NOTES TO PREIDDEU

ANNWN

Edited by Gwynogvryn Evans,

Facsimile and Edition (Llanbedrog,
1910), fols. 54.16-56.13. Scholars
have traditionally dated this MS to
the thirteenth-century. Marged
Haycock, however, argued in her
dissertation that it was compiled
somewhat later (Llyfr Taliesin:
Astudiaethau ar Rai Agweddau,
Aberystwyth, 1983). The poem
itself may be dated anywhere
between the ninth and twelfth
century, judging from lexical and
metrical evidence (Haycock:
"'Preiddeu Annwn' and the Figure
of Taliesin," Studia Celtica 18/19
(1983-84): 37).

The Welsh word annwn, annwfyn is

traditionally translated
"otherworld," and is akin to some
of the Irish worlds of the gods (Tír
na mBéo, "Land of the Living," etc.)
One will recall that in the First
Branch of The Mabinogi, Pwyll
exchanges place and shape with
Arawn, king of Annwn, whose realm
is there depicted as co-existent
with Pwyll's Dyfed. In another
poem from The Book of Taliesin (
Angar Kyfyndawt, 18.26-23.8) the
speaker declares annwfyn to be
underground:

yn annwfyn ydiwyth, in Annwfyn

the peacefulness,
yn annwfyn ygorwyth in Annwfyn
the wrath,
yn annwfyn is eluyd in Annwfyn
below the earth...
It can be subaqueous, as it seems
to be here in this poem. Annwn is
popularly associated with the land
of the old gods who can bestow
gifts, including the gift of poetry
(awen): awen aganaf / odwfyn ys
dygaf, "It is Awen I sing, / from the
deep I bring it"; AK). Semantically
and conceptually the term is
ambiguous. The MW prefix an- can
negate as well as intensify (as in
Latin in-) so that the word yields
either or both an + dwfyn, "un-
world," "very-deep," possibly
"extreme world." It is not a Celtic
"underworld," per se, although
mention of "hell," (vffern, suggests
that associations between Annwn
("very deep"?) and the land of the
dead were vivid to whoever
committed this text to writing.

This poem has traditionally had

value only insofar as it mentioned
Arthur, and it is frequently
anthologized in collections on
Arthuriana. But witness the
bafflement of various scholars
about the trajectory of the poem,
which departs from a somewhat
contemplative account of Arthur's
raid on an otherworldly fortress,
turning in the last half of the poem
to a heated denunciation of
cowards and ignoramuses, and
ending with a passionate rant
about monks and wolves.
Connecting these apparently
separate themes (Arthur's
expedition and the denunciation of
cowards and monks) has been
challenging: D.W. Nash looked
upon these last stanzas as
interpolations (The Book of
Taliesin, or The Bards and Druids of
Britain [London: John Russell Smith,
1858], p. 212); A.O.H. Jarman
declared that the final stanzas
were irrelevant to the theme of
Arthur ("The Delineation of Arthur
in Early Welsh Verse," in An
Arthurian Tapestry: Essays in
Memory of Lewis Thorpe, ed.
Kenneth Varty [Glasgow: The
University of Glasgow, British
Branch of the International
Arthurian Society, 1981], p. 11),
and both Kenneth Jackson ("Arthur
in Early Welsh Verse," in Arthurian
Literature in the Middle Ages, ed.
R. S. Loomis [Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1959], p. 16) and Roger
Sherman Loomis (see the
subsequent reference) omit them.
John K. Bollard translates the whole
poem, remarking that "the poet
seems to be discontented with the
lowly men and cowardly monks
around him, in contrast to the
warriors whom he accompanied on
Arthur's expedition" ("Arthur in the
Early Welsh Tradition," in The
Romance of Arthur, eds James J.
Wilhelm and Laila Z. Gross [New
York: Garland Press], p. 21);
Marged Haycock, ("The Figure of
Taliesin") is the first to suggest that
the poem is in fact not about
Arthur but about Taliesin and his
vaunting of knowledge, and I
identify the poem as a metaphor of
its own making--a poem about the
material "spoils" of poetic
composition that the speaker has
wrested from Welsh poetic lore
("The Spoils of Annwn: Taliesin and
Material Poetry" in A Celtic
Florilegium: Studies in Memory of
Brendan O Hehir, eds. Katrhyn A.
Klar, Eve E. Sweetser, and Clair
Thomas (Lawrence, MA: Celtic
Studies Publications, 1966), pp. 43-
53). See also Patrick Sims-Williams,
"The Early Welsh Arthurian Poems,"
in The Arthur of the Welsh: The
Arthurian Legend in Medieval
Welsh Literature, eds. Rachel
Bromwich, A.O.H. Jarmen, and
Brynley F. Roberts (Cardiff:
University of Cardiff Press, 1991)
pp. 33-71; Andrea Budgey,
"'Preiddeu Annwn' and the Welsh
Tradition of Arthur," in Celtic
Languages and Celtic Peoples:
Proceedings of the Second North
American Congress of Celtic
Studies, eds. Cyril J. Byrne,
Margaret Harry, and Pádraig ó
Siadhail (Halifax: Nova Scotia: Saint
Mary's University, 1992) pp. 391-
404; and O.J. Padel, Arthur in
Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff:
The University of Wales Press,
2000), pp. 34-36.

