CHAP. IV. 547. Its want of tradition correspond; and all the British nobles perished but three, another coincidence. But as Aneurin, according to the unvarying statement of the Welsh literature, lived in the early part of the sixth 31 foundation. century, and was contemporary with Taliesin, who mentions him 32; and as the bard was himself one of the survivors of the conflict, and a captive from it 33, it cannot have occurred till some time after Hengist had died. 34 To this decisive evidence, from its chronology, may be added a remark, that although to the Med yvynt melyn melys maglawr. So the bard says he partook of the wine and mead there; Yveis y win a med y Mordai. God. p. 2. Ibid. God. p. 4. 31 So Mr. Davies acknowledges, p. 317.; and adds, "Edward Llwyd refers the era of the Gododin to the year 510, and this probably upon the authority of the ancient MS. which he quotes in the same passage," p. 321. 32 In his Anrec Urien, p. 51. In like manner Aneurin speaks of Taliesin : 34 Mr. Davies escapes the difficulties of chronology by three large suppositions. First, he supposes, that though Hengist came in 449, yet that the reputed massacre did not occur till 472. But though Hengist was then alive, the Saxon Chronicle states, that he obtained his kingdom after a battle in 455; and that in 457, after another battle, the Britons abandoned Kent. Another battle, in which twelve British leaders fell, occurred in 465. After such transactions as these, such a confiding banquet was not likely to have occurred on the part of the Britons, nor was such a massacre wanted to give Hengist that kingdom, which he had both acquired and maintained. His second and third will best speak for themselves: "There is no improbability in Aneurin's having attended the feast, as a young bard, in 472, and his having bewailed the friends of his youth, thirty-eight years afterwards, when he had fallen into the hands of the foe, and was confined in a dreary dungeon," p. 322. Yet according to Aneurin's own expressions in the preceding note, the captivity seems to me to be clearly referred to the destruction at Cattraeth. His words are: Yn y ty deyerin Then follows the passage, in note 32., on himself and Taliesin. BOOK III. 547. praise of his several heroes, or of their exploits, he annexes, almost invariably, a lamentation of their festive indulgence; yet this is not accompanied with any specific charge of treachery on the part of the Saxons. 35 If it related to the reported massacre, the natural process of the poet's mind would have been to have inveighed against the Saxons for their perfidy; instead of so continuously censuring the Britons for their inebriety. If Hengist had invited them to a banquet of peace and friendship, it was not merely natural, but it was even laudable, according to the customs of that age, that the festivity should advance to intoxication. As it is not likely that the bards ever witnessed a public banquet without this termination, it could not justly form, nor would have been made a subject of inculpation. That the Gododin should commemorate so many British chiefs, Ceawg 36, Cynon, Madawg, Tulvwlch, Mynnydawg, Cyvwlch, Caradawg, Owen, Eidiol, Pereddur, and Aeddan; and yet not actually name either Gwrthyrn, Guortemir, or Ambrosius, cannot but strengthen the inference, that it has no concern with the latter; for why should some be mentioned directly and plainly, and others, the most important in rank and power, he never named, but implied, as he thinks, by some periphrasis? The locality of the incident alluded to in the poem, seems also, as far it can be ascertained, to be inconsistent with the massacre imputed to Hengist. It fixes the scene at Cattraeth, and it implies that the 35 Mr. Davies believes he discerns such charges. But the supposed allusions are not direct, and do not seem to me to be the natural construction of the passages so applied. 36 This hero, whose name begins four of the stanzas of the poem, and whose praise seems to be their import, has been converted by Mr. Davies, contrary to all former translations, into an epithet. But by the same mode of interpretation, when we meet with the names Hengist, Cicero, and Naso, we may, if we please, turn our Saxon ancestor into a war-horse; the Roman orator into a bean; and the poet of the metamorphoses into a nose. people of Deira and Bernicia were in the conflict. 87 Cattraeth has been always placed in the northern districts. So has Eiddyn, from which Mynnydawg came, whose courteousness is repeatedly praised in the poem, and whom in its natural construction it mentions as the commander of the British force. His host is also mentioned in the conflict, not as if he was feasting with a small retinue, but as his warlike tribe 38; and it is correspondent with this view that the Triads mention his host at the battle of Cattraeth, as one of the three gallant hosts of Britain, because they followed their chiefs at their own charge. 