  was  rather  liable 
to  regard  as  facts  oiily  those  of  the  more  palpable  sort, 
and  consequently  to  underrate  the  value  of  tradition. 
Tradition  does  not  relate  precise  facts  ;  but  he  did  not 
fully  realise  that  tradition  is  itself  a  fact,  not  always  to 
be  disposed  of  by  the  hasty  assumption  that  all  men  are 
liars.  Nor  could  he  be  trusted  in  all  cases  to  draw  the 
rio-ht  inference  from  his  facts.  Inscribed  stones  are  no 
doubt  hard  facts  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  inílected 
forms  used  in  Latin  and  primitive  Irish  represented  con- 
temporary  British  speech.  The  rising  and  the  setting  of 
the  sun  are  facts ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  sun 
spins  in  a  helix  round  the  earth.  Facts  may  be  rightly 
observed  and  wrongly  interpreted.  In  the  case  of  our 
poems  a  wrong  interpretation  of  certain  facts,  less  justi- 
üable  than  the  assumption  of  geocentric  astronomy,  has 
been  allowed  to  override  the  united  testimony  of  tradition 
and  history,  and  the  internal  evidence  of  the  poems  them- 
selves. 

There  are  few  inscriptions  in  Early,  or  even  Medieval, 
Welsh — in  fact,  very  little  Welsh  was  ever  cut  on  stone 
bef ore  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  the  Welsh  of  a  modern 
tombstone  is  not  the  local  living  dialect,  but  the  language 
of  the  Bible,  which  was  in  some  respects  archaic  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  preserving,  for  example,  the  final  -i  of 
the  third  person  plural  of  verbs,  which  the  spelling  of  the 
BIack  Book  {dygan,  deuthan,  2-5'8)  shows  to  have  been 
obsolescent  in  the  twelfth.  At  wbat  false  conclusions 
might  not  a  philologist  of  the  í'ar  future  arrive  as  to  the 
history  of  the  language  if  he  had  only  inscribed  stones  to 
go  upon,  and  took  no  account  of  the  fact  that  the  written 
language  may  preserve  ancient  forms? 

The  earliest  extant  inscription  in  Welsh  appears  to  be 
that  on  the  so-called  "  stone  of  St.  Cadvan  ".     Westwood 


232  Taliesùi. 

thought  the  lettering  belonged  to  the  seventh  or  eighth 
century,  Arcìi.  Caìiih.,  1850,  p.  95.  Ehys  examined  the 
stone,  and  confirmed  the  substantial  correctness  of  West- 
wood's  reading ;  to  him  it  remained  "  a  crux "  ;  Arch. 
Gamh.,  1874,  p.  243.     See  below,  Appendix  I. 

The  oldest  piece  of  written  Welsh  is  undoubtedly  the 
8urexit  entry  in  mixed  Welsh  and  Latin  on  p.  141  of  the 
Book  of  St.  Chad.  It  is  the  record  of  the  settlement  of  a 
dispute  concerning  a  piece  of  land,  the  fìrst  witness  being 
"Teliau".  It  certainly  appears,  on  the  face  of  it,  to  be 
what  Dr.  Evans,  under  the  eye  of  Rhys,  stated  it  to  be, 
"  a  copy  of  a  document  of  Teilo's  time  ",  Booh  of  Llan 
Dav,  p.  xlvi.  If  that  be  so,  and  the  probability  is  that  it 
is,  then  Rhys's  hypothesis  of  sixth  century  British  goes 
finally  by  the  board ;  and  the  language  of  Teilo's  time  is 
the  Welsh  of  the  poems  attributed  to  Taliesin.  The 
matter  is  discussed  below  in  Appendix  II. 

To  argue  from  the  absence  of  contemporary  documen- 
tary  evidence  of  Welsh  in  the  sixth  century  to  the  non- 
existence  of  the  language  at  that  time  is  to  commit  the 
error  of  taking  "  the  first  attestation  of  a  fact  to  be  the 
date  of  the  fact  itself  "  (see  p.  43).  It  is  more — it  proves 
too  much ;  for  bv  the  same  reasoning'  neither  British  nor 
Welsh  existed  in  the  sixth  century,  which,  of  course,  is 
absurd.  There  are  no  records  of  the  early  periods  of 
languages ;  and  if  philologists  had  been  tied  down  to 
actual  records  there  would  have  been  no  science  of  com- 
parative  philology.  In  the  absence  of  documentary  evi- 
dence  there  are  other  data  by  which  the  date  of  the  for- 
matioil  of  the  language  can  be  approximately  ascertained, 
just  as  distances  which  cannot  be  directly  measured  can 
be  calculated,  with  equal  certainty  if  the  calculation  be 
correct.  I  have  dealt  with  this  evidence  above,  pp.  27-34 ; 
I  will  only  add  here  one  point  which  has  a  bearing  on  the 


Taliesin.  ^  ^  ^ 


~öö 


tránsmission  of  our  poems.  The  orthograpliy  of  the  ninth 
century  is  not  one  that  would  have  been  inveuted  at  that 
time,  but  must  have  behind  it  a  long  literary  tradition. 
As  we  have  seen,  pp.  130-1,  a  mutated  consonant  was  re- 
presented  by  its  radical.  Nöw  the  change  which  resulted 
in  the  Welsh  soft  mutation  had  ah-eady  set  in  in  British 
itself ;  this  is  capable  of  mathematical  demonstration,  for 
the  change  is  caused  by  vowels'  flanldng  the  consonant, 
and  it  takes  place  in  Welsh  in  those  positions  where  the 
consonant  was  vowel-flanked  in  British.  Take  for  ex- 
ample  the  British  Maglo-cunos,  Old  Welsh  Mail-cun, 
Medieval  and  Modern  Mael-gwn  :  the  c  is  mutated  to  g  in 
the  last  form  because  it  stood  between  vowels  in  the  first ; 
the  mutation  is  conditioned  by  the  British,  not  by  the  Old 
Welsh,  form.  Though  in  writing  it  appears  after  the  Old 
Welsh  period,  it  cannot  have  arisen  after  that  period, 
since  lc  of  the  pre-mutation  period  becomes  lcli,  as  in  calch 
'  lime  '  from  the  Latin  calcem.  The  initial  mutations  per- 
haps  afford  a  still  better  proof :  '  one  son '  is  un  mah, 
because  in  British  it  was  ^oinos  mapos,  and  the  m-  followed 
the  -s  of  the  masculine  ^oinos ;  but  '  one  mother  '  is  un 
fam,  because  in  British  it  was  ^oinä  mammä,  and  the  m- 
stood  between  vüwels,  coming  after  the  feminine  *oind. 
There  is  no  other  possible  way  of  explaining  the  difference  ; 
and  no  possible  conclusion  but  tliat  the  mutation  goes 
back  to  British.  The  difference  that  thus  arose  in  British 
and  persists  to  day  cannot  have  been  obliterated  at  an 
intervening  period  ;  and  tlie  fact  that  the  mutation  is  not 
written  in  Old  Welsh  simply  means  that  the  orthography 
did  not  represent  differences  of  sound  that  existed  in  the 
spoken  language.  It  sliows  that  even  the  evidence  of 
records  may  be  quite  misleading  unless  it  is  interpreted  in 

'  I  put  it  iu  the  simplest  form  íur  the  sake  of  clearuess,  but  /,  r, 
or  n  comiug  after  the  cousonant  has  the  sanie  eíì'ect  as  a  vo\vel. 


234  Taliesm. 

the  liglit  of  phonetic  laws.  Now  the  soft  mutation  of  m 
was  in  Earlj  Welsh  an  m  pronounced  loosely,  on  the  way 
to  V,  but  retainiug  its  nasal  character ;  it  still  sounded  to 
the  Eng-lish  as  a  sort  of  m ;  it  became  m  on  English  lips, 
and  remains  as  m  in  Wmei  and  Leemiìig,  see  pp.  71-2. 
But  the  mutated  tenues  (p,  t,  c)  were  heard  as  mediae 
(h,  d,  g)  by  the  English  and  Irish ;  thus  trindod  from  Latin 
trinitätem,  spelt  trintaut  in  Old  Welsh,  was  borrowed 
from  Welsh  and'  appears  in  Old  Irish  as  trindöít ;'  so 
Cadvan  from  the  British  *Catu-mannos,  spelt  Catman{nJ 
in  Old  Welsh,  borrowed  in  the  seventh  century,  appears 
as  Cmdmon  in  Engdish ;  and  the  seventh-century  Cad- 
wallon  was  called  by  the  Eng-lish  Ca;dimdla,  though  his 
name  was  spelt  CatguoUauìi'  much  later  in  Old  Welsh. 
As  the  difference  between  a  mutated  and  an  unmutated 
consonant  arose  in  British,  it  must  of  course  have  existed 
in  the  sixth  century  ;  but  it  would  necessarily  be  less 
marked  at  that  time  than  later.  Thus  Old  Welsh  ortho- 
g-raphy,  which  can  be  traced  back  to  the  seventh  century  in 
the  "Saxon  Genealog-ies  ",  is  still  more  easily  explicable  as 
having-  been  formed  in  the  sixth.  It  must  have  been  pre- 
served  almost  unchanged  down  to  the  ninth  century,  and 
was  used  witli  but  little  modifìcation  for  two  centuries 
more.  Two  results  follow :  (1)  It  is  not  necessary  to 
assume  that  sixth  century  poems  were  trausmitted  orally, 
and  written  down  f or  the  fìrst  time  in  the  ninth  century ; 
the  existence  of  a  continuous  literary  tradition,  which  the 
orthog-raphy  proves,  makes  it  possible,  and  therefore  prob- 
able,  that  they  were  transmitted  in  writing.     (2)  If  our 

1  The  final  -t  in  Irish  was  sounded  d,  and  the  ending  is  -öid  in 
Modern  Irish.  It  is  only  in  the  niodern  forms  that  it  can  be  deter- 
mined  whether  Old  Irish  written  t  was  sounded  i  or  d. 

2  Y  Cyììimrodor ,  ix,  p.  170. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  157. 


Talíesin.  235 

scribe's  riinth  centiiry  copy  had  been  preservecl,  it  would 
present  us  with  the  poems  ahnost  in  the  form  in  which 
they  would  have  been  written  down  in  the  sixth.  The 
period  that  separated  Taliesin  from  the  ninth-century 
scribe  would  be  about  equal  to  that  which  separates 
Milton  from  us ;  Welsh  orthography  had  changed  prob- 
ably  less  during'  that  period  than  Eng-lish  orthography 
has  since  the  seventeenth  century  ;  in  the  spoken  language 
consonants  had  been  somewhat  modified,  as  vowels  have 
been  in  Eng-lish ;  but  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  the 
language  was  practically  the  same  at  the  end  as  at  the 
beginning  of  the  period.  Unfortunately,  we  have  only  a 
copy  of  the  ninth-century  manuscript  made  about  four 
and  a  half  centuries  later,  when  it  had  become  difficult  to 
read,  and  was  probably  imperfect ;  it  is,  however,  satis- 
factory  to  know  that  our  oldest  copy  is  only  one  step 
removed  from  one  in  which  the  poems  were  written,  so 
far  as  the  language  is  concerned,  practically  in  their 
original  form. 

I  have  dealt  above  with  the  historical  poems  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  these  alone  contain  direct  evidence  of 
their  date,  so  that  an  examination  of  them  must  form  the 
foundation  of  any  discussion  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
Taliesin  poems.  But  there  are  others  the  claims  of  which 
will  have  to  be  considered  if  the  claims  of  the  historical 
poems  are  allowed.  There  is  no  absolute  hard  and  fast 
line  to  be  drawn  between  the  historical  and  the  mytholog- 
ical  poems,  for  some  of  the  latter  contain  references  to 
Taliesin's  contemporaries  ;  thus  "  Daronwy  ",  which  speaks 
of  the  "  magic  wand  of  Mathonwy  ",  also  mentions  Cynan 
and  Rhun,  pp.  28-9  ;and  "  Golychafi  gulwyh  ",  as  we  have 
seen  above,  p.  197,  refers  to  the  historical  Brochvael,  Urien, 
Maelgwn,  Elphin,  and  to  the  mythological  sons  of  Llŷr, 
and   Lleu,   Gwydion  and  Brân.     There  is   thus  evidence 


23Ó  Taliesin. 

that  the  author  of  the  historîcal  poems  was  iii  the  habit 
of  alluding'  to  mythological  characters.  The  allusions 
take  for  g-ranted  the  reader's  acquaintance  with  the 
mjtholog'y.  Some  of  them  are  allusions  to  tales  pre- 
served  in  the  Mabinogion ;  in  "  Cadeir  Ceridwen",  for 
example,  the  poet  says  that  "  Gwydion  ap  Dôn  .  .  .  con- 
jured  a  woman  out  of  üowers,  and  brought  swine  from  the 
South  .  .  .  and  formed  horses  and  .  .  .  saddles  out  of 
fung'us  ",  p.  36.  These  allusions  are  followed  by  others 
to  tales  wliich  have  been  lost.  The  genuineness  of  the 
poem  is  not  disproved  by  the  f act  that  a  pious  passage  has 
been  added  at  the  end,  which  contains  a  reference  to  Bede 
and  late  rhymes.  Some  of  the  allusions  in  the  poems  are 
to  more  primitive  forms  of  the  tales  than  the  medieval 
versions  of  the  Mabinogion  :  Manawyt  and  Pryderi  know 
of  the  fairy  region  of  Caer  Sibi ;  the  passage  is  as 
follows  (34-8)  : 

(Ys)  kyweir  vyng  kafleir  yng  Kaer  Sibi ; 

Nys  plawb  heint  (a)  heueint  a  vo  yndi, 

Ys^  gẃyr  Manawyt  a  Phryderi ; 

Teir  oryan  (y)  iía(m  t)r//an-  a  gân  recbi, 

Ac  am  ŷ  banneu^  ffrydyeu  gweilgi, 

A(r)  ffynhawn  ffrwythlawn  ys  (syb)'*  obuchti ; 

Ys  whe(ga)ch*  no(r)  gwin  gwyn  y'^  llyn  yndi. 

'  My  chair  is  prepared  in  Caer  Sibi ; 
The  disease  of  okl  age  afflicts  none  who  is  there, 
As  Manawyt  and  Pryderi  know  ; 
Havgan's  three  organs  play  before  it, 
And  about  its  peaks  are  the  streams  of  ocean, 
And  above  it  is  a  frnitful  fountain  ; 
Sweeter  than  wliite  wine  is  the  liquor  therein.' 

^  ¥s,  formed  of  a  conjunction  of  indefinite  meaning,  followed  by 
the  inlixed  pronoun  -.s,  here  meaning  'if;  in  "  Gweitli  Arg.  Ll.  ", 
1.  9,  p.  ir)6,  it  is  'him'.  In  the  Aí/.s  just  above  our  I's  here,  the  -s  is 
also  '  him ',  the  antecedent  of  the  relative  '  who ',  wy.s  is  thus  '  not 
him  '  which  I  have  rendered  '  none  '. 

^  In  the  text  y  am  tan  tlu;  y  beiug  ;>.  later  addition  above  the  line. 


Taliesin.  237 

At  tlie  end  of  the  poem,  following-  this  delig-htful  bit  of 
pag-ànism,  is  a  short  prayer  for  reconciliation  with  the 
Most  Hig'h,  added  no  doubt  by  a  reciter  or  copyist.  Iii 
the  Mabinogion,  Manawyt  has  become  Manawydan ;  the 
fairy  realm  preserves  its  mythic  character,  and  even 
retains  a  trace  of  the  idea  which  placed  it  under  the  sea, 
when  we  meet  with  it  first  in  the  story  of  Pwyll  as 
Annwfn^  or  the  Bottomless,  for  the  sovereig-nty  of  which 
Arawn  and  Havgan  contend ;  but  later,  when  Pryderi  and 
Manawydan  come  to  visit  it,  it  has  been  rationalised  and 
localised  as  the  land  of  Dyved  over  which  Llwyd  vab 
Cilcoed  has  cast  a  spell.  A  direct  reference  to  an  early 
form  of  the  tale  occurs  ih  another  poem  in  an  alhision  to 
Caer  Sibi  as  "  the  prison  of  Gweir  "  (if  that  be  the  correct 
reading),  "  according  to  the  Story  [ehostol)  of  Pwyll  and 

and  so  probablj'^  not  in  the  copy.  The  above  emendation  imph'es 
that  the  reading  in  the  copy  was  hamcan  (i.e.,  in  Medieval  spelHng 
llafijan)  ;  if  c  was  misread  as  t,  it  would  become  am  tan  '  around  a 
fire',  the  h  being  treated  like  that  of  ha  '  and ',  etc.  Rhys  (see  ref . 
above,  p.  198)  rendered  am  tan,  but  confessed  Iie  did  uot  understand 
it.  It  is  an  obvious  misreading.  There  is  ju.st  a  question  whether 
Haf(/a7i  should  not  be  Afyan,  with  H.  due  to  popular  etymology ;  it 
might  possibly  in  that  case  be  a  diminutive  of  * Avac,  the  monster  of 
the  lake  (cf.  Amighu),  whose  name  was  made  into  Avanc  (the  word 
for  'beaver'). 

^  Banneu  has  cloarly  its  ordinary  meaning  of  '  mountain  tops ' ;  I 
am  not  aware  of  any  authority  for  the  sense  of  "corners"  given  by 
Rhys,  which  seems  to  be  a  piece  of  rationalising. 

*  The  medieval  yssyè  takes  the  place  of  old  ys  ov  iju';  see  p.  174, 
note  on  1.  15. 

*  Tiie  old  comparative  of  chwej  was  probably  chweeh,  see  Gram., 
p.  249. 

^  If  whech  is  thc  correct  reading,  the  article  must  stand  here  ; 
this  is  possible,  since  it  is  a  semi-demonstrative,  'tliat  liquor  (which 
is)  in  it '. 

1  In  our  text,  '20'%,  Annwf{y)n  is  "  under  the  earth  "  (/.•<•  eh'i/S). 
There  were  various  conceptions  as  to  the  location  of  the  other-world  : 
under  the  earth  ;  under  the  sea  ;  in  distant  islands. 


238  Taliesin. 

Pryderi ",  54' 19.  The  poem  treats  of  an  expedition,  or 
expeditions,  uiider  Arthur  to  Caer  Siòi,  which  seems  also 
to  be  indicated  by  the  other  names,  Caer  Yedwit,  Caer 
Rigor,  etc.  ;  mention  is  made  bf  "  the  caldron  of  Pen 
Annwf(y)n,  .  .  .  which  will  not  boil  the  food  of  a 
coward  " — Pen  Annwfn  is  the  cognomen  of  Pwyll  in  the 
Mabinog'ion;  and  the  title  of  the  poem,  in  a  later  hand, 
but  probably  traditional,  is  PreiBeu  Annwn  'the  Spoils  of 
Annwfn',  which  shows  that  Annwfn  is  only  another  name 
of  Caer  Sibi.^  Alfred  Nutt,  in  The  Voyage  of  Bran,  ii, 
pp.  13-17,  compares  the  Mabinogion  stories  of  Manawydan 
and  Pryderi  with  the  corresponding  Irish  tales,  and  says, — 

It  will,  I  thiiik,  be  conceded  that  the  Welsh  and  Irish  stories 
owe  their  likeness  to  origin  in  a  commonbody  of  mythic  romance, 
the  chief  actors  in  which  were  the  sea-god  Manannan,  and  a 
supernatnrally  begotten  semi-mortal  son  of  his. 

He  then  g'ives  an  account  of  the  yarious  theories  that  have 
been  advanced  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Welsh  tales :  briefly 
(1)  the}^  are  derived  from  the  common  stock  of  Keltic 
mythology ;  (2)  they  were  borrowed  from  the  Irish  of 
Gwynedd ;  (3)  they  were  brought  to  Wales  by  Cunedda's 
men  who  had  been  in  contact  with  the  Irish  of  the  North ; 
(4)  they  were  borrowed  from  the  Irish  story-tellers  of  the 
seventh  and  later  centuries.  On  any  theory  but  the  last 
the}»^  were  current  in  Wales  in  the  sixth  century,  for 
Cunedda  had  come  from  the  North,  and  had  driven  the 

1  Si8i  is  the  Welsh  equivalent  of  the  Irish  std  '  fairy-land '.  Its 
location  under  the  sea  in  our  poem  (as  in  the  Irish  tale  of  Laegaire, 
where  also  are  the  music  and  the  liquor,  Nutt,  Bran,  i,  182-4)  and  the 
synonym  Annwfn  in  Welsh  suggest  that  the  name  is  derived  from 
*sèd-,  the  long  é  grade  of  the  root  *sed-,  since  ë  becomes  i  in  Keltic. 
The  root  means  not  only  '  to  sit '  but  '  to  sink ',  etc.  (e.g.  sedìment, 
subszíZence) ;  and  its  long  ô  grade  occurs  in  AVelsh  in  saic?i  'subsidence, 
submergence ',  so^i  '  to  sink ',  in  which  also  initial  5-  remains  unre- 
duced  in  Welsh.  Si&i  depends  in  the  genitive  on  Caer,  and  would 
regularly  represent  a  genitive  *sidii  of  a  derivative  in  -io-  of  *sêd-. 


Taliesin.  239 

Irish  out  of  Gwynedd  about  the  year  400.  But  why  all 
this  assumption  of  borrowing-  ?  It  rests  on  the  perf ectly 
g-ratuitous  supposition  that  the  British  had  no  traditional 
lore  of  their  own.  If  Keltic  myth  survived  among  the 
Irish,  why  did  it  not  among  the  British  ?  The  answer  is 
that  it  did  ;  and  the  proof  is  in  the  tales  themselves. 
The  names  of  the  charaeters  provide  a  sufficent  refutation 
of  the  borrowing-  theories ;  the  name  of  Manawyd,  for 
example,  is  quite  a  different  formation  from  that  of  his 
Irish  counterpart  Manannan  ;  the  root  is  the  same,  but 
the  difference  of  suffixes  cannot  be  explained  on  any  sup- 
position  of  borrowing  ;  thus  while  the  later  Manawydan 
shows  the  influence  of  the  Irish  name  in  the  added  suffix, 
the  Welsh  must  have  known  of  him  as  Manawyd,  or  its 
British  equivalent,  from  the  twilight  of  the  gods  in  Keltic 
times.  Pwyll  and  Pryderi  cannot  be  derived  from  Early 
Irish,  which  had  no  p.  The  name  of  Gwydion  son  of  Dôn, 
is  purely  Welsh  in  form,  and  has  no  Irish  equivalent ;  his 
British  godhood  is  reflected  in  Caer  Gwydion,  the  Welsh 
name  of  the  Milky  Way.  Lleu's  name,  converted  into 
Llew  in  tlie  Mabinogion,  is  the  equivalent  of  the  Irish 
Lug ;  but  it  occurs  also  in  Gaulish,  the  twin-sister  of 
British ;  the  continental  Lugu-dünon^  which  survives  in 
Lyons,  Laon  and  Leyden,  occurs,  with  its  elements  re- 
versed,  not  only  in  Din-lle(u)  near  Carnarvon,  but  in  an 
old  Din-lle  üreconn,-  or  Wrelcin  Dinlle,  in  a  district 
where  Irish  influence  cannot  be  assumed.  Still  less  can 
Lugu-halion  the  old  name  of  Carlisle,  see  p.  59,  be 
assumed  to  be  borrowed  frora  Irish.  The  Irisli  had 
no  monopoly  in  Lug ;  indeed,  their  language  has  no 
cosrnates  of   the    name,'    while  Welsh  has    Ueu    '  light ' 

^  Aovyov8ovvov  .   .   .    vvv    8è    Aovy8ovvov    'Lyons',  Dio  Caasius ; 
Aovyó8ovvov  '  Leyden  ',  Ptolemy.  2  Red  Book,  col.  1047, 

F.A.B.,  ii,  ^88.  3  Rhys^  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  408. 


