Tag: Gwyn ap Nudd

A Prayer For When You Sleep

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For Gwyn

Four months without your presence here,
May, June, July, August…

you have pulled the hill-doors shut,
drawn your shadow

into your fortress
where snow is heaped upon the roof

and you are guarded by a vigil
of loyal, loyal hounds.

In the blink of your eye
the fortress turns –

one moment
an eternity in Annwn,

here May, June, July, August…
The flowers mark the stations

of your sleep – bluebells, red campion, ox-eye daisies.
The trees are green with your rival’s victory

yet in a yew grove I see you sleepwalk,
mime the making of a bow.

For four months I count forget-me-nots,
blow white seeds of dandelions

into the silent tolling of Annwn
and gather mugwort.

Four months without your presence here,
May, June, July, August…

P1210750

Gwyn Altar - Sleeping - Caer Ochren - Meg Falconer

Image Caer Ochren, based on lines about the birth of Pen Annwn in Preiddu Annwn, by Meg Falconer

Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwenddolau ap Ceidio, Bull Protector of Arfderydd

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In ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ Gwyn speaks of attending the death of Gwenddolau ap Ceidio:

‘I was there when Gwenddolau was slain,
Ceidio’s son, a pillar of poetry,
When ravens croaked on gore.’

Gwenddolau was one of four northern British warlords whose souls Gwyn gathered from the battlefield. The root of his name, ‘Gwen’, like ‘Gwyn’, means ‘White, Blessed, Holy’. His descent from Ceidio places him in the lineage of Coel Hen amongst the ‘Men of the North’.

Gwenddolau’s brother was Nudd Hael/Llawhael, ‘The Generous/Generous Hand’. It seems possible he was named after Gwyn’s father, Nudd/Lludd Llaw Eraint ‘Silver Hand’. Connections have been made between Nudd Hael and a stone in Yarrow Kirk commemorating ‘the illustrious Nudus and Dumongenus… sons of Liberalis’. Nudus is a Latinisation of Nudd.

It may be suggested that Nudd and Gwyn were ancestral deities to the Coeling. The other northern men whose souls Gwyn gathered: Bran ap Ywerydd, Meurig ap Careian, and Gwallog ap Lleenog were also descendants of Coel Hen.

View from Liddel Strength

Gwenddolau’s fortress, Caer Gwenddolau, stood on present-day Liddel Strength beside Liddel Water. It is likely his rule extended from there throughout the modern parish of Arthuret, which was then known as Arfderydd, and perhaps more widely.

The nearby Roman settlement Castra Exploratum ‘Fortress of the Scouts’ supplies generous evidence of pagan worship including altars to Roman and British deities and a striking ram-horned head.

In ‘Greetings’ Myrddin speaks of Gwenddolau as ‘a glorious prince, / Gathering booty from every border… Chief of the kings of the North, greatest in generosity.’ This shows that, like his kinsmen, he was fond of raiding his enemies and endowing wealth on his subjects and bards (hence the epithet ‘pillar of poetry’). He may even have held the position of ‘High King’.

In Triad 6 Gwenddolau is named as one of three ‘Bull Protectors’ of the Island of Britain. Anne Ross notes Tarw, ‘Bull’, is a ‘title’ for ‘eminent warriors in a society which at one stage likened its tribal god… to a great horned bull.’ Gwyn is addressed by Gwyddno as a ‘Bull of Battle’. Gwenddolau’s title of Bull Protector might derive from his likening to Gwyn. Bulls were held especially sacred by the cattle-raiding kingdoms of the North.

The word used for ‘Protector’ is Caduc. Rachel Bromwich notes it has several meanings: ‘fog, gloom, darkness, covering, armour’ which she links to ‘the battle-fog of the host of Gwenddolau’ (Triad 44) describing it as ‘the rising vapour or cloud of dust or steam which rose from an army under stress of battle’.

This battle-fog may have been caused by combat. Another explanation is that Gwenddolau, like certain Druids, had the ability to summon a protective fog around his host. This could be rooted in his relationship with Gwyn, whose father is Nudd, ‘Mist’. The term nuden refers to a ‘condensed floating white cloud’ said ‘to claw ones vitals’ which serves as a garment for Gwyn.

Gwenddolau was the owner of two birds who ‘had a yoke of gold on them. Two corpses of the Cymry they ate for their dinner, and two for their supper’ (Triad 33). There is a longstanding tradition of corpse-eating birds in Welsh literature. Dead warriors are said to feed the ravens or eagles and Gwyn gathers the souls of the dead accompanied by ravens who ‘croak over gore’.

Gwenddolau’s ownership of these birds could suggest their excarnation of corpses was part of his funerary practice. By ‘the Cymry’ it is unclear whether they eat the corpses of his tribe, his Cymric enemies, (or both!). Birds yoked together in pairs by gold or silver chains appear in Irish literature and are often transformed humans. On the Papil Stone, from West Burra, Shetland, we find the image of two bird-headed figures with a small human head between their beaks. Could Gwenddolau’s birds have been shapeshifting corpse-eaters?

Gwenddolau also possessed a magical chessboard that appears as one of ‘The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain’ ‘which were in the North’. ‘The Chessboard of Gwenddolau son of Ceidio: if the pieces were set, they would play themselves. The board was of gold and the men were of silver’.

In Peredur the protagonist finds a gwyllbwyll board similar to the Gwyddbwyll Gwenddolau in the Castle of Wonders. The two sides play each other by themselves. When one side loses the other shout ‘as if they were men’. These chessboards, like the other treasures, are alive, animate, endowed with a life and spirit of their own.

Gwenddolau was killed at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573. This is recorded in The Annales Cambriae: ‘The Battle of Arderydd between the sons of Elifer and Gwenddolau the son of Ceidio; in which battle Gwenddolau fell; Merlin became mad’.

Triad 84 ‘Three Futile Battles’ refers to ‘the Contest of Arfderyd, which was brought about because of the lark’s nest’*. Robert Vaughan speaks of a tradition wherein the shepherds of Rhydderch of Alt Clut (Strathclyde) and Aeddan of Dal Riada fell out over a lark’s nest and Aeddan sided with Gwenddolau against Rhydderch. The poems attributed to Myrddin/Merlin also suggest Rhydderch fought against Gwenddolau.

It seems possible Gwrgi and Peredur allied with Rhydderch against Gwenddolau and perhaps Aeddan. Gwrgi and Peredur were Gwenddolau’s cousins and ruled Eboracum (York). To add to the confusion they were supported by Dunawd the Stout of Dununtinga (Dent?), Cynfelyn the Leprous (location unknown) and Cynan Garwyn of Powys.

