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Rachel Bromwich born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, from 1945 to 1976. Among her most important contributions to the study of Welsh literature is Trioedd Ynys Prydein, her edition of the Welsh Triads.
"His Shadow" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely considered the greatest of the Welsh poets. It relates a conversation in which the poet defends his character from the insinuations of his own shadow, and it parodies a popular medieval genre in which the Soul remonstrates with the Body. It has been argued that "His Shadow" was written towards the end of Daydd's poetic career. It was accepted in the 2007 edition of Dafydd ap Gwilym's poems by Dafydd Johnston et al. as a genuine work of his; previously, Thomas Parry had included it in his 1952 edition of Dafydd's works and in his Oxford Book of Welsh Verse (1962) as genuine, though in 1985 he expressed some doubts as to Dafydd's authorship.
King Arthur's family grew throughout the centuries with King Arthur's legend. The earliest Welsh Arthurian tradition portrays Arthur as having an extensive family network, including his parents Uther Pendragon and Eigyr (Igraine), wife Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), nephew Gwalchmei (Gawain), brother, and several sons; his maternal lineage is also detailed, linking him to relatives such as his grandfather. This complex familial structure has been both simplified and expanded in the common tradition of shared British, French, and other medieval European chronicles and romances, which instead introduced new characters, such as Arthur's half-sisters including Morgan, their children including Mordred, and others. Arthur's lineage was later claimed by various rulers, in particular the House of Tudor and Scottish clans, reflecting the enduring legacy of his familial ties in medieval and early modern genealogies.
"The Girls of Llanbadarn", or "The Ladies of Llanbadarn", is a short, wryly humorous poem by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which he mocks his own lack of success with the girls of his neighbourhood. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known works. The poem cannot be precisely dated, but was perhaps written in the 1340s.
"Trouble at a Tavern", or "Trouble at an Inn", is a short poem by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which the poet comically narrates the mishaps which prevent him from keeping a midnight assignation with a girl. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known poems. It has been described as "glorious farce", "one of Dafydd ap Gwilym's funniest and most celebrated cywyddau", and "the most vivid of [his] poems of incident".
"The Wind" is a 64-line love poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his most highly praised works. Rachel Bromwich called it "one of the greatest of all his poems", while the academic critic Andrew Breeze has hailed it as "a masterpiece" and "a work of genius", noting especially its "rhetorical splendour".
Poem 31 of the Black Book of Carmarthen, a mid-13th century manuscript, is known from its first line as Pa gur yv y porthaur? or Pa gur, or alternatively as Ymddiddan Arthur a Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr. It is a fragmentary, anonymous poem in Old Welsh, taking the form of a dialogue between King Arthur and the gatekeeper Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr, in which Arthur boasts of his own exploits and those of his companions, especially Cai the Fair. Pa gur is notable for being one of the earliest vernacular Arthurian works, and for alluding to several early adventures of Arthur which are now lost. Its precise age is not known and has been the subject of wide-ranging disagreement, but scholarly opinion now tends to favour a date of c. 1100.
Prydwen plays a part in the early Welsh poem Preiddeu Annwfn as King Arthur's ship, which bears him to the Celtic otherworld Annwn, while in Culhwch and Olwen he sails in it on expeditions to Ireland. The 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth named Arthur's shield after it. In the early modern period Welsh folklore preferred to give Arthur's ship the name Gwennan. Prydwen has however made a return during the last century in several Arthurian works of fiction.
Gwenddydd, also known as Gwendydd and Ganieda, is a character from Welsh legend. She first appears in the early Welsh poems like the Dialogue of Myrddin and Gwenddydd and in the 12th-century Latin Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth, where she is represented as being a figure in the Old North of Britain, the sister of Myrddin or Merlin, and a prophet in her own right. Geoffrey also makes her the wife of the northern king Rhydderch Hael. She was remembered in Welsh traditions recorded in the 16th century by Elis Gruffydd, and even as late as the 18th century. Since the late 19th century she has occasionally appeared as Merlin's sister or lover in Arthurian fiction, poetry and drama by writers such as Laurence Binyon, John Cowper Powys, John Arden, Margaretta D'Arcy and Stephen R. Lawhead.
Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer is an anonymous Middle Welsh poem of uncertain date consisting of 136 stanzas, mostly in englyn form. Myrddin, the legendary 6th-century North British bard and warrior, is depicted as being encouraged by his sister Gwenddydd to utter a series of prophecies detailing the future history of the kings of Gwynedd, leading up to an apocalyptic ending. The mood of the poem has been described as "one of despair and of loss of faith and trust in this world".
"The Poet and the Grey Friar" is a satirical poem in the form of a traethodl by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh-language poets. In it he relates an imaginary conversation with a Franciscan friar in which, rejecting the ascetic philosophy of the friar, he sets out a defence of love, poetry and the worldly life. It was included in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse.