Taliesin is first mentioned by

Nennius in his Historia Britonum as
being a bard of status in the sixth
century along with Neirin (Aneirin),
Cian, Talhaearn, and Bluchbard.
Only Taliesin and Aneirin appear as
authors of medieval Welsh texts.
Taliesin as court bard to Urien
Rheged gave way from the
beginning in popularity to Taliesin
the magician, wizard, shape-shifter,
riddler, and repository of esoteric
knowledge. In Y Gododdin, by
Aneirin, Taliesin is referred to as
one "who knows it"--possibly as a
fellow "seer" who went through a
poetic initiation described by
Aneirin as an imprisonment
underground: mi na vi Aneirin / ys
gwyr Taliesin / o feg gywrennin ("I
yet not I Aneirin, / Taliesin knows
it / skilled in expression": Y
Gododdin: Britain's Oldest Heroic
Poem, ed., trans., A.O.H. Jarman
[Llandysul: Gomer Press, 1990], pp.
33, 32). Patrick Ford has made
available several of the texts
devoted to "The Tale of Gwion
Bach" and "The Tale of Taliesin,"
where it is described how little
Gwion received knowledge from
the cauldron of Cerridwen that the
goddess meant for her ugly son
Afagddu; how he fled from her in
various shapes, was eaten and
given birth to by her; and how as
Taliesin he confounded the bards of
the corrupt king Maelgwn with a
dazzling display of his own arcane
knowledge, his manipulation of
shapes and storms, and so forth
(Ford, The Mabinogi and Other
Medieval Welsh Tales [Berkeley:
University of California Press,
1977], pp. 159-192. See also his
Ystoria Taliesin [Cardiff: University
of Wales Press, 1992]).

"The Spoils of Annwm" [sic], in The

White Goddess: A Historical
Grammar of Poetic Myth (New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966),
pp. 107-108.

"The Spoils of Annwn: An Early

Welsh Poem," in Wales and the
Arthurian Legend (Cardiff:
University of Wales Press, 1956),
pp. 131-178.

"'Preiddeu Annwn' and the Figure

of Taliesin," Studia Celtica, 18/19
(1983-84): 52-78.