Many warlords had it in for Gwenddolau! This is unsurprising considering his raiding and overlording as ‘Chief of the kings of the North’. It has been suggested that Gwenddolau was targeted because, unlike his Christian kinsmen he maintained his pagan beliefs and practices. Perhaps he was attacked for a mixture of these reasons and more.

Gwenddolau was supported by his nephew Dreon ap Nudd. In Triad 31 he is referred to as Dreon the Brave whose ‘Noble Retinue’ fought at the Dyke of Arfderydd. After Gwenddolau fell, his ‘Faithful Warband’ ‘continued the battle for a fortnight and a month’ (Triad 29).

After the Battle of Arfderydd, Myrddin, a warrior who fought for Gwenddolau, became wyllt, ‘mad’. The Life of St Kentigern records his** vision of a ‘brightness too great for human senses to endure’ with martial battalions in the skies. It seems likely this was Gwyn and his host arriving to gather Gwenddolau’s soul and the souls of the other warriors from the battlefield.

Was Gwenddolau taken by Gwyn to Annwn to be re-united with his ancestors? Or, like other bullish warlords such as Gwidawl, Llyr Marini, and Gyrthmwl Wledig, did he become a ‘Bull Spectre’ (Tarw Ellyll) haunting Arfderydd with his corpse-eating birds and chessmen who go on playing by themselves?…

Chillingham_Bull_by_Thomas_Bewick_1789

*This may have been Caer Laverock, ‘The Lark’s Fort’.
**Here he is named Lailoken, deriving from Llallogan, ‘other’.

SOURCES

Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, (Cardinal, 1974)
J. Gwengobyrn Evans, The Black Book of Carmarthen, (Pwllhelli, 1907)
Greg Hill (transl) ‘Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’
Meirion Pennar (transl.), The Black Book of Carmarthen, (Llanerch Enterprises, 1989)
Nikolai Tolstoy, The Quest for Merlin, (Sceptre, 1985)
Rachel Bromwich (ed), The Triads of the Island of Britain, (University of Wales Press, 2014)
Sioned Davies (transl.), The Mabinogion, (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Tim Clarke, The Men of the North: The Britons of Southern Scotland, (John Donald, 2010)
Tim Clarkson, Scotland’s Merlin, (Berlinn, 2016)

Gwenddydd: The Dreamer at the End of the World

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‘I have come hither to tell
Of the jurisdiction I have in the North;
Every region’s beauty is known to me.’
The Dialogue of Myrddin and his Sister Gwenddydd

Many people have heard of Merlin and a few of the northern British wildman, Myrddin Wyllt. But what of Gwenddydd, Myrddin’s twin sister, who was also an important prophetic figure from the Old North, whose legacy has been overshadowed by her brother’s?

Gwenddydd and Myrddin lived during the 6th century and their father’s name was Morfryn. From the poems attributed to Myrddin in The Black Book of Carmarthen (1350), we can derive that he was a warrior of Gwenddolau. His deep fondness of his lord suggests the twins grew up at Caer Gwenddolau (Liddel Strength) in Arfderydd (Arthuret).

View from Liddel Strength

Liddel Strength

What kind of upbringing did Gwenddydd have? Gwenddolau was renowned as a ‘Bull-Protector’ and cattle-raiding warlord. Many legends surround him: he owned two birds who ate two corpses of the Cymry for dinner and supper; his gwyddbwyll set played itself; he conjured a mysterious battle-fog; his soul was gathered from the battlefield by Gwyn ap Nudd.

These stories have led scholars such as Nikolai Tolstoy to argue that Gwenddolau was the last of the northern British pagan warlords. Unfortunately this cannot be proven as many of the Christian warlords had magical abilities and, like Gwenddolau, were named as the owners of ‘The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, which were in the North’.

Whatever the case, Gwenddolau was a formidable figure. Gwenddydd grew up alongside Myrddin and their four brothers, Morgenau, Cyvrennin, Moryal and Moryen in a male-dominated culture where internecine warfare and cattle-raiding between the kingdoms of the Old North was the norm.

The ethos of the society was ‘heroic’. The warriors who committed the most blood-thirsty deeds in battle and stole the most cattle won immortality in the songs of the Bards. Both pagans and Christians believed that inspiration and prophecy originated from the Awen*; those able to give voice to it (particularly for military purposes) were held in high esteem.

The medieval texts suggest that women played a subordinate role to men as wives and home-keepers. How much this accurately reflects 6th century society and how much the gloss of medieval scribes is open to question. There are suggestions in several texts that Gwenddydd was seen as important, not only due to her upbringing at Caer Gwenddolau, but because of her intelligence and her prophetic abilities.

Gwenddydd eventually married Rhydderch Hael** who ruled Alt Clut from present-day Dumbarton. It is my belief this was a political marriage to cement an alliance between the kingdoms of Arfderydd and Alt Clut. Whether this was arranged by Gwenddolau or initiated by Gwenddydd in accord with her own political aims remains a matter of conjecture.

Dumbarton Rock

Dumbarton Rock

It’s my opinion that Gwenddydd was not just a pawn in the games of the male warlords. In ‘The Dialogue of Myrddin and his Sister Gwenddydd’ from The Red Book of Hergest (1380 – 1410) she speaks of ‘the jurisdiction’ she has ‘in the North. / Every region’s beauty is known to me.’

Gwenddydd was an important co-ruler. Not only did she have ‘jurisdiction’ over Alt Clut and, perhaps, Arfderydd, but the whole of the North. This may have been founded on her prophetic abilities: her capacity to see the unfolding of the fates of all the regions.

The alliance between Arfderydd and Alt Clut lasted for at least as long as it took Gwenddydd and Rhydderch’s son and daughter to grow to fighting age (from around 550 to 573 – a long time in those war-torn days!); it is notable that both Gwenddydd’s son and her daughter became warriors. It then broke down with tragic consequences, leading to the Battle of Arfderydd in 573 (whether Gwenddydd foresaw this battle remains uncertain).

Many reasons have been cited for the Battle of Arfderydd. In The Triads of the Island of Britain (13th C), it is listed as one of three ‘futile battles’ because it was fought over a Lark’s Nest: possibly an allusion to the nearby fortress of Caer Laverock. Another theory is that Rhydderch allied against Gwenddolau with other Christian warlords to bring an end to northern British paganism. Alternatively it may simply have been about land and power.