240  Taliesin. 

B.A.  4*21,  go-híi  '  lig-ht ',  lleu-fer  '  luminary ',  lleu-ad 
'  moon  ',  lleiv-ych  '  illumination  ',  llychwr  'daylight'  (above, 
p.  103).  In  the  vocabularies  o£  the  two  languages, 
where  strict  phonetic  tests  of  origin  can  be  applied,  it  is 
found  that  the  borrowing  is  mainly  on  the  side  of  Trish.' 
Borrowers  of  words  are  borrowers  of  ideas  ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  for  mj  purpose  to  turn  the  tables  and  show 
that  the  theorists  have  confused  creditors  and  debtors — 
it  is  sufficient  to  insist  on  the  obvious  tçuth  that  the  two 
races  inherited  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  their  re- 
spective  mythologies  from  their  common  ancestor.  Words 
generally  persist  only  in  association  with  ideas ;  and  it  is 
inconceivable  that  British  names  of  British  gods  could 
have  survived  except  in  traditions  concerning  them.  In 
our  medieval  versions  the  old  tales  have  been  edited  and 
rationalised.  "  The  very  first  thing  that  strikes  one,  in 
reading  the  Mahiiìogion,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  "  is  how 
evidently  the  medÌ8eval  story-teller  is  pillaging  an  anti- 
quity  of  which  he  does  not  fully  possess  the  secret."^  It 
is  also  true,  no  doubt,  that  they  contain  elements  which 
have  been  borrowed  from  Irish  and  other  sources.  But 
the  allusions  in  our  poems  are  not  to  the  Mabinogion,  but 
to  more  primitive  versions  of  the  stories  with  many  details 
now  lost. 

Again,  the  mythological  passages  are  not  to  be  dis- 
sociated  from  the  so-called  "  transformation "  passages, 
or  from  the  mystical  passages  which  accompany  both. 
Thus,  "  Kat  Gobeu  ",  23-9,  opens  with  a  transformation 
passage  beginning  "  I  have  been  in  many  forms  "  (for  the 
forms  see  above,  p.   101);   this  is  followed  by  mystical 

1  Man  darf  sagen,  dass  das  Irische  durch  nnd  dnrch  mit  britanni- 
schen  Elementen  versetzt  ist.  Es  ist  daher  nicht  zu  erwarten,  dass 
der  irische  Einíiuss  im  Britannischen  von  sehr  grossem  ümfang  wäre. 
— Pedersen,  Terffl.  Gram.,  i,  p.  24. 

2  Celtic  Literature,  p.  51. 


Taliesin.  241 

passages  consisting  of  the  account  of  the  battle  of  the 
trees,  and  the  statement  that  the  poet  was  not  born  of 
father  and  uiother,  but  created  out  of  ílowers  by  the 
spell  of  Math,  bj  the  spell  of  Gwydion ;  thus  mystical 
statements  are  directly  connected  with  mythological 
alhisions ;  these  again  are  followed  by  another  transfor- 
mation  passage,  "  I  have  been  a  speckled  snate  on  a  hill  ", 
etc,  see  above,  p.  110.  The  poem  "Angar  Kyfyndawt ", 
19-1,  contains  a  good  deal  of  mysticism,  or  semi-mysticism, 
in  the  form  of  a  profession  of  knowledge  of  the  secrets  of 
nature,  containing  lists  of  tlie  things  that  he  and  the 
bards  know,  or  that  are  recorded  in  their  books :  "  How 
many  winds,  how  many  streams  ",  etc,  p.  1 14  above  ;  "  how 
wide  the  earth  is,  or  how  thick,  ....  what  is  arranged 
between  heaven  and  earth  ",  20-23-5;  "  why  a  woman  is 
affectionate,  why  milk  is  white,  why  holly  is  green,  why  a 
kid  is  bearded  ",  21*2;  "how  many  days  there  are  in  ayear, 
how  man}'  spears  in  a  battle,  how  many  drops  in  a 
shower,  "  22"1.  Towards  the  end  couies  a  transformation 
passage  :  "  I  have  been  a  blue  salmon,  I  have  been  a  hound, 
I  have  been  a  stag,"  etc,  22-19.  The  poem  contains  one 
allusion  to  Gwydion,  22-3.  But  there  are  references  in  it 
to  Elphin  and  to  contemporary  bards,  which  thus  link  it 
with  the  historical  poems  :  the  bards  are  Kian,  19*4,  and 
Talhaearn,  20*4,  21-16,  both  of  whom  are  mentioned  in 
the  "  Saxon  Genealogies "  as  flourishing  at  the  same 
time  as  Taliesin  ;'  see  above  p.  46,  and  frontispiece.     The 

1  Mr.  WiUiams  has  suggested  to  me  that  Ef  ae  rin  roSes,  20  ö,  is 
a  bungle  in  which  the  name  of  Aneirin  is  disguised,  so  tliat  he  also  is 
named.  The  suggestion  seems  to  me  very  probable.  In  Ohl  Welsh 
ei  is  frequently  written  e,  probably  the  oldest  spelling  of  the  diph- 
thong  ;  Neirin  wouhl  thus  appear  as  nerin  ;  the  scribe  mistook  the  n 
for  a,  and  himself  inserted  the  ef,  as  in  "  Marwnad  Rliun  ",  see  note 
on  1.  25,  p.  214.  The  correct  reading  on  this  supposition  would  be 
ífeirin  a  ro^es, 

R 


\ 


242  Taliesin. 

repetition  in  inyerse  order  of  the  words  of  a  half-line  also 
occurs  [fel  wijnt  peí  ffreu,  pet  ýreu  jìet  wynt),  as  in  tbe 
historical  poem  "Yng-  Ngorffowys  ",  see  above,  p.  177. 
The  íirst  rhyme  in  the  poem  is  ymae  /  a  ganho ;  the  old 
form  of  canho  (3rd  sg.  pres.  subj.)  is  canhoe  (Gram.,  p.  328)  ; 
in  ymae  I  had  conjectured  (ib.,  p.  349)  that  the  orig-inal 
diphthong  was  oe,  and,  not  having  noticed  this  rhyme, 
had  only  the  Cornish  pl.  ymons  as  confìrmation  (p.  350). 
The  poem  also  contains  the  first  example  in  the  manu- 
script  of  the  scribe's  bungling  over  ar  guaut,  which  he 
writes  an  góaót  instead  of  ar  wawt,  see  above  p.  138  ;  this 
proves  that  the  poem  was  copied  from  a  ninth-century 
manuscript,  probably  the  same  as  the  exemp]ar  of  the 
historical  poems,  in  which  the  error  is  repeated. 

At  other  times  the  poet  asks  questions,  as  in  "  Mab- 
gyfreu  Taliessin  ",  27"13,  "  Why  is  a  niglit  mooniit, 
and  another  [so  dark]  that  thou  seest  not  thy  shield  out 
of  doors  ?  .  .  .  Why  is  a  stone  so  heavy  ?  Why  is  a 
thorn  so  sharp  ?  Which  is  the  better,  the  stem  or  its 
branches  ?  .  .  .  Who  is  better  off  [in]  his  death,  the 
young  or  the  grey-haired  ?  Dost  thou  know  what  thou  art 
when  thou  art  sleeping,  whether  body  or  soul,  or  a  bright 
angel  ?  Skilled  minstrel,  why  dost  thou  not  tell  me  ?  Dost 
thou  know  where  night  awaits  day  ?  .  .  .  .  What  supports 
the  structure  of  the  earth  in  perpetuity?  The  soul  .  .  . 
who  has  seen  it,  who  knows  it  ?  I  marvel  that  in  books 
they  know  it  not  indubitably.  The  soul  ,  .  .  what  is 
the  shape  of  its  limbs  ?  .  .  .     Death  is  established  in  all 

lands  alike ;  death  over  our  head,  wide  is  its  veil 

Man  is  old  when  he  is  born,  and  younger  always  ",  27*19- 
28*17.  The  poem  ends  with  the  usual  added  prayer  which 
in  this  case  is  not  even  in  verse.  The  reference  to  monks 
(^myneich),  27*15,  occurs  in  a  corrupt  line,  and  is  probably 
a  mis-reading,  like  beirS  îor  dynion  in  "  Yng  Ngorffowys", 


Taliesin.  243 

1.  11,  see.  p.  175  and  iiote.  There  is  one  allusion  to  Dylan 
in  the  poem,  27*21  ;  cf.  p.  104  above.  The  expression  ar 
ìvawt  occurs  in  it,  28*9,  correctly  copiecl  this  time  ;  but 
there  is  another  example  of  confusion  of  n  and  r  in  27'26, 
where  angel  appears  as  aryel,^  which  suggests  that  this 
poem  also  has  been  copied  from  a  ninth  century  original. 
What  is  the  meaning-  of  it  all'?  Dr.  Evans  believes 
that  the  mysticism  "  defìnitely  marks  the  period  of  the 
composition  of  the  poems "  as  the  twelfth  century. 
Why?  Because  "Under  the  year  1 200  Richard  of  Hoveden 
breaks  his  narrative  to  give  a  brief  summary  of  the 
maxims  of  the  philosopher  Secundus  "  !  pp.  xl-xli.  The 
transformation  passag-es,  as  we  have  seen,  pp.  101-115, 
are  treated  by  him  as  the  cryptic  autobiography  of  his 
twelf th-century  Taliesin,  of  which  he  has  spelt  out  enough 
to  enable  him  to  g-ive  "  in  outline  the  life  of  the  bard  ", 
p.  xxxiii.  When  that  was  all  in  print,  he  was  "  reminded  " 
by  Dr.  Mary  Williams^  of  the  well-known  parallel  to  these 
passag-es  in  a  poem  ascribed  to  the  ancient  Irish  bard 
Amorg-en.  So  he  writes  in  his  preface  :  "  The  transfor- 
mation  passages,  which  are  a  feature  of  Taliesin,  have  not 
been  discussed,"  p.  iii ;  and  has  the  hardihood  to  declare, 
after  learning-  of  the  parallel,  that  "  It  is  f atuous  folly  to 

'  arffel  canhwyt  is  doubtless  to  be  read  angel  canneit ;  tlie  -eit  is 
proved  by  the  rhyme.  This  emendation  has  been  made  by  Dr.  Evans. 
Most  of  his  emendations  and  renderinj^s  are,  ho\vever,  of  tlie  usual 
character.  He  did  not  know  canhuyt  'thou  seest'  in  the  first  quota- 
tion  above  ;  and  took  yscwyt  '  shield  '  to  be  the  Modern  Welsh  ysywyd 
'  to  shake,'  which  is  yscytweit  or  yxcytwair  in  Medieval  Welsh. 

-  This  is  acknowledged  in  a  footnote  to  p.  v.  It  shows  thathe  had 
been  writing  for  years  ou  Taliesin  without  once  looking  up  what  Rhys 
has  to  say  about  him  iii  his  Ilihhert  Lectures.  Rhys's  theories  maybe 
erratic ;  but  his  hnowledye  was  such  that  his  books  will  long  be  indis- 
pensable  to  students  of  Keltic  autiquity.  Had  Dr.  Evans  tuiiied  up 
"Taliesin  "  in  the  index  of  the  Hihh.  Lect.  he  would  not  need  to  have 
been  "  reminded  "  of  Amorgen's  verses  by  Dr.  Mary  Williams. 


244  Taliesin. 

imagine  that  early  Welsh  literature  is  a  thiiig-  apart  ", 
p.  V.  Amorgen's  verse,  he  says,  is  "  reputed  to  be  the 
oldest  in  Irish  ",  p.  iv ;  instead  of  drawing  the  obvious 
conclusion  that  the  same  thing  in  Taliesin  is  probably 
old  too,  he  merelj  suggests  that  Taliesin  might  have 
heard  an  Irishman  repeating  Amorgen's  lines!  "Griffyb" 
ap  Kynan  "  could  not  grow  up  amid  the  culture  and  tradi- 
tions  of  an  Irish  court  without  acquiring  and  spreading 
them  ",  p.  V.  I  do  not  intend  to  discuss  this  afterthought 
as  to  the  origin  of  the  transf ormation  passages ;  I  will  only 
say  that  to  my  mind  the  idea  that  they  belong  to  the 
twelfth  century  is  too  absurd  for  discussion,  and  that 
there  is  fair  palaeographical  evidence  that  they  are  at 
least  as  old  as  the  ninth. 

Amorgen's  verses  and  the  tradition  concerning  them 
are  thus  given  by  Nutt  in  the  Yoyage  of  Bran,  ii,  p.  91  : — 

When  tlie  soiis  of  Mil  invaded  Ireland,  they  were  led  by 
Mil's  son,  the  poet  Amairgen.  Setting  foot  npon  the  land  he 
was  about  to  conquer,  Amairgen  burst  into  song : — 

I  am  the  wind  which  blows  o'er  the  sea ; 

I  am  the  wave  of  the  deep  ; 

I  am  the  bull  of  seven  battles  ; 

I  am  the  eagle  on  the  rock  ; 

I  am  a  tear  of  the  sun  ; 

I  am  the  fairest  of  plants  ; 

I  am  a  boar  for  courage  ; 

I  am  a  salmon  in  the  water ; 

I  am  a  lake  in  the  plain  ; 

I  am  the  word  of  knowledge  ; 

I  am  the  head  of  the  battle-dealing  spear ; 

I  am  the  god  who  fashions  fire  in  the  head  i^ 

Who  spreads  light  in  the  gathering  on  the  mountain  ?^ 

Who  foretells  tlie  ages  of  the  moon  ?° 

Wlio  teaches  the  spot  where  the  sun  rests  ?^ 

Glosses  :  "•Fire  =  thought.  "  Of  man  "  is  understood.  ''Who 
clears  up  each  question  but  I  ?  "^Who  tells  you  the  ages  of  the 
moon  but  I  ?     '^Unless  it  be  the  poet. 


Taliesin.  245 

As  to  the  date,  Nutt  writes  as  follows  in  a  footnote  to 
p.  92. 

In  regard  to  the  date  of  the  poems  ascribed  to  Amairgen  it 
must  be  noted  that  they  occur  in  those  MSS.  of  the  Lebor 
Gabála,  or  Book  of  Invasions,  which  gives  what  may  be  called 
the  second  edition  of  that  work,  that  which  makes  Cessair  the 
first  immigrant  into  Ireland.  The  poems  are  hüwever  heavily 
glossed,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  they  formed  part  of  the 
original  edition  of  the  Lebor  Gabáhi,  which,  known  as  it  was  to 
the  early  ninth  centnry  Nennins,  must  be  a  product  of  the 
eiglith  centuryat  the  latest.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  poems 
are  as  old  substantially  as  the  first  coming  of  the  Goidelic  Celts 
to  Ireland. 

Without  going  so  far  as  to  eiidorse  the  last  statement  ex- 
cept  in  the  very  general  sense  that  the  underlying  ideas 
are  as  old  as  that,  I  believe  there  can  be  no  doubt  about 
the  antiquity  of  the  above  poem.  The  resemblance  be- 
tween  it  and  the  Taliesin  poems  from  which  I  have  quoted 
is  closer  than  has  been  recog-nised ;  it  is  not  limited  to  the 
transformation  lines,  but  extends  to  the  claim  to  occult 
knowledg-e  expressed  in  the  form  of  questions.  I  am  not 
aware  that  anyone  but  Dr.  Evans  has  suggested  that  either 
the  Welsh  or  the  Irish  bard  has  borrowed  from  the  other ; 
the  relation  between  them  is  that  they  have  both  inherited 
the  same  traditions,  the  existence  of  which  in  Britain  is 
as  certain  as  in  Ireland,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  more  direct- 
ly  attested.  But  d'Ai'bois  de  Jubainville'  has  propounded 
the  theory  which  Rh^-s'  has  adopted,  that  Amorgen's  "  I 
am  "  retains  a  more  archaic  form  of  the  underlying  con- 
ception  than  Taliesin's  "I  have  been  ".  To  adopt  Nutt's 
concise  summary,  the  argument  is  "  that  what  is  claimed 
for  the  poet  is  not  so  much  the  memory  of  past  existences 
as  the  capacity  to  assume  all  shapes  at  will  ;  this  is  what 
puts  him  on  a  level  with  and  enables  him  to  overcome  his 

'  Cycle  mytholoyigue,  pp.  244-6. 
■^  Hibhert  Lectures,  p.  .549. 


24Ó  Taliesin. 

super-human  adversaries  ",  loc.  cit.  It  is  seen  that  the 
jDroof  rests  on  a  mere  speculation,  not  on  facts  ;  it  is  a 
lame  attempt  to  get  rid  of  the  idea  of  transmigration. 
Bhys  "  fails  to  see  the  point  of  the  brag  "  in  Taliesin's 
"  I  have  been  ",  though  one  would  have  supposed  that  the 
claim  to  tnowledge  of  previous  states,  and  to  possession 
of  their  attributes,  is  plain  enough  ;  but  Amorgen's  "  I 
am  "  is  clear  to  him,  and  he  proceeds  to  speak  as  if  "  I 
am  "  obviously  and  naturally  meant  "  I  can,  when  I  like, 
take  the  form  of.  "  If  "I  am  "  means  all  that,^  how  did 
it  become  "I  have  been"  in  Taliesin  ?  This  is  inexplic- 
able  to  Rhys  ;  and  he  leaves  it  at  that,  without  perceiving 
that  a  theory  which  fails  to  account  for  the  facts  stands 
self-condemned.  If,  on  the  otherhand,  we  take  Taliesin's 
"'  I  have  been  "  to  represent  the  literal  meaning,  Amorgen's 
"  I  am  "  presents  less  difficulty ;  it  is  not  perhaps  the 
historic  present,  so  mucli  as  the  present  that  expresses 
the  persistence  of  identity" —  the  emphasis  is  thrown  on 
the  possession  of  the  attributes.  Dr.  Evans  has  oblig- 
ingly  quoted,  p.  iv,  a  renderiiig  of  some  verses  of 
Empedocles,  containing  the  words  "  I  have  been  a  youth, 
and  a  maiden,  and  a  bush,  and  a  bird,  and  a  gleaming  fish 
in  the  sea  ",  which  show  that  the  Pythagorean  doctrine 
found  expression  a  thousand  years  before  Taliesin's  time 
in  a  formula  identical  with  his.  That  metempsychosis  is 
the  underlying  conception  in  these  passages  is  proved  by 
the  last  quotation  made  above,  p.  242,  from  "  Mab-gyfreu 
Taliesin  ".     The  text  is— 

Hyuaf  vyh  dyii  pau  aiiher,       a  ieu  ien  pop  amser, 

'  "  Wheii  I  make  a  word  do  a  lot  of  \vork  like  that,"  said  Humpty 
Duiiipty,  "I  always  pay  it  extra." — Throv(/h  the  Loohincj  Glass,  ch.  vi. 

2  As  we  say  of  a  man  of  -W  "  He  is  a  Llaiidovery  boy  "  or  "  an 
Oxford  man";  or,  as  we  may  say  in  Welsh,  French  and  German  "I 
am  a  member  since  1900",  when  in  English  we  have  to  say  "1  have 
been". 


Tdliesin.  247 

ineaiiing-  '  man  is  oldest  when  he  is  born,  and  younger 
[and]  younger  always ',  which  shows  that  the  medieval 
scribe  took  it  for  a  mere  senseless  paradox.  But  the  metre 
is  half-lines  of  five  syllables  :  in  the  tìrst  half-line  the 
copula  vyh  should  be  omitted,  and  hynaf,  due  to  the 
copyist's  misunderstanding,  reduced  to  hên  '  old ',  which 
is  more  probable  than  hŷn  '  older '  ;  in  the  second,  one 
ieu  should  be  omitted ;  the  line  then  reads 

Hên  dyn  pan  anher,       a  ieu  pob  amser, 

'  Man  is  old  when  he  is  born,  and  younger  always  '. 
Whether  \ve  read  hên  or  hŷn  is  a  mere  matter  of  lucidity ; 
the  first  statement  can  have  no  intelligible  meaning  except 
that  man  existed  long-  before  he  was  born.  The  second,  I 
take  it,  means  that  he  never  attains  in  this  life  to  the  age 
at  which  he  had  arrived  in  previous  existences  when  he 
was  born. 

This  doctrine  is  patent  in  the  transformation  poems. 
The  determined  refusal  to  see  it,  and  the  resort  to  any 
shift — the  assumption,  for  example,  that  "  I  have  been  " 
is  a  meaningless  perversion  of  "  I  am  ",  which  in  turn  is 
assumed  to  be  a  cabalistic  condensation  of  '•  I  can,  at 
will,  assuuie  the  shape  of  " — i-ather  than  admit  the  plain 
meaning-  of  plain  words,  spring  from  nothing-  but  a  false 
linguistic  theory  which  relegates  the  poems  to  a  compar- 
atively  late  age.  In  that  age  they  stand  meaningless, 
isolated,  irrelevant — an  insoluble  enigma  to  those  who 
put  them  there. 

Let  us  move  them  back  to  their  traditional  settin<i-, 
within  measurable  distance  of  druidic  times,  and  see  what 
happens  then.  Take  first  Caesar's  account  of  the  teaching 
of  the  druids,  B.G.,  vi,  14;  I  quote  Professor  Oman's  free 
rendering,  England,  etc,  p.  28  : 

The  chief  doctrine  of  the  Druids  is  that  the  soul  doi^s  not 
perish,  but  at  death  passes  from  one  body  to  another,  and  this 


248  Taliesin. 

belief  they  consider  a  great  incentive  to  courage,  since  tlie  fear 
of  annihilation  may  be  put  asicle.  They  hold  many  discussions 
concerning  tlie  stars  and  their  jnovements,  about  the  size  of  the 
world  and  the  universe,  about  nature,  and  about  the  power  and 
attributes  of  the  imraortal  gods. 

The  quotation  is  trite  enough ;  but  anj'one  who  will  look 

at  it  again  and  compare  it  with  the  above  typical  extracts 

í'rom  the  mythico-mystical   poems  o£    Taliesin,    must,    I 

think,  be  impressed  with  the  light  it  throws  upon  them. 

Caesar  puts  in   the  forefront,  as  the   doctrine  on  which 

stress  is  specially   [in  primis)    laid,  the  immortality  and 

transmig'ration    of    souls ;    and    transformation    passag-es 

"  are    a   feature   of   Taliesin ".     The   words    "they   hold 

many  discussions  "  are  less  vivid  than  the  orig-inal  multa 

disputant ;  in  the  poems  we  have  echoes  of  bardic  disputa- 

tions  coiicerning  the  measure  of  the  earth  and  what  sup- 

ports  it,   and   about  natural   problems  (de  rerum  natura), 

with  many  allusions  to  the  ancient  gods.    Caesar,  it  should 

be  stated,  is  speaking  of  the  druids  of  Gaul  ;  but  in  the 

preceding  section  he  states  that  it  was  generally  believed 

that  the  system  was  invented  in  Britain  and  brought  over 

to  Gaul,  and  adds  that  in  his  own  day  those  who  wished 

to  master  it  thoroughly  went  to  Britain  to  learn  it.     The 

ideas    associated  with   re-birth   are,  as  Nutt  has  shown, 

implicit  in  traditional  Irish  literature  ;  but  here  we  have 

direct   historical    evidence  that  metempsychosis   was  the 

cardinal  doctrine  of  the  British  predecessors  of  the  Welsli 

bards. 

