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MANX
LITERATURE]
See also:long run of See also:necessity proved adverse to the vitality of the See also:language
.
The best See also:standard of Gaelic is by See also:common consent the language of the Scriptures
..
See also:
Macleod's See also:style is racy and elegant, and his work is deservedly popular
.
In conclusion we must take See also:notice of the more important collections of See also:folklore
.
Gaelic, like Irish, is extraordinarily See also:rich in See also:proverbs
.
The first collection of Gaelic proverbs was published in 1785 by Donald See also:Macintosh
.
This work was supplemented and enlarged in 1881 by See also: G . Campbell, D . Maclnnes, J . Macdougall and See also:Lord See also:Archibald Campbell, have been published (1889–1895) by Nutt under the title Waifs and Strays of See also:Celtic Tradition . These collections contain a See also:good See also:deal of See also:matter pertaining to the old heroic cycles . Seven See also:ballads dealing with the See also:Ulster See also:cycle were collected and printed by See also:Hector Maclean under the title Ultonian See also:Hero-ballads (See also:Glasgow, 1892) . See also:Macpherson gave a fillip to collectors of Ossianic See also:lore, and a number of See also:MSS. going back to his See also:time are deposited in the See also:Advocates' Library at Edinburgh . J . F . Campbell spent twelve years searching for variants, and his results were published in his Leabhar na Feinne (1872) . This volume contains 54,000 lines of heroic See also:verse . The Edinburgh MSS. were transcribed by Alexander See also:Cameron, and published after his See also:death by Alexander Macbain and John See also:Kennedy in his Reliquiae Celticae . This work is therefore a See also:complete corpus of Gaelic heroic verse . Finally the charms and incantations of the Highlands have been collected and published by Alexander Carmichael in two sumptuous volumes under the title Carmina Gadelica (r900) . James Macpherson, An See also:Episode in Literature (See also:London, 1905) ; L . C . Stern, " See also:Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder " in Zeitschrift See also:fur vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte (1895), translated by J . L . See also:Robertson in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, See also:xxv . 257-325; G . Dottin, Revue de synthese historique, viii . 79-91; M . C . Macleod, See also:Modern Gaelic Bards (See also:Stirling, 1908) .
(E
.
C
.
Q.)
IV
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WELSH LITERATURE.—The See also:oldest documents consist of
glosses of the 9th and loth centuries found in four MSS.—Oxoni-
ensis See also:prior and posterior, the See also:Cambridge See also:Juvencus
See also:Early and Martiantis See also:Capella
.
These glosses were published MSS
.
by J
.
Loth in his Vocabulaire vieux-See also:breton (1884), but their value is entirely philological
.
In addition, we possess two short verses, written in Irish characters, preserved in the Juvencus See also:Manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge (printed in See also:Skene's Four See also:Ancient Books of See also:Wales)
.
This manuscript is a versification of the Gospels dating from the 9th See also:century
.
The value of these two verses is threefold: they give us, in the first See also:place, a specimen of the Welsh language at a time when the modern See also:laws of euphony were in a comparatively elementary See also:stage; secondly, they are of the utmost importance to the historian tracing the development of Welsh versification, and, in future See also:research, they must be taken into See also:account by the historian of modern metres in other See also:languages; and, thirdly, the similarity of their See also:form and diction to other verses, attributed to Llywarch See also:Hen, and preserved in a much later See also:orthography, will be a serious See also:consideration to the higher critic in Welsh literature
.
All the prose and verse of the succeeding centuries, that is to say from the loth to the beginning of the 14th, is preserved in "See also:Black four important See also:manuscripts, written during the latter Book of See also:half of the See also:period
.
The first of these manuscripts is carmar- the Black Book of See also:Carmarthen, a small See also:quarto vellum
then." manuscript of fifty leaves, written in See also:Gothic letters by various hands during the reign of See also:
(published in facsimile by Gwenogvryn See also:Evans, See also:Oxford, 1907)
.
