Of the warriors trooping to us,
Flocking from Gododin land.
Manawyd, thou swift and fearless,

By no foeman's spear delayed;

Foemen's tents through thee are cheerless,

None evade thy spearmen's raid.

IV.

Wreathed the leader wolf came forth;
Amber rings his temple twine,

Amber worth a feast of wine.

He quelled the strong of the hostile throng;

Though his shield was shattered he shunned no man.
Mine would have been Venedot and the North,
Said the heart of the son of Ysgyran.

V.

Wreathed was the leader who, armed for the bloody strife,
Went to the battle-field noted of all.
Chief in the foremost rank, fearlessly spending life,
Sweeping battalions down, groaning they fall.
Foemen of Deivyr and foemen of Bryneich slain,
Hundreds on hundreds in one little hour,
Ever his bride-feast untasted must now remain;
Him now the wolves and the ravens devour.
Mead in the hall, Hyveidd Hir, cost us high!
Praise shall yet live for thee till our song die!

VI.

To Gododin marched the heroes; Gognaw laughed.
Round their flags they fiercely battled; bore their smarts;
Few the fleeting years when pleasure's cup they quaffed:
Strokes of Gognaw, son of Botgad, shook men's hearts.
Better penance is than laughter on the breath,
When young and old, and strong and bold,
Heroes march to meet the fated stroke of Death.

VII.

To Gododin marched the heroes; Gwanar laughed,
As his shining troop went down adorned to kill.
Jest thou checkest with the gripe of thy sword-haft,-
When its blade, O Death, thou wavest, we are still!

VIII,

The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of words;
Bright mead gave them pleasure, their bliss was their bane;
In serried array they rushed down on the swords
With joyous outcry,—then was silence again.
Better penance is than laughter on the breath,
When young and old, and strong and bold,
Heroes march to meet the fated stroke of Death.

X.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;
They feared them who met them with martial uproar;
A host on a handful to battle were drawn,
Broad mark for the lances that drenched them in gore.
The shock of the battle, before the brave band

Of the nobles who freekly obeyed his command,
Mynyddawg, Friend of Heroes, was bold to withstand.

XI,

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;
The loved ones lamented in masterless tents;

A snare had the sweet yellow mead round them drawn.
That dark year full often the minstrel laments;
Red plumes, redder swords, broken blades, helmets cleft,
Even those of the band that obeyed thy command,
Mynyddawg, Friend of Heroes, of heroes bereft.

XII,

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the day;
Base taunts shamed the greatest of battles. They cried,
As their blades slew the baptized Gelorwydd, "Away
With your kindred the homeless, the dead, to abide!
For the Gem of the Baptized behold we provide—
We, the host of Gododin-an unction of blood;
A last unction is due ere the last fight is fought."
Should the might of true chiefs not be mastered with
thought?

XIII.

The warrior marched to Cattraeth with the day;
In the stillness of night he had quaffed the white mead.
He was wretched, though prophesied glory and sway
Had winged his ambition. Were none there to lead
To Cattraeth with a loftier hope in their speed.
Secure in his boast, he would scatter the host,
Bold standard in hand; no other such band
Went from Eiddin as his, that would rescue the land
From the troops of the ravagers. Far from the sight
Of home that was dear to him, ere he too perished,
Tudvwlch Hir slew the Saxons in seven days' fight.
He owed not the freedom of life to his might,
But dear is his memory where he was cherished.
When Tudvwlch amain came that post to maintain
By the son of Kilydd, the blood covered the plain.

XIV.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Their shields were no shelter; in shining array

IX.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of mead ;
Drunken, but firm in array; great the shame,
But greater the valour no hard can defame.

The war-dogs fought fiercely, red swords seemed to bleed.
Flesh and soul I had slain thee myself, had I thought,
Son of Cian, my friend, that thy faith had been bought
By a bride from the tribe of the Bryneich! But no;
He scorned to take dowry from hands of the foe,
And I, all unhurt, lost a friend in the fight,

Whom the wrath of a father felled down for the slight.'