Rhydderch and his allies, Gwrgi and Peredur, fought against Gwenddolau and his nephew, Dreon ap Nudd. Gwenddolau was killed. Gwenddydd’s son and daughter fought on Rhydderch’s side and were slaughtered by Myrddin. The latter tragedy is referenced in a poem attributed to Myrddin called ‘The Apple Trees’ from The Black Book of Carmarthen (1350):

‘Now Gwenddydd loves me not and does not greet me
– I am hated by Gwasawg, the supporter of Rhydderch –
I have killed her son and her daughter.
Death has taken everyone, why does it not call me?…

Oh Jesus! would that my end had come
Before I was guilty of the death of the son of Gwenddydd.’

These lines show that Gwenddydd was devastated by Myrddin’s slaughter of her children. Understandably, her love of her twin had turned to hatred, and she refused to speak to him. Other poems show that Rhydderch was actively pursuing the killer of his children.

In ‘The Apple Trees’, Myrddin mentions his ‘sweet-apple tree’ has ‘a peculiar power’ which ‘hides it from the lords of Rhydderch’. In ‘The O’s’, which are addressed to a ‘little pig, a happy pig’, he tells it to ‘Burrow in a hidden place in the woodlands / For fear of the hunting-dogs of Rhydderch Hael, defender of the Faith.’

These poems are attributed to Myrddin during the time he was wyllt (‘wild’ or ‘mad’). Tormented by battle-trauma, guilt, and grief, and haunted by a blinding vision of a martial battalion in the skies***, he wandered the forest of Celyddon ‘for ten and twenty years’ amongst other gwyllon (‘wildmen’ or ‘madman’) speaking poems to the wild creatures. When he emerged, he used the art of prophecy to warn against future bloodshed.

Eventually, Gwenddydd forgave Myrddin. Her reasons for this decision remain mysterious. Did she realise Myrddin’s slaughter of her children resulted from the fatal circumstances of the breakdown of Gwenddolau and Rhydderch’s allegiance and the power-hunger of the northern warlords? Did she sympathise with Myrddin’s suffering? Did she acknowledge his use of prophecy to warn against future wars?

Their reconciliation is evidenced by several texts. In The Life of Merlin (1150) Gwenddydd persuades Rhydderch to send out a messenger with a cither to charm Myrddin back to Rhydderch’s court. When he arrives she kisses him and twines her arms around his neck. However, unable to bear civilised life, Myrddin flees back to the forest, where Gwenddydd builds him a home. After Rhydderch dies, Gwenddydd joins her brother in Celyddon.

We learn ‘She too was at times elevated by the spirit so that she often prophesied to her friends concerning the future of the kingdom.’ Gwenddydd speaks of future conflicts through a blend of cosmic, animal and martial imagery:

‘I see two moons in the air near Winchester and two lions acting with too great ferocity, and one man looking at two and another at the same number, and preparing for battle and standing opposed.  The others rise up and attack the fourth fiercely and savagely but not one of them prevails, for he stands firm and moves his shield and fights back with his weapons and as victor straightway defeats his triple enemy.  Two of them he drives across the frozen regions of the north while he gives to the third the mercy that he asks, so that the stars flee through all portions of the fields…

I see two stars engaging in combat with wild beasts beneath the hill of Urien where the people of Gwent and those of Deira met in the reign of the great Coel.  O with what sweat the men drip and with what blood the ground while wounds are being given to the foreigners!  One star collides with the other and falls into the shadow, hiding its light from the renewed light…’

Finally, Myrddin says, ‘Sister, does the spirit wish you to foretell future things, since he has closed up my mouth and my book? Therefore this task is given to you; rejoice in it, and under my favour devoted to him speak everything’.

In The Story of Myrddin Wyllt (16th C), during the period of his madness, Gwenddydd delivers food and water to her brother’s forest abode. She shares her dreams with Myrddin and he interprets them. Three dreams relate to the unfair distribution of wealth, the fourth concerns an attack by foreigners and in the fifth, in a graveyard, Gwenddydd eerily hears children speaking from their mother’s wombs.

‘The Dialogue of Myrddin and his Sister Gwenddydd’ takes place when the twins are aged: Myrddin has ‘white hair’. After telling Myrddin of her ‘jurisdiction… in the North’ Gwenddydd asks him a series of questions about who will rule Prydain. The positions of prophet and interpreter are reversed and we can conjecture that the twins habitually swapped roles. With the aid of wyllon mynydd (‘mountain ghosts’) Myrddin  predicts all the rulers of Prydain until:

‘…the time of Cymry suffering
Without help, and failing in their hope–
It is impossible to say who will rule.’

The tone then becomes apocalyptic:

‘When killing becomes the first duty
From sea to sea across all the land–
Say, lady, that the world is at an end…

There will be no portion for priest nor minstrel,
Nor repairing to the altar,
Until the heaven falls to the earth…

Extermination, lady, will be the end…

There will be no more kings!’
Gwenddydd consoles Myrddin:
‘Arise from your rest,
Open the books of Awen without fear.
Hear the discourse of a maid,
Give repose to your dreams.’

It is clear that the twins’ deaths are drawing near. Gwenddydd suggests Myrddin seek communion. Brother and sister finally commend one another to God and ‘the supreme Caer’.

This echoes a story from The Life of St Kentigern (12th C)****. Myrddin predicts his ‘threefold’ death by stoning, being pierced by a stake and drowning and asks for the sacrament from Kentigern. After receiving it he flees to meet his predicted end by being stoned by shepherds and falling onto a stake in the river Tweed.

Nothing is recorded about Gwenddydd’s response to her brother’s death or how she perished. However, from ‘A Fugitive Poem of Myrddin in his Grave’ in The Red Book of Hergest we can infer that Myrddin continues to speak from the afterlife with ‘mountains ghosts’, who ‘come to me / Here in Aber Carav.’ It is thus likely Gwenddydd also possesses the ability to speak her dreams and prophesies with the aid of spirits from her grave: her ‘supreme Caer’.

As our world is threatened by many ends: climate change, mass extinctions, global warfare, what does she dream? Could her story – one of loss, forgiveness and a determination to prophesy against future bloodshed, form a source of inspiration for people seeking alternative narratives to the militant worldviews responsible for her son and daughter’s death, the deaths of millions of others, and our living landscape?

