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The Text of the Book of Aneirin
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1380
18 people want to read
About the author
Aneirin
11 books4 followersAneirin [aˈnɛirɪn] or Neirin was an early historic period Brythonic poet. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin with its main centre at Dun Eydin (Edinburgh), in modern Scotland.
Aneirin's patrons were the noble Urien and his son, Owain. Owain was slain at the Battle of Catraeth, in which Brythonic warriors of Gododdin fought the Angles of Deira and Bernicia. Nearly all of the Brythonic warriors were slain and their lands were absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Aneirin wrote Y Gododdin after this battle, in remembrance of his fallen patrons and lords, in which he hints that he is likely the sole survivor.
Aneirin's patrons were the noble Urien and his son, Owain. Owain was slain at the Battle of Catraeth, in which Brythonic warriors of Gododdin fought the Angles of Deira and Bernicia. Nearly all of the Brythonic warriors were slain and their lands were absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Aneirin wrote Y Gododdin after this battle, in remembrance of his fallen patrons and lords, in which he hints that he is likely the sole survivor.
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January 29, 2022
The Book of Aneirin is the source from which the incomparable Y Gododdin comes. The book is a collection of a few other medieval Welsh poems, most of which are attributed to the sixth and seventh century bard Aneirin. It is thought to have been put in its present form around 1265, possibly as a copy of another manuscript from the 9th century. If the ninth century version is based on an earlier written document, or is the first written version of poems that were transmitted orally for centuries is unknown.
But at present, and for at least two hundred years or so, scholars have been in agreement about most of the basic things concerning this book and its most famous poem, Y Gododdin.
These are the commonly accepted beliefs about the book. First, Aneirin is the author of many of the poems, or at least of Y Gododdin, which makes up the bulk of the book. Second, Y Gododdin is a collection of elegies depicting the character, valor, and deaths of many of the Gododdin warriors and chieftains who fell at the Battle of Catraeth in the late sixth century, or early seventh century, against the Angles of Bernicea and Deira. Aneirin was a war poet at this war and wrote about what he saw.
Given all of this, I’m not sure what to make of The Text of the Book of Aneirin, which is the only existent, or at least only available, English translation of the complete Book of Aneirin. This translation is from 1922, by J. Gwenogvryn Evans. It is a fantastic and thoughtful presentation of excellent poems of medieval war and epic elegies for fallen warriors. Just as thrilling and stunning as the translation of Y Gododdin I read only a few weeks ago. But there was something strange about this. Something I haven’t figured out.
You see, Evans asserts, in his introduction and in his forward and in his preface and in his many notes, that none of the above beliefs are true. The Book of Aneirin, he says, was not written by Aneirin, because a poet named Aneirin never existed. It is two collections of poems that were written by four different poets. And it is not from the sixth century, but the 12th century, and the poem known as Y Gododdin is instead correctly called Y Gorddin, and it has nothing to do with the people from the kingdom of Gododdin fighting the Angles, but is really a collection of poems about Hugh Lupus ”The Fat”, earl of Chester and Hugh the Proud, earl of Shrewsbury, leading a battle against Griffydd ap Kynan in 1098. Hugh the Proud and his men were crushed, and Hugh the fat and his were defeated by the heroic efforts of Magnus, king of Norway.
Evans is of the opinion that all past scholars had this book wrong. Apparently his view never caught on, because I can’t find any evidence that anyone today agrees with him. It’s interesting, then, that this is the only English translation I could find anywhere.
“The manuscript has been misread and the false reading has thrived for so long a time that the minds of men have become fossilized on the subject.”
While his interpretation, when considered in light of what we know about Y Gododdin, sounds like an almost insane fan theory or a joke, it is apparently very serious. What’s more, he lays out a detailed case that seems weirdly pedantic and obsessive. His case depends on a lot of fine attention to the original manuscript and on his claim that it is strewn with errors made by the scribe, that certain letters are supposed to be different letters, and that words that scholars have always thought were words are in fact two separate words smooshed together to make a completely different narrative. He even has about 15 pages at the end of the book of what he calls “scribal errors”, which he justifies calling errors through some reasoning I confess I didn’t follow. In all, he attributes a scribal error about once every 3 or 4 lines in the poem, and sometimes multiple in the same line.
He uses some puzzling rationale to summon up the names of Magnus and Hugh Lupus, for example, who are nowhere in the Gododdin as we know it. For example, by suggesting that some letters were mistakenly written down instead of the “correct” letters, and when liberally re-interpreting this line or that line in context of how he believes it should go, and then fitting it into what he wanted it to mean, he is able to muster up a reference to these men, or to certain events that he points to from history as being what the poet must have been trying to get at. So the poem about a war around 600 AD by a war poet who was at the battle, between the Gododdin and Angles, is instead about a war in 1098 AD between Lupusians and Vikings and Saxons, written by four different poets with differing motivations.
Since I don’t know anything about Old Welsh philology (or philology at all), and barely anything about the complex history of battles in Wales and Scotland and Britain, I have absolutely no clue if anything he is saying is reasonable or completely off base and on the fringes of early 20th century Welsh scholarship. No clue. And yet, it’s strangely compelling, if not believable, and it’s interesting to see how he justifies his very uncommon interpretations.