This book belonged originally to the priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, from whom it passed to the See also: F . Skene with a tentative See also:English version in his Four Ancient Books of Wales . The other Welsh manuscripts, ranging down from the 15th to the 18th century, are far too numerous to notice, and it is outside the See also:scope of this See also:article to deal minutely with the original See also:sources of the See also:text of Welsh writings . We will now only endeavour to See also:sketch the history of Welsh literature from these early centuries down to our own times, and to show how the Celtic See also:people of Wales have See also:developed a literature true to their own See also:genius, and how that literature stands to this See also:day both a See also:minister to the culture of the Welsh people and a sure indication of it . 1 . Early Latin Writers.—The works now known as those of See also:Gildas (q.v.) and See also:Nennius (q.v.) are written in Latin; they throw considerable light on the origin of Welsh romantic literature and on the history of the earlier poems . Gildas was See also:born at Ailclyd, the modern See also:Dumbarton, that part of See also:Britain which iscalled by Welsh writers Y Gogledd, or the See also:North . Several See also:dates have been assigned for his See also:birth and death, but he probably flourished between 500 and 58o, and his book, De Excidio Brilanniae seems to have been written about 56o . This work is a sketch of See also:British history under the See also:Romans and in the Gildas. period after their withdrawal from the See also:country, and includes the period of the See also:wars of the Britons with the Picts, Scots and See also:Saxons . Mr Skene suggests very reasonably that the well-known See also:letter of the Britons to See also:Aetius, asking for See also:Roman aid, is misplaced, and that if put in its own place some of the anachronisms of Gildas will disappear . This work, which contains some spirited attacks on the leaders of the Britons for their sins, is strangely full of contradictions . It seems to be the work of some See also:person well versed in the facts of that part of British history, to which he had an easy See also:access, but who supplemented them with traditional details and with dates which were See also:mere guess-work . Mr Skene thinks that the work of Nennius was originally written in Welsh in the north and was afterwards translated into Latin . To this See also:nucleus was added the genealogies of the Saxon See also:kings down to 738 . Afterwards some person, called Marc in theVatican manuscript, appended probably about 823 the life of St Germanus and the legends of St See also:Patrick, which were subsequently incorporated with the history . Some South Welshman added to the oldest manuscript of the history in these countries, about g77, a See also:chronicle of events from 444 to 954, in which there are genealogies beginning with Owain, son of Hywel Dda, king of South Wales . This chronicle, which is not found in other manuscripts, has been made the basis of two later See also:chronicles brought down to 1286 and 1288 respectively . It is consequently not the work of one author . A learned Irishman named Gilla Coemgin, who died in 1072, translated it into Irish and added many things concerning the Irish and the Picts . The Historia Britonum is more valuable for the legendary matter which it contains than for what may be accepted as history, for it gives us the British legends of the colonization of See also:Great Britain and See also:Ireland, the exploits of King See also:Arthur and the prophecies of See also:Merlin, which are not found elsewhere before the 12th century . The date of the book is of the greatest importance to the history of medieval See also:romance, and there can be no doubt that it is earlier than the Norman See also:Conquest and that the legends themselves are of British origin . 2 . The Epic Period, qoo–gso.—The higher See also:criticism of the early poetry of Wales contained in the four ancient manuscripts already mentioned has undergone a good many changes since their contents first excited the curiosity of English scholars . In turn Welshmen, with more zeal than discretion, have displayed an amazing charlatanism in the extraordinary theories which they put forth, and Englishmen have shown an utmost meanness in belittling what is undoubtedly a most valuable See also:monument of the past . But now the labours of Zeuss and others who have made a study of Celtic See also:philology furnish us with much safer canons of criticism than existed in 1849, when even a learned Welshman, the See also:late Thomas See also:Stephens, who did more than any one else to establish the claims of his country to a real literature, doubted the authenticity of a large number of the poems said to have been written by Taliessin, Aneirin, Myrddin and Llywarch Hen, who are supposed to have lived in the 5th century . A great service was done to Welsh literature by the publication of the texts of those poems from the four ancient manuscripts by W . F . Skene . In addition to the text, See also:translations of the poems were furnished by Dr Silvan Evans and the Rev . Robert See also:Williams, but the