"Preideu Annwvyn: The Spoils of

the Unworld," in John T. Koch and
John Carey, eds., The Celtic Heroic
Age: Literary Sources for Ancient
Celtic Europe and Early Ireland and
Wales (Andover, Massachusetts,
and Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies
Publications, Inc. 2000), pp. 295-
297. For an earlier translation with
commentary, see his article by the
same name in Bulletin for the
Board of Celtic Studies, vol. xxxi
(1984): 87-92.
"The Spoils of Annwn: Taliesin and
Material Poetry," in A Celtic
Florilegium: Studies in Memory of
Brendan O Hehir, eds. Kathryn A.
Klar, Eve E. Sweetser, and Clair
Thomas (Lawrence, MA: Celtic
Studies Publications, 1966), pp. 43-
53.

Y Geiriadur Mawr ("Big

Dictionary"): The Complete Welsh-
English English-Welsh Dictionary,
Eleventh Edition, ed. H. Meurig
Evans and W.O Thomas (Llandysul:
Gwasg Gomer, 1983).

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru

("University of Wales Dictionary"):
A Dictionary of the Welsh
Language, eds. R.J. Thomas et al
(Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1950-). Though still unfinished, this
dictionary is more comprehensive
than GM.

Geirfa Barrdoniaeth Gynnar

Cymraeg, ed. John Lloyd-Jones
"Early Bardic Vocabulary of Wales"
(Caerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru,
1931-).

The title Preid(d)eu Annwn looks to

be written in a different hand from
that of the scribe who copied the
poem, and seems to echo the
phrase in line 7 with a later spelling
of annwfyn. The "r" of Preiddeu is
the long insular "r," and the form of
the "d" indicates that it is to be
taken as the voiced interdental
fricative with the later spelling
preiddeu.

MS: py. Williams, Jackson, and

Haycock support emending py to
the perfective particle ry. Haycock
translates "who has extended" on
the grounds that ry has relative
force; thence the subject should be
"the Lord" and not "sovereignty."
The structure of this poem is based
on that of a collection of awdlau
(awdl = a short poem or stanza of
lines that rhyme), wherein each
line is a couplet: two related units
and a caesura. Several of these
lines, however, are triplets--three
units wherein the first two rhyme
and two caesuras--that stand out
metrically and dramatically. This is
one such line, and all the
concluding lines that repeat
("except seven none rose up") are
triplets (lines 10, 19, 28, 34, 42,
and 48). Other triplets are to be
found in lines 8, 13, 32, and 38. I
indicated the caesuras by printing
them with line breaks.
We do not have much material on
Gweir; he is mentioned (Gweir ap
Geirioed) in Tryoedd Ynys Prydein
("The Triads of the Isle of Britain";
ed. trans. Rachel Bromwich
[Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
1961], p. 140) as one of three
famous prisoners along with Llyr
Lledyeith and Mabon uab Modron
(a former god whose career seems
to be imprisonment and wailing).
Loomis notes that Lundy, an island
off the coast of Cornwall is known
as ynys weir, "Gweir's Island," a
detail that reinforces the sense of
his importance as a resident or
prisoner of an island fortress
(Loomis, "Spoils of Annwn," p. 150).
Kaer Sidi appears in another poem
in The Book of Taliesin in a line
with the same rhyming patterns: ys
kyweir vyg kadeir yg kaer sidi,
"Equipped is my (bardic) chair in
Kaer Sidi" (BT: fol. 34.8-13). Here,
Taliesin boasts of being seated in
formality and honor in an
otherworldly place of pleasure (Nys
plawd heint aheneint auo yndi,
"neither disease nor old-age afflicts
him who may be here"), wherein
three (musical?) instruments play
before it around a fire (teir oryan y
am tan agan recdi. He sits in a
fortress whose peaks (or corners)
are surrounded by the sea (Ac am
y banneu ffrydyeu gweilgi, with the
fruitful fountain above him (Ar
ffynhawn ffrwythlawn yssyd
oduchti. Like the sparkling
beverage in Preideu Annwn,
"sweeter than white wine is the
drink in it" (ys whegach nor gwin
gwyn yllyn yndi). The speaker
declares that "Manawyddan and
Pryderi know it" (ys gwyr manawyt
aphryderi), suggesting that Kaer
Sidi is like Gwales in the Second
Branch of The Mabinogi, where the
bereaved retinue of Bendigeiduran
rest for eighty years in pleasant
forgetfulness. Sidi may come from
Old Irish síde, from nominative síd,
"gods" or "fairy-folk," or the mound
or dwelling place of such folk.
These otherworldly abodes were
often submerged, which may
account both for the "fruitful
fountain" above the chair in the
one poem and the fact that the
survivors "rose up" in Preideu
Annwn. Instead of the bardic chair,
it is a prison that is equipped in this
Kaer Sidi. Reward and punishment
alike are doled out in the fairy
fortress, but note that Gweir, like a
poet, is singing (or lamenting)
before the "Spoils of Annwn."