The references to the author Aneirin that are in the poem, in Evans’ view, are mistakes. He claims readers have misread “aneir in” as a single word and turned it into a name, which should instead be interpreted to mean “evil speaking, slandering, ridiculing”. He again turns to scribal errors as his justification, claiming that some letters should be different, so that he can pull a completely different meaning out of the phrases in which, according to mainstream scholarship, the poet Aneirin refers to himself.
His arguments are dense and I won’t pretend I can make any sense of them. But they are fun to entertain. And maybe most importantly, this strange view Evans takes allows him to produce a very unique translation of Y Gododdin, as a saga telling of the Battle of the Strand, from four different perspectives. It becomes more of a narrative of battle than a sequence of heroic elegies. The excessive mead drinking and its aftermath, however, remains intact.
He attributes these poems to twelfth century poets: Taliesin (who we know to be a sixth century bard, so I can’t tell if he means a different Taliesin), Talhaearn, Llwchvardd, and Griffyd ap Kynan, king of Gwynedd, who was involved in this battle Evans claims that the poems are about.
It’s a perplexing hypothesis and set of notes, but also fascinating. I learned more than I thought I would about some of the history and language of the area, which is always appreciated. The poem(s) takes a different shape than I expected, and it isn’t clear where the Gododdin ends and the other poems begin.
Evans organizes the poems by who he says authored them. I also don’t follow his arguments explaining why he thinks these poets are the authors of the works here. Maybe they were, but he seems to be the only one who thought so. I’d be surprised if a king involved in these battles authored some poems about the battles without putting his name on them to resolve any ambiguity about who wrote them. But Evans claims the manuscript has Griffyd’s name scribbled in the margins, which he takes to mean the scribes are pointing to him as author.
Peculiarities aside, I should at least say something about the poems here. The whole work blends together in a curious order and pattern, and it is splendid and regaling and piled with vivid scenes of gory violence, constantly changing tides of war, weapons reddened and raised in conquest, desperation of the wounded or the eager, glory for heroes and chieftains and kings, death coming to almost everyone by sword or spear or dart, and victory or defeat giving way to ominous calm.
Hugh and Magnus have their deeds related from multiple angles, and where the Y Gododdin presented us with dozens of slain chieftains or warriors receiving a unique elegy, Y Gorddin presents us with poems revolving around the same few figures, and we see Hugh die multiple times. I think these poems also cover multiple battles, some occurring years after the 1098 battle. Y Gododdin is noted for what some take to be an early reference to King Arthur. Y Gorddin has no such reference, and the name Arthur never appears, likely because Evans interpreted this name to be yet another scribal error that means something else.
Overall, a terrific must-read in the realm of old Welsh poetry or Celtic myth and literature. This version of the book presents some bizarre puzzles for the reader. But once the reader surrenders to the convictions of the translator and suspends disbelief for a while to accept this uncommon interpretation, the poems will submerge them in ancient ways, throw them into heavily felt battles and conflict. Glory and valor will be celebrated. The dead will be mourned. Poetic grace will be given to the most savage and vicious of events, and the facts of the matter, like in mythology, will relegate themselves to lower importance.
But at present, and for at least two hundred years or so, scholars have been in agreement about most of the basic things concerning this book and its most famous poem, Y Gododdin.
These are the commonly accepted beliefs about the book. First, Aneirin is the author of many of the poems, or at least of Y Gododdin, which makes up the bulk of the book. Second, Y Gododdin is a collection of elegies depicting the character, valor, and deaths of many of the Gododdin warriors and chieftains who fell at the Battle of Catraeth in the late sixth century, or early seventh century, against the Angles of Bernicea and Deira. Aneirin was a war poet at this war and wrote about what he saw.
Given all of this, I’m not sure what to make of The Text of the Book of Aneirin, which is the only existent, or at least only available, English translation of the complete Book of Aneirin. This translation is from 1922, by J. Gwenogvryn Evans. It is a fantastic and thoughtful presentation of excellent poems of medieval war and epic elegies for fallen warriors. Just as thrilling and stunning as the translation of Y Gododdin I read only a few weeks ago. But there was something strange about this. Something I haven’t figured out.
You see, Evans asserts, in his introduction and in his forward and in his preface and in his many notes, that none of the above beliefs are true. The Book of Aneirin, he says, was not written by Aneirin, because a poet named Aneirin never existed. It is two collections of poems that were written by four different poets. And it is not from the sixth century, but the 12th century, and the poem known as Y Gododdin is instead correctly called Y Gorddin, and it has nothing to do with the people from the kingdom of Gododdin fighting the Angles, but is really a collection of poems about Hugh Lupus ”The Fat”, earl of Chester and Hugh the Proud, earl of Shrewsbury, leading a battle against Griffydd ap Kynan in 1098. Hugh the Proud and his men were crushed, and Hugh the fat and his were defeated by the heroic efforts of Magnus, king of Norway.
Evans is of the opinion that all past scholars had this book wrong. Apparently his view never caught on, because I can’t find any evidence that anyone today agrees with him. It’s interesting, then, that this is the only English translation I could find anywhere.