Blog 6. Coille Coire Chuilc

Coile Coire Chulic – one of the last remnants of Celyddon

*Divine inspiration.
**This is depicted in The Life of Merlin (1150), a fictionalised account of Myrddin’s life by Geoffrey of Monmouth based on earlier sources. Myrddin appears as Merlin and Gwenddydd as Ganieda.
***This is recorded in The Life of Merlin and The Life of St Kentigern. I believe Myrddin saw Gwyn ap Nudd and the spirits of Annwn as in The Black Book of Carmarthen, Gwyn states his presence at Gwenddolau’s death as a gatherer of souls. The spirits who interact with Myrddin and Gwenddydd may be spirits of Annwn.
****Here Myrddin is named Lailoken, which is derived from Llallogan ‘other’.

Gwyn ap Nudd, Meurig ap Careian and Elaeth the Poet

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Another warrior whose death Gwyn ap Nudd states his presence at in ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ is Meurig ap Careian:

‘I was there when Meurig was slain,
Careian’s son, honoured in praise,
When ravens croaked on flesh.’

To the best of my knowledge, Meurig ap Careian does not appear in any other literature by that name. The patronymic ‘Careian’ may be the result of a scribal error. In Early Welsh Saga Poetry, Jenny Rowlands puts forward a theory about his identity.

Rowlands mentions that in the margin of ‘A Song on Gwallawg ap Lleenawg’ (which precedes ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’ in The Black Book of Carmarthen) there are two verses which associate Gwallawg with ‘a certain Meurig who is probably to be identified as Meurig m. Idno, his son-in-law.’ Both men are ‘clearly vilified’.

‘No one who would have been famous
went in the plight that Gwallawg did
to the accursed one, to the thorn bushes.

No one who would have been admired
Went in the plight that Meurig did
On the back of his wife bent-in-three.’

Rowland says ‘These stanzas perhaps allude to a scurrilous story in which both men fled ignominiously from battle, and the englyn about Gwallawg could reflect a variant, more shameful, tale about how he lost one eye.’* Gwallawg and Meurig are ‘held up as patterns to avoid.’

Rowland also mentions that Meurig ap Idno may be referred to by Llywarch Hen in ‘Gwahodd Llywarch i Lanfawr’ as Meurgawg marchgawg ‘horseman like Meurig’. This places Meurig alongside Gwallawg and Brân ap Ymellryn as Llywarch Hen’s enemies. Considering that Gwyn states his presence at the deaths of Gwallawg and Brân, these associations could well be correct.

In Early Welsh Genealogical Tracts, Meurig ap Idno’s mother is Gwallawg’s sister, Onnengreg, strengthening the case for a connection. It seems possible Careian was an obscure epithet for Meurig’s father, Idno, which got confused with a patronymic.

Many of the Men of the North have epithets such as ‘Mwynfawr’ ‘the wealthy’ and ‘Freichras’ ‘strong arm’. Might Careian derive from cariad, which is Welsh for ‘lover’? There is a tradition of triads celebrating lovers and lover’s horses. The marginal lines about Meurig ‘On the back of his wife bent-in-three’ might parody his epithet.

It is notable that Idno is the son of Meirchion Gul son of Gwrwrst Ledlwm son of Ceneu son of Coel Hen. Gwrwrst Ledlwm was one of the northern men who allied with Gwythyr ap Greidol, Gwyn’s rival for the love of Creiddylad, in Culhwch and Olwen. Gwythyr, Gwrwst and a collection of mythic and historical warriors assaulted Gwyn and were consequently imprisoned by him then rescued by Arthur. Gwyn has a long history of interactions with this family.

Meurig ap Idno also had a brother called Mabon (‘Divine Son’). His naming after the Brythonic god of youth also demonstrates a continuation of pagan influence on Idno’s family. However, this ended with Meurig and Onnengreg’s son, Elaeth, who became St Elaeth Frenin of Anglesey. Frenin derives from brenin King and suggests he succeeded his father, Meurig, as king of a region in the Old North. Where he reigned is debatable.

If we look at the traditional locations of other Coelings: Gwallog was associated with Leeds, Urien Rheged with Carlisle and/or the Solway Firth, Dunod with Dent, it seems possible he was located somewhere in modern-day Cumbria, Yorkshire, or Lancashire. August Hunt’s theory is the town of Moresby in Cumbria derives from ‘Gwas Meurig’ ‘Abode of Meurig’. Guasmoric is mentioned in Historia Brittonum and may be identified with the Gabrosentum fort near Moresby.

Elaeth was driven from his northern lands (whether by Anglo-Saxons or other Britons remains open to question), went to live in a monastery run by St Seiriol at Penmon on Anglesey, and founded St Eleth’s church at Amlwch. He was also associated with a healing well: Fynnon Elaeth. Intriguingly this was used for divination by means of the ‘motions and actions’ of an eel who was kept in it. Inquirers often waited for days for the eel to appear. Elaeth’s feast day is November the 10th.

free-eel-clipart-clipart-kid

Elaeth was also a poet and is believed to have composed two of the poems in The Black Book of Carmarthen: ‘The Cynhogion of Elaeth’ and ‘Not To Call Upon God’. This seems significant because The Black Book of Carmarthen was once a much longer prose saga, which may once have contained the details of Meurig’s death and the reasons for Elaeth’s flight.

Most of the men whose souls Gwyn gathers appear in other works in The Black Book of Carmarthen. Some poems document the battles and eulogise the deaths of warriors associated with the Old North. Others, such as those attributed to Myrddin and Llywarch, provide accounts of the devastating effects of war and reflections on the joys and hardships of eking out an existence in the natural world after losing one’s place within civilisation.

Unlike The Book of Taliesin, which provides all-out praise of the ‘heroic’ ethos, The Black Book of Carmarthen documents the after-effects of war, provides a critique of the age in which the Old North was lost and offers solace in nature and religion as a way to recovery.

***

*‘A Song on Gwallawg ap Lleenawg’ refers to the loss of his eye:

‘Accursed be the tree
Which pulled out his eye in his presence,
Gwallawg ab Lleenawg, the ruler.’

With thanks to Greg at The Way of the Awenydd for information on the pages from Jenny Rowland’s Early Welsh Saga Poetry from The National Library of Wales.

SOURCES

Anna, ‘St Elaeth the Poet’
August Hunt, The Arthur of History, (August Hunt, 2012)
Heron (transl) ‘Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’
Jenny Rowland, Early Welsh Saga Poetry, (Cambridge, 1990)
Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary, (National Library of Wales, 1993)
Sioned Davies (transl.), The Mabinogion, (Oxford University Press, 2007)
William F. Skene (transl), The Four Ancient Books of Wales, (Forgotten Books 2007)

Gwyn ap Nudd and Brân ap Ywerydd: Five Brâns?

