Dinogad's Smock

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Dinogad's Smock
Peis Dinogat
Gododdin1.jpg
Page from the Book of Aneirin
Author(s)anonymous
Language Old Welsh
Datedisputed, probably first written down in the 7th century
Manuscript(s) Book of Aneirin (second half of the 13th century)
Genre lullaby or nursery rhyme
SettingOne of the rivers known as Derwent in Northern England

"Dinogad's Smock" or "Dinogad's Cloak" (Old Welsh : Peis Dinogat; Welsh : Pais Dinogad) is an Old Welsh lullaby recounting the hunting prowess of the dead father of an infant named Dinogad, who is wrapped in a smock made of marten skins. This garment gives the poem its modern title.

Contents

The poem is known from the 13th-century Book of Aneirin, which was created at a monastery in Wales. It survived as an interpolation in the manuscript of the early medieval epic poem Y Gododdin , attributed to the semi-legendary bard Aneirin.

Dating the poem's composition exactly is difficult, but the consensus among modern scholars is that it derives from a text which was written down during the second half of the seventh century in the Kingdom of Strathclyde.

The poem provides insight into the Celtic-speaking culture of early medieval northern England and southern Scotland, as well as possible linguistic evidence for features of the extinct Cumbric language. It has also been used to provide evidence of the fauna of central Britain during this period and the late survival of the Eurasian Lynx in Britain.

Poem

Subject matter

The poem, which is 17 lines long, is addressed to the baby boy Dinogad, wrapped in a marten-skin smock in his cradle, and describes how his father used to set out on a hunt. [1] The smock to which the poem refers is a long dress which would have typically been worn by infants. [1] The poem first describes the smock and then lists the animals which were caught in the past by Dinogad's father, stating the heroic manner in which he caught them and his qualities as a hunter. [2] It can be assumed that Dinogad's father was a powerful individual, as a marten-skin smock would have been an extremely valuable object, and the poem makes reference to his possessing at least eight slaves. [1]

Analysis

The narrative voice of the song is that of Dinogad's mother, [3] and the poem functions both as a lullaby and a lament for her husband. [4] This tone of lament is created by the narrator's exclusive use of the past tense to refer to the deeds of Dinogad's father, indicating he is dead. [4] Historian Nicholas Orme argues that this use of the past tense is intended to poignantly remind listeners that fallen British warriors left behind widows and orphans. [5]

In his analysis of the poem, Orme argues that it serves to describe the father's role as provider for the family, comparing it to the modern lullaby Bye, baby Bunting. He also highlights the informative use of the poem and its provision of details on local terrain, animals and hunting, which would be useful to the listening child and may also serve to inspire their imagination. [5]

The text was likely originally set to music, [2] [6] though its original tune is lost. [3] Musicologist Joyce Andrews believes that the tender care of the mother for her infant child is referenced in the text, and that by extension the song is connected to "the uniquely female experience of childbirth". [3]

Text

Old Welsh textEnglish translation [7]

Peis dinogat e vreith vreith.

o grwyn balaot ban wreith.

chwit chwit chwidogeith.

gochanwn gochenyn wythgeith.

pan elei dy dat ty e helya;

llath ar y ysgwyd llory eny law.

ef gelwi gwn gogyhwc.

giff gaff. dhaly dhaly dhwg dhwg.

ef lledi bysc yng corwc.

mal ban llad. llew llywywg.

pan elei dy dat ty e vynyd.

dydygai ef penn ywrch penn gwythwch pen hyd.

penn grugyar vreith o venyd.

penn pysc o rayadyr derwennyd.

or sawl yt gyrhaedei dy dat ty ae gicwein

o wythwch a llewyn a llwyuein.

nyt anghei oll ny uei oradein.

Dinogad's smock, speckled, speckled,

I made from the skins of martens.

Whistle, whistle, whistly

we sing, the eight slaves sing.

When your father used to go to hunt,

with his shaft on his shoulder and his club in his hand,

he would call his speedy dogs,

"Giff, Gaff, catch, catch, fetch, fetch!",

he would kill a fish in a coracle,

as a lion kills an animal.

When your father used to go to the mountain,

he would bring back a roebuck, a wild pig, a stag,

a speckled grouse from the mountain,

a fish from the waterfall of Derwennydd

Whatever your father would hit with his spear,

whether wild pig or lynx or fox,

nothing that was without wings would escape.

Setting

The location of the Cumbrian and Durham Derwents, two proposed identities of the river Derwennyd , mentioned in Dinogad's smock. The Cumbrian and Durham Derwents.svg
The location of the Cumbrian and Durham Derwents, two proposed identities of the river Derwennyd, mentioned in Dinogad's smock.

