Taliesin

The Bards and Druids of Britain

by David William Nash | 1858 | 113,891 words

A Translation of the Remains of the Earliest Welsh Bards, and an Examination of the Bardic Mysteries....

Chapter II - Personal History of Taliesin

Of Urien Rheged

Before proceeding to an examination of the various compositions attributed to the celebrated Chief of Bards, Taliesin, we may offer a few observations on his history and the legends connected with his name.

If Taliesin really flourished in the sixth century, his genuine poems may be expected to contain references to historical events and personages, which will readily identify the age and locality of their author. It may also reasonably be anticipated, that, eveu should they fail to supply important authentic materials of history, they will at least, as Mr. BLees has observed, be interesting as records of a valiant and high-spirited people, nobly struggling against overwhelming odds, to preserve their liberties and the independence of their country.

We have before observed, that although it is now admitted by the better-informed Welsh Scholars, that the poems which constitute the “Hanes Taliesin,” or romantic history of the Bard, as well as the majority of the other poems attributed to him, were composed in their present form as late as the thirteenth century, it is nevertheless contended that the ideas and traditions embodied in the romance composed by Thomas ap Einion Offeiriad, had previously existed in the form of tales and poems which had already acquired an extensive popularity and circulation, and that from these earlier fragments, the Druidism, philosophy, and superstition, of the Bards of the sixth century, are still capable of being eliminated.

Before entering upon that investigation of the poems which is necessary for deciding on the truth or falsehood of this opinion, we may endeavour to ascertain something of the personal history of Taliesin, from other sources than the romance with which he is connected.

The generally received statement on this point is, that Taliesin lived in the sixth century, and that his principal patron was Urien Rheged, a British chieftain to whose history we shall presently advert. The poems of Taliesin in honour of, or addressed to, this prince and his family, have generally been received as genuine historical documents, contemporary monuments of an age which abounded in bards and heroes of the ancient British race. Yet, upon a review of the historical poems of Taliesin, we are at a loss to discover the grounds of the great reputation which has attached to his name, as Chief Bard of the West, and the most celebrated among the poets of Wales, a reputation which had reached its height in popular estimation as early, certainly, as the middle of the twelfth century.

Taliesin is mentioned in terms of respect, and as an example of Bardic excellence by the poets of that epoch, by Cynddelw, Llywarch ab Llywelyn and Elidir Sais, and in the following century by Philip Brydydd, Davyd Benvras, and Gwilym Ddu. A fragment of a poem attributed to Taliesin, employed as evidence in support of the privileges claimed by the men of Arvon, is found in a MS. copy of the laws of Howel Dda, in a hand-writing,-it is said, of the twelfth century. The contents of the historical poems of Taliesin, do not however disclose the reason for the great estimation in which this bard has been held by his countrymen. Supposing him to have flourished in the sixth century, we must adjudge him, as a poet, inferior to his contemporaries, Llywarch Hen and Aneurin, and to the Caledonian Merlin, if the compositions of this latter are also regarded as of the same epoch. The subjects of these poems, admitting them to be genuine, and written at the date of the events to which they allude, are limited in their scope, confined to the description of combats comparatively unimportant, (altogether so, in a national view) and record the deeds of only one family of British chieftains, leaving unsung, events and personages of far greater importance and more widely spread reputation.

It is impossible that the great celebrity of Taliesin in the twelfth century, can have been founded solely on the historical poems which have been preserved, and it would seem therefore that Taliesin must have been the author of poetical works which havenotcome down to our time, but which were known to, and highly appreciated by, the Bards of the twelfth century, or that his reputation rests less upon his own compositions, than on the fame which attached to his name as a character of romance, a prophet, and magician.

To the first of these suppositions it must be objected, that had other historical poems of Taliesin been in existence in the twelfth century, had his name been employed in rendering famous the names of other chieftains than Urien and his son Owain, some notice of such compositions could not fail to have been preserved. To the latter view two circumstances appear to give great probability. The name Taliesin, “shining forehead” is connected with the romance history of the Bard, and was given to him on his miraculous appearance at the fishing weir of Gwyddno Garauhir. It is more probable that this significant name was invented by the writer of the romance, than that the adventure was composed to account for the origin of the name.

Llywarch ab Llewelyn in the twelfth century, mentions Taliesin in connection with the romance history of the liberation of Elphin:[1]

Cyvarchaf ym ren cyvarchuawr awen 
Cyvreu kyrridwen rwyf bartoni
Yn dull Talyesin yn dillwng Elfin
Yn dyllest bartrin, beirt uannyeri,—

I address my Lord, in eulogistic song,
With the treasures of Ceridwen, ruler of poets,
In the manner of Taliesin, at the liberation of Elphin,
In the fashion of the bardic lore of the leaders of the bards.

Davyd Benvras, in the thirteenth century, refers to Taliesin as a diviner, gifted with supernatural genius, and Gwilym Ddu somewhat later mentions him by his name of Gwion, by which he evidently refers to the romantic history of the bard.[2]

Da fu ffawd y wnwd i Wiawn ddewin
Da Fyrddin ai lin o lwyth Meirchiawn,—

Good was the fortunate song of Gwiawn the diviner,
Good was Merddin of the line of the tribe of Meirchiawn.

It would seem from these references, that in the twelfth century, the fame of Taliesin as Chief of Bards, was chiefly connected with the romance attached to his name. It is true that Cynddelw at the same epoch, appears to refer to the Song on the Battle of Argoed Lwyfain, but without connecting the name of Taliesin with that poem. It is very probable, as Mr. Turner has shown, that the last-named poem was in existence in the twelfth century; but there is nothing more than opinion to connect its authorship with Taliesin.

We are necessarily led to the conclusion, that the romance or Mabinogi of Taliesin was in vogue in the twelfth century, and that the present form of that story was compiled from an older romance, in which the name of Taliesin had already become an object of popular admiration. But we have great difficulty in connecting the Taliesin of the romance, with the Bard of Urien Rheged. The scene of the romance is laid in North Wales and in the sixth century, the era of the most celebrated personages of Welsh history and romance. We must not forget that the writers of the Welsh romances were so discordant in their views of the era of Taliesin, that while one Mabinogi makes him a Chief Bard at the court of Arthur, and another places his adventures in the reign of Maelgwn Gwynedd, a third makes him a companion of Bran the Blessed, father of the celebrated Caractacus, who flourished in the first century of the Christian era.

But none of these romances connect the name of Taliesin with Urien Rheged, or the events in which that chieftain played a conspicuous part. This diversity of legendary statements respecting a personage so celebrated, leads to some doubts on his genuine historical character. If the position of Taliesin as the Bard of Urien Rheged was a fact well known to the Welsh, and if his genuine poems in honour of that chieftain had obtained in the eleventh or twelfth century a general acceptation, it is highly improbable that the romancers should have connected him with adventures six centuries earlier in date. But if known as Taliesin the Diviner, who claimed to have been contemporary with Alexander the Great, and to have been with Noah in the Ark, he might well find a place in companionship with the blessed Bran. These considerations lead us to hesitate in admitting the claims of Taliesin as an undoubted historical bard of the sixth century.

It must however be admitted, that the writers of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, though evidently acquainted with the romance history of Taliesin, deal with him as a historical person, and not as the mere creation of a popular fiction. We have moreover, in addition to the evidence to be derived from this general and great reputation which his name had acquired among his countrymen in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an independent testimony, which, though also given by a Briton, and most probably by a Briton of Wales, is of the greatest historical value, as having all the character of a legitimate and serious historical statement ; though made at least four centuries after the era of Taliesin.

The compiler or transcriber of the genealogies of the Saxon kings, annexed to one copy of the History of Nennius, when relating the pedigree of the Deiri, and the wars of the Angles against the British chieftains of Cambria, mentions Taliesin among the notable Bards who flourished in the time of Ida, about the middle of the sixth century.

“Ida, the son of Eoppa, possessed countries on the left-hand side of Britain, i.e., of the Humbrian Sea, and reigned twelve years, and united Dinguayth Guarth-Berneich. Then Dutigirn, at that time, fought bravely against the nation of the Angles. At that time Talhaiarn Cataguen was famed for poetry, and Neirin, and Taliesin, and Bluchbard, and Cian, who is also called Guenith Guant, were all famous at the same time in British poetry.”

On the other hand, we must remark, that the personage whom Geoffrey of Monmouth presents to his readers as the chief Bard and Diviner of the Cymry, is not Taliesin, but Merlin.

Whether Geoffrey were the original author of the History of the Britons, or, according to the opinion of the Rev. Rice Rees, the translator of an original Welsh version of the Armo-rican history, it seems certain that the fame of Taliesin had not, in the early part of the twelfth century, reached the ears of the Archdeacon of Monmouth, though a curious passage in the commencement of the seventh book, shows that the prophecies of Merlin had at that period attracted public attention:

“I had not got thus far in my history, when the subject of public discourse happening to be concerning Merlin, I was obliged to publish his prophecies at the request of my acquaintance.”

It may be, however, that the reputation of Taliesin among his countrymen, was that of a Bard or poet merely, not that of a prophet; and the public attention was directed to Merlin in the twelfth century, on account of his supposed prophecies respecting the Norman kings.

Still, if the genealogies are true which represent him as a native of South Wales, the absence of all notice by Geoffrey of so famous a character as Taliesin is represented to have been, is, at least, somewhat extraordinary.