But the sense of the original is far more vigorous. The son of Cian had married the daughter of one of the Bryneich. His marriage did not stay his feud with his wife's tribe. He repudiated her family. disdained to take her dowry, and was sought and slain in the battle by her insulted father. The rest of Gray's Ode is a sufficiently close version of the twenty-first stanza of the Gododin. Gray closes it like the true poet that he is; but the "diction" of the eighteenth century is answerable for his inflation of the plain words "wine and mead" into

"Nectar that the bees produce, Or the grape's extatic juice."

They sought blood. On their front the war thundered, its din

Crashed resounding from targets. When he would repay
The fickle and base for their fealty withdrawn,

The mailed chief of the Mordei his high hand could slay;
The homage they owed him his iron could win;
For a host before Erthai would flinch in dismay.

XV.

When the bards tell the tale of the fight at Cattraeth,
The bereaved ones will sigh,as they sighed through the years
Of the mourning for warriors gone to their death,
For lands left without leaders to ruin and tears.
The fair band of his sons on his bier bore afar
Godebog, whose sword ploughed the long furrows of war.
And shall Cyvwlch the Tall, and Tudvwlch, now no more
Quaff sweet mead under torches? Just fate we deplore:
For the sweetness of mead,

In the day of our need,

Is our bitterness; blunts all our arms for the strife; Is a friend to the lip and a foe to the life.

XVI.

In other days he frowned on Eching fort,
To him the young and bold pressed ever near;
In other days on Bludwe he would sport,

While his glad horn for Mordei made good cheer.

In other days he blended mead and ale;
In other days purple and gold he wore;

In other days Gwarthlev-"the Voice of Blame"-
Hero deserving of a truer name—

Had stall-fed steeds, who safely, swiftly bore
Their master out of peril. These now fail.

In other days he turned the ebbing tide,

And bade the flood of war sweep high, spread wide.

XVII.

Light of lights-the sun,

Leader of the day,

First to rise and run

His appointed way,

Crowned with many a ray,

Seeks the British sky;
Sees the flight's dismay,
Sees the Briton fly.

The horn in Eiddin's hall

Had sparkled with the wine,
And thither, at the call
To drink and be divine,
He went, to share the feast
Of reapers, wine and mead;
He drank and so increased
His daring for wild deed.
The reapers sang of war
That lifts its shining wings,
Its shining wings of fire,
Its shields that flutter far.
The bards too sang of war,
Of plumed and crested war;
The song rose ever higher.
Not a shield

Escapes the shock,
To the field

They fiercely flock,

There to fall.

But of all

Who struck on giant Gwrveling,

Whom he would he struck again,
All he struck in grave were lain
Ere the bearers came to bring
To his grave stout Gwrveling.

XVIII.

These gathered from the lands around:
Three chiefs from the Novantine ground;
Five times five hundred men, embattled bands,
Three times three hundred levied from their lands;
Three hundred men of battle, armed in gold,
From Eiddin; then three cuirassed hosts enrolled
By three kings golden-chained; three chiefs beside
With whom three hundred marched in equal pride;
Three of like mark, and jealous each of each,
Fierce in attack and dreadful in the breach,
Would strike a lion dead; with gold they shone.
Three kings came from the Brython, Cynrig one,
And Cynon and Cynrain from Aeron,

To breast the darts the sullen Deivyr throw.
Better than Cynon came from Brython none,
He proved a deadly serpent to the foe.

XIX.

I drank the Mordei's wine and mead;
Spears were many, men prepared
For the banquet, sadly shared,
The solemn feast where eagles feed.
When Cydywal to battle sped,

In the green dawn, he raised a shout
Triumphant over many dead.
Upon the field were strown about
The shields he splintered, tearing spears
Hewn and cast down. His were no fears;

Son of the star-wise Syvno, he

Knew that his death that day should be

By spear or bow, not by sword-blade,

And not a sword his havoc stayed

Or could against his sword a strife sustain.

