THE GODODIN.

This poem, though not absolutely the earliest in point of date, is the longest of the numerous poems produced among the Kymry of the north of England during the sixth and seventh centuries. Two translations have already appeared in English; one by the Rev. Edward Davies, the author of Celtic Researches, and the other by a gentleman named Probert. Of these the latter, though very imperfect and extremely defective, is the only one which an English reader should consult; the version given by Davies is only a very ingenious misrepresentation. The poem has no more reference to Hengist than it has to the man-in-the-moon; and GOMER might have suspected that a version which, without rule or reason, deprived historic personages of their reality, could not have been correct. Every proper name mentioned in the Gododin may be shown without any alteration to be those of persons living between 577 and 642.The proof of this assertion, when carefully examined, is all but overwhelming; but here I can only cite a few of the most tangible facts. The design of the poem is thus described by the bard himself:—

"O ved O vuelin,

O Gattraeth werin,

Mi a na vi Aneurin

Ys gwyr Taliesin,

Oveg cyvrenhin

Neu cheing Ododin

Cyn gwawr dydd dilin."

These lines may be thus translated:—

"Of mead from the mead horn,

Of the host of Cattraeth,

I, Aneurin, will do

What is known to Taliesin,

A man of kindred disposition.

Will I not sing of what befell

Gododin, before the break of day?"

From frequent notices in other parts of the poem, we find that the subject is the defeat of (the Ottadini) the men of Gododin, in a battle which took place in the year 603, near Cattraeth, which may be identified with the Cataracton of Ptolemy, the Cataract of Bede, and the present Catterick in Yorkshire. The men of Gododin in this campaign were in league with the Novantæ of Wigtonshire, the Britons of Strathclyde, the Scots of Argyle, and the Picts of Fife and Perth. Of this army the chiefs alone amounted to three hundred and sixty; but, to use the words of the bard, "Mead brought shame on the best of armies;" and the chiefs, on account of temporary success over a part of Ethelfrith's Northumbrian army, spent the night in wild carousal. Overtures of peace were made to them by Ethelfrith, and contemptuously rejected; they rushed pell-mell to battle before the break of day; and the bard, seeing them falling helplessly drunk from their horses, "drew a veil over his face and fled, weeping on his way." I here assume that Cattraeth and Cataract are the same place; and to cite only one of many evidences, the position of the Ottadini in the immediate neighbourhood of Catterick, lends this view strong confirmation. But there is here another assumption, to which I invite the attention of English antiquaries. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates the occurrence of a great battle between Ethelfrith of Northumbria and the northern Britons in the year 603: of that battle the site is variously named Degstan, Dægsanstane, and Egesanstane; but antiquarian researches have not determined where Egesanstane was. Some place it at Dawston, near Jedburg, in Scotland, and others at Dalston in Cumberland; but all confess uncertainty. Now I assume that the place called Egesanstane is more likely to be Siggeston, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which is about five or six miles east of Catterick; and this conjecture is strongly supported by the fact that Ethelfrith in this case was not the invader but the invaded, as it is said, "Hering, the son of Hussa, led the enemy thither," to the dominions of Ethelfrith, which were then but little else than the eastern coast of Northumberland and Yorkshire. If this view be correct, our antiquaries have hitherto been in error on this point; the site of the great battle of 603 is no longer unknown; and Egesanstane and Cattraeth are only two names for the same battle, just as another battle-field is variously named the battle of Waterloo by us, and that of Mont St. Jean by the French.

Probert places the death of Aneurin in 570: the Gododin shows him to have been an eyewitness of an event which took place in 642. Davies, whose works are striking evidences of a powerful intellect completely led astray, makes the subject to have been the reported massacre at Stonehenge, which possibly never took place, but which he fixes in 472. Now I have cited a passage which, referring to Taliesin as an authority, implies that Aneurin was his junior; and Taliesin was living in 610. Again, Davies makes an abortive attempt to get rid of the last poem of Llywarch Hen, which shows him to have been living as late as the year 640, when most of his sons had fallen in battle. Llywarch himself was either at the battle of Cattraeth, or assisted in organising the campaign; for though not mentioned by Aneurin, he himself alludes to the time "when we attacked the great-smoker-of-towns (Ethelfrith)."

At this battle Aneurin was taken prisoner, and confined in "an earthen house," from which he was released "by the bright sword of Cenau, the son of Llywarch." The son of Llywarch could scarcely have been living in 472; and Davies in vain essays to get rid of this obdurate fact. This passage in Aneurin—

"Under foot was gravel,

Stretched out was my leg

In the subterranean house,

And an iron chain

Was bound about my knees,"

shows the use of under-ground hovels to have extended far into the historic period.

One fact more, and this demonstration that Aneurin has been ante-dated will be complete. The bard in three several places mentions a battle of Mannan, in much the same way as we at this day speak of Waterloo; and it is evident that, in the estimation of the bard and his countrymen, the battle of Mannan was the last great event before the battle of Cattraeth. The first of these passages is—

"Caeawe Cymnyviat cyvlat Erwyt

. . . . .

Rae ergit Cadfannan catwyt."

"Caeog was a conflictor with destructive pikes.

. . . . .

He was preserved from the blows of Mannan-fight."

Cæog, whom Davies converts into the adjective "adorned," was the brother of Cynddylan, Prince of Powys (Elegies of Llywarch Hen, p. 70.). On the death of his brother in 577, he went to North Briton; he escaped from the blows of Mannan, and afterwards fell at Cattraeth. Again, of a chief named Twrch it is said:—

"He loved the battling of spears,

At Mannan, and before Aldud the renowned."

"Emyt af crennyt y gat waewawr

Catvannan yr Aelut clodvawr."

Again he says of another chief:—

"Yn dieding . . . . .

Ac Adan Cadvannan cochre,

Veirch marchawg goddrud y more."

"Resistless

As Aeddan of the blood-stained steeds of Mannan-fight,

He was an impetuous rider that morning."

Here we have three separate proofs of the fact, that Cadvannan was anterior to the battle of Cattraeth: now when and where did that take place? In the year 582, and probably at Clackmannan, on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Here is my authority (Annals of Ulster):

"DLXXXII. Bellum Manan, in quo victor erat Aodhan Mar Gawran."

The battle of Cattraeth must be that of 603, at which Aeddan was also present.

These few annotations from a new translation of The Gododin now in MS., will, it is hoped, satisfy your correspondent GOMER that I am justified in repeating the views of Davies. Should he wish to get a correct text, and a judicious version of The Gododin, he had better subscribe to a translation by the Rev. J. Williams (author of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the Cymry), now about to issue from the Llandovery press, at a very moderate price. Probert's translation is very scarce.

Is there no tradition of this battle at Sigston?

THOS. S TEPHENS.