According to the genealogies of Taliesin, which have been published from manuscripts of which the dates are not known,[3] he was the son of Henwg the Bard, otherwise Saint Henwg, of Caerlleon-upon-Usk, and of the College of Saint Cadocus, whose pedigree, as a matter of course, ascends to Bran the Blessed, the father of Caractacus.

It is even said in one manuscript, that Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, erected the church of Llanhenwg, at Caerlleon-upon-Usk, which he dedicated to the memory of his father, called Saint Henwg, who went to Rome on a mission to Constantine the Blessed, requesting that he would send Saints Germanus and Lupus to Britain, to strengthen the faith, and renew baptism there.[4]

In the Triads,[5] Taliesin is named as one of the three baptismal Bards of the Isle of Britain; Merddin Emrys, and Merddin son of Madoc Morvryn, being the other two; and in the Iolo MSS., chair president of the nine impulsive stocks of the baptismal Bards of Britain. In the notes to the History of Taliesin,[6] it is considered probable that he was educated, or completed his education, at the school of the celebrated Cattwg, at Llanveithin, in Glamorgan. He is reported to have died in Cardiganshire, probably at Bangor Teivy, and tradition has handed down a cairn near Aberystwith as the grave of Taliesin.

Jones, in his Historical Account of the Welsh Bards,[7] states

“that Taliesin was the master or preceptor of Myrddin ap Morvryn; he enriched the British prosody with five new metres; and has transmitted in his poems such vestiges, as throw new light on the history, knowledge, and manners, of the Ancient Britons and their Druids, much of whose mystical learning he imbibed.”

As the romance or Mabinogi of Taliesin is supposed to exhibit in great fulness the Druidical philosophy and doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul, it is curious to find that a tradition exists which affects to place his early history, and some of the circumstances which have formed the ground-work of the romance, on a reasonable and historical footing.[8]

“Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, the son of Saint Henwg of Caerlleon-upon-Usk, was invited to the court of Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr. He, with Elphin the son of Urien, being once fishing at sea in a skin coracle, an Irish pirate ship seized him and his coracle, and bore him away towards Ireland; but while the pirates were at the height of their drunken mirth, Taliesin pushed his coracle to the sea, and got into it himself, with a shield in his hand which he found in the ship, and with which he rowed the coracle until it verged the land; but the waves breaking then in wild foam, he lost his hold on the shield, so that he had no alternative but to be driven at the mercy of the sea, in which state he continued for a short time, when the coracle stuck on the point of a pole in the weir of Gwyddno, Lord of Ceredigion, in Aberdyvi; and in that position he was found, at the ebb, by Gwyddno’s fishermen, by whom he was interrogated; and when it was ascertained that he was a Bard, and the tutor of Elphin the son of Urien Rheged, the son of Cynvarch, ‘I too have a son named Elphin,’ said Gwyddno; ‘be thou a Bard and teacher to him also, and I will give thee lands in free tenure.’

The terms were accepted; and for several successive years, he spent his time between the courts of Urien Rheged and Gwyddno, called Gwyddno Garanhir, Lord of the Lowland Cantred: but after the territory of Gwyddno had become overwhelmed by the sea, Taliesin was invited by the Emperor Arthur to his court at Caerlleon-upon-Usk, where he became highly celebrated for poetic genius, and useful, meritorious sciences.

“After Arthur’s death, he retired to the estate given him by Gwyddno, taking Elphin, the son of that prince, under his protection.

“It was from this account that Thomas, the son of Einion Offeiriad,[9] descended from Gruffyd Gwyr, formed his romance of Taliesin the son of Caridwen, Elphin the son of Gwyddno, Rhun the son of Maelgwn Gwynedd, and the operations of the cauldron of Caridwen.”

According to another legend, Taliesin having escaped from the ship of the Irish pirates as before described, was extricated from the weir by Elphin, the supposed son of Gwyddno. Elphin was however, in fact,

“the son of Elivri, daughter of Gwyddno, but by whom was then quite unknown; it was, however, afterwards discovered that Urien, King of Gower and Aberllychwr, was his father, who introduced him to the court of Arthur at Caerlleon-upon-Usk; where his feats, learning, and endowments, were found to be so superior, that he was created a Golden-tongued Knight of the Round Table. After the death of Arthur, Taliesin became Chief Bard to Urien Rheged, at Aberllychwr in Rheged.”

Another legend in the Iolo MSS. states that Talhaiarn, the father of Tangwn, presided in the chair of Urien Rheged, at Caer Gwyroswydd, after the expulsion of the Irish from Gower, Carnwyllion, Cantref Bychan, and the Cantref of Iscennen. The said chair was established at Caer Gwyroswydd, or Ystum Llwynarth, where Urien Rheged was accustomed to hold his national and royal court.

“After the death of Talhaiarn, Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, presided in three chairs: namely, the chair of Caerlleon-upon-Usk ; the chair of Rheged at Bangor Teivy, under the patronage of Cedig ab Ceredig ab Cunedda Wledig; but he afterwards was invited to the territory of Gwyddnyw, the son of Gwydion in Arllechwedd, Arvon, where he had lands conferred on him, and where he resided until the time of Maelgwn Gwynedd, when he was dispossessed of that property; for which he pronounced his curses on Maelgwn, and all his possessions; whereupon the Vad Velen[10] came to Rhos; and whoever witnessed it became doomed to certain death. Maelgwn saw the Vad Velen, through the keyhole in Rhos Church, and died in consequence. Taliesin, in his old age, returned to Caer Gwyroswydd, to Rhiwallon, the son of Urien; after which he visited Cedig, the son of Ceredig, the son of Cunedda Wledig, where he died, and was buried with high honours, such as should always be shown to a man who ranked among the principal wise men of the Cimbric nation; and Taliesin, Chief of the Bards, was the highest of the most exalted class, either in literature, wisdom, the science of vocal song, or any other attainment, whether sacred or profane. Thus terminates the information respecting the chief Bards of the Chair of Caerlleon-upon-Usk, called now, the Chair of Glamorgan.”

Unfortunately, it is impossible to ascertain whether these legends contain the foundation of the romance, or were written after the composition of the Mabinogi of Taliesin, by persons of a neologizing tendency. The only authority given in the Iolo MSS. is, that the first of the two legends was copied from Anthony Powel of Llwydarth’s MS.; the second from a MS. at Havod Uchtryd; the last is from the MSS. of Llwelyn Sion of Llangewydd, who lived at the close of the sixteenth century.

There is another piece of evidence of the existence of Taliesin as a Bard in the sixth century, which has been strongly insisted on by Mr. Sharon Turner and others. This is the passage in the Gododin of Aneurin :[11]

Mi na vi Aneurin
Ys gwyr talyessin
Oveg Kywrenhin
Neu cheing e ododin
Kynn gwawr dyd dilin.

In the translation of Mr. Williams:—

I Aneurin will sing
What is known to Taliesin,
Who communicates to me his thoughts
Or a strain of Gododin
Before the dawn of the bright day.

Whether this translation be considered correct or not,[12] the occurrence of the name of Taliesin in this, the only poem of early date not attributed to Taliesin himself in which it occurs, is a testimony of considerable weight. Still, the passage in question is not altogether above suspicion.

According to the view taken by Mr. Williams, the “bedin Ododin,” or “troops of Gododin,” were, at the battle of Cat-traeth, allied with the men of Deira and Bernicia, and opposed to the British chieftains eulogized or lamented by the poet. Aneurin therefore, in the lines above quoted, gives to his poem made in honour of his countrymen, a title taken from the appellation of one, and that certainly the least important of the three hostile tribes engaged in the conflict. How, what Aneurin sung or would sing of the battle of Cattraeth, should be known to Taliesin, or why, the former should state that Taliesin communicated to him his thoughts, or thought with him, no other passage in this poem, or elsewhere, explains.

If the stanza be genuine, and the generally received translation the true one, it must bring down the date of the poem to a time when Taliesin had become sufficiently famous to be introduced with effect into a popular poem.

The difficulty lies in the true correspondence of the first line of the passage with the rest.

If it belongs to and concludes the former part,

And I am manacled
In the earthen house,
An iron chain
Over my two knees;
Yet of the mead and the horn,
And of the men of Cattraeth,
I Aneurin will sing,

this is the reasonable termination of the passage.

The remainder will be an independent passage:—

It is known to Taliesin
The skilful-minded—
Shall there not be a song of the Gododin
Before the dawn of the fair day ?

which may well be a fragment of one of the numerous songs which we know to have been framed on the subject of the battle of Cattraeth, probably at very various dates.[13]

A somewhat similar passage occurs at the end of one of the so-called historical poems of Taliesin, the “Anrhec Urien,” in which Aneurin is mentioned among the thirteen princes of the North:—

And one of them was named Aneurin, the panegyrical poet,
And I myself Taliesin from the banks of Llyn Ceirionydd.

The poem in which these lines occur, is, however, a composition of the twelfth century, or later, and no weight therefore can.be attached to the union of the names Aneurin and Taliesin in this quotation.

If we adopt the conclusion, that a Taliesin, a bard of repute, really flourished in the middle of the sixth century, and that the halo of poetic glory which surrounded his memory, pointed him out to the romancers as a fit subject for the exercise of their art, we have still some difficulty in ascertaining the locality of the Bard, or the part of the country under the dominion of the British chieftains, in which he resided and laid the foundation of his fame.

It will be observed that all the genealogies and prose legends relating to Taliesin, describe him as a native of South Wales, and of the celebrated seat of the Arthurian Round Table, Caerlleon-upon-Usk.