This word ebostol would appear to

mean "apostle," and yields a
second meaning, "epistle," "letter,"
"homily," "tale," which could very
well be a confusion with L. epistola.
"The Tale of Pwyll and Pryderi" is
an obvious reference, so it would
seem, to the four branches of The
Mabinogi, but Gweir is never
mentioned therein. As Loomis
suggests, though, the texts that
remain to us have probably been
recompiled, and earlier stories lost;
there may well have been an
Ebostol Pwyll a Phryderi, just as
there are other mentions in the
branches to tale titles.

This phrase is ambiguous. Rac in

GM has several meanings: "in front
of," "before," or "on account of,"
because of," or "for the sake of."
The most obvious translation of
preideu is "spoils," "plunder," that
which Arthur's men have come for
(the cauldron). But preideu can
also mean "cattle," "herds", and
however unlikely this meaning fits
the context, recall that there are
magical beasts mentioned further
on in the poem. Haycock:
"wondrous herds are frequently
encountered in the Irish
Otherworld" ("The Figure of
Taliesin," p. 67).

Yn bardwedi is subject to various

interpretations. Bardwedi clearly
seems to be a compound of bard +
gwedi, "prayer," but yn is not clear.
The most common use of prefixed
yn is "our." But this could also be
the preposition "in": "in bardic
prayer." Haycock also suggests an
error for ym, "my" (p. 67), or even
y, "his." Koch has: "And until
Judgement he will persist as an
imploring bard." If no error is
assumed, then are Gweir and
Taliesin (the speaker) identified?
Are they singing together? Are they
similarly incarcerated? Do they
speak for all bardic (and divine)
prisoners and singers? Haycock
disambiguates with "our (own)," as
though the speaker is using the
"royal we."

The name of Arthur's ship.

Many scholars suggest emending

to ochlywit to cohere with the
rhyme on -it, in which case we
would have "song was heard."
Haycock has "first utterance";
Koch: "poetry." This word kynneir
(GPC) literally means "foremost
utterance or song," hence its later
meaning of "eulogy," "song of
praise," "poetry."