The  classical  evidence  concerning  the  religion  of  the 

Kelts  has  often  been  brought  together ;  it  is   given  in  a 

convenient  form  by  Nutt,  op.  cit.,  pp.  107-112. — (1)  He 

cites  first  a  quotation  made  by  Clement    of   Alexandria 

from   a  lost   work  by  Alexander  Polyhistor,  written  be- 

tween  82  and  60  b.c,  to  the  eíîect  that  Pythagoras  was  a 

disciple  of  the  Galatians  and  the  Brahmins.     This  has  no 


Taliesin.  249 

value  except  as  evidence  of  similarities  of  doetrine  giving 
rise  to  the  conjecture.  (2)  Then  comes  the  testimony  of 
Caesar  quoted  above.  (3)  Diodorus  Siculus,  about  40  b.c. 
(apparently  .quoting  from  Posidonius  of  Apamea,  who 
wrote  between  100  and  80  b.c,  see  Mon.  Hist.  Celt.,  ì, 
1911,  p.  314),  says— 

Amono;  them  the  doctrine  of  Pythagoras  had  force,  namely, 
that  the  souls  of  men  are  undying,  and  that  after  achieving  their 
term  of  existence  they  pass  into  another  body.  Accordingly 
at  the  burial  of  the  dead,  some  cast  letters,  addressed  to  their 
departed  rehvtives,  upon  the  funeral  pile,  under  the  belief  that 
the  dead  wiU  read  them  in  the  next  world. 

The  last  sentence  illustrates  the  vividness  witli  which  the 
belief  in  a  future  life  was  held  by  the  Kelts ;  this  is  em- 
phasized  later  by  the  statements  of  Yalerius  Maximus  and 
Pomponius  Mela  that  agreements  were  made  for  the 
repayment  of  loans  and  the  settlement  of  accounts  in  the 
next  world.  (4)  Ammianus  Marcellinus  quotes  the  Greek 
historian  Timagenes,  who  wrote  about  20  b.c,  to  the 
effect  that  the  druids,  following  the  precepts  of  Pj^tha- 
goras,  were  organised  in  close  corporations,  busied  them- 
selves  with  questions  of  occult  and  other  matters,  and 
believed  souls  to  be  immortal.  (ô)  Strabo,  about  19  a.d. 
mentions  the  studies  of  tlie  druids  in  natural  science  aiid 
moral  philosophy,  and  states  that  they  taught  the  imnior- 
tality  of  souls.  (6)  Valerius  Maximus,  about  20  a.d., 
wrote  of  the  druids, 

They  would  fain  have  us  believe  that  the  souls  of  men  are 
immortal.  I  should  be  tempted  to  call  these  breeches-wearing 
gentry  fools,  were  not  their  doctrine  the  same  as  that  of  the 
mantle-clad  Pythagoras. 

(7)  Pomponius  Mela,  about  44  a.d.,  saj's  that  they  profess 
to  know  the  size  and  form  of  the  earth  and  the  world, 
the  movements  of  the  heavens  and  the  stars,  and  tlie  will 
of  tlie  gods,  and  teach  that  souls  are  undyiiig,  and  tliat 


2  co  Taliesiii. 


>j 


there  is  another  life  in  the  shades  {aà  Manes).     (8)  Lucan's 

famous  passag-e  about  the  druicls  in  the  Pharsalia,  written 

about  60-70  a.d.,  is  quoted  from  Matthew  Arnold's  ver- 

sion,  Gelt.  Lit.,  p.  42  : 

To  you  only  is  giyen  the  know]edge  or  ignorance,  \vhichever 
it  be,  of  the  gods  and  the  powers  of  heaven.  From  you  we  learn 
that  the  bourne  of  man's  ghost  is  not  the  senseless  grave,  not 
the  pale  realm  of  the  monarch  below  ;  in  another  world  his  spirit 
survives  still ;  death,  if  yonr  lore  be  true,  is  but  the  passage  to 
enduring  Hfe. 

As  Nutt  points  out,  this  version  by  no  means  gives  the 
full  force  of  the  Latin,  Lucan  says  that  the  same  spirit 
animates  a  body  (regit  artns)  in  another  world  ;  and 
"  passage  to  "  should  be  "  centre  of  ". 

After  malcing-  every  allowance  for  repetition  and  in- 
direct  information,  we  can  hardly  avoid  concluding-  f rom 
the  evidence  that  metempsychosis  formed  the  central 
doctrine  of  the  druidic  system.  It  was  not  the  mere  un- 
reflecting  belief  in  shape-shifting,  with  which  the  obser- 
vers  would  be  familiar  in  the  folk-tales  of  other  races, 
but  the  conscious  formulation  of  the  principle  of  trans- 
migration,  which  reminded  them  of  the  teaching  of  Pytha- 
goras.  It  represented  a  fixed  point  in  the  system,  around 
which  gathered  many  speculations,  more  or  less  fluid, 
about  nature  and  the  gods. 

Belief  in  shape-shifting,  or  transf ormation,  is  universal 
among  primitive  races.  It  is  not  a  doctrine,  but  an  ex- 
pression  of  the  natural  worlcing  of  the  primitive  mind. 
It  has  not  spread,  like  a  rumour,  from  race  to  race,  but 
has  sprung  up  spontaneously  everywhere.  Primitive  man 
has  a  dim  conception  of  something  that  constitutes  a  per- 
son's  identity,  the  essence  of  his  being,  the  thing  that  says 
"  I  ".  But  it  is  conceived  of  as  purely  material.  When  a 
man  is  turned  into  a  dog,  it  is  his  human  body  that  has 
assumed  a  dog's  shape — that  is  why  he  is  the  same  person. 


Taliesin.  2  5 1 

The  notion  survives  in  tales  of  re-birth  where  some  portion 
of  the  person's  bod}^ — his  bloocl,  his  heart,  his  ashes, — is 
consumed  by  the  woman  who  is  to  become  his  mother. 
The  Welsh  tales  are  full  of  shape-shifting.  Lleu  is 
wounded  and  flies  awa}'^  as  an  eagle,  but  the  eagle  has  the 
wound.  Llwvd's  wife  and  her  maidens  turn  themselves 
into  mice ;  she  is  pregnant,  so  is  the  mouse  which  she 
becomes.  This  is  transformation  pure  and  simple.  But  the 
druids  do  seem  to  have  talcen  the  next  step,  and  to  have 
abstracted  the  soul.  Transformation  of  the  body  became 
transmigration  of  the  soul.  Physical  continuity  was  no 
longer  a  necessary  condition  of  the  persistence  of  identity  ; 
the  principle  of  persistence  resided  in  the  soul,  which  was 
thus  conceived  to  be  immortal.  But  the  soul  must  still 
be  clothed  in  a  body,  and  when  one  body  is  worn  out  or 
destroyed  it  acquires  another.  Hence  previous  existence 
in  various  bodies,  animate  and  even  inanimate.  Hence 
also  a  future  existence,  perhaps  in  another  body  in  this 
world,  but  ultimately  in  an  ever-young  body  in  a  happier 
world.  The  conception  of  metempsychosis  is,  as  Nutt  has 
shown,  too  old  and  widespread  among  the  Kelts  to  have 
been  borrowed  from  Pythagoreanism  through  the  Greeks 
of  Marseilles.  Greek  metempsychosis  is  a  parallel  de- 
velopment.  The  same  original  ideas  resulted  in  Thnice 
in  Orphicism  and  the  Dionysiac  mysteries,  participation 
in  which  enabled  the  initiate  to  free  his  soul  from  the 
trammels  of  the  body,  "  to  have  a  respite  from  woe  ". 
Pythagoras  did  not  invent  his  doctrine  ;  he  systematized 
the  Orphic  beliefs.  "  The  strong  likelihood,"  says  Nutt, 
op.  cit.  p.  134,  "that  the  aflinity  between  the  Greek  and 
Celtic  Elysium  myths  is  due  to  prehistoric  community 
rathíH'  than  to  historic  contact  justifies  a  similar  presump- 
tion  in  the  case  of  the  re-birth  myths."  Perhaps  the 
classical  writers,  when  they  compared  the  druidic  doctrine 


252  Taliesin. 

to  that  o£  Pythagoras,  were  wiser  than  they  knew.  The 
whole  matter  is  cliscussed  very  fully  by  Nutt^  in  the 
Yoyage  of  Bran,  vol.  ii. 

The  druicls  had,  no  doubt,  elaborated  a  crude  systeui 
of  philosophy ;  but  verse  is  not  the  proper  vehicle  f  or 
ratiocination.  The  bards  dealt  with  the  same  subjects 
poetically,  that  is,  allusively  and  emotionally.  In  our 
poems  \ve  seem  to  have  an  echo  of  the  old  bardism.  The 
poet  refers  to  questions  of  natural  philosophy  not  to  solve 
them,  but  to  brino-  out  the  wonder  and  romance  of  know- 
ledge,  and  the  power  of  its  possessor,  generally  himself. 
He  tells  "  the  fairy  tales  of  science  ",  as  science  was  then 
understood.  The  old  conception  of  the  other-world  liad  a 
fascination  f or  him ;  his  chair  was  ready  in  Caer  Sibi, 
where  no  one  is  afíiicted  with  the  disease  of  old  age.  His 
treatment  of  pre-existence  is  fanciful,  not  philosophical : 
the  lists  of  his  metamorphoses  are  largely  suggested  by 
the  rhyme.  He  deals  with  the  old  mythology  for  its 
poetical  value,  as  Christian  bards  have  ever  done ;  he 
mentions  the  gods  chiefly  in  relation  to  his  pre-existence  : 
he  was  with  Dylan  in  a  fortress ;  he  was  with  Brân  in 
Ireland  ;  he  sanof  before  the  sons  of  Llŷr  at  Aber  Hen- 
velen.  We  are  now  able  to  understand  such  a  passage  as 
the  following,  25"21  (see  above,  p.  109)  : 

It  was  not  of  father  and  mother  that  I  was  made  {digonat). 
In  the  beginning  {am  creu,  cf.  dechreu)  I  was  created  out  of  nine 
elements  ;  of  fruits,  .  .  .  .  of  primroses,  of  the  flowers  of  the  hill 
.  .  .  of  earth  .  .  .  of  water  was  I  made  ...  I  was  brought  into 
existence  by  the  spell  of  Math  before  I  was  on  earth  {kyn  buin 


^  The  discussion  is  unnecessarily  complicated,  so  far  as  the  use 
made  of  the  TaHesin  poems  is  cüncerned,  by  the  author's  acceptance 
of  the  theory  that  the  oldest  of  them  "  may  go  bacií  to  the  ninth  or 
eighth  centuries,"  p.  86,  and  of  Rhys's  theory  that  Taliesin  is  a 
myth. 


Taliesin.  253 

diaeret;  read  dacret,  2  syll.),  aud  by  the  spell  of  Gwydiou  the 
great  enchanter  of  the  Britons.' 

He  was  iii  existence  loug  before  he  was  born ;  he  was 
created  out  of  fruits  and  flowers,  earth  and  water  by 
Math  and  Gwydion,  the  great  enchanters  among  the  gods, 
who,  according  to  a  tale  to  which  he  refers  elsewhere 
(p.  36  ;  W.B.M.,  c.  100),  fashioned  a  wife  for  Lleu  out  of 
the  blossoms  of  the  oak,  and  the  blossoms  of  the  broom, 
and  the  blossoms  of  the  meadow-sweet. 

I  have  to  content  myself  with  discussing  the  mythical 
and  mystical  poems,  and  the  very  interesting  questions 
arising-  out  of  them,  thus  in  mere  outline.  A  full  dis- 
cussion  would  unduly  expand  this  vok;me  and  delay  its 
appearance.  But  I  think  enough  has  been  said  to  show 
that  these  poems,  which  were  mist  and  mystery  to  those 
who  looked  at  them  through  glasses  focussed  on  the  ninth 
century,  become  clear  when  we  f ocus  for  distance ;  and 
the  mist,  with  most  of  the  mystery,  vanishes. 

I  must  also  forego  for  the  present  aiiy  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss  the  Taliesin  legend  and  its  relation  to  the  mystic 
poems.  To  E-hys,  who  even  made  myths  of  Urien  and 
Owein  ap  Urien,  Taliesin  was  of  course  a  myth.  I  will 
only  say  that  the  si^teenth-centur}^  tale  of  Taliesin  does 
not  prove  it.  Similar  stories  were  current  of  Pythagoras 
at  an  early  age  in  Greece  ;  he  had  been  Euphorbus  in  the 
Trojan  war,  and  had  passed  through  many  metamorphoses. 
The  tale  of  Hopkin  ap  Philip  no  more  disposes  of  Taliesin 
than  that  of  Heraclides  of  Pontus  disposes  of  Pythagoras. 

Before  leaving  the  mystico-mythical  poems  I  would 
point  out  that  the  very  difference  between  them  and  the 

'  I  have  omitted  only  aniplifications  and  rirtiial  repetitions.  The 
only  doiibtf nl  expression  is  o  hrythoìi  '  of  Britous/  which  niay  have  boen 
sub.stituted  for  dyneSon  'of  men'  or  some  other  phrase  indicating 
more  clearly  the  divine  character  of  the  enchanter. 


2  54  Taliesin. 

eulogies  ancl  eleg-ies  points  to  the  genuineness  at  least  of 

the  latter.     It  is  improbable  that  a  medieval  forger  would 

refrain  from  attempting-  to  colour  his  counterfeit  eulogies 

with  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  "  opinions  "  of  Taliesin. 

In  reality,  however,  eulogy  to  be  acceptable  had  to  be 

realistic  and  unambiguous,  not  alkisive  and  mystical.     It 

was  a   branch  of  bardism  that  had  been  practised  from 

time    immemorial ;    and  its   rules  were  well  understood. 

Praise    of   princes  did    not  originate  with    the   pì'aecones 

whom  Grildas  describes,  for  Posidonius  of  Apamea  bears 

witness  to  it  as  ílourishing  at  the  beginning  of  the  first 

century  b.c.  : 

The  Celts,  even  wheii  making  war,  are  accompanied  by  a 
class  known  as  pai-asites,  who  dine  with  them.  These  men  sing 
their  praises  before  large  assemblies,  and  also  to  any  individual 
who  cares  to  listen  to  thera.  They  have  also  a  class  known  as 
Bards  iBápSoi),  who  play  the  music.  These,  too,  are  poets  and 
set  out  their  virtues  in  odes. — Mon.  Hist.  C'elt.,  i.,  p.  331. 

The  poems  dealt  with  above  are  those  which  seem  to 
me  to  have  a  claim  to  be  considered  genuine.  To  prevent 
any  possible  misapprehension,  I  desire  to  emphasise  the 
statement  already  made  that  I  by  no  means  regard  all  the 
poems  in  the  Book  of  Taliesin  as  being  likely  to  be  in  any 
sense  as  okl  as  the  sixth  ce^jiitury.  Mr.  Ifor  Williams  has 
shown  that  the  long  poem  "Arines  Prydein  Vawr  ",  13*2, 
belongs  to  tlie  ninth  or  early  tenth  century,  see  above 
p.  53.  AU  references  to  Cadwaladr,  and  so  probably  the 
poems  containing  them,  are  late;  I  see  from  Dr.  Evans's 
index  that  the  name  does  not  occur  between  pages  31  and 
74,  where  most  of  the  poems  dealt  with  above  are  found  ; 
it  comes  then  in  76,  77,  78,  and  80.  These  last  poems, 
with  their  refereuces  to  Gwybyl  Pfichti  and  Norbmyn 
Mandi,  are  obviously  late,  Poems  dealing  with  Alexander 
and  Irish  myths,  and  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  as  well  as  the 
religious  poems,  I  should  guess  to  be  late.     The  Song  of 


Taliesin.  255 

the  Wintl,  o6-21,  wliich  Dr.  Evans  believes  to  be  the 
earliest  composition  of  ìús  Taliesin,  is  late ;  it  rhymes 
traet  with  gimet,  and  troet  witli  coet — in  Early  Welsh  troei 
and  traet  were  troyet  and  trayet,  rhyming  with  -e/,  Gr.  32  ; 
and  it  rhymes  yma  (ynmnn)  with  da  (day).  It  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  mystical  poems ;  it  is,  in  fact,  an 
ordinary  riddle.  T  quote  the  three  opening  lines  and 
three  others : 

Dechymic  p\\  y  yw  :         creat  cyn  dilyw, 

Creadur  cadarn         heb  gic,  heb  ascwrn, 

Heb  wytheu,  heb  waet,         heb  pen  a  heb  traet  .  .  . 

Ef  ymaes.  (ef)  jng  koet,         heb  law  a  heb  troet  ... 

Ac  ef  yn  gyflet         ac  wyneb  tydwet  .  .  . 

Ef  ar  vòr,  (ef)  ar  tir,         ny  w}'!,  ny  welir. 

'  Guess  wliat  it  is  :  created  before  the  flood, 
A  mighty  creatui-e,  without  flesh,  without  bone, 
Withoiit  veins,  without  blood,  without  head,  without  feet  .  .  . 
In  fìeld,  in  forest,  without  hand,  without  foot  .  .  . 
And  it  is  as  wide  as  the  face  of  the  earth  .   .  . 
On  sea,  on  land,  it  sees  not,  is  not  seen.' 

With  which  we  may  compare  the  following  riddle  from 
the  Flores^  of  Bede  : 

Dic  mihi  quae  est  illa  res  quae  caelum  totanique  terram 
replevit,  sih'as  et  surculos  confringit,  omniaque  fundamenta 
concutit,  sed  nec  oculis  videri  aut  manibus  tangi  potest.  (Solu- 
tion  :  Ventus). 

There  are  other  "  wind  "  riddles,  such  as  Aldhelm's,  be- 
ginning — 

Cernere  me  nulli  possunt,  nec  prendere  palmis.- 
The  "  Song  of  the  Wind  "  clearly  belongs  to  this  class  of 
composition.     But    Dr.    Evans,    despite   his  predecessors' 

1  Quoted  by  G.  A.  Wood,  in  a  paper  on  "The  Old  English 
Riddles"  in  Aòert/sfni/t/ì  Studies,  i,  Jüll',  p.  42,  who  gives  the  refer- 
ence  Migne,  Fatroloi/ia  Latina,  xc,  539  fi". 

'^  G.  A.  Wood,  op.  cit.,  p.  41.  The  reference  given  in  the  bibli- 
ography,  p.  8,  to  Aldhelm's  riddles  is  Migne,  vol.  lxxxix. 


256  Talicsin. 

correct  rendering-s,  chose  to  strilce  the  key-note  of  his 
vokime  of  "  translation "  by  beg-inning-  with  a  flagrant 
mistranslation  of  the  fìrst  half-line  of  this  song-,  which  he 
renders  "  Whose  idea  was  the  wind  ?  "     He  has  obviously 

• 

never  heard  an  old  Welsh  folk-riddle.  In  Anglesey,  old 
riddles  are  still  repeated,  beginning-  with  the  words 
Dychymig  dycJiymig,^  '  Guess  the  riddle  ' ;  thus  : 

Dychymig  dychymig:  mi  gollais  fy  mhlant, 
Fesul  chwech  ugain  a  fesul  chwe  chant. 

Guess  the  riddle  :  I  have  lost  my  children, 
By  the  six  score  and  by  the  six  hundred,' 

the  solution  being  "  a  tree  tliat  has  shed  its  leaves  ".  In 
England  the  riddle  became  an  important  branch  of  literary 
composition  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  a  large 
number  of  Latin  riddles  being  written  by  Aldhelm, 
Eusebius  (HwEetberht),  Tatwine  and  Boniface.  The  Old 
English  riddles  formerly  attributed  to  Cynewulf  are  now 
said  to  have  been  composed  iu  the  early  eighth  century." 
The  rhymes  above  quoted  from  the  "  Song  of  the  Wind  " 
make  it  impossible  that  this  riddle  can  be  anything  like 
as  old  as  that ;  but  the  use  of  the  old  subjunctive  gimiech 
and  the  proest  instead  of  rhyme  in  the  second  line  take  it 
back  to  the  Old  Welsh  period  well  before  the  twelfth 
century.  It  is,  of  course,  not  a  Yolîísrätsel,  or  folk-riddle, 
but  a  Runsträtsel,  which  we  may  term  a  literary  riddle,  of 
the  kind  in  which  "  attention  is  so  centred  upon  grace 
and  truth  of  description  that  the  theme  is  .  .  .  but  thinly 
veiled,  and  identification  comparatively  easy "  and  "  in 
which  much  of  the  mystery  is  lost  in  the  joy  of  imagina- 

1  The  second  dychymig  is  the  noun  '  riddle ',  as  in  Barnwyr,  xiv, 
12  (Judges,  xiv,  12).  In  the  collections  in  Cymrur  Plant,  ì,  1892, 
one  riddle  from  Llandecwyn,  p.  17,  and  two  from  "  Eryri ",  p.  327, 
begin  with  Dychymi<j  dychymiy,  and  one  from  Conway,  p.  159,  with 
Dychymiy  fi  '  Guess  me '. 

2  G.  A.  Wood,  op.  cit.,  p.  30. 


Taliesin.  257 

tive  deliiieation.'"  The  Welsh  medieval  bards  cultivated 
such  delineatioii,  whieh  thej  called  dyfaln,  and  which 
culminates  in  the  strings  of  similes  in  the  cywyddau  of 
Dafydd  ap  Gwilym. 

Since    the    time  of    Sharon    Turner  it  has   been   well 
known  that  some  of  the  poems  in  the  collection  are  later 
than    others.      I    think    I    have    shown    above    that   the 
view  that  the  earliest  of  them  are  not   older   than   the 
eighth   or   ninth    century    was    originally    arrived    at   on 
grounds  external  to  the  poems  themselves.     It   has  not 
proceeded  from  any  knowledge  of  Welsh  metrics,  or  aiiy 
close  critical  study  of  the  text,  for  which,  perhaps,  the 
time  was  not  ripe.     Iii  receiit  years  much  good  work  has 
been  done  on  the  vocabulary  of  the  old  poetry  by  Mr  Ifor 
Williams   in   his   study   of   Aneirin,   see    p.   35   fn.,  and 
by  Professor  Loth.     It  is  niatter  of  common   knowledge 
that  the  meanings  and  exî3lanations  of  old  words  given  by 
Pughe  in  his  dictionary  are  not  to  be  relied  upon  ;  but  it 
is   not   so   generally  realised  that  he  guessed  wholesale. 
Sometimes   he   borrows  his    meanings  from  some  of  the 
old  glossaries,  which,  however,  are  largely  guesswork  too. 
But  he  never  mentions  any  authority,  or  gives  any  indi- 
cation  whether  he  is  recording  a  fact,  a  tradition,  or  his 
own  guess  ;  there  is  no  "perhaps"  or  "  probably  "  in  his 
colurans ;  he  is  the  perfect  charlatan  who  is  omniscient. 
By  setting  down  his  baseless  conjectures  with  the  same 
solemn   assurance   as   the   most    ordinary   facts,    he   has 
deceived  even  scholars  in  tlie  past.     The  wliole  of  the  old 
vocabulary  must  be  thoroughly  overhauled,  and  no  mean- 
ings  taken  on  trust.     Silvan  Evans  has  brouíîht  toíethera 
good  number  of  exainples  of  some  words,  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  is  too  ready  to  accept  the  guesses  of  his  prede- 

'  G.  A.  Wood,  op.  cit.,  p.  lU. 