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In ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’, Gwyn states his presence at the death of Brân ap Ywerydd:

‘I was there when Brân was slain,
Ywerydd’s son of wide fame,
When battle-ravens croaked.’

Gwyn recites Brân’s name amongst the names of three famous northern warlords: Gwenddolau ap Ceidio, Gwallog ap Llenog and Meurig ap Careian* and also Llachau, Arthur’s son. It is clear Brân was slain in battle and that Gwyn was present as a psychopomp to gather his soul back to Annwn. Brân’s name must have held meaning for Gwyddno Garanhir** and the audience. Who is Brân ap Ywerydd? Scholars have attempted to solve this puzzle by identifying him with a number of mythological and historical figures.

Brân the Blessed

raven-clipart-we-heart-it-public-domain

There exists a tradition which identifies Brân ap Ywerydd with Bendigeidfran ‘Blessed Raven’ or ‘Brân the Blessed’ son of Llŷr. Brân is a well known and much loved figure in British mythology who was fatally wounded in a battle against King Matholwch of Ireland. His severed head, buried beneath the Tower of London, served an apotropaic function protecting the Island of Britain until Arthur dug it up.

Scholars such as John Rhŷs and John Koch identify Iwerydd as the mother of Brân the Blessed. Koch says ‘Iwerydd (Atlantic) was a goddess from the Atlantic ocean, from the Western land of Hades, which could have been Ireland (Iwerddon). Iwerydd married Llyr and bore him two children named Brân (Raven) and Branwen (White Raven).’

The birth of Brân, his sister, Branwen, and perhaps their brother Manawydan by Iwerydd and Llŷr Llediaith (Irish Ler ‘the sea’, Welsh Llediaith ‘half-speech) makes sense within the context of Brân’s gargantuan stature and his affairs across the sea in Ireland.

If Brân ap Ywerydd and Brân the Blessed were identified, this would place Gwyn at the near-apocalyptic battle between the armies of Brân and Matholwch where the Irish dead are reborn from the Cauldron of Rebirth before it is broken by Efnysien. Of the Irish only five pregnant women are left alive. Just seven British survivors return with Brân’s head. If Gwyn attended the death of Brân the Blessed it might be suggested he also served as psychopomp to the victims of this terrible clash.

However, there are arguments against the identification of these two Brâns. Elsewhere, Brân the Blessed’s mother is named as Penarddun (‘Chief Beauty’). In ‘The Second Branch’ of The Mabinogion, Bendigeidfran is named as a son of Llŷr with Manawydan as his brother and Branwen as his sister. Nysien and Efnysien are sons of Euroswydd by ‘his own mother Penarddun, daughter of Beli.’

In The Triads of Ancient Britain, Llŷr Half-Speech is named as one of ‘Three Exalted (Supreme) Prisoners of the Island of Britain’. He was ‘imprisoned by Euroswydd’. It seems likely Euroswydd conceived Nysien and Efnysien with Penarddun whilst Llŷr was his prisoner.

Although textual evidence provides a stronger case for Penarddun being Brân’s mother than Iwerydd, within mythology we often find multiple genealogies which are equally valid. Iwerydd and Penarddun could also be titles for the same divinity. Therefore the identification of these two Brâns cannot be ruled out.

Brân ap Ymellryn

Grufudd Hiraethog identifies Brân ap Ywerydd with Brân ap Ymellyrn: a historical figure who appears in the poems attributed to Llywarch Hen. These are set after the assassination of Llywarch’s cousin, Urien Rheged, on the order of his jealous rival, Morgan, during a campaign against the Anglo-Saxons on Lindisfarne in 585.

Llywarch bore Urien’s head home. Afterward, Urien’s sons and Llywarch were driven from their lands in the Old North*** by Urien’s enemies who included Dunawd, Morgant, Gwallawg and Brân ap Ymellyrn. In The Death of Urien, Llywarch speaks of his plight (Pasgen and Elphin are Urien’s sons):

‘Dunawd, the chief of the age, would drive onward,
Intent upon making battle,
Against the conflict of Pasgen.

Gwallawg, the horseman of tumult, would drive onward,
Intent upon trying the sharpest edge,
Against the conflict of Elphin.

Brân, the son of Mellyrn, would drive onward,
Collecting men to burn my ovens:
A wolf that looked grimly by the banks of Abers.

Morgant and his men would drive onward,
Collecting a host to burn my lands:
He was a mouse that scratched against a rock.’

Llywarch flees to the court of Cynddylan in Powys. After Cynddylan is killed, he is again left homeless and destitute. A friend advises him to trust neither Brân nor Dunawd and to take refuge in Llanfawr:

‘Trust not Brân, trust not Dunawd;
Consort not with them in hardship.
Herdsman of calves, go to Llanfawr.’

Glyn E. Jones suggests Brân ap Ymellyrn may be identified with Brân ap Dyfnwal (Ymellyrn was his mother and Dyfnwal his father). This places him with Urien, Llywarch and their enemies Gwallawg and Dunawd amongst the descendants of Coel Hen within the lineages of the Old North.

Brân Galed

Hiraethog identifies Brân ab Ywerydd with Brân Galed (‘the Niggard’). He is the keeper of a magical horn that appears amongst ‘The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain’ ‘which were in the North’: ‘The Horn of Brân the Niggard from the North: whatever drink might be wished for was found in it.’ Most of the owners of the treasures (who include Gwyddno and Gwenddolau) are ‘Men of the North’ and lived during the 6thC.

In the marginalia of an early list is a story about how Myrddin asked for the treasures from the thirteen owners. They all agreed if Myrddin obtained Brân’s horn, they would hand their treasures over, assuming Brân was so niggardly he would never give his up. Somehow, Myrddin persuaded Brân to give him the horn and he took all the treasures to a glass house where they remain forever.

It has been suggested Taliesin played a role in Brân’s decision. In a poem by Guto’r Glyn ‘Miserly, niggardly Brân they used to call him, who of old was descended from the Men of the North; Taliesin, no mean magician, transformed him into one better than the three generous men.’ In some variants Taliesin is the collector of the treasures. In another, Hercules slays a centaur and obtains Brân’s horn from its head.

Brân at Cynwyd

In The Gododdin we find the line ‘Brân was at Cynwyd’. Jenny Rowlands notes ‘Cynwyd is attested as both a personal and place name’. It may relate to a battle where Pelis, son of Urien fought, or to his leadership of the Cynwydion (named after Cynwyd Cynwydion, another descendent of Coel Hen).