The cauldron is a very complex

image, with a complex background.
First of all, there is the Cerridwen's
cauldron in "The Tale of Gwion
Bach" (see Ford, The Mabinogi and
Other Tales, mentioned above) in
which the magic brew that will
confer poetic and magic power is
stolen from Afagddu by the young
Taliesin. It is to this story that the
poet in Preideu Annwn clearly
refers, as the cauldron is literally
the source of his "foremost
utterance." But the cauldron is also
an object wrested by
Bendigeiduran in "The Second
Branch" of The Mabinogi and given
(along with his sister Branwen) to
Matholwch, King of Ireland. This
cauldron has the property of
bringing slain warriors back to life.
When Bendigeiduran comes to
rescue his sister Branwen from ill-
treatment, war breaks out between
Wales and Ireland, and the
cauldron is broken. It is stated that
seven Welsh warriors returned
from that tragic event: Pryderi,
Manawyddan, Glifieu son of Taran,
Taliesin, Ynawg, Gruddieu son of
Muriel, and Heilyn son of Gwyn
Hen. It would appear that the
events of this story have been
given a new context in Preideu
Annwn wherein Arthur has been
substituted for the god/hero Bran.
But there is also a wrested Irish
cauldron in Culhwch and Olwen in
which Arthur is directly involved.
Having promised to help Culhwch
complete the impossible tasks
demanded of Ysbyddadan, one of
them being the attainment of the
cauldron of the giant Diwrnach,
Arthur sails in his ship to Ireland
and comes away with it after a
more successful battle than the
one described here. Ireland may
also have been conceived of as a
kind of "Otherworld" in Welsh lore,
which may explain the Irish name
given to the first mention of the
fortress. Furthermore, an Irish tale,
Siaburcharpat Conchulaind, "The
Phantom Chariot of Cuchulain,"
contains a poem called Dun Scáith,
"Fortress of Shadow" (in Lebor na
Huidre: Book of the Dun Cow, R.I.
Best and Osborn Bergin, eds.
[Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, ], pp.
281-287. For an accessible
translation, see that in Tom Peete
Cross and Clark Harris Slover, eds.,
Ancient Irish Tales [New York:
Barnes and Noble, 1936], pp. 352-
353). It has in common with
Preideu Annwn a sea voyage, a raid
upon an island stronghold with iron
doors and a subterranean
chamber, magic cattle, a cauldron
which is filled with treasure, and an
escape. Evidently there was a
source legend known in both Irish
and Welsh lore that may have
furnished the materials for all these
stories, and which involved a raid
upon a god's fortress for a divine
cauldron.
lluch lleawc may be a garbled
version of a name: "the sword of
Lluch Lleawch." Loomis calls it "a
remarkable muddle" (p. 161): in
Culhwch and Olwen we have two
mentions of Llenlleawc the
Irishman in the list of names
Culhwch invokes, plus a Llwch
Llawwynnyawc (Llwch "Windy-
hand" according to Gwyn Jones and
Thomas Jones, trans. The
Mabinogion [London: Everyman,
1975], p. 107). LLenleawc Wyddel
is also the warrior among Arthur's
men who kills the giant Diwrnach,
enabling the cauldron to be taken
in Culhwch and Olwen. Both J.
Lloyd Jones and Sir Ifor Williams
whom Loomis consulted in the
preparation of his article (Loomis,
p. 135, note 30) take lluch lleawc
to be separate adjectives:
"flashing" and "death-dealing."
Haycock suggests that Lleawc may
have been an earlier, or variant
form of the name Llenleawc (p. 70).
Koch has "a sword of lightning
slaughter" (p. 296).

Another possibly muddled name.

Loomis suggests that Lluch Lleawc
is a variant of Llwch Llawwynnawc
in Culhwch and Olwen, cognate
with the Irish semi-deity Lugh,
"who had an epithet which is given
in Cath Maige Tured as
Lonnbémnech and in Oided
Chloinne Tuirenn as
Loinnbhéimnionach" (p. 163).
Haycock is skeptical; she suggests
it means "leaping one" and may be
an epithet for Arthur. She also
notes its appearances in other
texts as a personal name (p. 71). I
think Loomis's sense of coincidence
is not to be wondered at, and I
suggest that there is considerable
scribal confusion here.

Vedwit, possibly a compound, as

Haycock points out, with med +
gwit, GPC "feast, banquet, liquid,
fluid, honey." Loomis translates
"Fortress of Mead-Carousal"; Koch:
"Fort of Intoxication"; Haycock:
"Fortress of the Mead Feast." All of
these named fortresses may
merely supply epithets for the
same otherworldly castle to which
Arthur has led his expedition.