Taliesin Williams, in a note on one of the above legends, observes on this, and remarks that

“Taliesin’s intercourse with Gower (Rheged) and its Reguli, is sufficiently decided by the several poems, addressed by him to those personages. He also wrote in the Gwentian dialect, of which district he was doubtless a native.”

In proof of this latter opinion, the editor of the Iolo MSS. actually quotes two lines from the Cad Goddeu ,—

Chwaiyeis yn Llychwr 
Cysgais yn mhorphor,—

I have played in Loughor;
I have slept in purple;

showing that he, at least, believed the Cad Goddeu to have been written by Taliesin in the sixth century. As there are but two persons to whom any poems, referred to Taliesin, are addressed—namely, Urien or Urien Rheged, and Gwallawg or Gwallawg ap Lleenawg—Taliesin Williams must, of course, refer to these.

The period at which Taliesin flourished must, if the poems addressed to Urien Rheged are genuine, be that at which this prince can be ascertained to have lived.

If it were clear that the Urien Rheged of the poems, is the Urien mentioned by the genealogist in Nennius, then the era of Taliesin must be that in which Ida the Angle was carrying on that obstinate and eventful struggle with the British chieftains of the northern and north-western portions of the island, which resulted in the establishment of the great Anglian kingdom of Northumbria.

Conspicuous among the British leaders, as well by his personal valour as by his military skill, was a chieftain named Urien, who is mentioned in the Genealogy of the Kings of the Deiri appended to one MS. of the British History of Nennius. Contemporary with this Urien were three other princes named in the same genealogy, Ryderthen, Gwallauc, and Morcant. “Theodoric, son of Ida, fought bravely, together with his sons, against that Urien.”

Ida died in 560. His son Adda, according to Nennius, reigued eight years; Ethelric, son of Adda, four years; Theodoric, son of Ida, seven years. It was while besieging this Theodoric, as it is said, in the island of Lindisfame, that Urien was treacherously slain by Morcant. This brings the death of Urien down, at the latest, to the year 579; and, as the poems which appear to have been composed by Taliesin speak of that prince as living, it is probable that the Bard himself had not survived his patron.

The territories of this Urien would seem to have been situated in some portion of the Cumbrian region, or the country occupied by the Cumbrian Britons. This region, at the era of Ida’s wars, extended from the vale of the Clyde on the north, to the Ribble in Lancashire on the south, having the sea for its western boundary. On the east the territories of the British chieftain had a variable boundary depending on the fortune of war, where it was conterminous with the great Saxon or Anglian kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, of which the former extended northwards from the Humber to the Tyne, the latter from the Tyne to the Frith of Forth.

That district of the Cumbrian region called Rheged, which in the middle of the sixth century was under the sway of Urien, Sir Francis Palgrave places in the forests of the south of Scotland,

“where the floating traditions of Arthur and Merlin have survived the storms of many centuries.”

As, however, portions of Cumberland retained their independence to a much later period, and as the friends and clansmen of Urien appear, very shortly after his death, to have taken refuge in North Wales, it seems probable that Rheged had a more southerly position. The battle of Cattraeth, the subject of the celebrated poem of Aneurin, the Gododin, appears to have been particularly fatal to the clans of Rheged.

In whatever part of the Cumbrian territory Rheged may have been situated, its neighbourhood would appear to have been the seat of war between those Britons with whom Taliesin was connected, and the Anglian chieftains of Deira and Bernicia. The only historical poems properly attributed to Taliesin, relate to battles in which Urien of Rheged was engaged, or refer to that prince, to his son Owain, or to his confederate chieftains.

The only Saxon chief mentioned in these poems, is one who, under the name of “Flamddwyn”—the flame-bearer or incendiary—is supposed, but apparently on no sufficient grounds, to be Ida, the Anglian King of Northumbria.

There is no mention of the personages celebrated in history or tradition as having taken part in the long-continued and obstinate struggle between the Southern, Eastern, and Midland Britons, and the tribes of Jutes and Saxons who incessantly enlarged the Saxon and contracted the British boundary in those regions. Neither Aurelius Ambrosius, nor Uther Pendragon,[14] nor the world-renowned Arthur, nor the battles of Badon, of Salisbury, or of Camlan, find any place in the Bardic eulogies of Taliesin. Yet all these personages, and all these important events, if historical, belong to the period when Taliesin is supposed to have flourished. It is evident that the sympathies of the Bard, and of the tribes with whom he was associated, were engrossed by persons and events different from those connected with the wars of the Britons against the Saxons in the central and southern portions of the island. It is indeed very probable that the Northern Britons knew little of the events occuring in the other parts of Britain.

The want of anything like unity of government, or a central authority, must have tended very greatly to isolate the several British states and prevent anything like common action against the foe. For the story of a succession of Fendragons, or Kings paramount of Britain, from Owain ap Maxen Wledig, down to Cadwallader, is a fiction invented by the compilers of the Triads, and the authors of those histories of which that of Geoffrey of Monmouth is an example. The Unbennaeth Prydain is (though there certainly was a song so called in the tenth century) as visionary as the Imperatorship of Arthur. All the historical facts, from the time of Cæsar downwards, demonstrate the falsity of the assumption.

Such are the views generally entertained of the locality of this celebrated British chieftain, and it seems to be supported by the evidence of the Saxon genealogies in Nennius. But a most unhappy confusion is introduced into this matter by a series of traditions,[15] which represent this same Urien as the chief of the district of Rheged, in South Wales, being the country between the Tawy and Towy, comprising the territories of Gower, Kidwely, Camwyllion, Iscennen, and Cantref Bychan; his royal residence being Aberllychwr,[16] in Gower, where he constructed a strong castle called the Castle of Aberllyw.[17]

According to this tradition, Urien Rheged was King of Rheged in Glamorgan, and of Moray in Scotland. “ In the time of the Emperor Arthur, Glaian Ecdwr[18] and his fellow-Irishmen, came to Gower in Glamorgan, where they resided for nine months; but Arthur sent his nephew, Urien, and 300 men, against them; and they drove them from there: where-upon the Irish, their king, Glaian Ecdwr, being slain, went to Anglesea, where they remained with their countrymen who had settled there previously. Author bestowed Rheged (so called from the name of a Roman who was lord of that country before it was subdued by the said Glaian and his Irishmen) on Urien, as a royal conquest for bis heroic achievements in war.

“Urien Rheged had a daughter named Eliwri, who became the wife of Morgan Morganwg; and a son called Pasgen, who was a very cruel king, and a great traitor to his country, for which he was dethroned; and the country of Rheged, because of its original position, was reunited to Glamorgan, in which state it continued to the time of Owen, the son of Howell the Good, the son of Cadell, the son of Rhodri the Great, King of all Wales.”

It is difficult to suppose that a chief of North Britain, whose energies were devoted to incessant warfare with the Angles, and who lost his life while engaged in the prosecution of those wars, should, at the same time, have acquired a territory in the very extremity of South Wales. It is, however, evident that all the legends which relate to Taliesin, describe Urien Rheged as of the latter portion of the principality, and also represent bis son Rhiwallon as reigning in the same district after him ; but they make no mention of the assassination of Urien by Morcant in North Britain, or of the wars of the former against Ida; while the romance history of Taliesin connects him with Maelgwn Gwynedd, Prince of Gwynedd, Venedotia, or North Wales, who fell a victim to the pestilence called “Y mad felen,” or the yellow plague, which devastated the principality of Wales, according to the chronology of the Red Book of Hergest, in the year ä86.

The French romances of Arthur, introduce Urien, under the name of Sir Urience of Gore, that is, of Gower in Glamorganshire, agreeing in this with the. legends above cited. We have, therefore, a double uncertainty introduced by these legends, both as to the person of Urien himself, and as to the situation of his territory. It is evident that the Welsh genealogists and legend-writers placed Rheged in South Wales, and were ignorant of the existence of a kingdom of the same name in Cumbria, or Northern Britain. The derivations which they offer of the word Rheged—in one instance from “rheged,” a gift, because the territory was bestowed as a free gift upon Urien, in the other, from the name of a Roman so called— demonstrate the want of any genuine information on the subject in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Whatever doubts may rest on the individuality of the Taliesin of these legends, there seems to be none that the name had acquired a reputation as early as the eleventh century, and that in the twelfth and succeeding centuries it became significant of all that was great and glorious in literature and song.

We have before mentioned, that no less than seventy-seven out of the 124 compositions of the Cynveirdd contained in the Myvyrian Collection, are attributed to Taliesin, and that even down to the present day, many, if not all, of these compositions are cited under this celebrated name as evidence of the learning, the civilization, and the mythology of the Welsh of the sixth century.

There have not, however, been wanting eminent Welsh scholars who have exhibited a sounder judgment on the subject of these poems. Edward Jones, as long ago as 1792,[19] asserted that many of the poems attributed to Taliesin were the productions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

He says that after the dissolution of the princely government in Wales, that is, after the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffyd in 1282,

“such was the tyranny exercised by the English over the conquered nation, that the Bards who were born ‘since Cambria’s fatal day,’ might be said to rise under the influence of a baleful and malignant star. They were reduced to possess their sacred art in obscurity and sorrow, and constrained to suppress the indignation that would burst forth in the most animated strains against their ungenerous and cruel oppressors. Yet they were not silent or inactive. That their poetry might breathe with impunity the spirit of their patriotism, they became dark, prophetic, and oracular. As the monks of the Welsh Church, in their controversy with Rome, had written, to countenance their doctrines, several religious poems which they feigned to be the work of Taliesin, the Bards now ascribed many of their political writings to the same venerable author, and produced many others as the prophecies of the elder Merlin.