Place-name evidence as well as the poem's preservation in the Book of Aneirin show that it must have been composed between the 5th and the 11th centuries in one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd. [8] The poem mentions a river called Derwennyd, deriving from the Brittonic *Deruentiū, the origin of the modern river name Derwent which is found at various locations in northern England. [9]

Grange Bridge on the Cumbrian Derwent Grange Bridge. - geograph.org.uk - 1514352.jpg
Grange Bridge on the Cumbrian Derwent
The kingdoms of the Old North, setting of Y Gododdin and Dinogad's smock Yr.Hen.Ogledd.550.650.Koch.jpg
The kingdoms of the Old North, setting of Y Gododdin and Dinogad's smock

Historical linguist Kenneth Jackson argued that, as the poem was preserved as part of Y Gododdin , which recounts the deeds of the men of the kingdom of the same name, it most likely refers to the Derwent closest to their territory: the Durham Derwent. [10] However, since the poem clearly does not form part of the original text of Y Gododdin, and was instead added to it through scribal error, the consensus among modern scholars is that there is no reason to favour a location within or near Gododdin territory. [2] [6] [9]

The mention of a rayadyr (modern Welsh rhaeadr, "waterfall") on the Derwennyd also argues against the Durham Derwent, which has no waterfalls along its course. [2] For this reason, and its proximity to mountains (vynyd in the poem) R. G. Gruffydd proposed the Cumbrian Derwent as the identity of Derwennydd, [9] and this view is now generally accepted. [11] [2] If this is the case, it seems likely that the rayadyr derwennyd mentioned in the text refer to Lodore Falls, not actually on the Derwent, but very close to the point where it enters Derwentwater. This would place the setting of the poem within the probable bounds of the medieval kingdom of Rheged. [4]

Language

Dinogad's Smock is recorded in a 13th-century manuscript, which is likely to have been copied in Wales from a manuscript originating in the Kingdom of Strathclyde. For this reason its orthography is Middle Welsh but it contains features which reveal information about the Cumbric language, a sister language of Welsh spoken until around the 12th century in southern Scotland and Cumbria. [11] [6]

Among the text's unusual linguistic features is the use of the unique first person preterite singular verb form gwreith in the second line ("o grwyn balaot ban wreith" > "I made from the skins of Martens") which suggests, according to linguist John T. Koch, that the original lullaby may have been composed in Common Brittonic. [6] Another feature found in the poem but absent in historical or modern Welsh is its consistent use of penn ("head") to signify an individual animal, for example penn ywrch ("a roebuck") or penn pysc ("a fish"). This feature is present in Breton, which leads Koch to argue that this use of penn existed in the mutual ancestor of Welsh, Cumbric and Breton but did not survive in Welsh. [11] Koch also stated in an interview with WalesOnline that the animal names used in the text were not the usual ones found in Welsh and that they represented the forms used in Cumbric. [7]

Name and identity of Dinogad

The origin of the name Dinogad has been reconstructed as *dūno-katus 'having a fort in battle', and the same name is commonly found in Welsh as Dinacat and later Dingad. In Gaelicised form, it was the personal name of the last recorded King of Strathclyde, Donnchad mac Crinain. [11]

Archaeologist Craig Cessford, who has written several articles on Dinogad's Smock, suggests that the Dinogad of the poem may be the historical Dunod the Stout, son of Pabo Post Prydain and king of a small region of northern England, possibly Craven. However, Cessford recognises that this theory is unprovable. [2]

Manuscript and sources

"Dinogad's Smock" is known from a single 13th-century manuscript, the Book of Aneirin, which was produced at a monastery in Wales. [6] It is found as an incongruous passage within a version of the epic poem Y Gododdin which recounts the defeat of the men of the Kingdom of Gododdin at the Battle of Catraeth, fought at some time in the 6th century. [6] The book is the work of two different scribes, known as Scribe A and Scribe B, with "Dinogad's Smock" comprising the eighty-seventh stanza of the former. [11] As Scribe A used the orthography of Middle Welsh, whereas Scribe B used a mixture of Middle Welsh and Old Welsh, it is believed that Scribe A modernised the language of the sources of the Book of Aneirin, whereas Scribe B initially did so, but then gave up his attempt and preserved the older spellings. [6]

Y Gododdin is attributed to the semi-legendary bard Aneirin, but "Dinogad's Smock" did not originally form part of that work and was instead a separate oral tradition. It seems likely that a scribe noted down the poem in a space on a manuscript, and a later copyist mistakenly believed it to form part of Y Gododdin and interpolated it into the text. [6] [2] The poem's archaic language suggests that it was added to the same manuscript as Y Gododdin at a scriptorium in Strathclyde in the second half of the seventh century, and that this manuscript, or a copy of it, became one of the sources of the Book of Aneirin. [6] [2]

