Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin (
The Gododdin) is a poem constisting of a series of ninety-nine
elegies to the men of the
Brythonic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who died fighting the
Angles of
Deira and
Bernicia at the
Battle of Catraeth (probably
Catterick,
North Yorkshire) around AD
600.
Y Gododdin survives in a
13th century manuscript known as the
Book of Aneirin.
Y Gododdin was first translated and published by
William Forbes Skene in his
Four Ancient Books of Wales (1866) and, later, by
Thomas Stephens for the
Cymmrodorion Society in
1888. The first reliable edition was
Canu Aneirin by Sir
Ifor Williams with notes in Welsh, published in
1938. A new translation based on this work was published by Kenneth H. Jackson in
1969 and, with modernized Welsh text and glossary, by A.O.H. Jarman in
1988. John Koch's new edition with divergent analysis appeared in
1997.
Most analysis and interpretations of this poem follow Ifor Williams whose 1938 text was published with extensive notes. Williams showed that, while some of the poetry included in the manuscript represented later interpolations, part of it could be regarded as being of likely late 6th century origin, orally transmitted for a period before being written down. The poem was originally composed in the
Cumbric dialect of
Old Welsh, an early
medieval Brythonic language ancestral to modern
Welsh, and is considered to be the oldest surviving poem from modern-day
Scotland. The Gododdin people lived in what had previously been known as
Votadini territories in what is now south-east
Scotland. In modern terms their lands included much of
Clackmannanshire and the
Lothian and
Borders regions. Their battle at Catraeth has been seen as an attempt to resist the advance of the Angles, who had probably by then occupied the former Votadini lands of Bryneich in modern north-eastern
England and made it their kingdom of
Bernicia. At some time after the battle, the Angles absorbed the Gododdin kingdom, possibly after the fall of their capital
Din Eidyn (modern
Edinburgh) in
638, and incorporated it into the kingdom of
Northumbria.
The poems tell how the Gododdin king,
Mynyddog Mwynfawr, gathered warriors from several Brythonic kingdoms and provided them with a year's feasting and drinking
mead in his halls at Din Eidyn, before launching a doomed battle against vastly superior numbers. The collection appears to have been compiled from two different versions: according to some verses there were 300 men of the Gododdin, and only one survived; in others there were 363 warriors and three survivors, in addition to the poet himself, who would have almost certainly not have been counted as one of the warriors due to being of a
bard. Some of the verses refer to the entire host, others eulogize individual heroes. A number of stanzas may open with the same words, for example "Gwyr a aeth gatraeth gan wawr" ("Men went to Catraeth at dawn"). One poem contains what is thought to be the earliest reference to
Arthur, as a paragon of bravery with whom one fallen warrior is compared. This may hint at a possible link to
Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh.
In 1997, John Koch published a new and very different interpretation of
Y Gododdin. He doubts that
Aneirin was the original author and suggests that the oral poem passed from Lothian to
Strathclyde before becoming divided into two versions, one of which travelled to
Wales. He identifies the Battle of Catraeth with the Battle of Gwen Ysrat which appears in the
Canu Taliesin, and interprets the Gododdin as having fought the Brythons of
Rheged and
Alt Clut over a power struggle in
Elmet, with Anglian allies on both sides.
Urien Rheged was thus the real victor of the battle. Mynyddog Mwynfawr was not a person's name but a personal description meaning 'mountain feast' or 'mountain chief'. This view has been criticised by both Oliver Padel and Tim Clarkson.
Translations of verses 1 and 11 are given below:
Man in might, youth in years, courage in battle.
Swift, long-maned stallions under the thigh of a fine lad.
Behind him, on the lean, swift flank, his target, broad and bright,
Swords blue and bright, clothes fringed with gold-work.
There will be no reproach or enmity between us now
Rather I shall make you songs in your praise.
Men went to Catraeth at dawn: their high spirits shortened their life-spans.
They drank mead, gold and sweet, ensnaring; for a year the minstrels were merry.
Red their swords, leave the blades unwashed; white shields and four-edged spears,
In front of the men of Mynyddawg Mwynfawr.
Y Gododdin brings to mind the song
Flowers of the Forest, about a similarly ill-fated expedition in the
16th century.
*Berggren, J. Lennart and Alexander Jones.
"Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters." Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford. ISBN 0691010420
* Bromwich, Rachel & R. Brinley Jones.
"Astudiaethau ar yr hengerdd." Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 1978. ISBN 0708306969
* Clancy, Joseph P.
"Medieval Welsh poems." Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003. ISBN 1851827838
* Clarkson, Tim.
"The Gododdin Revisited" in
The Heroic Age 1, 1999
* Evans, Stephen S.
"The heroic poetry of Dark-Age Britain : an introduction to its dating, composition, and use as a historical source." Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1997. ISBN 0761806067
* Jackson, Kenneth H.
"The Gododdin: The Oldest Scottish poem." Edinburgh: University Press, 1969. ISBN 085224049X
* Koch, John T.
"The Gododdin of Aneurin: text and context from Dark-Age North Britain." Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997. ISBN 0708313744
* Padel, Oliver.
"A New Study of the Gododdin" in
Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 35, 1998.
* Roberts, Brynley F.
"Early Welsh poetry: studies in the Book of Aneirin." Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988. ISBN 090715834X
* Williams, Ifor, Sir.
"The beginnings of Welsh poetry: studies." Rachel Bromwich (ed.); Cardiff: University of Wales Press, second edition, 1980. ISBN 0708307442
* Williams, Ifor, Sir.
"Canu Aneirin: gyda rhagymadrodd a nodiadau." Aberystwyth: Argraffwyd trwy lun gan Cambrian News, Cyf., 1978. (note- second reprint of the 1961 edition published by Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru)
* Williams, Ifor, Sir.
"Lectures on early Welsh poetry." Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1944.
*
Free ebook of Y Gododin at
Project Gutenberg in Welsh and English translation by John Williams
*
The Book of Aneurin, original text and two English translations (Skene & Clancy)
*
Edinburgh Castle, and comment on "Y Gododdin"