Hence much uncertainty prevails concerning the genuine remains of the sixth century, great part of which have descended to us mutilated aud depraved; and hence that mysterious air which pervades all the poetry of the later periods I am now describing. The forgery of those poems, which are entirely spurious, though they may have passed unquestioned even by such critics as Dr. Davies and Dr. J. D. Rhys, may, I think, be presently detected. They were written to serve a popular and a temporary purpose, and were not contrived with such sagacity and care, as to hide from the eye of a judicious and enlightened scholar, their historical mistakes, their novelty of language, and their other marks of imposture.”

The critical sagacity of Sharon Turner led him, while maintaining the genuineness of the British poems in general, to speak very cautiously on the subject of the poems attributed to Taliesin.

“The most important,” he says,

“are those which concern the battles between the Britons and the Saxons; and these are the poems for whose genuineness I argue.”

The poems of Taliesin which Turner asserted to be genuine, are:—

  • The Poems to Urien, and on his Battles.
  • His Dialogues with Merddin.
  • The Poems on Elphin.
  • His Historical Elegies.

A list which, however, embraces many pieces of a much later date than the sixth century.

Dr. John Jones, a Welshman, who, in 1824, published a History of Wales, spoke very plainly on this subject.

“The writings of the Welsh Bards,” he says,

“ are numerous. The largest collection is in the first volume of the Myvyrian Archæology; they consist of ingenious trifles, very often on humble topics, and vested in coarse language; and do not include one epic poem. Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, and Taliesin, are said to have flourished in the sixth century; if that was the case, the Muse of Cambria fell dormant for five hundred years, and awoke again in the eleventh century.

The times in which these Bards flourished have been matter of great anxiety to antiquarians, who have informed the world, that Llywarch was buried in the church of Llanfor, drawing the inconsistent conclusion, that Taliesin was buried in that church seven hundred years before the building could have been erected.

The oldest Welsh MSS. do not recur further than the twelfth century. Merddin treats of the orchard, which had no existence in Wales before the Conquest; Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, Merddin, and Taliesin, make use of the English words, frank, venture, banner, sorrow, &c., and introduce the names of places not built, and the names of saints who had not been canonized, in the sixth century.”

The Rev. Thomas Price, author of the Hanes Cymru, had pointed out some of these poems as spurious. The Rev. Rice Rees also intimates that the Bardic records contain but few authentic materials of history; and that all the poems ascribed to the sixth century are not genuine.

“The number of these poems in the Myvyrian Archæology is upwards of a hundred; and those which are spurious may be distinguished from the rest by the moderh style in which they are written.”

But no one has undertaken to point out and distinguish the genuine poems of Taliesin from those of a later era, falsely ascribed to that bard, except Mr. Stephens.

“It has long been suspected,” says Mr. Stephens,[20]

“ that many of the poems attributed to Taliesin could not have been produced in the sixth century. These conjectures were undoubtedly correct; but as many of the poems may, upon most substantial grounds, be shown to be genuine, it becomes of importance to distinguish between those which are, and those which may not be, of his production, I have carefully read them ; but, as a minute examination of seventy-seven poems would require a volume for itself, we shall here only present the result. The classification, in the absence of the data on which it is based, can have no strong claims to attention, apart from the weight attached to the opinion of the critic.

I have, as the result of my examination, classed these poems, thus:—

 

Historical, and as old as the sixth century.

Gwaith Gwenystrad
Gwaith Argoed Llwyvain
Gwaith Dyffryn Gwarant

I Urien
I Urien
Canu I Urien
Yspail Taliesin
Canu I Urien Rheged
Dadolwch Urien Rheged
I Gwallawg
Dadolwch i Urien
Marwnad Owain ap Urien
The Battle of Gwenystrad.
The Battle of Argoed Llwyvain.
The Battle of Dyffryn Gwarant (part of the Dyhuddiant Elphin).
To Urien.
To Urien.
A Song to Urien.
The Spoils of Taliesin.
A Song to Urien Rheged.
Reconciliation to Urien Rheged.
To Gwallawg (the Galgacus ofTacitus).
Reconciliation to Urien.
The Elegy of Owain ap Urien.

 

Doubtful.

Cerdd i Wallawg ab Lleenawg
Marwnad Cunedda.
Gwarchan Tutvwlch
Gwarchan Adebon
Gwarchan Kynvelyn
Gwarchan Maelderw
Kerdd Daronwy
Trawsganu Cynan Garwyn
A Song to Gwallawg ab Lleenawg.
The Elegy of Cunedda.
The Incantation of Tutvwlch.
The Incantation of Adebon.
The Incantation of Kynvelyn.
The Incantation of Maelderw.
The Song to Daronwy.
The Satire on Cynan Garwyn.

 

Romances belonging to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.

Canu Kyntaf Taliesin
Dyhuddiant Elphin
Hanes Taliesin
Canu y Medd
Canu y Gwynt
Canu y Byd Mawr
Canu y Byd Bychan
Bustl y Beirdd
Buarth Beirdd
Cad Goddeu
Cadeir Taliesin
Cadeir Teyrnon
Canu y Cwrwf
Canu y Meirch
Addfwyneu Taliesin
Angar Kyvyndawd
Priv Gyvarch
{GL_PAGE58:} Dyhuddiant Elphin (2nd)
Arymes Dydd Brawd
Awdl Vraith
Glaswawd Taliesin
Divregwawd Taliesin
Mabgyvreu Taliesin
Awdl etto Taliesin
Kyffes Taliesin
Taliesin’s First Song.
The Consolation of Elphin.
The History of Taliesin.
The Mead Song.
The Song to the Wind.
The Song of the Great World.
The Song of the Little World.
The Gall of the Bards.
The Circle of the Bards.
The Battle of the Trees.
The Chair of Taliesin.
The Chair of the Princes.
The Song of the Ale.
The Song of the Horses.
The Beautiful Things of Taliesin.
The Inimical Confederacy.
The Primary Gratulation.
The Consolation of Elphin.
The Prophecy of the Day of Judgment.
The Ode of Varieties.
The Encomiums of Taliesin.
Poesy of Taliesin.
Taliesin’s Juvenile Accomplishments.
Another Ode by Taliesin.
The Confession of Taliesin.

 

Poems forming part of the Mabinogion, or Romance of Taliesin, composed by Thomas ap Einion Offeiriad in the Thirteenth Century.

Cadair Keridwen
Marwnad Uthyr Bendragon
Preiddeu Annwn
Marwnad Ercwlf
Marwnad Mad Drud ac Erov Greulawn

Marwnad Aeddon o Von
Anrhyveddodau Alexander
Y Gofeisws Byd
Lluryg Alexander
The Chair of Keridwen.
The Elegy of Uther Pendragon.
The Spoils of Annwn.
The Elegy of Ercwlf.
The Elegy of Madoc the Bold,
      and Erov the Fierce.
The Elegy of Aeddon of Mon.
The Not-wonders of Alexander.
A Sketch of the World.
The Lorica of Alexander.
 

 

Predictive Poems of the Twelfth and succeeding Centuries.

 Ymarwar Lludd Mawr
Ymarwar Lludd Bychau
Gwawd Lludd Mawr
Kerdd am Yeib Llyr
Marwnad Corroi ab Dairy
Mic Dinbych (or Myg Dinbych)
Arymes Biydain
Arymes
Arymes
Kywrysedd Gwynedd a Deheubarth
Awdl
Marwnad y Milveib
Y Maen Gwyrth
Can y Gwynt
Anrhec Urien
The Appeasing of Lludd the Little.
The Praise of Lludd the Great.
Song to the Sons of Llyr ab Brochwel.
The Elegy of Corroi the Son of Dairy.
The Glory of Dinbych.
The Prophecy of Britain.
Prophecy.
Prophecy.
The Contention of North and South Wales.
An Ode.
Elegy of the Thousand Saints.
The Miraculous Stone.
The Song of the Wind.
The Gift of Urien.

 

Theological—same date.

Plaeu yr Aipht
 Llath Moesen
Llath Voesen
Gwawd Gwyr Israel
The Plagues of Egypt.
The Rod of Moses.
The Rod of Moses.
Eulogy of the Men of Israel.”


The result of the investigation of Mr. Stephens is to assign with certainty, to the sixth century, twelve only out of the seventy-seven poems bearing the name of Taliesin, and to place eight others doubtfully as belonging to the same era. It will be seen that even this expurgated list must be still farther curtailed.

In the Notes to the Iolo MSS.[21] the Hanes Taliesin is declared to be “an evidently fictitious poem, attributed until recently to Taliesin; and still passing current as his production, with general readers.”

“But,” says the editor of the MSS., Taliesin Williams, the son of Edward Williams, or Iolo Mor-ganwg, who collected them,

“to rescue the genuine fame of the chief Bard of the West from the annihilation of such as have lately denied the originality of bis works, and would fain even pronounce his very existence a romance, it is high time to divest his compositions of the spurious productions commixed with them: productions that are characterised by comparatively modern expressions and idioms, and (like other similar deceptions) by their anachronisms, and other denouncing incongruities. Nor would this expurgation materially affect the literaiy remains of this remote votary of the Cimbric Muse; for his numerous and genuine poems, being intrinsically sustained by consistency of allusions, primitive features of versification, and originality of sentiment, would still extensively vindicate the palm so long conceded to his hoary merit. Iolo Morganwg, in his manuscript compositions, frequently laments the injurious effects of the counterfeit pieces;[22] and the Rev. Thomas Price, whose Hanes Cymru (History of Wales) ably supplies the desideratum heretofore so long the object of hope, impugns, occasionally, their originality.”