He gave his own life, took a host;

Blaen Gwynedd knew his ancient boast

Of the brave toilers piled whom he had slain.

xx.

I drank the Mordei's wine and mead,

I drank, and now for that I bleed,
And yield me to the stroke of pain
With yearning throb of high disdain,
That upward pants to strike again.
Thee too the sword that slays me slays.
When danger threatens us, the days
Of evil-doing quail the hand:
Had we withstood we could withstand.
Presýnt was bold, through war's alarm
He thrust his way with doughty arm.

XXI.

To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row
Twice two hundred warriors go;
Every warrior's manly neck

Chains of regal honour deck,

Wreathed in many a golden link :

From the golden cup they drink

Nectar that the bees produce,

Or the grape's extatic juice.

Flush'd with mirth and hope they burn:

But none from Cattraeth's vale return,

Oisín

Fionn (called sometimes in Scotland, before the time of Macpherson's Ossian, Fingal-gal being a common final syllable in Gaelic proper names) was the son of Cumhaill, chief of one of the four Irish clansthat of Leinster, the Clanna Baoisgne. Cumhaill was killed in battle by Goll, of the Clanna Morna, the clan of Connaught. Fionn MacCumhaill thus began life with hereditary feud against Goll MacMorna, but afterwards made peace with him. Fionn's clan became so powerful that the other Irish forces, except that of the King of Munster, banded against it. The Clanna Baoisgne fought for its life against this over-mastering confederacy, and was crushed at the battle of Gabhra, Fionn ("Fair-haired"), the son of Cumhaill, had a cousin famous in song, Caeilte MacRonan; and two sons, Fergus Finnbheoil (" the Eloquent"), who was chief bard, and Oisín ("the Little Fawn"), who was bard and warrior. is among the Scotch Gaels, Óssun-or, as Macpherson wrote it, Ossian-a word of two syllables, having its accent usually in Irish Gaelic on the second syllable, and in Scotch Gaelic on the first. Oisín had a warrior son, Oscar. This grandson of Fionn MacCumhaill was killed at the battle of Gabhra by Cairbar, the son of Cormac MacArt, King of Ireland. The King of Ireland was attacked by Oscar in the battle, but defended by his son Cairbar, who gave Oscar his death-wound before he was himself slain by the dying warrior. The following piece is from a collection of old Gaelic poems made by Sir James M'Gregor, Dean of Lismore, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. His MS. was edited in 1862 as "The Dean of Lismore's Book," with a translation and notes by the Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan, and an introduction and additional notes by Mr. William F. Skene. Mr. M'Lauchlan is not answerable for the attempt I have here made to represent the song of the chief bard to modern ears by a rude blending of rhyme and assonance. Fergus Finnbheoil is supposed to tell, in reply to questions from his father Fionn MacCumhaill, the slaughter of his Feinn, or Fenians, at the battle of Gabhra, and the death of Oscar, Oisín's son, the old man's grandson.' A Gaelic poem closes usually with repetition of its first word or phrase. That repetition here serves also to suggest the bard, who was the historian of ancient times, passing from tribe to tribe, and answering in each place the demand for full detail of the great deeds whereof it was he only who kept the record and maintained the fame,

THE DEATH OF OSCAR,

"Say, Bard of the Feinn of Erin,

How fared the fight, Fergus, my son, In Gabhra's fierce battle-day? Say!"