Koch has "strong door" (p. 296),

and so does Loomis (p. 136);
Haycock: "radiant" (p. 62). Pybyr in
GM is defined as "staunch, strong,
enthusiastic, bright, fine." Haycock
suggests scribal confusion with
pefyr, "radiant," "flaming," in the
interests of seeing it in connection
with line 20, and she points to
other confusions of these two
words (i.e., the name Gronw
Pebyr/Pefyr in "Math uab
Mathonwy," pointed out by
Williams in his notes to Pedeir
Keinc Mabinogi ("The Four
Branches of the Mabinogi" [Cardiff:
University of Wales Press], p. 286).
Intrigued by the more seductive
imagery, I too originally had
"flaming door" ("Material Poetry,"
p. 51), but have here emended to
"strong door," with its implications
of "shining" and "fine."

Echwydd has two meanings:

"noonday" and "river" or "flowing
water." Loomis prefers the first
meaning, and takes the word "jet"
(muchyd to mean "jet-blackness"
to further his interpretation of a
"crepuscular" time of day known to
denizens of the Otherworld
(Loomis, p. 165). His translation:
"Noon-day and jet-blackness are
mingled." Koch, Haycock and I take
the second meaning, but the
mixture of "jet" and "flowing water"
is mysterious. Haycock: "The
mixing of water and jet to create
fire may be a learned reference to
a belief mentioned in Isidore of
Seville's Etymologiae, xvi.iv (ed. W.
M. Lindsay [Oxford: 1911])" (p. 72).
Loomis: "[T]o no one who has
followed the discussion thus far will
it seem an objection that the island
paradise and the subterranean
lamp-lighted region are not easy
for us to reconcile imaginatively.
Nothing is more manifest than that
the Celts blended such incongruous
pictures, not only without effort but
even with delight."
An error for gosgor, "retinue."

Latin: "intractibility, rigidity,

hardness."

This is probably the hardest word

to find an equivalent for, and it
occurs three times in the opening
line of this and the next two
stanzas. Loomis translates: "I do
not reward"; Koch: "I set no value
on," both of them following
Williams, as he advised Loomis (p.
136). According to the GM and the
GPC, this verb gobrynaf/gobrynu
means "merit," "deserve, be
worthy of" and appears to be a
compound of prynu (GM: "buy,"
"redeem") with intensive prefix go-.
Williams advised as he did because
"I do not deserve X" or "I do not
merit X" unfortunately first convey
in English the sense of "I am not
worthy of X." which is why Haycock
supplies a modifying paranthesis in
her very literal translation: "I do not
deserve (i.e., I deserve better
than)." When one is after a
smoother equivalent, one strays
from the original Welsh: "I merit
more than" would give the sense
that Haycock is after, but it erases
the sense of negation and denial in
this line. This, alas, may be the
only way to express the valency of
gobrynaf. I wonder if it is a verb
that exhibits one more argument
than our English word "deserve,"
such that it can mean both "merit"
and "bestow merit." It probably
means to set up a comparison, a
sense of equation, given the prynu
part of its compound--"I do not
match little men" (meaning they
are not my match, they are not in
my league). The speaker is
denigrating the llawyr, not looking
up to them. The Taliesin poet
speaks frequently of scoring "merit
points" or winning contests with his
poetry, and I wonder if gobrynaf
carries this sense of keeping score.
So, with a concession to the lack of
an equivalent verb in English, I go
with "merit." There are, after all,
expressions in English such as "it
does not merit attention," or "I
don't deserve this punishment"
which come closer to what this
verb conveys in this context. As
chief poet, Taliesin does not merit
the worthless men of letters whom
he looks upon as poor readers,
unlearned competitors, sloppy
copiers (perhaps) and holier-than-
thou critics. This is a revision of my
earlier translation ("reward").

