Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards

Aneurin Gwawdrydd The epithet "Gwawdrydd" means "of the Flowing Verse" or "of the Golden Poem.", called by his successors the Monarch of Bards, lived under the patronage of Mynyddawg of Edinburgh Mynyddog Mwynfawr, a ruler of the Gododdin kingdom in the "Old North" (southern Scotland/northern England)., a prince of the North. His soldiers original Welsh: "Milwyr.", or men-at-arms, numbering 363 and all wearing gold chains These "gold chains" were torcs, the traditional neck-rings worn by Celtic nobility and elite warriors., were slain—except for Aneurin and two others—in a battle with the Saxons at Cattraeth Modern-day Catterick in North Yorkshire; the battle occurred around 600 AD.. His poem, the Gododdin, written about that event, is perhaps the oldest and most noble production of that age. Because it was composed in a northern dialect (which the author suggests might be Pictish, though modern scholars identify it as Old Welsh or Cumbric), it is currently extremely difficult and obscure in many places. The following passage, adapted into verse by Mr. Gray Thomas Gray (1716–1771), the famous English poet. from Mr. Evans’s literal translations, will give ample proof of Aneurin’s genius, even though it is only a fragment.

ODE,

Selected from the Gododdin.

* Evans's Dissertation on the Bards; pages 68, 69.