258  Taliesin. 

cessors  instead  of  studying  liis  examples.  Tlie  twelfth 
century  poets  use  a  large  nuuiber  of  words  wliicli  are 
obsolete  in  medieval  jjrose ;  in  this  they  are  clearly  follow- 
ing  a  poetic  tradition,  so  that  their  works  are  of  great 
value  for  the  study  of  the  old  vocabulary.  For  this  reason 
the  whole  of  the  Myvyrian  poetry  should  be  carefully  in- 
dexed  ;  this  has  been  done  partially  by  Mr.  Williauis  for 
the  purjjose  of  his  study  of  Aneirin  ;  I  understand  that 
Mr.  Gwynn  Jones  proposes  to  do  it  systematically  after 
collating  the  text  with  the  original  raanuscripts  where 
possible.  This  is  the  kind  of  work  that  has  to  be  carried 
out  before  we  can  malce  the  most  effective  use  of  the 
material  available  for  the  study  of  the  ancient  poems. 
As  regards  the  study  of  Taliesin,  I  fully  recognise  tliat 
the  work  done  in  the  above  pages  is  only  a  beginning, 
even  in  tlie  case  of  the  poems  dealt  with  in  some  detail. 
I  have  been  largely  occupied  with  the  necessary  prelimi- 
nary  work  of  clearing  the  ground  of  rubbish.  But  I 
intend,  if  I  am  spared,  to  pursue  the  investigation,  and 
possibly  some  years  hence,  with  the  kind  permission  of  the 
Editor,  to  return  to  tlie  subject  in  the  pages  of  the 
Cymmrodor. 

This  paper  has  been  written  during  such  time  as  I 
could  spare  from  other  duties  in  the  last  sixteen  months  ; 
it  was  printed  as  it  was  written,  the  copy  being  sent  to 
the  Editor  in  driblets  of  ten  or  twelve  pages  at  a  time.  I 
owe  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  to  Sir  Yincent  Evans  for  the 
infinite  trouble  he  has  taken  witli  the  volume ;  for  correc- 
tions  in  copy  and  proof ;  and  for  much  valuable  and  help- 
ful  advice.  The  work  owes  its  inception  largely  to  his 
love  of  the  great  traditions  of  Wales  :  and  its  gradual 
developmeut,  often  in  unforeseen  directions,  to  liis  kind 
encouragement.  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Ifor  Williams, 
who  read  the  first  proofs  of  the  whole  volume,  for  many 


Talicsín.  259 

correctioiis  and  valuable  sug-gestions ;  the  (liscussion  of 
niany  cletails  with  hitn  has  contributed  to  the  soundness  of 
the  whole;  and  I  have  been  saved  raany  hours  of  search 
by  his  kindness  in  supplying  nie  with  references  froni  his 
index  of  the  Mi/vyrian.  My  best  thanks  are  also  due  to 
Dr.  John  Edward  Lloyd,  who  read  inost  of  the  first  proofs, 
for  the  correction  of  errors  in  historical  details,  and 
seyeral  references  and  valuable  hints.  It  is  seen  that 
care  has  been  taken  to  ensure  accuracy  of  statenient ;  but 
I  have  soiuetimes  made  alterations  in  the  second  proofs, 
and  have  not  always  followed  advice,  so  that  no  one  is 
reponsible  for  the  errors  that  remain  but  myself.  Lastly 
I  have  to  thank  Mr,  Shanlíland  for  the  help  he  has  always 
so  readily  rendered  by  placing  at  my  disposal  his  wide  and 
discerning  lcnowledge  of  the  resources  of  the  library  of 
the  University  CoUege  of  North  Wales. 

26th  Septemher,  1918. 


s2 


!6o 


Taliesin. 
APPENDIX  I. 


THE    STONE    OF    CINGEN. 

Tbis  stone,  which  was  in  the  churchyard  at  Towyn,  Merioneth, 
early  in  the  last  century  {Camhro-Briton,  ii,  1821,  p.  121),  and  is  now 
in  the  church,  has  been  called  the  "  Stone  of  St.  Cadfan ",  doubt- 
less    because    the   church    is    dedicated    to    Cadfan,   and    perhaps 

because  au  older  antiquary 
thought,  like  Ab  Ithel,  that 
(juad(jan  on  the  stone  was  an 
old  spelling  of  Cadfan !  It 
need  hardly  be  said  that  the 
stone  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  Cadfan.  It  was 
described  by  Westwood  in 
Arch.  Camb.,  1850,  pp.  90-5, 
and  interpreted  by  the  "phil- 
ological  skiH"  (ib.,  p.  95)  of 
Ab  Ithel,  pp.  96-100.  It  had 
previously  been  fìgured  by 
Edward  Lhuyd  in  Gibson's 
Camden,  p.  622,  according  to 
Westwood,  Lap.  Wall.,  p.  158; 
the  edition  is  not  named,  but 
it  raust  be  the  second,  1722, 
whence  it  was  copied  into 
Gough's  Camden  ;  I  have  not 
seen  these  engravings,  as  the 
Bangor  Library  contains  only 
the  fìrst  edition  of  Gibson's 
Camden,  and  no  copy  of 
Gough's.  Pennant  gives  an 
engraving  of  the  stone  in  his 
Tour  in  Wales,  ii,  1784,  plate 
V,  from  a  drawing  in  Lhuyd's 
but  the  drawing  diífers  somewhat  from 
the  Gibson  engraving  according  to  Westwood's  description.  West- 
wood's  engraving  in  the  Arch.  Camb.,  1850,  opp.  p.  90,  was  made 
by  means  of  the  eamera  lucida  from  rubbings  of  the  stone;  and  his 
lithograph  in  Lap.  Wall.  is  a  mere  copy  of  it.  Hübner's  engraving, 
Inscr.  Chrisí.  Brit.,  126,  is,  like  the  accompanying  block,  a  reduced 
reproduction  of  a  tracing  of  it. 


papers,  as  he  says,  p    93 


Taliesin.  261 

Rhys  wrote  a  short  note  011  tbe  stone  in  Arch.  Camh.,  1874,  p.  243, 
as  stated  above,  p.  282.  In  the  voI.  for  1897,  pp.  142-6,  he  discusses 
it  niore  fully,  and  suggests  that  it  is  not  gennine.  I  was  under  the 
impression  that  lie  had  written  the  second  article,  but  was  niisled  by 
a  footnote  in  Lices  of  Brit.  Saints,  ii,  p.  7.  which  refers  to  the  latter 
article  as  if  it  were  the  former.  Hence  I  did  not  see  the  longer 
article  until  these  notes  were  written  and  set  up ;  in  sonie  respects 
it  contirms  conchisions  to  which  I  had  come ;  in  the  followiiig  para- 
graphs  references  to  it,  added  in  proof,  are  included  in  square 
braclcets. — In  this  second  article  Rhys  gives  drawings  of  the  four 
sides  of  the  stone,  correcting  Westwood's  engraving  as  reproduced 
here.  The  fracture  ou  face  4  comes  between  the  /  and  t  of  molt, 
through  the  steui  of  /),  and  between  the  «  and  r  of  tuar.  Other 
points  are  noticed  below.  But  in  some  respects  Westwood's  draw- 
ings  are  obvìous]y  better ;  the  gu  at  the  top  of  side  2  is  given  in 
Rhys's  drawing  as  a  slightly  irregular  n,  but  in  his  transliteration  he 
reads  it^;<,  and  makes  no  mention  of  the  discrepancj' ! — Rhys  could 
make  nothing  of  the  inscription  ;  side  3  he  thinks  "  is  a  jumble  cut 
by  somebüdy  who  had  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  Old  Welsh", 
p.  14ö,  rather  a  desperate  conclusion.  Sides  1  and  2  he  thinks  may 
be  genuine,  but  "thoughthere  is  uniformity  of  lettering  throughout", 
he  thinks  these  "  may  have  served  as  models  for  the  lettering  of 
therest";  and  this  suggestion  is  made  only  because  he  could  not 
"  divine  its  meaning  ",  p.  146.  Why  was  the  N  not  imitated  ?  But 
the  idea  that  old  lettering  could  thus  be  perfectly  imitated,  and 
used  to  inscrihe  non.sense  is  too  absurd  to  consider  seriously. 

There  are  clearly  two  inscriptions  on  the  stone,  beginning  with 
the  crosses.  Westwood  suggested  several  possibilities  as  to  sides  3 
and  4;  Ab  Ithel  took  3  to  be  the  continuation  of  1,  and  4  the  con- 
tinuation  of  2,  reading  in  each  case  over  the  top  of  the  stone.  Why 
over  the  top  ?  It  seems  more  natural  to  suppose  that  the  adjacent 
sides  belong  together. 

I. 

Side  1,  with  its  two  uncial  n"s  appears  to  be  the  earliest  inscrip- 
tion  ;  and  it  seems  as  if  the  two  lines  in  large  lettering  on  side  4, 
tlie  next  side  to  the  left,  were  the  continuation  of  it.  Tho  two 
marks  after  celen  are  more  likely  to  denote  that  the  inscription  is  to 
be  continued,  than  to  mark  its  end.  The  three  lines  in  sniall  letters 
at  the  top  of  4  were  probably  addfd  later.  If  this  is  so,  the  fìrst 
inscription  is  — 

t  ClNgeN  celen  That  is :       Cynien's  body 

tRlCet  lies 

llltaimui  beneath 


2Ó2  Taliesin. 

Witli  regard  to  the  reading  there  is  only  one  doubtful  point. 
Westwood  toülc  the  iN  in  Cinr/eìi  to  be  a  ligatured  UN  ;  and  in  Pen- 
nant's  figure  the  bottom  of  the  i  is  actually  joined  to  the  N,  which,  if 
correct,  would  iinply  the  ligature.  Cunf/en  is  a  possible  okl  speUing 
of  the  uame.  On  the  other  hand  Westwood's  drawing  shows  no  con- 
nexion,  so  that  it  seems  safer  to  read  Cin,  as  Hübner  does.  [Rhys 
also  reads  Cẁ.j 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  about  the  (/.  It  was  probably  cf  the 
same  shape  as  the  other  //'s — an  Insular  (/  with  the  hook  iiiverted. 
Westwood  shows  the  continuation  of  the  top  stroke  iu  dotted  lines 
as  if  it  were  faint  or  worn;  [Rhys  in  his  drawing  gives  the  whole 
top  stroke  bohlly,  as  if  tliere  were  no  doubt  about  it,  but  curiously 
says  that  "it  uiay  possibly  be  a  c".] 

Ab  Itliel,  op.  cit.  p.  100,  beHeved  that  this  Cingen  was  Cyngen 
the  father  of  Brochvael,  and  grandfather  of  our  old  friend  Cynan 
Garwyn,  see  above  p.  201  ;  he  calls  him  "  the  son  of  Cadell ",  con- 
fusing  him  with  the  riinth-century  Cyngen  ;  he  means  Cyngen  ap 
Mawgan,  who  lived  in  the  eariy  part  of  the  sixth  century  and  was  a 
contemporary  of  Cadfan.  Hence  the  stüue  was  supposed  to  belong 
to  the  first  half  of  tlie  sixtli  century,  thougli  the  lettering  clearly 
indicates  a  later  date.  The  fact  is,  this  Cincjen  is  not  the  same 
name  as  that  of  Cyngen  ap  Mawgan  ;  this  has  old  medial  y  which 
would  now  be  consonantal  i,  see  p.  201,  fn.  2;  the  -yen  of  this  name 
is  the  same  as  that  of  Urbyen  which  is  now  TJricn ;  while  the  name 
of  Cyngen  ap  Mawgan  has  old  medial  c — it  was  spelt  Cincen,  see 
p.  201,  or  in  full  Cincenn  as  iu  the  Book  of  St.  Chad,  p.  141,  1.  4,  see 
p.  269  below.  The  phonetic  history  of  the  two  names  may  be 
summarised  thus  : 

British  (1)   Cnno-yenos  (2)   Cuno-cennos. 

OldWelsh  {\)  Ciìiyen  (2)  Cincenn. 

Modern  Welsh      (1)   Cynien  (2)   Cyn-yen. 

Note  that  tlie  ny  of  tlie  second  name  in  its  modern  form  are  sounded 
as  in  Ban-yor,  or  Iike  the  ny  of  the  English_;î«//p/-.  But  the  name  on 
our  stone  is  the  first,  and  would  now  be  Cynien.  In  Old  Welsh 
records  the  names  are  sometimes  spelt  with  o  iii  the  first  syllable 
uuder  Irish  influence ;  and  both  names  occur  together  repeatedly  in 
Llyfr  Llan  Daf  :  Concen  abbatem  Catoci,  .  .  Conyen  abbatem  Ilduti, 
p.  152,-  Concen  abbas  Carbani  vallis  .  .  .  Conyen  abbas  Ilduti, 
154  and  155.  It  might  be  worth  while  examining  the  Trallong  stone 
again  to  see  whether  in  the  inscription  Cunocenni Jìlius  Cunoceni  the 
last  c  has  iiot  a  tag  whicli  makes  ìi  y,  as  it  is  rare  in  these  inscrip- 
tions  to  fiiid  father  and  son  of  the  same  name.     [Rhys  does  not  know 


Taliesin.  263 

thü  nanie  with//,  and  writes  as  if  the  y  on  the  stone  could  represent 
original  c  at  this  early  period.] 

celen  is  the  medieval  ceìein  (iiiodern  celaìn)  '  dead  body '.  As 
noted  above,  p.  241  fn.,  and  below  p.  272,  note  15,  e  is  probably  the 
oldest  spelling  of  the  diphthong  ei,  so  that  celen  is  qnite  regular  for 
celei'n.  The  construction  in  Cìnf/en  celen  is  the  same  as  that  in 
Taliesin  (/ân  '  Taliesin's  song',  etc,  see  p.  121. 

tricet  is  probably  3rd  sg.  pres.  ind.,  being  an  old  middle  form  with 
-et  from  *-eto.  As  -et  is  an  iii)perative  endiiig  it  became  obsolete  in 
the  indic,  only  -it  and  -awt  reinaining  as  long  forms  in  that  mood. 

nitanani.  The  modern  o  dan  '  under '  is  for  Old  Welsh  yuotan,  in 
which  the  element  denoting  '  under"  is  guo-  (cognate  with  Latin  sutí); 
the  tan  is  also  found  in  am  lìan,  where  am  determines  the  meaning 
'about'.  The  determining  element  here  is  *ni  'under',  which  sur- 
vives  in  English  nether,  be-neath.  The  form  ni-tan  was  ousted  by 
guo-tan  in  Welsh,  but  it  seems  to  survive  in  the  Breton  in-dan, 
Medieval  Bret.  eniîan  '  under ',  probablv  for  n-dun  from  yíi-dan. 

As  for  the  suffix  -am,  this  occurs  in  Old  Welsh  for  the  medieval 
-aw  in  racdam  gloss  on  '  sibi  ',  and  -aw  is  used  abverbially  in  heibiaw 
froiu  heb.  But  the  -am  is  more  probably  the  Ist  sg.  form,  modern 
-af\  the  first  singular  is  used  adverbially  in  isof  'below',  uchof 
'  above '  (as  well  as  the  more  usual  2nd  sg.  isod,  uchod).  In  any  case 
nitanam  is  clearly  the  adverb  '  beneath  '. 

II. 

The  second  iiiscription,  on  sides  2  and  .'5,  seeins  to  consist  of 
proper  names.  Tliere  can  be  no  doubt  about  tlie  íìrst  six  letters 
tmi/ru.  Westwood  reads  the  next  letter  as  y;  but  it  is  so  uulilíe  the 
other  y's  on  the  stone  that  this  is  at  least  doubtful.  In  Pennanfs 
eiigraving  it  appears  as  i,  and  I  am  iiiclined  to  read  it  as  i.  [Rhys's 
druwing  gives  it  as  i.  that  is,  ordiiiary  z.]  The  next  letter  is  read 
ci  by  Westwood,  aiid  it  appears  as  ci  in  Pennant's  drawing:  but 
in  Gibson's  Camden  it  is  given  as  n,  and  Westwood  says  "  it  Iooks 
like  n'.  Clearly  it  is  n,  and  the  small  (jircle  read  as  c  must  be  acci- 
dontal.  [The  circle  tlius  guessed  to  be  "accideutal ",  i  e.,  not  part  óf 
thu  inscription,  is  according  to  Rliys  "a  hole  made  for  a  gate-hiiige", 
p.  144.  Still  Rhys  thought  the  //  was  oi:  hu  thought  the  c  ran 
through  the  hole,  and  did  iiot  see  tlie  tìrst  stroke  of  the  «.]  The  first 
eight  letters  tlien  read  teiioRU"|n. 

The  initial  /-  may  be  the  honorific  prefix,  as  iii  T-eiln.  etc.  IeavÌ!ig 
enr/ruin  for  tho  nanie.  Where  n;/  liad  iiot  disappeared  in  prehistoric 
times  before  r  it  tends  to  become  ////,  which  gives  Old  Welsh  c,  modern 
//  (see  Grani.,  p.  lôl):  jind  ni  in  the  last  syllalile  maybecome  y  as  in 
meheryn  from  Old  ^Velsh  maharuin,  nanii/n  from  namuin,  etc.     Hence 


264  Taliesin. 

eyìgruin  may  be  an  old  form  of  E()ryn  (late  Old  Welsh  Ecrin).  Llan 
Egryn  is  close  by ;  and  "  there  is  iii  the  parish,  to  the  north-east  of 
the  chnroh,  a  place  kno\vii,  as  early  as  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and 
James  I,  as  Croes  Egryn,  but  there  is  no  cross  there  now  ",  Lices 
of  Brit.  Saints,  ii,  p.  41/5.     May  not  this  be  tlie  missing  cross  ? 

The  next  name  seems  to  be  iJialted,  the  d  lost  in  the  fracture 
being  supplied  from  the  drawings  of  Lhnyd,  who  saw  the  stone 
before  it  was  broken.  This  wouhl  be  Malitedâ  in  Modern  AVelsh  ; 
the  name  that  comes  nearest  is  Malltey  in  Llan-falltey.  If  the  missing 
letter  was  c  the  names  would  be  identical ;  and  we  have  only  Lhuyd's 
evidence  for  the  d. 

The  yu  at  the  end  of  the  line  seems  to  be  connected  with  the 
adyan  in  the  next  line,  giving  yuadyan.  This  would  be  Gicaddian  in 
Modern  Welsh.  As  ywa-  and  yo-  interchange,  the  name  may  be  the 
same  as  that  of  St.  Gothian  (found  also  as  GuoidioMe  and  Guidiane), 
now  called  Gwithian  in  Cornwall,  Live&  of  Brit.  Saiìits,  iii,  pp.  249-51. 
[Rhys  is  again  astraj^  in  his  phonetics  when  he  supposes  that  adyan 
may  be  the  equivalent  of  a  later  Adyan  or  AtyMn.^ 

The  small  letters  at  the  end  are  given  by  Lhuyd  as  ■!  ,  The 
last  letter  however  in  our  drawing  from  the  rubbing  ig  more  like  R 
then  a  ;  and  the  first  in  that  line  is  proLably  a  (not  c).  Westwood, 
after  giving  the  above  reading  of  Lhuyd,  ignores  the  e  af ter  the  m, 
giving  no  reason  at  all  for  omittiug  it  in  his  reading;  it  occurred,  of 
course,  like  the  r  underneath  it,  and  part  of  the  t,  in  the  part  of  the 
stone  chipped  oíì'.  [Rhys's  drawing  shows  the  beginning  of  the  c 
after  the  m,  and  he  says  that  in  the  last  line  "  before  the  a  there 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  í  ".  I  should  guess  the  c  after  the  m  to 
have  been  an  a ;  oan  the  supposed  t  have  been  ^j,  making  map  ? 
But  the.se  two  short  lines  are  too  imperfect  to  be  interpreted;  and 
in  any  case  probably  represent  a  later  addition,  like  the  short  in- 
scription  at  the  top  of  side  4.] 

On  side  3  the  imperfect  second  letter  looks  like  the  beginning  of 
an  /• ;  but  Lhuyd,  who  saw  it  whole,  read  it  n.  [Rhys  also  believes  it 
to  be  n.']  Rhys  thought  he  found  traces  of  an  n  at  the  end,  com- 
pleting  the  name  Marciaun.  [Westwood  could  not  find  the  n,  and 
Rhys  in  1897  •'loo^ed  for  it  in  vain ".  Can  it  be  an  unfinished 
name,  or  was  there  a  contraction  mark  for  n  originallj'  above  tlie  w?] 
The  reading  then  is — 

anteRunc   clubnt   maKCiau(n) 

It  is  not  easy  to  explain  anterunc  ;  but  for  a  reason  that  wiU 
appear  later  I  guess  it  to  be  not  a  name  hut  a  preposition  or  adverb. 
Original  inter  is  ithr  in  Old  Welsh,  ì)ut  when  compounded  it  is  athr, 
as  in  cyf-athr-ach,  and  in  uthrynyn  from  Latin  intcrren- ;  the   form 


Taliesin.  265 

athr  implies  British  anter,  which  may  have  survived  in  Early  Welsh. 
The  second  element  unc  may  be  the  second  element  of  rh-wng  (from 
*per-ong-  or  *j)er-onk- ;  the  k  is  implied  in  the  th  instead  of  â  in 
rhgugthair,  etc).  The  hteral  meanincf  wonld  be  that  of  rhicng 
'between";  and  it  might  denote  'inchiding'  or  '  together  with ',  cf. 
p.  66  above. 

Dubut  is  either  an  abbreviation  of  Dubutuc,  or  a  short  form 
without  the  sufBx  -uc.  The  name  Duhutuc  occnrs  in  the  Latin 
genitive  as  Dohituci  and  in  Ogam  as  Doi-atuceas ;  in  Modern  Welsh  it 
is  Dyfodwg,  and  in  Irish  Dubthoch  or  Dubthach  (now  Duffy),  Lives  of 
Brit.  Saints,  iv,  p.  291. 

Rhys  identifìed  Marciau{n)  with  the  name  which  is  in  Old  Welsh 
Merciaun,  in  Medieval  Welsh  Meirchawn,  and  now  Meirchiüu.  The 
language  of  the  inscription  is  pre-Old,  or  Early  Welsh. 

III. 

Lastly  there  comes  the  little  inscription  at  the  topof  side  4.  The 
fìrst  line  is  clear,  molt.  The  second  character  in  the  second  line  was 
read  /  by  Westwood,  which  seems  to  me  most  improbable.  It  Iooks 
more  Hke  the  contraction  for  et  '  and '.  [In  Rhys's  drawing  as  in 
Pennant's  there  is  no  curve  at  the  bottom,  bnt  the  down  stroke  is 
struight;  it  is  thus  still  more  like  7,  the  symbol  for  'et',  which 
might  be  right-angled,  as  in  Hiibner,  op.  cit.,  110.  175.  Rhys 
places  it  nearer  the  second  c,  so  that  the  two  i-esemble  70,  that  is 
'  etc',  all  the  more.  He  however  reads  the  symbol  as  i.]  Though 
Westwood  ackní)wledged  the  third  letter  was  e  (i.e.  not  a  complete 
circle),  he  insisted  on  reading  it  as  0  ;  and  the  clear  p  after  it 
(given  so  by  Lhuyd)  he  would  have  to  be  d,  because,  of  course,  he 
did  not  know  tho  Welsh  word  petuar  'four',  which  is  as  plain  there 
as  if  it  had  been  written  yesterday.     I  read  this  inscription  then — 

molt 

c-icpe 

tuaR 

The  word  ìuoI  is  probably  the  Medieval  Welsh  ìno/l  '  tomb  ',  as 
seen  in  B.B.  l'08;  in  Old  Welsh  //  was  written  /,  cf.  p.  134,  fn.  2. 
The  six  letters  at  the  end  are  pettiar  '  f our  '  as  already  noted.  In 
Old  Welsh  this  word  is  i^\íe\t  pefguar ;  buty  was  nevt'r  pronounced  in 
the  word  ;  in  Old  Welsh  orthography  gu  was  the  conventional  symbol 
for  consonantal  ir,  treated  as  the  mutation  of  gw.  Tliough  gu  is  old, 
the  unconvontional  petuar  here  is  another  indication  that  the  iu- 
scription  is  earlier  than  the  Old  Welsh  period. 

