CHAP. IV. 547. killed. URIEN was also commemorated by his bardic friend, Llywarch Hen, who has left an elegy upon him. After bravely resisting the Saxons, it was the misfortune of Urien to be involved in one of Urien those civil contests which were at this period the disgrace and ruin of the Britons. As he was besieging one of the descendants and successors of Ida, in Holy Island, he was slain by Llovan Lawdeffro, or Llovan with the detested hand, an emissary of Morgant, one of the chiefs of the Northern Britons. 18 Llywarch's elegy celebrates the British king with much earnest sympathy, but in rude and warlike strains. 19 Trioedd 38. p. 9. 18 Nenn. Gen. p. 117. 19 Marwnad Lly. Hen. W. A. p. 103-107. As Llywarch Hen is one of the British bards of the sixth century, the genuineness of whose poems is strongly marked, I will translate some extracts from his Elegy on Urien of Reged. He begins with an abrupt address to his spear. Let me rush forward, thou ashen piercer ! 'Tis better to kill than to parley. Let me rush forward, thou ashen piercer ! Was the bursting tumult of the battle, Of Urien of Reged, the vehement and stubborn. An eagle to his foe in his thrust, brave as generous. In the angry warfare, certain of victory Was Urien, ardent in his grasp. I bear by my side a head; The head of Urien ! The courteous leader of his army; But on his white bosom the raven is feeding. He was a shield to his country; His course was a wheel in battle. Better to me would be his life than his mead: He was a city to old age; The head, the noblest pillar of Britain. BOOK III. 547. His son OWEN, one of the sons of Urien, was also distinguished for his brave resistance to the Angles I bear a head that supported me! Is there any known but he welcomed? Where is he that feasted me? I bear a head from the mountain My arm has not shrunk, But my breast is greatly troubled. My heart is it not broken? The head I bear supported me. The slender white body will be interred to-day, Woe to my hand! The father of Owen is slain.— Eurddyl will be joyless to-night. Since the leader of armies is no more, In Aber Lleu Urien fell. Dissevered is my lord: Yet from his manly youth The warriors loved not his resentment. Many chiefs has he consumed. The fiery breath of Urien has ceas'd. I am wretched. There is commotion in every district, In search of Llovan with the detested hand. Silent is the gale, But long wilt thou be heard. Scarcely any deserve praise, Since Urien is no more. Many a dog for the hunt and ethereal hawk Have been trained on this floor, Before Erlleon was shaken into ruins. This hearth! no shout of heroes now adheres to it: More usual on its floor Was the mead; and the inebriated warriors. This hearth! will not nettles now cover it? More frequent was the tread of the petitioner. under Ida. IV. Taliesin praises his liberality and CHAP. valour; and says he chased his enemy, as a herd of wolves pursuing sheep.20 In his song to the Winds, the bard records Owen's successful defence of the flocks and cattle of his province; and also mentions his battles at the ford of Alclud, and other places. The poet's imagery is wild and dismal, like his subject. He describes the swords whirled round the faces of the combatants, and the blood staining their temples. "There was joy," he exclaims, "that day to the ravens, when men clamoured with the frowning countenance of battle. But the shield of Owen never receded." 21 The elegy states, that by the sword of this warrior Flamddwyn perished." Taliesin occasionally com The green sod will cover it now; This hearth! the mouldy fungus will hide it now. Was the striking of the sword of the fierce warrior. Thorns will now cover it. More usual once was the mixture Of Owen's friends in social harmony. Ants will soon overrun it. More frequent were the bright torches Swine will henceforward dig the ground, And the horn of the banquet went round: It was the solace of the army and the path of melody. 20 Marwnad Owain ap Urien Reged, Tal. 1 W. A. p. 59. · 21 Can y Gwynt, p. 38, 39. 22 Marwnad Owain, p.59. Both the Saxon Chronicles, Flor. Wig. p. 218., and Nennius, p. 116., mention Ida to have reigned only twelve years. Yet Huntingdon calls him at his accession "juvenem nobilissimum," p. 314. The comparison of these authorities places Ida's death in the flower of his manhood; and this gives a countenance to the Welsh bard's assertion, that he perished in his conflicts with Owen of Reged. BOOK 547. Battle of Cattraeth. The Gododin of Aneurin. memorates other British heroes; but as it would be useless to revive a catalogue of names, long since forgotten, they need not be enumerated here. THAT conflict between the Saxons and Britons, which occupies the largest space in the ancient British poetry, is the battle or destruction of Cattraeth. It forms the subject of the Gododin of Aneurin, a poem much alluded to and venerated by the poets of Wales, and which has procured for him, among them, the title of the king of the bards. He was a chieftain in the northern part of the island, in the sixth century; and perished at last from the blow of an axe, inflicted by one Eiddyn, who has been therefore classed as one of the three foul assassins of Britain. 24 As it contains no regular narration of incident, and no introductory annunciation of its subject, but consists chiefly of stanzas but little connected, on the feats and praises of the chieftains whom it commemorates; and as it records places and British heroes, whose names, however notorious in their day, are not preserved elsewhere, it is difficult to say to what precise event or locality it actually applies. That the warriors mentioned were the contemporaries of Aneurin is clear from its contents 25, but this is all that we can with certainty infer. I 23 It is the first poem printed in the Archaiology of Wales. printed a translation of the first seventy-three lines, in the "Vindication of the ancient British Poems." 24Tair anfad gyflafan ynys Prydain. Eiddyn mab Einygan a laddwys Aneurin Gwawdrydd mydeyrn beird." Triad 47. 2 Welsh Arch. p. 65., and see p. 9. 25 Thus he says he saw what he describes: "I saw the scene from the high land of Adoen. I saw the men in complete order at dawn at Adoen. It has been usually supposed to record a battle, between the collected Britons of the north, under Mynyddawr of Eiddyn, which has been assumed to be Edinburgh, and the Saxons of Ida, or his successor. The issue was calamitous to the Britons; for out of above 360, who wore the golden torques, the mark of their nobility, only three escaped, of whom the bard was one. 26 This unfortunate result is undeniably stated; and it is as manifestly imputed to the Britons having previously indulged in an excess of mead. theory upon A RECENT writer on Cambrian mythology, The new whose imagination has been as active as such an it. illusive subject could excite it to be, has strenuously urged, that the Gododin records the famous massacre of the British nobles by Hengist." That it Gweleis y dull o ben tir Adoen. Gweleis y wyr tyll vawr gan u aur Adoen. God. W. A. p. 13. 26 A stanza of the Gododin thus states the result: "The warriors went to Cattraeth. They were famous. With the golden torques. Of those who hastened after the jovial excess, There escaped only three from the power of the swords, The reward of my blessed muse." Godod. p. 4. 27 See Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 318–384. Of its author, the Rev. Edward Davies, I wish to speak with more than mere respect, because his remarks on the ancient Welsh literature, in this work and in his Celtic researches, though displaying the same creative imagination, which pervades and injures Mr. Whittaker's historical investigations, have yet in many parts thrown great light on the |