It would have been satisfactory if Iolo Morganwg or his editor, had pointed out these numerous and genuine poems of Taliesin, and the evidences of their originality. All the evidence at present before us shows that there is not extant a single poem or metrical composition in the Welsh language, with the exception of the lines from the copy of Juvencus before mentioned, the manuscript of which is older than the twelfth century. For the proof of an earlier date of the compositions themselves, we have only such internal evidence as they may afford.

And in this statement the works of Aneurin and Llywarch Hen must be included with those of Taliesin. The materials of these compositions may have, no doubt, and in all probability did exist, perhaps for some centuries before, in the mouths of the professional minstrels and storytellers; but there is no evidence that they were reduced into writing at an earlier period than the twelfth century. Zeuss[23] is of opinion that all the extant poems have been transcribed in a modern orthography, in many instances by persons unacquainted with the meaning of the older forms, and that, in consequence, they have, in the undergoing this change of form, suffered considerable alteration and interpolation, and we have sufficient proof in the Myvyrian Collection, that poems which were written in the Llyvr Ddu, in the twelfth century, were transcribed at a later period in a more modern orthography; but we can go no farther back than the former manuscript.

That the form in whicfi these compositions now appear in the oldest MSS. is not that in which they originally existed, if written in the sixth or seventh century, is too clear for discussion.

It is, however, supposed that these poems, though worked up and brought .into their present form by writers or Bards of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contain materials of far more ancient date, and were, in fact, originally composed in the sixth century.

So little importance has indeed been attached to the critical views of Mr. Stephens by his countrymen, and so little effect has his work published in 1849 produced upon this question of the antiquity and nature of the Welsh poems, that the old opinion, that they contain philosophical dogmas, and notices of Druid or Pagan superstitions of a remote origin, has been as distinctly promulgated in 1858, by the chairman of the society which adjudged the prize to Mr. Stephens’s Essay in 1848, as they were by the Eev. Edward Davies in 1809. In truth, as Mr. Stephens has himself observed, any opinion on the date or character of these poems, unaccompanied by translations, has no very strong claims to attention, apart from the weight attached to the opinion of the critic.

It is somewhat remarkable, that these remains of the earliest Welsh literature, and especially the poems attributed to Taliesin, so constantly appealed to, and cited in evidence, not only for the history and condition of the Welsh, at the period during which he flourished, but also for the verification of traditions of a much earlier period, have never been translated in eætenso, by the learned Welshmen who rely on his authority. Isolated pieces and fragments in abundance, have appeared, but a complete edition of these works in a language which would make them common property, has never been ventured.

In 1792, Dr. Owen advertised the Works of Taliesin, with a literal English version and notes, but the work never appeared.

The reason assigned for this apparent neglect has been, that the language in which they are written is obsolete, and that they are filled with mystical and mythological allusions which are no longer intelligible.

But the best authorities on this subject are agreed that no insuperable- difficulty of this kind exists. This was asserted nearly sixty years ago by the editors of the Myvyrian Archæology.

“These ancient poems,” they state, in a Review of the Present State of Welsh Manuscripts,[24]

“have for ages been secluded from the eyes of the public; and some of the collections very difficult of access. Very mistaken ideas of them have for a long time circulated through every part of Wales; there are consequently preconceptions from which many will too rashly criticise; but a long course of study is absolutely necessary to understand them properly.

Facts of which no other records remain are often alluded to; opinions that are forgotten, manners that no longer exist, idioms and figurative modes of expression that are obsolete and obscured by various schemes of orthography, arising from the inadequacy of the Roman alphabet to represent the ancient British one, render many passages almost unintelligible to novices. It is not from a supposed loss or corruption of our language, that they are difficultly understood: they contain very few, if any words, either radicals or derivations, that are not at this day in common use in one part or other of Wales; nor have any of those words materially changed their acceptation.

Our language, as some have imagined, is not altered; it is therefore to be regretted that the Rev. Evan Evans did not, in his Dissertatio de Bardis, investigate and point out the various things which embarrassed him, instead of assigning all the difficulties to the language. In many of the illusions, indeed, they are dark; mutilations are occasionally met with, out of the question, which equally confuse in every age, the present as well as the past, and are matters, not of language, but of accident.”

Archdeacon Williams, though he maintains that a great orthographical change had taken place in the interval between the eighth and twelfth century (as would necessarily be the case), admits that

“restoration and interpretation of all the more valuable portion of the ancient poems is possible, without any further discovery, as instruments sufficient for that purpose are within our reach.”[25]

Mr. Stephens, also, has recorded his opinion,[26] that as to the majority of the poems attributed to Taliesin,

“though many of them contain allusions which are now unintelligible, yet a large portion of them and the intentions of the whole may be understood. They were written when the language was in an advanced state of development, as most of the words are in use at the present day; and as will be seen, cannot be supposed to have been prior to the twelfth and succeeding centuries.”[27]

In fact, the result has been, as far as Taliesin is concerned, whenever any of these poems have been fairly translated, to cut down their claims to antiquity, and gradually to strip their reputed author, leaf after leaf, of the laurels assigned to him by the partial voice of his countrymen; and this may, in some degree, account for the want of any general translation of these works.

This has been eminently the case with another celebrated Bard, said to be of the sixth century—Merlin or Merddin. Translations of the most important pieces attributed to this Bard, the AveUanau, and the Hoianau, have been published by Mr. Stephens in his Literature of the Kymry. From these translations we are enabled to decide, not only that there is a total absence of all these mysterious allegories which have been supposed to enshroud fearful superstitions and Druidic oracles, but also that they contain allusions to personages and events belonging to the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The fourth stanza of the Hoianau is decisive as to the date of the composition being, at least, as late as the end of the twelfth centuiy:—

Hear, O little pig! it was necessary to pray
For fear of five chiefs from Normandy;
And the fifth going across the salt sea,
To conquer Ireland of gentle towns,
There to create war and confusion,
And a fighting of son against father—the country knows it;
Also will be going the Loegrìans of falling cities,
And they will never go back to Normandy.

This stanza, Mr. Stephens observes, clearly refers to the conquest of Leinster by Richard Strongbow, who went to Ireland a.d. 1170. He was the fifth Norman, having been preceded by four others—

  1. Robert Fitzstephens,
  2. Maurice Fitzgerald,
  3. Hervé de Montmarais,
  4. and David Barry.

Even if this were not apparent, the two last lines could not have been written before a.d. 1066, unless we really believe the Cambrian Bard to have been actually gifted with the spirit of prophecy.

The other Bard of the sixth century is Aneurin. The famous poem which passes under his name, Y Gododin , has recently been carefully translated by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel.[28]

An excellent translation of the Gododin, of some of the compositions of Llywarch Hen, and of the historical pieces ascribed to Taliesin, was published by M. de la Villemarqué,[29] who has paid great attention to the traditional remains of the ancient Armorican nation still preserved among the peasantry of Bretagne.

This celebrated poem, the Gododin, so unintelligible in the tradition of Davies, and by him and Mr. Herbert supposed to relate to the massacre of the British chiefs by Hengist at Stonehenge, is now known to describe a combat between the Strathclyde Britons and the Saxons of Deira and Bernicia, north of the Humber, the date of which Mr. Williams places at about a.d. 567.

It contains no Druidism, and its author was a Christian.

The heroes marched to Cattraeth, loquacious was the host,
Blue mead was their liquor, and it proved their poison.
In marshalled array they cut through the engines of war;
And after the joyful cry, silence ensued.
They should have gone to Churches to have performed penance;
The inevitable strife of death was about to pierce them.[30]

Again,—

They put to death Gelorwydd with blades.
The Gem of Baptism was thus widely taunted;
Better that you should ere you join your kindred
Have a gory unction, and death far from your native home.[31]

We certainly could not, primâ facie, expect to find any other than Christian allusions in poems of this age. For, whatever may be thought of the story of the introduction of Christianity into Britain by Bran the Blessed, the father of Caractacus, by Joseph of Arimathea, or by Aristobulus, in the first century of the Christian era, there is no doubt that in the sixth century, the period when the authors of these poems are supposed to have flourished, the Christian religion was firmly established in Wales.

Saint David, apart from the monkish legends and absurd fables connected with his name, has every claim to be considered a historical character, and his era is precisely that of Taliesin. There is hardly a piece in the collection of the Myvyrian Archæology which does not bear direct testimony to the fact of the writer having been a Christian, and that the persons to whom these poems were addressed were Christians also. Such arguments, however, are of little weight in the opinions of those who maintain that the Druidical doctrines to be found in these poems were cherished in secret, as esoteric, and carefully hidden from the eye of the people at large, though known to and acknowledged by the select initiated among the higher classes.

A little reflection will teach us that it was impossible any such doctrines could have been kept secret through a course of ages, and remain unnoticed by the Christian authorities, or by such writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, who was evidently ignorant of any such heresy existing in the bosom of the community over which he presided, unless we are to consider him, in common with every other writer, equally bound to secrecy as a member of the institution.

While on the subject of the Gododin, we ought not to omit to mention, that there is a still later translation of this poem, which shows it to be

“an Aramitic composition which purports to have been delivered orally at a school meeting in Wilts, at some period before the Christian era,”

principally composed of a Treatise on the Game of Chess. At the 322nd line we have,—

The game of chess. It rains
Out of doors; let chess spread relaxation.