If  the  fiist  word  is  mol  'toiidj"  and  the  last  petuar  '  f our '.  wliat 
are  thu  letters  that  conie  betwecn  them  ;■'     My  guess  is  as  follows : 


206  Taliesin. 

mol  t  c  S'  c  petuar,  that  is,  'the  tomb  of  T(egryn),  C(ynien)  et  c(eteri) 
four  (aud  four  others) ".  The  four  others  woiild  be  Malted,  Guadgan, 
Dubut  and  Marciaun,  leaving  anterunc  as  a  connective. 

[Rhys  reads  "  ìuolt  cic  petuar,  which  nieans  tither  'the  mutton 
flesh  of  f our '  or  'a  wether  (is)  flesh  of  or  for  f our ' ",  p.  145.  His 
usual  sense  of  humour  deserted  him  liere.  I  niay  say  that  at  fìrst 
moltcic  petuar  '  miitton  for  four'  haunted  me,  not  as  a  possibihty, 
but  as  a  sort  of  mockingparody  of  the  unknovvn  sohition.  Itseemed 
too  incongruous  to  be  considered  seriously  as  a  possible  readingof  an 
inscription  on  a  tombstone.  Whatever  the  sohition  is,  it  surely  can- 
not  be  this.] 

IV. 

There  is  of  course  much  that  is  doubtful  in  the  above  attempt  at 
explaining  the  stone — it  is  not  to  be  expected  tliat  what  has  baffled 
all  previous  attempts  should  yield  its  secret  all  at  once.  But  the 
first  inscription  is,  I  think,  clear ;  and  it  is  enough  for  my  present 
purpose,  because  it  is  an  example  of  Welsh,  not  British,  carved  in  the 
seventh  century. 

If  my  conjectnre  as  to  Eyryn  is  correct,  the  stone  can  perhaps  be 
approximately  dated.  Egryn  is  said  to  be  the  son  of  Eneilian 
daughter  of  Cadfan  ab  lago  (the  prince,  not  the  saint).  This  Cadfan 
died  early  in  the  seventh  century  ;  his  son  the  great  Cadwallon 
{Cadiualla)  died,  according  to  the  Annales  Cambriae,  in  G31  ;  we 
should  therefore  probably  not  be  far  wrong  in  supposing  that  Egryn, 
Cadfan's  grandson  and  Cadwallon's  nephew,  died  about  660. 

There  was  no  tradition  of  Welsh  being  carved  in  Roman  capitals: 
it  had  only  been  written  in  half-uncial  script.  Script  forms  were 
already  in  use  in  Latin  inscriptions.  The  Llanillteyrn  stone  (Hübner, 
no.  64)  attributed  by  Rhys  probably  to  the  sixth  century,  has  in 
Vendumaf/li  the  uncial  e  of  this  stonë,  and  d  like  that  of  duljut  side  3  ; 
but  its  g  is  a  good  Insular  form.  The  Catamanus  inscriptiou  at  Llan- 
gadwaladr,  in  memory  of  Cadfan  ab  lago,  probably  carved  soon  after 
his  death — there  seems  to  be  no  ground  whatever  for  the  supposition 
that  it  was  set  up  by  his  grandson  Cadwaladr— has  luicial  e  with 
the  cross  stroke  not  touching  the  back  [as  Rhys  diaws  two  of  the  e's 
on  this  stone] ;  it  has  the  r  with  the  curved  second  part  horizontal ; 
it  has  the  square-bottomed  u  ;  and  tlie  last  m  of  omuium  is  minuscule 
m  as  here  ;  Hübner's  plate  is  a  poor  drawing  of  this  inscription  (no. 
149).  The  us  on  the  Llangaffo  stone  (Hübner.  no.  148)  are  still 
more  like  our  u"s ;  one  e  is  minuscule,  the  others  micial  like  our  í-'s  ; 
but  the  Llangafto  stone  has  not  been  dated. 

[I  do  not  think  Rliys  realised  the  importance  of  this  inscription. 
He  recognised  in  1897  that  it  was  Welsh  ;  but  refrained  from  sug- 


Taliesin.  267 

gesting  an  approxiniate  date.  His  treatment  of  it  is  rather  perfnnc- 
tory  ;  he  does  not  explain  how  his  drawing  was  made,  or  refer  to 
the  clifferences  between  it  and  Westwood's,  or  even  between  it  ahd 
his  own  readings.  Tlie  stone  shonld  be  carefully  examined  again, 
and  new  drawings  made.  It  could  not  be  done  for  tliis  paper  with- 
out  causing  nuich  delay.] 

I  append  a  note  on  the  lettering  by  Professor  Lindsay. 


NOTE. 

The  writing  on  this  stone  is  half-uncial,  of  much  the  same  type 
as  the  writing  of  the  Book  of  St.  Chad  (wliich  in  my  Early  Welsh 
Scn'pf,  p.  :^,  ^p-  4,  I  have  absnrdly  called  "  uncial  ").  The  persistent 
use  of  uncial  e  (e)  niay  be  due  to  the  difficulty  of  cutting  the  "  bow  " 
of  half-uncial  e  (e)  on  stone.  The  two  uncial  w's  in  Cinf/en  in  con- 
trast  to  the  half-nncial  ìì  of  celen,  etc,  may  be  a  dehberate  discrimi- 
nation  of  the  name  from  the  rest  of  the  sentence,  the  eqnivalent  in 
fact  of  our 

CINGEN 
lies  here. 

That  an  inscription  with  two  nncial  n's  and  the  remaining  n  half- 
uncial  must  be  older  than  an  inscription  with  all  the  w"s  half-uncial  is 
not  impossil)le,  but  by  no  means  certain.  Fur  scribes  found  half- 
uncial  n  anawk\vard  letter  sometimes.  In  particular  the  combination 
in  was  so  liki'  ?/í  that  some  Insular  scribes  preferred  ÌN  (with  uncial 
n)  while  others  wrote  In  (with  tall  i).  And  half-nncial  n  so  resembled 
half-uncial  r  that  Continental  scribes  used  nncial  n  in  their  half- 
uncial  script,  while  Insular  scribes  often  substituted  "cursive"  r 
(with  the  shaft  projected  below  the  line).  In  short,  if  an  nncial 
letter  is  to  show  its  face  in  half-uncial  script,  one  may  expect  the 
letter  to  be  n. 

W.    M.    LlNDSAY. 


208  Taliesin. 

APPENDIX   II. 


THE    SUREXIT   MEMORANDÜM. 

The  oldest  known  piece  of  written  Welsh  is  the  second  entry  on 
p.  141  of  the  Book  of  St.  Chad.  A  reduced  facsimile  of  the  paçfe 
appears  herewith  :  the  original  measnres  about  12  inches  by  9,  but 
the  small  plate  will  enable  the  reader  to  follow  the  argument.  The 
block  was  made  from  an  untouched  photograph  of  the  page  kindly 
sent  me  for  the  purpose  by  the  Dean  of  Lichíìeld.  Large  collotj'pe 
facsimiles  of  the  page  are  given  in  Evans  and  Ehys's  Book  of  Lían 
Dáv,  p.  xliii,  and  in  Lind.say"s  Early  Welsh  Script,  p.  46. 

I. 

The  manuscript  contains  the  Gospels  in  Latin,  written  in  a  large 
half-uncial  hand.  Palaeographers  are  not  agreed  as  to  its  date. 
The  Palaeographical  Society  editors  date  it  "  about  700."  E.  Hein- 
rich  Zimmermann,  in  his  Yorharolinyi&che  Miniaturen,  Berlin,  1916 
(4  vols.  plates  folio.  1  vol.  text  8vo,  of  which  there  is  a  copy  at  the 
Bodleian)  dates  it  "  second  quarter  of  the  8th  century."  But  Dr. 
H.  M.  Bannister,  of  the  Bodleian,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  this 
information,  finds  himself  "  very  f requently  at  variance  "  with  the 
datings  of  Zimrnermann,  who  goes  by  miniatures,  "  which  often 
slavishly  imitate  the  exemplar  before  the  copyist."  Professor 
Lindsay  agrees  that  Zimmermann's  datings  are  unreliable.  In  his 
Early  Welsh  í^cript,  p.  3,  he  inclines  to  an  early  date  :  and,  though  he 
clearly  regards  it  as  improbable,  he  does  not  absolutely  exclude  the 
possibility  of  the  MS.  being  referred  "  to  Teilo's  time  " — Teilo  died 
about  580.  The  fact  is,  the  Insular  scribes,  when  they  had  definitely 
arrived  at  their  beautiful  half-uncial  hand,  preserved  it  with  great 
conservatism  for  a  long  period;  and  it  is  acknowledged  that  the 
study  of  these  early  Insular  MSS.  is  only  in  its  initial  stage,  so  that 
no  one  can  dügmatize  aboiit  them.  There  is  satisfactory  historical 
evidence  that  the  Book  of  Lindisfarne  was  written  about  700 :  but 
the  Book  of  St.  Chad,  though  the  hand  is  similar,  seems  to  belong  to 
an  earlier  generation.  I  have  examined  facsimiles  of  its  pages  in 
the  Book  of  Llan  Dái',  in  Dr.  Scrivener's  Codex  S.  Ceaddae  Latinufi, 
and  the  Dean  of  Lìchfield's  Story  of  St.  Chad's  Gospfls,  and  I  have 
found  no  example  of  the  ??-]ike  ;•  whicli  is  common  in  the  Book  of 
Lindisfarne,  and  is  shown  in  the  facsimile  on  p.  134  above.  The  r  of 
the  Book  of  St.  Chad  is  the  uncial  R,  or,  rarely,  the  sprawling  form 
T^ ,  as  in  petuar  and  tricet  in  the  above  inscription,  side  4,  p.  260; 
this   form  is  found   on   the  early  7th  century  stone  of  Catamanus 


Taliesin.  269 

(Cadfan  ap  lago,  see  p.  266),  and  is  common  in  sixth  century  MSS. 
The  clubbed  tops  of  strokes  ai-e  perfectly  flat  in  the  Book  of  St.  Chad, 
but  in  the  Book  of  Lindisfarne  they  tend  to  incline  iipwards,  sonie- 
timos  presenting  a  sa\v-like  appearance  like  the  top  serifs  of  old- 
face  type,  see  Facsimiles  of  Bihlical  MSS.  in  the  Brit.  Mus.,  plate  xi. 
Clearly  the  Book  of  St.  Chad  is  earlier  than  the  Book  of  Lindisfarne, 
but  how  much  it  does  not  seem  possible  yet  to  determine. 

II. 

The  Welsh  entries  were  written  in  the  MS.  when  it  was  at  Llan- 
dafl".  It  has  been  in  the  possession  of  the  Church  of  Lichfield  since 
the  episcopate  of  Wynsige,  974-992  ;  and  his  signature,  "  t  Wynsige 
presul,"  on  page  1,  "  most  probably,"  as  the  Dean  suggests,  "  mar^s 
the  reception  of  the  book,"  op.  cit.,  p.  11. 

Page  141  contains  the  last  words  of  Sfc.  Matthew's  Gospel,  set  by 
the  original  scribe  in  tlie  middle  of  the  page,  with  a  border,  as  seeu 
in  our  plate.  The  first  entry  on  the  page  records  the  gift  of  the  book 
to  Llandafi".     It  reads  thus  : 

Ostenditur   híc    quod  emit    +    gelhi    +    filius   •  arihtiud   •  hoc 

euange 
lium  •  de  cingal  •  et  dedit  •  iMi  pro  illo  equm  optimum  •  et  dedit 

p?-o  anima  sua  istum  euangelium  "  dío  et  sancti  teliaui  •  super 

altare 
+    gelhi    +    filius   •   Arihtiud  ..,..,  et    +    cíncénn    +    filius    • 

gripiud  .  .  , 

'  It  is  shown  here  that  Gelhi  son  of  Arihtiud  bought  this 
Gospel  from  Cingal,  and  gave  him  for  it  a  "  best  horse ",  and 
gave  for  his  soul's  sake  this  Gospel  to  God  and  St.  Teliau^  upon 
the  altar. 

(Witnesses :)  Gelhi  son  of  Arihtiud  .  .  .  and  Cincenn  son  of 
Gripiud.  .  . ' 

The  hand  in  which  this  deed  of  gift  is  written  is  similar  to  that  of 
the  Bodleian  Liber  Commonei,  dated  817,  and  was  therefore  assigned 
by  Bradshaw,  doubtless  correctly,  to  about  the  same  date.  The 
Surcwit  entry,  which  follows,  was  assumed  by  him  to  be  later,  though 
the  hand  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  much  older.  The  ÍJ  at  the 
end  of  the  agreement  nieans,  according  to  Professor  Lindsay,  op.  cit. 
p.  46,   '  deest ',  and  refers  to  the  obelus  mark  before  the  continuation 

^  Taking  the  genitive  to  be  an  error  for  tlie  dativc,  as  otherwise 
the  et  connects  dissimilar  terms,  and  the  order  of  words  is  improb- 
able  in  Latin  of  this  late  date. 


270  '  Taliesin. 

consisting  of  the  names  of  the  witnesses  near  the  bottom  of  the  page, 
for  wliich  there  was  no  rooni  above  the  text.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
nanies  whicli  crowd  the  bottoni  of  the  page  around  tliis  part  of  our 
memorandiim  belong  of  course  to  the  Lichfiehl  period.  The  niemor- 
andum  reads  as  foUows  : 

Surexit  tutbulc  'à\ms  Huit  hagener  tutri   dierchim   ■  tir   telih   • 
liaioid  ilau 

elcu  filiw*-  gelhig  haUiidt  iuguret  amguca"t  pel  amtanndi  ho  diued 

diprotant  gener  tutrí  o  gnir  imguodant  ir  degion  guragun  tagc 

rodesit  elcu  guetig  eqMS  tres  uache,  tres  uache  nouidhgi  na?«  ir 

ni  be  câs  igridu  dimedichat  guetig  hit  did  braut  grefiat  gue 

tig  nis  minn  tutbulc  hai  cenetl  '\n  ois  oisou  ö 

t  teliau   t'   gurgint   t"  cinhilinn    t'   sps    t",    tota   familia   teliaui, 
delaicis 

numin  m'  aidan,  t'  signou  m'  iacou  t'  berthutis  t'  cinda  t'  qMÌcwm- 
(\ue  custo 

dierit  benedictM.s  er?Y,  qMÌcií???qî<ft  frangerit  maladictíís  er/í  3  » ' — 

Which  may  be  rendered  thus  (the  numbers  in  brackets  refer  to  the 
notes) : 

Tutbulc/í  son  of  Liuit  and  son-in-Iaw  of  Tutri  arose  to  claim  the 
land  of  Telich,  which  was  (1)  in  the  hand  (2)  of  EIcu  son  of 
Gelhig  and  the  tribe  of  luiiguoret.  They  contended  (3)  long  (-J) 
about  it  (ô).  At  last  they  dispossess  (6)  the  son-in-Iaw  of  Tutri 
of  [his]  right  (7).  The  goodmen  (8)  besought  (9)  one  another, 
'•  Let  us  make  (10)  peace  ".  Elcu  afterwards  gave  (11)  a  horse, 
three  cows  (12),  three  newly-calved  (13)  cows,  only  (14)  that  there 
niight  be  (15)  no  hatred  (16)  between  them  (17)  from  [his] 
possession  (18)  afterwards  till  (19)  the  day  of  doom.  TutbulcÄ 
and  his  people  will  require  afterwards  110  title  for  ever  (20). 

t  Teliau  witness,  Giirgint  witness,  Cinhilinn  witness,  Spiritus 
witness,  etc. 

NOTES. 

(1)  haioid,  see  my  Graìn.,  p.  287;  also  above  pp.  180,  189  ;  medi- 
eval  a  oe8  '  which  was'. 

(2)  ilau  ;  the  i  is  not  the  modern  i  '  to  ",  which  is  di  in  Old  Welsh  ; 
if  {  is  not  for  i  (i.e.  in)  as  in  line  6,  it  may  be  that  ilau  is  for  il-lau, 
with  assimilation  of  n  to  /,  as  to  m  in  pni/irn  {m^mm),  see  Gram, 
p.  416;  /  for  II,  see  note  4.  The  form  lan  shows  that  final  v  had 
disappeared  in  the  earliest  period  after  ic,  though  it  is  still  preserved 
medially  where  0  takes  the  place  of  aw,  as  in  Uof-rudd  '  red-handed  '. 

(3)  amgucant  is  doubtless  the  medieval  amugant  '  they  con- 
tended  ';  the  g  represents  inorganic  y,  as  in  petffuar,  see  above  p.  265, 


-^^»UTì'vv-ciVbTU*-S^^^ 


^ 


-?<?);, 


'    jrfwi  ccun  ìCiit^  T»T.^  -ouíí  nnTiioóruiT  tf.<Se?loti  "Wl^w-tu  sc 

■  ÎJcierir  r.'cw-çt-eT»-  eqjTu^i4«ck  T(<erucic>te«í>«'ö"^J  "«'íH 
■   f.ée  cẃ'  i"«,^cìvi<5irr\eaic»icrc  yiieri'^  "oiTòiá  òHPtiT  'ÇTtei-itiTWf 

d^iT  sn  doaoiTnes  ros  obscR, 

!  (â'^i' 
Tica^c  oiimia:  mioce cuin  qu^    m 

Tnaudani^obisClíJrce-esptio.  |^|X 

bié  euin  sutn  oÌTìiiibiischcò     ^^d 

TisqTiaajCÌCOTìSiJininauoTìem  |p|i 


' 

1 


fw»/  't  uwT 


•  ■'    .  .  .-  ■■  -  ■  ■.-  -    _        _  ■      ■  ■-  ■)., 


j  -w  .     r    ■  ■V 


r_r.*.T.,» 


•TTjf    'fiöo/^^    o/    .V/.     ^//í/í/,    />.     141 


To  face  p.  2yo.] 


[  K  Cy/Hfn/0(/or,  xx-viü. 


Taliesin.  271 

which  inight  conie  even  beforo  yocmHc  u  (of  either  soiind)  as  in 
Catíjuc  Book  of  Llan  Daf.  161.  Rhys's  explan;ition  of  the  verb  as 
amyuocan-t,  Srd  sg.  aorist  of  am-o-ynn  {(joijan),  Book  of  Llan  Daf, 
p.  xliv,  is  not  only  improbable  in  nieaning  {yogan  is  '  satire,  slander ', 
etc),  but  involves  the  improbabilty  that  -ant  here  is  not  the  same  as 
in  the  next  line. 

(4)  pel,  medieval  and  modern  peU'i&r',  used  of  time,  as  still  in 
hellach  'henceforth  ',  as  pointed  out  by  Rhys  ;  cf.  Breton  joe//  a  zo  'il 
y  a  longtenips";  /  is  regularly  used  for  //  iu  Old  Welsh,  cf.  above 
p.  134,  fn.  -2. 

(5)  amtanndi;  Rhys  notes  that  tir,  now  mas.  raight  have  been 
fem.  also,  since  it  was  originally  neut.  The  d  is  not  used  in  the 
medieval  and  modern  inflexion  of  tan,  Imt  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  not  have  been  used  once  with  all  prepositions.  The  nn  is 
written  because  the  syllable  is  closed  by  the  two  consonants  wá.  (As 
noted  above,  p.  2tí."5,  nitanam  is  probably  the  form  of  the  Jlrüt  persou, 
in  which  d—8  is  uot  used  at  all). 

(6)  diprotant.  Rhys  has  no  note  on  tlüs  word.  It  might  be  for 
dipriotant  írom  priairt,  from  Latiu  y>r/í'M/M,s ;  but  the  omission  of  the 
i  makes  this  doubtful.  It  is  more  probably  a  compouud  of  firatrd 
'judgement',  wliich  has  given  difrodi  'to  despoil' ;  we  have  seen 
that  the  initial  might  have  been  doubled  after  di-,  see  p.  214,  note  on 
1.  17,  aud  doubie  h  would  become  p,  now  h,  as  in  aber,  etc,  Gram., 
p.  VÒ2. 

(7)  (prir  as  a  noun  was  used  in  the  sense  of  *  right,  justice  ',  e.g. 
kedwis  (/wir  ij  dir  ae  deyrnyed,  Mi/i\  248  b  3."j,  '  he  kept  his  right  to  his 
land  and  his  ti'ibute ',  cf.  238  a  27,  B.B.  681;  dyvot  brennhin  Mor- 
cannhuc  ....  dy  gunethur  yuir  ha  cyfreith  B.  L.  D.  120  '  the  king  of 
Morgannwg  shall  come  to  do  justice  and  right'.  lu  Breton  yioir 
noun  means  "  droit,  prétention  fondée  ",  Troiule,  s.v. 

(8)  deyion  'goodmen',  pl.  of  da,  originally  day  '  good '.  This  pl.  is 
written  deon  in  B.T.  33  21,  see  above  p.  198.  The  ir  is  the  defìnite 
article. 

(9)  imyuodnnt.  Rhys  "with  nuich  hesitation "  counected  this 
with  dy-wed-af  '  I  say '.  It  is  certain  that  the  d  cauuot  staud  for 
modern  d,  but  must  mean  moderu  ^.  The  stem  of  ywe&-i  'prayer'  is 
*ywoS-  (cognate  with  Gk.  Troöéoj,  (ìram.  p.  130),  and  seems  to  fit  here, 
cf.  Eng.  pray,  prithee.     The  prefix  im-  is  reflexive. 

(10)  yurayun  '  let  us  make.'  The  old  form  of  the  stem  yirna-  of 
yirnâf^l  make,  do '  \b>  ywray.  (coguatewith  Eng.  wor/c,  Gk.  epyoi'):  the 
/•  remained  in  Cornish  and  Breton,  but  it  became  fi  early  in  Welsh, 
and  we  appear  to  liave  here  the  oíily  trace  of  r  except  perhaps  in  the 
old  perfect  yuoreu  aud  possibly  iu  Early  Welsh  forms  ywrith,  ywrcith 


272  Taliesin. 

copied  by  scribes  who  did  not  understaud  them  :  see  Gram.,  pp.  152, 
367. 

(11)  rodesit,  old  extended  form  of  the  3rd  sg.  aorist  active  ;  else- 
where  it  occurs  oidy  as  a  poetical  archaism,  Gram.,  p.  326,  ii  (ô). 

(12)  uache;  ch  here=ec,  and  e=ae.     The  word  is  the  Latin  vaccae. 

(13)  nouidliyi.  The  AYelsh  llo  '  calf '  is  for  *Uoe  {Gram.  §  78  i  (1) ), 
which  represents  original  *logir-,  although  the  Irish  löey  implies  '^loig-. 
The  forrn  *newyUo  would  be  an  adjective  Iike  the  modern  cyjto  '  with 
calf ',  and  its  pl.  *«eíi^5/y  (to  agree  with  caccae)  is  rejjresented  regu- 
larly  by  nouidliyi.  The  final  -i  cannot  be  the  verbal  noun  ending, 
which  was  *-iv,  written  -im,  as  in  erchim,  line  1. 

(14)  nam,  witìi  the  vertical  contraction  for  m,  is  doubtless  itself  a 
conventional  suspension  of  nammuin,  as  in  nam  seith,  B.T.  5424,  for 
namyn  seith  55"7'12,  etc.  Though  used  literally  in  one  of  our  poems, 
see  p.  186,  Irish  shows  that  the  word  meant  '  only'  from  the  earliest 
times.  The  meaning  here  seems  to  be  that  he  'only'  did  it  for 
peace'  sake. 

