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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 Gododdin kingdom who died fighting the Angles of Bernicia at the Battle of Catraeth (probably Catterick , North Yorkshire ) around 600 AD. The Gododdin (earlier called the '' Votādīnī '') were a Brython ic tribe living in what is now northeast England and southeast Scotland ; their defeat at Catraeth was an attempt to resist the advance of the Angles, who absorbed their kingdom after the fall of their capital '' Din Eidyn '' (modern Edinburgh) around 638. The poem was originally composed in the Cumbric dialect of Old Welsh , an early Medieval Brythonic Language ancestral to modern Welsh , and survives in a 13th Century manuscript known as the Book Of Aneirin . It is considered to be the oldest Scottish poem.

The text was published with extensive notes by Sir Ifor Williams in ''Canu Aneirin'' in 1938. Williams showed that some of the poetry included in the manuscript represented later interpolations, but that part of it could be regarded as being of likely late 6th century origin, orally transmitted for a period before being written down.

The poems tell how the Gododdin king, .

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 hints at a possible link to Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh .

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 . 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.


NOTES