Celticist Thomas Charles-Edwards suggests that the initial addition of "Dinogad's Smock" to the manuscript of the elegiac Gododdin as a marginal note may reflect a recognition by the scribe that the two poems shared a common theme of lament for the dead. [4] Nicholas Orme states that its inclusion in the manuscript of the Gododdin indicates that the poem was valued as a piece of literature at the time of its recording, rather than being considered a children's song. [5]

Environmental history and archaeology

"Dinogad's Smock" provides textual evidence for the species present and hunted in early medieval northern Britain. The poem lists seven species of game, marten (balaut), roe deer (ywrch), "stag" (hyd), fish (pysc), fox (llwynain), grouse (grugyar), wild boar (gwythwch) and possibly lynx (llewyn). [1] In the near contemporary archaeological deposits at Fishergate in York, the bones of most of these animals have been discovered; deer, fox, grouse, wild boar and a single marten. These finds suggest that the poem provides an accurate picture of species hunted in the region during the early middle ages. [1] The mention of marten pelts in an elite context supports the existing archaeological and textual evidence for their use in the fabrication of high status clothing in early medieval Britain. [1]

The identity of the llewyn

The identity of the animal referred to in the text as llewyn has been widely debated by scholars. Some, such as Ifor Williams and John Koch, believed it to refer to the red fox, whereas Gwyn Williams and T. Conran translated it as "wildcat". Others, such as Alfred Owen Hughes Jarman and Eric Partridge, tentatively identified it as the lynx. [12]

Prior to the 1990s, the presence of lynx in 7th-century Britain had been thought unlikely as the animal was believed to have become extinct on the island long before the historical period. [12] However, evidence for its late survival grew as lynx bones which had previously been assumed to be prehistoric underwent radiocarbon dating. Testing of deposits found at Kinsey cave in Craven revealed that lynx were definitely present there in the 5th century, and possibly as late as 600 AD. Kinsey cave is 80 kilometres (50 mi) southwest of the Cumbrian Derwent, which is the most widely accepted location for the river Derwennydd mentioned in "Dinogad's Smock", making the survival of the lynx in the area into the seventh century plausible. [12] Following the radiocarbon dating of the Kinsey cave bones, John Koch stated that, while he still believed llewyn to refer to a fox, the local extinction of the lynx meant that no words for it had survived into modern Celtic languages, and therefore it was not impossible that llewyn did indeed mean "lynx". [7]

David Hetherington (et al.) argued in 2005 that Dinogad's Smock demonstrates the survival of lynx into the post-Roman period in Cumbria, and suggested that this strengthens the argument for the potential reintroduction of the lynx into upland areas of the United Kingdom, in accordance with the UK's obligations under the EU Habitats and Species Directive. [12] The environmentalist George Monbiot has also made reference to Dinogad's Smock when making the case for the reintroduction of the lynx and the rewilding of Britain in general. [13]

Modern musical settings

In 2001 the text of Dinogad´s Smock was set for piano and voices by the Welsh composer Rhian Samuel, as part of her collection Cerddi Hynafol ("Ancient Songs"), commissioned for the Fishguard Festival and published as sheet music by Stainer & Bell. Cerddi Hynafol consists of three historical Welsh-language songs selected for the collection due to their being sung from the perspective of a woman. [3]

Samuel partially modernised the text and provided a translation into English, entitling the song Hwiangerdd Dinogat ("Lullaby for Dinogat"). According to Joyce Andrews, the setting musically accentuates the relationship of a mother to an infant and employs an arpeggiated triplet motive to evoke the rocking of a cradle. The hunting exploits of Dinogad's father are highlighted with "aggressive, running sixteenth-note patterns and bolder rhythmic melodic motives" while the sounds of nature are illustrated through the presence of "subtle bird calls" in the upper piano range. [3]

The Welsh folk music trio Ffynnon also put the poem to music on their 2006 album Celtic Music from Wales. Ffynnon's version combines the poem with Cumbrian sheep-counting rhymes which are also thought to derive from Cumbric. [14] [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gododdin</span> Sub-Roman kingdom of Northern Britain

The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britannia, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North, in the sub-Roman period. Descendants of the Votadini, they are best known as the subject of the 6th-century Welsh poem Y Gododdin, which memorialises the Battle of Catraeth and is attributed to Aneirin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of Strathclyde</span> Brittonic kingdom in early medieval Britain

Strathclyde was a Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland and North West England, a region the Welsh tribes referred to as Yr Hen Ogledd. At its greatest extent in the 10th century, it stretched from Loch Lomond to the River Eamont at Penrith. Strathclyde seems to have been annexed by the Goidelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century, becoming part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taliesin</span> Sub-Roman Welsh poet

Taliesin was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Derwent, Cumbria</span> River in Cumbria, England

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Aneirin, Aneurin or Neirin was an early Medieval Brythonic war poet who lived during the 6th century. He is believed to have been a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd, probably that of Gododdin at Edinburgh, in modern Scotland. From the 17th century, he was usually known as Aneurin.