39 The natural import of the poem is, that the Britons had fought hastily on one of their festive days. And this leads us to infer, that they might have been surprised by an unexpected advance of the Saxon forces. That 360 nobles, intoxicated at a previous banquet, should have perished in this battle, and that 360 should be the number said to have been massacred by Hengist at his feast, are coincidences that lead the mind to believe there may be some connection between the two incidents. But every other circumstance is so unlike, that we may more reasonably suppose, that the actual event occurred in a battle, as Aneurin has exhibited it; and upon a surprise, as we have suggested, and that tradition has erroneously 37 Of the men of Dewyr and Bryneich: The dreadful ones! Twenty hundred perished in an hour. O wyr Dewyr a Bryneich dychrawr Ugeincant eu divant yn un awr. God. p. 2. 38 The Gorgordd Mynnydawc mwyn vawr: "the host of Mynnydawg the Courteous," is mentioned in several passages: as Rac Gorgordd Mynydawc mwyn vawr. He is also noticed in p. 10. and 11. The last is -Twice in p. 2. Of the host of Mynnydawg there escaped But one weapon. Mr. Davies transforms this proper name into an epithet, implying mountain chief; and then supposes it to mean Vortigern, because North Wales is a mountainous region, and Vortigern was the lord of it, p. 322. 39 See Triad, 79.; Welsh Arch. ii. p. 69.; and Triad, 36. p. 8. СНАР. IV. 547, BOOK III. 547. Slow pro attached it to the first Saxon invader, and feigned the banquet and its calamitous consequences to be the result of a premeditated treachery on a festive invitation; or that they are what they have been always thought to be, really distinct transactions. The same conflict is alluded to in other poems; but its disastrous issue and the inebriety, not the Saxon perfidy, is the usual topic. 40 Even Golyddan, who mentions the massacre of Hengist, has no allusion to Cattraeth or Mynnydawg, nor gives any intimation that it relates to the subject of the Gododin.41 The progress of the Angles in the north was slow gress of the and difficult. The Britons appear to have fought Angles. 40 It is so mentioned in a poem printed in the Welsh Archaiology, as a part of Taliesin's Dyhuddiant Elphin, though it obviously begins as that ends. Mr. Davies found it to be in one MS. appended to Aneurin's Gododin, Celt. Res. 574. passage may be thus translated : The In the Gorchan Cynvelyn, the incantation of Cynbelyn, it is thus mentioned, as if by Aneurin himself: Three warriors, and three score, and three hundred, Went to the tumult at Cattraeth. Of those that hastened To the bearers of the mead, Except three, none returned. Cynon and Cattraeth With songs they preserve, And me- for my blood they bewailed me The son of the omen fire, They made a ransom, Of pure gold, and steel, and silver. Ibid. p. 61. "In 41 The golden torques mentioned by Aneurin was then worn in Britain. 1692, an ancient golden torques was dug up near the castle of Harlech, in Merionethshire. It is a wreathed bar of gold, or perhaps three or four rods jointly twisted, about four feet long, flexile, but naturally bending only one way in form of a hat-band; it is hooked at both ends; it is of a round form, about an inch in circumference, and weighs eight ounces.' Gibson's Additions to Camden, p. 658. Bonduca wore one, Xiphilin. Epit. Dionis, p. 169. ed. H. S. 1591; and the Gauls used them, Livy, lib. xxxvi. c. 40. Gibson quotes a passage of Virgil, Æneid, lib. v. 559., which implies that the Trojan youth wore them. Llywarch, p. 135., says, that his twenty-four sons were eudorchawg, or wearers of the golden torques, which, from the above description, we perceive was not a chain. ed. 1695. more obstinately in these parts than in other. 44 CHAP. IV. 547. 559. The death of Ida, in 559, produced a division of Ida's death. his associates. His son Adda succeeded; but one of his allied chieftains, also a descendant of Woden, quitted Bernicia, and sought with those who followed him a new fortune, by attacking the British kingdom of Deifyr, between the Tweed and the Humber. This chieftain was named Ella, and he succeeded in conquering this district, in which he raised the Angle kingdom of Deira, and reigned in it for thirty years.46 Yet though able to force an establishment in this country, many years elapsed before it was completely subdued; for Elmet, which is a part of Yorkshire, was not conquered till the reign of his son, who expelled from it Certic, its British king.47 One Jute, three Saxon, and three Angle kingdoms Establishwere thus established in Britain by the year 560 in ment of the 42 Nennius, Geneal. p. 117. 43 Nennius, p. 117. 44 Nenn. p. 117. The Welsh Triads mention this murder in noticing the three foul assassins of Britain. "Llofan Llawddino, who killed Urien, the son of Cynfarch." Trioedd 38. W. A. ii. p. 9. 45 Thus his son Adda, his eldest son, reigned but seven years; Clappa, five; Theodulf, one; Freothulf, seven; Theodoric, seven; and Ethelric, two. Flor. Wig. 221. 46 Flor. Wig. 221. Sax. ch. 20. 47 Nenn. Geneal. p. 117. octarchy. |