1 These are the first lines of the poem as transferred by Mr. M'Lauchlan into the modern spelling of Scotch Gaelic from the dean's phonetic style :-

"Innis duinn a Fherguis, fhilidh Feinn Eirinn,

Cionnus tharladh dhuinn, an cath Ghabhra nam beuman,

Ni maith Mhic Cumhail, mo sgeul o chath Ghabhra,

Cha mhair Osgar ionmhuian, thug mòr chosgar chalma,
Cha mhair seachd mhic Chaoilte, no gasraidh Fiann Almhuin,
Do thuit oige na Feinn, ann an eideadh airich."

"The fight fared not well, son of Cumhaill,
From Gabhra come tidings of ruin,
For Oscar the fearless is slain.
The sons of Caeilte were seven;
They fell with the Feinn of Alvin.
The youth of the Feinn are fallen,
Are dead in their battle array.
And dead on the field lies MacLuy,
With six of the sons of thy sire.

The young men of Alvin are fallen;
The Feinn of Britain are fallen.
And dead is the king's son of Lochlin,
Who hastened to war for our right-
The king's son with a heart ever open,
And arm ever strong in the fight."

"Now, O Bard-my son's son, my desire, My Oscar, of him, Fergus, tell How he hewed at the helms ere he fell."

"Hard were it, Fionn, to number,
Heavy for me were the labour,
To tell of the host that has fallen,
Slain by the valour of Oscar.
No rush of the waterfall swifter,
No pounce of the hawk on his prey,
No whirlpool more sweeping and deadly,
Than Oscar in battle that day.

And you who last saw him could see
How he throbbed in the roar of the fray,
As a storm-worried leaf on the tree
Whose fellows lie fallen below,

As an aspen will quiver and sway
While the axe deals it blow upon blow.
When he saw that MacArt, King of Erin,
Still lived in the midst of the roar,
Oscar gathered his force to roll on him
As waves roll to break on the shore.

The King's son, Cairbar, saw the danger,

He shook his great hungering spear,

Grief of griefs! drove its point through our Oscar,
Who braved the death-stroke without fear.
Rushing still on MacArt, King of Erin,
His weight on his weapon he threw,
And smote at MacArt, and again smote
Cairbar, whom that second blow slew.
So died Oscar, a king in his glory.
I, Fergus the Bard, grieve my way

Through all lands, saying how went the story
Of Gabhra's fierce battle-day." "Say!"

II. The later of our two old Celtic literatures was that of the Cymry, and the battle at the heart of it is that of Cattraeth, said to have been fought A.D. 570.

When the Celts of Britain were resisting the occupation of their lands by those Teutonic immigrants who gave to the country afterwards its name of England, a great northern chief called Urien became famous for his patriotic struggle. His contest was against those Angles who, first landing under Ida, in the year 547, battled their way inland from the coasts now known as those of Durham and Northumberland, and Scotland from the Tweed up to the Forth. The bards of Urien represented by their energy of song the fervour of this contest. The same struggle was maintained in other parts of

Britain by another chief, that Arthur who in after time became the great mythical hero of the British story. In the traces of old Cymric song which seem to have been left from a time earlier than the twelfth century, when Arthurian romance arose, it is Urien who appears as the great chief; and his bards were Llywarch Hen, prince and bard; Aneurin, warrior and bard; and Taliesin, a bard only; while Merddhin, or Merlin, seems to have been at the same time a bard in the service of Arthur,

