CHAPTER XIII TRUE PLACE OF THE POEMS IN WELSH LITERATURE. question is, Do the HAVING thus examined the recent criticism, by which the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century are maintained really to belong to a much later period, so far as the limits of this work will permit, we have now to approach the true problem we have to solve, and endeavour to assign to them their real place in Cymric literature; and the first poems themselves afford any indications by which we may judge of their antiquity? It is obvious, viewed in this light, that if these poems are genuine they ought to reflect the history of the period to which they belong. If we find that they do not re-echo to any extent the fictitious narrative of the events of the fifth and sixth centuries as represented in the Bruts, but rather the leading facts of the early history of Cymry, as we have been able to deduce them from the older authorities, it will be a strong ground for concluding that they belong themselves to an earlier age. This is an inquiry which of course can only affect the so-called historical poems, with such others of the class of mythological poems as contain historical allusions; but when their true place and period are once ascertained, the other poems must be judged of by their resemblance to these in metrical structure, style, and sentiment. Following, then, the course of the history, as we have traced it, we have first the Marwnad or Death-song of Cunneddaf (B. T. 46). Cunedda, as we know, was Guledig in the fifth century, and retired from the northern wall to beyond the southern. In the poem we are told There is trembling from fear of Cunedda the burner, that is, in Durham and Carlisle-two towns, the one behind the west end, and the other the east end of the wall. And again— He was to be admired in the tumult with nine hundred horse. Here he is represented as commanding 900 horse, the exact amount of auxiliary cavalry attached to a Roman legion, The Roman wall, or mur, is likewise alluded to in two other of those death-songs (B. T. 40, 41)— one where Ercwlf is called the Wall-piercer, and the other where Madawg, the son of Uthyr, is called the Joy of the Wall. It is very remarkable how few of these poems contain any notice of Arthur. If they occupied a place, as is supposed, in Welsh literature, subsequent to the introduction of the Arthurian romance, we should expect these poems to be saturated with him and his knights, and his adventures, but it is not so. Out of so large a body of poems, there are only five which mention him at all, and then it is the historical Arthur, the Guledig, to whom the defence of the wall was entrusted, and who fights the twelve battles in the north, and finally In one of them, the Cadeir perishes at Camlan. Teyrnon (B. T. 15), this idea pervades the whole poem. Arthur is the In another, the poem in the Black Book which has been supposed to refer to the Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen, Arthur again appears as the warrior fighting in the north, and two of his twelve battles are mentioned And again In Mynyd Eiddyn He contended with Cynvyn. On the strands of Trywruyd With sword and shield. And the same body of legionary cavalry is alluded to They were stanch commanders Of a legion for the benefit of the country, Bedwyn and Bridlaw, Nine hundred to them would listen.⚫ Again, in the Spoils of Annwfn (B. T. 30), in which, in its historical sense, an expedition to the dreary region north of the wall would be intended- Thrice twenty Canhwr stood upon the mur or wall. Canhwr is a centurid, or body of 100 men, and there were sixty centuries in the Roman legion, here represented as stationed at the wall. In the Historia Britonum, the author describes the Britons as having been, for forty years after the Romans left the island, "sub metu," which expression he afterwards explains as meaning, "sub metu Pictorum et Scotorum," and the memory of these fearful and destructive outbursts of ravaging and plundering bands of Picts from beyond the wall must have long dwelt in their recollection. This we might also expect to find reflected in the poems. When a poem opens with these lines: How miserable it is to see Tumult and commotion, Wounds and confusion, The Brithwyr in motion, And a cruel fate, With the impulse of destiny, And for the sake of Heaven, Declare the discontinuance of the disaster— is it possible to doubt that that poem was written at a time when the country was still smarting from the recollection of their ravages? Thus, in another poem (R. B. 23), we have Let the chief architects alluding to the attempt by the Britons to protect themselves by the wall. Then, in two other poems, one commonly called the Mic Dinbych (B. T. 21), where the billows which surround one of the cities are said To come to the green sward from the region of the Ffichti; and in another (B. T. 11), where it is said— Hearndur and Hyfeid and Gwallawg, And Owen of Mona of Maelgwnian energy, Will lay the Peithwyr prostrate is it possible to doubt that they must have been written when the Picts were still a powerful people in Britain, and before their kingdom was merged in that of the Scots ? The mode in which Mr. Nash deals with these passages is characteristic. He ignores the first poem altogether, and he so disguises the other passages in his translation as to banish the Picts as effectually from them as they were ever expelled by the Roman troops from the province. In the passage quoted from the second poem, he translates the line-Rac Ffichit leuon, before twenty chiefs. Now, Ffichit does not mean twenty in Welsh, but Fichead means twenty in Gaelic; and he would rather suppose that the bard had introduced a Gaelic word than that he could have alluded to such embarrassing people as the Picts. In the next passage he translates the line-Adaw hwynt werglas o glas Ffichti, "promised to them are the drinking-cups of painted glass." If A daw hwynt means they came, Adaw means a promise; but how Gwerlas can mean drinking-cups I cannot conceive. |