translation, though on the whole a very creditable work, is full of mistakes which few men, See also:writing at that time, could have avoided . The publication of the text of the Black Book, with notes by Dr Gwenogvryn Evans, will be of great service towards clearing up the mist which envelops this older literature . Most of the poems in these four manuscripts are attributed to four poets, Aneirin, Llywarch Hen, Taliessin and Myrddin, who are said to have lived and written in Cumbria or Y Gogledd, where the actors in the events referred to also lived . The greater part of this region enjoyed substantial See also:independence down to the end of the 9th century, with the exception of the See also:interval from 655, when they were subjected to the kingdom of See also:Northumbria by Oswy after the defeat of Cadwallawn and See also:Penda, to the See also:battle of Dunnichen in 686, when Ecfrid, king of Northumbria, was defeated . From the 7th to the 9th century Cumbria, including under that name all the British territory from the Ribble to the See also:Clyde, was the See also:principal See also:theatre of British and Saxon conflict . The rise of the See also:dynasty of Maelgwn Gwynedd, who, according to Welsh tradition, was a descendant of Cunedda Wledig, one of the Picts of the north, brought Wales into See also:close connexion with the Cumbrian kingdom, and prepared both North and South Wales for the reception of the See also:northern traditions and the rise of a true Welsh literature . Whether the poets of the north really wrote any of the poems which in a modified form have come down to us or not, there can be no doubt that a number of See also:lays attributed to them lived in popular tradition, and that under the sudden burst of See also:glory which the deeds of Cadwallawn called forth and which ended in the disastrous defeat of 655, a British literature began to See also:spring up, and was nourished by the hopes of a future resurrection under his son Cadwaladr, whose death was disbelieved in for such a long time . These floating lays and traditions gradually gathered into North Wales, brought thither by the See also:nobility and the bards who fled before advancing hosts of the victorious Saxon kings of the north . The heroes of the north became now the heroes of Wales, and the sites of the battles they fought were identified with places of similar name in Wales and See also:England . By far the longest and the most famous poem of this See also:series is attributed to See also:Aneurin . This spelling of his name is compara- tively modern, and in the old manuscripts it is given as Aneirin . The later form seems to have been affected bythe form eurin, " See also:golden," and to owe the continuation of the misspelling to a belief that the poet and Gildas, whose name is supposed to be the Latin form of the Old English gylden, were one and the same person . This poem, called the Gododin (with notes by T . Stephens and published by Prof . Powel for the Cymmrodorion Society, London, 1888), is extremely obscure, both on account of its vocabulary and its See also:topography and allusions . It deals mainly with " the men who went to See also:Cat- traeth," which is supposed to have been fought between the Britons and the Scots under Aedan, king of See also:Dalriada, and the See also:pagan Saxons and their British subjects in Devyr (See also:Deira) and Bryneich (See also:Bernicia), and the half-pagan Picts of Guotodin, a See also:district corresponding to the northern half of the Lothians along the See also:Firth of Forth . Critics have attempted with partial success to See also:cast some light on its obscurity by supposing that the poem as a whole is made up of two parts dealing with two distinct battles . This may or may not be, but there is no doubt that many of the stanzas of the poem as found in the manuscript are not in their proper places, and a See also:critical readjustment of the different stanzas and lines would do much towards solving its problem . It seems probable, too, that the original nucleus of the poem was handed down orally, and recited or sung by the bards and minstrels at the courts of different noblemen .
It
thus became the common stock-in-See also:trade of the Welsh See also:rhapsodist,
and in time the bards, using it as a See also:kind of framework, added to
it here and there pieces of their own See also:composition formed on the
original See also:model, especially when the heroes named happened to
be the traditional forefathers of their patrons, and occasionally
introduced the names of new heroes and new places as it suited
their purpose; and all this seems to have been done in early
times
.
Older fragments dealing too with the legendary heroes
of the Welsh were afterwards incorporated with the poem, and
some of these fragments undoubtedly preserve the orthographical
and grammatical forms of the 9th century
.
So that, on the whole,
it seems as fruitless to look for a definite See also:record of See also:historical
events in this poem as it would be to do so in the Homeric
poems, but like them, though it cannot any longer be regarded
as a correct and definite account of a particular battle or See also:war,
it still stands to this day the epic of the warriors of its own
nation
.