Cumbric was a variety of the Common Brittonic language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" in what is now the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, northern Lancashire in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brittonic languages. Place name evidence suggests Cumbric may also have been spoken as far south as Pendle and the Yorkshire Dales. The prevailing view is that it became extinct in the 12th century, after the incorporation of the semi-independent Kingdom of Strathclyde into the Kingdom of Scotland.

<i>Y Gododdin</i> Medieval Welsh poem

Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth in about AD 600. It is traditionally ascribed to the bard Aneirin and survives only in one manuscript, the "Book of Aneirin".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Aneirin</span>

The Book of Aneirin is a late 13th century Welsh manuscript containing Old and Middle Welsh poetry attributed to the late 6th century Northern Brythonic poet, Aneirin, who is believed to have lived in present-day Scotland.

Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing to the works of the 16th century.

Old Welsh is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic around 550, has been called "Primitive" or "Archaic Welsh".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hen Ogledd</span> Area of northern Britain, c. 500 to c. 800

Yr Hen Ogledd, or in English the Old North, is the historical region that was inhabited by the Brittonic people of sub-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, now Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the Celtic Kingdom of Elmet. Its population spoke a variety of the Brittonic language known as Cumbric which is closely related to, if not a dialect of Old Welsh. The people of Wales and the Hen Ogledd considered themselves to be one people, and both were referred to as Cymry ('fellow-countrymen') from the Brittonic word combrogi. The Hen Ogledd was distinct from the parts of North Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Scoti.

Dynod son of Pabo, better known as Dynod the Stout or Dynod Fawr was the ruler of a small kingdom in the North Pennines in the post-Roman Hen Ogledd. Regio Dunutinga was a minor kingdom or region in North Yorkshire mentioned in the Life of Wilfrid. P.N. Wood identifies this with the area of Craven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lodore Falls</span> Waterfall in England

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John T. Koch is an American academic, historian, and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory, and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. He is perhaps best known as the leading proponent of the Celtic from the West hypothesis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish literature in the Middle Ages</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eidyn</span> Region around Edinburgh

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cessford, Craig (1998). "Pine Marten and Other Animal Species in the Poem "Dinogad's Smock"". Environmental Archaeology. 2 (1): 71–72. doi:10.1179/env.1997.2.1.71 . Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cessford, Craig (1994). "Dinogad's Smock". Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeological Society. 2 (94): 297–299. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Andrews, Joyce (2004). "Composer Rhian Samuel: The Female Viewpoint and Welsh Influences in Her Vocal Music". Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture. 8: 61–72. doi:10.1353/wam.2004.0003. S2CID   194085992.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Charles-Edwards, T.M (2013). Wales and the Britons, 350-1064. Oxford: OUP. p. 369. ISBN   978-0-19-821731-2 . Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 Orme, Nicholas (2001). Medieval Children. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 133–134.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Koch, John (1993). "Thoughts on the Ur-Gododdin: Rethinking Aneirin and Mynydawc Mwynvawr". Language Sciences. 15 (2): 81–89. doi:10.1016/0388-0001(93)90019-O.
  7. 1 2 3 Devine, Darren. "Was Welsh poet right about lynx legend?". Wales Online. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  8. ↑ Cessford, Craig (1997). "Northern England and the Gododdin Poem". Northern History. 33 (1): 218–222. doi:10.1179/007817297790175019 . Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 Gruffydd, R. G. (1990). "Where was Rhaeadr Derwennydd (Canu Aneirin line 1114)?". In Matonis, A. T. E.; Melia, D. F. (eds.). Celtic Language, Celtic Culture: A Festschrift for Eric P. Hamp. California: Van Nuys. pp. 261–266.
  10. ↑ Jackson, Kenneth (1969). The Gododdin: Scotland's oldest Poem. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 515–516, 536, 625, 1172. ISBN   9781851094400.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Hetherington, David; Lord, Tom; Jacobi, Roger (2005). "New evidence for the occurrence of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in medieval Britain". Journal of Quaternary Science. 21 (1): 3–8. doi:10.1002/jqs.960. S2CID   131251022.
  13. ↑ Monbiot, George (21 August 2014). "Bring back the big cats: is it time to start rewilding Britain?". New Statesman. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  14. ↑ "Pais Dinogad (Dinogad's Smock)". Ffynnon. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  15. ↑ McClellan, Mel (January 2003). "REVIEWS | FFYNNON - Celtic Music From Wales". BBC Radio 2 . Retrieved 12 October 2021.
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