In those days Mynyddawg, the Lord of Eiddin (Eiddin means, I suppose, not Edinburgh, but the region of the river Eden that flows through Westmoreland and Cumberland to the Solway Frith), formed a league of Cymric chiefs to contest the possession of their land by the Teutonic settlers, who had occupied the coasts of the Deivyr and Bryneich, known as the land of Ododin. The people of Deivyr and Bryneich had blended themselves with the immigrants, and were therefore branded as traitors by the other Celts. The words Deivyr and Bryneich were transformed by the Romans into Deira and Bernicia. This part of our coast, belonging to Durham and Northumberland, had a name common to both Deivyr and Bryneich, that was Latinised as the land of the Otadini; and Ododin (without the prefix of an unessential G, that makes the word Gododin) is the name given to the district whence marched the foemen with whom the leagued Cymry endeavoured to contest the occupation of their land. Among the British warriors were tribes gathered apparently from between the Clyde and Solway Frith. The Novanta were from Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, and Ayr; Aeron probably stands for modern Ayr; Breatan has its name extant in Dumbarton by the Clyde, Assembling among the hills by the source of the river Eden, which is only two or three miles from the source of the Swale, the Cymry seem to have marched down Swaledale towards the advancing Teutons, whom they encountered at Cattraeth. A march of five-and-twenty miles along the valley of the Swale would bring the Cymry to Cattraeth, if that be Catterick, the Roman Cataractoneum. A tributary stream there flows into the Swale, and part of the fight is said to have been at the confluence of rivers. The churchyard of Catterick village is within an ancient camp, and near it are ancient burial-grounds, Cattraeth, then, we may perhaps identify with Catterick, about five miles from Richmond, in Yorkshire. The battle of Cattraeth began on a Tuesday, lasted for a week, and ended with great slaughter of the Britons, who fought desperately till they perished on the field. The warrior bard Aneurin was among the combatants, and a lament for the dead is ascribed to him that, under the name of The Gododin, is the most important fragment of what may represent the oldest Cymric literature.

The story of the battle runs in this fragment through a series of ninety-seven stanzas, each usually devoted to the celebration of some one of the many chiefs who fell. The ninety-seven stanzas record in various measures praise of ninety of the fallen Cymric chiefs. One of them was put into verse by

Gray, who had found literal translations in Evans's "Specimens of Welsh Poetry." I have followed an edition of the Gododin, published in 1852, by the Rev. John Williams ab Ithel,' with a literal prose translation, in the following attempt to give metrical form to the successive stanzas as far as the twentyfirst, which is the one known to modern readers, by Gray's version of it, as "The Death of Hoel." Here -since a version of the ninety-seven stanzas would still only represent a fragment-I break off, that my own ruder attempt in the rest of the piece to rhyme the Gododin may have the advantage of a poet's close.

THE GODODIN,

I.

A man in thought, a boy in form,
He stoutly fought, and sought the storm
Of flashing war that thundered far.
His courser lank and swift, thick-maned,
Bore on his flank, as on he strained,
The light brown shield-as on he sped,
With golden spur, in cloak of fur,
His blue sword gleaming. Be there said
No word of mine that does not hold thee dear!
Before thy youth had tasted bridal cheer
The red Death was thy bride! The ravens feed
On thee yet straining to the front, to lead.
Owain, the friend I loved, is dead!
Woe is it that on him the ravens feed!

Of the warriors trooping to us,
Flocking from Gododin land.
Manawyd, thou swift and fearless,

By no foeman's spear delayed;

Foemen's tents through thee are cheerless,

None evade thy spearmen's raid.

IV.

Wreathed the leader wolf came forth;
Amber rings his temple twine,

Amber worth a feast of wine.

He quelled the strong of the hostile throng;

Though his shield was shattered he shunned no man.
Mine would have been Venedot and the North,
Said the heart of the son of Ysgyran.

V.

Wreathed was the leader who, armed for the bloody strife,
Went to the battle-field noted of all.
Chief in the foremost rank, fearlessly spending life,
Sweeping battalions down, groaning they fall.
Foemen of Deivyr and foemen of Bryneich slain,
Hundreds on hundreds in one little hour.
Ever his bride-feast untasted must now remain;
Him now the wolves and the ravens devour.
Mead in the hall, Hyveidd Hir, cost us high!
Praise shall yet live for thee till our song die!

VI.

To Gododin marched the heroes; Gognaw laughed.
Round their flags they fiercely battled; bore their smarts;
Few the fleeting years when pleasure's cup they quaffed:
Strokes of Gognaw, son of Botgad, shook men's hearts.
Better penance is than laughter on the breath,
When young and old, and strong and bold,
Heroes march to meet the fated stroke of Death.