(15)  irnibe;  ir  ìs  the  preposition  yr,  now  er,  used  with  ni  as  a 
conjuuction  '  so  that  not "  ;  lic  is  for  /jei,  3rd  sg.  imperf.  subjunctive, 
since  e  seems  to  be  the  oldest  speJling  uf  the  diphthong  ei,  see  p.  169, 
last  line,  p.  263,  note  on  ce/eyi,  and  cf.  F.A.B.  ii,  2  7"8,  per,  couer  for 
'peir,  coueir  rh^'ming  with  meir.     Cf.  also  Teìiau  for  Teiliau,  now  Teilo. 

(16)  crt.s ;  the  small  circumflex  is  in  the  original  ink  ;  perhaps  it  is 
meant  for  the  ordinary  accent  ' ;  in  any  case  it  seems  to  show  that  a 
vowel  was  lengthened  before  s  in  a  mono.syllable  at  this  early  period. 

(17)  iyridu  '  between  them';  see  Gram.,  p.  405. 

(18)  di  medichat ;  the  di  hev&  \s  '  from  '  representing  original  *dë; 
in  tiie  old  spelling  it  cannot  be  distinguished  from  di  '  to ',  from 
original  *do.  Rhys  has  gone  seriously  wrong  in  analysing  medichat 
as  ìueSic  'medicus'  +  hat  whieh  he  confesses  should  be  -hayat  at 
this  period ;  '  reconciliation '  from  medicus  is  rather  far-fçtched  as 
well.  The  root  appears  to  be  *med-  '  to  enjoj%  possess ' ;  whence  a 
'verb-stem  me^ych-  (cf.  heSychu  from  he8) ;  whence  the  abstract  noun 
meSychad,  spelt  medichat  'possession'  (Modern  Welsh  meddu  '  to 
possess  ',  meddiant  '  possession  '). 

(19)  hit.  The  shaft  is  that  of  h,  not  b  ;  whether  the  completion  of 
the  circle  was  intentional  (to  make  bet,  which  is  synonymous)  or  not, 
the  scribe  seems  to  have  decided  for  hit.  The  Dean  (in  a  letter) 
writes,  "  In  the  same  heavier  ink  "  [which  appears  when  he  dips  his 
pen]  "  he  (I  suppose  it  is  the  original  scribe)  has  touched  up  thesides 
of  the  first  letter  of  hit,  but  not  the  cross  fiUing  stroke  at  the  bottom, 
as  though  he  desired  to  emphasise  that  the  letter  was  intended  for 
an  h.  iiot  a  è." 


Talìtsin.  2/3 

(í'O)  in  ois  oisoH.  ít  is  inturestiiii;  to  iiute  tliat  tlie  Bihlical  t/n  oes 
oesoedd  is  so  ancient  a  transiation  of  in  saecula  saeculorum.  Tlie  old 
pl.  of  oes  was  oisou,  which  appears  us  oesseu  in  the  Book  of  Tahesin : 
oes  oesseu  15' 15,  yn  oes  oesseu  19-9,  quoted  above,  p.  184.  The  latter  is 
the  exact  expression  used  here ;  and  if  it  occurred  only  in  the  poem, 
it  niight  have  been  taken  to  be  comparatively  late. 

í'=  testis  ;  ?«'=  map  '  son  '.  I  have  used  the  apostrophe  to  denote 
the  contraction  mark  above  the  letter. 

Proper  names. — It  is  to  be  noted  tìrst  that  the  name  Gelhig  occurs 
both  in  the  deed  of  gift  and  in  the  Sure.iit  entry,  and  has  the  ohler 
form  with  final  </,  in  the  latter.  Rhys  is  strangely  puzzled  by  this 
name,  but  its  composition  seems  quite  clear.  As  /  stands  for  //,  the 
first  element  seems  to  be  Gell-,  which  is  seen  as  the  second  element 
in  Anda-gelli  (on  the  GelH  Dywyll  stone,  Rhys,  W,  Ph.,  p.  388),  mean- 
ing  unknown ;  and  the  second  is  hig,  Modern  Welsh  hy  '  bold '  from 
*seyos  (cognate  witli  Gk.  è'^nj,  Skr.  sáhah  'might",  etc),  which  occurs 
as  the  first  element  in  the  Gauhsh  2eyo-/xttpo'î,  8e<jo-vellauni,  etc. 

While  y,  written  y,  appears  finally  after  short  i  (modern  y)  in 
Early  Welsh,  there  is  no  trace  of  it  anywhere  after  long  l  (modern  i) 
asin  rhi  'kiiig'  frora  rhj-  (cognate  with  Lat.  rêy-),  because  the  quality 
of  the  long  /  was  ditferent,  being  more  close,  and  the  y  did  not 
become  y,  but  consonantal  i,  which  was  merged  in  the  i  before  it. 
Hènce  we  have  Tut-ri  here  from  Teuto-riy-. 

El-cu  is  an  Irish  name,  which  appears  also  as  El-con,  and  later  in 
a  Welsh  form  El-ci,  see  the  index  of  B.  L.  D.  The  second  element  is 
cû  '  hound  ',  stem  con,  Welsh  ci. 

.  Guryint  is  in  Modern  Welsh  Gicrin.  The  name  occurs  as  Guuryint 
Barmhtruch  in  the  Welsh  genealogies,  r Cymìnrodor,  ix,  p.  178.  There 
is  a  Tref-wrin  or  Wrimton  near  Cardiö",  and  a  St.  Gwrin  is  the  patron 
of  Llanwrin,  Montgomerysliire,  Lires  of  Brit.  Saints,  iii,  208. 

Cinhilinn  is  the  Irish  name  Cüchuiinn,  with  the  stem  Con-  instead 
of  the  nominative  Cü-  of  the  first  element.  The  name  usually  occiirs 
in  Welsh  as  Cuhelyn  {Cuhelin  B.B.  9"9).  In  B.  L.  D.,  p.  76,  is  a  docu- 
ment  witnessed  by  Diibricins  "  cum  clericis  suis  Vbeluiuo,  Merch- 
guino,  Cuelino  ";  of  these  three  the  second,  if  not  the  first,  became  a 
cleric  at  Llandaflf  under  Teilo,  with  others,  of  whom  Cuelinus  maj'  be 
our  Cinhilinn. 

Numin  ?  modern  Nefyn.  Aidan  is  the  Irish  name.  Siynou  lias 
the  common  element  -ynoii,  also  appearing  as  -gnoe,  and  in  Modern 
Welsh  -no,  as  in  Tud-no,  Mach-no,  etc.  Cinda  Iooks  Iike  an  Irish 
name  ;  a  document  of  the  time  of  Teilo's  successor  Oudoceus  is  wit- 
nessed  by  a  layman  Condaf,  in  which  the  -/,  which  cannot  iii  any 
case  be  old,  seenis  to  be  the  addition  of  the  compiler,  B.  L.  D..  j).  1 40. 

T 


2/4  Taliesin. 

Names  in  the  deed  of  gift :  Arihtiud;  it  is  diílicult  to  explain  the 
first  i  oxcept  as  the  silent  i  between  spirants,  see  p.  165,  note  on 
1.  22  (/ollychynt ;  if  so  ht  is  the  spirant  th  (written  dt  in  luidt  in  the 
Sure.rít  entry,  1.  2),  and  the  first  element  is  Arth-;  the  second.is  iud, 
modern  ii8,  as  in  Gripiud  now  GruffuS ;  thus  the  name  would  now  be 
ArthuS. —  Cinyal  may  be  an  error  for  Cinyual,  modern  Cyniral. — 
Cincenn,  see  above,  p.  262.  As  both  Cincenn  and  Gripiud  are  quite 
common  names,  it  is  absurd  to  assume  that  this  Cincenn  ap  Gripiud 
is  related  to  the  Griphiud  ap  Cincm  who  died,  according  to  the 
Annales,  in  814.  and  especially  to  imagine  that  in  that  case  they 
would  be  likely  to  be  contemporaries. 

III. 

As  the  Welsh  entries'were  presumably  written  after  the  presenta- 
tion  of  the  MS.  to  the  Church  of  Llandaíf,  it  was  natural  to  assume 
that  the  deed  of  gift  is  older  than  the  Sure.rit  memorandum  which 
follows  it  on  the  page.  Bradshaw,  dated  the  former  earlj'  ninth,  and 
the  latter  tenth  century,  Collected  Papers,  p.  460.  Dr.  Evans  sug- 
gested  that  the  memorandum  is  a  eopy  of  a  document  of  Teilo's  time, 
B.L.D  ,  1893,  p.  xliv.  Seebolim,  in  his  Trihal  System  in  Wales,  1895, 
p.  182,  suggests  that  Gelhi  of  the  deed  of  gift  may  be  the  same 
person  as  Gelhig  of  the  Sure.rit  entry,  whose  son  held  the  land 
claimed  by  Tutbulch.  In  that  case,  of  course,  the  document  is  cen- 
turies  later  than  Teilo  ;  and  the  witness  "  Teliau  "  is  "  the  saiut  long 
at  rest,'' just  as  "  Deus  omnipotens  "  is  a  witness  to  other  deeds  in 
the  MS.,  Trib.  Syst.,  p.  179.  Bradshaw's  "  tenth  century  "  is  rather 
late  even  in  this  case,  and  Seebohm  can  only  suggest  that  "  the 
second  record  may  have  been  written  after  the  transaction,"  p.  182, 
where  "after"  must  mean  anything  from  60  to  100  years  after! 

Professor  Lindsay,  in  his  Early  Welsh  Script,  1912,  pp.  2,  3, 
ventured  to  differ  from  the  authorities,  and  to  suggest  that  the 
Sure.fit  entry  is  older  than  the  deed  of  gift,  "  and  that  on  three 
grounds  :  (1)  the  appearance  of  the  ink,  (2)  the  script,  (3)  its  position 
on  the  page."  The  first  grouud  is  inconchisive,  for  later  insertions 
in  MSS.  often  appear  older  than  the  original  writing,  simply  because 
the  ink  is  of  a  poorer  quality.  On  the  second  Professor  Lindsay 
says  :  "  The  validity  of  the  second  wiU,  I  fancy,  be  admitted  at  once; 
for  these  rude  majuscule  letters  have  a  far  older  appearance  than 
the  minuscules  of  the  deed  of  gift."  Ile  adds,  p.  3,  "  Certainly  the 
script  is,  to  my  mind,  exactly  the  kind  of  script  that  would  be  likely 
to  be  used  at  a  quite  early  time."  This  seems  to  me  incontestable. 
The  r  in  the  Sure.rit  entry  is  the  majuscule  R  throughout ;  there  is 
no  trace  of  the  ?í-like  r,  either  short  or  with  produced  stroke  as  in 
the  Ostenditur  of  the  deed  of  gift ;  the  s  is  the  tall  f ,  as  in  the  Book 


Taliesín.  275 

of  Lindisfiuiio,  see  facsimile  above,  p.  134,  aiul  rarely  iu  the  Book  of 
St.  Cluul, — not  tlie  ninth  and  tenth  century  ;>  forin  ;  aiul  the  ,/"  is 
distinctly  antique.  The  difhculty  is  to  understand  why  Bradshaw 
dated  this  haiul  tenth  century. 

As  to  the  argument  from  the  position  of  the  entry  on  the  page, 
Professor  Lindsaj'  invites  his  readers  "  to  imagine  for  themselves  the 
appearance  presented  by  the  page  before  any  entries  were  made  on 
it,  and  consider  what  particular  part  the  writer  of  the  earliest  entry 
would  probably  choose.  He  wouhl  not  be  hampered  by  want  of 
space ;  the  whoie  page,  with  the  exceptiou  of  the  middle  portion  lay 
blanlí  before  him.  .  .  .  Would  he  not  then  plant  it  exactly  where 
the  Sure.tit  tiitlmlc,  etc,  has  been  planted,  with  the  record  itself 
above,  aud  the  witnesses'  signatures  below  the  already  occupied 
middle  portion  ì  "  This  is  not  in  itself  convincing ;  but  it  becomes 
niore  so  when  we  ask  the  supplementary  question,  Would  the  scribe, 
with  all  the  space  availal)le  within  the  border,  be  likely  to  crowd  his 
entry  at  the  very  top,  as  the  deed  of  gift  is  crowded  ? 

On  the  supposition  of  the  priority  of  the  Sure.rit  entry  there 
remains  the  difhcaltj'  as  to  how  it  can  have  been  written  before  the 
book  was  presented  to  the  Church.  Professor  Lindsay  sugge.sts  that 
"  dedit  "  is  used  for  "  restituit  " — the  deed  records  its  restoration  to 
theChurch;  and  he  refers  to  other  examples  of  "gift"  being  used 
instead  of  "restoration"  in  such  entries  in  MSS.  Still,  this  is  at 
least  a  little  improbable.  A  much  raore  likely  explanation  seems  to 
me  to  be  that  the  deed  of  gift  is  not  the  original  deed  but  a  coj)y  of 
it.  This  supposition  solves  the  diíficulties  in  the  simplest  possible 
way  :  it  is  consistent  with  the  oriyinal  deed  of  gift  being  older  thaii 
the  Sure.iit  entry,  however  old  that  may  be  ;  and  it  accounts  for  the 
deed  as  we  have  it  being  in  a  much  later  hand  than  that  eutiy. 

I  had  arrived  at  this  point  in  my  attempt  to  solve  the  riddle  of 
these  entries  whenl  wroteto  the  Dean  of  Lichfield,  the  Very  Reverend 
H.  E.  Savage,  D.D.,  who  has  been  at  work  on  the  MS.,  briefly  stating 
the  problem  as  it  presented  itself  to  me  ;  he  very  kindly  sent  me  with 
his  reply  a  copy  of  his  valuable  paper,  T/ie  Story  of  St.  Chad'a  Gospels, 
17  pp.  large  quarto,  with  six  plates,  contributed  to  the  Transactions  of 
the  Birmingham  Archaeoloyical  Society  in  February  1915.  In  this 
paper  he  contests  Professor  Lindsay's  theory;  he  holds,  rightly.  that 
the  appearance  of  the  ink  is  "  quite  inconclusive  ";  as  to  the  position 
on  the  page,  he  says  that  "opinions  may  difìer  rather  widely  on  a 
probability  of  this  kind  " ;  and  with  regard  to  the  script,  Bradshaw's 
"  verdict  carries  too  much  weight  to  be  lightly  set  aside  ",  especially 
as  Professor  Lindsay  adduces  no  evidence  in  support  of  liis  view. 
Evideuce  as  to  the  antiqueness  of  the  sciipt  is,  however,  not  lacking; 
and  the  ontry  contains  not  only  the  older   spelling    Gelhiíf  of  this 

■t2 


2/6  Taliesin. 

name,  but  archaic  forms  which  vve  can  hardly  admit  to  have  been 
even  copied  in  the  tenth  century,  líuowing  as  we  do  the  modernising 
habits  of  Welsh  scribes.  I  communicated  to  the  Dean  the  conchi- 
sions  to  which  I  had  come  with  regard  to  the  script  and  language  ; 
and  pointed  out  that  Professor  Lindsay  had  not  used  the  strongest 
argument  in  respect  of  position  on  the  page.  If  the  deed  of  gift  had 
already  been  on  the  page,  filling  tlie  whole  ápace  between  the  left  and 
right  borders,  the  writer  of  the  Surexit  entry  underneath  it  would 
almost  certainly  have  followed  his  lead,  and  commenced  his  lines  in 
the  very  margin  ;  and  the  fact  that  he  begins  just  about  the  same 
distance  from  the  margin  as  the  half-uncial  text  must  mean  that 
there  was  nothing  but  that  text  on  thepage  when  he  wrote  his  entry. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  scribe  of  this  entry  had  used  the  vertical 
stihis  rule  made  by  the  scribe  of  the  text  to  mark  the  beginning  of 
his  hnes,  but  that  the  scribe  of  the  entry  began  his  lines  just  outside 
the  rule,  and  the  original  scribe  just  inside  it.  The  Dean  examined 
the  MS.  and  found  that  the  rule  extends  down  as  far  as  the  s  of 
saeculi  in  the  last  line  of  the  text,  and  no  further.  This  explains  why 
teliau  below  the  text,  is  a  little  nearer  the  mai-gin  than  the  upper 
part  of  the  entry — the  scribe  had  nothing  to  guide  him  there.  The 
Dean  examined  the  MS.  again  under  favourable  conditions ;  and 
found  that  the  stilus  line  "  extended  upwards  to  the  first  line  of  the 
Sure.fit  entry,  but  not  above  that  apparently.  The  top  of  it  is  trace- 
able  between  the  S  and  the  %i  of  Sure.iit  running  parallel  with  the 
down  stroke  of  the  S."  He  confirmed  this  later  in  words  which  I 
take  the  liberty  of  quoting  :  "  I  feel  quite  sure  that  this  is  so  ;  for  I 
had  the  verification  of  other  eyes  besides  my  own  ;  and  amongst 
them  the  keen  sight  of  a  Rossall  boy  who  was  present  when  I  ex- 
amined  the  MS.  He  could  see  clearly  without  a  magnifying  glass 
what  I  (and  others)  could  only  make  certain  of  with  that  aid.  And 
he  was  positive  that  there  was  no  trace  of  the  rule  to  be  seen  above 
that  point.  Now  that  seems  to  me  to  accomit  for  the  position  on 
the  page  adopted  by  the  scribe  for  the  commencement  of  his  entry. 
He  began  at  the  top  of  the  stilus  mark,  although  it  did  not  leave 
room  before  the  lines  of  the  Gospel  text  for  the  whole  of  his  record." 
I  think  it  wiU  be  agreed  that  this  is  quite  conclusive.  It  shows 
exactly  why  the  Sure.rit  scribe  began  where  he  did  ;  he  did  not  begin 
there  because  another  entry  had  already  been  crowded  in  at  the  top, 
but  that  entry  was  ci"owded  in  at  the  top  because  he  had  begun 
there. 

It  is  now  clear  why  the  scribe  of  tlie  deed  of  gift  spread  his 
entry  across  the  whole  space  between  the  borders :  there  was  no 
stilus  rule  to  mark  oft'  the  margin,  and  his  space  was  limited.  It 
had  occurred  to  me,  as  above  noted,  that  he  was  merely  copyiny  the 


Taàcsin.  277 

original  deed  The  Doan  agrees ;  it  occurred  to  liiin  too,  apart 
from  ray  suggestion,  which  iie  liad  forgotten  at  the  time.  He 
writes :  "It  has  the  appearaiice  of  being  an  abbreviated  extract. 
The  dots  after  Anhthcd  and  after  Gripiud  in  the  last  line  suggest 
this.  And  the  full  account  of  the  gift,  with  the  names  of  all  the 
witnesses,  may  well  have  been  written  at  the  end  of  the  book,  as 
a  líind  of  colophon,  in  what  was  afterwards,  at  any  rate,  bound  as 
a  second  volume  thatwas  still  extant  when  the  Sacrist's  roll  at  Lich- 
fìeld  was  drawn  up  in  1345.  The  end  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  does 
not  seem  to  be  an  appropriate  position  for  such  a  record  of  the 
coming  of  the  Codex  into  the  possession  of  the  Church  of  Llandaíf. 
Aud  the  statement  has  every  appearance  of  referring  to  the  original 
gift,  rather  than  to  the  restoring  of  a  lost  MS."  It  seems  strange 
that  the  significance  of  the  dots  and  commas  after  the  names  of  the 
only  two  witnesses  mentioned  suggested  itself  to  no  one  before  ;  it  is 
one  of  those  illuminating  discoveries  which  are  obvious  when  made 
and  decisive  in  their  implications. 

I  think,  therefore,  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  priority  of  the 
Sure.rit  entr^-  has  been  proved  beyond  a  doubt.  Tlie  question  of  the 
date  of  the  entrj'  remains.  Tlie  script  is  clearly  removed  by  a  whole 
period  from  the  early  ninth-century  minuscules  above  it;  I  am 
unable  to  guess  what  late  symptoms  Bradsliaw  imagined  in  it;  it 
seems  old-fashioned  even  for  the  eighth  century,  for  while  majuscule 
forms  continued  in  use  in  foiTnal  writing,  the  entire  absence  of 
minuscule  r,  for  example,  in  the  careless  ordinary  hand  of  this  entry 
is  hardly  conceivable  at  that  time.  In  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge  of  early  Insular  script  it  does  not  seem  possible  to  say 
more  than  that  the  entry  is  probably,  as  suggested  in  Early  Welsh 
Sc)-{pt,  p.  .3,  a  very  early  copy.  On  the  question  whether  it  is  the 
original  document  or  a  copy,  Professor  Lindsay  sends  me  the  foUowing 
note :  "A  faint  indication  that  the  Teilo  entry  is  a  copy  of  the 
original  is  the  abbreviation  eî-  '  erit '.  This  unusual  symbol  would 
naturally  be  used  only  if  the  scribe  were  pressed  for  space.  Now 
there  is  space  and  to  spare  on  the  page  of  the  St.  Chad  book.  (This 
I  mention  in  my  Notae  Latinae,  p.  340.)"  To  this  one  may  perhaps 
add  that  the  vertical  zigzag  contraction  of  m  was  normally  used  only 
at  the  end  of  a  line  where  there  was  no  room  for  the  wide  ordinary 
m ;  but  in  our  entry  it  occurs  in  nam  in  lino  4  before  the  end  of  the 
line,  where  there  was  plenty  of  rooia  for  the  m.  Takon  together, 
these  peculiarities  of  abbreviation  furnish  strong  presumptive  evi- 
dence  that  the  entry  is  a  copy. 

The  assumption  that  the  witness  Teliau  is  •'  tlie  saint  long 
at  rest"  is  only  rendered  nocessary  by  tlie  supposition  tiiat  tlie 
entry  is  the  original  document.     Tho  manuscript  itself  is  probably 


:/-8 


Talii 


esin. 


later  than  Teilo's  time,  belonging  perhaps  to  the  middle  of  the 
following  century;  and  if  the  entry  is  a  conteraporary  record  of 
the  agreement,  Telian  could  not  be  a  witness  to  it  in  the  fiesh. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  entry  is  a  copy,  it  may  just  as  well  be 
a  copy  of  a  document  of  Teilo's  time  as  a  copy  of  a  later  docu- 
ment.  The  assumption  that  the  wituess  is  "the  saint  long  at  rest" 
is  not  inherently  probable ;  tliere  is  no  analogy  to  it,  for  "  Deus 
omnipotens  testis"  cannot  seriously  be  held  to  be  an  exact  analogy. 
In  fact  "  Spiritus  testis"  occurs  in  this  very  list,  where  "  Spiritus  " 
is  doubtless  the  Holy  Spirit.  Not  a  single  example  has  been  adduced 
of  the  naine  of  a  dead  saint  being  iuvoked  as  wátness  to  a  deed, 
as  the  name  of  the  Deity  is  invoked.  On  the  other  hand  deeds  or 
copies  of  deeds  existed  at  Llandaíf  in  the  twelfth  century  in  which 
the  living  Teliau's  name  heads  the  list  of  witnesses  ;  it  appears  as 
"  Telians  archieps "  B.  L.  D.,  121,  122,  or  "  scs  Teliaus",  p.  126,  or 
"archieps  Teliaus",  p.  127,  the  "archieps"  and  "  scs "  having  ob- 
viously  been  added  V)y  the  compiler.  Now  that  of  which  examples 
can  be  cited  must  be  admitted  to  be  more  probable  than  that  for 
which  it  can  only  be  said  that  "  it  might  have  been";  and  in  this 
case  I  think  it  may  be  affirmed  that  but  for  supposed  difficulties 
of  date  no  one  would  have  thouglit  of  suggesting  that  Teliau  in 
the  list  of  witnesses  is  not  what  it  seems  to  be.  The  copy  is  a 
more  faithful  one  than  those  in  the  B.  L.  D.:  the  name  is  Teliau 
simply — not  "  s,anctuÿ.  Teliaus "  ;  there  is  no  suggestion  that  it  is 
an  invocation  of  the  sainted  patron — it  is  surely  more  like  a  copj' 
of  the  signature  of  the  living  man. 