“The manuscript has been misread and the false reading has thrived for so long a time that the minds of men have become fossilized on the subject.”
While his interpretation, when considered in light of what we know about Y Gododdin, sounds like an almost insane fan theory or a joke, it is apparently very serious. What’s more, he lays out a detailed case that seems weirdly pedantic and obsessive. His case depends on a lot of fine attention to the original manuscript and on his claim that it is strewn with errors made by the scribe, that certain letters are supposed to be different letters, and that words that scholars have always thought were words are in fact two separate words smooshed together to make a completely different narrative. He even has about 15 pages at the end of the book of what he calls “scribal errors”, which he justifies calling errors through some reasoning I confess I didn’t follow. In all, he attributes a scribal error about once every 3 or 4 lines in the poem, and sometimes multiple in the same line.
He uses some puzzling rationale to summon up the names of Magnus and Hugh Lupus, for example, who are nowhere in the Gododdin as we know it. For example, by suggesting that some letters were mistakenly written down instead of the “correct” letters, and when liberally re-interpreting this line or that line in context of how he believes it should go, and then fitting it into what he wanted it to mean, he is able to muster up a reference to these men, or to certain events that he points to from history as being what the poet must have been trying to get at. So the poem about a war around 600 AD by a war poet who was at the battle, between the Gododdin and Angles, is instead about a war in 1098 AD between Lupusians and Vikings and Saxons, written by four different poets with differing motivations.
Since I don’t know anything about Old Welsh philology (or philology at all), and barely anything about the complex history of battles in Wales and Scotland and Britain, I have absolutely no clue if anything he is saying is reasonable or completely off base and on the fringes of early 20th century Welsh scholarship. No clue. And yet, it’s strangely compelling, if not believable, and it’s interesting to see how he justifies his very uncommon interpretations.
The references to the author Aneirin that are in the poem, in Evans’ view, are mistakes. He claims readers have misread “aneir in” as a single word and turned it into a name, which should instead be interpreted to mean “evil speaking, slandering, ridiculing”. He again turns to scribal errors as his justification, claiming that some letters should be different, so that he can pull a completely different meaning out of the phrases in which, according to mainstream scholarship, the poet Aneirin refers to himself.
His arguments are dense and I won’t pretend I can make any sense of them. But they are fun to entertain. And maybe most importantly, this strange view Evans takes allows him to produce a very unique translation of Y Gododdin, as a saga telling of the Battle of the Strand, from four different perspectives. It becomes more of a narrative of battle than a sequence of heroic elegies. The excessive mead drinking and its aftermath, however, remains intact.
He attributes these poems to twelfth century poets: Taliesin (who we know to be a sixth century bard, so I can’t tell if he means a different Taliesin), Talhaearn, Llwchvardd, and Griffyd ap Kynan, king of Gwynedd, who was involved in this battle Evans claims that the poems are about.
It’s a perplexing hypothesis and set of notes, but also fascinating. I learned more than I thought I would about some of the history and language of the area, which is always appreciated. The poem(s) takes a different shape than I expected, and it isn’t clear where the Gododdin ends and the other poems begin.
Evans organizes the poems by who he says authored them. I also don’t follow his arguments explaining why he thinks these poets are the authors of the works here. Maybe they were, but he seems to be the only one who thought so. I’d be surprised if a king involved in these battles authored some poems about the battles without putting his name on them to resolve any ambiguity about who wrote them. But Evans claims the manuscript has Griffyd’s name scribbled in the margins, which he takes to mean the scribes are pointing to him as author.
Peculiarities aside, I should at least say something about the poems here. The whole work blends together in a curious order and pattern, and it is splendid and regaling and piled with vivid scenes of gory violence, constantly changing tides of war, weapons reddened and raised in conquest, desperation of the wounded or the eager, glory for heroes and chieftains and kings, death coming to almost everyone by sword or spear or dart, and victory or defeat giving way to ominous calm.
Hugh and Magnus have their deeds related from multiple angles, and where the Y Gododdin presented us with dozens of slain chieftains or warriors receiving a unique elegy, Y Gorddin presents us with poems revolving around the same few figures, and we see Hugh die multiple times. I think these poems also cover multiple battles, some occurring years after the 1098 battle. Y Gododdin is noted for what some take to be an early reference to King Arthur. Y Gorddin has no such reference, and the name Arthur never appears, likely because Evans interpreted this name to be yet another scribal error that means something else.
Overall, a terrific must-read in the realm of old Welsh poetry or Celtic myth and literature. This version of the book presents some bizarre puzzles for the reader. But once the reader surrenders to the convictions of the translator and suspends disbelief for a while to accept this uncommon interpretation, the poems will submerge them in ancient ways, throw them into heavily felt battles and conflict. Glory and valor will be celebrated. The dead will be mourned. Poetic grace will be given to the most savage and vicious of events, and the facts of the matter, like in mythology, will relegate themselves to lower importance.
June 9, 2024
Классическое издание сырого, средневекового текста Книги Анейрина с последующими наслоениями. Иногда сложно понять о чём говорит редактор.
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