Afterwards, line 332,—

Here’s the game of chess, the game
Of ivory troops in four squads.
The Indian game with care consider,
Chief game celebrated afar among the Anakim.

It is satisfactory to be informed from the Gododin, line 251,—

There was a Chinese hero Sk-m-sk Kon Caph,
First of bard chiefs, after the genius of the Britons.

and that

The fat Chinese heroes have skill to And out little marks.

We have here also veritable Druids who have informed us what the Gododin really is; line 474,—

“Lech” is joined. Here’s “la.” La is weary.
What is “Gododin,”
What? A trifle to Cherubim.

It may be so; but, as we are afterwards told, line 515,—

Cast at it quickly. Give it up ! Turn it over.
Consider I Risk! Hurry on! Stand Still! Go back!
A pleasant game of games.

We must say, we prefer giving it up.[32]

As a preliminary to the examination of these poems, we may present an example of one of these compositions, which was, no doubt, recited to delight audiences by vagrant minstrels many years bçfore it was reduced to writing in the fourteenth century. It is certainly one of the most corrupt examples of its class, but is not singular in the mixture of topics contained in it, and enables us to appreciate the condition in which many of these pieces have come down to us.

 

PRIF GYFARCH TALIESIN.

 
Frif gyfarch gelvyd par ryleat
Puy Kyntac tyuyll ac goleuat
Neu adaf pan vu pa dyd y great
Neu y dan tylwet py ry Seilyat
A vo Lleion nys myn pwyllyat
Est qui peccator am nivereit
Collant gulad nef vy pluyf Offeiryeit.
     Boreu neb ni del
     Or ganon teir pel
     Eingngyl gallwydel
     Gunaont eu ryvel
     Pan dau nos a dyd
     Pan vyd lluyd Eryr
     Pan yw tyuyll nos
     Pan iu guyrd llinos
     Mor pan dyverwyd
     Cud anys guelyd
     Yssit teir ffynnaun
A vuant gelvydon
Neu a rodaut lyvyryon
Pan wnant
Pan dau nos a lliant
Pan vyd y diviant
Cud anos rac dyd
Pater Noster ambulo
Gentis tonans in adjuvando
Sibilem signum
Ro gentes fortium
Am gwiw gwiwam gwmyd
Am geissyant deu Gelvydd
Am Kacr Kerindan Kerindydd
Rys tyneirch pector Dauyd
Y mwyngant ys ewant
Ym Kaflwynt yn dirdan
Kymry yggridvan
Provater eneit
Rac Lluyth eissyffleit
Kymry prif diryeit
Rann ry goll buyeit
Gwaedd hir ucheneit
As guyar honneit
Dydoent guarthvor
Gwydveirch dyarvor
Eingyl ygbygvor
Guelattor aruyddion
Guynyeith ar Saesson
Claudus in Sion
O ruyvannussion
Bydaut penn Seiron
Rac ffichit lewon
Marini Brython
Ryd a roganon
A medi heon
Am Hafren Avon
Lladyr ffadyr Ken a Massuy
Ffis amala ffur ffir Sel
Dyrnedi trinet tramoed
Creaudyr oro hai—huai
Gentil divlannai gyspell
Codigni ceta gosgord mur
Gan nath ben gan Govannon
Corvu. . . . . dur
 Y mynyd Fuaun
Yssit Gaer Gwarthawn
A dan don eigiawn
Gorith gyvarchawr
Puy enw y Porthawr
Pwy y periglawr
Y vab Meir mwynvawr
Pa vessur muynaf
A orug Adaf
Puy vessur Uffern
Puy tuet y lien
Puy llet y geneu
Puy meint eu mein heu
Neu vlaen gwydd ffalsum
Py estung mor gruin
Neu pet anat lion
Yssyd yn eu bon
Neu leu a gwydion
Neu bum gan vyr Kelydon
Gan Vatheu gan Govannon
Gan Eunyd gan Elestron
Ry ganhymdeith achuyssou
Bluydyn yg Kaer Govannon
Wyf hen wyf neuyd wyf guion
Wyf lluyr wyf synwyr Keinyon
Dy gy vi dyheu viython
Guydyl Kyi diaerogyon
Meddut medduon
Wyf bardd wyf ny rivaf yeillyon
Wyf llyu wyf syu amrysson
Sihei a rahei nys medry
Si ffradyr yn y ffradri
Pos Verdein bronrhein a dyvi
A ddeuont uch medlestri
A ganont gam vardoni
A geissent gyvaruys nys deubi
Heb gyvreith heb reith heb rodi
A guedy liynny dyvysgi
Brithvyt a byt dyoysci
Nae eruyn dy hedduch nyth vi
Reen nef rymavyr dy wedi
Rac y gres rym guares dy voli
Ri Rex gle am gogyvarch yn gelvyd
A ucleisty Dominus ffortis
Darogan dwfn Domini
Budyant Uffern
Hic nemor i por progenii
Ef a dyllyngys ei thuryf
Dominus virtictum
Kaeth naut Kynhulluys estis iste—est
(Est) a chyn buassun a simsei
Ruyf deruin y duu diheu
A chyn mynnuyf dervyn ereu
A chyn del ewyn friw ar uyggeneu
A chyn vyg Kyvalle ar y llatheu pren
Poet ym heneit yd a Kyvadeu
Abreid om dyweit llythyr llyvreu
Kystud dygyn guedy guely aghen
Ar saul a gigleu vy mardlyfreu
Ry bryn huynt wlat Nef adef goreu
Ry prynwynt, &c.


Diwedd y Prif Gyv.
(?)

 

THE “FRIF GYFARCH,” OR FIRST ADDRESS OF TALIESIN.

First tell the secret you who are in the superior place,
What was before darkness and light?
Or of Adam, where was he the day he was created ?
Or what could he see in the darkness ?
Or was he, like a stone, without intellect ?
Est qui peccator, innumerable,
The ministers of my people lose the kingdom of heaven,
In the morning let nobody come
Within three cannon balls Of the Irish of Eingyngl
Who are making a disturbance.
Whence are night and day distinct ?
Whence is the eagle grey ?
Whence is the night dark ?
Whence is the linnet green ?
Whence is the boiling up of the sea ?
Hidden and not exposed.
Is it the three fountains
In the mountain of Fuawn ?
Is it Caer Gwarthawn
Under the wave of the ocean ?
The illusive questioner.
What is the name of the porter ?
Who is the priest ?
The very kind son of Mary.
What is the greatest measure
That Adam made ?
What is the measure of Hell ?
How thick its covering ?
How wide its jaws ?
How many its stones ?
Was not the measuring rod false ?
What is the extent of the raging sea,
Or what kind of creatures
Are at the bottom of it ?
Neither Lieu nor Gwydion,
And they were wise,
Nor do books inform
How they are made.
Whence come night and dawn,
Whither the earth is moving on slowly,
The hiding-place of night before day. 
     Pater noster ambulo
     Gentis tonans in adjuvando
     Sibilem sigmim
     Ro gentea fortium.
To the worthy, the worthy is a companion.
They ask me two secrets
Concerning Caer Kerindydd.
Very gentle was the breast of Davyd,
In gentle song his pleasure,
They seek after thy song,
The Cymry in their grief,
It is profitable to the soul.
On account of the poverty of the land,
The chief misfortune of the Cymry,
On account of the loss of food,
Long is the cry of sorrow.
There is blood upon the spears.
The waves are bearing
Ships upon the sea.
Angles, the sea-rovers
Displaying their banners,
The false tongue of the Saxon.
Claudus in Sion
From the rulers.
They shall be the chief workmen
Before twenty chiefs.
Marini Brython
Are prophesying
A reaping of the ripe crop
By the river Severn.
Slain is the father of Ken and Massuy,
Ffiis amala ffur fir sel,
It is impossible to comprehend the Trinity.
I pray to the Creator, hai—huai,
The Gentiles may be illuminated by the Gospel,
Equally worthy of the great assembly.
Have I not been with the wise Kelydon,
With Math and with Elestron,
Accompanying them with great labour
A year in Caer Govannon,
I am old, I am young, I am Gwion ;
I am a soldier, I am knowing in feasts;
I am equal to the Southern Britons.
The Irish distil from a furnace
Intoxicating liquor.
I am a bard, I have an abundance of melodies;
I am a scholar, I am constant in (musical) contests;
In. . . . . there is none more accomplished.
Si frater in fratri.
Broad-chested rhyming bards there are,
And they prophesy over bowls of mead,
And sing evil songs,
And seek gifts which they will not get
Without law, without justice, without gifts;
And after this there will be a tumult,
There will be quarrelling and confusion.
I am not opposed to thy peace,
Lord of Heaven, I seek thee in prayer,
Through grace it is pleasant to me to praise thee.
Ri rex . . . I am worshipping thee in secret.
Who has seen Dominus fortis ?
(Who can) relate the deep things of the Lord ?
They have been victorious over Hell.
Hie nemor i por progenii. 
He hath set free its multitudes.
Dominus virtictum,
He is the protector of the assembled captives.
And before I had been . . . .
I was actively travelling in the southern parts;
And before I cease from active motion,
And before my face becomes pale,
And before I am joined to the wooden boards,
May there be to me a good festival in my lifetime.
I have scarcely finished the letters of my book.
There will be sore affliction after the sleep of death.
And whosoever has heard my bardic books
Shall surely obtain the most blessed mansions of the land of Heaven.