If  the  MS.  was  written  in  the  seventh  century  the  Gelhi  who 
presented  it  to  Llandaff  cannot,  of  course,  be  the  same  person  as 
the  Gelhig  who  is  the  father  of  Elcu,  one  of  the  parties  to  the  dis- 
pute  in  Teilo's  time.  But  he  may  have  been  a  descendant  of  Elcu, 
the  name  Gelhig  running  in  tbe  family;  and  the  original  deed 
may  have  been  in  his  possession  ;  it  would  be  his  title  to  the  land. 
In  that  case  it  is  conceivable  that  he  may  have  had  the  deed  copied 
into  the  book  even  before  he  gave  it  to  the  Church.  Indeed, 
there  appears  to  be  no  particular  reason  why  the  Church  authorities 
should  inscribe  it  there ;  it  concerns  no  property  of  theirs,  and  they 
had  plenty  of  documents  nnder  Teilo's  hand  of  more  interest  to 
theni.  But  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  an  abl)reviated  copy  of  the 
deed  of  gift  should  be  entered  abore  it  later :  this  shows  that  the 
book  was  the  gift  of  Gelhi,  and  so  explains  the  appearance  on 
the  page  of  a  copy  of  a  title-deed  belonging  to  him.  Seebohm 
points  out  that  there  is  a  Teüch  in  Gower,  B.  L.  D.  239  ;  but  as 
there  was  at  least  one  other  Telich,  ib.  125,  255,  it  is  not  certain 
that  this  is  the  one  meant.     The  claimant,  Tutbulch  son  of  Liuit, 


Taliesin.  279 

seems  to  liave  lived  in  Monnioiithshire;  as  Seebohm  points  oiit,  in 
a  record  probably  of  between  961  and  967,  Morgan  Hen  is  said  to 
restore  to  LlandafF  territories  belonging  to  it  in  the  tinie  of 
Dubricius,  Teilo  and  Oudoceus.  Amongst  these  is  "  Machumur, 
i.e.,  Lann  Liuit ",  its  boundary  reaching  "  across  to  Is  Guaessaf  of 
Liguulhnni,  son  of  Tutbulch  ",  ib.  241.  Here  we  have  the  names  of 
Tutbulch  and  Liuit  ;  and  Lann  Liuit  belonged  to  Llandaô'  in  tho 
sixth  century.  It  adjoined  land  belonging  to  a  son  of  Tut'uulch. 
Lann  Liuit  was,  of  course,  the  ecclesiastical  name ;  such  names 
usually  date  from  the  foundation  or  dedication  (in  this  case  probably 
nnder  Dubricius,  from  the  position  near  Llanvaenor),  so  that  we 
may  conclude  that  the  place  was  called  after  a  sixth  century  Liuit. 
I  am  not  aware  of  the  occurrence  of  the  name  Liuit  except  in  this 
ancient  place-name  and  in  our  entrj'.  The  founder  of  Lann  Liuit 
seems  to  be  the  only  Liuit  lcnown;  it  is  therefore  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose  that  the  claimant  Tutbulch  ap  Linit  was  his  son,  and  hence  a 
contemporary  of  Teilo.  Liguallaun  ap  Tutbulch  owned  land  border- 
ing  on  Lann  Liuit ;  his  name  had  become  traditioival  when  the 
boundary  was  drawn  out  at  the  restoration  in  961-7 ;  he  cannot 
therefore  be  Riuguallaun  ap  Tutbulch,  ib.  264,  who  was  living  in  the 
reign  of  Rhydderch  ap  lestyn,  1023-83.  It  need  not  be  assumed  that 
Liguallaun  is  an  error — /  and  r  are  not  easily  confused ;  the  fìrst 
element  of  his  name  is  the  same  as  that  of  Liuit's  ;  this  would  be 
natural  if  he  were  his  grandson.  Lastly  we  have  seen  that  two  of 
the  witnesses,  one  cleric  and  one  layman,  may  possibly  be  identi- 
fied  with  a  clerical  and  a  lay  witness  of  other  deeds  of  the  same 
period  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  of  tlie  nanies  can  with 
the  least  lilcelihood  be  identified  with  any  naine  in  the  later  records 
of  Llandaft'. 

The  probability,  then,  is  that  this  entry  is  a  copy  of  a  docnment 
of  Teilo's  time.  There  would  be  a  reason  for  its  being  in  Welsh : 
the  parties  to  the  agreement  would  probably  not  understand  Latin. 
If  this  is  so  the  view  maintained  above  as  to  the  vernacular  of 
the  period  needs  no  other  prouf  ;  the  language  of  the  sixth  ceiitiu-y 
was  identical  with  that  uf  the  Taliesin  poems. 


2  8o  Taliesin. 

COERECTIONS   AND   ADDITIONS. 


Page  ],  liiie  11  of  text ;  for  skeleten  read  skeleton 
Page  6,  fn.  Tliis  footnote  is  perfectly  correct  as  far  as  it  goes  : 
but  a  closer  examination  of  tlie  poem  clearly  reveals  the  metrical 
scheme.  The  first  twenty  lines  are  of  9  syllables  each,  forming 
"  cyhydedd  naw  ban  ",  in  stanzas  of  4,  2,  5,  5,  4  lines  respectively  ; 
see  F.A.B.,\\,^^.  3,4.  These  are  followed  by  a  stanza  of  "gwaw- 
dodyn  byr"  consisting  of  two  lines  of  9  and  a  "  cyhydedd  hir  "  unit 
of  19.  It  is  in  tlie  middle  of  this  stanza  that  the  supposed  "change 
of  metre  at  4'7"  occurs.  But  the  stanza  is  immediately  followed 
by  a  sirailar  one  of  two  9*s  and  19.  This  is  followed  by  five  units  of 
"cyhydedd  hir".  Thus  the  poem  begins  in  the  metre  "cyhydedd 
naw  ban"  and  ends  in  "  cyhydedd  hir",  the  transition  from  the  one 
to  the  other  being  smoothly  made  V)y  two  stanzas  of  "  gwawdodyn 
byr"  which  is  a  standard  metre  consisting  of  a  farniliar  combina- 
tion  of  the  two. 

Page  22,  line  4 ;  for  Sainsbury  read  Saintsbury 

Page  30,  line  1  ;  thoug-ll,  etc.  The  second  a]ternative  is  far  less 
hlîely  than  the  first.  The  false  concords  quoted  on  this  page  are 
much  more  naturally  explained  by  the  supposition  that  the  inscribers 
had  no  conscionsness  of  the  diíFerence  in  form  between  tlie  nomina- 
tive  and  genitive.  In  later  inscriptions  -i  is  added  even  toconsonant 
stems  in  tlie  nominative  as  in  cru.i-  Salvatoris  quue prepararit  Samsúni 
Apati  .  .  .  pro  anima  luthahelo  Iie.v  (see  Arch.  Camb.  1899,  p.  148), 
by  whicli  is  meant  quam  preparavit  Samson  Ahhas  .  .  .  pro  aìuma 
luthaheli  lief/is.  It  is  admitted  that  tliis  is  merely  bad  Latin  :  I 
maintain  that  that  is  the  only  sensible  ex[ilanation  of  similar 
phenomena  in  earlier  inscriptions.  And  it  shows  not  merely  that  the 
inscribers  confused  Latin  declensions,  but  that  they  had  lost  the 
sense  of  distinctions  of  case. 

Page  32,  line  3  ;  for  depised  read  despised 

Page  32,  line  25  ;  for  tataguen  read  tat  aguen 
When  this  sheet  was  printed  oÛ'  I  had  not  seen  tlie  pliotograph  from 
wliich  our  frontispiece  was  made  ;  and  I  naturally  assumed  tliat 
Mommsen's  Tataguen,  p.  205,  was  correct.  The  frontispiece  shows 
tliat  the  MS.  has  clearly  two  words  tat  affuen,  which  is  of  course 
i-ight,  for  the  expression  is  not  a  compound  but  a  noun  with  a  depen- 
dent  genitiye.  Zimmer  is  not  to  be  trusted  in  small  matters  of  ihis 
Idnd.  There  ought  to  be  a  diplomatic  reproduction  of  tlie  whole 
text;  this  is  work  that  Dr.  Evans  .should   do  instead  of  wa.sting  his 


Talicsin.  281 

time  on  work  for  which  he  is  uiifìtted.  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Idris 
Bell  for  having  the  page  photographed  for  me  for  the  purpose  of  the 
reproduction. 

Page  Ç>=ì,  line  14;  delete  one  C  in  mailUSCCrÌpt 

Page  70,  line  lö  ;  Urien  liad,  etc.  The  reason  for  associating 
him  with  Gower  was  no  doubt  the  fact  that  in  th«  French  and 
English  romances  he  is  called  Uryens  or  Uryence  of  Gorre  or  Gore. 
The  inutilation  of  Welsh  names  in  the  romances  does  not  foUow 
regular  phonetic  hiws ;  and  as  t  is  lost  before  r  in  Breton  (e.g. 
/;;w<r 'brother '),  as  iu  French  (e.g. //ẁ-e),  the  reduction  of  Catraeth 
to  Gorre  or  Gore  is  not  a  more  vioIent  change  than,  for  example, 
tlie  softening  of  Gwalchmei  into  Gaicain.  It  was  natural,  and  per- 
haps  inevitable,  that  löth-century  manufacturers  of  pedigrees  should 
take  the  Gvre  of  the  romances  to  be  Gower. 

Page  75,  line  3  ;  Gobeu  a  Reg'et.  Mr.  Phillimore,  in  Owen's 
Pem.,  part  iii,  p.  1^84,  writes,  "As  a  man's  or  woman's  name  Rheged 
admits  of  being  derived  from  a  low-Latin  form  of  Ileceptus,  Recejìta 
{ci.  bedydd  ivom  haptisma)'\  This  statement  emboldens  me  to  sug- 
gest  an  explanation  of  the  name  Rheyed  wliich  I  hesitated  to  insert 
at  the  end  of  this  paragraph  before  it  was  printed  off.  I  had  not 
seen  the  above  note,inwhich  my  idea  of  tbe  derivation  is  anticipated 
and  therefore  to  that  extent  confirmed. — There  was  \\ç>  jìt  in  British  ; 
original  pt  had  become  kt  in  Keltic;  thus  ^'septm  became  *seJctm, 
giving  Irish  secht,  Welsh  seith  '  seven  '.  Latin  pt  becomes  fft  in  J^iýt 
'  Egypt',  but  generally  it  was  treated  as  tt,  a  Low  Latin  form,  and 
tt  regularly  becomes  th,  as  in  >/sf/r>/thj/r  from  scriptura,  and  preyeth 
from  precepta.  But  in  Low  Latin  this  tt  might  be  simplified,  thus 
setimns  occurs  in  the  third  century  for  septimus  (Loth,  Mots  Lat., 
p.  124):  honce  bedyh  from  *haptidio,  and  ^os&Wúy  cynyyd  'thought' 
from  conceptio ;  thus  Rheyed  may  be  f rom  receptus,  recepta,  as  sug- 
gested  by  Mr.  Pbillimore.  Now  this  is  the  adjective  commonly 
used  to  describe  tbat  part  of  the  Island  wliich  lies  to  the  south 
of  the  Southern  Wall ;  thus  Orosius  (quoted  by  Camden,  Brit., 
1Ó94,  p.  607)  writes:  "  Receptam  partem  insulae  a  ceteris  indomitis 
gentibus  vallo  distiuguendam  putavit  (Severus) ".  Other  writers 
use  receptae  prorinciae,  see  ib.,  and  cf.  later  editions.  Nennius 
u.ses  the  latter  expression:  '■  Severus  .  .  .  .  ut  receptas  provin- 
cias  ab  incursione  barbarica  faceret  tutiores,  murum  et  aggerem 
a  mari  usqiie  ad  mare  .  .  .  deduxit,"  §  2."i.  The  adJHctive  tluus  used 
to  distinguish  tlie  territory  defended  by  the  Wall  from  that  beyond 
it  would  iiaturaliy  apply  more  especially  to  the  distiict  noarcst  tlie 
Wall ;  it  is  here  that  the  distinction  was  chiefly  felt ;  and  it  niay  be 
that  Goò^u  'tlu'  forest',  or  perhap.«»  '  the  wild',  denoting  the  unre- 


282  Taliesiii. 

claiinec?  land  beyoud  the  Wall,  represented  the  British  antithesis  of 
the  terra  recejìta  or  tir  liheged. 

Page  77,  line  5  from  bottom  of  text ;  Ei8in.  This  is  a  late 
aild  incorrect  form.  The  earliest  example  I  have  found  of  the 
mis-pronunciation  EiSin  occurs  in  a  poem  by  tlie  fourteenth-century 
bard  Rhisserdyn,  Mi/v.  290  b,  last  line,  where  he  seems  to  refer  to 
Clydno  Eidyn,  cf.  291  a.  As  shown  by  the  spelling  Lliweli/8  for 
Llywelydd,  see  above  p.  59,  the  sounds  of  Northern  nanies  had  become 
uncertain  before  that  period,  and  old  spellings  were  often  misread. 

Page  92,  footnote,  line  10;  for  the  obscure  vowel  e,  written  y  in 
Welsh.  read  tlie  obscure  vowel  a,  written  y  in  Welsh.  This  was  quite 
correct  in  the  last  proof  that  left  my  hands.  But  the  eagle  eyo  of 
the  press  corrector  saw  the  inverted  e  and  promptly  righted  it.  (Of 
course,  a  is  the  conventional  phonetic  symbol  for  the  obscure  voweI.) 
I  am,  however,  indebted  to  him  for  many  small  corrections  of  this 
kind,  all  of  which,  with  this  exceptjon,  were  necessary  and  right. 

Page  207,  line  4.  At  the  end  of  this  line  an  r  has  dropped  out 
during  the  passage  of  the  sheet  through  the  press ;  read  "  toddaid 
byr"  or 

Page  210,  line  41   of  poem,  second  word.     The  second  bracket 
enclosing  the  f  has  dropped  out ;  read  Dy(f)«-al 
-Page  212,  line  2  ;  for  me^wieth  read  ì>ie8weith 

Page  221,  fn.  4.  Dr.  Hugh  Williams,  Gildas,  p.  77,  sides  with 
Zimmer  against  Rhys  on  the  ground  that  insularis  is  probably 
"intended  to  wound ".  But  Gildas  is  not  subtle ;  and  however 
violently-he  inveighs  against  Maeígwn,  he  clearly  does  not  attempt 
to  belittle  his  power.  The  meaning  of  insularis  must  be  decided  by 
that  of  iììsula.  Not  only  is  Ynys  used  traditionally  in  Welsh  for 
Britain,  but  insula  was  so  used  in  Latin  long  before  Gildas'  time,  as 
the  quotatiou  from  Orosius  in  the  a})Ove  note  on  Goheu  a  Reget 
shows.  Giidas  uses  it  in  no  other  sense  :  in  fact,  Dr.  Williams  him- 
self  affirms  that  insula  "in  Gildas  has  no  meaning  except  Britain  ", 
p.  48.  If  Gildus' ẁsí</«  always  means  '  Britain ',  I  submit  that  his 
insularis  must  mean  'British'.  Clearly  insularis  draco  is  only 
Gildas'  bombastic  way  of  saying  du.v  Britanniarum ;  and  Rhys 
sliows  an  insi^ht  which  Zimmer  and  Dr.  Williams  Iack  when  he 
says  that  "  It  was  more  congenial  to  "  Gildas'  "style  to  describe  him 
in  that  way  than  to  call  him  simply  Du.v  Jíritanniae",  Weish  People, 
p.  107. 


Talicsin. 


283 


1NDEX 

OF      PROl'ER      NAMES. 


Abhüt,  Edwiii  A.,  1U2. 

Aborconi,  8U. 

Aber  Henvelen,   197,  252. 

Aber  Meuhedus,  47. 

Ab  Ithol,   79,   2GU-2. 

Adanman,  48. 

Aergol  Lawhir,  2UU-1. 

Aeron,    ;ô-77,  82,  85,   112,   167, 

195. 
.ŵhelstán,  221. 
Ainstable,   198. 
Aircol,  see  Aergol. 
Alban,  56. 
Alclud,  hô,  60,  61 ;  Alclyde,  65, 

71. 
Aldíord,  61. 
Aldhelm,  255-6. 
Alexander     the     Great,     98-lUU, 

137,  254. 
Alexander  macMalcohn,  56. 
Alexander  Polyliistor,  248. 
Alfred,  King,  99,  lUÛ. 
Amairgen,  see  Amorgen. 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  249. 
Amorgen,  243-246. 
Aneirin,  3,  5,  8,   14,  16,  25,  26, 

35,  45,  46,  5U,  152,  197,  225, 

229    241. 
Angles,'65.  Ì60,  161,  174. 
Anglesey,  11,  75,  2U0,  221,  256. 
Anglia,  75,  76,  85. 
Annwfn,  237-8. 
Anwyl,  Sir  Edward,  24-7,  35,  36, 

Ì33,  134,  147,  229. 
Arawn,  237. 
Arbcla,  99. 
Arddunvon,  86. 
Arddvnwent.  86,   128,   13U. 
Arfdèrvdd,  48,   146,  222. 
ArgoecÌ,  71,   154-160,  169.   170. 
Arihtiud,  269,  274. 
Arnold,     Matthew,      19-21,     3G, 

145-7.  224,  240,  250. 
Arthur,    King,    15.    50,    71,    96, 

101.  222,  238. 
Arvon,  47. 
Arvynydd,  156. 
Augustine,  110. 
Avaon  ap  Talyessin,  5U. 
Avon,  76. 


Bala,  57. 

liaml)orüugli,   41,   67. 

tíancor,  3U. 

Bangor,  61,  87,  9U,  91. 

Bannister,  Ur.  H.  M.,  268. 

Baring-Üould,  Kev.  S.,  8U,  90. 

Barwick-in-Elmet,  68. 

Bebbanburch,  41. 

Bede,  23,  25,  59,  6U,  8U,  94,  236, 

255 
Bedwvr,'  IIU. 
Bell,  ìdris,   281. 
Bendigeidvraii,  äSÒ  \  see  Brân. 
Berneich,  4U. 
Bernicia,  22,  41,  75,  84,  85,  128; 

see  Bryneich. 
Berthutis,  27U. 
Berwick  Castle,   lUU. 
Bluchbard,  3,   14,   4U,  46. 
Boniface,  256. 
Borderie,  M.  de  la,  43. 
Bovd  üawkiiis,  Professor,  1. 
Bràdshaw,    Henrv,   30,   44,    269, 

274-5,  277. 
Brahmins,  248. 
Brân,  198,  235. 
Brecon,  78. 
Breiddin,  79. 
Britain,  221,  248,  282. 
Britannia,  51. 
Brochfael  (Ysgvthrog),  28,  93-5, 

198-9,  201,  227,  235,  262. 
Brochmaií  map  lutnimct,   94. 
Brocmail,  30,  94. 
Broliomagli,  28,  94,  227. 
Brugmann,  209. 
Bryant,  Jacob,  18. 
]îrvchan,   74. 
Br'vneich,  85,  130,  209. 
BiVtlion,  53-4,   106-8. 
Burghead,  81. 


Cadell  l)dvrullug,  19i). 

Cadfan   (ap  lago),  28,  234,  266, 

268-9. 
Cadfan,  (St.),  231,  260. 
Cadi-awd  Calchfvnvdd.  74. 
Cadwaladr,   254.   266. 
Cadwallawn  inab  Madawc,  76. 


284 


Taliesin. 


Cachrallon.  95,  234,  266. 

Ctcdmon,  234. 

Ccethvalla,    234,    266. 

Caer  Liwelydd,  58,  61,  67,  200. 

Caer  Lleon,  66. 

Caer  Llion,  59,  60. 

Caer  Rigor,   238. 

Caer  Siddi,  236-8,  252. 

Caer  Yedwit,  238. 

Caer   AYeir,   61,    209. 

Caesar,  247-9. 

Cair  Eden,  79,  81. 

Cair  Legion,  59,  60. 

Cair  Ligualid,  58. 

Caithness,  57. 

CalchfTnydd,   74. 

Camden,'2,   48,   58,   68,    70,   81, 

281. 
Canterbiiry,    75. 
Cardiganshire,  76. 
Carlegion,  30. 

Carlisle,  58,  59,  67,  68,  210,  239. 
Carnarvon,  66. 
Carnhuanawc,    10,    64,    83,    154, 

157,   160,   162,   166,    191. 
Carriden,   79-81. 
Carroll,  Lewis,   61,   (246). 
Castell   Llion,    Castle   of  Lyons, 

Castrum  Leonis,  60. 
Catamanus,   28,   69 ;   see  Cadfan 

ap  lago. 
Catarracta,  67,  69. 
Raroî'pa.'CTÓi'toi',  67,  69. 
Catraeth,  5,  65,  67-70,  87,  160-2. 
Catterick,  67-70. 
Catyneis,  57. 
Caw,  65,  101. 
Cei  Hir,  96. 
Ceiriog,  75. 
Ceneu  ap  Coel,  21,  128,  154,  156, 

189,  190,  199,  223. 
Ceneu  (f.  Llywarch),  196. 
Ceri,    67 
Cernrw,   57. 

Chamherlain,   H.   S.,   112. 
Chaucer,  32. 

Cheshire,  49,  58,  61,  77,  137. 
Chester,    58-60,    66,    75,   85,    95, 

102,  201. 
Chester,  Earl  of,  58,  60. 
Cheviot  Hills,  67. 
Cian,  3,  40,  46,   128,  241. 
Cicero,  32,  184. 
Kidwellv,  65,   70,   71. 
Cincenn  f.  Gripiud,  269,  274. 
Cinda.  270,  273. 
Cinhilinn,   270,   273. 
Clark-Maxwell,  Prehendaiy,  150. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  248. 


Clud,  61,   76,   77,  82. 

Cludwys,  128. 

Clutton,   61. 

Clyde,  71,  77;  see  Clud. 

Clydemen,  69,  128,  198. 

Clydesdale,  65. 

Clydno  Eidyn,  47,  48,  79,  282. 

Cocholyn,  101. 

Codrington,  68,  69. 

Coel   (Godehawc),    77,    190,    204, 

206    213    222 
Coeling'  84-0,  204",  205,  208,  211, 

219,  222 
Coleshill,  170. 
Columl)us,  11. 
Conway,  256;  Conwy,  86. 
Corroi  M.  Dayry,  lol. 
Courcy,  95. 
Crug  bwed,  200. 
Cruithni,   63,   64. 
CüchnliiJii.  101,  273. 
Cuhelyn,  273. 
Cumberland,    64,    65,    71. 
Cuml)ria,   49,  64. 
Cunedda,     90-92,     202-211,     221- 

223,  238. 
Cuneglase,  28. 
Cwm  Cowlvd,  65. 
Cvmro,  52. 
Cymry,   51-4,  63. 
Cynan  ap  Owein  Gwynedd,  95. 
Cynan  Garwvn,  93-95,  133,  134, 

136,  147,  148,  199,  201,  223, 

235,  262. 
Cysddelw,  6,  54,  66,  75,   76.  84, 

85,   96,    127,    169,    170,    171, 

175,  185,  190. 
Cynewulf,  256. 
Cvnfarch,  171. 
Cynfpirdd,  10-13,  18,  24,  32.  34, 

49,  225,  230. 
Cynvelyn,  4,  5. 
Cvnverching,  171. 
Cyngen,  201,  223,  262. 
Cvnien,  261-2,  266. 
Cynlas,  28. 
Cynocephali,  110. 