Llawyr is a compound of llaw,

"small," "mean," "paltry," and
gwyr, "men": "insignificant men."
Haycock suggests emending to
llewyr, "readers," in order to
disambiguate what it is that the
speaker, as poet, "deserves more
than," since as the poem
progresses it is clear that these are
men of letters and not warriors.
She also argues that llewyr might
not have been "immediately
familiar to the scribe of the BT or
one of his predecessors." I cannot
countenance this kind of
manipulation of the text in aid of
interpretation. Further, it collapses
an important link between
"readers" with slack shield straps
and "warriors." If the poem is about
poetic as well as folkloric plunder,
as I argue in "Material Poetry," with
the elaborate metaphor of a raid,
then it is important to keep both
sides of the symbolism.

Llen llywyadur presents another

conundrum. How do we connect
these three words--llawyr llen
llywyadur--across the caesura?
Williams: "I set no value on book-
reading folk." Loomis: "I, Lord of
Letters, do not reward mean folk."
Koch: "I set no value on the
director's wretched scribes."
Haycock: "I deserve (i.e., I deserve
better than) ?readers concerned
with the literature of the Lord." The
denunciation of monks at the end
of the poem sheds light on this
peculiar sentence, which seems to
denigrate scribes. Haycock argues
that because llen llywyadur makes
a prosodic unit, divided from llawyr
by the caesura, we should see it as
a grammatical unit: "literature of
the Lord" i.e., "scripture." Her
translation is probably the most
correct, and the hardest to express
in any elegant way except to find a
more concise equivalent. See
above.
"Fortress of Glass." Glass, says
Haycock, is a material associated
with "otherness." Loomis writes
that both the Fortress of Glass and
the Silent Sentinel are motifs to be
found in Nennius's Historia
Brittonum which describes the
"original" inhabitants of the Irish,
come from Spain, who encounter a
glass tower in the middle of the
sea, and whose people do not
respond to their hails. They attack
the castle with thirty ships which
founder, save one; and the people
of that ship populate the whole of
Ireland. See the translation by
Pamela S.M. Hopkins and John.T.
Koch, in The Celtic Heroic Age:
Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic
Europe and Early Ireland and
Wales, eds. John T. Koch and John
Carey, p. 277)." Loomis writes that
this story is well-known to the
Arthurian romancers. Chrêtien's
Erec "refers to Maheloas as 'the
lord of the Isle of Glass'" wherein
one hears no thunder or lightning
or tempest, nor is it too hot or cold.

This word breaks the rhyme with

-ur. The question here is whether it
is golud or colud. Goludd,
"hindrance," "impediment," gives
good sense in the context of this
stanza about a glass castle and an
incommunicative sentinel. Loomis
translates "frustration" (p. 167).
But the pattern in these epithets
with kaer shows lenition of the
second element, so it's possible
that this is coludd, "guts,"
"bowels." Loomis is dead set
against "bowels" as an
interpretation; perfedd is a
synonym meaning both "entrails"
and "middle of" (perfeddd nos,
"dead of night" GM), and he
tentatively suggests as a
secondary meaning "Fortress in the
Middle of the Earth." Haycock:
"impediment"; Koch: "concealed
fort."

Now we enter the part of the poem

where the references and the
language are doubly obscure.
Haycock mentions a number of
possibilities for peridyd: it is a noun
meaning "Creator"; it is a verb
meaning "is created." She chooses
the latter in her notes (p. 73), but
puts ellision marks in her
translation: "they do not know on
what day...what time...was born..."
(p. 63). Loomis's translation ends
with stanza four. "They know not
what was created on what day," is
Koch's translation. Pwy could be
"who" or "whom." A very dark
couple of lines.

Could ymeindyd be "mid-day"? mei

+ dyd, formed by analogy with
meinoeth, "middle of the night"?
No one has a confident translation
for this word cwy or for the whole
line. Koch has: "what hour of the
day it was born and where";
Haycock: "What time... was born..."
I'm not much more enlightened.
Cwy could be a personal name;
Haycock makes the interesting
suggestion, based on a proposed
emendment by John Lloyd-Jones in
his G, that it is an error for dwy,
"God." If we emend pwy in the
previous line to plwy(w), then "lines
36-7 might be understood thus:
'...who do not know on what day
the ?human race is (?was) created
(nor) at what time ?of the day God
(i.e. Jesus) was born.'" Clearly,
what we are seeing here is the
typical Taliesin-poet boasting of
esoteric knowledge that his
competitors (the wretched scribes,
the mean men of letters) are not
privy to.