End of the Prif Gycarch.

 

This remarkable farrago has apparently been the property of some of the vagrant monks, with whom, previous to the Reformation, Wales swarmed almost equally with the vagrant minstrels or bards, of whom they were at once the rivals and bitter enemies. The Bardic poets abundantly repay the scorn and hatred exhibited for them by the ecclesiastics.

The poem, in its present condition, is evidently made up of several unconnected fragments, as is indeed the case with most others in the Myvyrian Collection. Though this condition of the oldest Welsh compositions may be in some measure ascribed to their having been subjects of oral recitation long before they were committed to writing, it is probable that in many instances it represents, though imperfectly, the original condition of the ballad, arising out of the customs of the Welsh minstrels.

In the great musical contests of the earlier and better age of Welsh minstrelsy, the competitors were obliged each to produce a composition of his own, and the prize was awarded to the successful candidate. According to the laws of Gruffyd ap Cynan,[33]

“When the congress hath assembled, they shall choose twelve persons skilled in the Welsh language, poetry, music, and heraldry, who shall give to the Bards a subject to sing upon, in any of the twenty-four metres; but not in amoebean carols, or any such frivolous compositions. The umpires shall see that the candidates do not descend to satire or personal invective ; and shall allow to each a sufficient time for composing his Englyn or Cywydd, or other task that they shall assign.”

In less dignified stations, the practice of contesting by the recitation of known compositions, or the production of extempore verses, appears to have been a favourite and universal pastime.

“Two clerwyr” (or wandering minstrels), says Dr. Rhys,[34]

“were wont to stand before the company, the one to give in rime at the other extempore, to stirre mirth and laughter with wittie quibbes,” &c.

Something of the same kind also took place even on more important occasions, and in the presence of dignified personages, when a kind of saturnalia was permitted. At such times, and especially at the marriage of a prince, or any person of princely extraction, the higher and lower orders of Bards intermingled in the appointment of a Cyff Cler, a “butt” or object on whom the rest exercised their talent of ridicule. A year and a day before the celebration of the nuptials, notice was given to a Pencerdd to prepare himself to support that character. When the time came he appeared in the hall, and, a facetious subject being proposed, the inferior Bards surrounded him, and attacked him with their ridicule. In these extempore satirical effusions, they were restrained from any personal allusion or real affront. The Cyff Cler sat in a chair in the midst of them, and silently suffered them to say whatever they chose, that could tend to the diversion of the assembly. For this unpleasing service he received a considerable fee. The next day he appeared again in the hall, and answered his revilers, and provoked the laughter and gained the applause of all who were present, by exposing them in their turn, retorting all their ridicule upon themselves.

Of this custom we have a curious notice in a piece called the Buarth Beirdd, “the Fold or Enclosure of the Bards,” in which the minstrel, among other self-commendations, says,—

Wyf bardd Neuodd wyf Kyv Kadeir,
Digonaf i feirdd llafar llestair,—

I am the Bard of the Hall, I am the Cyff of the Chair;
I am able to stop the tongues of the Bards.

In Pennant’s time this species of musical contest, though the subjects of song had somewhat degenerated, was in full activity in Wales.

“Even at this day,” he observes,

“some vein of the ancient minstrelsy survives amongst our mountains. Numbers of persons of both sexes assemble and sit around the harp, singing alternately pennillon or stanzas of ancient or modern composition. Often, like the modern improvisatorì of Italy, they sing extempore verses, and a person conversant in this art readily produces a pennill opposite to the last that was sung.”

Many have their memories stored with several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pennillion, some of which they have always ready for answers to every subject that can be proposed; or, if their recollection should ever fail them, they have invention to compose something pertinent and proper for the occasion.”

This is, no doubt, the key to the condition of many of those pieces which contain apparently unconnected fragments, and to the kind of question and answer which they frequently exhibit.

An example of the somewhat hasty manner in which a remote antiquity has been ascribed to some of the compositions in the Welsh language, which have been preserved in the Red Book of Hergest or other MSS. of that age, will not be out of place here.

There is in the Myvyrian Archæology a piece containing the following stanzas composed in the metre called “Triban Milwr.” Three of these were given by the Rev. Evan Evans, in a paper published in the Camhro-Briton in 1820, as the genuine production of the Druids. In 1853 the Ven. Archdeacon Williams, speaking of this same metre, says,

“There is every reason to believe that this was the medium through which the instruction of the Druids was generally conveyed to the initiated. Hence we have monitory stanzas, and hints conveyed in symbols respecting the observation of secrecy, with respect to ‘guid,’ whether knowledge of wood or trees. It is impossible to fix the relative antiquity of such stanzas as these”:—

1.   3.
Marchwiail bedw briglas
A dyn fy nhroed o wanas
Nac addef dy rin i was
  Marchwiail derw deiliar
A dyn fy nhroed o gar char
Nac addef dy rin i lafar.
     
2   4.
Marchwiail derw mewn llwyn
A dyn fy nhroed o gadwyn
Nac addef dy rin i forwyn.
  Eurtira ai cirn ai clwir
Oer lluric lluchedic awir
Bir diwedit blaen guit gwir.


Translation:—

1.   3.
Saplings of the green-topped birch,
Which will draw my foot from the fetter.
Repeat not thy secret to a youth.
  Saplings of the leafy oak,
Which will draw my foot from prison,
Repeat not thy secret to a babbler.
     
2   4.
Saplings of the oak in the grove,
Which will draw my foot from the chain,
Repeat not thy secret to a maiden.
  Golden princes with their horns are heard,
Cold is the breastplate, full of lightning the air,
Briefly it is said; true are the tree-sprigs.

 

It at once occurs, on reading these stanzas, that we have here -a specimen of that triadic form of composition, so frequently met with in the productions of the Welsh, wherein of a stanza of three lines, the last is a proverbial phrase or moral maxim, having no necessary connection with the two preceding lines.

Mr. E. Davies, however, regarded them as “the oldest remains of the Welsh language, and as genuine relics of the Druidical ages.” Mr. Williams, we have seen, follows in the same track.

But, on turning to the original piece in the Myvyrian Archæology,[35] we find that there are no less than fifty-two of these stanzas, and are at a loss to know why the Ven. Archdeacon, who refers to the Myvyrian Archæology , has selected the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 26th stanzas, omitting the 11th, which clearly is in the same category with the three former. It is this:—

Marchwiail drysi a mwyar ami
A mwyalch ar ei nyth
A chelwyddawg ni theu byth,—

Saplings of the thorn with berries on it,
The blackbird is on her uest;
The liar will not be silent.

Or the next:—

Gwlaw allan gwlychyd rhedyn
Gwyn gro mor goron ewyn
Tecav canwyll pwyll i dyn,—

There is rain without, wetting the fern;
White is the sand of the sea with its crown of foam;
Reason is the fairest light of man.

Or the seventh, the one which precedes those selected:—

Hir nos gorddyar morva
Gnawd tervysg yn nghymmynva
Ni chyvyd diriaid a da,—

Long is the night, roaring the seashore;
Usual is a disturbance in an assembly;
The evil with good do not agree.

Or, indeed, any other of the series.

It may be difficult to fix the age of these and similar stanzas, though not in the sense meant by the Rev. J. Williams. We find, in fact, that the editors of the Myvyrian Archæology ascribe these “Tribanau” to Llywarch Hen, the fatuous warrior Bard of the sixth century; and Dr. Owen has given a translation of twelve of them in his Heroic Elegies of that Bard. They are precisely similar in form and character to the Gorwynion, attributed to the same poet, and may be of any age down to the time when they were written in the Red Book of Hergest. In fact, the stanzas commencing “Marchwiail,” &c., are said to have been composed in the fourteenth century, or in the reign of King Edward III.

In the Iolo MSS. published by the Welsh MSS. Society in 1848, five years before the publication of Gomer, the following notices occur respecting these very stanzas:—

The Lineage af Marchwiail in Maelor.[36]

“ Llywelyn the son of Gruffyd, called Llewelyn Llogell Rhison, who composed Ènglynion Marchwiail, in the ancient style of poetry, when the great Eisteddvod was held there, iu the time of King Edward III., under the patronage of Lord Mortimer.”

Also:—

The Eisteddvod of Gwern-y-Cleppa, and the Brothers of Marchwiail.
Memoirs of Bards and Poets
.

“ In the time of King Edward III., the celebrated Eisteddvod of Gwern-y-Cleppa took place, under the patronage and gifts of Ivor Hael, and to it came the three brothers of Marchwiail in Maelor, in Powys, and Llywelyn ab Gwilym of Dôl Goch in Ceredigion. The three brothers of Marchwiail, and with them Davydd ab Gwilym, had been scholars iu Bardism to Llywelyn the son of Gwilym at Gwern-y-Cleppa,—that is, the seat of Ivor Hael.

“After that, an Eisteddvod was held at Dôl Goch, in Emlyn, under the patronage of Llywelyn the son of Gwilym, which was attended by John of Kent and Rhys Goch of Snowdon in Gwynedd. Upon this occasion, Llywelyn the son of Gruffyd, one of the three brothers of Marchwiail, sang the Engly-nion of Marchwiail bedw briglas in the ancient style of poetry .”

Whether this story is true or false—and it is to be supposed that the Ven. Archdeacon does not give any credit to it, as he does not notice it—it is evident that the authors of this relation did not imagine that there was any Druidic mystery concealed under these triplets,—a discovery which was reserved for the nineteenth century.