Dafvdd  ab  Edniwnd,   188. 
Dafvdd  ap  Gwihm,  89,  105,  120, 

257. 
Dafydd  Benfras,  5,  218. 
Dafydd  Nanmor,  9. 
Danet,  128. 
Dante,  32. 
Danu,  104. 

D'Arbois  de  Jubaiiiville,   245. 
Darius,  99. 


Taliesín. 


28:; 


Davies,  Rev.  Edward,  18,  20,  37, 

53,  220. 
Davies,  Dr.  J.,  11(J,  216,  218. 
Davie.s,  J.  H.,  11. 
Dee,   57,   60,  62. 
Degannwy,  cS6,   lUô,   198. 
Delieu,  55. 
Deiír,  80.     • 
J)eio  ap  leuan  Du,  221. 
Deira,  22,  75. 
Denbigh,   12,  39,  63. 
J)enbiglishire,  63. 
Deodric,  ü-i,  154,  lü6. 
J)inguavrdi,  l)inguoai()v,  40,  41. 
Dinlleu,  239. 
J)inJle  Ureconn,  239. 
J)inogat,  80,  92. 
Diodoru.s  Siculus,  249. 
D'Israeli,  I.,  217. 
J)ôn,   104. 
Donald  Erec,  25. 
J3ubricius,  273,  279. 
J)ubut,  265,  266. 
Dumbarton,  60,  61,  65. 
J)unifries-shire,  64. 
DfmliiettMn.  60. 
Dunedin,  80. 
Dunocati,  30. 
Durhani,  41,  61,  210. 
DvfnwaJ  Frvch,  8. 
Dvfod\vg,  265. 
jy^gen,  119,  120,  197. 
DVlan,  104,  106,  243,  252. 
jywed,  hb,  82,  237. 


East  Anglia,  75,  76,  85. 

Ebel,  225. 

Ecgfrid,  44. 

Echwydd,    68,    85 ;    see    Erech- 

wvdd. 
Edern',  204,  218,  220,  222. 
Edin})urgh,  79-81,  222. 
Edwin,  57,  80. 
Edvrn,    204,    208-211,    213,    218. 

222. 
Egrvn,  264,  266. 
Egvpt,  117,  254. 
Eidvn,  77-81,  82.  110,  159.  222, 

'281. 
EingJ,  76. 

EJcu,  270.  273.  278. 
EJidir  Mwvnfawr,  47,  48. 
Elidir  Sais,   218. 
Elmet,  68,  71,  234. 
Elphin,  113,  198.  235. 
Elved,  68;  .see  Elmet. 
Elysium.  251. 
Empedocles,  246. 


Ennius,  32. 

Eobba,  40,  41,  143. 

Ercw(lff),  101. 

Erechwvdd,  68-70,  198;  see  Yr-. 

Erov,  101. 

Eryri,  215,  256. 

Etan,   Etain,    79,   80. 

Etiielwerd,  52. 

Eulo,  75. 

Euphorbus,   253. 

Eusebius  (Hwaîtberht),  256. 

Evans,  Rev.  D.  Sihan,  22,  68, 
83,  119,  123,  152,  183,  185, 
212,  216,  257. 

Evaus,  R3v.  Evan,  10-12,  14,  15, 
83,  162,  163,  166. 

Evans,  Dr.  J.  G.,  6,  12,  13,  37- 
151,  153,  158,  160,  163-4, 
166,  170-1,  ""73-8,  180,  182, 
183,  186,  188,  191,  193-4, 
198,  201,  204,  207,  211,  212, 
219,  220,  228,  232,  243,  246, 
254-5,  274,  280. 

Evans,  Theophilus,  2. 

Evans,  Sir  Yincent,  258. 

Fllamddwvn.   90,   154,   156,   157, 

168,  169,  187,  190,  191. 
Ffrainc,  63. 
Fifeshire,  71. 
Fisher,  Rev.  J.,  81,  90. 
Fletcher,   R.   H.,   50. 
Flint,    63. 

Flintshire,  71,  75,  170. 
Forth,  48,  61,  62,   74,   78. 
Frithwald,  Frithwulf,  147. 

Gaidoz,  H.,  2,  59. 

Galatians,  248. 

Gala  Water,  160. 

Galston,  167. 

Galystem,  160-2. 

Garanwvnion,  see  Grainwnion. 

Gaul,  248. 

Gavran,  78. 

Gee,  12. 

Gellii,  269,  270,  273-4,  278. 

Gelli  Wic,  58. 

Geofîrey  of  Monmouth,    14,    19, 

49,' 50,  64,  65^  70,  174. 
(Jerman  Gcean,  75. 
Gildas,   13,   14.  28-9,  33,  52,   79, 

92.  200,  201,  221 -3,  226,  254, 

282 
Giraldus,   J4,  16. 
GJamorgan,  126. 
Glan  l>adarn.  220. 
Goddeu.  72-75,  85,  104,  156,  li)5, 

198,  281. 


286 


Taliesin. 


Gododdin,  4,  5,  7,  8,  11,  20,  23, 

25,    5ü,    68,    lOü,    141,    159, 

162,  174,  222. 
Gogledd,   26,   48,   49,   55-58,   60, 

63,  76,  82,  84,  85,  137,  172, 

181,  196. 
Gothian,  (St.),  264. 
Gower,  32,  65,  70,  71. 
Granwynion,  160-162,  165. 
Grav,  Thomas,  11. 
Grnífudd  ap  Cynan,  50,  91,  244. 
Griiíí'udd  ap  Nicolas,  70. 
Gruffydd,  Prof.  W.  J.,  221,  230. 
Guadgan,  260,  264,  266. 
Guaul,  61 ;  see  Wall  (Southeru). 
Guest,  Lady  C,   113. 
Guortepir,  200. 
Gurgint,  270,  273. 
Gurycon  Godheu,   74. 
Gwalchmai,  54,  61,  108,  127,  184, 

218,  219. 
Gwallawg    (vab    Lleenawg),    77, 

95,  96,  199. 
Gwawl  d.  of  Coel,  204. 
Gweir,  237. 
Gwenddoleu,   7,  222. 
Gwentians,  200. 
Gwen  Ystrad,  132,  159-162. 
Gweryd,  47-49,  61-2. 
Gwgawn  Gleddvfrudd,  74. 
Gwilym  Tew,  9. 
Gwrvat  vab  Gwrvon,  76,  77. 
Gwvddvl  Ffichti,'  254. 
GwVdio"n  (ap  Dôn),  104,  198,  235, 

■  236,  239,  241,  253. 
Gwvnedd,  47,  91,  112,  171,  238, 

'239. 
Gwvnedd,  House  of,  42. 
Gwynn  Jones,  T.,  164,  258. 

Haearddur,  95. 
Hafgan,  236-7. 
Hafren,   197. 

Hartland,  E.  Sidney,  1,  2. 
Heavenfield,  57. 
Hengwrt,  9-11. 
Henry  I.  104,  106. 
Henrỳ  H,  75,  82,  87.  170. 
Henry  fitz  Henry,  95. 
Heraclides  of  Pontus,  253. 
Hexham,   198 
Higden,  Ranulph,  32. 
Holt,  59-60. 
Hopkin  ao  Philip,  253. 
Hor.sley,  70. 
Hounam,  67. 

Hübner,  A.,  200,  260,  265-6. 
Huírb    Lumis,    Earl   of   Chester, 
56,  82 ;  see  Chester,  Earl  of . 


Humber,  57. 

Hussa,  48,  64. 

Hyfeidd,   95. 

Hywel  ap   Owein   Gwynedd,   65- 

68. 
Hywel  Dafydd,  215. 

Ida,  40,  41,  64,  77,  84,  147,  154, 

224. 
Idno  Hên,  47. 
leuaf,  196. 

leuan   ap  Hywel   Swrdwal,   21i. 
leuan  Brydydd  Hir,  11. 
leuan    Fardd    ac    Offeiriad,    11  ; 

see  Evans,   Rev.   Evan. 
lorwerth   son  of  Madawc,   47.  • 
Ireland,  50^  63,   198,  244. 
Irish  Sea,  75. 
ludguoret,  270. 
íwerddon,   128. 

Joceline,  7,  48. 

John,  King,  98,  100,  101. 

John  o'Groats,  58. 

Jones,  Edward,   162. 

Jones,  John,  of  Gelli  Lyfdy,  9. 

Jones,  Owen,  (Owain  Myfyr),  12. 

K-,  see  under  C-. 

Rentigern,  48. 
Kluge,  180. 
Kyle,  77. 

Lache,  101,  102;  Laches,  58. 

Laing,  Malcolm,  13. 

Laloecen,  7. 

Lancashire,  65. 

Lancaster,  48. 

Land's  End,   58. 

Lann  Liuit,   279. 

Laon,  239. 

Laws  of  Hywel,  3. 

Leeds,  68. 

Leeming,  234. 

Leeming  Lane,  72. 

Legacaestir,   60. 

Leicester,  75. 

Leven,  71. 

Lewis  Glvn  Cothi,  85,  215. 

Levden,  239. 

Lhuyd,     Edward,     2,     71,     260, 

264-5. 
Lichfield,  269,  277. 
Lichfield.    Dean    of,    268-9,    272, 

275-7. 
Ligualid,  183. 
Liguallaun,  279. 
Lindsav,  Professor  W.  M.,  135, 

167,  267-9,  274-7. 


Taliesin. 


287 


Liulithgow,  76. 

Linlitligowshire,   79. 

Liuit,   278-9. 

Llaucialí,  2(39,  273-4,  278-9. 

Llundec'wyu,  256. 

Lhiutair  P\\  11  Gwyugyll,  61. 

Llaufair-Waterdine,  150. 

Llanfallteg,  200,  264. 

Llaugaít'ü,  266. 

Llauillteyru,  266. 

Llanrw.st,  63,  194. 

Llech   Yeleu,    161,    162,    166. 

Llech  Weu,   166. 

Lleu,  198,  235,  239,  251,  253. 

Llew,  239. 

Lliweljtld,  see  Caer  Liwelvdd. 

Lloegr,   63,    174. 

Lloegrwys,   171,   172,  174. 

LloYíl,  Dr.  Johu  Edward,  71,  91, 

93,   94,    147,    170,    199,   200, 

222,  259. 
Lloyd  George,  David,  24. 
Ll\vvd  (vah  Cilcoed),  237,  251. 
LlwVfeiu,  71,  72,  82,  84,  85,  128, 

"154-157,  159,  170. 
Llwvfenvdd,  71,  72,  82,  112,  175, 

'176,"  181,  182,  194. 
Llyn  Geirionuydd,  194. 
Lh'n,  William,'  21(1 
Lívr,  197,  2:á5.  252. 
Ll\-^varch  ap  Llvwelvn,  Prydydd 

y  Moch,  39;  58." 
Llvwarch  Hêu,  3,   7,  8,   14,   16. 

26,  35,  46,  68,  196. 
Llywelyn  ap  lorwerth,  58,  101. 
Llywelyn  ap  Madawc.  216. 
Loch  Lomoud,  64.  71. 
Loch  Rvan,   54,   222. 
Loth.  Professor  J.,  46,  117,  218, 

257,  281. 
Lucan,  250. 
Luch  Reon,  54. 
Luell,  59. 
Lug,  239. 
Lugu-halion.   59,   239;   -hallium, 

59 ;  -vallum,  58. 
Lugu-dûnoii,  239. 
Lyou.s,   239. 

Mabon,  95,  198,  199. 

Arachaiu,   Dr.   A..  29. 

Macedon,  100,  137. 

Macfarlane,  67. 

Machumur.   279. 

Maeldaf,  47. 

Maelderw,  5. 

Maelgwn.  27,  28.  91-93,  113,  146, 

195.  197,  198,  202.  203,  206, 

221,  233,  235.  282. 


Maelienydd,  65-67. 

Maglocuuos,  27,  28,  233. 

Mailcuu,  27,  28,  200,  233. 

Malted,  264,  266, 

Mau,  63. 

Mauauuan,  238-9. 

Mauaw,  73,  74,  80.  81. 

Manaw  Gododdin,  202. 

Mauawyd,   236,   237,   239. 

Mauawydan,  237,  239. 

Mapouus,  198. 

Marciau(n),  264,  266. 

Margam,  126. 

MarseiUes,  251. 

Math,  104,  241,  252,  253. 

Mathouwy,  235. 

Maurice,  Hugh,  105. 

Maxen,  66. 

Meilien,   74. 

^[eilyr,  188. 

Meirchion,  265. 

Meiriouvdd,  94,  95. 

Merliu,   19j  Merlinus,  49. 

Mersev,  57. 

Mever,  Kuuo,  189,  192. 

Mií,  244. 

Milhurga,  74. 

:\lilton,  97,  235. 

Mochnant,  39. 

Modrou,  199. 

Mold,  1,  71,  85. 

Mommseu,  44,  200,  280. 

Mon,  63. 

Moray,  65. 

Moray  Firth,  81. 

Morgau  Hêu,  279. 

Morgant.  77. 

Mordaf  Hael,  47,  48. 

Morris.  Lewis.  9-12,  64,  83,  154, 

157,  160,  188. 
Morris,  Richard,  10. 
Morris,  William,   10,   12. 
Morris.      William,      of     Cefn-y- 

hraich.  9. 
Much  Weulock.  74. 
Mureif.  64-5.   70-71. 
Mwrchath.  56. 
Mvnaw.  73  ;  see  Manaw. 
Mvnvdd  Carn,  188. 
Mvrddiu  nVvllt),  3,  7,  8.  9,  14, 

50,  109." 


Nash.  D.  W.,  18,  20-1.  37,  65, 
83,  144-5,  151-2,  154.  157, 
162.  166,  173.  176.  182-3, 
188.   190.  20.3-4.  211.  219. 

Neirin,  3.  32.  40-1,  45-6,  241; 
see  Aneirin. 


288 


Talicsin. 


Nemiius,    26,    40,    42,    46,    152, 

228-9,  281. 
Norddmyii  Mandi,  254. 
North,  47,  49,  55-58,  71,  76,  81, 

170,  206,  222,  224,  238,  see 

Gogledd. 
Northumberland,  44,   65,   154. 
Nudd  (Hael),   47,   48,   96. 
Numin,  270,  273. 
Nutt,    Alfred,    238,    244-5,    248, 

250-2. 

Oisîn,  see  Ossian. 

Oman,  Professor,  65,  147,  247. 

Orosius,  99,  100,  281-2. 

Ossian,  11,  23. 

Oswestry,  66. 

Oswin,  23. 

Oudoceus,  273,  279. 

0\vein  ap  Kadwgan,  61,  86. 

Owein  ap  Urien,  20-1,  84-5,  87- 
90,  128,  130,  154,  156,  168, 
170-1,  186-194.  198,  199,  253. 

Owein   Cyfeiliog,   86,    95.  ^ 

Owein  Gwynedd,  54-5,  71,  75,  78, 
81-2,  '84,  86-7,  90-3,  95-6, 
112-3.   147,   169,   170. 

Owen,   Goronwy,   10. 

Pabo,  189. 

Padarn,  220. 

Palgrare,  Sir  Francis,  64-5. 

Panton,  Paul,  11. 

Panton,  Paul,  fìls,  12. 

Partholon,  110. 

Patrick,  33-4,  112. 

Peder.sen,  Prof.  H.,   199,  215. 

Pedr  Hir,  206. 

Pen  Annwfn,  238. 

Penart,  47. 

Penmon,  75,  84. 

Pennant.  T.,  260,  262-3. 

Pennissel,  Samuil,  188. 

Penprys,  164. 

Penren  Wleth,  54. 

Penryn  Blathaon.  57,  58. 

Penryn  Penwaedd,  57. 

Pentì-aeth.  11. 

Peohtas,  52. 

PercY,  Bishop,  11. 

Philipps,  Sir  Thomas,  10. 

Phillimore,   Egerton,   9,   43,   94, 

199.  200,  201.  281. 
Phylip  Brydydd.  5. 
Picts,  52,  "63.  161. 
Pinkerton,  13. 

Plnmmer,  Rev.  C.  23,  57,  60. 
Pomponius  Mela,  249. 
Porford,  102. 


Porus,  100. 

Posidonius  of  Apamea,  249,  254. 
Powel,  Professor  T.,  17,  190,  191. 
Powys,  93,  95,  112,  104,  106. 
Price,  ilev.T.,see  Carnhuanawc. 
Prvdein,    51,   57-58,   63,    78,   85, 

104-108. 
Pryderi,   236-239. 
Prỳdydd  y  Moch,  58,   175,   181, 

184-5,  218,  see  Llywarch  ap 

Llvwelvn. 
Prydyiì,  62-65,  82,  147,  161,  162, 

164. 
Pughe,    Dr.    W.    Owen,    12,    25, 

116,  119,  139,  157,  165,  180, 

184-5,  199,  257. 
Pulford,  76,  101-104. 
Pwvll,  237-239. 
Pvthagoras,   248-253. 


Radnorshire,  66. 

Ranulf,  Earl  of  Chester,  75,  112, 

147. 
Redesdale,  65. 
Rees,  J.  Rogers,  23. 
Rees,  Professor  Rice,  204. 

Rheged',  64-71,   75,   77,  83,   156, 

161,  162,  172,  281. 
Rhiryd  Yleidd.  171. 
Rhisserdvn,   282. 
Rhodwycìd,  85. 
Rhonabwv,  222. 
Rhuddlan,  85,  86. 
Rlnìn   ap  MHelowTi.  2.  47-49,  92, 

93,  206-223,  235. 
Rhun    an    Owein    Gwynedd,    49, 

92    93    97 
Rhvcldèrch   Hael,    7,    26,    47-49, 

'  71,  77. 
Rhvdclerch  ap  Ie.stvn,  279. 
Rhys.  Sir   John.  23-4.  28-30.  34. 
■  52,  59,  65,  83,  106,  116,  123, 

147,  149.  151,  200,  215.  221, 

225-8,  230,  232.  245-6,  252-3. 

261-7,  271-2.  282. 
Rhvs,  J.  D.,  191. 
Ribchester,   198. 
Richard  I.  98,  99,  101. 
Richard,  Edward.  11. 
Richard  of  Hoveden,  243. 
Richards.    116,    199. 
Richmond,  70. 
Riuguallaun,  279. 
Robert,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  50. 
Rogers,  Henry,  23. 
Rome,  66. 
Ryt-y-gors,  61, 


Tali 


esin. 


289 


Saint  Monenna,  80. 

Saint.slniry,  G.,  22,  280. 

Saladin,   99. 

Sanctan,  188. 

San  Marte,  49,  ôü. 

Savage,  The  Yery  Re\-.   H.   E., 
see  Lichfìelcl,   Dean  of. 

Scothind,  51,  56,  63,  81,  84,  147. 

Scots,  171. 

Scrivener,  Dr.,  268. 

Secundus,  243. 

Seel)olm,  39,  274,  278-9. 

Seleu,  196. 

Selyf  ap  Cvnan,  94,  95. 

Senillt,  47. 

Serwan,  47. 

Severn,   197. 

Shanldand,  Rev.  T.,   259. 

Shropshire,  72. 

Signou,  270,  273. 

Skeat,  73. 

Sliene,  W.  F.,  13,  22,  26,  36,  39, 
61-2,  65,  71,  76-7,  81,  83,  99, 
120,     125,     154,     160,     167, 
195-6,  202. 
SU\mannan,  74. 
South  Wales,  70. 
St.  Asaph,  39. 

Stephens,    Thomas,    16,    17,    36, 

39,  40,  64-6.  79,  83,  152,  154, 

157,    160,    162,    191,    195-6, 

202,  204,  211,  219,  224,  227. 

Stevenson,  41. 

Stokes,  34,  62,  95,  179,  200,  219. 
St.  Oswald's,  57. 
Straho,  249. 

Strachan,  Prof.,  122,  185. 
Straecled  Wealas,  52. 
Strathclyde,  48,  49,  77. 
Swale,  65. 
Sweet,  33-4. 


Talhaearn,  3,  32.  40,  45-6,  241. 

Tatwine.  256. 

Tawy,  65,  70. 

Tegeingl,  75-6,  85. 

Tegid,'220. 

Teilo,  228,  232,  268-279. 

Teliau,   see  Teilo. 

Telich,  270,  278. 

Tengruin,  263. 

Teyrnon,   101. 

Thonias,  Sir  Rhvs  ap,  70. 

Thoinpson,  Sir  E.  Maunde.  44. 

Tliornhrough,   69,    70. 

Thrace,  251. 

Thurneysen.   184. 

Timagenes,  249. 


Towy,  65,  70. 

Towyn  (.Merioneth),  260. 

Trallong,  262. 

Tremvan,   146. 

Troude,  68,  181,  183,  271. 

Tuatha  de  Danann,   104. 

Tuduistil,  74. 

Tudwal  Tutchit,  47. 

Turner,    Sharon,    10,    13-16,    21, 

26,  36,  49,  83,  154,  157,  257. 
Tuthulch     f.     Liuit,     270,     274, 

278-9. 
Tutri,  270,  273. 
Tweed,  67. 
Tylor,  E.  B.,  217. 

übbanford,   100,   101. 

Ugnach  vab  Mvdno,  7. 

Ulph,    75,    112,'  147,    195. 

Urien,  20,  21,  26,  50,  64-5,  67-8, 
70-3,  75,  77,  84-7,  112,  147, 
154-7,  167-8,  181-2,  186, 
194-7,  201,  223,  235,  253, 
262,  281. 

Yalerius  Maxinius,  249. 

Yauglian,   Robert,   9,   10. 

Yedra,  61. 

Yictor,  30. 

YiHa  Leonuni,  60. 

Yirgil,  24. 

Voteporix,  200. 

Wace,  49,  50. 

Walde.  A.,  111,  117,  165.  215. 
Wall,  The  Northern,  159. 
Wall,  Tlie  Southern,  62,  67,  70, 

281. 
Watling  Street,  67. 
Wear,  61. 
Wedale,   160. 
Wenslevdale,  161. 
Westwood,  J.  O..  231.  260-7. 
Williams.     Edward     (lolo     Mor- 

ganwg),  12. 
A^'illiams,  Dr.  H..  43.  282. 
AYilliams.  Ifor.  25.  35-6,  51,  53, 

67.   76-7,  99.  115,   124.  143, 

185,  200,  216,  254.  257-8. 
Williams,  Sir  John,  10. 
Williams,  Dr.  Marv,  243. 
Williams,   Rev.   Robert,   22,   53, 

83,   89,    152,    157,    163,    166. 

173,    176,    180.    182-3,    190, 

204,  211.  219,  220. 
Williams.  W.,  J'ant-y-celyn,  120. 
^N  indermere,   71.   160. 
Winsterdale,  160. 
Wirral,  57. 

U 


2ÇO  Taliesin. 

Wood,  O.  A.,  255-7.  Yiechwydd,  157,  171-2;  see  Er-. 

Woore,    62.  Ystrei(n)gl,  /6. 

Wreldii,   74,  239. 

Wyckewere,  39.  ^euss,  123,  22o 

Wvp    200  Zimmer,  Prot.  H.,  2,  30,  3á,  41, 

Wynsige,  269.  44-5,  83,  146,  152,  221,  228- 

Y»yr    101.  Zimmermann,  E.  H.,  268. 


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