It matters not whether these heroes fought at far
Cattraeth or on some other forgotten See also: In most of the poems attributed to Llywarch Hen and in some of the Myrddin poems, the verses begin with the same line, which, though it has no See also:direct reference to the subject of the poem itself, is used as a refrain or catch-word, exactly like the refrains employed by Mr See also:Swinburne and others in their ballads . These lines generally refer to some natural See also:object or See also:objects, as, for instance, " the See also:snow of the See also:mountain " or " See also:bright are the tops of the See also:broom." The first period, then, of Welsh literature lies between 70o and 950 . It is in most respects the epic period, the period in which poets wrote of great men and their deeds, the legendary and the historic heroes of the Cyrnry, men like Urien Rheged, and heroes like Hyveidd Hir . Even in the next period the epic note had not quite died out . 3 . The Prose Romances and the Poet Princes, 11oo-z29o.—It will be seen that there is a considerable See also:gap between the first and second period of Welsh literature . It must not be supposed, however, that nothing was composed or written during these years . Indeed, it may well be that some of the poetry attributed to the minor bards of the last period was composed between 900 and r roo, and that some other poetry too was written and lost . But there are abundant reasons for believing that Welsh poetry was at a very See also:low ebb during those years . The progress of Wales as a See also:political unit had suffered a check after the battle of See also:Chester in 613 . The effects of this defeat were not immediate, as the Welsh had still enough of their characteristic hopefulness to expect ultimate victory; we therefore have reasons for believing that the Gododin series of poems were still used—or perhaps used then for the first time—to See also:spur on " the aTododie See also:hawks of war " to greater efforts . Gradually, however, series. the Angles, hemming them in on all sides from the Clyde to the See also:Severn, began to See also:press nearer and nearer; the Welsh at last seem to have lost See also:heart, and no one any longer " had the See also:desire of song." Content with their old epics and their older myths, which owe perhaps to these years a darker and more sombre tinge, they allowed their song to be hushed . The great lords had hardly chosen their final abodes; the smaller lords had all been killed in war and their places taken now by one, now by another, so that the See also:warrior See also:prince himself had not the leisure, and hardly the See also:inspiration necessary, for song, and the bards found but scanty patronage among such a diminished and poverty-stricken nobility . The only See also:order that seemed to prosper was that of the monks, and we owe them our gratitude for 1 It is indeed probable that Myrddin is a purely fictitious See also:character, whose name has been made up from Caer Fyrddin (=Maridunum), which was certainly not a See also:personal name . II Aneurin . preserving the ancient writings and the ancient traditions; but they were simply copyists, though they had undoubtedly some See also:hand in giving the Gododin its final form and in setting in its convenient framework the names of the forefathers of their aristocratic abbots . In the See also:year 1044 Gruffydd ab See also:Llewelyn conquered Hywel ab See also:Edwin and became king of Wales . By means of his See also:diplomacy and his arms he succeeded in stemming the See also:tide of Saxon invasion that was threatening to overflow even the little remnant of land that was See also:left to the Welsh, and his strong See also:rule gave the Welsh muse another opportunity . Gruffydd, however, died in 1063, and was eventually succeeded in 1073 by Trahaern in North Wales, and Rhys ab See also:Owen in South Wales . The rule of these two princes was destined to be the last period of See also:literary inertness in the long interval following the confinement of Wales to her inaccessible highlands . During these years a See also:man was hiding in Ireland, called Gruffydd ab Cynan, a See also:scion of the old See also:branch of Welsh kings . In See also:Brittany, too, Rhys ab Tewdwr, a claimant to the See also:throne of South Wales, had sought the See also:protection of his Breton kinsmen . In 1073 Rhys ab Tewdwr obtained the throne of Rhys ab Owen, and, after many years of hard fighting, Gruffydd ab Cynan, with the help of Rhys ab Tewdwr, defeated Trahaern at the battle of Myrydd Carn in 1081 . On the See also:accession of these two powerful princes the whole country See also:broke forth into songs of praise and jubilation, and the long See also:night was at an end . It is important to remember that both Gruffydd and Rhys had a direct personal See also:influence on the literary revival of their times . Gruff ydd ab Cynan while in See also:exile had seen how the Irish Oenach was held, and had seen prizes given for poetry and song . We have it on the authority of Welsh writers that he reorganized the bards and improved the music, and in many other ways gave a great and beneficial impulse to Welsh literature . He may have brought over some of the later Irish legends which have had such a powerful effect on the literature of Wales . Rhys ab Tewdwr, too, brought with him from Brittany an See also: |