enchantment. Some places in North Wales, especially in the vicinity of Carnarvon, seem to be well known to the writers, and, therefore, to have associated with them to all time the glamour of the Mabinogion.
Besides the scholastic efforts of the monks, which in course of time so greatly changed these old legends, there was another class of men who had no little influence on the form and matter of Welsh, and consequently of European, romance. These were the Welsh jongleurs—the professional story-tellers, against whom the bards proper nursed a deadly hatred because, presumably, their tales drew larger audiences and won greater rewards than the awdlau of the poets. There is little doubt that this order existed in Wales at a very early period, being quite a natural evolution of the older poet who sang in comparatively free metres of the deeds of the great dead. It is these men who invented the term Mabinogi, which is supposed to mean a “tale for young people”; but whatever the word may mean, the fact that they were the stock-in-trade of the professional story-teller will explain a good many of their structural peculiarities.
Thus there existed two distinct classes of tales, though it is to be supposed that the subject matter of both was more or less common; there are, in the first place, the “four branches” and the tales of the second class, and, secondly, tales like those of the third class. With the exception of the Irish influence, which we have already referred to, and some later additions from early continental romance in the third class, we may take it that these three classes are of purely British origin. The pedair cainc are the old tales which were first committed to writing at an early period before the influence of the Armoric Arthur began to be felt, that is to say, about the beginning of the reign of Rhys ab Tewdwr in 1073. The other tales, that is those we have put in the third class, remained for a much longer time unwritten and were not set in writing before the early Arthur of Armoric and British romance had been evolved. This will account for the fact that Arthur is not mentioned in the first class of tales, and that in the third class he is simply a British Arthur. The third class is, therefore, in a sense later than the first and second, but its materials are as old as the oldest of the Mabinogion proper, and they show the influence of Irish mythology to the same extent. In the first class Irish names like Penardim, which have not been assimilated, show conclusively that the tale is a written one, while the eloquence of the descriptions in Kilhwch ac Olwen seem to point to the fact that it was up to a late period a spoken tale. Other such tales there were once, but they have now been lost.
The romances of the fourth class do not claim much notice. They are mostly imitations or translations of Norman French originals, and they belong to the history of European chivalry rather than to the history of Welsh literature.
As literature the Mabinogion may rank among the world’s classics. We cannot here point out their beauties, but it will be sufficient to notice that the unknown writer who gave them their final form was a true artist in every sense of the word. In Branwen verch Lyr, for instance, the whole setting of the story is that of a great tragedy, a tragedy neither Hellenic nor Shakespearean, but the strong and ruthless tragedy of the Celts,—the tragedy of nature among unnatural surroundings, the tragedy which in our times Mr Thomas Hardy has so successfully developed. In this tale, Branwen is introduced as the sister of Manawyddan, the king of all Britain, and as the “fairest maid in the world.” But as the tragedy deepens we read how this woman, dowered with beauty and goodness and nobility of lineage, is simply used as a pawn in a political game, and the full force of the tragedy falls on her own undeserving head. She is subjected to all kinds of indignities in her husband’s court in Ireland, but throughout all her severe trials she preserves the cold and detached haughtiness which characterizes the full-bosomed heroines of the northern sagas; and, in the end, when her brother has delivered her and punished the Irish, and when she has safely reached the shores of her own Môn, she raises her eyes and beholds the two islands, Britain and Ireland. “ ‘Ah God!’ said she, ‘is it well that two islands have been made desolate for my sake?’ And she gave a deep groan and died.” So was her tragedy consummated, and the writer, with a superb tragic touch, mentions the very shape of the grave in which they left her on the bank of the Alaw in Môn.
One of the earliest poets of this period whose productions we can be certain of is Meilir, bard of Trahaern, whom Gruffydd ab Cynan defeated at the battle of Carn, and afterwards of the conqueror Gruffydd himself. His best piece is the Death-bed of the Bard, a semi-religious poem which is distinguished by the structure of the verse, poetic feeling and religious thought. Meilir was the head of a family of bards; his son was Gwalchmai, one of the best Welsh poets; the latter had two sons, Einion and Meilir, some of whose poetry has reached us. In Gorhoffedd Gwalchmai, Gwalchmai’s Delight, there is an appreciation of the charms of nature, medieval parallels to which are only to be found in Ireland. His Arwyrain i Owain is an ode of considerable beauty and full of vigour in praise of Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, on account of his victory of Tal y Moelvre, part of which has been translated by Gray under the name of “The Triumphs of Owen.” Kynddelw, who lived in the second half of the 12th century, was a contemporary of Gwalchmai, and wrote on a great number of subjects including religious ones; indeed some of his eulogies have a kind of religious prelude. He had a command of words and much skill in versification, but he is pleonastic and fond of complicated metres and of ending his lines with the same syllable.
Among the other poets of the second half of the 12th century may be mentioned Owain Kyveiliog and Howel ab Owain Gwynedd. The first named was prince of Powys, and was distinguished also as a soldier. The Hirlas, or drinking-horn, is a long poem where the prince represents himself as carousing in his hall after a fight; bidding his cup-bearer fill his great drinking-horn, he orders him to present it in turn to each of the assembled warriors. As the horn passes from hand to hand he eulogizes each in a verse beginning Diwallaw di venestr, “Fill, cup-bearer.” Having thus praised the deeds of two warriors, Tudyr and Moreiddig, he turns round to challenge them, but suddenly recollecting that they had fallen in the fray, and listening, as it were, to their dying groans, he bursts into a broken lamentation for their loss. The second was also a prince; he was the eldest of the many sons of Owain Gwynedd, and ruled for two years after his father until he fell in a battle between himself and his step-brother Dafydd. He was a young man of conspicuous merit, and one of the most charming poets of Wales, his poems being especially free from the conceits, trivial commonplaces, and complicated metres of the professional bards, while full of a gay humour, a love of nature and a delicate appreciation of women. The Welsh poets went on circuit like their Irish brethren, staying in each place according as hospitality was extended to them. When departing, a bard was expected to leave a sample of his versification behind him. In this way many manuscripts came to be written, as we find them in different hands. Llywarch ab Llywelyn has left us one of those departing eulogies addressed to Rhys Gryg, prince of South Wales, which affords a favourable specimen of his style.
The following are a few of the poets of the 13th century whose poems are still extant. Davydd Benvras was the author of a poem in praise of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth; his works, though not so verbose or trite as bardic poems of this class usually are, do not rise much above the 13th century poets. bardic level, and are full of alliteration. Elidir Sais was, as his name implies, able to speak the English language, and wrote chiefly religious poetry. Einiawn ab Gwgawn is the author of an extant address to Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of considerable merit. Phylip Brydydd, or Philip the poet, was household bard to Rhys Gryg (Rhys the hoarse), lord of South Wales. One of his pieces, an apology to Rhys Gryg, is a striking example of the fulsome epithets a household bard was expected to bestow upon his patron, and of the privileged domesticity in which the bards lived, which, as in Ireland, must have been fatal to genius. Prydydd Bychan, the Little Poet, was a South Wales bard whose extant work consists of short poems all addressed to his own princes. The chief feature of his Englynion is the use of a