Considering the antipathy between Urien’s sons and Brân ap Ymellyrn, it seems possible Pelis and the Cynwydion fought against Brân ap Ymellyrn and his allies and are commemorated at Cynwyd. Brân may have perished there too. The location remains unconfirmed, although there is a Cynwyd near to Corwen beside the river Dee in Wales.

Five Brâns?

Can we ascertain Brân ap Ywerydd’s identification with any or all of these Brâns? Are we looking at one, two, three, four or five different figures?  I think it’s safe to say that Brân the Blessed and the Brâns of the sixth century are entirely different due to the differences in timescale and mythological and historical context.

Within the context of Brân ap Ywerydd’s appearance in ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’, I think it most likely, like Gwenddolau, Gwallog and Meurig, he is a northern British figure from the 6thC. Brân ap Ywerydd, Brân ap Ymellyrn, the Brân who was at Cynwyd, and Brân Galed could be the same person.

We can tentatively piece together his story as follows: Brân was the son of Ywerydd and Dyfnawl and lived during the period of intense internecine conflict between the Brythonic kingdoms of the Old North as they fought against the Anglo-Saxons. Brân, Gwallawg, Dunawd and Morgant allied against Urien and Llywarch, arranging Urien’s assassination and driving Llywarch from the North. Brân later fought against Urien’s son, Pelis, at Cynwyd and perished and Gwyn attended his death. Brân was renowned for his niggardly nature and keeping his horn and his drink to himself. Sometime after his death, this fell into the realm of myth and became one of the Thirteen Treasures.

Gwyn’s association with Brân the Blessed cannot, however, be ruled out. As Gwyn is a ruler of Annwn and guide of the dead he could well have attended Bendigeidfran’s death too. The croaking ravens in each of the elegaic verses spoken by Gwyn invoke Brân’s presence as a reminder of the futile, destructive and seemingly unending nature of war.

Associations between ravens and the battlefield continue to endure in contemporary poetry. Speaking of the Iraq war in her modern rewriting of the traditional ballad ‘The Two Ravens’, Clare Pollard writes:

‘I watched the ravens feed on war,
and knew I’d watch for evermore.’

***

*Meurig ap Careian is a famous northern warlord if Careian is a scribal error and he is identified with Meurig ap Idno. I’ll cover this in a later post.
**Another ‘Man of the North’ associated with Porth Wyddno in the North and Borth in Wales.
***Some scholars associate Llywarch with Caerlaverock (Caer Llywarch) on the Solway Firth. Others have conjectured he may have ruled ‘South Rheged’ (Lancashire?) from modern-day Ribchester.

SOURCES

Clare Pollard, ‘There Wasn’t Even a Song in that Desolation: Poetry After a Decade in Iraq’
Heron (transl), ‘Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’, (2015)
John Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, (ABC-CLIO, 2006)
John Rhŷs, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, (Adamant Media Corporation, 2001)
Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary, (National Library of Wales, 1993)
Rachel Bromwich (ed), The Triads of the Island of Britain, (University of Wales Press, 2014)
Sioned Davies (transl.), The Mabinogion, (Oxford University Press, 2007)
William F. Skene (transl), The Four Ancient Books of Wales, (Forgotten Books 2007)

She Walks Between Worlds and Lovers (Calan Gaeaf)

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It is summer in the otherworld when she is there
winter in the otherworld without her.
In Gwyn’s arms she is Lady Death:
petals fading wilting perishing discoloured
returning to the earth with work of insects,
seeds descending into soft and loamy soil,
sinking down with the work of worms.
Into his fateful embrace he takes her
down beneath bones of the dead,
fallen trunks and golden pollen.
In ancientmost forests Creiddylad
is Annwn’s Queen in sacred marriage.
Their passion in the unseen summer
stirs the dreams of sleeping corm,
bulb, knotty seed: movement
of potential, hidden, dormant
until the explosion to life. Each
underground power puts out shoot, stem, leaf,
reaching upward through snow for another sun.
She is their secret growth until the moment of flowering
when she sees her time in the otherworld is over
and walks between worlds and lovers.

Leaves in Greencroft Valley

Lamentation for Catraeth

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‘By fighting they made women widows,
Many a mother with her tear on her eyelid’
Y Gododdin

After Catraeth battle flags sway in the wind.
Storm darks our hair. Our tears are rain.
We press cheeks against cold skin,
load biers with sons and husbands
who will never drink in the mead-hall again,
lift weapons, smile across a furrowed field,
mend the plough, yoke oxen, share a meal,
touch ought but blood-stained soil,
chilled fingers reticent to let go.

Storm sky breaks. Our love pours out.
Ravens descend on soft wings to take them.
How we wish they would take our burning eyes,
flesh we rend with nails unkempt
from the year they left for Din Eiddyn,
drunk their reward before it was earned

at dawn with sharpened spears
at daybreak with clashing spears
at noon with bloody spears
at dusk with broken spears
at night with fallen spears,
shattered shields, smashed armour, severed heads.

Seven days of wading through blood.
Of each three hundred only one lives.
Their steel was dark-blue. Now it is red.
Because of mead and battle-madness
our husbands and sons are dead.

We rend our veils. The veil is rent.
We long to tear out our hearts
and offer them instead
to the Gatherer of Souls approaching
with the ravens and hounds of death,
whose face is black as our lament,
whose hair is the death-wind,
whose touch is sorrow,
whose heart is the portal to the otherworld.

Our men rise up to meet him.
The march of the dead is his heart-beat.
The dead of centuries march through him.
The great night is his saddle.
The dead men ride his horse.

Forefathers and foremothers hold out their hands.
We do not want to let go but they slip
through our fingers like water
like tears
from sooty eyelids
into the eyes of others
into the eyes of their kin
to gather in the eyes of the Gatherer of Souls.

They are stars in our eyes now.
They are stars in the eyes of the hounds of death,
marching from drunken Catraeth:
the battle that knows no end.

Din Eidyn and Drunken Catraeth

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A few weeks ago I visited Edinburgh. This was partly due to my interest in its history as part of the Old North. During this period it was known as Din Eidyn ‘fort of Eidyn’ (Eidyn’s identity and whether this name refers to a person and/or place remain a mystery).

There is evidence of settlements on Castle Rock and Arthur’s Seat from the Bronze and Iron Ages. The earliest fort was known as ‘The Castle of the Maidens’. It may have been established on a pre-Christian site sacred to ‘the nine maidens’ amongst whom was Morgen: a divinity connected with water, shapeshifting, healing and the weather.

During the Iron Age the local tribe were known as the Votadini. It has been argued this name originates from the early Celtic *wo-tādo, which means ‘foundation’ or ‘support’ and that this was the name of an ancestral figure. During the Romano-British period, the Votadini became known as the Gododdin and their kingdom was Manaw Gododdin.

