1. _Early Latin Writers._--The works now known as those of Gildas (q.v.)
and 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 born at Ailclyd, the modern Dumbarton, that
part of Britain which is called by Welsh writers _Y Gogledd_, or the
North. Several dates have been assigned for his birth and death, but he
probably flourished between 500 and 580, and his book, _De Excidio
Britanniae_ seems to have been written about 560. This work is a sketch
of British history under the Romans and in the period after their
withdrawal from the country, and includes the period of the wars of the
Britons with the Picts, Scots and Saxons. Mr Skene suggests very
reasonably that the well-known letter of the Britons to Aetius, asking
for 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 person
well versed in the facts of that part of British history, to which he
had an easy access, but who supplemented them with traditional details
and with dates which were 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 nucleus was added the
genealogies of the Saxon kings down to 738. Afterwards some person,
called Marc in the Vatican manuscript, appended probably about 823 the
life of St Germanus and the legends of St Patrick, which were
subsequently incorporated with the history. Some South Welshman added to
the oldest manuscript of the history in these countries, about 977, a
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 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 Great Britain and Ireland, the exploits
of King Arthur and the prophecies of 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 romance, and there can be
no doubt that it is earlier than the Norman Conquest and that the
legends themselves are of British origin.
2. _The Epic Period, 700-950._--The higher 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 monument of
the past. But now the labours of Zeuss and others who have made a study
of Celtic philology furnish us with much safer canons of criticism than
existed in 1849, when even a learned Welshman, the late Thomas 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, translations of the poems were furnished by Dr Silvan Evans
and the Rev. Robert Williams, but the translation, though on the whole a
very creditable work, is full of mistakes which few men, 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 independence down to the end of the 9th century, with the
exception of the interval from 655, when they were subjected to the
kingdom of Northumbria by Oswy after the defeat of Cadwallawn and Penda,
to the 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 Clyde, was the
principal theatre of British and Saxon conflict. The rise of the 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
close connexion with the Cumbrian kingdom, and prepared both North and
South Wales for the reception of the 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 lays attributed to them lived in popular tradition, and that
under the sudden burst of glory which the deeds of Cadwallawn called
forth and which ended in the disastrous defeat of 655, a British
literature began to 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 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 England.