VII.

To Gododin marched the heroes; Gwanar laughed,
As his shining troop went down adorned to kill.
Jest thou checkest with the gripe of thy sword-haft,-
When its blade, O Death, thou wavest, we are still!

VIII,

The warriors marched to Cattraeth, full of words;
Bright mead gave them pleasure, their bliss was their bane;
In serried array they rushed down on the swords
With joyous outcry,—then was silence again.
Better penance is than laughter on the breath,
When young and old, and strong and bold,
Heroes march to meet the fated stroke of Death.

X.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;
They feared them who met them with martial uproar;
A host on a handful to battle were drawn,
Broad mark for the lances that drenched them in gore.
The shock of the battle, before the brave band

Of the nobles who freekly obeyed his command,
Mynyddawg, Friend of Heroes, was bold to withstand.

XI,

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn;
The loved ones lamented in masterless tents;

A snare had the sweet yellow mead round them drawn.
That dark year full often the minstrel laments;
Red plumes, redder swords, broken blades, helmets cleft,
Even those of the band that obeyed thy command,
Mynyddawg, Friend of Heroes, of heroes bereft.

XII.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the day;
Base taunts shamed the greatest of battles. They cried,
As their blades slew the baptized Gelorwydd, “Away
With your kindred the homeless, the dead, to abide!
For the Gem of the Baptized behold we provide-
We, the host of Gododin-an unction of blood;
A last unction is due ere the last fight is fought."
Should the might of true chiefs not be mastered with
thought?

XIII.

The warrior marched to Cattraeth with the day;
In the stillness of night he had quaffed the white mead.
He was wretched, though prophesied glory and sway
Had winged his ambition. Were none there to lead
To Cattraeth with a loftier hope in their speed,
Secure in his boast, he would scatter the host,
Bold standard in hand; no other such band
Went from Eiddin as his, that would rescue the land
From the troops of the ravagers. Far from the sight
Of home that was dear to him, ere he too perished,
Tudvwlch Hir slew the Saxons in seven days' fight.
He owed not the freedom of life to his might,
But dear is his memory where he was cherished.
When Tudvwlch amain came that post to maintain
By the son of Kilydd, the blood covered the plain.

XIV.

The warriors marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Their shields were no shelter; in shining array

IX.

The warriors marched to Cattracth, full of mead;
Drunken, but firm in array; great the shame,
But greater the valour no bard can defame.

The war-dogs fought fiercely, red swords seemed to bleed.
Flesh and soul I had slain thee myself, had I thought,
Son of Cian, my friend, that thy faith had been bought
By a bride from the tribe of the Bryneich! But no;
He scorned to take dowry from hands of the foe,
And I, all unhurt, lost a friend in the fight,
Whom the wrath of a father felled down for the slight.1

1 Upon this verse, and the general sense of its context, Gray founded the opening of his Ode from the Welsh, "The Death of Hoel:"

"Had I but the torrent's might

With headlong rage and wild affright

Upon Deira's squadrons hurl'd

To rush and sweep them from the world.
Too, too secure in youthful pride
By them my friend, my Hoel, died,
Great Cian's son: of Madoc old
He ask'd no heaps of hoarded gold;
Alone in Nature's wealth array'd,
He ask'd and had the lovely maid."

But the sense of the original is far more vigorous. The son of Cian had married the daughter of one of the Bryneich. His marriage did not stay his feud with his wife's tribe. He repudiated her family, disdained to take her dowry, and was sought and slain in the battle by her insulted father. The rest of Gray's Ode is a sufficiently close version of the twenty-first stanza of the Gododin. Gray closes it like the true poet that he is; but the "diction" of the eighteenth century is answerable for his inflation of the plain words “wine and mead" into

"Nectar that the bees produce, Or the grape's extatic juice."