"Of mead from the mead horn,
Of the host of Cattraeth,
I, Aneurin, will do
What is known to Taliesin,
A man of kindred disposition.
Will I not sing of what befell
Gododin, before the break of day?"
From frequent notices in other parts of the poem, we find that the
subject is the defeat of (the Ottadini) the men of Gododin, in a battle
which took place in the year 603, near Cattraeth, which may be
identified with the Cataracton of Ptolemy, the Cataract of Bede, and the
present Catterick in Yorkshire. The men of Gododin in this campaign were
in league with the Novantae of Wigtonshire, the Britons of Strathclyde,
the Scots of Argyle, and the Picts of Fife and Perth. Of this army the
chiefs alone amounted to three hundred and sixty; but, to use the words
of the bard, "Mead brought shame on the best of armies;" and the chiefs,
on account of temporary success over a part of Ethelfrith's Northumbrian
army, spent the night in wild carousal. Overtures of peace were made to
them by Ethelfrith, and contemptuously rejected; they rushed pell-mell
to battle _before the break of day_; and the bard, seeing them falling
helplessly drunk from their horses, "drew a veil over his face and fled,
weeping on his way." I here assume that Cattraeth and Cataract are the
same place; and to cite only one of many evidences, the position of the
Ottadini in the immediate neighbourhood of Catterick, lends this view
strong confirmation. But there is here another assumption, to which I
invite the attention of English antiquaries. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_
relates the occurrence of a great battle between Ethelfrith of
Northumbria and the northern Britons in the year 603: of that battle the
site is variously named Degstan, Daegsanstane, and Egesanstane; but
antiquarian researches have not determined where Egesanstane was. Some
place it at Dawston, near Jedburg, in Scotland, and others at Dalston in
Cumberland; but all confess uncertainty. Now I assume that the place
called Egesanstane is more likely to be Siggeston, in the North Riding
of Yorkshire, which is about five or six miles east of Catterick; and
this conjecture is strongly supported by the fact that Ethelfrith in
this case was not the invader but the invaded, as it is said, "Hering,
the son of Hussa, led the enemy thither," to the dominions of
Ethelfrith, which were then but little else than the eastern coast of
Northumberland and Yorkshire. If this view be correct, our antiquaries
have hitherto been in error on this point; the site of the great battle
of 603 is no longer unknown; and Egesanstane and Cattraeth are only two
names for the same battle, just as another battle-field is variously
named the battle of Waterloo by us, and that of Mont St. Jean by the
French.
Probert places the death of Aneurin in 570: the Gododin shows him to
have been an eyewitness of an event which took place in 642. Davies,
whose works are striking evidences of a powerful intellect completely
led astray, makes the subject to have been the reported massacre at
Stonehenge, which possibly never took place, but which he fixes in 472.
Now I have cited a passage which, referring to Taliesin as an authority,
implies that Aneurin was his junior; and Taliesin was living in 610.
Again, Davies makes an abortive attempt to get rid of the last poem of
Llywarch Hen, which shows him to have been living as late as the year
640, when most of his sons had fallen in battle. Llywarch himself was
either at the battle of Cattraeth, or assisted in organising the
campaign; for though not mentioned by Aneurin, he himself alludes to the
time "when we attacked the great-smoker-of-towns (Ethelfrith)."
At this battle Aneurin was taken prisoner, and confined in "an earthen
house," from which he was released "by the bright sword of Cenau, the
son of Llywarch." The son of Llywarch could scarcely have been living in
472; and Davies in vain essays to get rid of this obdurate fact. This
passage in Aneurin--
"Under foot was gravel,
Stretched out was my leg
_In the subterranean house_,
And an iron chain
Was bound about my knees,"
shows the use of under-ground hovels to have extended far into the
historic period.
One fact more, and this demonstration that Aneurin has been ante-dated
will be complete. The bard in three several places mentions a battle of
Mannan, in much the same way as we at this day speak of Waterloo; and it
is evident that, in the estimation of the bard and his countrymen, the
battle of Mannan was the last great event before the battle of
Cattraeth. The first of these passages is--
"Caeawe Cymnyviat cyvlat Erwyt
. . . . . .
Rae ergit _Cadfannan_ catwyt."
"_Caeog_ was a conflictor with destructive pikes.
. . . . . .
He was preserved from the blows of Mannan-fight."
_Caeog_, whom Davies converts into the adjective "adorned," was the
brother of Cynddylan, Prince of Powys (_Elegies of Llywarch Hen_, p.
70.). On the death of his brother in 577, he went to North Briton; he
escaped from the blows of Mannan, and _afterwards_ fell at Cattraeth.
Again, of a chief named Twrch it is said:--
"He loved the battling of spears,
At Mannan, and before Aldud the renowned."
"Emyt af crennyt y gat waewawr
Catvannan yr Aelut clodvawr."