"The Snow" is a 14th- or 15th-century Welsh-language poem in the form of a cywydd evoking a landscape which, to the poet's chagrin, is covered with snow. It has been described as an imaginative tour de force. Manuscripts of the poem mostly attribute it to Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, though some name Dafydd ab Edmwnd or Ieuan ap Rhys ap Llywelyn as the author. Modern literary historians have differed as to whether it is indeed by Dafydd ap Gwilym, but the two most recent editions of his poems have rejected it. The poem has nevertheless remained popular with translators and it continues to appear in anthologies, including Thomas Parry's own Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and Gwyn Jones's Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.
"The Woodland Mass" or "The Mass of the Grove" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century bard Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets. It is one of his most popular works. Sometimes seen as blasphemous, it presents a woodland scene in which a thrush, sent by the poet's lover, and a nightingale officiate at a Mass celebrating both God and sexual love. "The Woodland Mass" is an example of a common type of medieval Welsh poem in which some bird or beast is used as a llatai or love-messenger, though this poem is unusual in that the message is sent to Dafydd rather than by him.
"Lament for Lleucu Llwyd" is a Middle Welsh poem by the 14th-century bard Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen in the form of a cywydd. It is his most famous work, and has been called one of the finest of all cywyddau and one of the greatest of all Welsh-language love-poems, comparable with the best poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym. The culmination of a series of poems addressed to his lover Lleucu Llwyd, a married woman, it differs from them in calling her forth from her grave as if he were a more conventional lover serenading her as she lies in bed. The effect is said to be "startling, original, but in no way grotesque". "Lament for Lleucu Llwyd" was included in both The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse and The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.
"Y Llafurwr", known in English as "The Ploughman" or "The Labourer", is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century Welsh poet Iolo Goch. Often compared with William Langland's Middle English Piers Plowman, it presents a sympathetic portrayal of the meek and godly ploughman; no other Welsh bardic poem takes an ordinary working man as its subject. It has been called the most notable of Iolo's poems, comparable with the finest works of Dafydd ap Gwilym, and its popularity in the Middle Ages can be judged from the fact that it survives in seventy-five manuscripts. It is included in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.
"The Maypole" or "To a Birch Tree", known in Welsh as "I'r fedwen", "Y fedwen yn bawl haf", or "Y fedwen las anfadwallt", is a cywydd by the mid-14th century bard Gruffudd ab Adda; it is one of only three poems of his that have survived. It was formerly attributed to the pre-eminent Welsh-language poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym. The poem presents the unhappy fate of a woodland birch tree which has been chopped down and re-erected in the town of Llanidloes as a maypole, then with pathetic irony asks the tree to choose between its former existence and its present one. Dancing round a maypole was a popular recreation in medieval Welsh towns, and this poem is the first record of it. "The Maypole" has been praised by literary historians as one of the very finest of Welsh cywyddau, and was included in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.
"The Magpie's Advice" or "The Magpie's Counsel" is a poem in the form of a cywydd by the pre-eminent Welsh-language poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym. The poet portrays himself as an overage lover who bemoans his romantic woes as he wanders through the woods, and is rebuked by a magpie who bids him concern himself with matters more befitting his years. It can be read either as a comic and self-mocking reversal of the traditional Welsh poetic trope of the non-human messenger, or llatai, being sent to the poet's lover, or as a meditation on the contrast between the yearly cycle of renewal in the natural world and the linear ageing of men, which falsifies any simplistic identification we may make with nature. It has always been one of Dafydd's more popular poems, surviving in 55 manuscripts and being widely translated in the 20th and 21st centuries. Sir Thomas Parry included it in his Oxford Book of Welsh Verse.
"The Dream" is a medieval Welsh poem in the form of a cywydd. Though it is included in both of the modern editions of the works of Dafydd ap Gwilym, widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, it is not typical of his work and doubts have been expressed as to his authorship. The poet's dream is an allegorical one about hunting a white doe in which the doe represents the woman he loves. The large number of manuscripts and of English translations testify to its popularity through the centuries.
Ystorya Trystan, also known as Trystan ac Esyllt or The Welsh Fragment of Tristan, is an early Welsh tale of uncertain date, though no later than the 16th century, which tells, partly in prose and partly in verse, an episode from the legend of Tristan and Iseult. The Ystorya relates, somewhat in the manner of a French fabliau, how the lovers Trystan and Esyllt escape from Esyllt's husband, March, and outwit him to obtain from King Arthur a judgement that they should remain together.
References
- Bartrum, Peter C. (2009). MPS (ed.). "A Welsh Classical Dictionary: People in History and Legend up to About A. D. 1000". Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/The National Library of Wales. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
- Bromwich, Rachel, ed. (2014). Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 9781783161461 . Retrieved 31 December 2023.