Like many of the northern British peoples, the Gododdin had complex relationships with Wales. Sometime between 380 and 440, Cunedda, a man from Manaw Gododdin, helped defend north Wales from the Irish and played a prominent role in founding the kingdom of Gwynedd, which his offspring ruled.

After the death of Cunedda’s descendant, Maelgwn Gwynedd in 547, Elidyr Mwynfawr, who was married to Maelgwn’s daughter, Eurgain, travelled from Benllech in the North via the sea* to Benllech on Anglesey to contest the claim of Maelgwn’s illegitimate son, Rhun, to the throne of Gwynedd. Elidyr was killed at Arfon.

Afterward, Clydno Eiddyn, who may have ruled Din Eidyn, formed part of a warband alongside other northern rulers; Nudd Hael, Mordaf Hael and Rhydderch Hael. Seeking vengeance for Elidyr’s death, they travelled to Wales, set fire to Arfon and were driven back all the way to the river Gwerydd (the Forth).

Clydno was also the keeper of one of ‘The Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain’ ‘which were in the North’: ‘The Halter of Clydno Eiddyn, which was fixed to a staple at the foot of his bed: whatever horse he might wish for, he would find in the halter.’

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The Gododdin are immortalised in the poem The Gododdin, which has been dated to the 7th century. This takes the form of a series of verses eulogising and elegising the northern Britons who perished in the battle of Catraeth** in 600AD fighting against the Bernician Angles. Prior to the battle, the warriors feasted and drank for a year in the hall of Mynyddog Mwynfawr, ruler of Din Eidyn. The joy of the mead-feast is repeatedly contrasted with the bloodshed of the battle from which ‘of three hundred, save one man, none returned.’

‘Warriors went to Catraeth with the dawn,
Their ardours shortened their lives,
They drank mead, yellow, sweet, ensnaring,
For a year many a minstrel was joyful.
Blood-stained were their swords, may their spears not be cleansed;
White were the shields and square-pointed the spearheads
Before the retinue of Mynyddog Mwynfawr.’

Cynon, a son of Clydno Eidyn was amongst the casualties and is the subject of several verses.

‘…generous-hearted Cynon, lord of graces…
Whomever he struck would not be struck again.
Sharp-pointed were his spears,
With shattered shields he tore through armies,
His horses swift racing forward.’

‘He slew the enemy with the sharpest blade,
Like rushes they fell before his hand.
Son of Clydno of enduring fame’

The imagery of The Gododdin is strikingly similar to that of The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir. In The Conversation, Gwyddno addresses Gwyn as a ‘bull of battle’ and says ‘armies fall before the hooves of your horse / As swiftly as cut reeds to the ground’. Gwyn speaks of ‘shields shattered, spears broken’ and states his presence at the deaths of a number of northern warriors ‘where ravens croaked on gore’.

In The Gododdin, two warriors are referred to as ‘bull(s) of battle’, one as ‘bull of an army’ and another as ‘heroic bull’. Men are hewn down ‘like rushes’, there are countless references to ‘shattered’ and ‘splintered’ spears and shields and the dead become ‘food’ for ‘ravens’. This suggests both poems originated from the same milieu. It seems possible Gwyn gathered the souls of the dead after the battle of Catraeth as he did after the battle of Arfderydd in 573.

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When I visited Edinburgh Castle, I was struck by the height and impenetrability of the cliff face (Castle Rock was originally a volcano which was later flattened by a glacier) and could see why it has been a defensive location for so long.

Unsurprisingly, after so many centuries, there were few traces of the Gododdin. The castle was built in stone in the 12th century and the current banqueting hall during the 15th. The hall has a prominent hearth fire and is decorated with spears, swords and armoury. It’s possible to imagine Mynyddog Mwynfawr’s hall would have been equipped in a similar manner.

Since Catraeth, Edinburgh’s people have seen countless bloody battles, including the Wars of Independence from 1296 and 1341, the ‘Lang’ siege which lasted from 1571-1573 and the Jacobite Risings from 1688-1746. The castle was later used as a military prison. It is still a barracks and is now home to the Scottish National War Memorial: an extensive ‘shrine to the fallen of two world wars and campaigns since 1945’.

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As a metaphor for tragic and ill-conceived warfare, ‘drunken Catraeth’ may be seen to repeat itself throughout history. A. O. H. Jarman notes ‘a veteran of the action of Mametz Wood during the battle of the Somme in 1916 ‘recalled an observer saying what a magnificent sight it was seeing the Welsh battalions moving along in a line without wavering until they fell’… His observation could have translated a couplet of Y Gododdin.’

In ‘Elegy for the Welsh Dead in the Falkland Islands, 1982’, Tony Conran draws analogies between Catraeth and the Falklands War:

‘Men went to Catraeth. The luxury liner
For three weeks feasted them…
With the dawn men went. Those forty-three,
Gentlemen all, from the streets and byways of Wales,
Dragons of Aberdare, Denbigh and Neath –
Fragment of Empire, whore’s honour, held them.
Forty-three at Catraeth died for our dregs.’

Beneath Din Eidyn I read my poem, ‘Lamentation for Catraeth’, which is also based on lines from The Gododdin: ‘By fighting they made women widows, / Many a mother with her tear on her eyelid’. Written in the voices of mourning women, it laments ‘drunken Catraeth / the battle that knows no end’.

***

*This is recorded in the triad of the Horse Burdens where Elidyr and seven-and-a-half men (one holding onto the crupper!) are carried by the legendary water-horse, Du y Moroedd.
**The location of Catraeth is hotly contested. Traditionally it has been identified as Catterick, yet so far no evidence for a full-scale battle has been found. Tim Clarkson notes the identification of Catraeth with Catterick is based on a ‘sounds like’ etymology’ and suggests the conflict was more likely to have taken place on the fringes of Lothian.

SOURCES

John Matthews (ed), The Book of Celtic Verse, (Watkins Publishing, 2007)
Heron (transl), Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir, HERE
Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (transl), The Gododdin, (Edinburgh University Press, 1969)
Peter Bartrum, A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000, (National Library of Wales, 1993)
Rachel Bromwich (ed), The Triads of the Island of Britain, (University of Wales Press, 2014)
Stuart McHardy, The Quest for the Nine Maidens, (Luath Press, 2002)
Tim Clarkson, The Men of the North: The Britons of Southern Scotland, (John Donald, 2010)
Votadini, ‘The History Files’, HERE

When they had eaten the King

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they put down their knives and forks,
wiped grease from their chins with napkins,
dared not look one another in the eye.

