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Y Gododdin ("The Gododdin"), attributed to the 7th century poet Aneirin, is a series of 99 elegies to the men of the kingdom of Gododdin in north-eastern Britain who fell in the battle of Catraeth, thought to be Catterick in North Yorkshire, against the Angles, ca. 600 AD. It was composed in Old Welsh, an early Medieval Celtic language ancestral to modern Welsh, and survives in a 13th century manuscript known as the Book of Aneirin. Gododdin (pronounced god-o-th-in), or Guotodin (Votadini in Latin), refers to both the people and to the region of a Dark Ages Brythonic kingdom south of the Firth of Forth, extending from the Stirling area to the Northumberland kingdom of Brynaich, and including what are now the Lothian...
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Aneirin, Aneurin or Neirin mab Dwywei (c. ...
Originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), the term elegy is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. ...
This article deals with the town. ...
North Yorkshire is a county within the region of Yorkshire and the Humber in England. ...
Angles (German: Angeln, Old English: Englas, Latin: singular Anglus, plural Anglii) were Germanic people, from Angeln in Schleswig, who settled in East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria in the 5th century. ...
For other uses, see number 600. ...
A Celtic cross. ...
Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...
(12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ...
The Book of Aneirin (Welsh: Llyfr Aneirin) is a medieval manuscript which contains Y Gododdin, an early Welsh poem commemorating the battle of Catterick around the year 600, and other early poetry. ...
A reference in the poem to Arthur hints at a link to Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh. King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship in both war and peace. ...
Arthurs Seat in a cloudless summer evening Arthurs Seat is the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park, a remarkably wild piece of highland landscape in the centre of the city of Edinburgh, about a mile to the east of the castle. ...
The poems tell how the Gododdin king, Mynyddog Mwynfawr, gathered warriors from several British kingdoms and providing them with a year's feasting and drinking mead in his halls in Din Eidyn (Edinburgh), 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, one being the poet himself. Mead Wikibooks Cookbook has more about this subject: Mead Mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. ...
Edinburghs location in Scotland Edinburgh viewed from Arthurs Seat. ...
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 King Arthur, as a paragon of bravery with whom one fallen warrior is compared. King Arthur is an important figure in the mythology of Great Britain, where he appears as the ideal of kingship in both war and peace. ...
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.
Although very different, it brings to mind the song Flowers of the Forest, about a similarly ill-fated expedition in the 16th century. This Scottish folk song is a lament for the deaths of the King, many of his nobles, and over 10,000 men - the Flowers of the Forest - at the battle of Flodden Field in 1513, a significant event in the history of Scotland. ...
(15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ...
The Book of Aneirin also contains poems with no connection to the Battle of Catraeth, including a short poem for a child named Dinogad, describing how his father goes hunting and fishing.
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