Preiddeu Annwfn facts for kids
Preiddeu Annwfn or Preiddeu Annwn (English: The Spoils of Annwfn) is a cryptic poem of sixty lines in Middle Welsh, found in the Book of Taliesin. The text recounts an expedition with King Arthur to Annwfn or Annwn, the Otherworld in Welsh.
Preiddeu Annwfn is one of the best known medieval British poems. English translations, in whole or in part, have been published by R. Williams (in William Forbes Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales), by Robert Graves in The White Goddess and by Roger Sherman Loomis, Herbert Pilch, John T. Koch, Marged Haycock, John K. Bollard, Sarah Higley. At points it requires individual interpretation on the part of its translators owing to its terse style, the ambiguities of its vocabulary, its survival in a single copy of doubtful reliability, the lack of exact analogues of the tale it tells and the host of real or fancied resonances with other poems and tales.
A number of scholars (in particular, Marshall H. James, who points out the remarkable similarity in Line 1, of Verse 2 in "Mic Dinbych", from the Black Book of Carmarthen) have pointed out analogues in other medieval Welsh literature: some suggest that it represents a tradition that evolved into the grail of Arthurian literature. Haycock (in The Figure of Taliesin) says that the poem is "about Taliesin and his vaunting of knowledge", and Higley calls the poem "a metaphor of its own making—a poem about the material 'spoils' of poetic composition".
Manuscript and date
The poem is uniquely preserved in the Book of Taliesin (Aberystwyth, NLW, MS Peniarth 2), which has been dated to the first quarter of the 14th century. The text of the poem itself has proved immensely difficult to date. Estimates range from the time of the bard Taliesin in the late 6th century to that of the completion of the manuscript. On the basis of linguistic criteria Norris J. Lacy suggests that the poem took its present form around AD 900. Marged Haycock notes that the poem shares a formal peculiarity with a number of pre-Gogynfeirdd poems found in the Book of Taliesin, that is, the caesura usually divides the lines into a longer and shorter section. She contends, however, that there is no firm linguistic evidence that the poem predates the time of the Gogynfeirdd.
Text
The poem may be divided into eight stanzas, each for the most part united by a single rhyme but with irregular numbers of lines. The first stanza begins and the last ends with two lines of praise to the Lord, generally taken to be Christian. In the last couplet of each stanza except the last the speaker mentions a dangerous journey into Annwfn with Arthur and three boat-loads of men, of whom only seven returned, presumably with the "spoils" from Annwfn. Annwfn is apparently referred to by several names, including "Mound or Fairy Fortress," "Four Peaked or Cornered Fortress," and "Glass Fortress", though it is possible these are intended to be distinct. Whatever tragedy occurred is not clearly explained.
Each stanza except the last two begins in the first person; the first begins "I praise the Lord", the second and third "I am honoured in praise", the next three declare "I do not merit little men" who rely on books and lack understanding. The last two refer to crowds of monks who again rely upon the words and the knowledge of authorities and lack the type of experience the poem claims.
Between these beginnings and ends the first six stanzas offer brief allusions to the journey. In the first Gweir is encountered imprisoned in the fort's walls, a character whom Rachel Bromwich associates with Gwair, one of "Three Exalted Prisoners of Britain" known from the Welsh Triads. He is imprisoned in chains, apparently until Judgment Day, singing before the spoils of Annwfn. The second stanza describes the cauldron of the Chief of Annwn, finished with pearl, and how it was taken, presumably being itself the "spoils". The third and fourth allude to difficulties with the forces of Annwfn while the fifth and sixth describe a great ox, also richly decorated, that may also form part of Arthur's spoils.
The first stanza has already mentioned Pwyll, the legendary prince of Dyfed who in the first branch of the Mabinogi becomes the Chief of Annwfn after helping its king, Arawn, and was credited with ownership of a cauldron.
The speaker may be intended to be Taliesin himself, for the second stanza says "my poetry, from the cauldron it was uttered, from the breath of nine maidens it was kindled, the cauldron of the chief of Annwfyn" and Taliesin's name is connected to a similar story in the legend of his birth. Song is heard in the fourfold fort, which therefore seems also to be Annwfn: Gweir was imprisoned in perpetual song before a cauldron that first gave out poetry when breathed upon by nine maidens, reminiscent of the nine muses of classical thought. Just as, we are told, the cauldron "does not boil the food of a coward", so the song it is inspires is "honoured in praise", too good for petty men of ordinary mentality.