The most ancient piece of British poetry extant is composed in this style of stanzas of triplets. Lhuyd was in doubt whether it was in the language of the Strathclyde Britons, or of the Pictish or old Caledonians; and Archdeacon Williams pronounces it “an unique surviving specimen of the Pictish composition in the language mentioned by Beda, as a living speech in his day, and as the representative of the language of Galgacus and his Caledonians, partially, perhaps, affected by the intercourse established between the Piets and Scots during their long-continued struggles against imperial Rome.”

The composition in question, which was discovered by Lhuyd inscribed in an old copy of Juvencus, might, in his opinion, have been written in the seventh century, and may fairly be supposed to be as old as the ninth, the verbal forms being similar to those of the glosses in the Bodleian MSS., which Zeuss refers to about the latter date. The Juvencus lines are the only independent composition preserved in which those forms appear, the MSS. of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as seen in the Black Book of Caermarthen, differing only in unimportant particulars from those of the fourteenth.

In the original MS. the lines are written continuously without division, but are evidently metrical in form, and constitute three stanzas of three lines each. Archdeacon Williams has printed them in a modernized form, and gives the following translation:—

                         1.
I will not sleep even an hour’s sleep to-night.
My family is not formidable,
1 and my Frank servant and our kettle.

                         2.
No bard will sing, I will not smile nor kiss to-night;
Together-to the Christmas mead.
Myself and my Frank client and our kettle.

                         3.
Let no one partake of joy to-night,
Until my fellow-soldier arrives.
It is told to me that our lord the king will come.

“This,” says the Archdeacon,

“is the trifling effusion of a young officer given to literary pursuits, who otherwise would not have carried his Juvencus with him. The writer of the stanzas seems to have been on a midnight watch, at a military outpost, whence he was not to move until a superior officer should arrive, whom he styles a fellow-soldier. His callaur, or padell, was his camp-kettle. The last line alludes to the rumoured arrival of their common prince. The Frank servant is evidently a Frank by birth serving with the Pictish army—the name often occurring among the Cymric poets of this age.”

The idea of an officer of the Pictish army, in the seventh ccntury, carrying about with him, a Frank servant, a copy of Juvencus, and a camp-kettle, appears a little far-fetclied. We can see, however, that the words admit of a somewhat different division from that adopted by the Archdeacon, and that the lines contain what we should expect from them—the effusion of a bard desirous of obtaining a share of the feast in return for the display of his musical or poetic skill.

                         1.
Ni guorcosam neraheunaur henoid
Mi telun it gurmaur
Mi am franc dam an calaur.

                         2.
Ni can ili ni guardam ni cusam henoid
Cet iben med nouel
Mi am franc dam an patel.

                         3.
Na mereit nep leguenid henoid
Is disci nn mi coweidid
Dou nam Riceur imguetid.

The substitution of “telun,” “telyn,” a harp, for “teulu,” a family, or household, renders the first stanza intelligible, and gives the key to the meaning of the whole. Instead of reading the word “franc” as a proper name, a Frank, we give it the meaning ascribed to it by Dr. Owen, “a play, frolic, prank,” or, as an adjective, “active, sprightly.”

The following translation, though not free from objections, presents a more reasonable rendering of the meaning of these antique lines, and more in accordance with the tenor and contents of those fragments of British minstrelsy with which we are, in other instances, familiar:—

                         1.
I shall not sleep a single hour to-night,
My harp is a very large one.
Give me for my play a taste of the kettle.

                         2.
I shall not sing a song nor laugh or kiss to-night,
Before drinking the Christmas mead.
Give me for my play a taste of the bowl.

                         3.
Let there be no sloth or sluggishness to-night,
I am very skilful in recitation.
God, King of Heaven, let my request be obtained.

We know so little of the Piets, or the dialect of the British language spoken by that people, that we cannot affirm or deny that these lines present a specimen of the Pictish dialect; the close affinity with the Cambric glosses of the Bodleian MSS. which they present, is, perhaps, no reason for denying their Pictish origin.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Myv . Arch. vol. i. p.303.

[2]:

Myvyr. Arch . p. 411.

[3]:

Iolo MSS., and notes to the Mabinogi of Taliesin, by Lady Charlotte Quest.

[4]:

The name of Saint Henwg is not to be found in the lists of Welsh saints in Rees’s Essay; and the dedication of the church of Llanhenwg is there attributed to Saint John the Baptist.

[5]:

Triad, 125.

[6]:

Mabinogion, vol. iii.

[7]:

Published in 1784.

[8]:

Iolo MSS. p. 458.

[9]:

The priest.

[10]:

A pestilence, called the Yellow Plague, represented as a serpent.

[11]:

Stanza 45 in edition of the Rev. J. Williams ab Ithel.

[12]:

Without offering any opinion adverse to the general correctness of this translation by a writer who evinces a very intimate acquaintance with his subject and the circle of ancient Welsh literature, we may observe that the difficulty of executing such a translation is evidenced in the stanza above quoted, in which the line

A dan droet ronin

is translated by Mr. Williams,

This particle shall go under foot;

that is, says the author in a note, “this treatment I despise; it is beneath my notice; I will regard it as a particle of dust under my feet.” The poet is describing his lamentable condition in the earthen house or prison in which he is confined, and says,

Under my feet is gravel,
And my knees tied tight.

In the same way the adage, cited by Mr. Williams,

Nid a gwaew yn ronyn,

which he translates

Pain will not become a particle,

must be

A spear will not go into (or pierce) a grain of com;

importing that the means should be proportioned to the object.

The word gronyn is the singular of graion , grains; and there are abundant instances where a singular is put with a plural meaning, and vice versâ , on account of the rhyme; or very probably the word may have originally been graian, gravel, coarse sand. Villemarqué translates “a ring” from cron, round, circular, which agrees very fairly with the context.

[13]:

The 93rd stanza was certainly composed after the death of Aneurin. The expression,

Er pan aeth daear ar Aneirin,—
Since the time when the earth went upon Aneirin—

has reference to his death, as may be seen in the corresponding passages in the same poem.

[14]:

The elegy of Uthyr Pendragon, falsely attributed to Taliesin, is of late date, and not historical.

[15]:

Iolo MSS. p. 457.

[16]:

Lloughor, near Swansea.

[17]:

The river Llyw falls into the Llychwr near the remains of this old castle. Iolo MSS.

[18]:

This tradition, published in the Iolo MSS., is of some interest, as it is an instance of a legend which is found in Nennius, adapted to the history of Arthur. Nennius, after describing the colonization of Ireland by Partho-lanus and Nimech many centuries before the Christian era, says,

“Afterwards others came from Spain (i.e. the Milesians of Irish history) and possessed themselves of various parts of Britain. Last of all came one Hoctor (called in other MSS. Damhoctor, Clamhoctor, and Elamhoctor), who continued there, and whose descendants remain there to this day. The sons of Liethali obtained the country of the Dimetæ, where is a city called Menevia, and the province Guoher and Cetgueli (Gower and Kidwelly), which they held till they were expelled from every part of Britain by Cuqedda and his sons.”

[19]:

Historical Account of the Welsh Bards, p. 21.

[20]:

Lit. of the Kymry, p. 281.

[21]:

Eng. Tranal. p. 335, note .

[22]:

When Taliesin Williams wrote this paragraph, he had forgotten that his father, Iolo Morganwg, had stated in his essay on the Barddas, printed in the 2nd vol. of his Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, “that the poems of Taliesin in the sixth century exhibit a complete system of Druidism,” not hinting for a moment that he considered any of the poems attributed to that bard to be counterfeit or spurious.

[23]:

Grammatica Celtica , vol. ii. p. 950.

[24]:

Myvyr. Archaol. vol. i. p. xviii. London, 1801.

[25]:

Gomer, part ii. p. 17.

[26]:

Literature of the Kymry .

[27]:

A proposal to publish, by subscription, an English Translation of the Myvyrian Arckæology, including those Bardic remains of the older British poets which present most interesting materials calculated to throw light upon the history, the manners, the literature, the philosophy, and the mythology of our British ancestors, was advertised by the Rev. J. Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, as long ago as 1840 j but up to the present time it has not appeared. What such a translation would have been, may be inferred from thç late publication of the Archdeacon— Gomer; a Brief Analysis of the Language and Knowledge of the Ancient Cymry. London, 1854.

[28]:

Y Gododin: a Poem of the Battle of Cattraeth, by Aneurin, a Welsh Bard of the sixth century, with an English translation, and numerous Historical and Critical Notes, by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel, M.A. Llandovery, 1852.

[29]:

Poëmes des Bardes Bretons du 6e Síecle , par M. Hersart de la Villemarqué. Paris, 1850.

[30]:

Stanza 8.

[31]:

Stanza 12.

[32]:

Ancient Oral Records of the cimri or Britons in Asia and Europe, recovered through a literal Aramitic Translation of the Old Welsh Bardic Relict. By G. D. Barber, A.M., author of Suggestions on the Ancient Britons. London, 1865.

The same writer has translated the Hoianou of Merlin, and finds it to contain an account of the Institution of the Order of the Garter by the Ken or Britons, at their original site near Lake Van and the sources of the Zab, in Asia Minor, long before the Christian era.

[33]:

Jones’s History of the Welsh Bards , p. 16.

[34]:

Cambrobrytannicæ Oymræcæve Linguæ Inüitutiones Accurate. London, 1592.

[35]:

Vol. i. page 129.

[36]:

Near wrexham, Denbighshire.

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