They bought the pork from market:
a joint with stuffing and apple sauce,
cooked it in the oven on gas mark 9.

When they started the rite it got weird.
The candles cast strange shadows across
limbs of a giant boar and ancient apples.

The living room became the great hall
of an otherworldly huntsman; fierce, fair
and tall. Surrounded by his motley host

to pipes and fiddles, the strum of violins,
they tucked in to the most delicious meal.
On a stake in the corner was a boar’s head.

Before its sharp gaze and curved tusks
a bard recited the story of Twrch Trwyth:
a human King transformed into a boar

doomed to be hunted then eaten by day,
by night made whole. Their hands trembled
like dropped pins but they dared not put

down their knives and forks or stop chewing
before the imposing eyes of the huntsman
until he had eaten his fill and thrown

the leftovers to his dog. They dared not
look one another in the eye as they cleansed
their fingers and left the table with a nod

of thanks to the leader of the hunt.
She dared not tell them for nights afterward
she dreamt of being reborn from a sow

as a porcine King growing up amongst
little piglets into a mighty warrior;
strong muscled, strong tusked,

running bristled through the forest
to meet the huntsman’s spear;
being slaughtered, spitted, roasted,

a head on a stick in the corner of the hall
watching as they ate the King by day
then at night he was made whole.

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I wrote this poem last year after my experience of holding a celebration for Gwyn’s Feast (on September the 29th) which was based around Gwyn’s leadership of the hunt for Twrch Trwyth, ‘King of Boars’. A pork roast was cooked and a plate offered to Gwyn, along with meat for his dog, Dormach, and apples for his horses. The poem forms a slant take on my experiences.

Gwilym Morus-Baird has written an excellent series on ‘The Hunting of Twrch Trwyth’ beginning HERE.

Riddles and Howling Monks

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In ‘The Spoils of Annwn, after Taliesin has finished narrating Arthur’s raid, he continues to mock the monks (earlier referred to as ‘pathetic men’) because they do not know the answers to certain riddles.

The opening ‘Myneich dychnut val cunin cor / o gyfranc udyd ae gwidanhor’ has been translated ‘Monks congregate like a pack of dogs / because of the clash between masters who know’ and ‘Monks howl like a choir of dogs / from an encounter with lords who know’.

Dychnut may derive from cnut ‘pack of hounds, wolves’ or *dychnudo, an archaism meaning ‘howl’. Cun means ‘pack of dogs’ or ‘lord’. The primary meaning of cor is ‘choir’, but it is also used to refer to groups such as ‘a host of angels’ or ‘a company of bards’. Côr bytheiaid and côr hela  both mean ‘kennel or pack of hounds’. Udyd may be the plural of ud ‘lord’ or relate to udaw ‘howl’.

In these ambiguous, carefully chosen words, dogs/wolves, choirs, lords and howling are cleverly and intricately linked. These intricate connections are unfortunately not conveyed by the English language.

Within Welsh tradition numerous divine ‘lords’ are associated with hounds: Cunomaglus ‘Hound Lord’; Cunobelinus ‘Hound of Belinus’; Nudd who Taliesin refers to as ‘the superior wolf lord’ and his son, Gwyn ap Nudd, who owns a hound called Dormach ‘Death’s Door’ and hunts with the Cwn Annwn. Another is Arawn who, like Gwyn, is a ruler of Annwn and associated with white, red-eared Annuvian hounds. It seems possible Taliesin is comparing the howling monks with their howling hounds.

Cyfranc means ‘clash, contention’ or ‘tale, story’. This brings to mind Taliesin’s clash with the bards of Maelgwn in The Story of Taliesin. Taliesin enters this contest to rescue his master, Elphin, son of Gwyddno Garanhir, from Maelgwn’s imprisonment.

Gwidanhor ‘one who knows’ (from gwybod ‘know’) shares a likeness with Gwyddno Garanhir ‘knowing one’. In The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir, Gwyddno converses with Gwyn and meets his hound, Dormach. Gwyn reminds Gwyddno that Dormach ‘was with Maelgwn’. These complex mythic intersections would have been in a medieval Welsh audience’s mind.

Taliesin claims the lords/masters  know, ‘Whether the wind (follows) a single path, whether the sea is all one water, / whether fire – an unstoppable force is all one spark’. In The Story of Taliesin, Taliesin wins the contest with a series of poems including an extended riddle about the wind. He is claiming knowledge of the elements Maelgwn’s bards do not possess.

Taliesin counts himself amongst the ‘knowing ones’ initiated into the mysteries of the universe alongside lords/masters such as Gwyddno and Gwyn. The howling of the monks parodies their otherworldly company.

The next verse continues in a similar vein:

‘Monks congregate like wolves
because of the clash between masters who know.
They (the monks) don’t know how the darkness and light divide,
(nor) the wind’s course, its onrush,
what place it devastates, what land it strikes,
how many saints are in the void, and how many altars.’

The reference to the monks’ lack of knowledge of where darkness and light divide echoes preceding verses where Taliesin mocks them for not knowing the divisions of time nor when Pen Annwn ‘Head of Annwn’ was conceived or born. These questions are intrinsically linked as Pen Annwn is associated with the transitions between night and day, the seasons and the mysteries of death and rebirth.

The line referring to saints and altars being ‘in the void’ is intriguing. This may relate back to the transitional period between paganism and Christianity when the links between Annwn and the dead were severed and Annwn was re-construed as a hellish (hot, cold or empty) place.

In the final lines Taliesin says, ‘I praise the Lord, the great Ruler: / may I not endure sadness: Christ will reward me.’ The ending is undeniably Christian yet in Pendefic mawr, ‘great Ruler’ we find traces of a most un-Christian lord: Pen Annwn.

 So the end of the poem has been reached. Arthur and his men have raided Annwn and slammed its gate shut. As Taliesin returns to his chair in Caer Siddi we’re left contemplating a trail of destruction amongst the howling monks whose choir echoes the howling of the hounds of the Lord(s) of Annwn.

 ***

The monks howl.
We howl with them.
There is no turning back
to when Annwn was unspoilt
before the flashing sword
the stolen cauldron
and trail of death.

No turning back
only howling onwards
into the next chapter
the next myth…

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*The translations of Preiddu Annwn ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ I have used are Marged Haycock’s from Legendary Poems of Taliesin and Sarah Higley’s HERE. With thanks to Heron for notes on cor from The University of Wales Dictionary.