This word dychnut has occasioned

some confusion among
lexicographers. The entry for
*dychnudo (with the asterisk
indicating archaism) in GM gives
the meaning "howl." But the entry
for the same word dychnudaf,
dychnuddo in GPC gives the
meaning "to crowd together in a
pack," from di + cnud, "pack." The
only referent it cites, however, is
this line in Preideu Annwn, which
suggests that the word is a hapax.
If this poem is the only place it
occurs, clearly one lexicographer's
guess is as good as another's. The
GM entry seems driven by the
context of the word, and it must
have been assumed that it was a
compound with udo, "howl,"
instead of cnud, "pack." But both
meanings are completely relevant
to the line. If the monks are dogs or
young wolves "packing together" in
a choir, then one can also imagine
them howling (instead of singing).
The satiric pun is effective, and
reminds me of Maelgwn's bards in
"The Tale of Taliesin" who, made to
say "blerwm blerwm" with their
fingers on their lips, are similarly
rendered inarticulate by a bard
"who knows." To honor this
ambiguity, I have translated this
first use as "howl" and the second
use (in line 53) as "pack together."
cunin cor, literally, "whelps of (or
in) a choir." "Choir dogs." Cor has a
delightful array of meanings that
extend the word-play in the
previous line: "chancel, choir,
sanctuary, court, circle, compass,
range" (GPC). So while the dogs are
clearly in a pack, as monks they
are also sequestered in a chancel
or choir, where they customarily
sing. Koch: "Monks pack together
like a troop of dogs." Haycock:
"Monks throng together like a
wolfpack." I prefer to retain the
suggestion of a choir.

O gyfranc udyd is translated by

Koch as "[shrinking] from
encounter with the lords." Haycock:
"because of the encounter of the
masters."

ae gwidanhor in this line and ae

gwidyanhawr in line 54 are
contested. Ae: a relative particle
that can be either subject or object.
The ending suggests a passive
construction. Koch takes these
verbs to be deponents, and
translates "who know"; Haycock
sees them as impersonals of
gwyddiannu (? verb made from
gwydd[i]on? "wizard"? "one who
knows"?) or gwybot, "know," and
translates "to whom is made
known."
This is a difficult line because it
yields so many possibilities. bet, or
bedd can mean "grave," but it may
also be a lenited form of pet, "how
many?" As Haycock advises,
another question would be in
keeping with the questions that
have gone before. "How many
saints?" she translates. Koch omits
this line altogether. See the next
note on diuant.

Either the interrogative or "whether

there is..."
difant, according to the GPC, has a
number of intriguing meanings that
could be multiply applied to this
word: as a noun: "total loss,
perdition, annihilation, dissolution,
disappearance; abyss, the void;
desolate or lonely place; the
otherworld." As a participle:
"vanishing, vanished, fleeting,
transient, completely lost, passed
away." As an adjective: "base,
contemptible." Haycock translates
"in the void." See the next note on
llawr.

This word llawr can mean "earth,"

or "champion" (GM, GPC). Allawr
means "altar." The whole line may
be variously rendered as: "The
grave of the saint is vanishing,
both grave and ground," or: "The
grave of the saint is hidden, both
grave and champion," or: "How
many saints in the Otherworld, and
how many on earth?" or: "How
many saints lost, and how many
altars?" Haycock: "How many
saints in the void, and how many
on earth?" Whatever the line
means, diuant is a gloomy concept,
and the sense expressed here is of
sadness and loss, which is
confirmed by the last line of the
poem.